sister_raphael | Reading

it was another boiling hot day, until 1:30pm when I was in the middle of irrigating and laying out new irrigation lines for the pumpkins that are suffering from lack of rain. Then it started raining. Then it became a torrential downpour.

I spent the next hour running around putting equipment away, pulling pump pipes and then the pump. Only good thing about having one pump in use is that I only need to rescue one pump. I moved our little red building (RST) out of the dip it had been in after it flooded, so hopefully the power strips turned off when they got wet and didn't fry all of our electronics. I knew we needed to move it after the last minor flood but never got around to it. so motivation I guess. it's not too bad, silt on the floor and wet, but it drains out of the building too. hopefully it drowned the rats/mice living under it

I was fully soaked even with raincoat. my truck seat is fully soaked. I had plans to go to town for the Wednesday knitting/crochet group at the library that runs from 2pm to 4pm since it was so hot and gross and we close in the afternoons on Wednesdays

womp womp I didn't even eat lunch, so it is now 3pm and it's a 25 min drive to town, so I'm just staying home. I guess the good thing is that I was here, my dad is 45 mins away at a computer client. everything would have just been fucked if I wasn't here.

We got 1.35 inches of rain in 45 minutes. there was a 30% chance of thunderstorms, so we got lucky this time

Mostly debating on whether to still be open tonight, we do wednesday evening hours. I think we will be, the rain has already mostly drained away. this is why grass buffers and perennial crops are very very good. can't wait for what tomorrow brings

smallhobbit

I've mostly been cross stitching, but I did finish knitting my scarf:

( July crafts )

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.

This Week's Question: What do you like to listen to / watch while crafting?

If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

yarnandglue

This post on Reddit about nail polish made me smile.

unicornduke

nothing horribly bad, just odd. it was really hot, hit 90f with 60% humidity all day. closed early, sent my workers home early, spent the morning doing some irrigation. I didn't have any urgent tasks, so I weeded, which I find quite nice and soothing.

part way through the morning, something was in my eye causing blurry vision. not anything large enough to make my eye hurt and I couldn't see anything, but it was deeply disconcerting to have a blurry section in my eye. it might have been weird sweat? eventually it went away once I blinked a lot. may have also been something from my new spinning project

one of the pumps stopped pumping water and I didn't notice until I went down to switch the blocks, it was running dry for probably an hour after running fine for 20 mins while I fixed a line, so it's probably shot. unsure what caused it but it only started having problems after the o-ring fell out of the feed tube and I replaced it, but it was watering fine last week. augh. so we're down to one running pump. tomorrow I'm going to work on pump #2, which is down due to carborator/gas leak problem from earlier this year. there's a spare pump in the metal shed, which has a bad motor, so we might be able to take the pump off that one and slap it on the other.

it's been so dry here. we got a quarter inch of rain on sunday and we're parched again. all the sludge puddles at the ends of some of the veggie rows dried up in a day. we might get more rain thursday, but three days of 90+F weather requires watering no matter what. super looking forward to three days of beautiful weather in the 70s later this week. we're going to do a campfire friday night

I have my new atom L mostly set up and ready to go. I figured out that my secondary instagram account (fiber arts) is 2FA locked out, only options are: previous device, authenticator app, backup codes. I have none of those. So I decided to get a new tank mini screen. It feels silly to do that, but given my track record, I will break another phone within a year and it can be backup. And then I can get my instagram account unlocked properly and change the 2FA

I finished a yarn yesterday, spent some time in the shed, rotated the loom and repaired my skein reel, so once I whittle a new peg I will be able to skein off the yarn I've spun and post about it.

and it's only tuesday.

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

yarnandglue

Saturday was the last day we cat-sat for a friend who was on a weeks-long tour of Europe so that in and of itself felt like accomplishing something!

My car's check engine light went on driving home from her house Friday night and we weren't able to get an appointment at the dealership until yesterday morning. So we just bopped around in my husband's car all weekend. (It ended up just being that there was a miscommunication between my husband and I over when my car last had an oil change and it was overdue. All better now!)

We went to the Kane County fairgrounds for the Chicago Toy Show on Sunday. I got a Barbie Fashion Knitting Kit from 1993 for $20! I've been keeping my eye out for any Barbie knitting items but haven't had any luck until now. My husband collects 90s-00s Star Wars stuff and found a few items that were on his wishlist. I also ran into a coworker who is a big-time doll collector. It was hot and sticky but fun!

Since my two nearest yarn stores both closed my now-nearest LYS is an hour away. That's a bit too far for me to go regularly but it's close to the Kane County Fairgrounds so we stopped in. It's also Chicago Yarn Crawl so everything was on sale. I got some shifty blue-to-green-to-yellow marled yarn to make The Shift cowl and have already cast on. I am a tremendous sucker for mosaic/slipped stitch colorwork. I find it's very easy to keep tension and watching the design emerge on every row feels like a treat.

Please enjoy this photo of Sven, lounging around while I get dressed and ready for work.

smallhobbit

Just under 14.5K for the month, bringing my annual total to 77K and allowing me a bit of breathing space.

I completed my

whatif_au Bingo card, with Miss Marple to the Rescue written last month, but now edited and posted (High/Low fantasy - Miss Marple/Sleeping Beauty - Bourne), The Baker Street Incomparables (Superheroes - Sherlock Holmes (ACD)) and Summer at Bag End (Decade Specific (1920s) - The Hobbit). The last was also written for

melagan 's Dust off your Plot Bunny challenge.

no_true_pair had a 4 fandom No True Fandom challenge, which gave me the chance to write some interesting crossovers When World's Collide

And then were two challenges this month on

allbingo My favourite Winterfest in July: A Slightly Different Christmas where, using the Holidays list I again wrote for my Spooks Love in all Seasons 'verse. And the new Western challenge, which gave the Ferret from Sherlock Holmes (ACD) the opportunity to shine (or not!!) When Plan A Fails Try Plan B (or Plan C...)

m_findlow

Title: Pointless
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,104 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 486 - Revenge at

fan_flashworks
Summary: Ianto is stuck in a world of hurt, made worse by the fact that he can’t be there beside Jack when he needs him most.

