Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 2745 Location: The Entropisphere
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 1:47 am Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
SpringCreekFarm wrote:
Ang wrote:
RedStateGreen wrote:
Now I see why people buy 50# bags of salt. Curing meat takes a heck of a lot of salt ...
Where do folks buy 50lb bags of salt?? We've looked at Costco but they only have cases of the little round 1lb containers.
Any info. would be appreciated!!
Go to any ag-feed store and ask for loose salt. Always check the quality and composition of the salt before using for human consumption.
Pops claims he uses this salt. Maybe he'll chime in with more details.
As it has been stated before, stocking up on salt maybe one of the wisest things one could do for food security.
Thanks, I've wondered about this myself. Bought 100# today and will get another 100# in a few days. _________________ "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
-Friedrich von Schiller
"What I try, may not work. It may be ineffective. It might even turn out in the pages of history to be the exact wrong thing to do, but I'm going to try to do what I c
Joined: Sep 19, 2007 Posts: 1091 Location: Land of the Tongva tribe
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 1:48 am Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
Today I mailed in the Sale Contract to purchase another 140 acres in central New Mexico bordering family property on one side and national forest on three sides. Perfect place to have a future get-away when Los Angeles starts downhill.
joeltrout _________________ ENERGY is the basis of our industrial civilization and sustains our standard of living. It is the foundation stone of our national wealth. A nation starved of energy.....will be a nation of starving people.
Joined: Apr 17, 2005 Posts: 2680 Location: Vancouver Island
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:29 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
today I bought a scope for my .22 using birthday money. now to find some time and get it zeroed in. _________________ shame on us, doomed from the start
god have mercy on our dirty little hearts
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 1:00 am Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
...this may sound un-doomerish until you heard the rationale:
This week I learned about the viability of a laser eye surgery. I'm medium in 2 optical distortions. I don't want to bet on a "healthy" supply of polycarbonate for my glasses or high tech for mantaining contact lenses after TSHTF... so I'm planning to get an eye surgery before TSHTF. 20/20 sight is quite a tool for survival. This takes priority over a hybrid (...which implies a not-so-big volume of crap to be covered after _). _________________ anagami.net
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5141 Location: Oklahoma
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:08 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
zensui wrote:
...this may sound un-doomerish until you heard the rationale:
This week I learned about the viability of a laser eye surgery.
I think it's a great idea. A friend of mine had it recently specifically because of impending collapse, and it's on our "to do" list for my husband as well. I am fortunate to have excellent vision so far, but if I relied on corrective lenses I would certainly invest in lasik surgery if at all possible.
Last night I found out (many thanks to fireplaceguy) my wook cookstove is complete and shipping from Canada today or tomorrow! I can't wait to see it in person. I've also been learning about water wells and posted about that in the general water thread. _________________ "Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:32 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
RedStateGreen wrote:
Started moving all the wood chips over
from where the pile is out in the back yard. For now, I'm putting
them in a pile near the compost bins. Not sure where the best place
is for them. Part of me wants to save them in case we need to
make a composting toilet. Part of me wants to put them out front,
but there's already a good amount of mulch out there.
Is shredded wood good for garden plots?
If you mean adding the chips to the soil, it's not good unless you
add nitrogen. Here are a few clips and links...
Wood Chip Carbon and Nitrogen
The micro-organisms that decompose wood chips require nitrogen
in amounts greater than are available in the wood chips alone. If
additional nitrogen is not mixed with the wood chips, the
micro-organisms will get the nitrogen they need from the soil,
competing with plant roots for the nitrogen available in the soil. This
is why bark mulch works to keep weeds down.
Wood Chips in Compost Piles:
Most of the material you place in your backyard compost pile is high
in nitrogen. Food waste and lawn/garden waste are the two most
common ingredients of backyard compost piles, and both are high in
nitrogen. Wood chips can be added to a compost pile to provide a
better carbon:nitrogen ratio. Wood chips, with their rigid structure,
also enhance the flow of air through the compost since they are
less prone to compact. This is a good thing.
Wood Chips as a Soil Amendment:
You can use wood chips to add organic material to soil. The process
will take four or more years. You will need to add nitrogen along
with the wood chips to facilitate decomposition of the wood chips
without depleting the available nitrogen in the soil.
For each 10 X 10 area:
Year One: add one pound of ammonium sulfate for each one inch layer of wood chips.
Year Two: add one half pound of ammonium sulfate for each one inch layer of wood chips.
