Today I made / bought / learnt (for a post oil world) 4

[davep]

argyle, I guess you could check out the dealers page on the aladdin website http://www.aladdinlamps.com/Dealers.asp and then search for a dealer on the web, to see if they sell online.

This may be slightly useful http://optempo.com/2009/03/10/collecting-aladdin-kerosene-lamps/

[Ludi]

Finished my mushroom beds and planted some more winter vegetables.

[rangerone314]

I had a woodburning stove installed today in the basement den (should be able to heat about 2,200 sqFt--entire house).

[vtsnowedin]

Over the last few days I have been doing some plumbing in relation to a remodel of our house that "She who must be obeyed" brought to the top of my to do list. I found that not having done any sweat soldering for ten years or so and not being great at it to begin with results in more then a few leaks. One joint I had to do three times. All set now but there is 225 square feet of tile floor in my near future. Oh my aching knees.

[rangerone314]

Ordered more chicks to replenish my depleted chicken flock... ordered 12 Buff Orpingtons & 13 Araucanas, so I will have brown, blue & green eggs.

Planted 3 Giant hyssop (Agastache) in my grape/kiwi vine, one in front of each grape vine.

Also transplanted a massive colony of pineapple mint I discovered in the herb bed in front of the house a few months ago (I think a pot last year blew off the deck above) and moved it into the slot for pineapple mint. (I had bought a solitary pineapple mint plant months ago not knowing of the huge colony in the back of my herb bed)

I bought another female kiwi vine and 2 dwarf pomegranate trees. The pomegranates will go in on the northern slope of my land in between the various hazelnuts to the north and the 6 fig trees to the south.
(The fruit tree arrangement from north to south goes:
1) Mulberry trees
2) American persimmon trees
3) Pawpaw trees
4) Hazelnuts
......at this point there is a break....grass on the flat area to the west between the slope and stream, and fruit trees on the northeastern slope
5) 2 Pomegranate trees
6) 6 Fig trees
7) The mini-orchard of dwarf fruit trees: 3 apples (red, green, gold), 1 plum tree, 3 cherry trees (various), 2 peach trees, 2 pear trees

[PeakOiler]

I had a woodburning stove installed today in the basement den (should be able to heat about 2,200 sqFt--entire house).

Congrats rangerone314! I know you'll enjoy it. I was sure glad to have one when my all-electric country house lost utility power for three days after an ice storm.

Does it have a small electric fan to assist the airflow around it?

[Ludi]

Our woodstove was one of the best quality-of-life enhancers we've invested in. So much nicer than the noisy central electric furnace, which we haven't used in years.

[Ludi]

Here's some pics of the present kitchen garden:

Hugel beds with polyculture planting of fava beans and winter greens and roots:



Frog by a mushroom bed:



Another frog on a hugel bed:



New rock garden stump with frog pond:

[rangerone314]

I had a woodburning stove installed today in the basement den (should be able to heat about 2,200 sqFt--entire house).

Congrats rangerone314! I know you'll enjoy it. I was sure glad to have one when my all-electric country house lost utility power for three days after an ice storm.

Does it have a small electric fan to assist the airflow around it?

Not yet but I probably will get a small fan... Saturday night was first night of firing it up. Got a small metal wood-rack that can hold about 1/3 cord of wood.

Having discovered interesting fruit trees/bushes that can be harvested late fall/winter (or last a long time after harvesting), will order some soon. Of interest are medlars (forestfarm.com), quince, Japanese quince, and jujube (from bayflora.com).

Since the acre of woods has areas that are wetlandish, I am also going to order mayhaw trees (forestfarm.com). Planning on adding more pawpaws, this time to the wetlandish areas also.

[Pops]

I found that not having done any sweat soldering for ten years or so and not being great at it to begin with results in more then a few leaks.

When I was redoing the bathroom this summer I forgot to solder a cap on the lav supply - when I pumped up the lines for a pressure test it popped off and ricocheted around the room like a pinball! I about peed down my leg!

...
One of our neighbors died last week. I learned we are in, and accepted in, a strong community. People have been helping out on the dairy for over a week. I was asked to speak at the funeral.

People in Missouri still pull to the side of the road in respect for a funeral procession - I hadn't seen that in CA, even small town CA, since I was a kid 40 years ago.

[vtsnowedin]

Pops you seem to have hit on one of the best places to set down roots to face the future. Community spirit here isn't what it used to be but I lay that mostly to the rise in TV watching and now the Internet. But I think the core of responsible adults is still here and they will rise to the occasion whenever and however the need arises.
Yesterday the Boss did a major fall shopping trip to restock the storeroom and freezer. We had worked our way through eighty percent of what we had stocked up on two years ago and the shelves were getting bare. It's bad when the only thing you have multiples of is pickles. Our garden didn't amount to much this year as we were both working outside and the weeds won. Plumbings done and not leaking and the woodpile is getting better by the day but I need to get the lead out as it snowed yesterday as a warning shot across my bow.

