Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

Abby Quillen

Hen diaries

By

It seems like everyone’s brooding chicks these days. Three of my friends are building coops, and I hear hens clucking and squawking all over the neighborhood. We inherited a stately hen chateau when we bought our house last February … and we couldn’t think of a reason not to take the plunge this spring and adopt some chicks.

Warning: we are not the people to instruct others on the care and upbringing of hens. (Translation: we have no idea what we’re doing!) However, maybe our clueless bumbling will inspire you to jump in and adopt some feathered egg-laying friends of your own.

Chickens in the city?

Backyard hens are gaining popularity for a reason. If you feed them well, they’ll produce eggs so delectable you’ll never want to order an omelet in a restaurant again. My neighbor’s hens lay eggs with bright yellow yolks that taste infinitely better than the $5.00-a-carton organic ones we splurge on. Hens dine on weeds and bugs, so they’ll help you in the garden. And their plentiful droppings are a boon to the compost pile. Chickens are also relatively easy to care for. I’ve been assured that they require much less babying than our three spoiled cats. Of course, you’ll need a coop and a very-secure pen to keep predators out.

The adoption

On Thursday, my husband goes to buy the chicks at our local feed store, while I stay home with our napping baby. We have decided four chicks will be a good number, in case one doesn’t make it, or one turns out to be a rooster. My husband says he will ask the salesperson what kind of hens will be the best egg-layers for our backyard habitat.

He comes home with two black chicks and two yellow chicks in a paper bag, a bag of medicated chick starter food, and a brooder light. The chicks are balls of fluff with reptilian eyes and giant feet. I love them immediately. “What kind are they?” I ask, gazing at them.

My husband looks perplexed. He shrugs. Then he assures me he knows he got egg-laying pullets (girl chicks). He thinks the breed of the yellow one might start with a “B”. Yes, I’m just a tad concerned that we have just purchased four roosters. But I try to tell myself that our chicken adventure has just gotten a bit more adventurous.

Home sweet home

We move the chicks into the home they will live in for the first few weeks – a box in the guest room. We line the box with a towel and use shredded newspaper for litter. But it seems to get dirty instantly (Chicks poop a lot!), and I am changing the litter at least twice a day. We buy some more absorbent “pet litter”, which works much better. Now I only have to change it every other day. Although I’ve read we might want to buy special water and food containers, we use regular bowls instead. They work, but I have to change their water and scrub their food bowl often. (Chicks poop a lot!)

Over the week, I watch them and talk to them. They’re entertaining, as they wander around their box, peeping and scratching at their litter. At first they seem scared when I pick them up, but soon they relax. I rub their backs and they sing.

They grow fast. By the end of the week, they are more feathers and less fluff, and they’re much bigger. I hit myself for not taking a photo of them the day we brought them home.

Bonded

On the first sunny day of the week, we take them outside. I’m sure they’ll try to run away, so we sit with our feet together and our legs extended to form a diamond. I lift them out of the box one-by-one, ready to block their escapes. (Most people use chicken wire for this purpose.) But they don’t run away at all. They move closer to me. One of them climbs onto my arm. The others follow. They love me!

I’m completely sold on backyard hens.

Powering down : Field notes from TV turn-off week

By

In honor of TV turn-off week, I moved the TV to the closet on Monday morning. I like the room so much better without it, and I love that we can’t just mindlessly switch it on. I think we might have found a new home-base for it. My real challenge wasn’t dumping the TV though, since it’s hardly ever on. Unplugging the computer, on the other hand, was a bit more of a mêlée.

Actually, it was a wonderfully relaxing week. It didn’t hurt that the weather was near-perfect, and the magnolias, rhododendrons, lilacs, and cherry blossoms exploded into aromatic splendor. Instead of gazing at a screen and click-clacking away at a keyboard, I:

  • Played and read with my baby.
  • Made bread the old-fashioned way (I’d forgotten what a workout kneading is!)
  • Read The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen; Herbal Tea Gardens by Marietta Marcin; Spunk and Bite: A writer’s guide to Punchier, More Engaging Style by Arthur Plotnik; and When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin.
  • Laid on the grass and watched the birches and poplars sway.
  • Brewed the first herbal sun teas of the summer.
  • Took afternoon and after-dinner walks.
  • Tended to our newest housemates – four adorable fluff balls (aka chicks).
  • Relished long, still afternoons – just like the ones I remember from childhood.
  • Indulged in naps snuggled next to my baby

Okay, so, yes, I might have replaced my computer time with lots of relaxing. It’s probably no wonder that I enjoyed the week. It was liberating to put my endless blogging and writing to-do list aside for several days. But, I did miss writing. I even found myself reading a book on word choice, a sure sign that one’s obsessed (or hopelessly geeky?).