Year Three: add one quarter pound of ammonium sulfate for each one inch layer of wood chips.
Year Four: add one eighth pound of ammonium sulfate for each one inch layer of wood chips.
In other words, start with one pound ammonium sulfate for each
100 square feet the first year, and decrease that amount by half in
each of the following years, until the wood chips are fully decomposed.
Wood Chips and Soil pH:
Wood chips will lower soil pH, making it more acid. That is a good
thing for acid loving plants like evergreen trees and shrubs, but
might be bad for other plant species. In areas where soil is already
neutral or acid, the addition of wood chips can result in excessively
acid soil.
Wood chips are readily available and are quite useful in the
landscape. My neighbor Kim has an area that isn’t paved where he
parks the family’s second vehicle. Every six months, Kim contacts a
local tree company and asks them to drop off a load of chips when
they are in the neighborhood. He uses the chips as mulch under
shrubs and trees in the back yard, as ground cover in the dog
kennel and as filler for the ruts under his SUV.
I get excited about chips. Not potato chips or silicon chips, but wood
chips. I believe they are a vastly underutilized resource on the
organic farm.
...Winter and evergreen chips can be used to pave greenhouse and
outdoor workspaces to avoid the mud that would otherwise be
underfoot. They make a soft, carpetlike floor that is pleasant to
walk on and stand on. Walking on a four inch layer of chipped
spruce boughs is a pleasantly aromatic for months.
We have spread chips with the manure spreader to pave our field
roads to firm up the surface on highly trafficked areas. They also
make good fill for potholes and low areas in farm roads, as the
grass sends roots in and the chip fill is quickly part of the
surrounding ground. We have also used them on our woods roads
to firm up wet areas and filling in ruts....
One thing I've wondered is if wood chips could be fed into a pellet
stove. Another use for woodchips, you could probably put a few
shovelfuls into a regular wood furnace along with logs and use
them for heat. Here are a few interesting links I found:
Quote:
Wood chip burning home furnace
(Smokelessly burning green wood chips for home heating)
...My original aim in this experiment was to explore a reversed
approach to modern commercial practices and conventional wisdom.
Namely trying to directly burn wet green (50% moisture content)
chips in a self-sustained reaction in a small solidly packed single
combustion chamber with little or no secondary air admission. I
wondered if doing this in a batch-burn high-output hot water
furnace would provide enough heat for a Vermont home.
By definition a batch process doesn't need continuous feed, or
throttling, and so eliminates large augers or combustion chambers.
As a result, the VTHR experimental furnace was about the size and
shape of a household hot water heater...
Joined: Jun 21, 2006 Posts: 1205 Location: Burgundy, France
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:39 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
Yesterday I got my delivery of fruit and nut trees (over thirty of them).
Today I decided that my boring orchard I had plannedwas (a) too hard to do due to tree cutting requirements, (b) boring and (c) too far away from the house.
So, I decided to replace half of our lawn with a Mandala-style 25m diameter garden. I would have done something like this earlier, but I was afraid my wife would kill me for destroying the lawn.
But, luckily, she was the one who suddenly said she preferred the orchard on the lower part of the lawn (it's over an acre) a l'Italienne. So, cue me delving into "Edible Forest Gardens" for pattern cues. Hence the round funky design. It'll be far less boring than the orchard I had planned.
So far I've planned it all out with fluorescent paint and planted seven of the trees. The rest I've put in water with some compost. Here's hoping they'll survive... I'll need to buy some more for the interior, but I can put strawberries in there for now. I'll post the design later. _________________ All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become. - Buddha
Joined: Sep 19, 2007 Posts: 1091 Location: Land of the Tongva tribe
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 5:55 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
davep wrote:
I'll post the design later.
Sounds like you have quite the set-up.
Between my parents, my brother, and myself we have 300 acres of ranch land in New Mexico but unfortunately I live in California and only get back once a year to hunt elk. My parents and brother don't have any interest in fixing it up for future use. They just pay for some cowboys to run the cattle between the places and some national forest grazing perits that we have.
Maybe one of these days I will get back to work on the property. Until then I will only dream.
Joeltrout _________________ ENERGY is the basis of our industrial civilization and sustains our standard of living. It is the foundation stone of our national wealth. A nation starved of energy.....will be a nation of starving people.
Joined: Jun 21, 2006 Posts: 1205 Location: Burgundy, France
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
Here's the plan. I'll update it as I change things (the interior is still a work in progress). The black lines are meant to be paths. They'll be bigger than that of course. I'll be using my newly chipped wood for that.
