Lloyd Kahn, and his large format book Shelter, shows traditional building styles around the world. A good section on stacked stone foundation, post and beam(hand hewn), wattle and daub, and thatched roofs, etc.
Another book, dealing with local building styles, native materials and regions, is Drew and Louise Langsners book "Handmade, Vanishing Cultures of Europe and the Near East". Full of very good photos, rural, off the beaten path, traditional lifestyles.
Also, there are YouTube videos of people building with wattle and daub -- you'd have to do a search.
The type of foundation used for a wattle and daub house would depend on the era, and on the prosperity of the people building it. If in a hurry, or poor, they would have planted the posts in holes in the ground (often in archaeological excavations, they can determine where the houses were by finding the filled-in post holes, which look different than the dirt surrounding them). If they weren't in a hurry, and had either a ready source of stone or the wherewithal to purchase stone, they would have built a stone foundation, mostly because the posts will last MUCH longer if they aren't in contact with the ground. When they did put the posts in the ground, they most likely charred them first, in an attempt to make them last longer, and/or used the most rot-resistant wood available.
For your purposes, the post-in-the-ground will work fine, and if you use corrugated cardboard, you may just be able to stab the sticks you use for posts down into the cardboard. (Using two or three layers of cardboard would help stabilize the posts better.)
Your curriculum looks good. Any chance of being able to give them some hands-on experience with making cob? Maybe outside of school hours....
If it starts to go bad, toss it and start over. If the house was warmer indoors (like before we got AC in here), I'd keep it in the frig.
Grease that goes bad often has too much meat juice left in it (like butter going rancid because the milk wasn't all rinsed out of it). Grease on it's own, as long as it's reasonably cool, will keep well for quite a while.
I got two of those grease cans, by the way, intending to use one as a milking pail for my Nigerian Dwarf goats.
Hopefully eating meat will help with the health problems. I've had to go to eating almost nothing but meat, attempting to deal with auto-immune issues. (It's working, thankfully, though I miss being able to eat fruits and vegetables.)
There are a number of good concepts here, some proven, some worth trying. In our climate, the ice house isn't viable with natural ice (southern KY -- winters don't get very cold, nor stay cold long enough to collect ice blocks). We knew some people when we lived in Alaska who had built an ice house -- they didn't collect ice blocks, they just filled the floor of the ice house with water during cold weather and let it freeze, then covered it with a foot or two of sawdust. The walls of the ice house were a foot thick, and filled with sawdust, as was the roof. It worked extremely well.
What I have here, to be set up if we lose power long-term, is one solar panel (also meant to run a well pump), a camping or trucker style chest frig/freezer (looks like an ice chest but runs with a compressor), and a couple of ice chests. We lived with a freezer and the ice chests for several months after we moved here -- I brought a freezer with me, but didn't have a refrigerator. I found that ice chests need more insulation in them (the lids, in particular, don't seem to have any insulation in them at all), and if we were going to have to use that set-up permanently, I would prefer to build a better-insulated version. We also didn't have AC, so it was pretty hot in the house in the summer, which didn't help. Now that my brother and his wife also live here, we've been talking about building a combination root cellar/storm shelter that would serve both of our houses; the ice chests could be kept inside of that to make the ice last a little longer.
But one of the keys to living without refrigeration is reducing your need for refrigeration. Shop out of the garden. Don't make more food than your family can eat at each meal. Don't put things in the frig that don't need to be kept cold (like eggs). Turn milk into less perishable forms, like cheese, yogurt, kefir. Summer meat can be from smaller animals -- butcher a rabbit or a chicken, and you can eat it up right away. Butcher a pig or a beef, and you'll have to preserve the meat somehow unless you are feeding an army. So there are two aspects to the refrigeration problem. One is finding a way to keep things cool without the grid. The other is changing your lifestyle a bit, to make better use of what refrigeration you do have, or eliminate the need for it as much as possible.
