Category Archives: Independence Days

Back to traditional stuff for a while

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, Crafts, Economy, Independence Days, preparedness, sustainability

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While there are months and months worth of posts I could make about the political state of America, ultimately the best use of my time is in keeping my home.  Above you see my newest purchase.  This is Claudette.  She’s a reproduction Appalachian style great wheel, 7/8 scale.  I bought her from a man who used to make and sell them out of St. Michael’s in Prescott during the 70′s.  This was his last one; he said if there were a demand he would begin making them for sale again so I gave his name and phone number out at my last guild meeting.

Claudette has a learning curve akin to that of learning to spin on a traditional double drive wheel like Miss Saxony did.  Meaning that, while children for hundreds of years *did* learn to spin on a wheel like this, it’s not the way I would teach a beginner now.  Too much frustration for someone modern who hasn’t had the joy of creating yarn already.  I did some research and discovered that, much like a fine stringed instrument, she needs rosin on her drive band to truly work well.  I haven’t done that yet but I have a goal of being able to spin decently on her by the time the May Fair on the Square is upon us.  I want to demo on her.

I am ordering a custom spinning wheel; I finally paid more than the 50% down payment just this morning.  Carson Cooper is the maker.  Unfortunately he has not updated his website with a photo of the wheel I am ordering; it is called the Eirny and will have an accelerator on it that enables it to spin at ratios up to 50:1.  Now for those of you who don’t know what a ratio is, it is the number of times the bobbin/flyer mechanism spins per one revolution of the drive wheel.  On the great wheel above, the ratio is 40:1 but being a spindle wheel, it limits the type of yarn that can be spun.  Miss Saxony has a ratio of approximately 7:1 because she was originally designed as a flax wheel.  Flax, from which linen is made, is a very long fiber – 18 or more inches, very strong, and doesn’t need much twist to hold it together.  Wool, or especially cotton, require LOTS of twist to hold them together.  Wool not nearly so much as cotton due to the crimp inherent in most wools and the scales like human hair has.  When I spun cotton on Miss Saxony, I was treadling like a hamster on a wheel to hold it together!  It worked, but it would be nice to be able to spin it without working quite so hard.

The main reason I am buying this custom wheel though has to do more with preparedness for what the future may offer.  Quite simply, after having done the research, I want a wheel that will stand up to the test of time, and I want to support craftsmen/women who are keeping these crafts alive.  Gods know we’ll need them in the future.  This wheel truly incorporates the best of modern technology – brass bearings to reduce friction in the bobbins, and all the high speed turning areas – with traditional technology – hand turned wood, drive band made of traditional cotton cord.  It’s going to hold up to the rigors of production spinning because it’s made by a spinner who is also a collector of antique wheels and knows what a spinner needs and wants in a wheel.  It’s made with attention to detail, individually, by a craftsman who is fully aware that his wheels will be an heirloom to be handed down.  That is what I thought I was getting when I bought my Mach 1 and is exactly what I did not get.  It is ironic that I had to buy a spinning wheel nearly 150 years old to actually get a true production wheel, and to truly appreciate the technology.

 

We are getting a trailer load of manure delivered next week; we have to mend ALL of the fencing thanks to the javelina.  We can’t plant anything until we fix all the holes.  Mr. Tin Foil said we need a crossbow and I am thinking that might be a very, very good idea – the ultimate silent killer of javelina!  Roast game for dinner, anyone?  After all, they are an invasive species.

We decided we are not going to devote much space to tomatoes this year.  Two years in a row, thanks to our weird (although probably new normal) weather we have lost 50 tomato plants to a late frost and had to start over.  Because the new plants never had a chance to get established before the weather became brutally hot, they never really produced enough to make them worthwhile.  Since I have been getting tomatoes in bulk from the coop anyway that will be our plan for this year rather than try to grow our own.  We still plan to have a couple of roma plants, and the requisite cherry tomatoes in buckets as we do every year.

