Some Garden Maneuvers

Plangarden and Gimp are handy tools for moving things around in the garden without too much back ache. This is a preliminary map for the Spring 2010 Garden – not the veggies yet, but at least the structures. The hoop house will be moved from its present position (light blue) over beds 8, 9 (still …

Outside: Dust Mites and Animals Tracks

While the dust mites in the bedding were freezing (to death, hopefully)… We warmed up this cold but sunny morning by splitting and sorting firewood, playing with a neighbor’s dog, and scouting out some animal tracks. Here are some tiny bird tracks next to my fingerprint: And these are some huge bird prints next to …

The Big Plans for 2010

After two weeks of virtually no blogging, it’s lists like these that can get me going again. Yesterday I listed this week’s goals, today I’m looking at the Big Homesteading Plans for 2010. There is some sort of order here, but don’t ask me which. Chicken coop (cob? attached to greenhouse? moat?) and 6 (?) …

Back into the Fray

To do this week: plan Spring and Summer garden inventorize left-over and saved seeds read all the gorgeous seed catalogs that arrived while we were gone order new seeds figure out a better seedling “hotbox” – buy seed mats? enroll in bee school, chicken class, and pottery The plants under row cover in the hoop …

Riot for Austerity – Month 14

We’re back and Rioting again. I’ll again keep last year’s averages (calculated here) visible as a baseline. I use this calculator. Gasoline. Well, there’s no way around it: Amie and I flew to Belgium – our first visit in 3 years – and I’m counting it as driving there, and back. I’m using our own …