The Chatelaine's Keys

Sharon August 19th, 2009

This was actually one of my first posts on the blog, ever.  Inspired by my desire to produce a pair of socks that are impressively elaborate enough and without any mistakes (I tend to be very lazy about mistakes I don’t notice immediately, unless they are egregiously annoying ) for the fair, I thought I’d re-run it while I focus on produce in need o’canning.  This was originally titled “The Great Sock Rant of ’05″ so you can get a sense of how long it has been.

Ok, I’m going to violate a personal rule against over-generalizing by saying that everyone preparing for peak oil ought to know how to make socks. I mean everyone – that means gentlemen as well as ladies, the crafty and the uncrafty, rural and urban. Why? Because the one category of clothing that someone is bound to run out of sooner or later is socks – the simply wear out too fast. And they are totally essential – ask anyone who has ever walked 30 miles in boots without socks how the experience went. Or ask someone living in a cold climate who doesn’t have good socks how many toes he has left after working outside all day in -20 degrees.

Even if you live somewhere warm and your bare feet are as hard as diamonds, I’m going to suggest you know how to make socks anyhow – first of all, hard times make a lot of refugees, and none of us knows for sure where we’re going to end up. Second of all, it is a simple, useful skill that could make you some money with little outlay of cash. For the disabled, elderly, pregnant and those tied down by infants, sock knitting is an essential service that you can provide and be useful with. With practice, it can be done by the blind or in very low-light situations, making it possible to do useful work while sitting around and singing, talking, but without extra lighting. It is a lot of fun, almost everyone can do it, and it can be done almost anywhere. You need not have a farm, money, lots of free time, expensive tools or anything else to start.

Basic information – socks are made from yarn. You could sew fabric socks with cloth and elastic, but the quality is not as high as knitted or crocheted, and they wouldn’t stay up as well or wear well. Now where do you get yarn after peak oil? Well, first of all, you can store yarn for sock making. Socks can be knitted from any natural fiber, although wool, hemp and cotton make the most sense for most people – they are natural and breathable. Most sock yarn is pricey, and has some nylon in it to give it extra strength. If you have the money, you can buy that stuff, of course, but otherwise, you could easily buy any cheap wool, cotton or blend yarn and store a lot of it.  Or you could pick out yarn from old sweaters, wool socks, etc… 

Or, you can make your own yarn. Yarn can be made from a large range of animal fibers – urban dwellers without easy access to sheep, for example, might try using dog hair (although I’m told that it smells like wet dog when wet ;-P, or keeping a few angora or angora cross rabbits for meat and fiber). Neither angora nor dog will last as long as wool or cotton, but it is better than nothing, and both are tremendously warm. You also could buy roving or raw fleece from someone with sheep, or some raw cotton. You might find some to practice on at www.woolery.com but probably would get the best deals buying direct from shepherds or small scale cotton growers. If you live in a warm climate and have a garden, you can grow cotton. If you live somewhere cold you can grow flax for linen. If you have land and inclination, you can have sheep or rabbits, alpacas or camels, yaks or llamas or some other fiber animal. You might want to stick with wool and cotton to start, though.

Yarn is made by spinning, and you do not need an expensive spinning wheel to make yarn. You can easily buy a drop spindle on ebay or at www.woolery.com, or make one by following the instructions here http://www.joyofhandspinning.com/make-dropspin.shtml.  They can also be made with free AOL CDs.   Drop spindle spinning is considerably slower than wheel spinning, but much cheaper, the equipment fits easily in a pack or bug-out bag, and if all you are going to do is make socks, it probably isn’t worth buying a wheel. Instructions for using one are available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drXid5cT0y8  it takes practice, but it isn’t a terribly hard skill to learn.

Like all skills, it is best if someone shows you, but you can learn it fairly well from written instructions. If you do want to buy a spinning wheel, take a class or at least try a bunch of wheels. My personal recommendation is for a Kromski wheel – reasonably priced for a beginner, good enough for when you get better, and made entirely of wood and metal parts, so that it can easily be repaired or parts made after the peak (I have no connection to Kromski, other than owning and liking their stuff.) Lee Raven’s book Hands On Spinning is a really good place to start learning.