The week’s lesson is that I need to unplug myself more often. So I’ve resolved to:

  1. Take one screen-free day a week.
  2. Only check my email once a day and look at Facebook even less.
  3. Avoid the computer during family time.

I’m ashamed to admit that before TV turn-off week, I was checking my email three, four, even (ahem) six times a day. I’d be typing my password before I was even aware what I was doing. I felt jittery sometimes when I couldn’t check in, and I was always at least a tiny bit disappointed when my inbox was empty. Email and Facebook had become a way for me to procrastinate, to distract myself, to be mindless. Even worse, Internet-time had been getting in the way of things that are more important to me – quality time with my family, writing, reading, and creative projects. When I switched the computer off for a few days, that habit (okay, addiction) dissolved, and I felt so much more relaxed.

Even though it’s been nice to catch up on my emails and my favorite blogs today, I’m already looking forward to the next TV turn-off week (September 20-26). Last week, my house and backyard became like a retreat, and I so delighted in the long, quiet days.

If you feel like you need a vacation, but can’t get away, you might just try a few days without the screens. It could restore you.

Save

Is ditching the TV the secret to happiness?

By

A review of:
Living Outside the Box: TV-Free Families Share Their Secrets
by Barbara Brock
Published by Eastern Washington University Press, 2007

The statistics about television-watching in America should concern everyone:

  • The TV is on for 6 hours and 47 minutes a day in the average house.
  • The average person watches more than 4 hours of TV a day. (That adds up to 9 years of a 65-year-old’s life).
  • 66% of people watch TV while eating dinner.
  • 70% of daycares use TV to occupy kids during a typical day.

What does this mean for America’s kids? The average child spends 1500 hours a year watching TV, as compared to 900 hours in school, and sees on that flickering screen:

  • 8,000 murders by the end of elementary school.
  • 200,000 acts of violence by the age of 18.
  • 20,000 thirty-second commercials a year.

It’s hard to imagine that all this TV isn’t having detrimental effects on Americans, especially children. And sure enough, anecdotal evidence suggests that too much TV contributes to all kinds of behavioral problems at home and in school. Kids have attention problems. They fight with each other over TV programs. They beg for brand-name products. They grapple with weight issues and obesity. They don’t play outside in nature. They don’t read.

When we turn on the tube, do we turn off life?

In Living Outside the Box, Barbara Brock mentions the personal and cultural ills TV undoubtedly contributes to, but it’s not her focus. Instead she asks us to ponder what we miss out on when we’re sitting and mindlessly observing so much of our lives away. After all we could be reading, writing, painting, crafting, traveling, cooking, baking, hanging out with friends, playing instruments, singing, gardening, exploring, running, walking, or just playing. We could actually be living.

A very small minority of Americans (less than 1%) lives TV-free. Brock sent 500 of them surveys to find out about them. Who are these rebels? Well, they vary widely, but the striking thing is, most don’t miss TV at all. More surprising, their kids don’t seem to miss it. Brock’s research makes you wonder – are kids more addicted to the television, or are  their parents? Even if you can’t seem to drag your kids away from the tube, you might be surprised at their reactions if you shut it off altogether. Of kids who pledged to ditch TV for three months, many reported it as the best time in their lives.

TV night: Relaxing or stressful?

Brock makes a lot of cogent points, but one most registers with me: she points out how watching TV, even in small amounts, structures our time. For instance, you don’t want to miss a favorite program so you rush home from a night out, or you race through dinner, or you hurry through a phone call with a friend. You always have one eye on the clock.

Sure enough, we have a TV night in our house, and it’s always more stressful than other nights. We rush around to get everything done before the shows come on. Usually our evenings just sort of unfold. We turn on music, we talk, we play with the baby, we clean, we play games together, or we read. We glance at the clock occasionally, but it doesn’t dominate our nights. I feel better on these TV-free nights. I sleep better. But I’m not sure it’s the TV that makes me feel stressed, or just watching the clock.

