Category Archives: Independence Days

My (belated) Christmas present

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Crafts, Independence Days, sustainability

I got a little cash for Christmas.  That cash went into my overtime fund; I get extras that I want by working overtime or selling craft stuff so that I don’t take anything out of our household budget.  When I got enough, and International Fleeces had their first anniversary sale, I purchased some two row mini combs.  What, you say?  I already have a comb and hackle set?  Yes, well, different products for different uses.  The Blue Mountain Handcrafts set is incredibly useful for wools over 3 inches long.  The mini combs are incredibly useful for fine fibers and for fibers less than 3 inches long.  On the larger comb and hackle set, I would have waste in the combs if the fiber was less than 3 inches.  On the mini combs I have waste that is about 1 inch.  This I can card into other wools for a tweedy blend on my drum carder.  Waste not, want not.

So here is a picture diary of my combs and the absolutely filthy merino wool I washed, dried, and then combed with these new mini combs.

As you can sort of see from this picture, the water is brown from all the mud and the wool looks tan to brown.  What you don’t see are all the manure tags and the vegetable matter (VM) that is stuck into the wool.  Merino, being an especially fine wool, has lots of crimp and therefore EVERYTHING sticks to the fleece when the sheep is out and about.  Everything.

This is the same wool soaking in its second bath.  I heat the water to 150 degrees, squirt enough Dawn detergent (the original, without enzymes) to make the water blue, and soak for 20 minutes.  As you can see, the wool is floating on the water because there’s no longer any dirt, oil, or manure to weight it down.  It expands to at least double its starting dirty size after the second wash.  You can still see all the VM in the wool though.

It gets wrung out in a towel, carefully, after three rinses; each rinse gets a little cooler and the wool soaks in each for at least 10 minutes to allow the scales to slowly close and prevent felting — sticking together.  Then it gets put outside to dry.

That’s where my new mini combs by Valkyrie Supply come in.  I load the combs with fiber, and comb from the ends to the tines.  I make at least two passes; each pass means that the fiber is transferred from the loaded comb to the empty comb.  This leaves the short fibers on the empty comb, and allows the fibers to be all in alignment on the combs, and all of the vegetable matter simply falls to the floor.  Then I diz the combed fibers into a bird’s nest — basically a long piece of the combed fibers that I twist slightly as I wrap into a spiral shape.

These are a bunch of bird’s nests that were combed out of that dirty wool.  Next comes the spinning, and I’ll ultimately end up with something like this:

This is superwash merino that I bought already washed, combed, and ready to spin.  Which feels like cheating :)   But you get the idea.

I’m dying up little 3 and 4 ounce batches of the wool in different colors.  So far I have Kermit the Frog green (it said Leaf Green on the bottle!) and Royal Blue which seems to be coming out more like a cobalt blue.  These may be spun on their own, or may be spun in concert for a varigated self striping yarn.

Some will be carded and combed with my angora fiber and possibly dyed after that.  I’m still thinking of a project for that.

All of this is time consuming, but very satisfying.  I get exactly the fiber I want.  And I learn something new every time I do it!  And then of course there is the fact that when the apocalypse comes, I’ll be able to spin my own fibers and clothe my family with weaving, knitting, crocheting, and sewing.  :)

I loves me a man who will get in the shit.

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in home, Independence Days, sustainability

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Originally uploaded by susancoyotesfan

He’s so irritated that I want to take his picture. Even more irritated than he was when I asked him if he would help me; hauling horse manure in rubbermaid tubs and buckets from the local stables to our garden would have taken me all day without his help.

We made I think four loads of three rubbermaid tubs (the large ones) and five buckets in our Prius, and then we were both ready for lunch. I still don’t have enough, but we pretty well cleaned out the aged manure and I don’t want to burn any plants taking the newer.

I tried to talk him into peeing in the garden but no luck….still. Maybe if I tell him it’s a fertility rite and it’s sexy? (it is)

It was a good day. I’ll think of this day when we’re enjoying our luscious tomatoes this summer. And babaganoush.

My favorite kitchen tool

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Economy, home, Independence Days, peak oil, preparedness, survivalist, sustainability

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Originally uploaded by susancoyotesfan

This is one of my favorite kitchen items. It is my Presto pressure cooker, circa sometime mid twentieth century. It belonged to my husband’s grandmother, and we inherited it when Oscar, my husband’s grandfather died at the ripe age of 97. Yes, it’s dirty on the top because it’s cooking our dinner.

