Any "No Fridge!" Folks Near New York?

My old, old post here, on "No Refrigerator- for 30 Years" - (38, now...) continues to be one that gets very high attention, every day.

Today it's the BBC that's interested; and looking for a little help from you:

Chloe Hadjimatheou has left a new comment on your post "No Refrigerator- for 30 years...":

Hi there,
I am a BBC journalist working on a radio documentary about how fridges change people's lives around the world. We are in New York this week and looking to meet someone who has chosen to live without a fridge. Can you help? Please contact me either via FB (chloehadj@hotmail.com) or else via email chloe.hadjimatheou@bbc.co.uk or phone +447974105829.
Many thanks!!
Chloe

It would be a good thing for the BBC to get a little of the other side of the story!  If you are, or know someone who might be- able to meet up with Chloe and team- please do.

And share this on your other communications outlets; we should be able to find someone somewhere.

Chloe- 2 things to keep in mind on this subject; which the refrigerator manufacturers won't point out:

100 years ago- no one had one.  If it weren't possible to do without- your grandparents wouldn't have had any children, and no one alive today would - be alive today.  Sure, there may have been a few more cases of food poisoning- but those cases were mostly due to poverty and ignorance; just as they are still.  And;

100 years ago- the global obesity epidemic was not yet happening.  If you check - you will find that obesity tends to follow the advent of refrigerators...

Seriously.  You could do hard statistics on that point, with info on the internet.  I don't think it's been done.  Yet.

And, Chloe- if you don't wind up with anyone in the New York area who works out; you're more than welcome to just pop over to Minnesota.  :-)

Iceland Launches New "Piece Corps"

Iceland today has announced that they are sending aid to both the European Union and the USA, in the form of a new "Piece Corps".

Finding themselves with hundreds of unemployed well educated and reasonably well behaved youth, it dawned on them that Iceland is uniquely well placed to be providing desperately needed help and advice to other countries suffering from financial collapse.

Icelandic couch-potato youngsters have by now watched countless hours of financial pundits explaining what happened to them, and having nothing better to do, and wanting to "getoffadisrock" as they say in Icelandic; they have proven eager to volunteer for this new humanitarian adventure.

"Look", Ingrid Ingridsdottir explained, "We've, like, survived it. And when we read the financial news coming out of the ashes of the European Union, and from behind the barricades at the US Federal Reserve - any one of us obviously has a much clearer idea of what's actually going on than any of those dimdims. We just hate to see them suffer."

Starting in mid-April, flotillas of geo-thermal powered kayaks will begin carrying hundreds of eager, blond, idealistic semi-virgin volunteers to the financial centers of the Big 8. The first group is expected to reach New York by April 22, and a second wave is being launched to arrive in Washington DC just a few days later. London and Belfast are on the list, but dates are uncertain.

The volunteers heading for Washington include a second kind of Piece Corps volunteer; engineering students. "As everyone knows, Iceland is the center of the world for real geo-thermal power development." said Ingridsdatsun Ingridsdottirdottirson. "We've been monitoring the thermal signatures of the entire Earth for some years now. The satellite data is absolutely clear; somewhere in the vicinity of Washington DC there is a new volcano erupting. The signature is much hotter than Kilauea in Hawai'i. True, all we can see so far is the immense atmospheric upwellings from the heated air; but that much hot air has to mean a real geothermal source someplace. With our Icelandic expertise, we're sure we can find the source, and tap it. Judging from the satellite data, there's enough energy there to power the entire USA for the entire foreseeable future- no nukes needed."

The entire world wishes these modern saints good luck.

And- I don't know how I missed this when it first came out; but it's an appropriate follow-up to everything else.

Jack London would have loved it-

We're working through a real blizzard here. I'm getting a few pics, but it's tricky; it's very dang cold, and taking a camera out, from the warm house, into the cold (+2°F, currently, with a 30 mph wind, no kidding) - can mean condensation inside the camera, and its lenses, that can take forever to clean up. So, you have to keep the camera inside your coat. Then take gloves off, take the pic quick, get it back inside before it gets to cold, and don't sweat inside the coat in the meantime...

Which is just too hard. So far I've been out twice today; once to feed and water poultry, once to get water from the windmill; both times I've wound up over-dressed and sweating like crazy before I got back into the house.

Not a problem if you've got a house, and a fire, to dry off in- but sweating like that in weather this cold is death, if you can't dry off. Literally. Hypothermia real quick.

Standing, all comfy, in the -40°F wind chill, while I waited for my water jugs to fill, it was making me think about this, and about "margins" for survival. And about what you have to know, to actually survive, outside of "civilization".

You have to know plenty. And extreme weather, like this blizzard, will quickly eliminate non-survivors.

A couple weeks ago during Thanksgiving at Middle Child's, I found myself reading an "Outdoor!" type magazine; lots of extreme rockclimbers, waterfall kayakers, that kind of thing. One of them had tried "growing his own food" the year previously, and come to the adamant opinion, after one season, that it was essentially impossible. Can't be done.

What was obvious to me, was that he'd dived into gardening quite certain that his well established coolness would certainly include knowing how to grow simpleminded stuff, like, tomatoes, for crying out loud. But it didn't. His garden was a total flop.

And his conclusion was not "hm, I guess I'm not as smart as I thought"; but - "nobody can possibly grow food in a garden, since I can't."

Jack London knew this guy very well; and wrote a perfect portrait of him in To Build A Fire.

If you've never read it; now is the time. If you have; re-reading is well worth it.

Be careful who you follow. Self confidence sells well. But may not save your neck.

sledding

For the winter deprived; Smidgen and snow.

Yes, sledding means you gotta pull your sled up the hill.

That Aermotor in the background is indeed our house water source.

We do have other kinds of sleds, including a classic Flexible Flyer; but this was the choice today. "The snow is pretty fluffy still, the flatbottom sleds will be faster..." "Hu'uh. This one!" Boy, nobody listens.

:-)

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ok, so the second photo is "clickable", and gets to the full size pic, where you can actually see her face. The first photo- won't. I uploaded them at the same time; exact same procedures. Anybody able to clue me in on why one works and the other doesn't?

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etbnc- how do you see those anchor tags? I use Safari- and at this point, can't see any differences.

I DID, though; take your hint; and look at the hypertext language in Edit mode; and was able to copy the stuff from the working one, subbing the numbers from the first; and - it works! Many thanks! Right here:

Ah, winter.

Sorry to be so quiet- this is a crazy busy time of year for us; one of our crops is chestnuts, and guess when you sell them?

The sales window for traditional markets is small, and it can't be done "later"; only "now". Just for extra fun, of course, two of our vehicles, the farm truck and the family car, have decided that now is the time for them to die; or almost die. So lots of extra monkey business there.

And, last night winter finally, really, closed down on us; 8 inches of snow, overnight. On icy hard-frozen ground. The John Deere 4WD was slipping sideways quite a bit as I plowed out.

Supposed to be a time of rest for farmers. Ho ho ho.

Murphy, and his laws, keeps hanging around, too, lest we become complacent. One of the things you have to do to market your chestnuts is, wash them. That takes water. We're off the grid, so, having reliable supplies is something that takes a bit of forethought.

We just thought fore to the extent of installing a new 2,500 gallon cistern. Polystyrene, alas, but concrete pre-fab was way more expensive, and any custom concrete possibilities even more so. If I had my druthers, I'da dug the hole and laid up fieldstone for a cistern myself; but I don't have the luxury of doing work that slowly, at the moment.