We are going to devote more space to beans, peas, cucumbers, lettuce, eggplant, peppers, and lots of herbs and spices.  We eat a lot of Indian food as well as Middle Eastern food and latitude/climate wise, we can grow much of our own spices.  I don’t know how productive we’ll actually be, but it will be fun to experiment.  Plus, I would like to grow herbs to tincture, to put into soaps and lotions, and to dry.  Oh, and to dye with.  I’m being honest but I can just hear the groans from Mr. Tin Foil when he reads that last sentence!

We are also going to redo the garden beds again this year; last year we were spending upwards of an hour and a half a day to water the front and back.  We are redoing the beds to incorporate drip irrigation into at least some of the beds.  It just makes more sense, plus it’s water smart, and we will be able to expand into other areas that require hand watering with a significantly smaller time commitment.  Mulch will hopefully play a much larger role this year as well.

I plan to do some guerilla gardening in my next door neighbor’s yard; he is dead now but he left large, well-tended beds as well as mature grape vines and an apricot tree.  I plan to fertilize the grapes and the tree with the manure we get, and to water the tree at least weekly.  I am hoping to get a harvest from the tree this year.  I may also plant corn in his beds as he used to do, though I don’t plan to water every day like he did.  We’ll see how our garden goes first.

I sold one of my looms to a friend; I just didn’t enjoy weaving on it very much.  It opened up space and hopefully it will give many hours of enjoyment to my friend.  I still have my home made monster that says she was made for me (or at least someone with the same name as me).  She is in need of a little rehab but is still usable for the time being. I have a couple of projects in my head that need to actually get warped up — time is running out for Fair items!

School is going well, grade wise.  Interaction wise once again I realize that my background is vastly different than most of the people in my class, thanks to the fire and EMS career, and that I have a much more cynical and realistic outlook than they.  I also am reminded that I am becoming a nurse practitioner for vastly different reasons than they are, mine having a lot more to do with making sure my neighbors have access to medical care for as far into the future as I can work, and focusing on preventative and herbal treatments that are affordable for all.

I have been trying to stay off the internet except for a limited time each day.  I find that I avoid doing what needs to be done by spending far too much time on political, apocalyptic, doomer, prepper, and other forums at the cost of my serenity and productivity.  I just can’t get that involved if I want to maintain my GPA and my sanity.  I also am finding I sleep much better if I limit my time – even watching netflix seems to affect my sleep quality.  I’m not sure why that is but I do notice the difference.  Something about the computer waves is affecting me, I just don’t know what, and life is better and more productive if I limit my time in front of it.

I need to finish plying the yarn I made for my oldest son’s Cobblestone sweater.  I made a lighter weight yarn than the original pattern called for, but that’s because he tends to keep the heat jacked up rather than putting on a sweater.  I’m hoping it will make it wearable for him if it’s lighter.  And yes, I know that it’s March and I was supposed to have this done by last Christmas!  Maybe a combined Christmas/birthday present will happen.

That’s all.  I hope your gardens grow well, your spinning wheels spin true, and you are ready for the next step on the journey!

 

 

The Wood stove saga

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Economy, home, Independence Days, preparedness, sustainability and tagged with , ,

Well, I had a wood stove contractor come and give us a quote on the purchase and installation of a new wood stove last May.  DH said that was too much money, and we needed to find a cheaper way.  So I started surfing Craigslist.

In August, I finally found a wood stove that was mobile home approved, for half the cost of new, bought it, and brought it home.  I thought, no problem, there are lots of people out of work and surely there will be a contractor who will install this for us.  We didn’t plan to cheat anyone; I knew from the quote how much the rest of the parts and installation were going to be and figured I had saved $500 at least by buying a used stove so that was our savings.  Well, that led to a months long saga with many disappointments and frustrations.

First, the man we bought our range from was a contractor.  I contacted him, he came out and gave us a quote, took me to Home Depot to buy most of the parts, left a list at the local wood stove store (where the first contractor came from with the original quote), and set date to install it.  No show.  He said he had a family emergency.  So we set another date.  No show.  Again, family emergency.  Third date.  No show.  This time he had someone else call us who was not a contractor to see if we wanted him to install it.  The answer was “no” both because he was not a contractor and because his bid was outrageous.

