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Post by Alan on May 22, 2015 23:14:02 GMT -5
It seems the rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated! As Roky Erickson once sang; "I have always been here before"
I finally found a way to get my password to work sans my old email. Very short update for now, more to come...
Life us busy! Still planting, still breeding, took a break from "commercial" production and attempting to provide seeds to deal with my moms addiction issues and to "grow up" a bit myself.
I own a house, still farm, distill brandy legally and work in my community a lot.
Kim and I are getting married June 6 and we have a daughter on the way.
I am still a "dreamer" a "prepped" and a bit of a "rebel" and I still love this place!
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Post by Alan on May 29, 2012 9:54:17 GMT -5
Have you ever heard of the term shit stirrer? Yes, you were at one point in time banned as were a few others because there is a fine line between being convinced of your own beliefs and pushing those ideas on others......ie. shit stirring. Now, was the ban permanent? Likely not. Ask around, very few of my old bans were ever permanent lest someone physically threatened someone or were well-known for trying to get under the skin of others (zebraman). So, wait and come back a few years later when it's pretty apparent that I'm not around and haven't been for a bit in order to dredge my name through the dirt while testifying that your only doing it to get unbanned? That's not smart at all. Just because I'm not here on a regular basis posting doesn't mean I don't see what goes on here and it certainly doesn't mean I don't care. I'm a farmer and an agricultural experimenter, when I have time I will be back to this site, unfortunately I have not had time in recent seasons to be here or on my blog as I might want because I am actually out doing things and finding what works and what doesn't so I can latter come back and share those things with others in the community that belongs to ME, MY FRIENDS, and OUR GUESTS (count this as everyone on the forum that doesn't come here to knock someone). One of the reasons other than work I have not spent much time on forums is because there is so much shit talking between "characters" (and to be sure these folks are "characters") about people they do not know except through forums that I get tired of reading it in my inbox and hearing it on my phone. I have eliminated several contacts over the years because genuinely I don't give a fuck and I have far more important things to focus on. So there it is from my perspective. Also, from my perspective, your unbanned in order to get whatever pertinent personal contact information you need and free to post until the next time you make an ass out of yourself.
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Post by Alan on Feb 19, 2012 11:25:40 GMT -5
Wow, just saw this and glad I did. Adding to the list of wanted germplasm for Amanda Palmer!
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Post by Alan on Feb 19, 2012 11:20:13 GMT -5
Unfortunately I haven't been on much of late. Dan was a fantastic fellow and always had a lot to share with us. He and Val were both at the forefront of this forum and huge part of the reason it is as big and amazing as it is now. Dan will be missed deeply. The important thing is we have his legacy to share to help keep he and Val alive in everyones gardens. Dan knows the mysteries now and is back with Val, he will always be there just beyond us sharing those mysteries with us and giving us a good kick in the ass when we are being a bit more lethargic with our gardening and farming and posting than we should be. Love to you Dan. One day we will meet somewhere far from this place where tomatoes never blight and water turns itself to wine without intervention.
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Post by Alan on Nov 30, 2011 17:13:25 GMT -5
Need a Chrismas gift? Check out our new soaps at homegrowngoodness.blogspot.com
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Post by Alan on Nov 17, 2011 13:38:00 GMT -5
On my behalf it doesn't matter the scale of the infraction, only that there is an infraction. I also don't believe that being a worker bee for the hive mind during the day is an "evil" thing, everyone needs to make a buck or two and if they can get those from the hive mind and use them to breed new varieties for the public domain, well then that my friend is the biggest act of revolutionary subversion one can persue and I commend you for it!
In all honesty though, I think in the wider garden culture most people use the name "Monsanto" as a synonym type word for the wider agri-corp world without much thought given to the corporate identity individual to each of the perpetuators.
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Post by Alan on Oct 25, 2011 23:31:57 GMT -5
;D
Haven't had time to post to the forums lately but got some new stuff up on the blog. homegrowngoodness.blogspot.com
More soon!