The well pump is a plain Shurflo 9300, a pretty reliable, though slow machine with a good track record. We actually own 3, via the weirdnesses of off-grid living, 2 currently dead but rebuildable as backups.

And, we just purchased a new solar panel, to directly drive the pump; no batteries to be connected; sun shines, pump pumps, into the huge cistern. Theoretically.

You DO need a "pump controller", a little solid state thingy, to prevent the odd chance that your panels may suddenly put out more electricity than your pump can handle, which will burn out your pump. That's a real concern for us, since exactly that can happen on very cold sunny days. Unbeknownst to many, solar panels will put out 1% more current for every 3° C colder it gets. Since panels are "rated" at hot normal temperatures like you'd expect them to be in Florida in full sun in the summer- on a cold day in February in Minnesota; when the air temperature is 25° below 0 F, and the wind is blowing at 30 mph, so the panel is really that cold; and the sun is shining full blast- on a snow field that's bouncing even more light onto the panel- you can suddenly find yourself with WAY more power coming out of the panel than it's rated at.

I found that out by boiling my batteries, the first year I had solar panels. Sure, the information was available - deeeeeeeply buried where nobody ever sees it. Gosh, why is there acid bubbling out of the top of my batteries?

And our spiffy Shurflo pump controller; just purchased with the new panel- has lots of cool facts about it available on the web; except all the technical specifications (or at least, I couldn't find them).

So reading them, now that I've got it in my hands... yeah, yeah, x volts in, y amps in, etc, etc... oh, look "Operating Temperatures: +14°F to + 135°F."

Excuse me?

Unwritten subtext: "We designed your spiffy gizmo to work in Florida; don't try using it anywhere you have actual winters."

They left that part out of the sales brochures.

Sigh.

Ok, my point.

There's a LOT of our world that now works this way; machines, devices, and processes- are designed to work beautifully, within specific parameters.

But, they don't tell you up front what those parameters are. And finding a person, a live one, who truly knows what they are, and how much they can, or can't, be stretched- is often incredibly difficult.

My water system is currently going "pocketa pocketa queep".

And my major response is; I get to wait until Monday, when at 9 AM Pacific time, somebody may, possibly, get my phone message. And may, possibly, pass it on to someone who knows something.

Perhaps.

So, I'm going sledding, with Smidgen. Spice is off to check the electric fence for the horses; on snowshoes.

Baked squash tonight; the woodstove is cranking out the heat.

Complex systems may have lots of collapsible pathways; but fire is hot, and squash is good food.

I have issues.

Smidgen, who is in kindergarten now,  came home a day ago and announced that "Troy still has talking issues."

Which cracked me up.  I love the way our language changes.  "To have issues" is not that old a phrase; goes back only to the 80's, I think, and was unknown before then.  Now it's become this powerful and universal explanatory.  I love imagining exactly how it bounces around in the kindergarten room.

I have issues, at the moment.  We've had this momentary karma crash, apparently.

While my health is currently not an issue, everything else is.  Our poultry, both guineas and chickens, are disappearing, at a really alarming rate.  Something is eating them (the piles of feathers attest) but we can't figure what.  Have to figure it out.

Our tree crops are dropping like crazy; and we can't pick them up fast enough.  And- we got clobbered by the flooding rains a couple days ago; with more on the way.  We only got 4 inches out of it, not the 10 some neighbors did.  But when you're picking stuff up off the ground, and the ground is mud- it's not good.

The storm was what our grandparents would all have called "the equinoctial storm".  Smack on the equinox, this time.  They all new/believed that you can expect a major rainstorm event every year, close to the equinox.  Lots of mysticism about why; but for our location, my 30+ years of watching tends to affirm their opinion.  The balance of sunlight has shifted from light to dark; the weather shifts too.

Besides pounding crops into mud, we got hit by a karmic lightning bolt.  Well, the surge, anyway.

For decades, it's been my rigid practice to unplug everything during lightning storms.  After frying 8 (no exaggeration) answering machines, it seemed the best practice.  But.  This time, the DSL connection was left on; and my computer was connected.

We heard a very loud POP from the direction of the DSL, and every circuit breaker in the house tripped. The thunder roll came a couple seconds later; this wasn't a hit on the house.

Took a while to figure out what and where.  After resetting all the breakers; the DSL modem; and my computer, were stone dead.  The surge evidently got into the DSL line, evaded all their protections, then via ethernet wire into my computer, then into the power lines, and "poof".  Lighting does anything it wants to, is the actual physical law.

I was really pretty dismayed to discover how dependent I've become on the computer and the web.  It's a chunk of my life; and when it's not available, things get out of kilter.  How the hell am I supposed to plan what to do when I can't look at the radar loop?  Or when that urgent email conversation is disrupted?

I used to, of course.  Changing back is strangely difficult, though.

Meanwhile.  More rain on way.  Gotta get crops in.

Proof !!

SciFi writer Larry Niven, in his younger days, proliferated "Finagle's Law", which is basically Murphy's Law (Anything that can go wrong, will.) re-written for geeks.

My recollection is "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum."

I can now add a corollary (that is, in addition to the one I've already added; Greenpa's Law: "Everything can go wrong. Just wait.")

Right now I'm spending a lot of time mowing grass. This is in preparation for our harvest- it's really hard to pick stuff off of bushes when the quackgrass and thistles are taller than the bushes; and it's also great cover for rodents down there. You gotta get rid of the grass. So I mow.

The guineas, you understand, are part of our long-term plan for the grass. A) they eat some. and B) they are phenomenal "watch" animals. If we wind up with sheep, or calves- the guineas should be all over, and will alert the dogs to any intruders. Theoretically.

Anyway. Partly I mow up on the John Deere, using a following flail. And, I mow using the Grillo walking tractor, with the Ferrari sickle bar; 7.5 hp Yanmar diesel, and the best sickle bar ever made. I'm in love. But you still gotta walk; for miles, holding on to a jerking, vibrating noisemaker.

So, it's, like- THIRSTY work. For reasons probably connected with Finagles Law, my JD 70 hp 4WD utility tractor (open, no cab) has NOWHERE to put or hang a water container. Apart from improvised places, which always result in tearing off a signal light on a tree branch, or the metal water container being dropped into the mower. So- no water. Likewise, the Grillo is a water-free zone; you just don't want to be carrying a canteen; it'll beat you to death, and a "camel" pack is a hilarious idea- you'll sweat out twice the water you can carry because it cuts off air circulation on your back, completely.

THIRRRRSTY.

Having done this a time or two, of course you can plan for work loops that end up somewhere where you can get water. Obviously.

One of them is our 80 year old Aermotor windmill, which pumps all the water for the Little House. When the wind is blowing, of course. But I do usually try to avoid mowing on windless days (which we have plenty of in summer) - because I'll sweat and die.

So- today the wind is blowing, VERY steady; 12 mph from the NNW. A good clear direction; pumps water great.

I get off the tractor, cool it down, turn it off; pull out my earplugs; and walk to the windmill, which is pumping just as steady as can be.

I bend down, pick up the hose from it- and...

The wind dies.

This is ABSOLUTELY reliable. I've been keeping track; for 25 years (we didn't have the windmill for the first 5).

No kidding. In 25 years, here are the data.

