2 coat hooks from small branch crotch round wood bb!
This is from the neighbors magnolia that blew over in last weeks storms.
Used a buck saw to remove my pieces a froe and wooden mallet to smooth out the backend a small carving knife for shaping the edges and removing the bark.
Clay Bunch wrote:Do you know if cold processing pickles is reasonable at home? I really want some sweet and spicy pickles like my grandma makes with the crisp couch on commercial Klaussen dills!
No clue. Yesterday was the first time ever that I'd made pickles (been meaning to learn for a long time).
I was recently gifted a 2 gallon fermentation crock! Can't wait to get my kimchi on.
Do you know if cold processing pickles is reasonable at home? I really want some sweet and spicy pickles like my grandma makes with the crisp couch on commercial Klaussen dills!
Now just to go to the pandemic destroyed grocery and find all the materials to make some gluten free crust truly from scratch so I can get that bb!
Maybe I'll have pizza again tomorrow!
I did make the dough from a mix not from scratch but it wasn't a frozen base.
We have gluten free peeps and I didn't have everything to make some crazy rice flour mixture but I did have bobs red mill gluten free crust mix.
I made the crusts and let my kids and family dress their pies!
Mine had sausage pepperoni olives green pepper mushrooms ham bacon and cheese lots and lots of cheese!
Mike Haasl wrote:Yay, two badges in one day - Go team!
Clay, they ARE closer than you think. Just start knocking them out and you'll be there before you know it. I hadn't planned on doing Food Prep and Preservation at all since many of the things aren't ones I do. But thanks to the 20 days of PEP I started doing a couple. And now I realize I'm a rocket stove build away from being able to complete that badge.
I got .5 oddball points today for moving my brothers carport!
Ashley Cottonwood wrote:I was fighting so hard to get the : Plant 200 Seeds for Humming Birds BB so I could get my animal care straw badge. Turns out I already had 5 because I forgot I had done the Sprout Grains for Chickens! Looking forward to my badge
Congrats! Badges all seem so far away for me but I'm really enjoying some of the projects the pep has inspired.
Also I've still got to make a list of all the bbs it seems like I've done half of them just out of living normal life and haven't documented it only finding out later it was bb worthy!
Mike Haasl wrote:I made rice today in a third way (solar oven). Next is a haybox cooker but the issue is that you have to heat it with a rocket stove. I don't have a rocket stove. But I have some fire bricks laying around.....
Where there are fire bricks there can be rocket things!!!
Did you make that solar over?
Also I don't think I've ever used an oven to make rice. Always boil steam or fry it. I guess this could be a steaming method?
That looks great! I like the moss and twigs rather than just rocks in the insect waterer. I feel that choice may lead to attracting more diversity. Also its visually appealing. The down fall being that you may need to replace it more often than just rocks.
I'd be interested in seeing which species are more attracted to which textures/colors/shapes/smells
I'm just leaving work heading to go pick up some chickens. Wish me luck I've been a quail guy up until this point. If it doesn't go well I might have to make some chicken soup.
I did make an ugly bird house out of scrap pallet.
I did not use rot resistant wood so I guess I'll be making another one .
Still happy about making habitat and reusing nails from the pallet.
Thats incredible! Sometimes I can really limit my creativity based on preconceived notions.
I hope you have better luck this year!
Maybe with the heat source you use for the greenhouse you could have some copper tubing and a water barrel to create a thermosyphon pushing warm water around the roots of one of them and allowing the radiant heat and steam to warm the rest of the plant and the air.
Mike Haasl wrote:I've had really good luck getting bananas from Florida Hill nursery. They ship well and take right off. And they're cheap. Last year I got a pair that were finger sized in diameter and 10" tall. Planted them in early July and by early September they were 8' tall with a trunk the size of my leg.
I think of them like giant hummingbirds. They looooove nirtogen. I urigated each one daily and planted them in a mix of half soil and half chicken run compost that was too hot for normal use. They loved it.
Mike you have 8 ft banana trees in Northern Wisconsin?
Are they edible varieties? Other than urigation and hot compost what else do you do for them to keep them alive in your climate?
Dan thats awesome. Are you using half a minnow trap? For the inground digester? This looks like a great idea. Its like having a door for feeding your soil.
craig howard wrote: I wonder what will happen to the educational system.
