Every year, we get a couple of slammin' blizzards, usually lasting a couple of days or more. Last year, it was December, this year, it's right now! Blowing snow, drifting, getting stuck, and snow, snow, snow everywhere.
Since we now have three vehicles, I figured at least one would start. I knew that there would be snow packed into the engine block by the wind, which there was, but I managed to get my truck started, and put the belt back one after it slipped off (happened last year too). Then, I made the driveway run. And, I got stuck. So, about 20 minutes of shoveling later, I'm out! It's obvious though, that there won't be any car getting out of that. The snow is still falling, and blowing. Any tracks I make today will be filled in tomorrow.
We haven't had to run the generator for a day and a half, which is good because it was buried under 4 feet of packed snow. The wind has been driving the wind turbine hard, and we have more than ample power.
I took a couple "snowcation" days, but I'm back to work tomorrow. Bye!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
Deep winter report
It's almost hard to believe, it's already January 7th! All the fun bits of winter are over, and now the waiting for spring sets in. Worse yet, we've had snow on the ground for 2 months, and I haven't been skiing once!
HOUSE
My wife and I have been spending a lot of time looking at houseplans, and discussing what we want to build. I've been investigating using a kit, which means that the house wouldn't be a strawbale building, but a kit would be much faster, has a set price, and comes with all the relevant documents. All of that would allow us to get a home up faster than we would otherwise, which is kind of important. If I hire out the basement pouring, and use a kit, we could have a house up in a few short months, rather than a year or longer. It will cost more to hire it out, but we will also save money by not having to rent in another town!
Am I compromising my dream of having a super insulated house? No, because I have a few tricks that I intend to employ when building that will help. Reflective foil on the inner, and outer walls should add some heat retention. The basement will also be heavily insulated. Having an ultra-insulated house isn't really that huge of a benefit, when you don't pay for heat already...
AGRICULTURE
It seems every time I post, my garden plan has changed. Well, this is no exception, but it's only one small (large) change. I still plan to have a large garden with a few main crops that I will sell, but I've added one thing. A greenhouse. I can buy the 6mil greenhouse poly for about $250, which gives me 2000 square feet of plastic. That would be enough to build 2 50 foot hoophouses, for a total growing area of 1000 sq ft! I'll need a pile of either rebar, or electrical conduit, whichever is cheaper. Bend those in an arc, stick into the ground, add a straight piece on the top, tie together, and done! Well, almost. The poly will have to be attached, which probably takes about 4 people to do well.
Hopefully this will give me a 4 week headstart on growing, and I can totally control all moisture, exclude pests, and work in the garden even when the weather is poor.
I have also decide to tone down my cattle plans, mainly because of lack of money. To really get some cattle going would take a lot of money, which would be tied up for 18 months while the cattle grow. We need that money available to do other things, like put up solar panels!
DARK TIMES AHEAD
I've been reading, listening to podcasts, and trying to look into the murky future. It doesn't look good, at least for America. I would not be surprised to see a major bond default by the US within the next 24 months, maybe longer. American is living on borrowed time (as are we all), and she can't continue to run 1.2 trillion dollar deficits without breaking the bank. Literally.
I am expecting the following to occur here:
1. Oil prices hit the stratosphere - Solution - As much solar, wind, and gasoline storage as I can manage. I'd like to have 6-8 months of gas in 200 gal tanks. That will give me time to come up with some kind of alternative transportation, probably something with woodgas. I'd also like to have 2 years worth of firewood put aside.
2. Food prices follow oil - This will benefit us, and might be the catalyst for my eventual departure from working for the Man.
3. Interest rates rise...a lot - 15 %? 21%? It's happened before! I know that I need to lock in at my lower rate for 5 years, and get rid of any unsecured debt with variable rate. Then, when rates rise, we need to have a plan to be out of debt by the end of the term.
4. Pay rate freezes, or even salary rollbacks - I don't expect to lose my job, but I do expect a reduction in pay. We already live beneath our means, and by the time this hits, I'm hoping to be at a monthly surplus of $1000 - $1200.
5. War? - You have to admit, there is a lot of chest puffing, and bluster from around the world, particularly from some shorty Asian dictators, and bearded Muslim guys. Historically, major economic crisis is usually followed by a war or three. This one ought to be a jim-dandy, what with everyone possessing nukes and all.
Should we all worry? I can't change anything by worrying. We'll try to be as ready as possible when stuff happens. I have to trust in God, because my neighbors certainly aren't ready!