I've milked goats for most of the last forty years, and tried many times to make home-made yogurt. I never liked my results until I started making it in an InstantPot. However, I do have a non-electric insulated pot (a Tiger pot, I think it's called -- it's the modern equivalent of a haybox cooker. You bring food up to temperature, put it in the pot, clamp the lid on, and it stays hot for hours like a thermos). I'm thinking about trying a batch of yogurt in that. Kefir is much easier to make, though, and easier to keep going long-term without buying new culture periodically.
I've had dairy goats most of the last forty years. I have a couple of Nigerian Dwarfs right now, that I'm not milking, but I'm also raising a couple of heifers. They were sale barn bottle calves, so I don't really know what I've got, other than that Dulcie is purebred Jersey, and Toffee is probably half Jersey and half Angus. Dulcie is about six months old; I'll have to think about getting her bred in another six months or so. Toffee is about five or six weeks old. We only have about two acres of pasture, so I'll have to make a decision on which one of them to keep (we are in south-central KY; two acres is about right for one cow-calf pair). I'd like to breed to a Dexter bull, whichever heifer I end up keeping, but don't know of any locally so that will have to be AI.
Adding to the benefits of home dairy, surplus milk, whey, failed cheeses, etc., can all be used to supplement the feed of your other animals, too. If you can give your egg-layers a little milk every day, they won't need so much expensive store-bought feed. And a milk supplement will allow them to lay well on free-range, and/or kitchen scraps, where otherwise the number of eggs would drop off. The calcium in the milk is good for the egg shells, too. (Layers can be ducks, as well as chickens.)
Milk is commonly used to supplement pigs, and can also be given to your farm dogs (start with small amounts to see how they tolerate it, but most breeds bred for farm work should be able to handle some milk in their diet). I've even heard of rabbits being supplemented with milk.
Surplus milk is also ideal for raising bottle calves or lambs or goat kids for adding to your meat supply. A good milk cow should be able to raise her own calf, plus one or two extras, and still supply milk for the household.
I was going to recommend David the Good, too -- he's in southern Alabama now, but grew up in southern Florida and has a lot of gardening experience there.
I wouldn't move too far north, if you do move. Florida does have some disadvantages, but that long growing season and the ability to raise tropical stuff is a big advantage. I'm in southern Kentucky, and wouldn't recommend being much farther north than that. Tennessee and farther south are probably best.
You do have a couple of contradictory requirements, that I'm not sure can be reconciled: it sounds like you need a large college or university for employment, but those are usually located in or near major urban areas, where it's going to be expensive to purchase property. Although...if you could work on-line, perhaps tutoring or teaching on-line classes, that would allow you to get out of town and maybe find less expensive property.
The requirement for gerthood to be able to walk or ride bikes everywhere is also difficult to reconcile with wanting less expensive or less regulated property. In order to be able to reach all of your necessities by walking or biking (or even with a horse and buggy, as the Amish do), you need to be in a somewhat built-up area, and that, by definition, is going raise property prices and increase regulation. So I think there are some trade-offs to make. You might be able to live in a less expensive area but only go 'out' to run errands once in a while, perhaps with a bike and trailer, or -- if you had enough land -- a horse and cart. If you can produce sufficient income without leaving home daily, good planning can reduce the number of trips away from home that are needed (especially if you are growing most of your food at home).
Jay Angler wrote:It's the housing version of "fast fashion" - entice people to spend money so the "economy" looks good, and it makes some people a lot of money, and a lot of people very poor, and the environment trashed - that granite had to be mined somewhere!
I met a few integral sink/draining rack bases in Europe decades ago and would have loved to have one, but the North American ones I found were all fancy do-dads rather than just a basic deep sink so I could actually wash my big roaster easily, with a nicely sloped spot to sit my draining rack.
Friends of ours that did renos on an old house on one of the islands bought quality old wooden furniture/sideboards/cabinets and built their kitchen out of them. Most of them were stand alone, so they could even rearrange them if they wanted. Way better quality and no off-gassing!
