Saturday, April 27, 2013

Do For Yourself


Are there any metal workers out there? I challenge you to use this video to make a spray bottle nozzle that is pure metal with a glass tube. I am working on something myself but as I do not have the necessary skills it may look pretty rough.
 I believe that we can live off scavenging materials and recreating new stuff from old. Want to know what I know, watch some youtube videos on blacksmithing or sheep shearing. How about how a spinning wheel is made? I want to spin my own yarn. Carrots Love Tomato's is a great place to start for companion planting your food. This is how serious I am about doing it myself. If we all did for ourselves we would not need to be so dependent on this corporately owned government.
 Don't forget the name contest I mentioned in my previous blog. My apologies for the shortness of this post as the one I am currently working on will be up in a day or two. I have to add a few pictures and a teething child and no camera have kept me from finishing it. I am sure there is something I am forgetting but that will save for later, til then ciao and happy reading.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

What A Week

This may be my only chance to post today so I am taking advantage of nap-time and wishing my keyboard were quieter. This has been one fragrant week. I have enjoyed being outdoors. I took some pictures of my progress from yesterday and had to take a few snapshots of some of the cool looking plants I have in my yard as well.
 As those of you who have been reading my blog from the start you will notice a difference in the way I have my setup. When I first started I had areas surrounded by plastic. That was mainly to keep the coons out of the food I was growing. They seemed to love the corn but since I have no corn to grow this year among other reasons I no longer have the plastic up. I would love to do away with plastic period as it is not organic.
 I cleaned off the deck and moved my bins onto it. I was tired of moving the compost bins (trash cans) around the yard just to get sun and to cut the grass. Which by the way this area was mowed yesterday.
 This is where I originally had all three sitting. Now for some other pictures although I will try not to bore you with too many but notice the difference.
 
 

 Now for some of the cool plants while I still have a little time left before monkeybear wakes. I so far only have potatoes (FINALLY) and strawberries which are producing for the second time.
 I have to thank my boyfriend for covering them otherwise they might not be growing. He cleaned the right side of the walkway outside the back door so I could pit some plants in there as a type of border in rearranging the plants in my yard. Putting the shade loving plants in the shade and sun loving plants in the sun where they belong.
 I have been told this is a Hibiscus. Is it really because I think this is an ugly plant but will keep them around just because they have flowers.
 I have been told this is Wild Ginger but unless I looked it up wrong it does not look like the Wild Ginger plant images Google has.
 I really have no Idea what these are but they love the sun and grow some interesting flowers. The seed pods if that is what they are, are just as interesting.
 I have more pictures but I am thinking my time is seriously waning so unless I want to save this for another day I need to end here. 

One last thing, I was talking to a friend last night about my long term plans on this project and gave her a bit of a head-start. I am having a contest for the best name of a homestead farm/pioneer skill school. The individual who comes up with the best name (voted on by the readers) Will get a free weeks stay once the permanent property for this has been decided. If you do not want to donate via the we pay system I will go with the most popular crowd funding system. For now, ciao and happy reading.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Finally As Promised...

 I went for a nice long walk yesterday (it was a beautifully fragrant day) and forgot to get batteries for my spare camera but I still have temporary use of my camera phone so as I promised back at the beginning of the month...
 Of the five plants I started on the 18 of last month in a small baby jar filled 1/4 of the way with water I only managed to get a handful of tomatoes (I haven't counted so I do not know exactly how many sprouted) and one carrot.

 The Marigolds, Lavender, and Sunflowers did not take.
 

And The peppers I started about a week ago (I need to put dates on these).
 

One last picture of my small indoor grow area.
 

I am rather excited to see what I get out of all of this. I cannot rush the seed growth but will keep tabs on it and what grows best with what and other how to tips as they come to me. By the way those are maple twigs in a glass cup. I had an intruder in my yard who broke a branch from one of my trees giving me more wood to cut then I currently have for. 
 I am formulating a twig birdhouse project with the branches and twigs I clean. If anyone is interested I will post that as well. For now ciao and happy reading.


 

Friday, April 12, 2013

Be Positive...

 Well I guess this is what I get for bragging. For the last year and a half I have been telling my family that I could live without technology and it seems that belief has been put to the test now more then over the last year. I have been using my phone to get online and do research when my little one prevented me from sitting at my computer. This past week my boyfriend broke his phone so he took mine. Now whenever he is home it is in his hands whether he is using it or not. I have been able to adapt so far. As far as living without technology. I still believe I could do without and be fine but then I would need to have a mailing list of people who were interested in knowing what I am doing to send my newsletter to.
 You may ask how can one live without electricity to heat/cool inside which is answered easily by solar/wind power. The house could also be built with materials in a way that could use the weather to benefit heating and cooling to the point where no heating/cooling unit is needed. Make sure to have a basement that can be sectioned off where part of it can be used as a root cellar/refrigerator so you cut down even more on the use of power hungry electric items. These are the things and more I would love to teach people through this blog.
 But enough of my ramblings for now. I have some gardening projects to tend to that I will hopefully be posting soon. For now, ciao  and happy reading.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Lost Track Of Time And Then Some

I in no way intend to abandoned my dream of growing my own food and did not mean to go so long with out an update but my son started walking which made it kind of hard to keep on top of things and then my lawn mower broke down.
The good news is I got a fairly new mower about two months ago and things seem to be falling in to place. Hopefully things go smoother and I can make time and stay on top of all the work I have planned.
I have seedlings which I will post pictures of as soon as I am able to and I will be posting some other information and updating other things as time allows. Well for now happy reading and ciao.

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