Once you have yarn, you need to know how to knit or crochet. It is impossible to learn how to knit socks without learning how to knit other things. First you’ve got to learn straight needles. Knitting is definitely one of those things best learned from another person, so take a class in adult ed or at a yarn shop, get a friend or family member to show you, or try trading visits at a local nursing home for knitting lessons. But if you must learn from written instructions, the best book I’ve found is Melanie Falick’s Kids Knitting – well worth the money or the interlibrary loan. The book is pitched to 8 year olds, but is great for uncoordinated adults like me who have trouble with visual instructions. It also has a very simple sock pattern, with no heel turning in it, not a terrible place to start. You could also try to learn from www.learntoknit.com but I’ve not tried it, and I can’t promise anything.

The initial investment for knitting need not be large. In a pinch, you can make needles out wooden dowels, sharpened in a pencil sharpener. Otherwise, a good way to get a reasonable range of needle sizes is to buy a bunch from an estate sale or on ebay – large batches often go quite cheap. You could easily get away with one pair of straight needles, size 10 (for learning basic skills) and a couple of sets of double pointed needles, but more is better. You really can make them too. They come up cheap at yard sales too.

Socks are tubular, so they are knitted on double pointed needles, or on two circular needles. Here’s a link to instructions and a basic sock pattern for dpns http://www.cometosilver.com/socks/  - most patterns are written for these. If you want to get fancier, Nancy Bush’s _Folk Socks_ has wonderful patterns and a wealth of information. The most useful book on doing it with two circulars (which requires a larger initial investment but is my preferred method and IMHO is faster) is the inanely titled (but useful) Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles_ by Cat Bordhi. There’s another book out there called _The Magic Loop_ (don’t know the author) about doing them on one really long circular as well, but I know nothing about this.

Crocheting is easier than knitting, although I find it more irritating as repetetive motions go since I have carpal, and IMHO, not as versatile for socks, but you certainly can make plenty of socks by crocheting. To crochet, you need a couple of hooks, which could be easily made by anyone with a modicum of woodworking skill, or which can be bought cheaply in bunches on ebay or at walmart. A good size range of aluminum hooks costs about $5. One advantage crocheting has over knitting is that the hooks are not tied up in the piece of work – you can have six pairs of socks going at once using the same two hooks.  Here are some basic crochet instructions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVBnFHGbeK4

The best book I’ve seen for beginners is Pauline Turner’s How to Crochet although it does not include a sock pattern. The best book on socks is Rehfeldt and Wood’s Crocheted Socks! Again, you really only need one basic pattern, and can probably find some easily on the web. But if you can, get someone to show you the tricks – it really is easier.  Here are many patterns for crocheted socks:http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/directory/socks.php

Felted boots can be easily made by knitting or crocheting a large sock and then felting it – felting is what happens when you accidentally throw a wool sweater in the dryer – it shrinks, the material becomes less permeable to water, thicker, warmer – all good things in footwear. I don’t know of a pattern for felted boots, but I more or less made up my own by knitting some really big socks on size 15 needles, and then felting them, and using laces (made of felted wool or leather) to tie them tight – it doesn’t really matter if they are a little big. Felting only works with wool or other animal fibers, which is why, unless you live in the tropics, wool is probably the most practical material for boot making – but if you live in the tropics, you probably don’t need snow boots anyhow, and can simply use the tire sandals. A good book on felting is Knit One, Felt Too , although I’ve forgotten the author’s name, but while it has some sock and slipper patterns, it doesn’t have a scandinavian style felted boot – but you can figure it out. Crocheting should work fine too, but I haven’t tried it.

Re:wool – lots of people think they are allergic to wool, and some genuinely are. But many are allergic to the chemicals used to strip the lanolin from wool, not the wool itself, and can use organic wool or handspun. If by allergic, you mean you find wool scratchy or itchy, you might try merino wool, which is very fine, and commonly worn next to the skin by babies. My mother, who has severe skin issues and thought she was allergic to wool can easily wear merino handspun. If you are allergic to wool, you might still try the felted boot idea, if you can get someone else to make it for you, since there is no reason you can’t wear socks of some other material between your skin and the boot.