No. of times I've taken a drink directly from the pumping mill (or tried to): 264.

No. of times the wind has died when I picked up the hose: 248.

No. of times the wind quit completely, and I gave up: 197.

Fool that I am; today the wind was so steady, I thought I could sneak in a drink.

Nope. Gave up.

Here is the new corollary to Finagle's Law:

The Aermotor Corollary:

If you really need a drink from your windmill, the wind WILL die immediately, and water pumping will cease for as long as you wait for it to restart.

Those are hard data folks.

Somebody IS out to get us.

First Fruits!

(click for larger)

I gotta tell ya, it's really really exciting, when you find your first eggs.  These eggs are even more exciting- all but one of these are guinea eggs!

Guinea eggs are pullet sized (those are Spice's hands); they run about 3 guinea to 2 hen eggs, size-wise.  They're a bit pointed, usually; and likely to have faint spots on the pointed end.

We haven't actually eaten any yet- it's too exciting just to look at them!  :-)

But we will; and we'll let you know how they cook and all.  

The info available says a guinea hen can lay 100 eggs a year.  We've got 7 or 8 hens (we think- they're tricky to sex, and even trickier to keep track of).  So- if we could keep them collected- that's a mess of eggs.

And- no kidding- they feed themselves to a great extent.  A month ago, with snow cover still in place, we were feeding our whole batch of birds about 1 and a half scoops of feed a day.  Now that the birds are out, finding seeds, grass, and early bugs- we're down to half a scoop a day.

The guineas, alas, tend to lay all over the farm- not in the coop.  Finding the nests can be really time consuming.  But- these eggs were all laid in the coop.  Hm.  Maybe we could breed a strain that lays eggs at home? 

It's been done, many times, folks- but not with guineas yet.  We'll have to see what we can do.

Oh, yeah- and the ticks.  Our tick season has started- and so far, they seem to be down.  But it's early.  Instead of 20 ticks per dog per day- we're down to 1; and ticks on us- once in 3 days or so.  Instead of 5 a day.  Is it the guineas?  Of course we have no control- so- can't say.  

But we've got less ticks- and eggs.  

So; that's my little bit of cheer for an otherwise rather gloomy Earth Day.  All that lousy news is getting to be a bummer.

If you're looking for a little cheer; dig out a copy of The Land Remembers, and read the chapters on eggs, and Easter.

The Parable of The Shed: Why 30 years is not forever.

One useful aspect to all of us forcibly attending Camp TEOTWAWKI now, is that many people truly are starting to be more mindful of their choices.   Think before you invest.  Look before you leap off your burning bridges.  That sort of thing.

Guidance in making long term decisions though, is hard to come by, and harder to judge.  Does this expert advisor actually have a clue, or ...  have I wound up with Alfred E. Neuman,  yet again?

Not long after Spouse and I built the Little House, and actually started living here, it became quite clear that we needed more space.  15' x 20'; including a wood stove, piano, and kitchen sink, and dining room table, just does not leave a lot of room for projects, like building a set of shelves.  No place left to walk, while that is under way.

Virtually all farm type operations include outbuildings; a barn, a shed- a workshop.  So it wasn't too difficult to decide that we did, indeed, need a multipurpose shed, not too far from the house.  We figured it should serve as a: work shop, bad-weather wood shed, seasonal storage space (eg. storm windows and skis in summer), materials storage (eg. boards, plywood), tool storage, empty mason jar storage.  You know.  A shed.

So quickly, you get to "where, exactly"; "how big", and "how".  "Where" was pretty limited; by the need to be close; "how big", it turns out, was partly determined by "how".

Standard construction around here would be a "pole barn" - treated wood poles, gravel or concrete floor, pre-fab roof trusses, and sheet metal sides and roof.  You just go the lumber yard, and order the stuff.  And there are loads of experienced construction teams who can zip it up for you in a couple days.

It was very easy to decide not to go that route- we had no money whatsoever.  Which meant- materials out of our 40 acres of oak/maple woods, and/or scrounged materials, and a "barn-raising" party for labor.

Then, you have to work out the details.

Something you pretty quickly find out, when you're living this kind of do-it-yourself life; the details are NOT "important".  The details are EVERYTHING.

Oddly, we teach our children the opposite, these days.  "Sure, teacher, I got the answer to the question wrong, but you can tell I understood it!" - will often get you a pity-pass in schools, even in universities.  But not in real life.  My father pounded this one in when he was an engineering prof, and I was in High School; and I got to listen to him gripe about his students.

  "But Professor, yes, I got the math wrong, but it's just a decimal point!  You can tell I totally understood the problem!"  "I don't give a good goddam if you 'understood' the problem!  Your goddam building FELL DOWN; and 370 people died!!  The only thing that matters is the right answer.  The F stands. "  And he would shake his head in amazement at their incomprehension.

So, I was well trained to do my homework regarding construction, and I'd adsorbed quite a bit of information via osmosis- and from helping my father re-build most of the houses we'd lived in (many).  Looking around at the old homesteads here, I found quite a few old chicken coops and corn cribs that were made with just white oak posts for their basic support; planted in the ground; and easily 50 years old.  Obviously, white oak can last a long time in our soils; the stated lifespan for chemically treated poles in direct soil contact is usually 30-40 years.

Doing more homework- the expected lifespan for white oak fenceposts around here is less; 20-30 years.  The difference is attributed mostly to the roof- poles under a roof should spend more of their life dry.

Most of my available poles are not exactly "white oak" - Quercus alba; but burr oak; Q. macrocarpa.  The textbooks say, though, that in this case, they're pretty much the same in regard to rot resistance.

So, using my own oak poles, we should be able to put up a shed that will last 30 years; no sweat.  We had a good supply of 12"-8" diameter red pine poles for rafters and plates; pine boards and 2/4's for other structure- and we helped a friend tear down a local railroad station for windows and siding.  We did buy metal for the roof.

When you're 30 years old- 30 years into the future looks indistinguishable from "forever", or "until we die."  And, guess what?  It isn't.  Here I am- 30 odd years later-

And sure as heck; the time has run out on some of my burr oak poles.

This is the SW corner pole.  And, as you can see- it's entirely rotted off- the bottom of the pole is now a good 6" above the ground.  Hm.

We just discovered it, absurdly enough.  The shed had gone through a phase where it got increasingly cluttered and useless, to the point where I only referred to it as "The Dread Shed"; and it got to the point where Middle Child and his wife decided to totally overhaul it, bless them.  Unburying the corner- where we already knew a woodchuck had chewed through the outer wall (and wrought havoc inside for months); we discovered the rotted off pole.  Oh, so that's why the windows have been breaking.

The shed is not falling down.  One of the advantages of using big logs for plates and rafters- they're enormously strong, and well secured on the other poles- most of which are not rotted off.  This corner is the wettest one.  But- the building is sagging, putting stress on everything.  

So now what?  Fix it?  Tear the shed down and rebuild?  I don't want to.

Dammit, I'm 60 years old now, busy, and I want the bloody shed to be in usable shape; I don't want to be building, or fixing.

Why didn't I build it to last in the first place?

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That turns out to be a complex, and highly significant question.  Lissen up; and maybe you can avoid my mistakes.

A)  I was young (30) and stupid.  I thought 30 years was forever.  It really really isn't.

B)  Everybody I asked thought 30 years was forever, too.  Or plenty long enough.