HOUSE
My wife and I have been spending a lot of time looking at houseplans, and discussing what we want to build. I've been investigating using a kit, which means that the house wouldn't be a strawbale building, but a kit would be much faster, has a set price, and comes with all the relevant documents. All of that would allow us to get a home up faster than we would otherwise, which is kind of important. If I hire out the basement pouring, and use a kit, we could have a house up in a few short months, rather than a year or longer. It will cost more to hire it out, but we will also save money by not having to rent in another town!
Am I compromising my dream of having a super insulated house? No, because I have a few tricks that I intend to employ when building that will help. Reflective foil on the inner, and outer walls should add some heat retention. The basement will also be heavily insulated. Having an ultra-insulated house isn't really that huge of a benefit, when you don't pay for heat already...
AGRICULTURE
It seems every time I post, my garden plan has changed. Well, this is no exception, but it's only one small (large) change. I still plan to have a large garden with a few main crops that I will sell, but I've added one thing. A greenhouse. I can buy the 6mil greenhouse poly for about $250, which gives me 2000 square feet of plastic. That would be enough to build 2 50 foot hoophouses, for a total growing area of 1000 sq ft! I'll need a pile of either rebar, or electrical conduit, whichever is cheaper. Bend those in an arc, stick into the ground, add a straight piece on the top, tie together, and done! Well, almost. The poly will have to be attached, which probably takes about 4 people to do well.
Hopefully this will give me a 4 week headstart on growing, and I can totally control all moisture, exclude pests, and work in the garden even when the weather is poor.
I have also decide to tone down my cattle plans, mainly because of lack of money. To really get some cattle going would take a lot of money, which would be tied up for 18 months while the cattle grow. We need that money available to do other things, like put up solar panels!
DARK TIMES AHEAD
I've been reading, listening to podcasts, and trying to look into the murky future. It doesn't look good, at least for America. I would not be surprised to see a major bond default by the US within the next 24 months, maybe longer. American is living on borrowed time (as are we all), and she can't continue to run 1.2 trillion dollar deficits without breaking the bank. Literally.
I am expecting the following to occur here:
1. Oil prices hit the stratosphere - Solution - As much solar, wind, and gasoline storage as I can manage. I'd like to have 6-8 months of gas in 200 gal tanks. That will give me time to come up with some kind of alternative transportation, probably something with woodgas. I'd also like to have 2 years worth of firewood put aside.
2. Food prices follow oil - This will benefit us, and might be the catalyst for my eventual departure from working for the Man.
3. Interest rates rise...a lot - 15 %? 21%? It's happened before! I know that I need to lock in at my lower rate for 5 years, and get rid of any unsecured debt with variable rate. Then, when rates rise, we need to have a plan to be out of debt by the end of the term.
4. Pay rate freezes, or even salary rollbacks - I don't expect to lose my job, but I do expect a reduction in pay. We already live beneath our means, and by the time this hits, I'm hoping to be at a monthly surplus of $1000 - $1200.
5. War? - You have to admit, there is a lot of chest puffing, and bluster from around the world, particularly from some shorty Asian dictators, and bearded Muslim guys. Historically, major economic crisis is usually followed by a war or three. This one ought to be a jim-dandy, what with everyone possessing nukes and all.
Should we all worry? I can't change anything by worrying. We'll try to be as ready as possible when stuff happens. I have to trust in God, because my neighbors certainly aren't ready!
Monday, December 27, 2010
The worst is over...we hope
Hello again everyone, it's boxing day! Or it was 2 hours ago. I'm trying to push my internal clock forward for the graveyard shift tomorrow, so I'm up late.
We've had a mix of good and bad times, mostly good of course. The bad stuff isn't much, mainly automobile problems. I had to spend a gob of money on tie rods, and the car is still making some strange noises from the suspension and steering area. I couldn't do the work myself without a very expensive tool, and I needed my car on the road right away.
On Christmas Eve, as I was on my way home from work at about midnight, I was coming around a corner that I KNEW was icy, so I slowed down...but not enough. The road was a thin sheet of ice, and the car started whirling around like a retarded ballerina! I ended up off the road at a rather steep point, facing straight down into the ditch. Someone passing by stopped to offer help, and ended up giving me a ride home (Thanks again, Steve and Samantha!)
Lucky for me, my mother has AMA, so she had a two truck out there today, and I'm out! He pulled my car out by one of the back tires, so I'm not sure if that can cause damage...hopefully not.