That's how I've done my kitchen, with mostly freestanding cabinets (I have a couple of 1940's Hoosier cabinets, a couple of cabinets that were meant to be freestanding islands -- one is, the other is against the wall -- and a big dresser with a bookcase hutch; I'm slowly adding a few regular cabinets for the sink and right around it). I did it initially because I could pick up cabinets, and the dresser, one at a time off Craigslist or FB marketplace, saving a huge amount over buying even unfinished kit cabinets. But I like the end result -- it functions quite well.
There are cob houses in England that have stood 500 years and are still being lived in, and they aren't in a dry environment, either -- at least some of them are on the wet and very windy west coast of the island. Given a good roof and foundation, most building materials will last for a long time. In other words, keep it dry! And maintain it properly. That said, if I had the funds to build a new house any way I wanted, it would be concrete. Concrete floor, walls, and roof. And there wouldn't be any access for mice, either inside the house, or inside the walls!
I've some experience with Shetland sheep, and agree with the comments on their temperament. For their small size, they are really good fence-jumpers! Their fleece is really light-weight, and you have to pay attention to your breeding or you'll end up with animals that have a lot of kemp (stiff hair) mixed in with the wool. Shetland crosses are generally undesirable, with a lot of kemp. Purebred Shetland fleece is really nice quality, though, and easy to work with.
Goats will eat grass if that's all there is to eat, but because they are highly vulnerable to internal parasites, it's not advisable to allow them to eat the grass down short like a lawn.
My first choice would probably be Katahdin sheep -- no fleece to deal with, and they are supposed to be very parasite resistant.
If you want to know how many animals you can keep per acre, you can usually find that information with a search on-line. Otherwise, the local agricultural Extension office ought to be able to answer that question. Several years of improving the soil may increase the number of animals you can keep; managed rotational grazing would be an important factor in improving the soil. Better to have less animals than your property can support, even if you still have to mow once in a while, than to over-graze and then have to buy feed.
Other than avocados and pecan what are some fat sources from native plants?
Where there is not enough water for avocados, mesquite pods are a traditional food source, I do not have the nutritional information but there's an organization in Tucsan called Desert Harvesters that would. Then too far north for Mesquite, I understand acorn was a major food source. Again I don't have the nutritional information but have heard of organizations promoting the preservation of acorn culinary, traditions. Black walnut is also an option in some regions.
Black walnut grows over most of the contiguous 48 states. But north of the black walnut range you'd still have beech and butternuts for a while. North of their range, you'll have to go to animal fats, which, to be honest, are healthier for most people anyway. Hazelnuts also have a fairly wide range, and regular walnuts will grow in a lot of states. They aren't quite as hardy as the black walnuts.
Well, if we are really going to resurrect this antique thread, I might as well throw in my two cents: My favorite layers are Whiting True Blues. Some guy named Whiting crossed Ameraucanas with White Leghorns to get these started; they now lay just about as well as a White Leghorn, but their eggs are the prettiest shade of robin's egg blue. They are a little flighty, and not particularly a meat bird, and they aren't likely to go broody, but they come in a variety of colors and are good foragers, and since they aren't much bigger than a Leghorn, they are very efficient on the feed bill. I've had them before, and am getting some more chicks in August (the earliest I could get any this year -- I placed my order last winter). I also have some Buff Orpingtons, and plan to keep two or three of those hens, the ones that are the broodiest. And I hatched some eggs out of the BO hens this year that were fathered by the nicest and prettiest big Heritage RIR rooster I've ever seen, and I plan to keep three or four of those cross-bred pullets and see how they turn out. But once the Whiting True Blue's start laying (probably next February), they will be our main laying flock. I can't afford to keep feeding a whole flock of huge hens that only lay moderately well.