C)  The entire construction industry is built around the idea that structures should not last more than 50 years; even homes.  Then you should build a new one.  You want to benefit from the constant improvements in modern materials and design, don't you?  Well then.  They really like that- so if you read their text books, or go to them for advice- that's what they'll tell you.

and

D) Building structures with longer life-spans is quite a lot more expensive.  Like double.

E) Financial advice is always- that investments in durable structures are not sensible.  The reasoning there: if you put that money in the stock market instead, it would give you better returns (no laughing, now); and, they're quite sure you will move to a better, more expensive location later in life, as you become more successful; so you won't get the benefit of the more durable structure anyway; and whoever you sell your old place to will not pay you any premiums for the better buildings; people just don't.

F)  That's the way we build stuff in the States- always have.  Ever since Europeans arrived here- they've been sure they were going to move in the next 10-20 years, to someplace better. Why build for the long term?

See any holes in any of the logic here?

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I'm cogitating, pondering, and kneading all this stuff right now for a couple of specific reasons; I've got to figure out what to do about this shed; and- about future construction here.  We're in the process of building space for animals (guineas! ) - and you can check out a recent rhapsody on barns by Sharon, here.

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More in the next post.   Think about it!  And think about all the stone farmhouses in Europe... and how old they are...

The ice has hit the fan.

I've been kind of quiet here - when that happens, you can pretty much count on it being due to some kind of distraction or other, generating new and improved emergencies for us.

It's an old emergency this time- called "Winter".  After living in a fool's paradise for weeks, with balmy 70°F days, and 50° nights, and record high temps last week; November has now started clearing its throat.

We were at 18°F last night.  Finding us short on firewood, short on housing for the poultry, and short on personal energy to cope.

Not really looking for sympathy here; all of this is pretty much "life", as usual.  No biggie, we'll muddle through.  Just explaining the quietness here.  I have energy to react- but it's harder to find the energy for initiative.

The reality of water- for poultry, in wintertime- without electric heaters- has arrived overnight.  Thirsty birds, water founts that could freeze and burst now (waste of permanent tools we can't afford), and a new chore- making sure the birds have water, morning and night.

We've had more than our share of illness recently, too.  Spice has been coping with a recurrence of her "walking pneumonia".  And we've all caught a cold that's gone to the sinuses; lots of fun having the little one blow gobs of green and brown gunk...  ew.

The decision to put time, money, and sweat into the guinea fowl has been confirmed as the right way to go.  In a pretty bad way.  The night before I took off for my trip, we found a tick in Smidgen's hair.  A deer tick.  Embedded, but not engorged.

Right after dropping me at the airport, Spice took the tick to the clinic for testing - and - it came back positive.  So Smidgen had to go on heavy antibiotics for Lyme disease.  She was infected, had a fever and lethargy for several days.

She's done with it now; and tested clear after the antibiotics.  But that was scary.

Lyme has been very uncommon here until recently; now it's exploding.

We've got 20 guineas left.  Owls took a few, Bruce took a few.  Haven't lost any for weeks now, and Delilah is doing well with them so far.  20 is too few to think they'll really control all the ticks here in Deer Heaven, but it's a good start, and quite likely we'd have more to cope with without them.  We've only had to pull 2 ticks total off Delilah so far, as opposed to 20/day for Bruce last summer.  Not really comparable, but still.

Busy busy.  My chores today- clean out the ash and creosote from the wood stove; it's starting to clog up the combustion.  Get some dry wood in.  That will be mostly American or rock elm, dried out on the stump; I know where it is.

Oh, yeah, and I was forgetting.  There's a deer hanging in the walnut tree out front.  Young doe, gift from the hunters we let hunt our farm.  Couldn't be more "Little House In The Big Woods".  Smidgen looked at it; "Why is that deer in the tree, Daddy?"  "It's for us to eat, Smidgen."  "Oh, goody!  Yum!  I love deer!"  

:-)  Just straight enthusiasm for everything there; I don't think she's actually had venison before.  Hadn't really planned on the work of butchering a deer; but can't pass it up, either.

Winter is a reality that you just can't ignore.  I kind of prefer my realities that way- it does make your decisions easier.

Kansas in August

I'm likely to be a little longer between posts here for a while.  We're not in Kansas, and we don't grow corn- but we are moving into the critical harvest time for the crops we do grow.  Oldest son Beelar has temporarily dropped his PhD work to come home for the next 2 months and help out.  It's that urgent.  First stuff is picked already; and more is coming.  

You'll notice I'm not saying what we're growing/picking.  Old timers here at the Little Blog know that's the way it is; for the newer folks- if I told you what we're growing, it would be too big a hint as to my "real" identity; which I would rather keep separate from the blogosphere for the moment.

The guineas are fine- but we're not quite at Part 3 yet; that will be when we start releasing them into the free range world.  Another week, I think.  Meanwhile; Part 2.4:

Trying to get information about when to release off the web has been very frustrating.  I tried every variation of "when do you set them loose" I could think of; and basically got no numbers, anywhere.  My guess is because for most established poultry operations, it's kind of a non-issue; if you have juveniles, and adults, and multiple opportunities for experimentation, it just kind of happens when it happens, and things are fine.

But we have no other poultry on the place; no adults to show them the ropes.  I'm hesitant to dump silly teenage guineas out into the hawk/owl/cat/weasel world.  They're quite adept at flying already, but there's more to escape than just the ability to fly.  

The guineas, and the evil temporary pen are working out so well (of course it has shade, RC!  Always did; actually 4 different kinds- heavy apple shade after noon; and there's a nice leaky tarp you can't see in the video providing good morning shade-) that we went ahead and ordered some chickens.  10 each, straight run; Buff Orpington, Black Brahma, and Dominique.  The concept- we'll wind up with 15 or so good "setting" hens, who we will put to sitting on guinea eggs, mostly; and we'll let the hens take over the work of raising the keets next year.  We hope.

The chicks will be here Friday; more fun and cutesy pics.

We have to squeeze the photo sessions in with harvest, though, and it's not easy.  And the other bits of life off the grid do not stop either, just because of harvest and teenage guinea fowl.

Last night we got home from an urgent trip to town for harvest materials to find the electric system in the house was down- no AC power, only DC.  Computers and DSL modem need AC, at the moment- they could be done DC, but it's considerably more tricky than just plugging them into the 12V battery - since the computers need 18VDC.

Also the answering machine.  So all my plans for this morning (hyper urgent plant chores) got put on hold, while I ripped the battery bank and inverter connections apart, looking for the problem.  Answer, as I suspected, just time and corrosion in the connections; clean them up, reconnect tightly, and everything works again.  But it still took 2 hours and way more personal energy than it sounds like.  I find working on the house batteries exhausting- probably because of the constant potential for burning the house down if I drop a wrench in the wrong place, or finding the knife I'm using to scrape connections welded on between two hot battery posts, with big sparks and melting steel dripping all over...

:-)

No, I've never done that.  And yes, RC, all my tools have insulated handles, so theoretically, none of this is possible.  :-) But the images kind of stick in your head; the power to do it is there, right in those batteries- it's just one of those jobs with zero tolerance for any "oops" experiences.

Exhausting, for me.

Nap.  

The Guinea Saga; part 2

So, we were at the point where 1 of 11 birds had just escaped into the outer world.

