Sabbatical busy

It has been the family joke lately that I need to go back to work since I'm too busy being on sabbatical. Between just doing simple homesteading chores like nonelectric housekeeping to my duties being a Deacon & belonging to two committees @ church I don't see any opportunities to stray. Add in the girls softball & end of the year school activities. Also on my plate is one daughter's upcoming confirmation. Ideally, I'd like to have F & F over for a big breakfast before service but that would entail them actually entering my house.
My house that was suppose to be rehabbed ah like over 8 years ago. If you have ever lived with buckets of drywall mud stacked up in your bathroom only to become a nifty spot to place reading material on then you know what I mean.
Not even my BBGF has ever been in my house.
So that being said If I don't blog for days & days it's because I'm demolishing our only bathroom & as usual stripping woodwork, (now would be a good time to insert a sound clip of the Burma Shave song - & yes if you got that joke then your as old as I am)!

This is as far as we'll be going with the greenhouse until October. For the most part the main body is together but the corrugated panels haven't been caulked @ the seems nor the holes from the last time it was assembled. Try as we did we couldn't match up the previous holes in both the panels & the frame so we made allot of new ones. The girls & I finished spray painting the metal frame black to promote solar heat gain. Now all that is needed is for my ever tolerate handyman to put up a back end wall with a few vertical windows that can open & reinstall the front wall & door.

Between all of us we got some cheapo dog eared fence panels, painted them white & jury rigged them in place. Not only keeps prying eyes from looking but also reflects light back into the space. This pic was taken around 5 p.m. so as you can see between the shadows & the setting sun this greenhouse needs all the help it can get.

I already have the Giant Chinchillas set up in the back portion & my plant shelf along with some potted seedlings. By the front is one of those small tabletop greenhouses set up with more seedlings waiting to be potted.

Wood chips are courtesy of a neighbor who had a tree removed.

Working on an idea of laying some plastic trellis that I scored @ a tag sale along the one side & half of the top portion of the greenhouse to grow peas on. TBWOS (two birds with one stone theory) providing shade for buns & food for us.

My cold frame is producing salad greens abundantly well. Really haven't had to close the lid much these past few weeks but I know the minute DH removes the lid it will snow.

Nice not having to buy fancy greens like Butter crunch.

Peach trees are flowering which is great since that bare 'ss tree you see looming just behind the fence is a Black Walnut tree. When they grow little else will except Lilac. The dark green foliage just past the fence line is Lilac shrubs about 15' high. There are 7 of them in colors ranging from White to dark Purple. Our own Lilac Festival gifted by a now vacant lot.

This is DH's cold frame. As you can see he experiments on different design styles for cold frames but I'll let him tell you about that on his own blog since he is fond of saying that I don't give him space (as in his own spot in the garden).

Tomatoes are Bloody Butcher's (his) a salad 'mater & Cherokee Purple, the best ever eating tom. In the center are San Marzano an Italian paste tom that I'm gonna use for canning both whole & sauce. There are also about 10 potted Turban squash plants, a scavenged Rhubarb plant replotted, & clips from various house plants that I'm trying to grow.

This is my 3rd year @ being serious about growing food from seeds instead of relying on purchased (expensive) seedlings. So far I'm batting 500. A good majority of the seeds sprouted & are growing except the Swiss Chard. It's a learning experience.

I have high hopes for this raised bed. Last Summer Cabbage grew here, then in the fall I add anything compostable along with found worms, covered it with black plastic sheeting for the Winter. Last week when I lifted the plastic there were worms galore but this week what with the warmer temps most have burrowed down. Either Green Bell Peppers or Eggplant for this year's crop.

I was reading a post on HT asking if anyone knows if Kudzu can be ground into flour. Since that invasive weed doesn't grow in New York I don't personally have any first hand knowledge but it got me to thinking about other possibilities.

Update on the UPC - well it still ain't happening. I didn't post the total tally for April as I misplaced store receipts but it's in the hood of being $40 over the mark. Will post that a.s.a.p. May should be worse since I neglected to can/store extra food items for daughter's conformation party not to mention Mother's day (dish to pass something special but what?). This is getting to be embarrassing ...

UWM

What does doing laundry on my patio with my Urban Washing Machine have to do with Earth Day 2009 ?

For one it's hand powered so very very energy efficient.

Two, this urban homestead washing machine was made with recycled materials.

Three, it uses homemade laundry soap.

Four, unless excessively abused this system will last a lifetime (landfill issues).

Five, this system harnesses the power of Nature's elements to dry the clothing.