With Christmas past, and the days actually getting longer, I've started dreaming of gardens and livestock again. I did a mountain of research into cattle, and I figure I've got 3 choices. One, wait till fall, buy 6-7 weaned calves for about $500 each, feed them through winter on whatever forage they can reach, and perhaps a little hay, and butcher in fall of 2011, selling the beef in sides. Option 2, buy as many cow/calf pairs as I can in March/April, and sell the calves off in 2011 as per option 1. Then, rebreed the mothers and repeat ad infinitum.
Option 3, and a very risky type of option, but with the highest potential for profit. Get a few bottle calves, and try keep them alive long enough to eat forage. It's a lot of work, but the calves can be had for under $100 in most cases! We'll see....I think a mix of Options 1 and 2 are probably best, if I can come up with a decent bit of cash.
I've also got some designs on a market garden, scaled up from last year. The things that really did well, carrots, peas, sunflowers, a different variety of bean, onions, and strawberries, will be the only things I grow. The peas will be grown behind something that will block a lot of light, as that seemed to be the way they grew best. The peas that were in 70% shade last year produced a TON of pods, which decreased for the plants which were getting longer light.
I would also like to get the pit greenhouse covered, and at least a small portion of it planted to something.
I will be planting in rows, after I burn off the vegetation on about 50x20 feet of space. I literally mean "burn" as in flames! I will have buckets of water ready...don't panic now. I have no plans to rototill the ground, except to hack a narrow bit out and place the seeds directly into it. There are a lot of thistle roots in the ground, but they get worse when you cut the roots, or bring them to the surface.
I will certainly need some way to control the weeds, and wheel hoe looks like the best and fastest way. If you've never seen one in action, look it up on YouTube, it's an amazing little tool, if not a bit pricey. A really good one is $350 or more, and then you can get different attachments for them that would cost more. Still not as much as just one weaned calf tho.
Right now, the wind is blowing like mad, which of course means free electricity for us! I have a pretty large list of things to do tomorrow, including water hauling, and wood cutting....unfortunately, the fun and games never end out here, but at least the house is warm for free!
Take care, and happy new year!
We've had a mix of good and bad times, mostly good of course. The bad stuff isn't much, mainly automobile problems. I had to spend a gob of money on tie rods, and the car is still making some strange noises from the suspension and steering area. I couldn't do the work myself without a very expensive tool, and I needed my car on the road right away.
On Christmas Eve, as I was on my way home from work at about midnight, I was coming around a corner that I KNEW was icy, so I slowed down...but not enough. The road was a thin sheet of ice, and the car started whirling around like a retarded ballerina! I ended up off the road at a rather steep point, facing straight down into the ditch. Someone passing by stopped to offer help, and ended up giving me a ride home (Thanks again, Steve and Samantha!)
Lucky for me, my mother has AMA, so she had a two truck out there today, and I'm out! He pulled my car out by one of the back tires, so I'm not sure if that can cause damage...hopefully not.
With Christmas past, and the days actually getting longer, I've started dreaming of gardens and livestock again. I did a mountain of research into cattle, and I figure I've got 3 choices. One, wait till fall, buy 6-7 weaned calves for about $500 each, feed them through winter on whatever forage they can reach, and perhaps a little hay, and butcher in fall of 2011, selling the beef in sides. Option 2, buy as many cow/calf pairs as I can in March/April, and sell the calves off in 2011 as per option 1. Then, rebreed the mothers and repeat ad infinitum.
Option 3, and a very risky type of option, but with the highest potential for profit. Get a few bottle calves, and try keep them alive long enough to eat forage. It's a lot of work, but the calves can be had for under $100 in most cases! We'll see....I think a mix of Options 1 and 2 are probably best, if I can come up with a decent bit of cash.
I've also got some designs on a market garden, scaled up from last year. The things that really did well, carrots, peas, sunflowers, a different variety of bean, onions, and strawberries, will be the only things I grow. The peas will be grown behind something that will block a lot of light, as that seemed to be the way they grew best. The peas that were in 70% shade last year produced a TON of pods, which decreased for the plants which were getting longer light.
I would also like to get the pit greenhouse covered, and at least a small portion of it planted to something.
I will be planting in rows, after I burn off the vegetation on about 50x20 feet of space. I literally mean "burn" as in flames! I will have buckets of water ready...don't panic now. I have no plans to rototill the ground, except to hack a narrow bit out and place the seeds directly into it. There are a lot of thistle roots in the ground, but they get worse when you cut the roots, or bring them to the surface.
