Toothless, Tweety, Skipperdy and Pecky
looking more and more like T Rex as time goes by
Monthly Archives: July 2012
Elements!
Just for my own satisfaction (sanity?), a reckoning of the elements in place or about to be in place here at Robin Hill Gardens:
- Veg gardens, all grown from seed (reasonable harvests, gardener needs more experience)
- Hoop house (12′x20′)
- Solar PV array (5.1 Kw – supplies 100% of electricity)
- Medicinal herb garden (minimal, needs more attention)
- Cherry tree, nut and berry bushes, 2 kiwis (none of them producing as yet)
- Apiary (3 hives) - coming up: 150 lbs (?) of honey
- Avian dinosaurs (4 pullets) - coming up: eggs!
- Rainwater catchment (5×60 gallons) - coming up: two 275 gallon toters
- Compost (3 bins 4x4x4 and 2 Earth Machines and sundry leaf and wood chip piles)
- Garlic house for curing garlic (Amie’s play set house: works great!)
- Solar clothes dryer
- Member of a CSA (carpooled too)
- Reasonable number in the 90% Reduction/Riot for Austerity
- Firewood – wood grown on property – for three winters
- coming up: homemade honey extractor
- coming up: homemade solar oven / beeswax melter
- wishing for: solar hot water (involves thermal collector and new water tank, possibly electrical on demand)
- wishing for: high efficiency replacement for one car
- wishing for: trailer for other car (“work horse”)
- wishing for: more fruit trees
And, in the immediate vicinity:
- Transition Wayland
- Solarize Wayland
- BEElieve Beekeepers Club
- Wayland Green Team
- and other friends working on our town’s resilience
There, I feel better.
Of the Bees and the Birds in My Garden
Honey bee on Echinacea
Humming bird drinking nectar from the Bee balm
Humming bird drinking nectar from the Bee balm (messy hoop house in the background)
The First One of the Season
Always a first.
Compost!
All this out of one of my four compost bin, and it was only 1/4 full. I spread the wealth around the garden, then watered it in with (almost) the last of the rain water. Gotta make work of those 275 gallon toters. Oh but for a pickup truck or a trailer!
Blow Your Mind on a Muffin
Browsing through old photos I found this one, from December last year. We got the muffin on the plane to Belgium.
Notice how only the wholesome ingredients are circled and then the word “natural”. It was supposed to be a muffin, though by my definition it was a pharmaceutical factory, or any number of other things that I wouldn’t even waste breath on. Not “Mmm…” And not “food,” which is what I categorized this under.
Riot for Austerity – June 2012 – Month 44
Here it is, the Riot for the month of June of 2012 for the three of us. My summary of our first three years is here. Edson fixed the calculator: all go tither to crunch those numbers!
Gasoline. Calculated per person.
16.35 gallons per person
39.8 % of the US National Average
Electricity. This is reckoned per household, not per person. We cook on an electric stove. According to our solar meter, we produced 4437 kWh since the system was turned on, and 581 kWh this last month (you can follow our solar harvest live here). And most heavy electrical equipment has been turned off: the growing lights and heat mat and the heat lamps for our chicks. Result: we owed NStar nothing. How much we consumed is a mystery: our NSTAR bill will not say. All we know is that we produced 581 kWh and they rebated us (yes, paid us) $26, but who knows at what rate! I’m going to guess here:
380 KwH
21% of the US National Average
Heating Oil and Warm Water. This too is calculated for the entire household, not per person.
6.5 gallons of oil
10.5% of the US National Average
Trash. After recycling and composting this usually comes down to mainly food wrappers.
6 lbs. pp per month
4.4% of the US National Average
Water. This is calculated per person.
436 gallons pp.
14.5 % of the US National Average
Honey!
Yesterday I put the newly made honey supers (painted blue) onto the hives. Right on time for the one in the middle (H3): the honey super already on it (third box) was filled, frame to frame, inch for inch. Some of the outer frames just needed capping, so I left it for a couple more days. Then I’ll finally have honey, 60 pounds of it!