This is a life saver for days like today, when we both were busy studying and taking tests for our on line classes. Neither of us came up for air or remembered about dinner until 6 pm; so, there’s a ham hock with veggies and rice in there cooking. In less than an hour we’ll have dinner (plus prep time, about 45 min).

Wow, you say. Nearly two hours to make dinner??? Well, it beats the hell out of a frozen meal, made with God only knows what for ingredient sources, and preservatives to boot. Everything came from our freezer or our storage. And it surely beats the hell out of spending money on a take out meal.

Believe it or not, a pressure cooker can use less power than a crockpot or regular cooking. That’s because the pressure makes the food cook faster. I could make it even more efficient by cooking on my rocket stove, or by bringing it to pressure and then putting it into my haybox cooker to finish coming back down to atmospheric pressure. In the summer this may well be cooking on my firepit outside, or on my campstove.

My haybox cooker is a wine case with styrofoam glued to the outside, and nested in a cardboard box.  I use an old felted wool blanket folded in it as the ‘hay’ because it’s neater and holds heat really well.

All in all, this has been a lifesaver for two college students trying to maintain honors gpa’s while still working. If only I could find a lifesaver that would help us out that much with laundry and housekeeping.

It’s not just me, apparently.

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, Economy, Independence Days, work

I have been battling a feeling of hopelessness and depression for probably a year — my spouse hasn’t worked a full time job in well over a year, I took a pay and hour cut at my job (though I got the hours back), the team atmosphere has been destroyed by a combination of upper management deliberate decisions and ineffectual middle management support for us line people, I’m legally committed to my job because they’re paying for my bachelor’s degree, I happen to work on the shift with a few truly nasty individuals, and so on.  And then there are the ‘customers’.  Things are getting desperate out there folks, and I see it in the people I come into contact with.  And it rubs off on me.

So knowing if I lost my job we were probably screwed, I’ve been quite the unhappy person.  If I had felt that I could leave, if I had another steady job lined up, I probably wouldn’t have felt so sad or trapped.  If my husband had steady work rather than here and there I also probably wouldn’t have felt as though the weight of the world (ours anyway) was on my shoulders.  If if if.   The problem with being depressed or with feeling trapped and the depression it brings, and the stress, is that you really aren’t capable of seeing things with any positive sort of spin.

I sort of woke up recently; I will have my bachelor’s degree by June at the latest.  I will go to speak with an admissions counselor at the university where I want to get my advanced degree in another week or so.  I will have my application submitted, if the counselor tells me I have a chance in he!! of getting in (at $65 a pop, I want to know my chances first), by the 15th of January.  And I will probably need to drop to part time in order to do well in my classes; this part scares the crap out of me but by part time I mean one day every other week will need to be dropped — my job still considers that to be full time but it still scares me to lose that much money.  However the stress level drop just from that will definitely do wonders for my quality of school work and my emotional state, which is also something to take into consideration.

My husband is working fairly regularly now, although he does not have a permanent position by any means.  That takes a load off me; even if we don’t use his pay for anything but stuffing the mattress, figuratively speaking, it means I am not solely responsible for our bills.

My middle son and his S.O. have made some changes to their lives; he has completed some education and is waiting for his license to be able to apply for jobs in his field.  She has taken a second part time job, which helps to keep them afloat while he waits.  My oldest son has moved back to Idaho and lives with his girlfriend and her father; they save money by combining households since she hasn’t been able to find a job since she graduated from college.

But, on to the reason for my post.  I read an article by Business News Daily recently and suddenly felt much better, about my situation and about life generally.  You see, I’m not alone.  I’m not the only one feeling as though the people in charge at work are completely out of touch, that they only ask us for our opinions (even though they NEVER act on anything suggested other than stupid little things) simply so there isn’t mass revolt because, after all, they are asking us how we feel and think…it’s most people.  Corporate Amerika sucks.  Like we didn’t already know that, but the corporations have really used the economy to their advantage and put the screws to their workers — who are, after all the reason their business works — because they know the workers fear losing their jobs.

I don’t know how smart it will be to incur more student loan debt, but I do plan to pursue my advanced degree because it’s the only way I’ll be able to work independently and make at least some of my own decisions.  I won’t make any more money, after the payments for the loans kick in, but at least I’ll not be going backward.  And I’ll have some degree of freedom.  Which is the key to avoiding depression, hopelessness, and a lot (not all, but a lot) of stress.

I’m hopeful about the new year.

What’s up lately?