I will certainly need some way to control the weeds, and wheel hoe looks like the best and fastest way. If you've never seen one in action, look it up on YouTube, it's an amazing little tool, if not a bit pricey. A really good one is $350 or more, and then you can get different attachments for them that would cost more. Still not as much as just one weaned calf tho.
Right now, the wind is blowing like mad, which of course means free electricity for us! I have a pretty large list of things to do tomorrow, including water hauling, and wood cutting....unfortunately, the fun and games never end out here, but at least the house is warm for free!
Take care, and happy new year!
Saturday, November 27, 2010
I must protest, Mr Weatherman
November 27, 2010. Not even December. Alberta has already seen more than a foot of snow, and temperatures dropping to -39 C a couple of nights. I have twice dragged my car down the driveway with my truck because the snow was too deep to navigate with my car. Booooooo....
The really cold weather is behind us (for now), but we still have tons of snow! That's not very common for this time of year, and it brings challenges. Any tools left out will be either gone till spring, or until the next Chinook, the snow forms large, solid drifts that block foot traffic, and of course, driving becomes nightmarish. Then, water pipes freeze. Thanks to some missing insulation under the house (-39 didn't help either) several of our water pipes froze. They have thawed since, but it's very apparent to me that living in a mobile home is going to be a constant battle to keep those lines unfrozen. The only successful thing I have been able to do is to blast a kerosene heater under the house, especially in the direction of the sewer pipe, which again froze solid on me. The heater did it's job tho, and our pipes are clear, and my wife loves me again (haha....ha).
Seriously though, once we are clear of the winter months, we are going to take a drastic step. We are selling our house, and moving away. Temporarily.
Sitting on my "List of things I wanna do someday" is building a strawbale house. The problem with doing that is, how do you build a house, when you already have one? The only real way to do it is to sell the first one, THEN build another! Therefore, we are listing the house in the new year, and we are going to try selling it with all of the renewable energy stuff inside. I will even offer to move it (the first 100 km) to sweeten the deal, if we don't get a lot of interest at first. I'm going to ask for a bit more money to cover the replacement of the RE stuff, probably 15k more.
It shouldn't take more than 1 year to build a house, at least far enough along to live in it. We only need to obtain financing from the bank, which is no easy task to be sure. I will give it my best shot. We probably need about $60 k, which isn't much, but I never take it for granted that getting any kind of loan will be "easy". It almost never is, except for the first time.
In other interesting news, my darling wife, who up till now has never really taken much interest in business, has had a lightening bolt of a business idea, which I think has a real shot at producing something. I won't go into extreme detail, but it involves crafting personal health products, like lotion, soaps, perfume, and selling them. This idea has kind of revitalized her, given her something to reach for. Of course, I support the idea, and I'll put whatever money is needed on the table, even if my own business plans suffer a bit.
Because of the house-building quest, most gardening will take a back-seat this year. I may attempt some peas, carrots, and other easy veggies, but my main focus this year will be purchasing some cattle, and getting them growing out on the grass. In time, I plan to market the beef for bulk purchase. It looks to me like there will be quite a bit of interest, many of my friends and coworkers have said that they would purchase bulk meat. Raising cattle is more of a "hands off" type of activity, they don't need much except wind shelter, fresh grass, and water. That will free up my time for construction.
My phone's camera is still shot, or I would have pics of the snow. It's quite deep, but thankfully it hasn't drifted too much yet.
The really cold weather is behind us (for now), but we still have tons of snow! That's not very common for this time of year, and it brings challenges. Any tools left out will be either gone till spring, or until the next Chinook, the snow forms large, solid drifts that block foot traffic, and of course, driving becomes nightmarish. Then, water pipes freeze. Thanks to some missing insulation under the house (-39 didn't help either) several of our water pipes froze. They have thawed since, but it's very apparent to me that living in a mobile home is going to be a constant battle to keep those lines unfrozen. The only successful thing I have been able to do is to blast a kerosene heater under the house, especially in the direction of the sewer pipe, which again froze solid on me. The heater did it's job tho, and our pipes are clear, and my wife loves me again (haha....ha).
Seriously though, once we are clear of the winter months, we are going to take a drastic step. We are selling our house, and moving away. Temporarily.
Sitting on my "List of things I wanna do someday" is building a strawbale house. The problem with doing that is, how do you build a house, when you already have one? The only real way to do it is to sell the first one, THEN build another! Therefore, we are listing the house in the new year, and we are going to try selling it with all of the renewable energy stuff inside. I will even offer to move it (the first 100 km) to sweeten the deal, if we don't get a lot of interest at first. I'm going to ask for a bit more money to cover the replacement of the RE stuff, probably 15k more.