One more thing about learning these skills – if you are the sort of person who wants to be instantly good at things, knitting, crocheting and spinning are somewhat frustrating.  You feel very incompetent at first, waggling these huge-seeming sticks, making mistakes, not sure how to fix them.  It is annoying.  But I promise you that if I can do it (I win international klutz awards) you can – there comes a point where it gets into your muscle memory, and all of a sudden, it all makes sense, and your body can do it without thought.  Getting to that point is annoying, but is worth the minor suffering.

 Sharon

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Sharon August 18th, 2009

We’re in our second consecutive week of summer for the year – hot, humid and sticky.  The good news is that the tomatoes are *finally* ripening, and that we might actually get four or five peppers – two months of no sun and cool temps haven’t exactly produced stellar results.  The bad news is that I have very little desire to preserve anything in 90 degree weather.  This makes that bushel of cucumbers on my kitchen floor a bit of a problem .

The cucumbers arrived on Friday, as we were frantically getting ready for Peter Bane’s overnight visit, and then another set of visitors, and also trying to wind up “truck week” in which we did every single thing that required my friend Elaine’s pickup, since we don’t have one.  A friend of mine who owns a farm heard me lamenting that I was having a poor year for pickling cukes, and offered me some.  I said sure, thinking I’d get a little bag.  Then, I stopped by to pick up corn for lunch with our guests and she says “they’re over here, is a bushel enough?”  Gah – my reputation as a tireless preserver catches me again!

The problem was I got them on Saturday morning, and it was my birthday.  On my list of things to do that day were the making of my own birthday dinner for 15, dessert and tidying the house, but not pickling cucumbers.  Sunday was booked for other guests, and so was Monday… while I managed to sneak a few in there, they are still waiting for me, more or less patiently.  Today will be the day of the sweaty cucumber project – blah!  But that is the way of things – as my friend pointed out, with the sudden onset of heat and dry weather, they wouldn’t be good if we didn’t use them.

Had a lovely visit, and a spectacular birthday dinner (lots of middle eastern food and peach shortcake – yum!)  got a lot done on the house, got the year’s hay in the barn and more wood for the winter (I cut some of ours, but not all of it by any means – time), vaccinated the goats, got the parts of the garden totally destroyed by swampiness cut down, cleaned the barn, spread manure.  The big sorrow was the loss of Simon’s angora bunny, Raincloud.  Got the chickens butchered and hauled home some more cages for future bunnies.

This week should be much more relaxing, which is good, because I should finally have enough tomatoes to put some up, and I’ve got peaches and raspberries to do as well.  The boys are on their last week of a wonderful half-day camp, where they learn all sorts of neat skills – a friend’s son took the “My Side of the Mountain” themed camp this year, and Simon is chomping at the bit to take it himself next year, particularly when he learned he’d be able to start a fire with flint and steel by the end.  Isaiah loved “Native American Skills” and is now doing a “Nature’s Art” camp.  Very cool.  Asher wants to go, but won’t be old enough until next year – and it is right near home.  This is the first year we’ve known about it.

This was fair week – we took the boys to the Altamont Fair on Wednesday, and other than completely ridiculous overconsumption of cotton candy (hey, once a year…), it was lovely.  We all resolved that next year we will attend the fair fully, as participants.  I once entered some jams, but that’s so far been the extent of our fair participation, but the boys want to raise exotic chickens for the fair in the spring, and I have deemed this cool, and we are determined to bring goats to the fair as well.  The kids would like to enter the baking contests, since they are all becoming (with some help with the hot parts) accomplished bakers, and I’m determined to have a pair of socks good enough to enter into the knitted goods competition.  So one of our family resolutions is that this year, we’ll start working towards the fair as part of our homeschooling projects.

All of the herbs that like heat suddenly burst into flower, which meant it was time to harvest them – peppermint, anise hyssop, wild bergamot, lemon balm, etc… are all ready to go, along with a number of the medicinals, which is lovely.  I can no longer keep up with the summer squash, which is no great worry, since the big ones make great chicken feed. 