[Ludi]

We're getting into the big Doing Stuff time of the year here, when it's cool enough to do physical labor. But the past couple days I've been fighting off the flu or something. I hope to get out to do some diggin' today, and this week plan to put up a gate and some fence wire. The list of things to do is overwhelming, plus of course paying work. Can't complain about the work, though.

[vtsnowedin]

Hey Ludie. Dose that winrow of picked stone you have beside your beds attract snakes?

[Ludi]

I've seen a couple little snakes around there. I love snakes, so if it attracts them, that's fine by me. Mostly the garden is full of tiny frogs who hang out in the rock piles. But there are probably little snakes there to eat the frogs - I just don't get to see them much.

[vtsnowedin]

I've seen a couple little snakes around there. I love snakes, so if it attracts them, that's fine by me. Mostly the garden is full of tiny frogs who hang out in the rock piles. But there are probably little snakes there to eat the frogs - I just don't get to see them much.

Little snakes? In rattle snake and copperhead country? Part of the ecosystem for sure but I wouldn't want to make them feel welcome in my yard.
Old wives tale my mother told me about two war wives in WW2 in Florida. They came out into the back yard one day to put the baby in the perambulator, (Old fashioned baby carriage) and found a four foot timber ratter lying in the shade under the carriage with his rattles sticking out through the spooks of the wheels. Animal control officers came and removed it and then proceeded to ,with extreme caution ,leather clothes and gloves to disassemble the wood pile at the back fence finding a dozen more snakes of various sizes. I expressed doubt about that story one time and she had my older cousin show me the five foot rattle snake skin of the one that bite him one winter in Florida. Put him in the hospital for a week and swelled up his thigh to the size of a beer keg.

[Ludi]

I've only ever seen one rattler on our place, a cute little one in the asparagus patch, who tried not to be noticed.

[rangerone314]

Only really big snake had around here was a big black 6' rat snake that got caught in some excess poultry netting near the chicken run, so I had to cut the section off he was trapped in and brought him inside in a bin, and spent about an hour painstaking cutting off the netting off of him. (he was pretty badly tangled up)

Rather thoughtfully, he didn't try to bite me, even at the end when he had just one small piece stuck around his neck and I snipped it off. Stopped releasing the musk odor after a while after I had started, and seemed pretty calm when I released him into the flower garden by the front porch.

[davep]

Only really big snake had around here was a big black 6' rat snake that got caught in some excess poultry netting near the chicken run, so I had to cut the section off he was trapped in and brought him inside in a bin, and spent about an hour painstaking cutting off the netting off of him. (he was pretty badly tangled up)

Rather thoughtfully, he didn't try to bite me, even at the end when he had just one small piece stuck around his neck and I snipped it off. Stopped releasing the musk odor after a while after I had started, and seemed pretty calm when I released him into the flower garden by the front porch.

That's pretty zen of you. I like the fact that my daughter will not kill spiders in the house, but will catch them and let them outside. My zen approach has prevailed over my wife's screaming

[rangerone314]

Only really big snake had around here was a big black 6' rat snake that got caught in some excess poultry netting near the chicken run, so I had to cut the section off he was trapped in and brought him inside in a bin, and spent about an hour painstaking cutting off the netting off of him. (he was pretty badly tangled up)

Rather thoughtfully, he didn't try to bite me, even at the end when he had just one small piece stuck around his neck and I snipped it off. Stopped releasing the musk odor after a while after I had started, and seemed pretty calm when I released him into the flower garden by the front porch.

That's pretty zen of you. I like the fact that my daughter will not kill spiders in the house, but will catch them and let them outside. My zen approach has prevailed over my wife's screaming

Not sure if its zen of me, but I sort of have had like a long truce with spiders, that started from about 20 years ago when I was on vacation and tiny spiders single-handedly stopped an ant invasion of my apartment. After that it has always been take the spiders outside.

So I have a friends list, enemies list and everything else is neutral.

The fox that got nailed by a baseball bat from 40 feet away made it onto the enemies list by killing chickens. The deer are on the enemies list. As are mice, but the cats take care of them.

Snakes, turtles, amphibians, birds, centipedes, spiders, praying mantises are on the friends list.

[PrestonSturges]

I caught a large black snake who was swallowing a nest full of duck eggs. He had four big lumps in him. I got a nice big snake terrarium at a yard sale and kept him for the summer. They like to climb, and I believe they like to coil in bushes about 2 feet off the ground and scan for mice on the ground. I gave him a big branch in his cage and he would drape himself over it all day, not like corn snakes that hide all the time. His snake den was a 2 story house made of bricks and roof slates with the heat lamp shining down on the roof.

When you corner them, they will rattle their tails in the leaves pretending to be a rattler and they will rear up and hiss like a cobra, but I have never had one make serious attempt to bite and their teeth aren't big. They are very tame compared to the common water snakes (which people mistake for copperheads), which bite wildly and have big teeth.