The computer counts too.

I was surprised that by Brock’s definition, my family is already TV-free. Brock considers anything under six hours a week TV-free, and we watch about two to four hours. But every time I wanted to feel smug about my TV-free ways, Brock slipped in a mention of computer time. Oh yeah, that. I know aimless Googling and Facebooking doesn’t make me happy, but I find myself clicking away at the mouse a little too often.

Searching for balance.

Living Outside the Box is a fast and easy-to-read book. It will undoubtedly make you ponder how entrenched TV is in our lives and what kind of impact it’s collectively having on our society. Could Brock’s arguments convince a die-hard TV addict to change her ways? I doubt it. And if you lean toward the TV-free life already (which I suspect most people who read the book do) you may feel a tad hopeless reflecting on how entrenched television is in most people’s lives – a little like a teetotaler stuck in a tavern. After all, it doesn’t matter if you’re hellbent on knowing all your neighbors better than the cast of Survivor unless your neighbors feel the same way. However, if you’re thinking about ditching the TV, and concerned that it might turn your kids into social deviants, Brock’s research might ease your mind.

I picked up Living Outside the Box because my baby’s getting to the age where the television sucks him in. When he gazes at it and his eyes start to glaze over, my instinct is to shut it off – for good. It’s not that I think TV will destroy him or make him into a zombie. After all, I watched my share of I Love Lucy marathons as a kid. I just want his childhood to be full of music, books, friends, and nature. I want his time to be unstructured and unhurried. I want him to be satisfied with all of the comforts and joy we have in our lives, not to be constantly told he needs more toys, cereal, clothes, or candy to feel good. Most of all, I want him to have a real life, not a childhood spent observing fictional kids on television living.

But I’m just not convinced we should put the TV out with the garbage. One of those four hours of TV we usually watch each week is The Bill Moyer’s Journal on PBS, and every time I start thinking of TV as evil, I see Moyer’s lopsided grin. That show, and a few others – like Curb Your Enthusiasm, Six Feet Under, and Freaks and Geeks – have added something to my life. They’ve make me think, or laugh so hard I can’t breathe, or see the world a little bit differently. They’ve made me happy. I know the real answer is to only invite in the television programs that stimulate my family. But what a challenge that is – especially with kids.

Celebrate TV Turn Off Week – April 20-26, 2009

Brock did inspire me to give up all of my screen-time for TV Turn-Off Week – (gulp) even my precious Internet. That means I won’t be blogging next week … but I’ll be doing lots of living, which will contribute to future blogs. On Sunday we’re putting in a new vegetable garden and adopting a flock of hip, urban, backyard chicks. I’ll be journaling those endeavors for the blog. And I’ll have lots of time to research for future blogs using my favorite sources – good, old-fashioned books.

What do you think?

I’d love to hear how TV fits into your life. Do you have TV-free or TV-addicted kids? Have you struck some kind of balance? Are you participating in TV Turn-Off Week? Why or why not?

Save

How I learned to stop worrying and love the bread machine

By

I have an uncomfortable relationship with technology. I’m conflicted about most of it – the car, the TV, the electric razor, even the “labor-saving” devices that populate our home. Oh, I use them. Sometimes I even have my washer, dryer, dishwasher, bread machine, and vacuum cleaner all going at the same time. But I have this annoying feeling that won’t seem to go away – like a mockingbird chirping under a bedroom window night after night – that maybe all of this technology isn’t making most of us happier.

Take the bread machine. This handy invention has its roots back at the turn of the twentieth century. Joseph Lee, an African American proprietor of an inn and catering business in Massachusetts, invented and patented the first dough-kneading machine for commercial bakeries. The large machine reportedly did the work of six men, and created better tasting, “more hygienic” loaves. Nearly all commercial bakeries automated their bread-making production by the 1950s. Then in 1986 a Japanese company produced a bread machine small enough to sit on the kitchen counter. In the three decades since, bread machines have become inexpensive and commonplace, transforming many households across Japan, Europe, and the U.S. – including mine.

I use my bread machine twice a week. I set it to the dough cycle, then transfer the dough to a loaf pan for its final rise and baking. I love it for so many reasons.