I will add that a lot of people don't like Leghorns; I do. The ones I've had were more skittish as chicks, but as adults they were the first to come running and hang around my feet when I went out to do chores. If you are free-ranging your poultry, you want flighty, skittish birds -- they'll have a better survival rate. I tried free-ranging my Buff Orpingtons a few weeks ago, and in the ten days or so that they had the run of the back yard, I lost three of my five bantam hens and one of the big hens. There is such a thing as being TOO placid and docile -- they need to be able to spot danger and run from it.
I'm going to second the recommendation to go carnivore, at least for a few weeks to try it. It's been reported to help a lot of people with Crohn's; I know from personal experience that it helps with a lot of other things, and it makes sense that it would help with that, too. Yeah, if you have to permanently change your diet, it's going to change your permaculture plans, but is it worth sticking to your belief in eating only plants if the plants are making you sick? Personally, I like eating vegetables, and especially fruits, but if my body doesn't do well with them, I'm (mostly) giving them up.
We need a section where people talk about permaculture for carnivores, I think.
We have a decent growing season here (south-central KY), but we got our calves in early February, sale barn calves, and had to deal with a couple of bouts of pneumonia. The Jersey ended up wearing a foal coat for six weeks, and we had a heat lamp on them, to boot. So I want any future calves to come in warm weather!
I know someone who bred her Dexter bull to a Jersey and got a really nice little milk cow out of it (hers turned out brindle -- sort of tiger-striped -- which was really cool). But I am concerned about AI taking. If we can't get it to work, we have neighbors with Angus bulls, but I'd really like to have a Dexter/Jersey cross.
I have a 4 month old Jersey heifer; when it comes time to breed her in about a year, I will probably go AI, and want to use a Dexter bull of the same description as the ones you are looking at. (Sexed semen would be a plus, but not sure it's worth the extra cost.)
Some people do that, and I believe it was quite common back in the days when most people lived, for safety, inside the walls of their town, while farming land outside the town walls. It is not very convenient, though, and it takes real dedication to keep on top of things at the agricultural property, simply because in order to get there you have to make an effort. And you won't know what is going on there when you aren't there. So, for instance, if you have a garden outside your bedroom window, and something gets in there at night and starts to destroy your garden, your dog is likely to bark and alert you so you can do something about it. But if your property is three miles down the road, you won't know anything has happened until the next time you visit the property.
It can be done, but it takes dedication and commitment, more so than having your gardens and animals just outside your house.
We once knew a family who raised Newfoundlands - if I remember correctly, they had eight of the big dogs when we knew them, in all three colors (black, brown, and Landseer). The lady collected huge quantities of hair when they blew their coats in the spring, and used it to make hats, mittens, and scarves, which she sold. Quantity was about the same as the same number of good wool sheep would produce, so she had quite a lot of fiber to work with.
I like the suet feeder full of fiber for the birds -- next time my Great Pyrenees sheds, I may do that. Usually I just let the wind take it; I'm sure birds still get most of it, but we could watch them collect it with the suet feeder set-up.
I was made aware of small beer today (in a story set around 1820); the old-fashioned kind was very low in alcohol and often quite thick, almost like a porridge. That sounds like something the hobbits would make, and drink. (Not sure I would -- beer smells so bad to me that I've never even tasted it.)
For a snack, I could see a bit of sliced cold meat, some mustard or horseradish, cheese, fresh homemade bread dripping with butter, an apple (or a couple of plums, or whatever fruit was in season), and maybe some of that small beer, or maybe, in haying season, something like switchel.
Yes! That's exactly what I was looking for -- just needed the right search term!
I vaguely remember having one of those when I was in my mid-teens (would have been very early 1970's). I doubt I wore it more than once or twice; I suspect the only reason I had it was because it was what Mom and Grandma were still wearing. But I think the cups would eliminate the visible shelf that is a problem with most of the historical corsets, for someone who wanted to wear one with modern clothing. And it seems like the whole contraption would provide better support for someone who was very active and wanted to minimize jiggling.
