Abraham Palma wrote:Here is my challenge.
I can toy with a garden with 800 sq meters in a Mediterranean climate (not a single drop from June to September, no freeze either). This garden has no water at all. There might be some runoff water, but I am not allowed to divert it, neither allowed to dig a well. Only rainwater. We run a NGO with no money at all, only hand work. The city hall allowed our asociation to manage the site, but they don't help much.
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John F Dean wrote:My family has had nothing to do with me for many years. They have decided I am a woods hippie. ....not that they have ever seen the home I live in.
Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:
Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:
Hi Cecile. Most sheep here are raised for meat. And the strange thing is: meat of the Dutch sheep is exported. Most Dutch people never eat lamb or 'mutton'. And most of the leg-of-lamb sold here is imported from New Zealand!
The wool from the meat-sheep here too often ends as trash (not even compost). While using it for insulation should be much better. Strangely enough it's easier to find hemp insulation products than wool insulation ...
As for your points on wool:
1. Yes, many people consider wool itchy. Maybe it is if you're not used to wearing wool. It doesn't feel the same as cotton, or as synthetics. Myself I don't like the feel of synthetic fibers.
2. That would be the same for every fiber. Clothes are cheap because they are produced in 'low-wage' countries and often that isn't the case for wool clothes.
3. Hemp is a very good fiber to grow, as well as flax (linen). Cotton in fact costs a lot more, but those are 'hidden costs', not calculated in the prices of the clothes. And all of those have different properties from wool. It's like comparing apples and pears ...
4. Yes. Cleaning wool is not as easy. But wool doesn't need to be cleaned that often. It doesn't take body odors.
Jay Angler wrote:
Yes, it was seeing one of those that got me moving on starting this thread - good coverage as I'm prone to splattering "above the waist", but quick to put on and doesn't pull on the neck. I'll need to look through my fabric stash. A cotton sheet seems a bit thin compared to what I'd like.May Lotito wrote: Next one I am going to try the Japanese type with cross over back. Faster and easier to put on.
leila hamaya wrote:
Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:
Also, I make Kirsch from the wild cherries we have around here. I don't know what they are: they are not the tart cherry but sweet cherries can't survive our winters in zone 4, so it is not a sweet cherry either. It is sweet enough to eat out of hand but does have a large stone relative to the flesh. The whole fruit is the size of an overgrown snap peas.
It seems to be a "prunus serotina": The timeline for flowering and fruiting seem to mesh. The immature bark looks like that too. However, in the liquor I make, I ground the flesh and the pits and the seeds inside them, and everything goes in the Vodka to make an extract. The Wiki says that the seeds are poisonous, just like the pits of apricots & peaches, but I assure you that liquor is pretty darn good and has not even given me the slightest tommy ache. Perhaps it is the Vodka in which it macerates for 3 weeks that kills the poisonous effect? I'm not sure.
Another thing that does not quite mesh with the Wiki: These trees are quick to fruit, like 3-4 years, abundantly from the get go [some trees look red/black from the house] and the mature bark doesn't look as furrowed as the photo they have here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_serotina
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there are several different subspecies of prunus serotina, it is a very ancient tree and theres also many localized adaptations....theres also several types of wild cherries not in the serotina species, such as bird cherry, prunus avium or prunus padus