For my birthday I got many great presents, but this one was the most joyful: eggs from a friend and neighbors’ chickens, until mine start laying. In exchange I gave a jar of honey. I love to barter! And a small miracle occurred. For a few days in a row there was no information booth, …
Monthly Archives: August 2012
Harvests so Far
This year I’m not weighing the harvest. I used to enjoy it and would still enjoy it today, but I no longer have the time or the need to do so. I hope it’s not too arrogant to say that, in my fourth year, I have a pretty good idea of how the garden is …
Extracting Honey with a Home-Made Extractor
I have three hives, with four honey supers, chock-full of honey. But how to extract it? What I did two years ago, just cutting off the capping with a knife and letting it drip, takes a long time during which the hygroscopic honey will absorb a lot of water, making it more prone to fermentation …
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The Long Memory that is Lost to Us
And now for something completely different… Here are two interesting thoughts I read today: Rees quotes Antonio Damasio (here, p.6): [For humanity to survive the sustainability crisis] we must rely on highly-evolved geneticallybased biological mechanisms, as well as on supra-instinctual survival strategies that have developed in society, are transmitted by culture, and require for their …
It’s a Two-Fer! Solar Oven and Solar Cooker
We are having a friendly competition here on Robin Hill. DH built a solar parabolic cooker and I built a solar box oven (we helped each other, of course). You can’t really compare the two because the oven is, of course, vastly superior in that it has many more functions: it can cook as well …
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Riot for Austerity – July 2012 – Month 45
Here it is, the Riot for the month of July of 2012 for the three of us plus my parents-and sister-in-law. My summary of our first three years is here. Edson fixed the calculator: all go tither to crunch those numbers! Gasoline.  Calculated per person. DH and SIL have been driving into Boston every day for work (shuttle …
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Canning Season Started Early
Yesterday I spent six hours in the hot kitchen (but I had a good fan) canning about half of my half bushel of peaches and 8 pints of blueberries. The yield was 16 8 oz. of blueberry jam and 15 8 oz. jars of peach butter. Today I canned the rest of the peaches into …
Another Resident of the Garden
This one we discovered today in the Watercress garden, a fancy name for the metal tub with (guess!) watercress in it. It was supposed to be incorporated into  the herb spiral, but I haven’t got round to it yet. It has populated the tub with many little ones!