We both started calling around to contractors listed in the area who do wood stove installs.  I got a quote that was very reasonable, but they required me to build the pedestal; I was OK with this but Mr. Tin Foil was not, so he kept looking.  He called a local guy recommended by one of his HAM radio buddies.  This guy came out spent most of his time yelling at his hearing impaired son while giving Mr. TF his quote (note: he was not yelling at the kid because he was hard of hearing, he was yelling at the kid because the dad is an ass.  Read on.)  The quote was also outrageous; when Mr. TF asked him about it, he became defensive but did agree to renegotiate the price.  Ultimately, he and Mr. TF got into a shouting match on the phone later that evening, the contractor threatened to come over and kick Mr. TF’s ass, and hung up on him.  He came over a few days later because he had left his notebook at our house.  He was unapologetic and said “Look.  I charge $1000 per day for me and my guys for any job.  This job will take two days, it’s $2000.  Take it or leave it.”  I started laughing and told him we would leave it, thank you (I believe I may have also said something to the effect that he was smoking crack but I could be mistaken, I may have just thought it).  So on to the search for another contractor.

Mr. TF was very insistent he wanted someone licensed to install it due to the fact that we would have a hole cut in the roof.  Finally he realized that, even though the economy is bad, contractors in general have gotten very cocky and lazy, and think they can completely run the show and get whatever price they ask because they’re in so much demand, and dictate their own hours and just not show up if they don’t feel like it – even though that’s no longer the case.  So I mentioned our friend D.  I had mentioned him earlier, but as I said Mr. TF really wanted a licensed contractor so I didn’t press the issue; he had a very good point and at that point we were still hopeful we could find someone both licensed AND reliable who would install it.

D. came over and gave us a quote that was several hundred dollars UNDER what I had budgeted for the installation.  Now, we’ve been to D’s house many times.  He built an entire addition onto their house and built the fireplace in that addition as well as had done all the tile work.  I knew he did good work, I had seen it myself.  We set a loose date – my only request was that it be done by Thanksgiving because we were having family stay with us.  That agreed, I waited with anticipation for the install.

Poor D!  The two day install took SIX!  He decided on day one that he was going to build the pedestal at his house because he wanted to rip the 2 x 6 boards so the tile would fit EXACTLY.  That took an extra day.  Some of the parts the original contractor had sent me to get were not compatible with other parts he had sent me to get at the wood stove store.  Both Mr. TF and I had to run to the store several times for parts – including the box that goes in the ceiling that connects the double wall pipe with the triple wall pipe – because the box I had purchased was for an entirely different brand, which we didn’t find out until the hole had already been cut and the box installed.  Since the box had to be cut up to fit properly (this is normal) I couldn’t take it back – $79 down the drain.  The new box I got was the wrong length so Mr. TF had to go back to get the right one; the flashing and storm cover was the wrong size and we had to go to yet a third store for one the right size.  The pipes were the same manufacturer but different brands and we had issues with them fitting together; Mr. TF had to go back to the wood stove store for the right part to connect the two.  Finally, at 10 pm on day six, it was officially installed and ready for inspection by the county.  That was the easiest part of the whole thing – you call a computerized line and make a request and they come out the next day to inspect.  Mr. TF was here for that and he said the inspector was very impressed and passed it right away.

Then came the learning curve with using it!  We were having serious issues with smoke rolling out into the house when trying to light it; I set off the smoke detector three times. Then we couldn’t keep it lit; even with the damper fully open and with the fresh air kit (required) being installed there was obviously a draft problem.   Finally we both remembered at the same time that there is a plate on the back of the stove at the base that comes off – Mr. TF took it off and voila – no more draft problem.  After a week of trying we finally managed to get a good fire going and to relight it without difficulty.  I came home last night at 11pm to a lovely fire and a warm house – 72 degrees!  That is the warmest it’s been since the cold snap started, and the warmest it’s been since we quit using the central heating 5 years ago.  Hooray!

