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Post by prairiegarden on Nov 14, 2016 9:37:31 GMT -5
I've had some mushroom compost sitting in a bag for a couple of years, bought it then found that apparently they use all sorts of chemicals tor raise the things or at least to sterilize the substrate, not sure if true or not, but have been reluctant to put it on the garden. I had used some of it for some shrub seedlings, didn't seem to hurt them but didn't seem to help particularly either. Going to have to try bokashi again, and also replace the worms that froze when I was away for a week and the power went out.
Steev, interested in your lemon pie and the rationale for a crust rather than a meringue? Do you use whole eggs in the lemon mix rather than just the yolks? I think lemon meringue pie, well made, is one of life's little treats, so curious if your mix for the lemon curd makes it even better.
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Post by prairiegarden on Nov 14, 2016 3:15:02 GMT -5
Glad you arnd yours are all right,
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Post by prairiegarden on Nov 14, 2016 1:54:14 GMT -5
I really can't believe it, he really is intending to build a wall, and throw oh two or three million "criminal" immigrants out, not necessarily in that order. Well all those morons who rely on slave labor from terrified illegal immigrant ag workers to bring in their crops may get a bIt of a shock Except that some hotshot Republican just assured everyone that no he wasn't., that the wall was just a sort of discussion point. Trump says he is really good at construction. I think my head is about to explode.
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Post by prairiegarden on Nov 14, 2016 1:34:12 GMT -5
Made some pemmican. Couldn't get the oven temp down as low as I'd hoped, but it's been too warm to use the fire so it was that or nothing. Still took forever to dry the meat, even using the fan. I'm wondering if the reason it's supposed to keep for so long is because it's not exactly the most delicious thing ever, but this recipe is pretty basic. If it works well enough though, may do some experimenting with various dried herbs and berries added to bring up the flavor, for now I want to see just how well this stuff will keep. I tried chewing on a bit of the dried meat before grinding it up, like trying to chew on a stick of kindling., it is going to be fun to see if I can make something a little more yummy ( can't imagine that will be hard) that will keep as well without refrigeration. I'm wondering if a chunk of it would make a good soup base, will have to experiment. My own boullion cubes!
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Post by prairiegarden on Nov 12, 2016 17:12:31 GMT -5
I get so angry at people who sit complacently in their cozy $500 000 homes with all the toys and the new pickup and almost new car in the paved driveway and tell people to "grow up, you lost, get over it" and it's upsetting and so disappointing in how many of them are from Canada. They blindly disregard the immediate reappearance of the KKK carrying banners we won, and dismiss the stories of abuse as fake, the videos as photoshopped or taken from some movie. What is wrong with them?
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Post by prairiegarden on Nov 11, 2016 2:38:34 GMT -5
I guess this is a rant, it feels more like weeping than ranting though
It seems as though the upheaval a lot of people have been predicting for some time may be looming close; just read a thread The First Day and the stories of people's experiences are horrific.
Women quietly pumping gas for their car being approached by men openly discussing what they would like to do to them, one told by a man she had best choose her slave number soon, another that he thought he might like to shoot her, while actually waving a gun. Women on public transport having men try to grab their crotch, while other men laughed. Being told to take off their hijab and hang themselves with it, they are useless and nobody wants them around.
Women who come from deeply religious families being told by their mothers not to wear the hijab because it's just not safe to go out with it on.
One woman spoke of being approached by four men who harassed her to the point of one punching her; when she used her martial arts training to flatten him the others called the police who arrested HER and carted her off in handcuffs because the men said she had simply attacked the guy by herself for no reason.
So so many being verbally abused and told to " go back to where you came from you don't belong here and we don't want you" in any number of ways, usually with viciously abusive epithets. Huge graffiti saying black lives don't matter.
Children in kindergarten being told by other children they are going to have to go away and live behind a wall because they don't belong there... Kindergarten!!.. and the teachers unable or unwilling to reassure them. High schools ringing with chants and decorated with graffiti straight out of Nazi Germany, including the word "heil".
At at that point I stopped reading the thread, it was breaking my heart. So much thoughtless hate. Rabid animals with a perceived mandate to be as vicious, predatory and violent as they like. So much fear. So, so sad. And..I don't see any way at all that this can work out well. Nobody can bring back the 1960s, the jobs that have gone overseas or to robots are not coming back. The things which are being said and done now are not going to be forgotten or forgiven.
And..the ongoing protest at Standing Rock makes a mockery of Obama' s promise to the Native Americans ." I've got your back". What he didn't say but might as well have was the last bit, " in my sights". Even Bernie Sanders wrote an open letter to him saying he really needed to interfere with what is happening there. Obama's response was that he was watching it, sort of like a guy with a tourniquet watching a sliced artery pumping blood and saying, well maybe it will stop by itself, I'll give it a little time and see what happens.
I hope that I'm wrong, that somehow everything will magically work out but atm I can't see how. I saw a sign calling for Trump to be assassinated. It seems as though the U.S. is coming apart at the seams like a carcass bloated with putrifying gasses being poked with a sharp stick. So sad. Who knew the depth and scope of rage and hate festering away. And..so scary. Steps down
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Post by prairiegarden on Nov 10, 2016 9:53:52 GMT -5
The cost of labour is a highly significant one, if I could do this myself I could have afforded the panels. Not being in town adds to the problems of even finding anyone willing to come out, the local unemployed are not only expensive but useless and surly, at least the guy helping this year is cheerful and willing. Now if only he had some interest and a little more speed and stamina, and was less easilly distracted...I have a fairly limited time I can stand and walk before I have to stop and sit because of arthritis; he tends to think he should stop too, which is not the idea. It's fairly frustrating because even with the help it's taking 5 times as long to get half of the stuff done I could've done myself even 6 years ago. Whine whine whine, At least this guy is cheerful and pleasant to be around, so small blessings are appreciated.
