Driving Update, More CSA, Plastic Bags

I have two updates today. This week, we drove 180 miles. ACH! C, although he is divorced from the car, drove about 170 of them. Over the course of 2 days, he drove 100 miles for business, and then he had to drive an extra 30 to go visit his mother, who is sick. He could not have taken the bus to visit his mother, because he had to bring her lots of food. He could have done the business by bus and walking, but it would have taken several days, instead of one afternoon.

My students debated the advantages and disadvantages of various modes of transportation yesterday. For the bus, they said that the advantage was the price, and that was it. I thought that was interesting, because for me safety is a major reason to take the bus. I feel very secure. My students, however, feel that the bus is not safe because of 1) the type of people that ride the bus, especially late at night and early in the morning and 2) because of unsafe walks home from the bus stop. I am spoiled because I have a bus stop in front of my house and because I do not usually ride a city bus, but a university shuttle. Obviously, Cap Metro needs to work on their PR campaign.

So, as far as the car driving, 180 miles is a huge disappointment, but there was very little we could do about it. Today is the first day in two weeks that I have driven, and it was mainly out of laziness. I feel bad.

CSA
Week 2 of CSA today. The basket contained:
1 bunch spinach
1 bunch lettuce
1 bag mixed greens (with arugula?)
kale (traded for more spinach)
chard (!)
2 green onions
8 asparagus
baby carrots (they are very cute, but there are only about 6, and they are 2" long)
a couple of cauliflower florets

I'm not overwhelmed. We still have lettuce left over from last week. We are going to have to go crazy with some salad. My current feeling about CSA is that it's not worth it for us. In addition, I got a total of 5 plastic bags in my CSA box. Grrr.... Granted, 4 of them are biobags, but I am not currently composting bags, and I would really just rather have naked greens.

Speaking of bags, my friend alerted me that a group called Ban the Bags is calling for a ban on plastic bags in Austin. Yeah! According to their website, it takes 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million plastic bags. Guess how many bags Austin uses in a year? That's right. About 100 million.

A woman quoted on the news said that she was too busy to bring her own bag. How can that be? I'm pretty darn busy. You know how much time it takes me to bring my own bag? None. You know how many times my cloth bag breaks, spilling the stuff onto the sidewalk? Never. Did it take me a few tries to remember to bring the darn things in the store? You betcha. But now it's a habit, and I haven't looked back. Now I'm working on remembering to bring my own bags for bulk stuff. It's just a matter of making it a habit. Her comment just doesn't make sense -- it's like saying you're too busy to wash the dishes, so you should just use plastic. Or too busy to wash towels, so just dry yourself with paper after a shower (Don't get any ideas!).

Experimental Thursday -- Butter
I thought that for Thursday I could make my own organic butter, but I don't really see how it could be worth it. The cheapest organic butter at the store is 4.49 a pound. A pint of organic cream is 2.29. How much butter does a pint make? I don't know. But unless it makes 1/2 a pound (which doesn't seem possible), it's not a better deal. In addition, since the cream that comes in glass containers is even MORE expensive, I would have to buy a plastic container. So it seems better to buy butter that comes packaged in waxed paper and wrapped in a cardboard box. Several bloggers have been making butter, and it seems like fun. But it doesn't seem like a better deal, or a reduction in plastic waste (at least in my case).

If anyone has made butter, let me know what the yield is like. If I'm wrong about the cost, I'd love to give it a try.