It shouldn't take more than 1 year to build a house, at least far enough along to live in it. We only need to obtain financing from the bank, which is no easy task to be sure. I will give it my best shot. We probably need about $60 k, which isn't much, but I never take it for granted that getting any kind of loan will be "easy". It almost never is, except for the first time.
In other interesting news, my darling wife, who up till now has never really taken much interest in business, has had a lightening bolt of a business idea, which I think has a real shot at producing something. I won't go into extreme detail, but it involves crafting personal health products, like lotion, soaps, perfume, and selling them. This idea has kind of revitalized her, given her something to reach for. Of course, I support the idea, and I'll put whatever money is needed on the table, even if my own business plans suffer a bit.
Because of the house-building quest, most gardening will take a back-seat this year. I may attempt some peas, carrots, and other easy veggies, but my main focus this year will be purchasing some cattle, and getting them growing out on the grass. In time, I plan to market the beef for bulk purchase. It looks to me like there will be quite a bit of interest, many of my friends and coworkers have said that they would purchase bulk meat. Raising cattle is more of a "hands off" type of activity, they don't need much except wind shelter, fresh grass, and water. That will free up my time for construction.
My phone's camera is still shot, or I would have pics of the snow. It's quite deep, but thankfully it hasn't drifted too much yet.
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Neverending Summer
It's October 15th, and my son is 6 months old! He is now sitting up on his own, but no crawling or rolling yet. Not that I'm upset, the sooner he crawls, the sooner I have to clear out EVERYTHING in reach before it becomes food!
I've been busy, doing exactly those things that I said I would do all year, and thankfully, the weather has been absolutely perfect! I rented the mini-excavator and dug the water tank holes (more on that later) and dug a large rectangular greenhouse pit, which I will be covering with plastic.
GARDEN UPDATE:
It's mid October, which is looooong past normal gardening time, but there are still some plants that are alive in the garden. All of the flowers are still alive, the sunflowers are slowly maturing, and if I had actually planted a second crop of peas, they would have produced a good crop at the end of September. Next year, I will do that. I'm not used to double cropping here in the frozen North!
Carrots are a good double cropping thing too, and I've already got my future huge garden plot mapped out, it just needs the weeds tilled under!
WATER
As I mentioned before, the real purpose for renting the excavator was to bury my water tanks, so I dug a huge hole for that purpose. Turns out it wasn't huge enough, and only one tank will fit, and that's after I got into the hole and hacked it out with a pick and shovel.
At first I pushed the empty tank into the hole, realized it didn't fit, and panicked when I saw that it needed to come back out. This is a 1250 gallon tank, 7 feet in diameter. Prolly 250 lbs. I pulled it out with the truck, by looping a rope through the top and bottom.
The bottom of the hole has accumulated about 1 foot of groundwater, which was surprising to me. I didn't realize our water table was so high! It made working in the hold a lot more difficult, until I tossed a couple of sturdy pallets down there. The tank itself will probably be resting on top of these after all is said and done.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
I finally got my new turbine blades! Today is installation day for the newly upgraded wind turbine, and not a moment too soon. The automn wind is picking up, which means $3-6 in free electric on days where the wind exeeds 20 kph, which is about every third day so far. Less windy days might produce about $1.50 in power, not a lot, but that's every single day!
I have been window shopping solar panels in the US, and on the site
www.sunelec.com, full panels can be had for $1.35/watt USD. That's a substantial discount off our local prices here, and with the US dollar at parity with our dollar, I will be able to get many panels for just a few thousand dollars.
I need about 1000 watts worth, which in the winter will admittedly only produce about half our needs, but in summer will be more than enough. Eventually, I want about 2500 watts, and an additional 8 batteries to even out the power consumption. My goal is to reduce my generator runtime to less than 50 hrs per month in the winter months, and nothing in the summer.
OTHER BRIC-A-BRAC
I still need to work on the insulation under the house, fix the storm doors, seal some of our windows, put an outside air intake on the woodstove, and a few dozen other smaller projects. Not like last year at this time, where every waking hour was spent working on the ill-fated workshop, which I have been cannibalizing for lumber, btw.
Oh, and finish off the perimeter fence. That's kind of important too.
As you can see, a homesteader's work is never done! Sometimes, it stays half done for a while.
