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

CarlinsDarlin · Moderator Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 1395

Patience,

Our local recycle center takes plastic, so we can deal with that, but our biggest problem is store bought tin cans. We also burn paper, and recycle what we can. For now, we can take a bag in here and there and Carlin is able to use the dumpster at work. Long term, I don't know. However, I figure the closer we get to producing and canning more of our own food, the fewer tin cans we'll have to deal with.

This year, with the poor garden we have going, we've been using a lot more store-bought, so its a bigger issue. So, I guess the long and short of it is I don't have any advice to offer, but I can sympathize Smile

Kathy

Ludi

Fortunately, cans will rust away eventually (not aluminum, obviously) and pose little risk to the environment.

I think post collapse we won't have much trash to worry about.
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patience · Expert Joined: Jan 04, 2008 Posts: 1519

I mash the cans in the driveway, and sell them for scrap steel along with shop trimmings and other junk. Scrap steel is over $200/ton now! We don't have a plastic recycler, so it all goes in the landfill for now. Our small town newspaper offers free classifieds for stuff you want to give away, however, to keep the landfill from overflowing so fast. A good thing!

Every time I go buy something, if at all possible, we don't accept plastic bags. Groceries, yes we take them, but that's about it. The bane of my existence is the foam stuff they put fresh meat on, the plastic wrap, foam packing material, dead plastic toys and kitchen stuff, old plastic sprinklers, bowls, drink cups, etc.. We live on a state highway, and this litter accumulates in the ditch.

I've begun to make some stuff for our use to avoid plastic, such as plant starter trays, garden tools, and repair parts for everything. When I have a choice, I buy a brass hose nozzle or sprinkler, rubber hoses instead of the cheap stiff plastic crap, and I pay a bit more for it. But it lasts.
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Local fix-it guy..

Ludi

I'm trying to buy less plastic stuff, but it's difficult, as so many things are made from it. But it doesn't last in this climate, except special UV protected plastics.
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frankthetank

Finally bought a utility pump. Now i can recycle all the wash water from washing clothes easily. Works really good.
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"Oil is going up because we use too much oil, and the capacity to replace reserves is dwindling"
-President Bush 11/07/07

Jenab6 · Last edited by Jenab6 on Fri Jul 04, 2008 7:23 pm; edited 1 time in total

Ah found me some spearmint growin' wild down where ah got th' yarrow yesteday. And my mortar & pestle arrived in the mail. Soon I'll be producing yarrow-and-mint mixed ground tea leaf. I'll stockpile enough of it to last a whole year, if I can find enough leaf.

Theys also wile lettuce an' blackberras growin' daown theah!

patience · Expert Joined: Jan 04, 2008 Posts: 1519

Spent the day shuffling big things around to make room to the backhoe guy to do his thing on another garden terrace. The garden tractor made moving RR ties easy, so now I have 8 more in place to raise the terrace wall adjacent to the new terrace. But there are still 26 ties in my way just now, and I'm running out of places to park stuff. I'll think about it tomorrow.

Moved the big water tank out of the driveway, to get room for earthmoving. Still need some fill for the tank placement. Moved a couple hundred bricks, some skids, a batch of old lumber, a trailer, and odds and ends. I used some of that stuff to make a wood floor to park 30 bales of straw that will arrive next week.
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patience · Expert Joined: Jan 04, 2008 Posts: 1519

A friend called and had found me an old garden tractor on Craigslist for cheap. It matched what I had, so I went and got it, planning to use it only for parts to keep the others going. Surprise was, it runs pretty well and may become my lawn mower until the motor dies! Then, I'll still have plenty of parts for the other two. One major part pays for it. Heckuva deal.
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AnIowan

Just feel like I'm spinning my wheels at this point.

I got the rest of our "back forty" mowed. When we purchased our little plot at auction a year and a half ago, it came with almost half of the land "in use" planted in beans and corn. Last year, our first on the place, that land we let sit, but it turned into a giant weed patch, so this year, we are mowing it off a little more consistently, and finding that the brome grass is spreading very quickly. If it keeps up, we'll have a good pasture area next year at this time. We'll see.

I also planted the last fence post that I have, which means I need to get some more from somewhere. Our local Farm Bureau has a "buy/sell/trade" kind of publication, but they are taking a "break" right now. I also started mowing at catching grass clippings to add to the garden and our slowly growing compost heap.

We watched fireworks tonight as well. I wondered how many more years of something like this do my kids have......

ReducedToZero

Got interested in some new bicycle technology today, check em out...

I think a pair of these would last you 10 years.

http://www.airfreetires.com/

CarlinsDarlin · Moderator Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 1395

Yesterday we had an enjoyable time of community building Smile

. We went over to friends for the afternoon/evening. Hooked up the team of horses and along with a couple single horseback riders, took the wagon through some of the logging roads near the house. There's a section of 50 square miles just at the end of our road that has no houses - just forestland. We rode and talked... it was nice. Topics that came up related to PO were 1) how cars have disconnected people, going from air-conditioned box to air-conditioned box, and how 2) the popularization of the automobile coincided with the disappearance of large front porches. We calculated how long a trip to town would take with the wagon, and by the end of the ride, our boys were looking forward to that "day-trip" to town when gas is so expensive we have to hook up the team.

Then we came back, ate a few hot dogs and visited some more with a glass of tea or a beer on the front porch. It was fun. If all of our entertainment in the future involves visiting with neighbors on the front porch, it won't hurt my feelings at all.
K

patience · Expert Joined: Jan 04, 2008 Posts: 1519

Kathy, Amen to that. I hope we have some time to visit along with eking out a living. Maybe it will go the way of the past, with "husking bees" (neighbors getting together to shuck corn), and threshing "parties". I'll do some of that today, going to collect a debt in the form of all the Red Haven peaches I can haul home, from a friend's place, visiting while we pick.

Then, I can move 26 RR ties somewhere to get out of the way of the backhoe, and place and fill behind about 10 of them, and plant late potatoes, and make a place to put 9 barrels of grain coming this wwek, and go get 2 pickup loads of straw, and......
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Laurasia · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jul 10, 2004 Posts: 533

Ludi

Here's a good site with information about greywater. I recently bought the book "Create an Oasis with Greywater" and the greywater plumber's manual.

http://www.oasisdesign.net/

I've already plumbed the washing machine for greywater, and I'll soon be plumbing the kitchen sink and routing both of these to the new banana bed.
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sdcoyote · Tar Sands Joined: May 24, 2005 Posts: 56

We had a windstorm that blew over two of our apple trees. Have 10 left, but will replant those two next spring...

Anyway, I spent the afternoon cutting the trees and made a nice little addition to the woodpile. I will have to split some of it, but that is what October's are for!!!

I am going to look at a horse this afternoon. After that I will do some more work on the fence.

We will be canning beats and greenbeans at some point this week. Maybe tomorrow...

Ham and Bacon are really growing...Looks like they put on 10 lbs this week!!!!