This was a white bird- and I have little hope for them in the long run.  Seen any white squirrels recently?  There's a reason albinos are rare in the wild- basically, they have a big "EAT ME" sign taped on their back.  (Yes, I know there are populations of white squirrels in several cities- no hawks.)

Spice ordered the guineas, and she was focused on price.  The cheapest way to buy them is if you let the hatchery fill out your order with whatever they have on hand; the hatchery we bought from sells about 10 different breeds of guinea- almost all selected purely for ornamental differences in plumage- and of course it's very common for them to have some hatch out today- with no buyer waiting.  So they sell "we choose" batches, for a discount.  We wound up with about 1/3 white, 1/3 pearl, and 1/3 some kind of brown.  I think next time we order, we won't go the discount route- I really have no hope the white ones will survive in the long run as free range birds.  Not here.

When we first moved here, one of the most common questions (besides the ones about phones, when we were going to get electricity and running water...) was "why don't you have chickens?"  Obviously, if you live in the woods in a cabin, you should have chickens.  :-)

My answer was always this:  "Let's see.  Red foxes.  Gray foxes.  Raccoons.  Mink.  Badgers.  Skunks- 2 species.  Feral cats.  Feral dogs. Weasels- 3 species. Great Horned Owls.  Barred Owls.  Cooper's Hawks.  Sharpshin Hawks.  And I'm sure I'm forgetting some."  The universal answer was.  "Ah."  We really really do live in the woods; it ain't suburbia.  If we wanted chickens, we were going to have to build a fortress of some kind, and we just didn't need or want them that much.

Today I'd add coyotes, and bald eagles- neither were here in 1976, but they're abundant now.  We now have increasing reports of bobcats, too.  You don't usually think of bald eagles as chasing chickens- but the eagles are fantastic opportunists, and they recognize a lazy chicken as easy food immediately.  The coyotes nearly eradicated both fox species when they moved in; but the foxes are adapting now, and coming back- Spice badly twisted her ankle in a well hidden Red Fox hole a couple years ago.

The idea with the guineas is; once established as a population; with adults; they will be able to avoid the ground based predators very effectively, by roosting in trees and being such strong flyers.   But a single white bird up in a tree- is just a target.

I tried to watch where the escapee went, anyway- it wasn't really afraid of me, and let me get quite close, though it never offered to let me catch it.  But the third time I went looking to see where it was now- I couldn't find it, anywhere.  I blocked all the possible escape spots on the pen with heavy sods from the adjacent construction site.

Later that evening, I took Bruce out for a little work with the birds.  He had, of course, been very playful/bouncy when he first met them in the new pen- scaring the heck out of them, and not stopping until I'd yelled at him several times- something that's almost never necessary, and left him pretty embarrassed.  So I took him out, on a leash (also very rare) and walked around the pen with him, requiring him to be calm about it, and not chase.  I swear he speaks English.  He got the idea very quickly.  As part of the work, I walked him over where I'd last seen the escapee- he'd likely sense and flush any hiding bird.  Nothing.  Either hiding very well, or already cat chow, I expected.

We added Bruce to the farm for a very specific reason- protection.  For Smidgen, the farm in general, and- future livestock.  Hence my selection of a dog with a substantial component from a herding breed- collie.  After working Bruce on the leash for only 15 minutes, he was so calm and well behaved I took him off the leash, right next to the guinea pen; and he did not disappoint me; he continued to behave perfectly.  The video shows the pen, half under an apple tree; the almost 4 week old birds, and Bruce, being blasé, looking for mice -

The pen is 12 feet x 8 feet x 4 feet high; the guineas are zooming to eat some fresh greens I just tossed in for them- something else the easily available information does not mention; they eat lots of grass at this point; clover, etc.

That first night, I went to bed with 10 birds in the pen, and Bruce outside, loose, all night; on guard (he's around 60 lbs now- very few coyotes would think of challenging him).

He was fine with being outside on his own; didn't fuss about wanting to come in, when I just explained to him that he was going to stay out.  Did I mention I think he speaks English?

In the morning - ah, here the drama comes in.

I went out immediately, Bruce calmly accompanying, to see how the 10 birds fared in their first night- and immediately found- only 2 birds still inside the pen.

They were huddled together, right against the wire- and huddled against them on the outside of the wire- were the other - 9 birds.  I counted 3 times- because I would really have expected unprotected chicks to turn into predator fodder, very quickly- 9.  +2=11.

Yeah- RC and Nancy M- you were right, the escapee came back and re-joined the flock.

So, that was nice; and encouraging- it looked like the guineas were indeed good at surviving, and staying in their flock; both things I really wanted.  It also looked like they were going to be escape artists- not quite so nice.  

Carefully moving around the pen, so as not to spook the guys on the outside and scare them off, I started looking for how the heck they got out- I have a lot of experience with pens for difficult animals- and was feeling pretty miffed-

Ah- here we are.  Something had, in the night, dug two lovely holes under the fence... leaving loads of room for the birds to duck under.  Bruce digs.  Quite  lot.  I was starting to mumble bad things to Bruce, who was right there- when it finally struck me that the odor of skunk was really really strong, right here...

In fact, I'd been waked up in the middle of the night by the powerful smell of a fresh skunk discharge drifting in the open windows.  But that's not all that uncommon; happens a couple times a year-and it didn't really wake me fully.  No noise accompanying the smell.  Next morning, the whole world smells a bit skunky- it's normal.

Bit by bit- detective deductions at work- what happened became clear.

Sure as heck; my constant predictions for predators immediately moving to chow down on any poultry had come true- on the very first night, a skunk had found the pen, and instantly started digging its way in.

Then, my preparations and plans kicked in, too- and worked.  Guineas are renowned for making a racket when frightened.  Bruce, on patrol, heard the noise; went out, and instantly tackled the skunk- all on his own.  Judging from where the skunk hit back- the spray mostly hit Bruce on the belly and side, we found- Bruce had the skunk down and struggling to get away when the skunk fired.  Given any chance, a skunk will spray a dog in the eyes- not an accident, and they're good at it.  This skunk didn't have that chance.  Apparently the spray did surprise Bruce into letting the skunk go, and the skunk lit out- because we didn't find any skunk corpse.

The skunk was apparently permanently educated; because in the following week, there have been no more attempts to dig into the guinea pen.  Bruce is out, and on guard, all night.  Occasionally he'll wake us; with a burst of serious barking, nearby.  That took a little getting used to- but now, it feels very good.  He's on the job.  Most likely a coon, or coyote, that is now not poking into our world; and we have, in the past gone through all kinds of gyrations trying to keep stuff stored outside safe from raccoons.  That's a crazy hard job- and usually whatever you come up with, they'll eventually find a way around.  But there's probably no way around Bruce.

Incidentally, the remedy for skunk on your dog is not tomato juice- my god, what a mess.  A perfect example of what I'm starting to call Green iManure; cutesy-poo clueless, "back to the land!" malinformation.   

The application of a little basic chemistry will explain what you need.  What is "skunk" juice?  The core chemicals are mercaptans; the sulfur based equivalent of an alcohol; also found in tear gas, and "perms".  What do you need to break down a mercaptan?  Any mild acid; it's a highly reactive chemical bond, easily broken down.  It's precisely that high reactivity that makes it an effective weapon.  Tomato works- because it's acid.  Another household acid- vinegar- works about 1,000x better- and with 1,000th of the mess.  Chem 101.