And actually ON the topic of corsets, LOL! Has anyone seen a pattern for the combination bra/corset that ladies used to wear -- like my mother and grandmother's generation, probably? I just did a brief search and couldn't find anything.
It looks like you are making great progress, and finding workarounds for the problems which inevitably crop up!
On keeping food cold in the warm months, anyone who lives in the far North with a long winter cold season has the option of building an ice house. The walls need to be thick and extremely well insulated (sawdust was traditional, in a one-foot-thick wall). Building down into the ground two or three feet (or more) will help, too. During reliably cold weather, either harvest ice blocks and store them buried in a thick layer of sawdust in the ice house (you will want a couple of feet of sawdust on top of the ice before the weather warms up). Or, during a good cold snap, fill the ice house a couple of feet deep with water. Leave the door open until it freezes solid, then cover with the sawdust.
An ice house won't keep things frozen solid all summer, but it will (in short-summer climates) act as a refrigerator all summer. Burying packages of food in the sawdust next to the ice will help. The ice will gradually melt and run off into the ground, but by the time it's all gone, the weather should be getting cold again and you can start over.
In warmer climates, people used spring houses for the same purpose, usually with a trough for cold water to run through, where they could set containers of milk and other food in the water to keep it cold. There would be shelves on the walls for food that needed to be cool but not quite as cold, like eggs.
Just a comment on the Indian tanning with brains and then smoking -- it does work. Does a beautiful job, in fact (I've not done it myself, but we lived in a part of the Interior of Alaska for years where the local Athabaskan people still do this kind of work). However. It also smells, and the smell NEVER comes out. Just so you know. (That was how we identified locally tanned items vs. commercially tanned -- the sniff test.) It's not necessarily a bad smell, per se, and if you are used to it, it's not really objectionable, but it is smoky and it is noticeable. It's probably fine for rugs and boots; it's not so good for items that are going to be close to someone's face, unless they don't mind the smell.
This post was inspired by the thread on corsets, after several people said that wearing one helped their bad back problems.
I've suffered from back pain, sometimes disabling, my entire adult life (I'm now 66). A lot of it is cramped muscles, but I also get 'pops' and my back 'going out,' both of which are caused by what the doctor told me is mild arthritis in my back. The arthritis may be mild, but the pain sure as heck isn't. A few months ago, mostly out of desperation, I started on the carnivore diet. I've been on it off and on ever since. What I've noticed is that when I'm sticking to it, I do not get the back popping and going out kinds of pain, and the muscle cramping pain is reduced. When I go off of it, the popping and going out immediately returns. That's a rather strong inducement to staying ON the carnivore diet, LOL! It makes sense, because arthritis is caused by inflammation, and an all-meat (plus eggs) diet is the least inflammatory diet out there. That is, in fact, the reason I decided to try it in the first place. I was having so much muscle pain that I could hardly function -- and being non-functioning, when I have a handicapped daughter to care for in the house and chickens, goats, dogs and a cat outside, is simply not an option. I was dubious about just eating meat, but within a couple of days, the muscle pain was down to where I could live with it. And it wasn't long before I noticed that my back was hurting a lot less, too.
So, by all means wear a corset rather than a bra! But if you are having a lot of back pain, please consider changing your diet, too. I'm finding that I do pretty well on mostly meat with some non-starchy vegetables, so I don't necessarily have to be totally carnivore. Dairy is a problem (and here I am, with dairy goats and raising a Jersey heifer). Butter is okay, but I really have to limit the milk/cream/cheese consumption. And sugar and starchy foods are completely out.
I do live in Kentucky now, but spent 12 years in central NH, and before that lived in the Interior of Alaska. We always cut our wood in the winter, snow or not, and sometimes at thirty below zero! Especially when we were in Alaska, we simply didn't have time to cut it during the summer (seasonal jobs -- we were off work in the winter).
