Riot for Austerity – October 2012 – Month 48

FOUR YEARS OF RIOT! Four year summary coming soon This is the Riot for the month of October 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! We did well in October. The somewhat lower numbers are because I recorded …

Disaster Preparedness, Resilience, Treading Water and Dangerous Assumptions

Amie reads Calvin and Hobbes during Hurricane Sandy (13h) power outage, 29 October 2012 So we weathered yet another storm. Or rather, we didn’t. Sandy went around us. We got some of her peripheral gusts of wind and some rain, but none of it very severe.  Half of my town was out of power.  School was …

A Study of Honey Frames

In order: comb that the bees drew out, filled with honey, and capped with a thin cap of wax, comb after uncapping, oozing with honey (here’s a video of uncapping), comb after extraction (see video). Extraction is never total: there is always lots of honey left, more or less depending on the viscosity of the honey and the determination …

On (Not) Saving the World, One Element at a Time

(I’m thinking of this third post today as a Transitiony kind of post…) When I show people around the place, I finally (after five years) feel like it’s all coming together, and that’s because I have started thinking in terms of elements. Breaking the enormous task of creating a “sustainable place”  up into elements allows me …

How’s the Mead Doing?

Two posts in a day! The mead’s doing well! I made two batches: one with honey from the first nectar flow (lighter colored), another, smaller batch with later honey (darker color). They’re about the same proportion water and honey – though, to be honest, I’m going the Sandor Katz-way, that is, I’m eyeballing it, adding …

Edible Mushrooms in my Garden and Neighborhood

You may remember I tried to grow King Stropheria in a bed of sawdust and leaves. Unfortunately it dried out and I never got any shrooms from it. But my mushroom adventures just began anew. I learned a while ago that a neighbor is a hobby mycologist and I expressed interest. Today she came by …

More Fall Hive Management: Robbing honey frames and Mite Treatment

I wanted to treat my bees with formic acid against varroa and tracheal mite, but it kept being postponed. Just getting a hold of the treatment (MiteAway) was difficult. Then I had to wait for the free time and relatively warm, rainless day to do it.  Then, last week, it suddenly got colder and we even had …