With the meat birds gone, the barn suddenly is so clean and spacious and much more pleasant.  The new layers are growing well, as are the turkeys, and much happier with more room.  The Bourbon Reds seem to be the fastest growing of the three varieties we have this year – Blue Slates, Reds and Black Spanish.  I’ve raised all but the Spanish before, but never simultaneously.  The black spanish, with their white faces and black feathers are by far the cutest, however. 

The barn swallows have fledged their batch of nestlings this year, and one group is already laying more eggs.  They still see me as a threat, but they are totally inured to the boys – on hot or rainy days, the kids spend much of their time sitting in the hay barn on the bales of hay, listening to Simon read _Harry Potter_ aloud or playing games, or just lying still, in the shade, and listening.  I came in the other day to find Simon reading, Isaiah looking over his shoulder at the pictures, and Asher lying flat in the hay, with Zucchini, one of our cats on his stomach and Jessie, one of the goats nestled up against him.

Planted: Spinach, which almost certainly won’t germinate since it got freakin’ hot again, layered currants.

Harvested: Tomatoes, 1 pepper, carrots, beets, summer squash, zucchini, mustard, turnips, lettuce, tomatillos, raspberries, blueberries, currants, peppermint, feverfew, anise hyssop, lemon verbena, wormwood, calendula, borage, bee balm, oregano, dill, spearmint, yarrow.

Preserved: turnip pickles, dried blueberries, dried herbs, tinctured herbs, dehydrated a few tomatoes and zucchini.

Waste Not: The usual composting and weighing of garbage.  Barn manure was spread on gardens, old hay used for mulch, feed bags used for weed suppression – but nothing really new.

Want Not: See cucumbers, above .  Also found a gorgeous, heavy king sized comforter at a yard sale that was just what we’d been looking for (Eric and I have a Queen sized futon bed, but find that a King sized blanket is required to minimize blanket hogging, which seems to be a mutual habit ) – we needed something for when the down is too heavy but the summer stuff is too light, which is a lot of the year around here.  Same yard sale yielded fleece PJs for Asher as well, which he is grieved it is too hot to wear.

Work on Community Food Systems: Did a talk at a local library that led to the planning of a library food garden.  Otherwise, not much.

Eat the Food: Tried a new pita bread recipe – it still doesn’t puff up properly.  I’ve now tried six recipes and never found one that was really quite right – they are all good, but not sufficiently hollow.  Anyone have a suggestion?

 Sharon

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Sharon August 13th, 2009

This is week two of the AIP course, and I’ve mostly covered, in past classes, the range of options for heating, cooking, water, toileting, etc…  One subject I haven’t written about is light – and I think it is one that bears some attention, because even though light isn’t necessary for life, you’ll be awfully sad, particularly if you live in extreme northern or southern latitudes, if you have to go to bed when it gets dark all year .  Not to mention that high cost in broken toes of tripping over things.

One of the funny things about generating light, unlike a lot of other non-fossil fueled alternatives, is that most of the homemade, seemingly lower impact models are actually *higher* impact – that is, the petroleum based candles you buy at the store are probably of greater impact than simply running a Compact Flourescent lightbulb.  So is your kerosene lamp.  Even beeswax candles may be a bigger impact, depending on where you are getting them from.  That’s because electricity isn’t a bad way to generate light.

That said, however, plastic and battery based things break.  I find that my best solutions are a mix of all of these – candles and kerosene lamps, solar lanterns and rechargeable batteries. 

 Now preparations need to have two functions – first, they meet your needs in a crisis.  But second, they allow you to live the kind of life you want even when you aren’t in crisis, and presuming that most of us want our light sources to be ethical ones, and to provide the most for the least, that means sorting out some options.  Let’s talk options. 

Actually, first, let’s talk not setting your house, child, cat or ferret on fire.  Many of these solutions involve open flames, or slightly enclosed flames.  If you are going to use them, use them very carefully.  Have a good smoke detector around and batteries, keep fire extinguishers and know how to use them, and never leave them unattended where kids or pets could get at them.  If you have children or pets, stable candles with solid bases are better than tall candles with candlesticks, and hurricanes or other containment, or wall sconces are safer than the table where the kids can reach or the dog can bump into things while hoping someone will drop something.  I have several wall sconces with hurricane glasses that I found at a yard sale.  Mirrored sconces will nearly double the amount of light in a room as as side benefit.