I just bought the rocket oven package (video and plans). We'll probably build one outdoors first, but I would like to also have one in the house, especially if it would help heat the house in the winter. I would not want one as my only cooking appliance in the house, but as long as electricity is available, that's not an issue. If things get to where we no longer have electricity for cooking, then we'll do our warm-weather cooking outside. (South-central Kentucky, with hot, humid summers.)
I also have the plans for the Walker, but am not sure about building one of those in this old wood-floored house because of the weight. I think we could make the rocket oven work, as long as it's safe for indoor use.
A few years back, Travis Johnson comments on some negatives, and one of the things he said was that cutting wood takes time that could be better spent gardening and etc. But cutting firewood ought to be a winter chore, done when the garden is put to bed. There are several homestead jobs that are best done in winter -- pruning the fruit trees is one (except for the size-limiting pruning, which should be done in mid-summer), and getting your firewood is another.
Rose Dallal wrote:I would definitely love to learn about sheep milk cheeses. I've seen cheese made with goat and sheep together!
Also interested in incorporating herbs and seeds, learning how and when to add them in.
Regarding whey, it can be used in making ferments. It's like a booster of good microbes for sauerkraut, pickles, etc.
I'm curious to know if all cheeses are fermented. I was surprised to find out that charcuterie meats actually go through a fermentation process.
Thank you, Kate
Not all cheeses are fermented -- there are a few that are made by just curdling fresh milk. They are, to my taste, rather bland, but make good bases for various seasonings. I tend not to make them, because my digestive system doesn't much like fresh milk. It does better with fermented milk products (yogurt, kefir, cheeses).
ETA: I think the non-fermented cheeses are mostly from hot climates where you are more likely to get wild yeasts spoiling things.
Diane Kistner wrote: I just made two large batches of yogurt in it starting with ultra-pasteurized milk from the food pantry, then stirring in some plain Greek yogurt (also from the pantry), and it worked great!
If you wanted to start a thread telling how to do that, I would be very grateful. I have an instant pot I've never used.
I just used directions I found on-line for making yogurt in my InstantPot. My pot has a yogurt setting; if you have one that doesn't have the setting, you can still do it, but will have to enter temperatures and times manually.
Kenneth Elwell wrote:I'm a strange cheese hater. I have a narrow selection of cheeses (mostly cow) that I will eat, and only do so in smallish quantities. I'm unlikely to make my own, without livestock, I'd have to walk past a wide selection of cheeses at the store to get the raw ingredients!!
However, nobody has mentioned butter. Would butter (cultured or not) fit in a book on cheese? as an alternative? or something to do if conditions were somehow not right for cheeses? (heat, humidity, wrong quantities, milk on sale...)
Also, regarding scaling recipes, a proportional approach perhaps? Something like the recipes totaling 100 grams/percentage, i.e.: 70 grams milk, 10 grams salt, 10 grams rennet, 5 grams vinegar, 5 grams herbs. Then you could easily do the math to use up your random quantity of milk completely. Yield of the recipe could be listed for just the 100 grams, or how many grams of the recipe would make a standard amount, i.e. 950 grams will yield 454 grams (one pound) of finished cheese. A primer on proportions would be useful to include, for the math(s) averse.
Regarding quantities, can milk or it's components be frozen (removing the whey for example), and later turned into cheese, once "enough" had accumulated? Would freezing be an option for a whole recipe or only a certain portion tolerated?
Kenneth's post reminded me of something: it is really helpful to put both types of measurements in (metric and imperial). Otherwise, I'd have to sit there with the laptop and a conversion site and convert every single measurement (I do NOT think in metric, and I'm sure people who grew up with metric don't think in imperial!). Honestly, if only metric measurements were given, I'd skip the book.
The only think I can think of is that whey, a byproduct of cheesemaking, has been used as fertilizer (but not, as far as I know, on anything but a backyard scale).