  • It creates perfect loaves every time. A person (not to mention anyone in particular) might not always produce a perfect loaf. She might knead the dough, let it rest, knead it again, let it rest, put it in the oven, bake it for thirty minutes, then excitedly open the oven door to find a loaf that – how shall we say this? – is the consistency of a block of concrete. But the bread machine? It never fails. It is a straight A student.
  • It makes what would be a laborious process nearly effortless.
  • It makes my house smell good all day.
  • I use organic, whole-grain ingredients, so the bread is nutritious and lacks any nasty preservatives.
  • I never buy the $5.00 loaves at the health food store anymore.

The bread machine is a magnificent invention. It deserves my undying devotion. I should celebrate its existence every day.

But instead, I sort of resent it. I just don’t get that swell of pride, that sense of accomplishment, that giddiness that I get when I use my own two hands to turn flour, water, and yeast into bread. And when I take a loaf to a potluck or give one away as a gift, and someone asks if I made it, I hesitate, I stammer, I feel like a cheater – like the kid caught red-faced copying off my neighbor’s paper. Like a total fraud.

Wasn’t life more satisfying when we made everything with our hands?

Okay, I admit, I’ve been known to fantasize about halcyon days past – times when people had face-to-face friends rather than Facebook friends, when folks exercised outdoors rather than in front of their wiis, when people spent time interacting with other people instead of zoning out in front of Lost or CSI. So I guess it’s in that same vein that I imagine that when keeping up a household was more handiwork and less switching on different machines, housework was surely more laborious, but didn’t it feel more, well, authentic?

Maybe you also find yourself waxing poetic about a mythical technology-free past. Maybe you glare at your bread machine or your Cuisinart; or you wince at the buzz of the dryer; or you heave a sigh as you drag the vaccuum out of the closet? Well, I think I might’ve found a cure. Pick up The Forgotten Arts and Crafts by John Seymour, and turn to the section on the housewives of eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain.

Seymour sets out to celebrate the difficult and creative work women have done in homes throughout time, work that he asserts could not have been done as well, if at all, by men. If you read the chapter, you will undoubtedly agree with Seymour that the housewives of yesteryear were a noble bunch. You may also mourn with him for the Americans who live in “bleak and cheerless” shells of houses “glued to that flickering screen.” However, if you’re prone to dreaming about a utopian past, you might also feel a bit less ambivalent about your washer, dryer, stove top, vacuum cleaner … and yes, your bread machine. Take these three common Victorian-era chores:

1. Cooking without electricity or gas

Until the mid-nineteenth century, women cooked everything on an open hearth in an iron cauldron, spit, or griddle over the fire, and they baked bread in dutch ovens hidden in the ashes. It was a messy affair. Dollops of soot flopped down the chimney and burst into the room, and pots were hopelessly blackened with soot.

The first cast-iron kitchen range was invented in 1780, but they didn’t become readily available until the 1840s. Around then coal also gradually took over from wood as the most popular domestic fuel. Ranges, especially closed ranges, transformed the kitchen, but cooking was still a laborious task. The cook had to sweep the chimney and clean the flues and dampers that channeled heat around the range. And every morning, she had to clean, black-lead, polish, and re-light the range.

The cast iron stove of days past is not as mysterious to me as it may be to some, as I grew up with a wood-burning one in my kitchen. We used it mainly to keep the kitchen warm during the winter months, but we also cooked stews in the oven and toasted tortillas on the top. It certainly made our kitchen a more beautiful, cozy place. But relying on it for one’s entire sustenance is a different matter. Cooking as we know it – with handy oven dials set to exact temperatures and relatively predictable cooking times – is a strikingly modern invention – one that I plan not to take for granted from now on.

2. Doing dishes without a faucet

Housewives rubbed ashes on greasy dishes to make soap, and for more stubborn dirt, they used sand or brick dust. Of course, sinks didn’t have faucets until recently. So where did water come from? Rainwater collectors, ponds, and wells. A housewife heated the water in boilers over the fire or hobs that sat by the side of the fire. As long as she kept her water pots full, she had a constant supply of hot water that she could carry to the sink when she needed it.

By the mid-nineteenth century, water was piped to many towns in England, but an entire street usually shared one common faucet. It wasn’t until after World War II that poorer homes were outfitted with indoor water faucets.