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

My husband commented the other day that my blog isn’t devoted to much of the Tin Foil Hat stuff any more.  I realized he is right.  And there’s really a simple reason for that.  I can comment on whatever’s going on, but it doesn’t change anything.  Or.  I can talk about what I’m doing to make the best of our situation, to make sure we’re ahead of the curve with declining resources, and making due with less.  I can post a long diatribe about the price of food commodities, or I can post what works in our area and climate, and how best to preserve that harvest so others can make use of the information.  I can basically be a cynic, a Cassandra, or I can talk about what I’m doing to work around the obstacles.

So, if you find weaving, spinning, canning, etc boring, I apologize.  They’re simply my answers to thorny problems with no simple solutions.  And I’m finding that with spinning, weaving, and the rest of the fiber arts/home maker arts that the quality is simply so superior to what I can buy (except from other fiber artists of course) that I would rather spend my time making towels, washcloths, clothing, rugs, yarn, and so on.  If the choice is that or spend my money, I’ll spend the time ninety nine times out of one hundred.

Am I as prepared as I would like to be?  Hell no.  But, we won’t starve and we won’t go without proper clothing.  Hopefully we won’t live in a tent but that’s one of those eventualities I simply can’t plan for.  So I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about it.  After all, there are literally hundreds of homes with more land than I have I can move into with little or no rent.  So why worry?

Turkey Day debrief

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

What a strange holiday this year.  I worked on the actual day, was lucky enough to get sent home about an hour and a half early, but then I had to work on a paper.  Fun.

We had Mr. TF’s dad, two of the three sons, the all-but-daughter in law, the grand baby, and a friend. Our holiday was Friday, because I worked.  Everyone (except Mr. TF) spent the holiday with friends elsewhere.

We had a Diestel Farms turkey as usual; this has become a new tradition for us and this makes the fourth year (?) we’ve gotten a pasture fed small farm turkey.  Delicious as usual.

For the first time, we had home grown yams.  I didn’t  make nearly enough — the entire casserole dish was eaten at the feast, with no leftovers at all.

We also had home grown potatoes for the first time, mixed in with a couple of organic potatoes.  I didn’t have good luck with my potato plants this year; they died before August was over so there was a small harvest.  I still got about a 10 to one ratio of potatoes though.  Not bad.

I made a pumpkin pie from pie pumpkins as usual; the major problem this year was I used a new recipe.  Which omitted sugar as one of the ingredients.  Yes, I made a wonderful pie that had no sugar.  I figured out after about my third bite; I spent the first two trying to figure out why it didn’t taste right.  I rechecked the recipe to see if I had missed it or it really wasn’t there…nope, no sugar listed.  Won’t be making that one again!

Every year I learn more about growing root vegetables, as well as the rest of what we grow.  Every year I get better, and refine my technique.  I’m definitely going back to container growing for potatoes and yams; the soil is deeper and the soil stays moister.  I just won’t do any more of the tower type growing; I have decided that the plants expend so much energy making more green growth that they don’t make any tuber growth.  I didn’t do any of that this year, and even though the plants died prematurely, I still got quite a few decent sized potatoes from 5 plants. And a fairly decent harvest of yams from four plants.  More manure!  I need more manure!

I hadn’t planned on making green bean casserole, since my beans did so poorly, but DH insisted (as did the kids when they learned I wasn’t going to make it) so I had my FIL stop at the store on the way to buy fresh green beans.  He of course had no problem doing it, but he’s used to my weirdness after all.  Then I had a ‘fight’ between DIL and DH over who gets the (very small amount of)  leftovers.  Kind of weird that the dish that gets the most requests, after stuffing, is a 50′s dish cooked up by Campbell’s kitchen cooks as a marketing tool for cream of mushroom soup.

I vary from what I assume is the standard recipe by using fresh green beans.  I chop finely a half onion, about six slices bacon (which in our case came from Windy View Acres, my friend’s farm) cut into small pieces, and saute the onion and bacon until the bacon is browned and the onions are transluscent.  Then I add the green beans and saute until bright green and a little tender.  This all gets a couple cans of cream of mushroom soup mixed in, a couple of splashes of Worcestershire sauce, some chopped mushrooms, and gets topped with deep fried onions (the ones from a can).  Bake for 30 min or so, then take the cover off and let the onions brown.  Whenever I learn to make my own cream of mushroom soup, I’ll use that instead, but I’m not going to ever make deep fried onions I’m afraid.

The best part of the holiday was when our friend, my FIL, and DH were watching grand daughter’s TV program (some weird cartoon one) with the sound turned off, listening to Arlo Guthrie sing Alice’s Restaurant.  They were mesmerized.  Crazy.  DIL says that program is like that, you get hypnotized by the colors…not sure if that’s a good thing for anyone to be watching, you know?