Another thought I had -- is there a way to use the InstantPot for at least part of the cheesemaking process? I use mine with great success for making yogurt (the only GOOD homemade yogurt I've ever managed).
And best ways to clean the muslin cheesecloths?
Something like an InstantPot with settings for different kinds of cheese would be a great idea.
I just came across a website -- https://thecheesewanker.com/cheese-science/plant-based-rennet/#Types_of_plant-based_rennet -- which talks about different vegetable rennets, and it turns out that my back yard is full of two of them, cleavers and ground ivy. I've been pulling armloads of both to feed to the chickens; guess I'll have to try making rennet from them soon!
This sounds like a great book, and I love the cover!
I've had dairy goats for most of the last forty years, but it was a long time before I tried making cheese with their milk, because one lady we met along the way (may have been buying a goat from her, I can't remember) gave us a bit of her cheese to try, and not only did I not care for the flavor, it squeaked against my teeth. Not coming from a family of cheese connoisseurs (I grew up on yellow cheddar -- good -- and Velveeta -- not good), I had no idea of the wonderful world of cheeses and all the possibilities out there. Eventually, I got one of the extant books on cheesemaking and tried a few, had some success, found some favorites, and did some experimenting (mostly successful, to my surprise!).
So, what would I like to see that hasn't already been mentioned? Maybe directions on making a home cheese 'cave' for aging cheeses, because it doesn't work to age them in the kitchen frig with the rest of your perishable food. (A mini-frig?) How to make your own equipment would be good (I've bought presses, twice, and gotten rid of them twice when I thought I wasn't going to be milking anymore ever. Now I have Nigerian Dwarfs, and a Jersey heifer). Maybe a better way to make gjetost? I like it as a once-in-a-while thing, but it takes forever to simmer the whey down to cheese. Uses a lot of electricity. I could see making it on a woodstove if you were running the stove anyway to heat the house. But -- maybe a crockpot?
Are you going to include milk soap, or will this just be cheese?
Edited to add that I did some experimenting with using kefir as my starter culture, and liked the results very much. I'd like to see recipes that use home-made kefir as the cheese starter culture.
John F Dean wrote:Very near Bowling Green is the small community of Horse Cave. AWP Butcher Block on Cherry Street in Horse Cave turns out a high quality inexpensive product. I bought a counter top , about 3” thick, from them a few years ago. It has held up well. If you are going to be in the area, this is a good way to save shipping costs. And, to stress a point, it was much more inexpensive than anything else I could find.
That is useful and timely information, because sometime in the next few weeks I'm going to be needing some countertop, and butcher block, or at least wood, is my first choice. Though I don't know that I want it 3" thick -- I would need to shorten my cabinets a bit if I got that. I'm short to start with (5'3") and have already been considering if I could cut cabinets down a little bit to make my work spaces easier to use. (I plan to shorten the legs on my work island for this reason.)
LOL! You never know! After I bought this place, but before we'd moved here from Oregon, I mentioned where we were moving to here on Permies.com, and someone messaged me and said she lived not much more than a stone's throw from my new property! She'd almost bought it a few years earlier, in fact. She actually lives about a mile from us, came to visit as soon as we got here, and is now a good friend. We are both in Green County; are you close?
I’m in Hart County. Howdy neighbor!
Right next door! How cool! We should try to get together some time. I think there are others on Permies.com who are in this general area, too -- maybe a picnic sometime this summer.
Angela Wilcox wrote:Oh, cool Kathleen! Well, Thank you for sharing the festival information with the Permies community. Bowling Green is about an hour away from me too. Hummm...are we neighbors?
LOL! You never know! After I bought this place, but before we'd moved here from Oregon, I mentioned where we were moving to here on Permies.com, and someone messaged me and said she lived not much more than a stone's throw from my new property! She'd almost bought it a few years earlier, in fact. She actually lives about a mile from us, came to visit as soon as we got here, and is now a good friend. We are both in Green County; are you close?