Put either undiluted vinegar (any kind, stronger is better), or 1:4 diluted vinegar for working around the eyes, in any household spray bottle; and spray it on your skunky dog.  Outside, for heaven's sakes.  Then comb the vinegar through the fur.  Rinse off with a little water.  Repeat, until the skunk is gone, or you can at least stand to have the dog around, or the dog won't put up with it any more (in which case you can do more later.)  If you don't have a spare spray bottle, just get a sponge or rag soaked with the vinegar, and wipe it on, then comb it through.

Bruce put up with the vinegar treatment- cheerfully applied by Spice, who came home just in time for this whole show- with great patience.  It's hard to get it all.  Maybe impossible, even.  But at this point, he only smells a little skunky; just enough to remind us of the whole event; which in fact; feels very good.

Plans, preparations, protections- that worked!  Darned nice, once in a while.

Next step for the guineas will be turning them into free range birds.  According to our information, it's best to wait until they're 6 weeks old before turning them out.  Then do it gradually; a few birds only, on the first day, then a few more the next day.  Working to keep them anchored to this place, as home.

There are more tricks to that.  Coming up soon.  Meanwhile- the birds are growing fast; have been through several rainstorms in the new pen, with no problem, and no further attacks from predators.  And no lost birds.  It's actually encouraging!

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Why is all this a "post-peak parable"?  That gets to be a long post in itself.

Let me just ask this question- what was the basis of "civilization" - meaning; cities, etc.?

The usual answer is "agriculture" - but the real answer is - domestic animals.  Oxen, donkeys, camels, and horses for power- the power we now get from oil.  We owe our culture to our animal symbiont/partners- they're fantastic solar energy concentrators and converters.  My guess is- they are about to play a larger role in the world, again.

The Guinea Saga; A Post-Peak Parable; part 1

The bumps in the road-

I sometimes think half my life is spent delivering one form or another of "sorry this is late, but..."

After that last post, I was intending to zoom off and write the brilliant story of the guineas, so far- and, as happens so consistently around here, zoomed instead into a bump in my road; requiring me to spend all my energy elsewhere for several days.

The biggest problem with bumps, for me, is that they put you behinder than you were, on your previous plans.  More catch-up to play.  I have to keep raising the limit on my National Chores Debt- but what the hay, if an extra trillion here and there doesn't bother Congress, I should be able to do it too, right?

At the moment, I'm chasing the urgent chores that desperately needed to be done 4 days ago, and alas, writing about the guineas isn't right up at the top of the hyper-urgent list.

So although I'd rather write this as one piece, I guess we'll do it in short chunks, as I can get it done.  Here's the first bit of the Guinea Saga; A Post-Peak Parable-

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Building the Chicken Dungeon (otherwise known as the part-earth sheltered, part sod, poultry house) has been taking a loooong time.  As good solid permanent structures are apt to.  Meanwhile- the year progresses, and the ticks do not abate- so we ordered the guinea keets anyway.  Maybe, we thought, that will make us build the Chicken Dungeon faster.

See, now I need to explain why we're calling a guinea housing facility a Chicken Dungeon.  

Adding guineas to our operation here is not a whim, nor a single -purpose project.  Yes, we need to do something about the tick explosion.  (The geese, incidentally, didn't stick- they both appear to have been "homing geese" - and when they got the opportunity; they went home.  Someplace else.)  But; far far beyond the ticks; we really need to have animals- of a variety of kinds, become a part of our crop operations.  We have bugs that need to be eaten- in the apples and other crops; and we have way way too much grass- which we cannot afford to just mow forever.  The guineas are intended to be the start of all that- chosen because they are more able than most to take care of themselves; and they have the reputation of being excellent "watchdogs" - alerting everything else on the farm to the presence of predators; four-legged, two-legged, or winged.  And they eat ticks, and weevils, of course.

We quickly discovered, though, that our real farmer neighbors do not take guineas seriously.  Many have a few- as pets, for amusement.  The idea that we're contemplating a future with maybe 300- 500 guineas on the place- just freaks them out too much.  But somehow, the fact that we're building a sod poultry house- is mildly amusing, but not as threatening.  And, we do intend to add chickens- as foster parents for the guineas, at least- pretty soon, so it's not a prevarication, much.

Back to the guineas.  The keets (chicks) are cute little devils.  They came in the mail; 33 of them; and at 2 days old, were avidly chasing the laser spot from the infrared thermometer we used to make sure they were at the right temperature- a hopeful sign for our fantasies about them becoming real tick controllers.  Somehow this video came out soundless; they peep, at this stage, just like chickens.

They are closer to wild than chickens, though they were kept as domestic fowl by the ancient Egyptians.  Which means, among other things; they fly; strongly.  And, it turns out; very very soon.  We discovered (no, the web information did not really point this out!) that guinea keets grow full wing feathers, and start flying, at the ripe old age of 3 weeks.  Which meant they really needed to get out of their brooder box- now.  And the Chicken Dungeon was far from ready.

Ah- temporary construction.  

Basic advice- don't ever, ever, ever build something temporary.  For one thing, you're wasting resources and time that should go into the real, permanent solution for your need.  For another- the overwhelming tendency is for temporary structures to slide, sneak, and lapse into permanency.  Because they're "good enough"- at the moment- and something else is now more urgent.  So you are stuck with what is an admittedly inferior, inadequate structure- for all eternity.  Temporary structures never die- you just add wire, and duct tape.

Knowing that fully, I set out to build a temporary guinea pen.  It was a matter of life or death for the guineas, literally, and here I was on the farm, all alone- Spice off gallivanting- allein, und abgetrennt, von aller freude.  (holy smokes, my spell checker speaks German, I had no idea.)  Anyway- I was stuck; no choice; temporary is necessary in this case, and I hate it.

The bloody thing consumed about 4 days of my life, and should have taken about 4 hours.  First I had to clear some ground for it- and the mower wouldn't start.  So I had to fix the mower.  Then I went in to town and bought chicken wire- only to have Bruce present me with a big weasel the next morning (not an Ermine, as I first thought, but a Long-Tailed weasel; a significantly more powerful predator, but still slender enough to maybe just walk through the mesh in chicken wire).  So- back to town- a different town, a farther town with a bigger farm store... which still did not have the "right" wire...  

Another reason not to build this way;  if I hadn't been under such pressure to build something now, I could have ordered the right wire, through my nearby store.  Now I'm stuck forever with 50' of half inch/half inch hardware cloth that is not, and will never be, exactly what we need.

Then spend a morning gathering the steel T posts (pulling old ones by hand, buried in sod...) then an hour searching for the post driver- which is missing in action...  All of this in deep Equatorial African Jungle sweat conditions; hot, windless (all these damn trees I planted cut all the wind) and 290% humidity; blink, and you sweat- and the sweat drips onto and over and fogs your glasses- incessantly.  Drive a post in that, please.  Wrangle tightly wrapped 4' wide x 50' long rolls of wire onto the posts, and stretch it, alone... then chicken wire over the top, so the little bastards can't just fly out and turn into Instant Owl Chow-

Heroic work, I assure you.

Finally, the bloody thing is functional- I hope.  Time to put birds in.  At this point, we have, I think, 28 keets, after a few "failed to thrive" and passed on.  They need, really need to be out of the brooder, but- does the new pen really work?  Will it be safe?  Will it actually keep the birds in?  Don't put all your eggs in one basket, right?

