Last year’s averages (calculated here) are mentioned as a baseline. I use this calculator. Gasoline. I can’t wait for the temperatures to go up and the rains to stop so I can bike Amie to school. 9.96 gallons per person (pp) in cars + 10 miles pp on public transport =Â 24 % of the …
Category Archives: homestead
Power Down
Do you think about the future? Do you wonder what it will be like? Or do you live like it’s always going to be the way it has been? ~ I found at least 5 entries like this one, all in drafts, abandoned. As I prepare for the growing season with more resolve and urgency …
Riot for Austerity – Month 15
Last year’s averages (calculated here) are mentioned as a baseline. I use this calculator. Gasoline. This is the usual: still too high. When the temperatures go up I’m really going to work on biking Amie to school and back. 9.52 gallons per person (pp) in cars + 10 miles pp on public transport =Â 23 …
Scary Weather
It’s scary out there. First it snowed: big, heavy, sticky snow. I went out every two hours to clear the hoop house with the big broom. The bare trees are loaded with snow, the branches that have leaves or needles on them droop precipitously. Then it stopped snowing, the clouds blew away, and all that …
A Flower Garden for Bees and People
Our back garden, house and veg garden are on a little hill. The slope (in red) is quite steep, and we terraced the part where the soil had been disturbed and was eroding. We put beds on either side (only the two lowest ones shown in brown) and a path of grass in the middle. …
One Down…
With daytime temperatures in the single digits (F), I was motivated to cover the smallest, yet still considerably large, living room window with a thick quilt I had lying around. I just slung it over the curtain rod and then snapped on three of the handy pvc clips that hold the plastic to our hoop …
Honey Garlic, Finally, Almost
Back in October I peeled about 50 garlic cloves, which I put in apple cider vinegar in a ball jar, and then plain forgot. You’re supposed to wait for only 6 weeks for the next part, but so we waited a bit longer. Tansy’s recipe is here. I finally got around to the second part …
The Big Plans for 2010
After two weeks of virtually no blogging, it’s lists like these that can get me going again. Yesterday I listed this week’s goals, today I’m looking at the Big Homesteading Plans for 2010. There is some sort of order here, but don’t ask me which. Chicken coop (cob? attached to greenhouse? moat?) and 6 (?) …
Snow Shoveling
Having a 1500+ sq.f. driveway, having decided not to use a snow blower and not to hire someone with a truck to plow it for us, we purchased one of these: It’s a snow float (a Suncast) and it does miracles. A chore that used to take the two of us at least two hours, …
Back into the Fray
To do this week: plan Spring and Summer garden inventorize left-over and saved seeds read all the gorgeous seed catalogs that arrived while we were gone order new seeds figure out a better seedling “hotbox” – buy seed mats? enroll in bee school, chicken class, and pottery The plants under row cover in the hoop …