Six, it's cost effective ( let's see Madison Ave. sell this for a jacked up price).

Seven, it's lightweight & portable - little to no carbon emissions spent on transporting.

Eight, it has built in security. No washing machine jacking happening here.

Nine, it allows the operator to multi task incorporating both clothes washing and an upper body work out at the same time thus saving $ that would be spent buying a gym membership. Not to mention the gas to drive to one.

Ten, this further enhances a very valuable life's lesson (conservation) that you can pass on to your children which is if you dirty it you plunge it.

K, seriously here's the low down.

My front loader that cost more than my 1st through 4th cars broke a few weeks ago. Well not actually broke but instead of spinning like a Lear jet it now starts knocking like the S.W.A.T. come a calling on a drug house when ever it hits the spin cycle. It has 3 spin cycles.

Got tired of thinking that my local drug task force mistaken my veggie seedlings growing under grow lights for asparagus (code for illegal vegetation).

Now that I'm on sabbatical (unemployed) I'm really not willing to call out a service guy.

DH took a quick look under the hood but due to a hectic work schedule & other more pressing homesteading tasks like building a raised bed he & a daughter haven't really looked under the hood. Plus I'd have to hide my canning stove & a few other activities we engage in that tip toe close to the line of illegal when the Maytag Man comes a knocking.

So in less than five minutes DH drilled me a hole in the lid of a 5 gallon pail then added a screw to keep the head of a plunger on the stick. I cut 4 slits vertically on the top of the rubber portion to increase the agitation effect. Kinda like my own personality huh?

An upgrade would be to snag an old broom or mop handle to replace the handle on the plunger. This would make for a better leverage.

Use: place a bit of laundry soap in bucket along with water followed by clothing. If it's socks & unders then 6 to 10. T-shirts two or three. Secure lid with plunger in the bucket, handle sticking out thru the hole in lid. Plunge like your churning butter for two minutes.

Wring clothing out, place in the next bucket which has water & a few tablespoons of white vinegar in. This is your rinse cycle. Agitate with hands a few times then wring out.

Place clothing on line or the back of a chair to dry.

Better to do outside as then dripping water isn't an issue.

Bath tub works well also.

Optional - add a second bucket with a tablespoon of fabric softener to water for a finally rinse cycle.

Not wringing the clothes out completely only added 6 extra hours of drying time. So until DH can rehab that old antique clothes wringer we bought I'm not gonna stress about it.

This has been a great way to extend the family budget. We are only needing to visit the neighborhood Laundromat once a week doing only 3 loads - jeans, heavy articles like hoodies, blankets, & towels.

~~ pelenaka ~~

5/28/2009 Update - heavy blankets & comforters are the only items that have been laundered @ the laundromat. Seems as time goes by my stamina for plunging increases so washing blue jeans & hoodies aren't an issue. Wool blankets however are a bit over the top for me ... now.

gimme da dirt

Still chilly and drab in my neighborhood despite a recent warm up these past few days. Day time temps hit a balmy 67 degrees but still dip down to low 30's @ night. We still have another four weeks of this Spring weather. Planting traditionally won't be until after Memorial day our last frost date give or take. In the mean time I have been playing in the dirt ...

This is my trusty cold frame (lid is off for the photo op) in a new location on the back forty feet of our city lot. It occurred to me that the old location was all wrong for optimal sun exposure. Yeah, I'm a real rocket scientist. So since I moved it that also meant that it had to be emptied which spawned a new approach to my gardening - double digging & trench composting combined. Dug down then layered the frame with cheap rabbit feed (alfalfa or green matter) then rabbit manure (nitrogen) followed by a sprinkling of phosphorus & finely ground egg shells (calcium), wood ash, then finally soil. Repeated until I reached the top. Watered with water out of the fish pond (fish poop). I'm trying for supper veggies organically.

The plan is to plant green bell peppers after last frost which should coincide with the salad greens finishing up.

The area between this cold frame & the fence has been calling out to me but I haven't been able to locate any free building materials to make a raised bed. Now that I'm on sabbatical (unemployed) free is the name of the game.

I'm sure that for many of you reading my blog your own salad bed is much farther along if not already producing fresh nutritious salads by the bowl fulls but here in Western New York in my city it's a different song. For a brief time I gave some serious thought to making up a hot bed using fresh horse manure which when it decomposes would give off heat. But then there is the matter of schlepping horse poop from the city's mounted patrol. Can't see me standing @ the bus stop with a couple of five gallon pails waiting on the cross town express. Smell dat?