3. Washing laundry without the spin cycle

In most households, Monday was set aside for the wash, because the housewife cooked meat on Sunday, leaving plenty leftover for Monday’s meal. Saved the task of cooking, she could devote Monday to laundry. She drew water, carried it to the house, and made soap. Then she spent the whole of the day “soaking, pounding, rubbing, boiling, starching, rinsing, and drying” the family’s clothing. She had a number of tools at her disposal – tubs, boards, dollies, paddles, bats, and tongues. She used human urine or pig manure to bleach linens, and she starched shirts with wheat, potatoes, or rice. Drying linen was no easy task until the invention of the upright wringer in the nineteenth century. Virtually all clothing needed to be ironed with flat irons heated on the range top. Poorer housewives had to start the wash at night, just before retiring to bed, because their family members only possessed one pair of clothes.

Making peace with the Magic Chef©

John Seymour convinced me. The housewives of days past were super heroes. And I recommend picking up The Forgotten Arts and Crafts, because we can undoubtedly learn a lot from them. They managed without many of the things a lot of us are striving to use less of – oil, processed food, and plastic to name a few. Their work was relentless, back-breaking, and filthy, and they seemed to do it with grace. Seymour recounts a conversation he had with an old woman in Herefordshire many years ago. She gave him an account of the weeks’s work when she was a child, and he replied, “‘Wasn’t it all a lot of work?’ ‘Yes, she said. ‘But nobody had ever told us there was anything wrong with work.’.” We’d probably all do well to remember that wisdom. But if I had a time machine, I think I’d stay right where I am, with the Magic Chef© churning away on the kitchen counter.

Save

Thinking Outside the Toy Box

By

Wooden spoon

We arrive late to our parenting group, slip in the side door, and hurry to the last two seats in the circle. I set eight-month-old Ezra on the floor. He happily chews on a jar lid, as I nod at a few of the other parents. I imagine my husband or I handed Ezra the lid earlier to keep him from cart wheeling off the counter during a diaper change. We find ourselves looking for anything to divert the little acrobat’s attention lately. The thought process goes something like this – razor, no; scissors, definitely not; penny, too small; jar lid, yes!

The group leader is chatting with the twins’ mom about how adorable they are. She clears her throat. “Oh good, we’re all here. I asked you to bring your baby’s favorite toy to share with the group this week. Let’s go around the circle and do a show and tell.”

I turn to my husband, who gets the group leader’s emails and whisper, “We were supposed to bring a toy?” He shrugs.

Joshua’s mom holds up his “Move and Crawl Electric Activity Ball.” She switches it on and it jumps and lurches across the floor. She rifles through her diaper bag and produces a set of stackable plastic rings and Joshua’s favorite rubber ball. Then she stands, reaches behind her chair, and fetches Joshua’s Activity Center. She uses both hands to tote it to the middle of the circle. Everyone sits watching it, hypnotized by the blinking lights and electronic sounds.

It’s Henry’s parents turn. They produce an artistically-carved maple teething toy and some organic-cotton plush toys.

All eyes turn to Ezra. He pulls the lid from his mouth and grins.

For the record, Ezra has toys, actual toys, not just jar lids. He has a wagon full of blocks, a dozen stuffed animals, trucks, a boy-doll, an oval-shaped cat that rocks back and forth like a bowling pin, a library of board books, and multitude of other contraptions made just for babies. He has fewer toys than a lot of babies, but it seems like they’re all over the place – usually underfoot or resting precariously on the edge of a counter or tabletop. Strangely, though, Ezra seems to favor non-toys – measuring cups, pans, wooden spoons, strainers, and yes, jar lids – to actual toys.

Could it be that most babies just aren’t that interested in toys?

I hear other parents remarking that their infants’ eyes light up when they’re handed a cardboard box, the ads from the morning paper, or a drinking straw. And I have to wonder if Mattel, Hasbro, and Fisher Price are spending big advertising bucks to keep a lid (so to speak) on what Ezra shows us every time he reaches for an empty toilet paper tube over his $40 stuffed lamb or his $20 vibrating zebra?

In parenting, as in most areas of my life, I tend toward minimalism, mostly because I hate to shop. So we didn’t purchase much of what others deem first-year “essentials” – including a crib, a changing table, a diaper bag, jarred-baby food, disposable diapers, diaper wipes, baby formula, or an infant car seat. We also shop the used baby clothing stores, and accept the boxes of hammy-downs that seem to arrive on our doorstep just when we need them. I’ve never felt deprived without all that baby paraphernalia, and Ezra looks cute in whatever we dress him in (even the strange plaid and stripe combos his dad finds in the bottom of his drawers), so I’ve never wished for new designer baby duds.