Garden’s pretty well done except for collard greens for the chickens.  I’m shocked that they are doing so amazingly well even with nightly frosts!  I thought they were a cold weather vegetable.  Apparently not.  Also doing well is the swiss chard.  And the basil, believe it or not.

On my next days off it will be time to start hauling manure home from the local stables to put into the garden beds and mulch with straw, in preparation for spring.  No winter gardening for me this year, I’m too tired from the toll school is taking.  Five more classes.  Twenty five weeks.  I feel like I’m pregnant, counting the weeks til I’m done.  I’m on  a time pressure to get it done and not take any more breaks if I want to get into a nurse practitioner program before they make it a doctoral level program in 2012 though.  So this fall is my last chance to get in.  Unless financial collapse hits before then.  Happy thought.

We woke up to a dead chicken yesterday morning.  Murdered and half eaten, actually.  My neighbor thinks it was a fox; I think it may have been a skunk, since I surprised one at the doorway to their cage in front of the coop last night when I went to shut them in.  We have gotten lax about making sure they’re safely shut in at night since we’ve never had any problems.  So now I feel guilty that my biggest, gentlest girl paid the price for her trust in us and our laxness in ensuring their safety.  Next project along with manuring the garden beds:  more stones along the fence line.  Big ones.

Results of the Fair, fall garden update

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Crafts, Economy, Independence Days, sustainability

This is weeks late, I know, but I’ve been busy with other stuff taking over my life.

Not bad; a second place for my sweater, which is really pretty good for my first knitting WAG type project.  I have always taken patterns and altered them but never made one up based on a suggestion.  One of my skeins of yarn got first and another got second; ditto for my scarves.  The hand spun hand knit one got first, my first weaving project got second.

All in all, it gives me hope that I might be able to sell stuff here and there — at least, my work is quality is what I mean.  Whether I can actually sell stuff remains to be seen.  It would be nice to at least make it self sustaining; my goal is though to be able to reduce my hours working at my ‘real’ job so I could work more from home.  At first glance, it doesn’t seem very doable, BUT… when you factor in gas to and from work, buying drinks (even though I mostly drink the free coffee and water), and lunch purchases (because I’m not home enough to make all my lunches all the time) as well as wear and tear on uniforms and shoes, and laundry expenses it might end up breaking even.  For at least one or two days a month less.  And who knows, if the economy takes another nosedive as I suspect it might, working less might make me more attractive to my bosses and less likely to be forcibly cut.  I do know that part time people have access to all the hours they care to have.

And then again, if the economy takes another nosedive, nobody will have money to spend on quality anyway….

The garden has done very poorly so far this year.  I’ve put up about 20 lbs of tomatoes from the garden the whole of this year and have maybe another five that will be ripe before the first frost comes due at the end of the month.  No peppers, a few eggplants, one bunch of grapes from my own vines, and the raspberries are dying.

The one thing that has done very well are the lima beans.  From a 2 x 3 plot I got about a cup of beans.  I think that is a pretty good return from a little package!  Those are definitely keepers.  They’ll get planted again next year.

The swiss chard is finally doing well after suffering in the heat all summer long, and the collard greens are still thriving.  We don’t care for them much (the only recipe I’ve found for them involves cooking them for hours in a pork broth and serving with cornbread) but the chickens absolutely love them so I’ll grow them again just for them.

After two months with no eggs at least two are producing again.  It will be time for new chicks in the spring, I think.  Much as these hens have been pampered, if they’re past their prime and not giving us what we got them for, it’s time for them to go to the chicken retirement home in favor of some younger girls who will produce reliably for us.  After all, we’re supplying our home entirely from our eggs, and two relatives regularly from our girls.  We need the production!

My plan is to rip all the plants out of the beds after the first frost and to manure and mulch heavily with straw, and let it sit over the winter with no winter gardening at all.  Hopefully increasing the fertility and tilth will help counter any future wacky weather issues like we’ve had this year.  I also want to get rid of my trash container composters and to build an actual cinder block compost unit.  I think part of the reason I don’t get hot enough temps in my compost to kill seeds is because I don’t have a critical mass of compost in one spot at any given time.  If my three barrels were combined into one bin, I think it might be enough to get good compost faster.

That’s all the updates for now.  Off to cut out DH’s Halloween costume and hopefully to go to a birthday party later today.

Garden successes and failures

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Economy, home, Independence Days, sustainability

Well, the San Marzano and Serpent of Sicily have been successes!  Squash bugs no where to be seen anywhere near these plants, and they are producing like gangbusters.  Not quite on the level of zucchini, but good enough for me.