Notice that plastic umbrella thingy in the top left corner of the pic? I bought it @ Big Lots in the fall three years ago for a few bucks. Wish I had grabbed a few more as they're handy. Fold up nice. I decided to house my 2 Rhubarb plants in hopes that I'll have a bigger harvest. Besides using Rhubarb in jams & pie fillings there is a BBQ sauce in the BBBC (Big Ball Book of Canning) that I really want to can up.

This is hubby's cold frame an A frame design. He planted Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach which is the green you can see. There is also a few other types in there just starting to sprout. What we're not sure as well we forgot & the seed packet has since gone.

This is my latest project my Greenhouse. Originally this started off as a kit from Tractor Supply but after three Winters the plastic cover started to go. Two years ago I tried these corrugated plastic panels which worked out very well. DH was able to use a wooden storm door that was scavenged out of a trash pile. He fashioned a front wall using the panels and placed the door in the center. This time we will also be making a back wall instead of the section of plastic cover. Last Spring we disassembled it until I could work out it's final placement. I am hoping that this is it. Besides replacing the cover I'm painting the frame black, adding that back wall with two vertical windows, & a solar car fan my Mom gifted me. Also hopefully the new fence panel painted white will help with reflecting light back into the green house. As you can see gardening in an urban environment has Sunlight challenges. This pic was taken @ 6:40 in the evening. I've never been able to grow anything in the dead of Winter in it without using an artificial heat source despite housing 5 rabbits in it & two 55 gallon barrels filled with water in a feeble attempt @ passive solar heat gain.

Now that I'm unemployed my new or rather enhanced full time job is creating opportunities to gain or better utilize food. I no longer look @ things in the same way. If it's a spot on my city lot no matter how small I measure the sun light in hours that it receives. If it's a left over I reinvent it adding dinner table vegetable scraps to my bread dough or subbing half the cake flour with home ground whole wheat since that was free. It's hard this providing for our own table. My thoughts are consumed.

1. 72 San Marzano Tomato seedlings started few have sprouted.
2. 72 Black Beauty Eggplant seedlings started, majority have sprouted.
3. 82 Goliath Broccoli seedlings up & running (hey we eat broccoli allot of broccoli!).
4. 72 Rhubarb Swiss Chard up & stumbling (who know it was this hard to grow?).
5. 24 Turban Squash sprouted (should be interesting finding space to grow this huh?).
6. 8 Bloody Butchers Tomato seedlings 7 up & running (awesome heirloom salad tom!).
7. 8 Cherokee Purple Tomatoes sprouted (The best tom ever !!!).
8. 6 hanging buckets planted with Nasturtiums seeds (salad fixings & bug control).
9. 72 Gita green beans planted all developed a fuzz only 2 sprouted.

For the most part I won't be planting carrots, onions, potatoes, or squash since I'm able to glean these items. I didn't glean enough last fall because of my work schedule so our supplies have run either out completely or very low. To tell the truth on the subject of herbs I'm pretty well stocked from last year for the majority of my canning & cooking needs for this year and next. Minus Garlic 'cause you can never have enough garlic.

I do have a few seed packets of carrots that I plan on planting in the front yard in the holes of cinder blocks.

UPC update - I bought 8 five pound bags of white sugar that was a loss leader special before Easter. This is my stash for canning. Opened up the last quart of Pears canned last Summer today for breakfast. Down to 4 quarts of canned Peaches from our two trees. Carrots & potatoes are gone as is the Squash, both fresh & dehydrated. Crushed fruit such as Berries & Cherries over 30 pints canned, are working well for use in yogurt. All pints jam/jelly well stocked except Currant which works great as a sub for cranberry sauce on meats. Salsa which I couldn't keep on the shelf in years past is a slow go this time around. Daughters have also lost their taste for home canned grape juice to the extent that they were drinking in November.

~~ pelenaka ~~

Generating Bartering Opps

3/31/09 - This picture has to do with bartering in a round about way. It's my most recent bartering example. Bare with me we have to cross the street and head over a few blocks toward the corner store before we get to the destination.
The day before I snapped this pic my bbgf gave a shout out that she had some donated food.
It's food that makes it's way outta a mega mart then down to a church org before ending up with another person who then sends what's left toward my bbgf. By then it's pretty well expired and more than spoiled. What you see here is fancy Batard Bread that was just soft enough not to need a saw to slice it. After a few days in the dehydrator I ended up with two half gallon mason jars of dried bread suitable for stuffing. Should go well with Sunday dinner baked chicken.
Also dehydrated was a quarts worth of parsley from the same score as the donated bread. I vacuum sealed that up in a mason jar to go back to my bbgf. She is pressed for time what with having a zillion children & that she home schools.
So here's the short cut - since she cut me in on this score my barter was labor/skill/equipment (dehydrated parsley packaged for long term storage).