Now I just have to figure out how to cook on the top – I need to get another thermometer because I broke my old one, but it was up to 160 degrees the first day we tried to get a fire going.  If it gets hotter than that now that we know what we’re doing we’re in business for soups and bread for sure.

I’m feeling better and better about our security from infrastructure issues.  We’re not ideal by any means, but every step we take gets us a little closer.  Every step we take off the grid means less money we have to depend on for those things.

(ignore the box of handspun on the left)

 

Another bought and paid for judge

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Independence Days, the dreaded politics

In another shocking and appalling ruling, a Wisconsin judge rules that citizens do NOT have the right to own a cow, and to drink the milk from their own cow, nor do they have the right to board it at a farmer’s property, among other things. The ruling was even broader than that – it ruled that citizens do NOT have the basic right to produce and consume their own food, period.

On Sept. 30, the judge resigned his post and went to work for Axley Brynelson, a law firm that represents Monsanto. The former judge was hired within weeks of his decision concerning cow owners. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Thinking two seasons ahead

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, Crafts, Economy, Independence Days, preparedness, Uncategorized

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Originally uploaded by susancoyotesfan

Like our ancestors, it is time to start thinking about being warm this winter. Since hand made items take time, it means that if I want to have gifts for holiday giving and warm things for myself, now is the time to start making them.

I spun this yarn earlier this summer; I dyed 775 feet of it with cake dye; it turned out a heathered color that ranges from a deep sky blue to a royal purple. The rest I left the natural color.

While I’ve taken projects from dirty fleece to finished object, this is the first of many projects that I plan to take from dirty fleece to woven object. Like most of my ‘firsts’ this scarf has issues – but it is my first attempt at weaving with my hand spun and I’m happy to report that my yarn is more than strong enough for the stresses of weaving.

In keeping with thinking two seasons ahead, the fall garden will be planted later this week. We’ll grow broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots, as well as chard. I’ll try cabbage again, but I don’t hold out a lot of hope for it.

I’ll be placing an order with Johnny’s Seeds for some greenhouse plastic and the clips to hold it to PVC pipe; I think I can manage a cold frame that won’t blow away this winter. I’ll also be hedging my bets with my free sliding glass doors, using those over a couple of our beds and getting hay bales as necessary to keep the glass high enough to allow the plants growing room.

I have to go back to work soon; I am not sure how I feel about that. In the mean time, I’ve been busy preserving the bounty of summer. If it were from our own garden I’d be happier, but from the farmer’s coop is good too. So far I’ve made 100 pounds of tomatoes into sauce with 25 pounds blanched and waiting in the freezer to be made into paste. Today I roasted 30 pounds of green chiles and put them into our freezer. Mr. TF was aghast at the sheer poundage until I reminded him that last year we got 15 lbs from the store and it wasn’t enough.

I’ve been drying herbs like rosemary, oregano, thyme, and marjoram; I need to get out into the garden and pick basil to make into pesto for the winter.  I wish I could live a little more like our ancestors; I would love to exhaust myself all summer long with projects and preserving, knowing that this winter I will have a well deserved rest time.  Modern life makes that impossible though.

What’s been going on at Tin Foil Acres?

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, Crafts, home, Independence Days

Lots of things.

The psychiatrist I saw, as well as the counselor, both said they are seeing a lot of nurses with the same stress related issues; one even said that ER and ICU nurses are getting the worst of it.  So I guess it’s not me, it’s just that I don’t have very good coping skills.  And that’s my homework for the next few months.  ‘Nuf said about that.

While I have read two novels – the first non-fiction I’ve read in more than two years – I haven’t been lying around eating bon bons.  Things have been busy here.  I’ve been weaving along on an 8 yard warp of cotton boucle towels; I cleaned, organized, and labelled all our spices; I cleaned the kitchen to my exacting standards and have been doing my best to keep it that way; together we have been working in the garden which has been very very nice; we have put up fencing in half the front yard and I’m working on lining the bottom with rocks to keep out the rabbits and skunks; I’ve been spinning and knitting and even dying a little; and I applied for a business license for my little fiber arts factory.  This last is because if I want to sell at craft fairs or events, I have to have one.  Plus it allows me to buy at cost without paying the taxes, which means that I can actually attempt to make a little money from my crafting; especially for weaving, if I have to buy at retail and pay taxes on my supplies, it means that I work and sell for free.  Not exactly what I had in mind.  I do plan to do a post on the relative costs of ready – made clothing from the turn of the 20th century to the 21st, but it might be a bit.