Will people figure out how to learn on their own?
I don't really mean on their own but figure out how to do their own research and think for themselves.
My wife has been a Montessori teacher and a government school teacher and finally she has become a homeschooling teacher for our children.
She tutors kids here and there to help with money that she used to bring in with a 9-5
For the past month she's had tons and tons of parents calling and begging that she tutor their kids.
The parents don't know what to do they need resources for this time but if people come up with attractive solutions then I believe some will stay homeschooled after this is over.
On the other hand I've spoken to a few friends in college and they say that if they had known that online classes were so great they would have saved a lot of money not going to conventional school and paying from dorms and apartments.
I bet this causes a big change in how colleges and universities operate.
Also if tannins reacting to alkalinity is the basis for that reaction then perhaps
1 you could use high tannin stains like tea or black walnut shell better by using them on Douglas fir bur oak or maple (woods that typically grow better in alkaline soil.
2 you could use parts of alkaline soil loving flowers like clematis and lavender and actually get a stronger reaction by the addition of baking soda into the solution
3 you could add alkaline loving plants to astringent tannin rich plants and see a stronger color in your stain.
Maybe persimmons or witchhazel or yarrow
Thank you Jan that makes sense! Now with that reaction being known I would guess that adding baking soda to a stain made with tea or wine which both contain tannins would result in a darker stain and allow for fewer applications.
I know walnuts and almonds have a fair amount of tannins. Perhaps the wood from these trees would react similarly.
Ruth I lived in Ashland KY and I used to go to the wild ramp market in Huntington wv. I tried and tried to cultivate them in the woods behind my house in Ashland. I had limited success but I found that planting seed under leaf litter near the base of large trees worked best.
I am in Lexington now and most people don't know what I am talking about when I ask for ramps.
Hopefully I'll visit home soon. Polk Co Tennessee We have an annual "ramp tramp" there and people sell them for transplants.
The weird guy that makes strange machines and eats rabbits and quail and gardens a lot is now the smart cool guy thats ingenious and has food to share.
Thanks we do have black walnuts on the family farm.
Jan I was thinking more from the farm than baking soda but its incredible that it reacts that way with oak and not other woods. Definitely worth a try as a frugal option. I have some oak I've been wanting to put to use any way.
Now I want to find out what reaction causes the color change there!
Mike I am not familiar with hopi sunflower dye but I'm sure I could get some seed from baker creek or Johnny's or maybe high mowing. It sounds like a really interesting sustainable option!
I had been considering buying raven Ransons book on flax textiles already so linseed oil would be another reason to so some flax thise season.
I have been collecting all my urine (while at home) for about 3 months thanks to Paul's podcast.
Thanks to this bb I've learned that my asparagus would appreciate an application or two but that my garlic would not...perhaps I should reconsider how closely I plant them considering their needs.
I have decided to nitrohydrate the 2nd year asparagus in a raised bed near the neighbor's property line. Being that it was close to her view I decided to go with the non direct stream approach.
Also I dont know if comfrey is a "pee loving plant" but for the past 3 weeks I have been providing urine undiluted to one comfrey plant and water of the same amount to another about 5 feet away both facing southwest in the same bed. Both planted from the same crown cutting on the same day last year.
The pee plant has shown exuberant growth.
I do not have a control plant for this little experiment and it is an extremely small test group.
Also my son decided to plant beans all around the plant that is not doing as well(no urine)
So there are quite a few factors that could have caused this issue however I believe that comfrey is a pee lover!
I just got a used coop and two propane tanks for free. Perhaps I need to look at the animal care abs.
I got distracted with a second spoon carving and then I started wiring up a 200w 12v solar set up with a 30 amp controller before realizing it was a badge in itself... now I've got to take it apart to get all my pictures ha! I really need to look through all the badges.
Mike Haasl wrote:I love that rice just grows on the lakes around here. My buddy and I collected something like 100 lbs of rice last fall. Processing it from raw rice to finished rice is another matter...
Wait what? That rice is feral?! Now that's cool I thought you meant it was wild rice style ha do you have a thread on processing raw rice?
I made the seven minute mallet in just under 20 minutes today ha
Then I started a second spoon and cooked a stir fry but I forgot to take pictures of the before.
Mike I was too lazy to make rice so that looks really good to go with this bowl of veggies right now