Below is my orginal post ...


On my last post a frequent visitor Patrice Farmer, asked about how I found my bb or barter buddy as we call ourselves. While my most frequent and reliable partner in bartering was found by a chance conversation while I was inspecting a piano she was freecycling I have since worked out a simple system to grown my own personal bartering network. A combination of old fashioned techniques coupled with modern aged cutting edge sophistication practiced in the urban environment.

Ask.
Yeah, just ask baby.
Simple huh?
No? Actually it isn't as for every 10 people that I approach with a bartering prop only usually 3 or 4 are interested - of that percentage 1 pans out maybe. But that one can often lead to more as they tell a friend who tells a friend that they traded sugar for fresh eggs or one set of skills for another.
Here's a no none sense direct conversation to start you off in a face to face scenario.
"I do allot of trading or bartering with many people in the community. Coworkers, neighbors, people like us. If you interested here's one of my cards perhaps we could do some business".
If your doing a ftf hand out one of those pre made index cards listing items that you have to offer and the items that you need with your contact info.
Keep these handy as you never know when a bartering opp passes before you.

Get your word out on the net. The more you advertise ...
Craig's list has a bartering section post a want and give.
Yahoo groups - if your area doesn't have one consider starting a local bartering group for your city.
Church bulletins - if the Pastor's not keen on it ask if you can leave a few index cards.
Home schoolers - these peeps already think outside the box and tend to be your target audience in that they are eco friendly frugal parents who value a good score. Think about all that school curriculum that they have to buy.

Create your own bartering opps event such as a clothes bartering party. Instead of selling cosmetics or plastic dishes bring all your unused clothes and a snack to pass and trade until you can't trade any more. Reserve a room @ your local community center and open it up to everyone you know.
Belong to a Mommies group? Booster club? Civic org?
Trade outgrown children's clothes, maternity ware, toys, really endless. Take this concept and run with it. Items such as sport gear, gardening items, & office attire.

Hopefully in our current economic climate more people will consider bartering with more than a passing interest.

~~ pelenaka ~~

not 'ur grams tissue box

Busy putting my home inorder in ancipation of spring arriving soon.
Last week I came across a stash of plastic canvas bought last Summer @ a nearby street sale, no the street wasn't for sale just a group of neighbors who staged a massive street long tag sale. Now that I have all this free time on my hands I finally got around to converting these to useful food preservation tools.
I scored each plastic canvas for a dime. If your unable to catch a good find don't forget that some of the major chain craft stores offer coupons. Pick a canvas with a small patterned mesh since you'll want these screens to dehydrate items such as herbs & diced celery.
Directions : Take the 1 mesh screen that comes with your dehydrator and use it as a pattern to trace and cut more screen using plastic canvas. Instead of using a marker to trace the circle I pined a screen using clothes pins as my guide. If your screen less from the get go then you'll have to trace a pattern using one of the dehydrator trays. Trim to fit.

I've been trying to work up a barter deal for ingredients to make gourmet brown mustard. Thought I would kick off this year's canning season early using a recipe from Ball Complete Book of Home Preservering page 274, Oktoberfest Beer Mustard. I can already taste this on a white hot !
I found a bottle of beer in the cellar but am still short on brown mustard seed.

UPC update: Third straight month that I've been wrong.
This month the main reasons have & will be due to pork. Last week my bbgf (barter buddy/girlfriend) was shopping @ the local mega market & came across a loss leader sale on pork. The catch was that the pork was packaged in "family packs" of 10 pounds each having a varied assortment of chops & bone in roasts. Long story short after calling me and getting no answer she made an executive decision & bought me a "family pack" too. There was added stress since these were the last two on the shelf coupled with the fact that $ is tight I am on sabbatical after all.
$26 over budget for pork @ $1.38 per pound.
In the next few days I'll be spending $108.50 for half of a half pig that will be butchered this coming week. Same bbgf was cut in on this deal unexpectedly when someone else backed out.
If our math is good should work out to $1.40 per pound (really need to generate more savings to offset this expense).
These two deals got me to thinking about creating opportunities to take advantage of food opps.
Here's what I have come up with - giving a gift card to that one person who thinks & shops as I do (that being my bbgf) so when they're in the right place @ the right time they can snag me a deal too without a cash flow issue.
I'll ask her if she wants me to hold a gift card for her in the same way.