So I moved 10, I thought- and put them into the pen.  Except, when I let them out of the transfer box- there were actually 11.  You cannot count more than 10 guineas while they're moving around, I guarantee; impossible to be sure if you've counted that one, or that one- or twice.  Just counting 10 usually requires 4 tries, to be sure.  And when you're stuffing them into a little box, some of them squirm back out again.  (Once in, and the box is closed, they're actually very quiet and comfy.)

Sure enough- there was one little place where the wire didn't sit right tight on the ground- and one of the keets immediately ducked under the fence- and was out.  Who knew they were half mouse?  It doesn't mention this anywhere in the references I could find.  Immediately- zip- up in the apple tree, way up in the top (my apple trees are not dwarfed).  No way I'm getting that bird back.  Sigh.  This is why you start with 30ish- they're not all going to make it, no matter what.

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Tune in tomorrow (I hope) - for the next episode- it gets more exciting, I guarantee-

Death to the Weasels!

Ha, I bet you're expecting another diatribe about the Wall Street Grand Casino.  Nope.

At the moment, anyway, we're talking about actual weasels.  So, I'm getting ready to finally put the guinea pen together- and as I walk out by the windmill- here on the path is- a dead weasel.  

My first reaction was- "oh, no; the damn dog has killed a weasel!" - because- in the larger scheme, weasels are our friends on this farm, big time.  They eat mice.  And more mice.  Tons of mice.  Mice are huge pests and crop thieves.  Big bucks.  I love weasels, mostly.

And this one was beautiful- a full grown male Short-Tailed weasel; also known as an Ermine.

Then it dawned on me (not too much later, and before I really started chewing Bruce (the pup) out) - this weasel had been in the perfect place to wipe out our guineas- in one fell swoop.  They are known to kill more than they can eat- they're really good killers.  And the guineas are all babies- no adults to fight back, at all.

And, though this is a serious predator, one our cat would never think of attacking- it's so slender it might actually be able to just squeeze right through regular chicken wire.  No kidding.  Which is what I had just been about to install.  Did I know that already?  Yes, I did.  Idiot that I am, I seem to have needed the additional reminder of having a dead weasel in my hand in order for that to truly strike home.

Ah, reality.  This weasel was in the wrong place.  And Bruce, who is turning out marvelously, with more common sense than most people, had just been doing the job we hired him for- protecting us.  There's plenty of room on the farm for weasels still- just not so close to home.

I'd been murmuring "no, no- don't do this, Bruce..."  (he understands English perfectly) - but when I realized - he'd probably saved our entire guinea flock; with no instructions needed, that changed to loud "GOOD dog, Bruce; good dog!"  He understood.

He hasn't eaten it; though I've seen him eat bunnies.   (Sorry).  Weasels stink, pretty uniformly, and most likely taste bad to boot- few things eat them.  Owls do.

So here I am, inside, not putting up the guinea wire.  Because pretty clearly- where there is one weasel, there will be more, and the wire we have is not good enough.  Plus, we have yet another species of weasel here- the Least Weasel; which is only about 1/4 the size of an Ermine- but plenty capable of killing chicks, and maybe even adult guineas or chickens.

The darned thing is going to have to be a fortress, Bruce or not.  He did a splendid job- but even he has to sleep sometimes.  More money; and a trip to town for wire- wire more expensive than chicken wire, for sure.  Sigh.

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The guineas are an education, of course.  For all of us.  We started with 33 new keets (chicks).  We're down to 28.  That is what usually happens- a few of them just won't make it.   In our case, I successfully brought all 33 through the first 10 days- but then 5 of them just- failed.   Quit growing.  Lay down, and died.

Smidgen already knew a little about death, in the abstract- even children's books and movies are full of it.  But here was her first real acquaintance with it.  Scary, for a parent-

I think it was harder on Spice and I than it was on Smidgen, though.  She did cry, just a little.  But the reality was right there- death is natural; part of life.  The rest of the keets go on.

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Off to town; more gas, more money, more time.

Deep Summer

Strange to use the phrase here in Minnesota, but Deep Summer is what I've got.

It's mostly a phrase from the US South- and it means the heart of summer- and the heat.

My current experience is mild, really; maximum daytime temperature is barely hitting 90°F (32°C); but there's a gaggle of accompanying factors that require a human to adapt, somehow, or collapse.  Here is the day-

The morning is still.  No wind.  No wind for almost 2 weeks now, we're having to haul house water from the solar-pumped greenhouse well, since our windmill isn't moving.  No wind coming in the next week, either.

Soaking dew; until noon, moving anywhere on the farm without tall rubber boots means soaking shoes and socks.  Barefoot?  Not if you're working.  Thistles, hammers...  The rubber boots are hot, and heavy.

Hazy sun; all day.  The humidity stays at "120%" - not actually possible, but that's a reasonable estimate of how it feels.  The 85° air is comfortable; until you move; just walk and you will sweat.  Work will have your clothing soaked through, literally to dripping, within just a few minutes.

You have to be very careful in this weather- it's so damp, wet, drippy you can easily forget you're losing water, dehydrating - and losing salt.  When your skin is covered with salt, sweat evaporates more slowly- cools less well.  When you look up from hoeing the beans, and world fades to white- you're on the edge of "heat exhaustion" - otherwise known as a critical shortage of water and salts; you need more than sodium; you're probably running short on potassium and calcium too.  One thing we do is add some salt, and "salt substitute" (KCl) to our lemonade; do-it-yourself "sports" drink.  Plain water is not enough, if your vision is fading.

People have coped with summer forever, of course.  Two major paths- let your body get used to it, adapt; and/or avoid it.

Your body will adapt, if you ask it to.  Work in the heat an hour today; and aim for two hours tomorrow.  Full adaptation can take weeks.  Be careful.

Or- change your hours.  Become crepuscular.  Wake before sunrise; work in what cool there is, before the sun hits; then move inside for other chores, or a nap- with a little fan, perhaps.  (I have one one me now- 12VDC, running directly from the hot sun on my solar panels; designed as a fan for a boat, 20 years old, I think.)  Evening presents more opportunities for outside work, without the sun.  The mosquitoes, alas, tend to be crepuscular, too.  The evening tends to be warmer; but dry- no rubber boots.  Until the dew starts to form.  Our solar heated shower is dangerous right now- it may be way too hot; shower carefully.

Here we tend to have little wind from mid July through late August.  Fact of life.  Cuss and bear it, mostly.  And drip.

And what are we doing about refrigeration?  Not a thing.  Water out of the well is very cool; water stored a day is still cooler than the hot outdoors.  It's cool enough.

At the moment, I've got gourmet meat for 3 days, ready any time.  No fridge.  

This is where I keep it- inside the charcoal grill, where it was slow-cooked.  

It's a boneless chuck roast; on sale when I was in town.  Tasty- but tough, usually.  I set it to cook slowly, inside the charcoal grill, after using the hotter fire to do a little chicken.  The very slow cooking, not over the coals, but beside them, with a little hickory added to the other side of the fire, actually does a little tenderizing, and does wonders for the flavor.

And, incidentally, sterilizes the roast- and the grill.  Once it was mostly cooked- I closed the grill's vents, thus asphyxiating the fire, and any microbes.  The meat is partly smoked, slightly dried, and quite safe right were it is, inside the closed sterile grill, 90° days, or not.