I'll post pics of the water, when I've got it completed.
I've been busy, doing exactly those things that I said I would do all year, and thankfully, the weather has been absolutely perfect! I rented the mini-excavator and dug the water tank holes (more on that later) and dug a large rectangular greenhouse pit, which I will be covering with plastic.
GARDEN UPDATE:
It's mid October, which is looooong past normal gardening time, but there are still some plants that are alive in the garden. All of the flowers are still alive, the sunflowers are slowly maturing, and if I had actually planted a second crop of peas, they would have produced a good crop at the end of September. Next year, I will do that. I'm not used to double cropping here in the frozen North!
Carrots are a good double cropping thing too, and I've already got my future huge garden plot mapped out, it just needs the weeds tilled under!
WATER
As I mentioned before, the real purpose for renting the excavator was to bury my water tanks, so I dug a huge hole for that purpose. Turns out it wasn't huge enough, and only one tank will fit, and that's after I got into the hole and hacked it out with a pick and shovel.
At first I pushed the empty tank into the hole, realized it didn't fit, and panicked when I saw that it needed to come back out. This is a 1250 gallon tank, 7 feet in diameter. Prolly 250 lbs. I pulled it out with the truck, by looping a rope through the top and bottom.
The bottom of the hole has accumulated about 1 foot of groundwater, which was surprising to me. I didn't realize our water table was so high! It made working in the hold a lot more difficult, until I tossed a couple of sturdy pallets down there. The tank itself will probably be resting on top of these after all is said and done.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
I finally got my new turbine blades! Today is installation day for the newly upgraded wind turbine, and not a moment too soon. The automn wind is picking up, which means $3-6 in free electric on days where the wind exeeds 20 kph, which is about every third day so far. Less windy days might produce about $1.50 in power, not a lot, but that's every single day!
I have been window shopping solar panels in the US, and on the site
www.sunelec.com, full panels can be had for $1.35/watt USD. That's a substantial discount off our local prices here, and with the US dollar at parity with our dollar, I will be able to get many panels for just a few thousand dollars.
I need about 1000 watts worth, which in the winter will admittedly only produce about half our needs, but in summer will be more than enough. Eventually, I want about 2500 watts, and an additional 8 batteries to even out the power consumption. My goal is to reduce my generator runtime to less than 50 hrs per month in the winter months, and nothing in the summer.
OTHER BRIC-A-BRAC
I still need to work on the insulation under the house, fix the storm doors, seal some of our windows, put an outside air intake on the woodstove, and a few dozen other smaller projects. Not like last year at this time, where every waking hour was spent working on the ill-fated workshop, which I have been cannibalizing for lumber, btw.
Oh, and finish off the perimeter fence. That's kind of important too.
As you can see, a homesteader's work is never done! Sometimes, it stays half done for a while.
I'll post pics of the water, when I've got it completed.
Monday, August 16, 2010
My Blue Eyed Girl!
Well, it's official!
I've been married for 9 years
We've owned our land for two years
I've been in my job for two years
All in the same week!
Oh, and I'm 29. That was last week. Yeahhhh....
FAMILY
My brother is getting married in 5 days, which means his anniversary is pretty much going to coincide with mine. Again, my darling wife is doing the pictures, so perhaps with his permission, you might see a few here!
My son is becoming a massive no-longer-newborn, he's tipping out around 16 lbs at 4 months old, and is one of the content-est babies I've ever met. His sister has put aside most of her jealousy, and has got some milestones of her own, including the finishing of Grade 1, and the starting of Grade 2 in a few weeks, or whenever I get around to finding the books. She now reads silently to herself, and can read words like "difficult" and "pronounce". We need to work on spelling and writing, but I have no doubts that she will follow in my footsteps, and become a voracious reader of anything printed!
GARDEN
This is my most successful year of gardening EVER, and we've been eating fresh garden veggies every day now for a month! The harvests are small, but steady, and the weather has been excellent (no hail). The peas are pretty much spent, the brocolli has started making heads, and is huge, I've picked about two handfuls of beans, several dozen monster onions are protruding from the soil, there is a couple of small but growing watermelons, and the cukes are spreading rapidly, and will cover the mounds they are on within a week's time. I don't know if the corn will actually produce, but the plants are tall and vigorous, so here's hoping for a nice September. Oh, and the sunflowers are taller than I am (not difficult, but still...) I have some potato tires with leafy growth, but when I push down I can't feel any spuds growing yet. Could be that they are deeper than the straw.