I have also been canning.  Yes, it’s that time of year again, and I’m grateful not to have to try to fit this in between grueling shifts right now.  I spent 9 hours one day making blueberry jam, strawberry jam, and peach butter.  I buy in bulk from Bountiful Baskets which is like a coop or a CSA but you don’t have to have a subscription and you’re not obligated to buy every week.  So when they have something in bulk I want, I buy the basket which allows me to buy the bulk items as well.  This time I got five pounds of strawberries and 25 pounds of peaches; the blueberries have been in the freezer for a while and I wanted to just do it all at once and get it done.  I can outside on my camp stove so I don’t heat up the house, which means that at times I come in to get out of the heat.  Unfortunately, I got distracted during my first batch of peach butter (6 hours into the marathon day) and it boiled – and burned badly – to the bottom of my pot.  Ugh.  I’m still alternating elbow grease and SOS pads with oven cleaner to try to get the mess off the bottom of the pot.   Good thing my time is cheap right now.

Time off from ‘official’ work, but no rest for the weary here!  Truly, home making is a full time job; most days I try to be up by 6 or 630 so we can get the watering and gardening maintenance done before the heat sets in; then breakfast and reading the news; then to work on the home tasks; then spinning or knitting or designing  or weaving, whichever has been neglected the most recently.  Then more outside stuff, then dinner, then a walk around the neighborhood.  By the time 9 pm rolls around I’m pretty well beat.  And that’s about it for around here.

TEOTAWKI preparations…why?

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in comedy, common sense, Economy, home, Independence Days, peak oil, preparedness, sustainability

For those of you not in the know, that stands for The End of the World As We Know It.  This blog was designed originally as a political commentary on topics close to my heart — TEOTAWKI among them.  Now, while the CDC did recently publish a preparedness memo for the Zombie Apocalypse,  I’ m sure it was more than a little tongue in cheek.  HOWEVER.  That does not eliminate the fact that their preparedness memos are designed for EVERY citizen, and it would behoove one to pay more than a passing bit of attention on their list of *must have* items in one’s storage.

Why?  You ask.  And well you might.  I have a good reason, from my own experience.  When I was growing up, we lived for a time in a cabin in the woods of Northern Michigan.  In the winter, we had no running water — the pipes froze from October until June.  We often had no electricity — snowstorms knocked out power lines. We were snowed in, sometimes for weeks at a time — we lived 6 miles from the main road.  We had no central heat — we had a wood stove (that kept the house pretty warm) and a fireplace (that was pretty to look at but mostly just sucked the heat out the chimney).  So:  we had a large store of canned goods, both those that my mom canned and those we purchased at the store.  My dad hunted and we fished from the river for our protein (meat) needs.  We had kerosene lamps, and gallons of kerosene for those nights we didn’t have electricity.  We had cords and cords of wood cut and stacked.  We heated snow on the stove and bathed as well as cooked and cleaned with melted snow.  All in all, other than the time that I broke my little sister’s collarbone by playing the overly rambunctious bucking bronco (she was 2, I was 7), it was a pretty good life.  Oh, and when my rabbit ate the feet off my barbie dolls wasn’t so great either….  But back to preparedness.  Now, this was a long time ago, and it was special circumstances, and maybe you think that would never ever happen to you.

So how about a more recent example or two?  Recently a storm knocked out the transformer that served our corner of the county.  Our community along with four others were without power for a day.  We were without power for most of the time, others were without power for part of it and intermittent for the rest.  For us, that meant we had no water -  the community pumping system has no generator backup.  We had no electricity — so no lights obviously; we also had no oven because our stove is electronic ignition and, while a lighter will start the burners, the oven has a safety backup and will not light if there is no power.  We also had no heat as we use space heaters to heat the rooms we’re in, and a heated mattress pad on the bed, and the central heating doesn’t work without power (not that we have used it in the last five years anyway).  It was wintertime, keep that in mind.  Even in Arizona, temps can get pretty low, especially when it snows where we live.

