Day at the beach Yesterday I walked a few miles along the coast, carrying my wetsuit, surf mat and fins in a backpack. I’ve had the mat for over a year and never used it. It was sunny, the ocean glassy, surf 3-4 feet, but breaking straight across. Suited up — gotta bite the bullet sometime — and hit the water. Two surfers out, getting creamed each time they got up…When I got out, surf had jumped to 4-6′, breaking kah-wump with big thick lips…Bottom line: surfing a mat ain’t as easy as I thought, or as easy as it looks. I had a hard time getting in the right place at the right time. I did get one ride, but also got pounded a couple of times. But you know, at my age, I ain’t complainin, just getting in the water always generates chi…On the way back, there were these rock sculptures, hadn’t been there a few hours earlier.
Tiny Homes On The Move is moving, albeit slowly. Rick has been working over a month, doing Photoshop work on the 1,000+ photos, many of which need resuscitation; on some of these he’s performing minor miracles, bringing out lacking color, depth and sharpness…I had a sort of breakthrough Friday when I cancelled a planned kayak adventure to Drake’s Estero and stayed here and got the intro and credits pages done, had been putting off for weeks. Now that everything is laid out, we will spend a month or so making corrections, and coming up with a cover.
Half Acre Homestead: I’m doing a presentation on tools Friday here at Commonweal.
Click here.
Our good friends at TMEN have just launched a new Facebook page dedicated to natural building here.
“About: News, notes and networking based on natural building and green homes, with info and advice from Mother Earth News and other expert sources.
Description: Our Natural Building & Green Homes Facebook Page invites posts of inspiring photos and expert advice on all kinds of green building options and natural building methods, including straw bale, cob, cordwood, timber frames, logs, earthbags, and more.
We will post links to other resources such as our national events calendar, and at the top of the page you can find our user-generated Google map of green homes and natural building resources
—The Editors of Mother Earth News magazine”
Click here.
In the last month, 3-4 young scrub jays have showed up in the garden. We’ve taken to throwing them bits of cracked corn on the ground. Whereas the grownups are very wary and circumspect, these punks squawk their heads off raucously when we go out to feed the chickens. Such noive! (I seem to remember a comment from one of the old Whole Earth publications about blue jays sounding like creaking door hinges.)
Yesterday I sat still in a chair and got this guy to come to within a few feet. He would eat a bit of corn, then grab another piece, put it down, dig a hole, and bury it. THEN — he would cover the hole with a leaf or twig. How he’s going to remember where he buried all this loot is beyond me.
This event hasn’t happened for several years. It was so popular and crowds got so large that it put a strain on the town of Hopland (California). Now it’s back, for one day only — Saturday, August 17th. We’ll have a booth, selling books, and I’m doing my presentation,”The Half Acre Homestead” at 4 PM.
Hopland is about 2 hours north of San Francisco on Highway 101. The Hopland Brewery is apparently closed now, but for great beer/dinner on the way back south, the Ruth McGowan Brew Pub in Cloverdale is a winner — you can see the beautiful copper and stainless brew kettle and tanks from the bar, and can take home a growler or two of fresh brew.
Click pic for slide show.
I’ve been using chainsaws for many years, have probably owned 5 or 6. These days it’s a Stihl Woodboss MS270, 24″ bar. Every year I pick up mostly wind-felled oak on country roads, haul it home, cut it into stove-size lengths, then rent a splitter for a day and stockpile a year’s or more worth of firewood. I used chainsaws extensively in the ’60s and ’70s, cutting up redwood (from the beaches or windfallen trees in the woods) into bolts, and which I then split into shakes. Point is, I’ve had a lot of chainsaw experience.
The other day I was sawing through a piece of wood on the woodpile and as I finished the cut, the blade hit a log below it and snapped back towards my face. It sent a chill of adrenaline that I felt somehow in my ears. Very scary.
I was wearing my Husqvarna helmet, which combines skull protection, ear guards, and a metal mesh facemask. (I’ve only been using the helmet the last few years, prompted by a log rolling down the hill and knocking me down — I should have had one of these helmets all along.)
This time the blade didn’t reach my face, but if it had, the mask would’ve stopped it from carving up flesh.
I urge you chain saw users: get one of these. $50 or so. Play it safe, please. The more hours you’ve operated chainsaws, the more the chance of a freak accident. Experience doesn’t make you invulnerable.
PS I always sharpen the teeth after use, so it’s ready when I next pick it up.
“When I posted ‘7 no-cost ways to grow more food from your veggie garden,’ one commenter argued that mulching was not a good strategy—suggesting that gardeners should plant polycultures instead, following the principles of permaculture.
While I’d dispute the idea that there is one “right” way of gardening, or that mulching and polycultures, or mulching and permaculture for that matter, are mutually exclusive, I do agree on one matter. Understanding permaculture design—which can loosely be described as a design discipline informed by principles observed in nature—can definitely make you a better gardener…”
From TreeHugger here.
Sent us by Mike W
This is by far the best gardening magazine I’ve ever seen. Everything in it seems useful, and I even like the ads.
In all these decades of planting and pruning fruit trees, I only pruned in winter. I read the article here on summer pruning and did some heavy pruning on 2 apple trees yesterday (it’s mid-summer). Do they look good! I’ve always tried to form a good basic structure in the winter, but come summer, there’s always an explosion of shoots in all directions. Yesterday I cut those back. The trees look better, and there’ll be more energy flowing to the apples without all that useless foliage.
The magazine has lots of photos showing you how to do stuff. I also learned some key things about harvesting garlic in this issue.
https://www.gardenersworld.com/
Day at the beach Yesterday I walked a few miles along the coast, carrying my wetsuit, surf mat and fins in a backpack. I’ve had the mat for over a year and never used it. It was sunny, the ocean glassy, surf 3-4 feet, but breaking straight across. Suited up — gotta bite the bullet sometime — and hit the water. Two surfers out, getting creamed each time they got up…When I got out, surf had jumped to 4-6′, breaking kah-wump with big thick lips…Bottom line: surfing a mat ain’t as easy as I thought, or as easy as it looks. I had a hard time getting in the right place at the right time. I did get one ride, but also got pounded a couple of times. But you know, at my age, I ain’t complainin, just getting in the water always generates chi…On the way back, there were these rock sculptures, hadn’t been there a few hours earlier.