When it comes to buying more toys, though, my husband and I have had moments of doubt – like when the other babies were clutching their organic Egyptian-cotton dolls and banging away on their Activity Centers, while our baby excitedly waved a jar lid in the air. Or when we went to visit seemingly simple-living friends, and they had an entire room full of train sets and toy cars for their boys. Or when my sister recently visited and exclaimed, “Where are all of his toys?” Sadly my husband and I have even ended up at the toy store on a couple of occasions fearing that Ezra just doesn’t have enough toys.

Toys are a 22 billion dollar industry in the U.S.

It’s probably no wonder that new parents think babies need a lot of them. We’re heavily marketed to as early as the second trimester of pregnancy. And it’s a time when we might be particularly vulnerable to advertising. We desperately want the best for our new babies. And we’re told that toys, educational DVDs, exercausers, flashcards, and interactive activity centers will make them smarter – increase cognitive development, teach motor skills, improve hand-eye coordination, and give them a “head start.” Of course, we, and our friends and family members, rush out to the toy store.

Could fewer actually be better?

There’s good news for those of us whose homes are just moderately being taken over by toys. Brain research indicates that toys are not what make a baby smarter. What’s crucial is interaction with a loving adult in a secure environment. In Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Dr. Roberta Michnick Golinkoff write, “A child’s intellectual awakening takes place during the normal adult-child interactions that occur in everyday, purposeful activities.” And toy-expert Stevanne Auerbach, aka Dr. Toy, advises that, “Parents are the baby’s ‘First Big Toys.’ Talk, laugh, sing, play games, and have lots of fun together.”

Family psychologist John Rosemond says in his book, Making the Terrible Twos Terrific, that even toddlers are more content playing with everyday objects – boxes, spoons, pans, and old clothes – than “injection molded plastic” toys, because those everyday objects inspire more creativity.

In her memoir Let the Baby Drive, Lu Hanessian recounts an episode where she and her husband buy an expensive drum set to replace the one their three-year-old son has fashioned out of boxes, cans, and spoons. He plays with the store-bought set for a couple of days, then it breaks, and he returns to his makeshift set.

So, why are parents laying down big bucks for cheaply-made toys that kids barely even play with? Hanessian muses, “Do we buy to placate? To win attention? To console or reward? To apologize? To buy obedience, compliance, cooperation? To compete or keep up with other parents? To prove our love? Our worth?….”

In search of treasures.

Who knows why we do it, but I’ve decided to stop worrying that we’re depriving Ezra by not stockpiling store-bought toys. Instead I’m going to celebrate his love of ordinary objects by making him a Montessori-style treasure basket. The idea was conceived over thirty years ago by Elinor Goldschmied, and it’s simple.

1. Find a low rigid-sided basket

2. Place 60 to 100 natural and household objects in it. “The objects might range from a pine cone, shell or medium-sized pebble, to a garlic press, bottle brush or leather purse. The greater the variety of texture, taste, smell and weight of objects, the better.”

3. Let your baby explore the basket uninterrupted for thirty minutes a day when he’s happy and alert.

Montessori practitioners believe treasure baskets lead babies to ask, “what is this? and what can I do with it?, thus laying the foundation of understanding the world they live in.” Sounds good to me. Besides, I’d prefer to spend the afternoon scouting the house and yard for treasures than trudging through the mall.

Business is Booming: 5 Rays of Recession-Era Hope

By

These are just a few of the headlines that blared off Google’s News feed last week:

  • “World economy to shrink by 1-2 percent in 2009”
  • “Unemployment rises in 99.7 percent of metro areas”
  • “Rescuing the Economy Just Got Harder”.

Pass the St. John’s wort, please.

It’s hard not to despair about the state of the world these days – and not just when you turn on the news. We all know someone – if not many – affected by the “worst recession since the Great Depression.” Depleted retirement accounts, foreclosed homes, lost jobs – personal calamities and real human anguish. And the downturn isn’t just touching those corrupt day-traders, bankers, and mortgage brokers, or hitting the realtors, developers, and fresh faces on Flip This House, who were getting drunk off the housing bubble a couple years ago. It’s taking out teachers, bureaucrats, factory workers, and seemingly half the state of California too. So, we can probably all use some good news about now.