I've eaten some for dinner yesterday, and lunch today; and have 3 more meals there, I think.  Open the lid; cut off a chunk quickly right on the grill with a sharp knife; close the grill.  Yes, one, or two, bacteria got in when I did that.  They landed on dry, smoked, charred meat surface- not a friendly place to them.

The cooled, slightly dried chuck is pretty firm; easily sliced very thin, which solves most of the remaining toughness problems, and makes it perfect for adding just a little flavor, just a little protein, to whatever else I'm having.  Delightful.  It does require chewing.  Consider it exercise.

Any meat will keep after smoke cooking in a closed grill; at least a day, probably 2.  3 starts getting a bit iffy, particularly if you're dealing with chicken or have kids in the house.  You need to make sure the meat was cooked - hot right through- in the first place, though.  Sometimes a cooling fire may leave your meat cool, and not really kill all the bugs; this is something you need to watch meticulously.  The other hazard with this method is closing the grill and leaving it with the fire still too hot- and finding nice chunks of charcoal instead of chicken, when you open it up tomorrow.

This kind of smoke-heat preservation is really pretty safe for large cuts of meat; but don't try this for sausage or burgers- too much chance for bacteria to be incorporated in the grinding.

Now, I don't have to cook tonight, nor did I last night.  No extra heat required.

I'm gaining on the work adaptation, too.  Or, of course, you could always just move somewhere for sissies!

Back but buried

I drove 2200 miles, to hand deliver my greenhouse product.  Kinda buzzy on return, and overloaded with piled up work.  Once again, too many thoughts running through my head to sift into sensibility easily here; just wanted you to know I haven't disappeared or abandoned the blog or anything.

An example of the overload- we have 28 guinea keets (chicks) here and growing.  According to the available info, they want you to keep them in a brooder situation for 3-4 weeks, then a pen until week 6, when you can start letting them out into the world. 

Except, yesterday, as I was turning on their heat lamp for the night (solar powered, by the new panels installed last fall) - I turned my back on them after putting in clean water and food- and when I turned back, one of the little stinkers was sitting way up on the edge of their brooder pen.  He had to fly up there.  Which means my pen is not going to be containing them tomorrow, and I've GOT to figure out yet another temporary pen rig, since the Chicken Dungeon is far from ready (building with sod turns out to- uh- take a lot of work, and time; imagine that)-

AND, after making coffee this morning, I discovered I'm out of propane for the summer cook-stove; so I can't wash dishes until I go to town- AND Spice is not here, but on her way to visit parents, far away, for the first time in a year and a half...  AND in her hurry to pack, and toddler wrangle, and do extra greenhouse chores, she left me with a sink full of dirty dishes, so I don't have a plate to eat off of...  (I'm fishing for pity here, in case you can't tell, and lots of opprobrium for my cruel wife)  :-)

you get the idea.  

More next time it rains, and I'm inside.

Garden Triage

A couple weeks ago Sharon generously exposed herself in public- as a backslider in the garden.  She had let her weeds get out of control...  again...

Any old-time food gardener got a good chuckle out of that piece.  Yes, indeed, we all do it.  Pretty much every year.  There are plenty of gardeners out there who do have weedless, spotless, picture perfect gardens- but I will guarantee those folks either don't really need the food; or they have secret help sneaking in by moonlight; or they're just not doing anything else with their life; at all.

What do you do when the weeds have taken over?  That's not a trick question- you can, easily, do the wrong thing, and lose even more time and energy.

When my boys were small Spouse and I ran a garden every year that consisted of 7 blocks, each one 50 feet square.  One would be all corn; one all potatoes, one tomatoes/peppers, one all vines; etc.  And we rotated plantings each year, to decrease disease, etc.  Plans in the computer, year by year.

My point being- I've killed a LOT of weeds in my life; I'm good at it, and know how.

When Spice got here, she was eager, frothing, fulminating, to have a garden.  Totally in love with the idea; days spent with seed catalogs, compiling lists; computer diagrams; seed packets, 15 kinds of tomatoes...  and no real experience.

Spice grew up at high altitude in Colorado; family runs a big ranch.  Her mom had a garden there, when she was growing up.  I took her aside, as gently as I could and told her- "My dear, I love gardens too, but you really need to understand something.  I'm serious; very very serious.  Are you listening?"  She assured me she was.

"We have two things here in Minnesota that you do not have in Colorado; that make running a garden very different. 

" We have soil.  And we have rain."

Ha ha ha, I hear you laughing, but believe me, it's caused a lot of tears over the years, and still does.  Don't turn your back on the quack grass- it will eat you.

Part of this is the curse of good soil.  Really good soil.  Those of you suffering with poor soils, I recommend you do NOT google "Fayette silt loam" and get the technical aspects; it will break your heart.  I've got some of the very best agricultural soils in the world here; which is not an accident; that was the deciding factor when Spouse and I bought the place.

So our weeds really tend to take off; and take over, if you give them any chance at all.  Every year, year after year, they DO get that chance, one way or another.  Maybe it will rain for a week straight, making it impossible to work the soil.  Maybe you'll break your little toe; making it nearly impossible to spend any real time on your knees.  Etc.

Now- "How To Garden" - is a topic that people write whole books about.  Really!  You didn't know that?  I'm not going to shoot for covering the entire topic in this post; I want to make ONE point; just one.

Many beginners, faced with a garden section buried in weeds, will do exactly the wrong thing; partly out of guilt; partly out of ignorance.  They'll try to weed it.

And where will they start weeding?  Obviously- where the crop is smallest, weakest, and needs the most help.

Poor wittle potato plants; they're buried under the foxtail and pigweed; totally stunted.  You need my love, more than those big potato plants over there..

Wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong.

Are you putting in all this hard work because you need the food?  Yes?  Harden your heart- and put your work into making your very strongest plants stronger.  Weed the best of the patch first.

Look- the fact that you've got a big chunk of garden out of control is pretty definite proof that you've bitten off more than you can currently chew; fantasies and intentions aside.  You have not been able to keep up.

The overwhelming probability is that you're not going to be able to keep up next week, either.

If you put your work into boosting your best plants- they should make food for your family; the better you care for them, the more food.

If you start trying to rehabilitate your puniest plants- a) they're puny right now; it may well be too late for them to produce anything this year, even if you get them cleared; b) the shock of getting full sun after weeks of all that nice shade from the lambsquarters may set them back; c) their root systems are so tiny that pulling all those healthy weeds nearby is quite likely to harm your crop plants significantly; d) chances are you're going to be interrupted in this chore before you get around to weeding the good parts of the patch, good intentions notwithstanding-

So the upshot is, you will sweat like the dickens, release a few plants which cannot respond, and the good plants will get buried deeper as they struggle along with no help- so you'll lose any crop they might have had, too.  And all your sweat.

Here's the rule: Save the best first.  

IF if if you find yourself with lots of time available, you can try to save some of the weaker stuff.  As soon as possible, though- you will benefit from facing reality; and plowing under the lost parts; either replanting to a fall crop, or cover crop, or whatever you do to keep those weeds from going to seed.

Tender hearts are good in lettuce, cabbage, and artichokes; but pity for puny vegetables is a waste.  Plow 'em under.

(And so why am I writing about this just now?  Spice, it turns out, has good tender maternal instincts...)

:-)