 If you really desperately needed light, and wanted to be outside, you could make rushlights or flaming torches – dip cattails in oil or set a stick on fire.  You do not want to do this in your house, just in case you were wondering .  But this is not the most carbon-efficient option, nor is it terrifically convenient (although flaming torches have their place in driving monsters out of the local ruined castle, I suppose).

You could also burn olive oil, in a homemade lamp, with a wick made from a shoelace (cotton only, pull off the plastic ends).  This is not cheap, but it is clean burning.  It won’t give tons of light, but if you have olives where you live, you can make a simple lamp. Here’s a variation that uses a mason jar: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/Make-Olive-Oil-Lamp.aspx

Next possibility are candles.  Most candles are petroleum based, and some have lead wicks, which are not good to breathe, so be careful when buying cheap candles.  I think scented candles are generally disgusting, and they can cause problems for people with allergies or scent sensitivities, so I avoid those as well (is there anyone who thinks those Yankee candle stores smell *good* ;-P).  Soy, beeswax and bayberry candles are much nicer and better for you.  Tallow candles don’t smell so hot when burning, and you really can’t buy them, but you could make them out of leftover animal fats.  If you plan to use candles, think about where your candles will come from – get to know your local beekeeper, plant some bayberry bushes if you’ve got sandy soil, or get your own hive and candle molds.

 Kerosene is not environmentally more sound, but lamp oil does store well, and kerosene lamps can provide a good backup lighting source.  Make sure you know how to use them, and how to trim wicks and clean them.  Lamp oil stores pretty much indefinitely, but make sure you store it in a fire proof container.  These oils are byproducts of coal production, so not likely to run entirely out, but also not real environmentally cool.

You can get lights that will run on propane or on natural gas – try www.lehmans.com - these are used by the Amish, and if, for example, you have a natural gas well or use propane for other things, are another possibility.  Again, they aren’t necessarily a huge improvement over grid electric (depending on how your electric is generated), but they may allow you to rely on more stable supplies.

Flashlights, battery powered lamps, booklights and headlamps make a lot of sense when combined with rechargeable batteries and solar powered battery chargers.  Set these in your window, have several sets of each battery type to rotate, and these can give excellent light for extended periods.  Headlamps are especially nice for a host of purposes – going out to the barn with stuff in your hands, washing dishes, etc…  Book lights clip to your book and allow you to read with tiny quantities of light.  These are also a great mix with LED nightlights for kids. 

If you are going to get flashlights, get at least one serious, heavy duty, police-officer style flashlight, or a floodlight LED type.  The reason is that sooner or later you are bound to have to help track the dog through the woods, find out what’s making that noise under the house, or otherwise do something with a light with *power* – little flashlights are adequate for most jobs, but once in a while, these are useful.  They are also an excellent security device – most people prowling about will stop, blinded when you shine one on them, and many pesty critters will run away .

Hand crank flashlights are good, but usually not super powerful.  Plus you might have something to do besides crank.  I have some, but I also recommend some battery powered ones, although the crank type are great for kids.   Although not at all sustainable, for bugout bags and such, I also see the value of chemical lightsticks for little kids, who need something to be secure.

Solar lights are also great – and the kind designed for gardens are very cheap these days.  Buy a bunch, plant them outside, and then simply stick one in a bucket of sand in rooms where you need light.  Unlike many of the other options here, they are quite pleasant to read by. I also have a couple of solar lanterns, which are very nice, especially when children and pets are about.  The lanterns are easy to carry about with you, as are the outdoor lights, if you keep buckets about.  Plus, the outdoor types can be used, well, outdoors .

You can, of course, put in a solar, wind or microhydro system and use it to power lights and a few other things.  A small system that can run your computer, your lights and your CD player won’t be too expensive.  I recommend this generally, however, only for people who either aren’t grid tied to begin with or who have done most of their other preps – because it is perfectly possible to run those things on rechargeable batteries for much lower cost.