Today, I pulled a microscopic handful of saskatoons off one bush, and they were tasty!!! I think there were twelve berries in total, but they were large and plump, bending the branch over with their weight. Next year I'm going to plant 100 of those 3 year bushes, and some apple trees.
HOME PROJECTS
I've come up with an interesting idea, hopefully I haven't mentioned it already. I need to excavate a large pit to put my water tanks in. It would not be difficult to dig that pit out to twice as wide as the water tanks, and put a pit greenhouse in that spot. The tanks will be painted black, and the top will be insulated up to ground level, where I will build a platform over top of them, and make a sun-room at that level. Inside the sunroom will be some solar heating boxes, funelling heat under my house, which will hopefully keep the floors a bit warmer, and stop any drain pipe freezing. Then, I need to seal any gaps around the rest of the skirting, and tack some insulation along the inside of the plywood. That should hopefully help the floors from getting too cold, without actually pumping much heat down there. If the solar space heater works, I might put one on some of the sun-facing windows, or even along the south facing wall, with vents coming through the wall!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Midsummer
Am I crazy to be thinking of winter coming already?
I don't care, there's lots to get done before the snow flies!
There's about 2 months before the first frost, which is quite a while for the garden to fully grow up. I've got fence to build, water tanks to bury, and many other miscellaneous things to get done, but what else is new???
GARDEN
We got the very first harvest a few days ago, about a cupful of snow peas were ready for picking, and there are more growing on the three plants that I've got. I believe that I may allow the rest of the pods to fully mature and dry out, which will give me seeds for next year. The rest of my garden is well into it's summer growth, the 100 or so pea plants are shooting up, probably will have some peas to eat in a few days. My sunflowers are massive, leaves the size of my head, brocolli is healthy and big, beans are beginning to go, and we might get some cukes in a month or so.
One thing that I will say about my garden, I did not plant enough! I've got a planting bed that could probably support ten times more plants, and it's basically idle, just about 25 sunflowers in it, and a few really shoddy looking strawberries. Next year I'll have to use that bed to it's fully capacity.
I've been really thinking that I need to amp up my production for next year, and put a lot more space into the garden. I think I've learned the easiest way to do some rowcrops, which is to make a raised bed from soil and manure on top of a layer of newspaper, and mulch it with about 4 inches of cut grass. The plants will grow on the very top of the "mound", tucked into the mulch. Between the rows will be grass, about 5 feet of it, which I will cut and throw on top every couple weeks. I just don't know what exactly I should grow, but squash, pumpkins and watermelon sound pretty good. A decent sized pumpkin will sell in October for about $20, but they take a looooong time to mature, so I will need a greenhouse, and some soil blocks.
I'm thinking that I'm gonna need at least a full acre to do this, in addition to my current garden area. It will be watered with drip tape, and my hope is that the mulch will suppress most of the weeds, and whatever weeds manage to get through I'm just going to chop them with a whacker instead of pulling.
In any case, I will need to start making these mounds right now, rather than wait till next spring. The plan is to rent a Bobcat to move the dirt. I'm tired of shoveling.
ORCHARD
My mini-orchard, which consists of two cherry trees and about 12 saskatoons is actually doing well. The saskatoons are producing a most crop of berries! Maybe a half a bucket or so, but considering that I planted them this year, any kind of harvest is super! Next year, I'm gonna try and put about 200-300 of the same mature plants out there, along with a bunch of apple, plum, nut and other cool trees. In front of the saskatoons, I'm going to put either a thin row of strawberries, or asparagus, or even both. Somewhere around the edges, or even behind the big trees will be some raspberries, and down on the ground beside the trees will be tires or pots to plant squash or vine crops into. That's a few years down the road, the trees will have to be a lot bigger before that's gonna happen.
LAST WEEK
The bummer of this last week was the breakdown of my Corolla, which experienced a bizarre breakdown on my way to work. The engine is fine, but the steering and suspension are shot. I think we might be looking at $600 or better, and then I've still got to fix the brakes as well. I love that car, but I fear it might not be worth fixing : ( I've still got to tow the stupid thing from off the side of the highway, where it's been for a week now. Can you believe that there are no towtrucks out here??? Maybe that would be a good p/t business for me... The only way for me to get it is to rent a car dolly and tow it myself with the truck. It's actually a bit cheaper than a tow-truck, but I can't do it for a few days. Surprisingly, I'm not nearly as pissed about the breakdown as I could be. I was half expecting it, to be honest.
