Today I made / bought / learnt .... (for a post oil world) 2

RedStateGreen

Planted two more tomatoes.

I think I'm going to start more varieties next year, but fewer overall plants. I'm down to my last two trays of seedlings, but ... whew. Good thing I like tomatoes.

It's so humid here ... I'm tired just planting these two.
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Conservation is conservative

"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment."

Hagakure_Leofman

Just order my hand grain mill for making flour and hand flaker for rolling oats. From now on, we'll be making our own flour from whole grains and rolling our own oats for porridge Very Happy

Currently we pay $5 for 1KG or rolled oats. We can buy 25Kg or whole oats for $20. So the 'value adding' of the rolled oats adds puts a premium of $105 dollars onto the price of the oats themselves!

Therefore, every time we go through 1KG of our own oats rolled by a hand flaker, we're saving ourselves around $4!

We love oats Smile

Also, both devices and be modified to attached to a pully system, so later I might rig up a stationary bike to run them if we want to mill larger quantities for local produce trade.

For the aussies out there, we got our mills from :

skippygrainmills.com.au

Hand Gain Mill

Hand Flaker (for rolling oats)

careinke

Bought a lot of popcorn for next weeks events.

Cliff (Start a rEVOLution, grow a garden)

Shannymara · Master Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5433 Location: Oklahoma

Re-homed the chicks (moved them from the brooder in the garage to the shed and pen which they share with the goats). Unpacked my grain mill, meat grinder, and a few other non-electric food processing items. Re-evaluated and increased our store of drinking water. Filled gas tanks on both vehicles yesterday, with alcohol-free gasoline, at $3.69/gallon. Will be keeping them as close to full as possible while things are so hot between Israel and Iran.

Oh, a couple of days ago our electric fence did its job on a neighbor's dog. I was at work, my husband heard "bark bark bark" out by the goat pen and ran to see what was going on. Before he could get out there, the barking suddenly turned into "yelp yelp yelp" receding into the distance. The dog ran away so fast he didn't even get a look at it. Zap!
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"Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young

Ludi

Here's the new Silky house:

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No original ideas are contained in this post.

Sinister · Coal Joined: May 25, 2008 Posts: 8

I bought a solar powered watch. I used to have a nice automatic Hamilton, but being as it was mechanical it broke. I think the this solar powered one will last longer as it's electronic, barring EMP.

wisconsin_cur · Moderator Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 2968

Shannymara · Master Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5433 Location: Oklahoma

Very nice, Ludi! Here are some pictures from around here this week:

Gherkin, our bottle fed doe. The shed behind her is now shared with the chickens. There are roosts and a nest box in there.

Voodoo, Truffle (to be eaten soon), Fondue, Reina (the buff one in front), and Santeria (white one, my herd sire). The one in front with no visible head is Gherkin again.

Strawberries, cucumbers, eggplant, and dianthus in my atrium.

Sinister, you might want to consider a wind up mechanical watch, too. I have a wind up pocket watch that I keep in my bugout bag. EMP, no problem.
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"Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young

Ludi

Thanks, wis-cur!

Cute cute goats, Shanny! I wish I had the dedication to keep little dairy goats. Smile

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No original ideas are contained in this post.

Laurasia · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jul 10, 2004 Posts: 533

Hubby and I started work (in the heat!) on the fourth raised bed. Work five minutes, rest for ten; work four minutes, rest for fifteen. Well, not quite - but you get the picture! Trying to force yourself in this kind of heat and humidity is really dumb and counterproductive.

Regards,

L.

Tucker · Tar Sands Joined: Jan 29, 2008 Posts: 58 Location: Orygun

Life is good. I made cheese for the first time today. I've always said that I would be a happy camper if stranded on a deserted island with only cheese to eat. I'm set.

I grew up on a semi self-sufficient farm. I learned to tend to animals we raised for food, hunt and forage to put food on the table, garden, and preserve food. I watched Mom make bread and butter from scratch.

But never did she make cheese.

I used the kit from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company. It was simple to make Mozarella. I hope to learn to make hard cheeses in the near future. I can't wait.

SpringCreekFarm · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 03, 2006 Posts: 889

I'm up agains the clock ( as usual, I put myself in these positions but it helps drive me ) to get my chicken coop finished. I think I'll be ready to put the newly brooded chickens in this coming weekend. This past weekend I dedicated mosty to my garden.

Yesterday was a hot muggy day and certainly not very nice to work in the garden but that, too, has me up against the time thing.

I planted 75 rows of white corn each 30ft long. It sounds harder than it was although it wasn't a walk in the park either. I have one of those garden planters with 2 wheels and different sized plates that dole out the seed. I don't have link or a picture but I think you may know what I mean. If I didn't have this, I would have never finished. The hard part is to get it to work properly in lumpy clay soil. I was cussing and carrying on trying to keep my rows in straight. When I finished I was friggin pooped. They are not the best planter but I suppose it does beat planting by hand.

As Jdumars said in his thread, alot of the mechanical tools out there are just a gimmick and often will let you down. I had a problem with the seed plate jamming ever so slightly causing the loose belt ( with no way of tightening the belt either ) to slip and not plant. I sanded the rough spots off the plate and sprayed some dry graphite lube on it and it seemed to work fine. If you have one of these planters, don't fill the hopper too full. It works much better at only half full. I was wondering if anything was getting planted but the seed went somewhere so I guess it did. Once I get germination, I'll go back with the old fashioned hand planter I have to fill in the gaps. It took 3 mason quarts of seed to plant this 30 x 125 area.

I also used the seeder to plant 6 rows of mung beans. I've never grown them but I'll give it a shot this year. I've been experimenting with sprouts lately and will be able to use these for bean sprouts in the fall.

I found some neato blue potatoes at William Dam Seeds that I got planted as well. I was working on the last 6ft of the row when an enormous storm blew in and soaked me before I got to the house. Excellent. I didn't have to water my new plantings. Right on schedule.

biofuel13

Planted some more veggies, organized food stock reserves, stocked and packed a bug out bag.

Hagakure_Leofman

JJ · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 07, 2007 Posts: 350