r ranson

I just tape it up with electrical tape then support the top with some sticks in the ground.  It's a lot like grafting.  It has about 75% success rate if the snap happened in the winer.  

Still too much winter on the ground?  There's a lot we can do to get ready for growing textiles.

I started my flaxseed germination tests.  I'm working with unfamiliar seed so I want to know how well it grows so I can guess how thickly to plant it.  



I've also started my cotton seeds.  

I've got a bit of cleaning up to do, but I hope to start some more dye plant seeds this week.  I'm curious if the madder seeds I gathered last year will germinate.  

Awesome post.

I totally agree the rectangles don't fit my hands at all.

I love the size of playing card tablets for weaving.  When square, they fit my hands so much better than the giant ones we can buy (for a lot of money - something like 50 cents a card!!!).   They do have a smaller shed, but it's okay for most yarns.

If I could sew and measure and fit myself, this would be super-easy.  It's just small repetitive tasks.  This has fewer pieces and steps than that button-up shirt I made last summer.  

I got the bust and the underbust feeling just right.  

The problem is, all that stuff I took off the hips when I did my mockup - yeh, that.  I got to put it back.  The good thing is that I learned how stretchy that fabric was and that I shall never do a corset mockup in that kind of fabric again.  But knowing I learned something doesn't make me feel like less of a failure.  

I just don't know where to put it.  I could fit some gussets in some of the seams, or I could re-cut that front panel where I took out most of the fabric.  

What I'm going to do is to put it to one side for a few days/weeks/month and let my brain think about it some more.  

It's a tricky one, you know.  Each person will have to do what's right for their farm and their chooks.

For me, I don't buy hatchery chicks or chickens very often.  Most years, we hatch our own eggs.  For our home hatched hens I figure that I'm very careful about not introducing new birds to the flock and if someone gets sick or dies, I make sure I know why.  Even if that means sending the bird to the lab for tests.  I monitor the health of the flock daily.

My theory is that in a commercial hatchery there are a lot of chickens.  Often living inside.  I don't know the ventilation conditions or the hygiene requirements they have for their humans.  It seems to me, if someone is careless, that's the place the chicken is going to pick something up.  So when buying from a commercial outfit, I go with the vaccine option.  When home hatched, I don't.  

We have had illnesses go through the flock and one year we lost half our hens.  But this was a monoculture breed that we got as day olds from the big hatchery.  We culled the rest of the flock that winter and got a mixed heritage large brown egg layer from Murry Mac Murry (or whatever their name is, I haven't seen it written down).  Lots of genetic varation.  Very illness reistant.  We might bring in a new cock every 5 years or so, but the result of the decendants is a vibrant barnyard mix that has had very low casualty rates.  

How do I save video off youtube?

Off someone else's youtube that gave me permission?

I should have gone with mac and cheese.
Now I need to do laundry.
tomato soup and me not good mix

you would imagine by my age I could make tomato soup without it exploding.

You would be wrong.

sigh  Now I remember why I don't cook this.  

citrus peels don't compost?

shhh... don't tell my compost bin that.  I don't want it getting any ideas.

I found some tomato soup in the back of the cupboard.  "best before" is just a suggestion, right?