Plant. Due to a miscalculation of the weather on my part – or the weatherman’s part? – I didn’t get to transplant the seedlings and sow more winter veggies today. Tomorrow, I hope. I did get to clean up the garden beds. Moved the pepper plants inside – but I will not call them houseplants, …
Category Archives: future worries
Riot for Austerity, Month 11
Our Riot is almost a year old! It feels great to have come this far, and I can’t wait to tally up the yearly average. But first, month 11. Gasoline. This went down a bit from last month because DH’s shuttle rides again. 9.55 gallons pp = 23% of the US National Average Electricity. Our …
Independence Days, Week 6
The Indian summer came, went, and came again. Last Friday we hit 37 F – cutting it pretty close – but yesterday it was 70F. It’s going to get cold again soon, though. Plant. Moved (replanted) the 2 rhubarb plants, because in the end we chose their first bed as one of the beds to …
Canning Update
101 jars. Top row, left to right: 3 pints pickled cucumbers 6 8 oz cranberry peach preserves 9 8 oz fig preserves 8 pints apple sauce 5 pints basic tomato sauce 7 pints green bell pepper 7 8 oz peach salsa Bottom row, left to right: 9 quarts green beans 6 pints peach pie filling …
Mass. Relocalization Conference: McKibben, Lappe, Mel King…
Heads up: October 18 Roxbury, MA Bill McKibben, Frances Moore Lappé and Mel King The major goals of the conference are to educate, inform, and empower Massachusetts residents to take actions in their communities to help build the local infrastructure and institutions needed to provide economic security in a changing world. The conference will help …
Continue reading “Mass. Relocalization Conference: McKibben, Lappe, Mel King…”
Lifestyle Changes
Wow, Sharon has another great blog entry up: Dreaming a Life, about radical lifestyle changes – “whether they come from adapting to a deeply damaged climate or from addressing the crisis, whether they come from adapting to depletion or from enduring it.” Sharon points out that much of the political unrest we are seeing comes …
Home Canning versus Bisphenol A
That’s the second person intimating to me that my home canning might not be safe. Usually the question comes quietly: “Are you sure the jars are okay?” Though it riles me, I’ve come to expect the attitude. It’s like with eggs. When I tell people about wanting chickens for their eggs, half the time the …
Riot for Austerity – Month 10
This month there were no shifts in the household: just the three of us, which makes the reckoning much easier. Amie feeds the compost tea some molasses Gasoline: 27% This stayed the same as last month. The school year hasn’t started yet, so DH is spending more time working from home and Amie isn’t daily …
Flushing Drinking Water, Not – and Toilet Cloth
Okay, I’m warning you. This one’s (perhaps) on the edge for this blog, but it was inevitable. It’s about our toilet flushing habits. So if you’re here to read about Amie’s drawings or how the carrots are doing (badly), proceed at your own risk. This is the one aspect of our homestead that I don’t …
Continue reading “Flushing Drinking Water, Not – and Toilet Cloth”
Independence Days – Week… ahum…
So behind, it’s shameful. Forge ahead, anyway! Plant: Fall garden of spinach, kale, broccoli, purslane, various lettuce, chard, mizuna, mustard greens, all as seedlings, and in the ground peas, more green beans, chard and carrots. Harvest: chard, kale, cucumber, potatoes, various tomatoes, beans both green and dry. Preserve: apple* sauce, peaches* in syrup, tomato-apple* chutney, …