The most important think you can do about alternate lighting is change your attitude towards it – that is, instead of assuming that everyone needs their own lighted room, you all congregate together.  One person can read alound near the light, or perhaps everyone can do something like handwork that is done in low light conditions, to conserve energy.  If you can keep things mostly in the same places, there’s no reason why lights are needed for basic things like trips to the bathroom at night or to latch on an infant.  You can get up earlier and go to bed earlier.  There are lots of ways to adapt to lower light conditions that are less about what you have than what you do.  Of course, that’s true for all of this.

 Sharon

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Sharon August 11th, 2009

One of the consequences of this cold, wet year has been a devastating strain of Blight that has affected both tomatos and potatoes – much of the Northeast has it (it has yet to make it to me, but others have had it).  This has been particularlly destructive to organic farmers – pesticides can be sprayed to control the fungus that causes Late Blight, but while there are organic controls (Seranade seems to be effective), they have to be applied early, before the crop fails.  I know several farmers who have lost all their tomatoes and potatoes.  The bight spreads through airborne spores and is as far west as Indiana and as far north as northern Montreal and Ontario.  Just because you don’t have it yet, doesn’t mean you won’t.

Now the loss of tomatoes is a major inconvenience and an economic pain for gowers.  All of us want our salsa.  But the loss of potatoes, while a lesser economic trouble for most farmers and individuals, is actually more troubling – in tough times, potatoes are one of the more viable home staple crops.  Again, organic controls can be used, but these might not always be available.  In some ways, we are seeing the tremendous vulnerability we face in our food system – and the answer is not “great, let’s get out the pesticides,” obviously.  It is to diversify, and learn to live with our troubles.

I’ve heard people argue that this makes the case for industrial agriculture – if it weren’t for industrial agriculture, we wouldn’t have enough tomatoes, we are told.  But, besides the obvious fact that industrial agriculture doesn’t produce anything that tastes like a real tomato, there’s also the point that this is an industrial disease – late blight was spread in the US through tomato and pepper plants purchased from WalMart and Target and other discount realtors, and shipped around the country.

Certainly, it makes sense to use organic controls if they are available to you, and if you have the infection, to burn all affected plant material. But it also makes sense to learn to live with what we’ve now got.  This is little consolation for farmers and gardeners pulling out blackened plants, but people who have had chronic blight issues do point out that it is possible to learn to live with them.  Sue Robishaw, who has been saving potato seed for decades (most people have been told not to save potato seed because you might get blight, but since seed saving is method of creating food security, she’s had to deal with the reality of blight) has observed that often, early planted potatoes will set out a solid crop of potatoes before they succumb to late blight.  And those that succumb latest and produce the best are the ones to save seed from. 

With tomatoes, we can help by selecting blight-resistant varieties (and no, these are not only hybrids), by planting early determinate varieties that may fruit before late blight takes full hold, and by simply adapting ourselves to the spread of disease.

Just as important as diversifying our varieties, and developing resistant, will be diversifying our gardens.  Yes, tomatoes are a wonderful thing, and potatoes are a staple food.  But turnips and beets and sweet potatoes and corn and dry beans, carrots, parsnips and winter squash are all potential food staples as well – it never serves to rely on only one thing.  And if we don’t get tomato salsa, perhaps we will get roasted pepper, ground cherry or salsa verde.

This is the world we live in now – our vulnerabilities have been magnified.  The best tool we have for creating a resilient system is as much variety and diversity as humanly possible. 

Sharon

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Sharon August 11th, 2009

Sorry to be late with the update, we were on vacation for a few days, and I’m still catching up.  Boy was it nice to be freed from the farm for a couple of days – and boy was it nice to come back.  I got to go out to dinner to celebrate my birthday while near Boston, and got my favorite present (thanks Mom!) a bookstore gift certificate, and babysitting to go use it.  My actual birthday isn’t until Saturday (I’ll be 37), but we’ve got guests, so we celebrated early.

It is hot here this week, first stretch of hot weather we’ve had, and I’m finding it harder to bear than usual, because I’m not adapted at all to it.   Normally mid-80s and humid in August would be no worries, but we’ve had nothing past the 70s for so long that my body is treating it like a sudden heat wave in March.  Blah!

