Amie took this picture with my phone.
Author Archives: kaat
Betelguese
They took a surface picture of Betelguese, only just, a couple of hours ago! Betelgeuse is close, only about 600 light-years away in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the largest stars known, a red super-giant with a radius around 1400 times larger than the Sun’s. It’s also pretty young, just about eight …
First Results in Side-by-Side Trial
(This is a cross-post with the Transition Wayland blog) It’s been over a month and our carbon/biochar and Korean Natural Farming inputs trial at the Transition Wayland plot in the Community Gardens has been running smoothly. Yesterday we harvested for the first time and the differences between the four beds are already noticeable! Check out …
Curds to Blintzes
My LAB making rendered a lot of whey, and even more curds. I was planning on turning that into cottage cheese, but after straining and pressing it remained too crumbly. So this morning, for Father’s Day, I got experimental and after a couple of trials put some yummy curds/egg/gluten-free flour/salt and sugar “pancakes” on the …
Jinxed: RIP Pebble
And just as I wrote how “my” creatures were doing so well, our little runt, Pebble, who had held her own and was doing so well, got a wing torn off, through the wire fence of the chicks’ extra run, in broad daylight. We isolated her, and I looked at the wound as best I …
All Living Under My Care Doing Well
I checked on the nucs we took off the big Sam hive and one after the other they turned out queen right with laying queens. 100%! One hive became seven, just like that. The chickens are robust and healthy and laying too many eggs to keep up with, and the six chicks are thriving too …
Compost Tea Recipes and First ACT
After building my Air lift Mini Microbulator, I checked out these compost tea recipes. At the aforementioned candy store I bought some Coast of Maine Stonington Blend Growers Mix, a complex “super soil†nutrient blend with mycorrhizal fungi, kelp, fish bone and alfalfa meal, as well as worm castings, peat, coir and lobster compost. Yum! …
Homemade Mini Microbulator
I had ordered the KIS aeration compost tea brewer ($290 + $30 shipping), having read the glowing recommendations by Dr. Elaine Ingham and Jeff Lowenfells of Teaming-with fame, but unfortunately something is up with their manufacturing process and they’re on back order until July (or indefinitely?). I cancelled my order and settled on Mr. Tim …
Fowl
The six chicks are now 6 weeks old and last week I put them outside in the Little Coop. The dust from their food was driving me up the walls while they were inside the house! It hasn’t really warmed up yet, so I had the heat lamp on in there at night. But yesterday …
Garden(s) Update
Today I was finally happy with the seedlings planted in the garden. The lettuces, for instance, have been in the ground for three weeks and in those weeks hardly put on any weight. The peas are pathetic. The cold and rain would be fine for those, but for being followed instantly by heat wave weather. …