Or how about the time a friend of ours had a power outage when they lived in Yuma?  Two weeks without power, water, heat, etc.  They had to move into a hotel.

So what did we do without power?  Well, we had stored food — and we had a pressure cooker.  We have a camp oven that could have made bread (or cake) on the top of the stove.  We have kerosene lamps, which provide heat — and light — and we have gallons of kerosene stored.  We did NOT have enough water, even though we have a water filtration system, so we had to go to the store for water (and thankfully we thought far enough in advance that there was water at the local market).  We had rain barrel water storage for bathing (boil first, of course) and toilet flushing.  And we had solar power backup, which meant we could keep the cell phones charged (no land line, no power) and the computer running, as well as the HAM radio.  We also have clothing appropriate for the weather — wool sweaters, long underwear, and are familiar with the idea of layering.  I even wore a hat in the house to keep my head warm.  Our outage only lasted a day, but we would have been comfortable and well fed even if it had lasted for weeks — unlike 99% of our neighbors…who went to stay with friends or family for the duration if they could, or suffered in the cold and the dark if they couldn’t.

Why do I think *you* should do at least a little of the same?  Well, the reason is pretty simple.  The American Society of Civil Engineers (the ones who make sure the highway over passes, water systems, sewage systems, electric grids, etc — all the things that make modern life possible) say that American infrastructure is failing. 

The power outages are going to get more frequent, the water quality from the tap is going to get worse, gasoline is going to become unaffordable (even if prices drop — if you don’t have a job you can’t afford gas) and food INsecurity is becoming an increasing concern of our government regarding our citizens.  Do you want to end up having to impose on friends or family, or do you want to be the one being able to offer shelter (and really good food) for those who *need* shelter?  For me, the answer is simple.  I’m a hedonist, I want to be comfortable no matter what the circumstances — so I prepare.  I’d much rather be hospitable than impose.

I had a conversation with some coworkers this past weekend — they were talking about sources for rubber seals for their pressure canners and cookers.  I informed them that I own an All American Pressure Canner.  And that if the end of the world happened, I would still be happily canning away while they cursed their cookers and canners.

Why this one?  Well first of all, because it was given to me, before I realized the benefits.  Second of all, IT DOES NOT REQUIRE A RUBBER SEAL.  If TEOTAWKI happens, I can still can to preserve food — because my canner doesn’t rely on industry to provide rubber seals.  If seals quit being made tomorrow, I could still can.  And canning our excess is definitely a large part of our preparedness.  It’s cheaper — don’t believe anyone who tells you it isn’t — and the quality is much higher.  I KNOW what is in those cans, I grew it and canned it.

You should store water, at least the amount you drink in 48 hours — and you should rotate it monthly, and you should put either iodine or bleach into the storage container to prevent bacterial and fungal growth.  We have a 2. 5 gallon water jug but that wasn’t nearly enough for our needs for the amount of time we were without water — which is my mistake.  I had foolishly thought we would just use the rain barrel water — but when it came down to it we weren’t brave enough to run the water through the filtration system.  So, we now have several containers that I need to fill and store.  We use between 5 and 8 gallons of water daily, between drinking needs, coffee (this is *not* a luxury in our house) and cooking, as well as for the animals.  In the summer we use more, because it’s Arizona and it’s HOT.

You should store at least a week’s worth of food — peanut butter, rice, dried beans, canned veggies and meats.  Admittedly you can choose food you would NEVER eat if you didn’t have to, but why not choose foods you already eat and buy extra?  Then just rotate it through your normal stores. I believe the CDC recommends two weeks’ worth.   If we couldn’t get to a grocery store for six months, we would still eat like we always do.

