Yesterday while I was chasing away on my latest vessel I realized I hadn’t had a fire in the rocket mass heater all week, nor has the regular propane forced air furnace turned on in probably a month, yet I was comfortably warm! That got me to ruminating a bit about heating my home in what I think of as the edge seasons, those periods in spring and fall when some heating is still needed, but not a lot. I had intended this to be the post for yesterday, but while I did manage to finish chasing that vessel I obviously didn’t manage to get the post written. So here today instead I’ll share some thoughts, observations, and ideas about heating in edge seasons.
Continue reading “Heating during the edge seasons”Month: April 2019
Harvesting from the greenhouse
It’s been a long day of chasing work on the vessel you’ll see in today’s Studio Snippet. I’d like to call it a day, but I promised I would try to get a short post out each day and I want to keep that promise until the end of the week at least. So this evening I’m going to share a few things I’ve been harvesting already from the greenhouse.
Continue reading “Harvesting from the greenhouse”Transplanting a bed of onions
The garden project of new raised beds I wrote about previously has progressed a bit more. Earlier this week I was able to get the cinder blocks laid for the second bed. I’ve also put in a call to get a truck load of topsoil that I’ll use to fill these new, taller beds. (I haven’t gotten a call back yet though. I might have to try someone else.)
Continue reading “Transplanting a bed of onions”Can I have fresh salad greens grown at home year around?
Spring fever has hit, along with its annual increase in work load. It seems like I’ve always got a ton of metalwork to do in order to meet deadlines around this time, compounded by the equally time sensitive pressures to get the garden prepared and planted. This year I’ve added the task of composing posts about these activities for this blog. I’m struggling to figure out how to handle it all.
Continue reading “Can I have fresh salad greens grown at home year around?”What torch do you use for annealing?
I won’t say it’s a frequent question, but it’s one that comes up often enough, “What torch do you use for annealing your vessels?” Answering it often involves composing some long emails, with lots of research time to hunt down links and such. So I thought I’d put together this post to provide a convenient place to refer people to for all the information. Those blog readers who aren’t much interested in metalsmithing stuff may want to skip this. Today’s post is another instance of the Studio Snippet taking over! (Jargon tip for non-metalsmiths, annealing is a fancy way of saying “heating up the metal to the appropriate temperature in order to soften it, allowing it to be worked further without breaking.”)
Continue reading “What torch do you use for annealing?”What’s for Dinner?
What’s for dinner? It seems like a simple enough question, yet the answer to it can have profound impacts on my personal economy, my health, my energy use, and our overall environment, not to mention the living capital of my little homestead. So it’s a question I’ve been putting more thought and effort into, trying to shift my answers with the goal of improving all these elements. I imagine some of you are cringing already, fearing I’m going to break out with some militant screed instructing you that MY diet is the BEST diet and you must follow it too or you’re some morally inferior poopy head. Don’t worry, that’s not me. I feel like what you chose to eat is up to you, just as it is your own responsibility to determine what sort of diet your body functions best on. I’m merely offering this up as information about my personal journey in the realm of food in the hopes it might help you too.
Continue reading “What’s for Dinner?”Building a Better World in your Backyard instead of being angry at bad guys
Final Update (I think). The book is now done and available in print, ebook, and as an audiobook. If you are interested in purchasing a copy you can do so here.
Update. The campaign just ended with phenomenal success! A total of 2768 people supported it with $153,983.05! Thanks to all of you who joined me in helping make it all happen. If you missed out I’ll be sure to make one more update to this post when the book has gone through the final editing processes, been printed, and is available for anyone to purchase. Odds are good I’ll do another blog post too reviewing the book after I’ve got my copy and read the whole thing.
So I’ve known the Kickstarter campaign to get this book printed was coming up for months now. I’m excited to see it finally happen! Paul Wheaton and Shawn Klassen-Koop have been working on this for over a year. I’ve read a few sections they’ve shared in various threads on the Permies.com forums and it looks like it should be an excellent book that is essentially right along the lines of what I’m aiming to do with this blog.
Continue reading “Building a Better World in your Backyard instead of being angry at bad guys”A small garden project
I’m working on a more substantive post about my efforts to change my personal food culture which I had hoped to post today, but it’s just not going to happen. I’m too tired to focus well on that sort of writing. Why am I tired? Well since one of my goals with this blog is to share the various projects I’m trying around the homestead it seems appropriate to throw together this post about the reworking of one of my garden beds which has been today’s prime task.
Continue reading “A small garden project”