Crazy, crazy week this one.  We’ve got a borrowed truck for the week, so are trying to do all the things too hard to do without one – chief among them, getting our hay in.  That’s tomorrow’s job – and a hot, sweaty, hay-ey deal it will be, but I can’t complain.  It is a tough year for folks who hay – we’ve had so much rain that a lot of hay is still going into barns.  I’d despaired of finding anything decent for a reasonable price, only to discover that my usual hay guy has some actually quite nice stuff for me.  Plus, he lets my kids climb around the loft in his barn while we’re loading, for which we should be paying him extra.  Isaiah keeps asking why we don’t have a barn like his.  He keeps rolling his eyes and saying he’d trade for a nice, new pole barn that didn’t take so much upkeep, but I admit, I’m with his kids.

The other big job (and the ostensible purpose of the borrowed truck) is to take the revolting Cornish Cross chickens to the butcher.  They are large enough, which is good, but even if they weren’t, we have to get them out of the barn.  I will never, ever raise them again – all they do is eat grain and poop.  I go out in the mornings with a broom and sweep them outside, trying to get them to forage, but they just look at me.  I have to say, I’ve never felt so cheerful about the demise of any group of animals – I don’t like butchering, but these guys are tough to care about.  I won’t be raising them ever again – yes, they put on more meat faster, but it isn’t worth the price in either grain or annoyance factor.  Life’s too short to raise stupid animals .  Next year, back to the original Cornish, or Delawares, or perhaps some of you have a good suggestion for older breeds to be used for meat?

So far, no blight on our tomatoes or potatoes, but like everyone in the east, I’m holding my breath. Holding it for this warm weather to ripen them, too – I’ve got a lot more green than red, and actually ordered a bushel of canning tomatoes from our local farm, since they are warmer and in the valley, and we don’t have anything yet.  Rain, rain, more rain still coming.  We had two inches yesterday, another 2 (plus hail, if we’re super-lucky) predicted this afternoon.  The one thing we got here is water. 

The new goats are no longer new, they’ve pretty much settled in, with Mina as queen of everything.  They behaved themselves for our goat-sitters, and are happily devouring the willow-weeds.  Selene and Maia should kid sometime pretty much precisely between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur – I’m praying for an easy time of it.

Ok, onto the other stuff:

Plant something: spinach, indoors, lettuce, arugula, japanese turnips, valerian root divisions, buckwheat and clover.

Harvest something: Cucumbers, squash, green beans, lettuce, a couple of tomatoes, 1 lonely eggplant, chinese cabbage, scullcap, borage, calendula, beets, arugula, yarrow

Preserve something: scullcap and yarrow tinctures, borage flower vinegar, cucumber pickles, red currant jam.

Waste Not:  Actually, we wasted more than usual.  Our fridge doesn’t work, and while we tried really hard to use everything up before we went to Boston (and brought some stuff with us), we had a big bowl of things to the chickens that wouldn’t have normally gone there. 

Want Not: More homeschooling books from the used book store at my Mom’s, warm pajamas in Asher’s favorite color (pink – he’s very fierce on the subject that all his pajamas must be pink) and long johns and pants for Eli from the great used clothing store.  Sorted through the kids clothes and got a lot to go to Goodwill, and a lot to give away.  Arranged for our winter’s hay to come in, split up some branches for kindling, offered to barter a day’s work picking for some apples to our hay guy who also owns an orchard and is finding it hard to keep up with the apples now that his kids are grown.  Plotted the projects needed in order to move out of the apartment for potential tenants and how to pay for them, began getting organized for that, talked to a neighbor about some firewood in trade for his cutting some of his next year’s supply from our property.  Cleaned out hay barn to make way for hay.  Got ready to spread manure on garden beds after stink-birds go away .

Built Community Food Systems: Nope

Ate the food: Lotsa lovely veggies, but nothing new. 

How about you? 

BTW, we’re still looking for an LGD puppy or LGD cross puppy, if someone in our part of the country knows a good breeder or has one.  We do both money and barter .

 Sharon

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