We've got a bead on a car, which we're actually picking up tomorrow from a nearby town. We've got a bunch of family there, so we'll make a visit out of it as well.
The car is a 1981 VW Golf, a hatchback diesel. It should improve my gas mileage for work by about 40% over the car, hopefully saving a bit of dough. It's a beater, so if it lasts me for six months, I will be content, but I'm hoping for a year or so, even if I need to spend a little money to fix the injectors. Those vehicles should be good for 500,000 km, and this one has half of that!
Anyway, the wife wants the computer, so I'll sign off here. Pictures to follow on the next post!
I don't care, there's lots to get done before the snow flies!
There's about 2 months before the first frost, which is quite a while for the garden to fully grow up. I've got fence to build, water tanks to bury, and many other miscellaneous things to get done, but what else is new???
GARDEN
We got the very first harvest a few days ago, about a cupful of snow peas were ready for picking, and there are more growing on the three plants that I've got. I believe that I may allow the rest of the pods to fully mature and dry out, which will give me seeds for next year. The rest of my garden is well into it's summer growth, the 100 or so pea plants are shooting up, probably will have some peas to eat in a few days. My sunflowers are massive, leaves the size of my head, brocolli is healthy and big, beans are beginning to go, and we might get some cukes in a month or so.
One thing that I will say about my garden, I did not plant enough! I've got a planting bed that could probably support ten times more plants, and it's basically idle, just about 25 sunflowers in it, and a few really shoddy looking strawberries. Next year I'll have to use that bed to it's fully capacity.
I've been really thinking that I need to amp up my production for next year, and put a lot more space into the garden. I think I've learned the easiest way to do some rowcrops, which is to make a raised bed from soil and manure on top of a layer of newspaper, and mulch it with about 4 inches of cut grass. The plants will grow on the very top of the "mound", tucked into the mulch. Between the rows will be grass, about 5 feet of it, which I will cut and throw on top every couple weeks. I just don't know what exactly I should grow, but squash, pumpkins and watermelon sound pretty good. A decent sized pumpkin will sell in October for about $20, but they take a looooong time to mature, so I will need a greenhouse, and some soil blocks.
I'm thinking that I'm gonna need at least a full acre to do this, in addition to my current garden area. It will be watered with drip tape, and my hope is that the mulch will suppress most of the weeds, and whatever weeds manage to get through I'm just going to chop them with a whacker instead of pulling.
In any case, I will need to start making these mounds right now, rather than wait till next spring. The plan is to rent a Bobcat to move the dirt. I'm tired of shoveling.
ORCHARD
My mini-orchard, which consists of two cherry trees and about 12 saskatoons is actually doing well. The saskatoons are producing a most crop of berries! Maybe a half a bucket or so, but considering that I planted them this year, any kind of harvest is super! Next year, I'm gonna try and put about 200-300 of the same mature plants out there, along with a bunch of apple, plum, nut and other cool trees. In front of the saskatoons, I'm going to put either a thin row of strawberries, or asparagus, or even both. Somewhere around the edges, or even behind the big trees will be some raspberries, and down on the ground beside the trees will be tires or pots to plant squash or vine crops into. That's a few years down the road, the trees will have to be a lot bigger before that's gonna happen.
LAST WEEK
The bummer of this last week was the breakdown of my Corolla, which experienced a bizarre breakdown on my way to work. The engine is fine, but the steering and suspension are shot. I think we might be looking at $600 or better, and then I've still got to fix the brakes as well. I love that car, but I fear it might not be worth fixing : ( I've still got to tow the stupid thing from off the side of the highway, where it's been for a week now. Can you believe that there are no towtrucks out here??? Maybe that would be a good p/t business for me... The only way for me to get it is to rent a car dolly and tow it myself with the truck. It's actually a bit cheaper than a tow-truck, but I can't do it for a few days. Surprisingly, I'm not nearly as pissed about the breakdown as I could be. I was half expecting it, to be honest.
We've got a bead on a car, which we're actually picking up tomorrow from a nearby town. We've got a bunch of family there, so we'll make a visit out of it as well.
The car is a 1981 VW Golf, a hatchback diesel. It should improve my gas mileage for work by about 40% over the car, hopefully saving a bit of dough. It's a beater, so if it lasts me for six months, I will be content, but I'm hoping for a year or so, even if I need to spend a little money to fix the injectors. Those vehicles should be good for 500,000 km, and this one has half of that!
Anyway, the wife wants the computer, so I'll sign off here. Pictures to follow on the next post!
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