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Post by Alan on Oct 25, 2011 23:31:06 GMT -5
Didn't know if you guys had noticed or not but New World Seeds and Tubers/Tater-Mater have a new message board up at www.tatermaterseeds.com/smf/
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Post by Alan on Oct 25, 2011 23:28:20 GMT -5
I know many of our members here are also members of this site as well but I've been doing some networking with Darthslater of PKS heirlooms and the tomato garden and wanted to personally take a moment to endorse his proboards as one of our sister sites for all you tomato obsessed folks out there. Lots of good info and good folks, be sure to check them out!
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Post by Alan on Oct 25, 2011 23:24:14 GMT -5
Pleasure to work with you Darth. I'll be getting your seeds out shortly (along with some others who have already requested) Looking forward to seeing how my stuff does for you and hope you like lots of genetic variation!
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Post by Alan on Oct 25, 2011 23:14:36 GMT -5
I can't find the link on hand right now, but the Chineese are far ahead of the rest of the world on QPM and seed is available at a consumer level. Most of those varieties (some of which are segregating in Amanda Palmer) are bright orange kernel varieties that from the outside look similar to a 16 row small kenel flint variety but remain soft. One issue I have noticed with their production is the same issue that I have with Waxy corn........mold.
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Post by Alan on Oct 13, 2011 15:37:22 GMT -5
Joseph, I'd gladly take some seed if you have some my friend.
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Post by Alan on Oct 11, 2011 22:04:29 GMT -5
Anybody else here making soap? We just got into it recently and are having a blast with it. I'm tending to keep everything as simple as possible using mostly what I have available on the farm.
So far everything is being made using lard and olive oil (some other oils here and there but trying to stay simple in order to be able to recreate if things get tough). I settled on lard because of it's abundant availability and the fact that I will still have it on hand if SHTF due to raising hogs. We have shunned fragrant oils and essential oils and I've even been experimenting with making lye water just in case.
So far we have used well water as a base, home brewed beer, wine, rain water, and cucumber puree and have added honey, coffe, coffe grounds, cut and dried spearamint, chamomile, and pine tar to our soaps and all have turned out well. Kim has my soap book at the moment but when I get it back I'll post some of our recipies. We decided to take the hard path and create our recipies from scratch from the very first batch. This is one of those survival items and self suficiency items I don't see mentioned on here often so I thought I'd bring it up to spur some discussion.
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Post by Alan on Oct 11, 2011 21:55:17 GMT -5
So this year I am growing the Arikara squash indescriminately with Knife River Landrace. I have plenty of seed from Arikara, and it does fine for me, but I have never read an account of the old squashes when grown by the native americans in the Dakota's having consistent shapes, sizes or colors. My understanding is that the original strains grown by the natives are long dead, and the plants bearing their names are generally lines that have been bred to resemble the traditional ones in appearance but not other characteristics. Sometimes, the original strains were lost by the tribes themselves, and while they did grow the plants with their names, their source was Europeans... as was the case with the Arikara sunflower. Making a grex out of squash lines sounds like a great idea to me, though. I just wouldn't expect the project to have much connection to ancient agriculture. Don't be fooled, many of those ancient strains, particularly on the east coast, the south west and north west do still exist. Yes, from time to time there have been introgressions of new genetics into the pools but this is to be expected as selection was often practiced on a mass scale from the genetics of many varieties in a species. This is the essence of ancient agriculture as variation occured quite frequently even amongst members of a tribe growing a "variety".
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Post by Alan on Oct 11, 2011 21:50:13 GMT -5
My two cents on selection criteria:
I don't often select in mass from cobs simply because I prefer to take a hard look at the whole plant as the season progresses and mark those traits first, from there I make ear selections based primarily on what I like. That said, it all depends on what you want, are you determined to preserve the phenotype that Carol Deppe desires or your own variant. If it is your own variant then I would simply make criteria based on what you want and select accordingly. I much prefer a larger kernal to a small one and tend to (when the genetics are available) select for cobs and kernals that facilitate eight rows of large kernals with some spacing between them to allow dry down in wet weather without as many mold issues but that's just me......more often however I select for the best while also maintaining the maximum amount of diversity but it's truly hard to select based only on looks and not flavor profile or nutrient profile or the density of the dried grain. I would say since Carols corn is still diverse to simply select for what pleases you, as the corn evolves in your area so to will your selection criteria as you see what works and what doesn't work.
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