You should have a lantern or two — or at least a bunch of candles.  Believe me, light makes the difference between depression and hope.  And candles put off a hella good amount of heat — maybe it won’t be 70, but it will be a little warmer, especially if you keep several in a smallish room.

For our further preparations, we have planned to install a wood stove.  It will allow us to heat without being dependent on electricity at all.  And we also plan to get solar powered lanterns.  Kerosene got *quite* expensive this last year, enough so that it justifies the cost of solar lanterns.  Unlike kerosene, though, we buy them once and they will last for many years (provided I remember to put them in the window to recharge…) – and they give off better light for knitting, reading, etc.  And are cleaner — no nasty smell.

In short, you should actually pay attention to at least some  of the recommendations of your government.  It could possibly save your life, your dignity, or your marriage.

I have spring planting fever in a bad way

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Economy, Independence Days, sustainability

I waited months longer this year, three months to be exact, to plant because last year I had leggy overgrown plants and I had to start over last year after a late and heavy frost.  I feel behind this year.

In the left pot is a couple of Bocking 14 comfrey plants; the back is lavender, and the two right are rhubarb.  I found out by accident that while rhubarb dies in the ground here, it does wonderfully well in deep pots.  Who knew?  I’m looking forward to rhubarb pie finally.  And the leaves won’t be wasted even though they’re poisonous, they’re a good dye plant.  Yay!

Far left is more Bocking 14 comfrey; they were supposed to send me six plants but I got 8, hence the two in the other pot.  These are only temporarily in the pots until I dig and compost near the fence where they’ll be permanently situated.

Next left is rosemary, to replace the rosemary that died; next to that is chives, and far right is my rhubarb plant which is so happy it was even trying to blossom until I snipped it off…I want leaf stalks, not flowers!  It tends not to produce as much edible foliage if it is allowed to flower, and it also does not tend to produce viable seed due to its long history of cultivation via splitting the root bunch.

My asparagus bed.  The chickens, when they accidentally ‘got free’ without supervision, dug up my asparagus roots over the winter and I thought they had killed them all.  I just planted more, so the entire bed is now dedicated to asparagus; happily, I found when I was trenching for the new plants, that they had killed fewer of the established plants than I had thought.  That is good, because we have been dedicatedly NOT eating the asparagus for the last three years, patiently waiting for it to get firmly established before we began gorging ourselves.

What else was planted today?  A 4 x 4 bed of carrots, hopefully that will mature and be out of the bed before I need it in June.  Lettuce, turnip greens, green pepper, roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green chiles, and orach.

The white eggplant I think are done; being stepped on was not a good experience for them.  I transplanted them from the little peat buttons into compost in the hope they’ll do better; we’ll see.  More of the purple survived the trauma and they tend to produce better anyway in my experience.  We’ll see how it goes; I still have time and I may just plant another six or so to cover my bets.

One loofa seed from my Christmas loofa gift basket has sprouted!  I got a basket with soaps and a loofa from the Guild Christmas exchange.  I planted the four seeds that were left inside it and I wasn’t expecting anything at all so that was a fantastic surprise.  I got more loofa seed anyway just in case.  A plant that is edible and is useful as a scrubby?  How can you go wrong?

I’m pleasantly tired, and very dirty.  If only this wind would stop!  I’m starting to understand why settlers in Wyoming went mad from the wind.

 

No Power

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, Economy, home, Independence Days, peak oil, preparedness

We have no power, no telephone (but cell works) no water. A transformer went last night. DH is grateful for the solar power that is allowing me to make a new blog post; I’m grateful for the kerosene lanterns, the candles, the pressure cooker, the rain barrels (for flushing) and the Berkey filter system for drinking water, as well as for our food storage.

Lesson learned. We definitely still need a wood stove. It’s about 58 in here, and sure to drop lower tonight; we need lanterns with better light than the kerosene lanterns so rechargeable solar lanterns are definitely in our future; we need drinking water storage. And a toilet seat for the bucket that is in the bathroom so that we can just take the urine out to the garden on a daily basis.

All in all, not so bad. We’ll be playing guitar, I’ll be going to bed early (I work tomorrow anyway) and I have a propane camp heater for the bathroom so I can get around in more than 45 degree temps.