Sorry it's in Franglais! _________________ All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become. - Buddha
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:36 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
davep wrote:
joeltrout wrote:
Today I mailed in the Sale Contract to purchase
another 140 acres in central New Mexico bordering family property on
one side and national forest on three sides. Perfect place to have a
future get-away when Los Angeles starts downhill.
Wow, some of the stuff people post here just blows me away!
It's hard to know what to say about some of these plans, it's just great stuff!
I think I should archive this thread and make "a shoebox" of ideas I might like to do sometime...
Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 4071 Location: Graceland
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:45 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
steam_cannon wrote:
davep wrote:
joeltrout wrote:
Today I mailed in the Sale Contract to purchase
another 140 acres in central New Mexico bordering family property on
one side and national forest on three sides. Perfect place to have a
future get-away when Los Angeles starts downhill.
Wow, some of the stuff people post here just blows me away!
It's hard to know what to say about some of these plans, it's just great stuff!
I think I should archive this thread and make "a shoebox" of ideas I might like to do sometime...
The first thing I thought when I saw the tree setup was that golem was explaining how the Masons had infiltrated your grounds and the trees, as they grew would gradually form a swastika, and then in the year 2012........ _________________
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:01 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
BigTex wrote:
The first thing I thought when I saw the tree setup
was that golem was explaining how the Masons had infiltrated your
grounds and the trees, as they grew would gradually form a swastika,
and then in the year 2012........
Yeah I can understand that, the way Golum goes on about circles and
stuff. Golum has some problems, but at least he doesn't vent too much
or cause too much trouble on the site, he's only been banned once...
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:12 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
I learned a couple things this week...
Milk is extremely effective at killing fungus on my plants! It really
works. I was looking for an organic fungicide like maybe vodka that
I could just quickly spray on and clear up my miniature rose bush.
And in a quick web search I came across milk. The plant had spots
for a while and then sprouted harry fungus on it's leaves. The milk
cleared it all up. It seems that slightly diluted or whole milk both
work. Just spray it on and when it drys it kills the fungus.
Molding with silicone
I've been learning to mold using silicone. The shape of something I
want to make doesn't exist, so the easiest thing to do is to mold it...
Food Grade Silicone Sealant is excellent for molding and mold
making. I made a copper mold today to make a part for a product
I'm thinking of buying a banner ad to sell here. I lined the mold
with non-stick aluminum foil, but mold release spray or oil would
have worked too...
Joined: Sep 19, 2007 Posts: 1091 Location: Land of the Tongva tribe
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:57 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
steam_cannon wrote:
Wow, some of the stuff people post here just blows me away!
It's hard to know what to say about some of these plans, it's just great stuff!
I think I should archive this thread and make "a shoebox" of ideas I might like to do sometime...
I think it is a good idea to take practical steps towards sustainable living and knowing you can help yourself if you need to. Even if nothing terrible happens for some time or ever in your lifetime then you can still enjoy what you have done.
joeltrout _________________ ENERGY is the basis of our industrial civilization and sustains our standard of living. It is the foundation stone of our national wealth. A nation starved of energy.....will be a nation of starving people.
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:46 pm Post subject: Re: Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil wo
joeltrout wrote:
I think it is a good idea to take practical steps
towards sustainable living and knowing you can help yourself if you
need to. Even if nothing terrible happens for some time or ever in
your lifetime then you can still enjoy what you have done.
Yeah it's a really nice being able to do more things for yourself and
being more independent from "the system", walmart, three days of
food on their shelves, all that...
And a lot of the things we discuss here are better then regular
store bought... Like with razors, when I use a 10 cent blade in my
70 year old 3 piece safety razor I get a great shave. On the rare
occasion where I do nick myself, the nicks are not deep and close
up in seconds or a minute if I really nicked myself good.
But when I buy a modern $15 triple bladed razor from the store, it
don't shave any closer and nicks are three times as deep. So if
I use a modern razor it might be 15 minutes to a half hour before a
cut closes up enough that I don't need bits of paper all over my
face. But with my 70 year old razor I don't need any bits of paper
on my face at all.
I think a lot of what we talk about here is perhaps the failing of modern
businesses to provide superior products and just better ways to do
things. And for most people in many ways, modern society has failed to
provide the same level of intellectualism and freedom from stress
that our grandparents had.
So a lot of what people are learning here and posting in this thread is
the result of picking though history finding the best of what was.
Like you mentioned, these are things a person will enjoy for a lifetime...
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