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Post by prairiegarden on Nov 7, 2016 19:00:22 GMT -5
It's got 6 ribs so 4 feet apart. It also has pipe connecting the ribs at ground level so that helps with stability as well, and the end posts have little extensions so they extend about 8 inches into the doorway. I'm not sure we got all the bits as it looks as though there was or should be pipe extending across from side to side on the ends at ground level as well but we ended up with only one extra piece of pipe and no extra bolts/nuts. The frame is working just fine as it is though, no complaints. Even before the posts it seemed pretty stable side to side but would sway if encouraged from front to back. Now it's rock solid, fastened the posts to the end ribs so nothing is going anywhere. I think there is a way to get this stuff tight, we just haven't got it sorted yet. Wondering if even the clothesline cable would work, it wouldn't make a significant bulge to stop snow from sliding off. The real greenhouse plastic probly better. The panels would be the way to go though, I think, if only they weren't so expensive!
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Post by prairiegarden on Nov 6, 2016 18:25:45 GMT -5
Well. Delighted with the posts pounded into the inside corners of the greenhouse, it's now totally rigid with no way to sway and certainly no danger of blowing away.
The plastic is another story and I'm thinking I need to find some sort of panelling that will work. It keep wanting to sag between the ribs, we can't seem to be able to get it very tight. With the winds we often get here I've little faith it will stand up to them unless it's almost drum tight and we can't get it anywhere near that. So time to call all the restore places and check all the kijiji ads and hope for the best, even if just the roof it would help.
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Post by prairiegarden on Nov 4, 2016 8:55:32 GMT -5
My straw bales never got here again this fall, heavy rain and then three weeks of intermittent rain is not good for bales. So when an 11x20 portable carport sans cover showed up last week for $50 I snaffled it, got it put back together yesterday. It has 6 ribs and I still wouldn't trust it to handle much in the way of snow load, the pipe is very thin walled.
Today the plan is putting clothesline cable reinforcing running from mid end rib to base of second rib front and back to try to give it a bit more rigidity, and 3inch x 7 foot posts in each corner ( cause I have them) to help stop it from blowing over or away..now I think of it with the posts I probable don't need the cable. So might use it instead to cross from side to side at roof line..about 6 feet high which is plenty high for me and might help it cope with snow a bit better.
It will just be getting builders 6 mil plastic this winter, to get the lovely rigid greenhouse panels would be about $200 each to bring them so that's not going to happen, and we are normally deep into winter now so can't count on the weather to stay nice for 2 weeks until the real greenhouse plastic arrives. So next spring, if this plastic is still in decent shape, will probably just make a second skin for it. Then if/when I ever get bales they will be put one high on the front (south) then stacked two or even three high on sides and back. The bales are 3 feet x 3 feet x 8 feet long so even outside the thing will help create a microclimate. The idea of the row of bales on the south is to slow down frost penetration.
Vents at the top on both ends with the plastic on the south wall arranged so it can be rolled up if needed. Hoping this will work and Im not missing anything!
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Post by prairiegarden on Nov 4, 2016 6:25:05 GMT -5
Some people offer workshops for which they charge a significant amount but provide food and a place to camp; then under the guise of teaching, although there is that element as well, get the participants put in hours of digging planting etc. That has always struck me as a Tom Saywer trick, good stuff if you can get away with it. Some of these people get return clients so they must provide value; lots of times things like campfires and music are mentioned in later (happy) comments. That's probably not what you had in mind but I've had a twinge of envy when the presenter talks about getting three hundred feet of swale dug and 200 trees and other things planted....and got well paid to have other people do it.
i suspect you have to have a certain sort of personality for this to work, I'd never get away with it, possibly because I don't really understand why anyone would pay to do such work. They do, though. maybe it taps into the feeling of wanting to be part of a special community or something.
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Post by prairiegarden on Oct 23, 2016 16:36:22 GMT -5
They are truly trying to replace the natural world. It's beginning to get really scary. Amazing how we are apparently really trying to wipe ourselves out as a species. GMO trees and insects and now fungi.
I grew up in the times that "how to build your own fallout shelter" was featured in things like Popular Mechanics magazines and it was fairly well accepted that nuclear war was only a matter of time. It's beginning to feel like those were serene and idyllic times compared to the issues we are leaving for the next generations to deal with. The thing that's so sad is that these things are all being done deliberately.
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Post by prairiegarden on Oct 23, 2016 2:57:15 GMT -5
Tried dahlia today and was disappointed, it seemed to take ages to cook, but it might have been cooked long before I tried it, it never did really change a crisp sort of texture, like an Granny Smith apple without the flavour. I finally just took it off the heat. It was.really bland, in fact what it mostly tasted like was crisp water. Soup makes sense so it would pick up the flavours but I wanted to see what flavour it had on its own, the answer being +\- none. Maybe other varieties would have more flavour, these were just chain store tuber mix, so no idea if they even had names. Produced well though, some of the tubers were as big as a medium size potato. I might try some others and see if shape changes signifies taste difference, these ones were skinny and carrot like in shape, one of the others is more like potato.
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Post by prairiegarden on Oct 23, 2016 2:32:19 GMT -5
Thank you. That's helpful information.
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Post by prairiegarden on Oct 17, 2016 14:57:47 GMT -5
Interesting and worth while noting! Have you ever tried to use bullrush fluff for stuffing? Some people say the native Canadians used it for padding but not sure if that was for temporary or long term use.
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