Supposedly they’ll have the power back up by tonight; I’m not holding my breath. We’ll be OK if it doesn’t come back right away.

After all, with a failing infrastructure it’s the wave of the future.

New Plantings

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in home, Independence Days, sustainability

This isn’t my comfrey plant, but I ordered seeds and plants this year.  From what I’ve researched, it is a good livestock feed with enough protein to keep animals healthy; I got Bocking 14 cultivars for plants, which are sterile and can be reproduced only by separating the roots and replanting.  I also got true comfrey seeds which I sincerely hope grow.  I have to make sure I follow the directions on that exactly and be patient.  This is for herbal purposes.  This site tells you all you ever wanted to know about comfrey.

I planted eggplant (long purple and white), sweet peppers,Aanaheim chiles, pomodoro tomatoes, and Thai hots earlier this month.  As usual, I got zero germination from the Thai hots, but since this is the third year I’ve had the seed and tried, I guess I didn’t expect anything so I’m not really terribly disappointed.  I did get heating mats though, so I was hoping my germination would be a little better. As usual, I have to give a salute with my trowel to Seeds from Italy because I had 100% germination with both the eggplant and the tomatoes.

Tragedy!!  I put the tray outside so they could get the breeze blowing on them and not get leggy — and I had the bunny poop tray in my hands and forgot it was on the step — and I STEPPED ON MY PLANTS!!!  I killed at least four eggplants from stepping on them….I’m glad I have more seed and it’s early in the season though!  Last year I couldn’t get any germination until rather late in the season, and I didn’t get the harvest I was hoping for with eggplant.

I planted peas out front; I planted sugar snap peas in one bed and Tohono O’Odham peas in another.  The Odham peas are old so I don’t know how well they’ll germinate; the snap peas are already sprouting I think.  Did you know that the first six inches of pea shoots are edible?  You can eat them like spinach or lettuce.  I can’t wait to try them.

I bought borage seed this year too, and hope it does well.    I am trying to expand my garden into more perennials and into herbs other than oregano, rosemary, and thyme; I love those and we use them a lot, but I also would like fenugreek, sage (I plant it every year and manage to kill it every year), more lavender, hyssop, calendula, chamomile, dill, and I can’t think of what else now…and I actually bought seeds for all of those.  So now, the front yard will be mostly herbs and perennials, and the back yard will be the veggies. Now to get the back yard into shape and situated for rotational gardening!

I am so excited!  I found a lilac that will grow in my climate!  I couldn’t get it this time at the nursery, but I will buy one next payday.  I love the smell of lilacs, and they have a bonus in that it is also a dye plant.  But not lavender colors; the leaves and flowers give a sagey green, and the bark and twigs give orange.  Surprising, huh?  I can’t wait to have a tree large enough to play with.

I actually want to end up with a living hedge around the front yard, so am playing with different ideas for temporary fences to keep the javelina out of the front yard and out of my plants.  The fence would only need to stay until the plants were established and tangled enough to keep them out, however long that might take. I told Mr. Tin Foil I was going to buy bright orange electric fencing tape to keep them out and he wasn’t pleased.  It’s still a possibility though…if the county tries to give me a hard time that’s what I’m going with — it’s temporary and they can’t fine me or make me pay a permit fee for a temporary fence.  They do make green though.  I only said bright orange because I knew he would both believe I would do it out of spite (I would) and to get his goat.

I bought more thyme and rosemary at the nursery today; the wacky winter weather we had along with some pretty hard freezes (26 degrees) killed my three year old rosemary bush as well as all my thyme plants; we use entirely too much of those herbs to be without so the purchase was needed.  Mr. Tin Foil helped me re-pot them into large pots tonight.  It made me so very happy to have my hands in loamy sweet smelling dirt.  He keeps telling me I’m a lady, but I think I’m just a peasant farmer at heart.

That’s my gardening progress so far; pictures will come when everything’s a little more organized.  Thank the Gods school is coming to a close for a while.  I need the time for the yard!