This is about the average size of these things…I should probably pick them when they’re a little smaller; the skin is tough enough that they need to be treated like a winter squash at this size.  But, much like a zucchini, you can look at them one morning and they’re just little bitty…and the next morning they’re three feet long!  They taste like a cross between a zucchini and a cucumber, we haven’t tried frying them yet to see what that tastes like.

The San Marzano’s are a yellow squash with warty skin.  They too, get a tough outer skin if you let them get too big (or let them sit on the counter too long) but the taste is sweet and mild, and they will be an excellent substitute for zucchini in my holiday baking.

I have been shredding and freezing all of the San Marzanos, and shredded two of the Serpents today.  I left the biggest one for Mr. TF to see when he gets home this afternoon.

I’ve only gotten 5 lbs of Armenian cucumbers and those are in a dill brine on the counter.

Green beans were a bust, yellow beans have produced well but late in the season, so still a very small harvest.  Lima beans have done extremely well, and I will definitely expand my plantings of those next year — with the collard greens and some bacon they will make excellent winter soup!

The chickens are producing at best, one egg a day between the four of them.  I have orders for eggs coming out my ears, and can’t fill any of them because the hens are on strike, and I don’t know why.  They get enough to eat, they get greens, their water is changed regularly, the coop is clean and the nest box is clean.

Tomatoes are also a disappointment.  I’m so glad I bought that 100 lbs of tomatoes from the coop earlier this year, or we wouldn’t have any sauce put up at all.  The potato plants died back in the heat, and I can’t dig to see if I have any potatoes until the collard greens die back.  I haven’t checked on the yams yet either.

I feel like this year has been one giant failure for the most part.  Between working and school, there just isn’t enough time for all I need to get done around here.  We really do depend on the garden for a lot of our vegetable needs, and I am seriously stressed by the fact that we will have to buy lots of stuff we were able to grow in years past.

That’s all for now, time to sauce the tomatoes I blanched now that they’re cooled off.  Maybe two jars worth?

Taking a Break

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, Economy, home, Independence Days, work and tagged with

I’ve been in school non stop since January 4. I have a new class every five weeks — one ends on Sunday the next class starts on Monday. I’m burned out. And my house is starting to look like those houses in that TV show “Hoarders”….

So I emailed my advisor and asked her to withdraw me from my new class that starts next Monday. I just can’t do this any more! Enough is enough already!

I’m not going to be lazing around though. I plan to clean house, re-arrange the looms and spinning stuff, and study for my Certified Emergency Nurse exam. And work overtime. We have two nurses out on maternity leave, and I can pick up as much overtime as I can handle (which isn’t nearly as much as is available). I figure one extra day every two weeks is enough. No more four days off but I guess that’s the price I pay for wanting to pay off bills while I can still get the extra shifts.

Oh yeah. And preserve all the fruit I’ll have coming in.

Mabel’s maiden voyage

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Crafts, Independence Days

These are towels and a washcloth I made with my new loom.  They were supposed to be place mats but I screwed up in two ways:  one, I didn’t wind on enough warp to account for the loom waste (even though I knew I would need it) and two….

That’s a section of warp you see there…I somehow completely managed to miss warping it when I warped the loom!  So there’s three yards of wasted thread!  It made may project about 1.5 inches narrower than I had planned — and I was thinking to myself before I discovered it “Dang, there’s a lot of draw in on this loom!”  Uh…not so much.  Operator error.

I really would like to get the other cams for this loom.  I have been in contact with the owner of the company; we are all waiting for the foundry to finish the other cams in order to get them shipped out.  That could take a while though, so if I want complex patterns I’ll have to settle for the smaller loom with more options.

I have to buy a new apron for Mabel, and an apron rod.  The apron is a band of fabric tacked to the front beam that holds the woven fabric.  Mabel’s is dry rotted and began tearing when I put tension on it.  This happens, but I was hoping to get more than one project out of it before it was done.  Alas, it was not to be.

I still need to get more treadle hooks (they connect the treadles to the parts that make the design) for my Macomber, I don’t have enough to do any of the really cool complex patterns I want to try out.

The neighbor’s grape vines are loaded down.  I made grape jam yesterday, and will be making grape and blueberry jellies today.  I hope the apricots are ripe soon, and found a plum tree in the neighbor’s back yard that he wants nothing to do with.  It’s going to be a good year for dried fruit!

We don’t have a single pepper yet.  I looked at last year’s garden journal and we had peppers by June 21.  This year has been so weird!  We’re just now getting a crop of tomatoes, no peppers, no green beans to speak of, and few raspberries.