For those of us who weren’t quite so inebriated on the manic consumerism of the last few decades, it’s not hard to find silver linings. So, here goes – five reasons you might want to celebrate a little.

1.  Seed companies can hardly keep up with their orders.

Philadelphia-based Burpee Seed Company estimates that $10 in seeds can produce vegetables that would cost $650 in a grocery store. When the economy started its collapse, they marketed the “money garden” – six easy-to-grow seed packs for ten dollars. Not surprisingly, Burpee’s business is up twenty percent from last year.

Burpee’s not alone. Washington-based Irish Eyes Garden Seeds is getting a hundred calls a day – a 20 to 30 percent increase over last year. At Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, a small company in the Ozarks, sales are up two and a half times. They’re having trouble keeping their catalogs stocked, and their most popular seed varieties are sold out for the season. Oregon’s Territorial Seeds is experiencing the same phenomenon. It’s official – the backyard garden is the hottest thing growing this spring. Even the Obamas are doing it.

2.  Americans are rediscovering their kitchens.

Epicurious.com predicted that one of the hallmarks of 2009 would be “a return to families cooking together and eating at home more than they have in decades,” and they seem to be right so far. Sales of cookbooks, cookware, and cooking magazines are up. Websites devoted to helping newbies navigate the kitchen are thriving. And people aren’t just tossing jars of pasta on noodles or popping boxes in the microwave; they’re cooking from scratch. Staples like white flour, dried beans and legumes, and eggs are flying off grocery store shelves. And according to market researcher Nielsen Co., canning and freezing supplies were the supermarket sales category with the highest annual growth rate (as of last November) – a trend they haven’t seen since the 1930s.

3.  Libraries have become hip.

Libraries across the nation are reporting more visits and higher circulation. Lawrence Public Library director Bruce Flanders says his numbers are in a “rapidly ascending trajectory.” Library card requests rose 27% in San Francisco in the last months of 2008. And CBS Evening News reported that nationwide more people applied for library cards last year than anytime since libraries started keeping records in 1990.

At New Urban Habitat, we’ve been sweet on public libraries for a long time, not just for all the money individuals save by borrowing books, DVDs, and computers rather than buying their own, or the resources we keep out of the landfills when we share. Libraries are also refuges for the lonely-types of the world – punk teens, new parents, retired grandfathers, and information seekers of all kind. And librarians are downright edgy. They read banned books, thumb their noses at the Patriot Act, and they’ll answer just about any question in the stratosphere, no matter how bizarre. Plus, as Dale Carnegie knew, there’s no better place to retool your resume than a public library. (Now if only library budgets were also in that rapidly ascending trajectory.)

4.  Craftiness is chic

According to Entrepeneur.com, “tough times tend to spur creativity”. And sure enough, crafting is cool right now. Craft and Hobby Association reported that in 2007, craft sales reached nearly $32 billion, and almost 57 percent of U.S. households engaged in crafting. Crafts – especially sewing, scrapbooking, and knitting – are just getting more popular as the economy sours. Etsy.com, a site where small crafters sell the wares, reported a more than three-fold increase in sales in 2008. And despite the general gloomy reports coming out of the publishing industry, craft books are making big profits. It’s not just craftiness – the recession is inspiring people to hunker down and enjoy other old-fashioned activities, like board games and playing music together.

5.  Bike service shops are booming

Car lots might be vacant these days, but some bike shops are teeming with customers. Bike industry news is mixed. Sales for higher-end models and mountain bikes are down. But shops offering utility city cycles – entry-level, commuting, hybrid, and cargo models – are faring much better. And service-oriented shops in bike-friendly locales are rolling right along. The $4 a gallon gas last spring inspired quite a few people to dust the cobwebs off their old bikes and teeter them in for tune-ups. And recession-era frugality has kept that trend alive. People may feel uneasy laying down the cash for a new bike right now, but even with plunging gas prices, folks are discovering it’s cheaper to tune up that old cruiser than to keep the station wagon on the road.

So, let’s raise our glasses (of homebrew) to the resurgence of bikes, crafts, cooking, gardens, and libraries. As we’ve all known for awhile, they are nourishing to people’s bodies, minds, and souls, not to mention their pocket books. The more people who love them, the better.