~~ pelenaka ~~

P.S. 3/26/09 My share of the pork came to $128 after all was said & done with the cost of the pig, butchering, & wrapping. So far there's 25 pounds of pork neatly tucked in my freezer.
Along with 17 pounds 5 oz. of pig fat. Anyone besides me see a post on rendering lard in my future?
Everything from Polish & Italian sauage, Chops, Loin Roast, Shoulder steak, & Spare Ribs.
Works out to $5.12 per pound as of right now.
Not sure if the lard was figured into my cost share.
Baccon and hams as being smoked so it will be interesting to see what my share will be of those and the over all final tally.
This pork along with the last purchase that my bbgf scored should with planning last a year other than needing an occassional slab of baccon now & then.

Urban June

My front yard early Spring (disregard the date stamp on the pic need to reset the camera).

Not very big huh? No joke when I say urban. House sits a bit over 15 ' from the street so take away almost 6' for the common areas (sidewalk & that strip of grass sandwiched between the street & sidewalk) and this is what is left.

In previous Summers I grew Eggplant hidden in amongst the flowers. This year besides that I'm gonna try for heirloom carrots planted in the holes of those cinder blocks.

Giving some thought to putting the wrought iron fence into action. How obvious would green beans growing on it be to someone strolling by?

Each year I give serious consideration to widing the raised bed and decreasing the lawn portion of the front yard. But then my son wouldn't have a spot to sit & visit with the passing girls in the hood. And I wouldn't be able to watch.

In the upper right corner off shoots of a 8 y.o. Strawberry bed will be planted so then that bed can be dug up, composted & replanted in a year or so. Tan color is bunny poop & wood shavings from the Giant Chinchillas. Need to locate some green compost fixings to layer in before the top coat of soil is thrown on.

Time to start the seeds.

Update on the UPC:

This is the 3rd straight month and like with anything practice makes perfect, well almost. While we haven't gone too far over the allotted $100 we haven't been under either. This is the month to accomplish our goal since the filled pantry shelves are emptying fast. My hope is that by next month the cold frames will producing giving us fresh garden salads.

Both the Rye & Winter Wheat are holding out well. I'm baking on average 6 loaves of bread each week.

So far we haven't run out of any one item that I canned but are low on everything across the board. We have just about run out of the green beans & broccoli (frozen) from last year's garden having spaced out their consumption this Winter.

Gone is the supply of squash (bartered) as is the supply of gleaned potatoes.

Extremely low on what is left of the 1/3 of a cow (frozen) that was purchased last fall.

Saturday we are planning on going fishing. Hope is that with 5 lines in the water we will come home with something.

Rabbit is gone. I don't breed during the Winter so a supply won't be put up until late next Summer. Still need to find a supply for Chicken & pork in bulk.

A brother has invited us to come fishing on his boat this Summer in the Finger Lakes region. Apparently he normally just throws his catch back but has been inspired recently by the down turned economy to rethink his hobby. In any case we will be taking advantage of local fishing opportunities in nearby county & state parks.

Besides kicking up the garden a few notches I really need to work on more gleaning opps or rather budget in the time to take advantage of what is here. So far I have been putting out the word both through church contacts and with postings on local yahoo groups.

Lately I suppose that like my brother people in general are more receptive to concepts like gleaning and bartering.

Here's a breakdown of what so far we've spent on groceries;

3/06 I was near Warsaw, New York and stopped in to a Mennonite store called Lantz's Bulk Foods. Bought $17.83 - vital wheat gluten @ $3.09 per pound, unground 9 grain mix @ $1.89 per pound, & Cream of Wheat or as we say in Puerto Rico Farina @ 69¢ per pound.

The 9 grain was something I had wanted to try for a while since we started grinding our own flour. For us it was nuttin special so it won't be a do over.

$12 on raw milk so far this month.

$26.50 @ Aldi's yesterday. Items like White Sugar, mayo, raw carrots (should have gleaned more), canned tuna, canned mushrooms, and black olives. The last two items are for topping on homemade pizza tonight. Oh forgot the T.P. is included.

Need to start seeds, so I can fill jars, so I can ...

Here's some news on the urban home front. I'm on sabbatical or as the tax man says unemployed by choice.

For the time I'm gonna be playing a version of urban June in this modern day two income culture of materialism. Hubby's gonna bring home the bacon I'm gonna work on gleaning firewood to fry it up in the pan.

~~ pelenaka ~~