Pointless

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

unicornduke

Hey all, if you'd like to join the crafting hangout, it is tonight from 6-8pm ET!

Video encouraged but not required!

Topic: Crafting Hangout

Time: Mondays 6:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

Link

Meeting ID: 973 2674 2763

ursulas_alcove

It can be fun and it can be depressing. No, I'm not talking about creators with immaculate picture perfect gardens. I'm talking about what it takes to provide enough food to survive on. I found a MA guy who broke down calorie intake and how much land that requires, just for carbohydrates. Yes, there is math involved. For a diet of 2000 calories per day, a third to a half should be carbohydrates. The video assumes you can plant several 100 ft rows, 30" wide. He assumes a 12" walkway between rows which he says you need an area 100 ft by 42 feet just for carbs. He also assumes food for 4 adults. The video further assumes you are getting your carbs from just four food types: potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn (for cornmeal), and sunchokes. I went and looked up calories per pound of food. I see why he chose these foods but I also looked at my pantry. I use maple sugar and honey as well. I admit I am addicted to sugar. I also have pasta, rice, and other carbs. If I lived in an appropriate area, by far, wild rice is the ticket. While I do have sunchokes in my yard, I can't eat them. They do horrible things to my digestive tract.

The math portion was that 2000 calories a day is 730,00 calories a year. I, in turn, looked up a whole bunch of foods to see what the calories per pound of food is. Assume that you eat 1/3 of those calories from carbohydrates, roughly 250,000 calories per person. That is a lot of food to grow. Several homestead books claim that you need a minimum of 2.5 acres to survive. Doing the math for my own family of 3 adults, it ended up being a minimum of 500 pounds of potatoes. According to the video, Russet potatoes give the biggest bang for the growing space used. My assumption was that I could divide up the calories equally between 4 crops. I would also need 469 pounds of sweet potatoes. I would also have to plant a grain of some sort. Sorghum or amaranth, something to make flour with. I'd need 150 pounds of grain which I learned mills down to 100 pounds of flour. Sunchokes and turnips are out of the question for us. Allergies are also fatal.

The same guy is going to do another video on protein. It hasn't been released yet. What I learned is that if the apocalypse happens tomorrow, don't come to my house looking for food. I don't have it.

I found inspiration in the form of a farmer in Uganda. It is a vastly different growing zone than here. My official zone keeps changing. Up the road from me is classified as 7a but I am now in zone 6b. We used to be in zone 5. Zones are based on your coldest winter temperature. Personally, I think zones affect perennials more. Will a pomegranate tolerate growing in zone 5? Maybe, maybe not. Chicago Hardy Figs are a good here. I am trying my luck at a pomegranate. Micro-climates are also a thing, but I digress. My inspiration is coming from Uganda on a video channel called Farm For Profit Uganda. She farms in containers, in reused feed bags.
https://youtu.be/ZCQ-Rot6AO4?si=3VfGfIGwbBXsnFRw

Other channels I've been following are:
Live on What You Grow out of Connecticut
https://youtu.be/n2gezZA0l2A?si=M35g5LcyKaHuT7DF

Sandy Bottom Homestead in coastal NC
https://youtu.be/E9BSD0Xb3Oo?si=gjG9XvSPNPRz8EFV

For something a little more aspirational, there is Planted in the Garden, Zone 5 Toronto
https://youtu.be/qE_NE7HOkR4?si=sDikz310OzD9gvAe

And Epic Gardening (which is a truly commercial site) in SanDiego, zone 10
https://youtu.be/7emSoU8PvwU?si=9HwHv5vko8oXyuBA

I have other playlists for food preservation and another for permaculture. Ben at Sandy Bottom is the most realistic I think. It really is more about frost dates for planning and planting. Succession planting is also a way to get better yield from your space. You have to know your micro climates. Each bed is different. It's sunlight dependent. Also sand versus clay soil, as well as soil biology. I had been following Lynn Gillespie at The Living Farm in Colorado. She can get two crops in a season. Some folks can get three crops. I find I can have two kinds of beds. One for two crops - spring and fall and another for only summer crops. It makes me think harder about what to plant where. Lynn uses 2 cinderblock raised bed gardens, 16 ft by 4 ft. She can grow a lot of food in that.

What no one covers if you have to grow all your own food is inputs. You can't just go out and buy more topsoil or fertilizer. You have to make it. That alone is a hell of a lot of work. I think about British gardens during WW2. The homesteading reference to 2.5 acres is also because you must raise cover crops to feed your soil and allow for bed rotation. (Leaving one fallow periodically) Having animals of some sort is necessary to create compost for a lot of these YouTubers, which means even more acreage. Humanure, if done appropriately, could also be done. It takes three years and is seriously frowned upon in most cities. Right now urban gardeners can get free resources but for self sufficiency, that has to be taken into account. How do you create enough compost?

At present, we are not in drought mode. Since I am redesigning the backyard garden, I am looking at water - save it, spread it, and sink it for the rainfall I do get. Living on a hill, it means looking at my grade and key lining it. Zig zag it down the hill. It means rehanging the garage gutter to drain at the highest point in my yard, the northwest corner. Then directing the flow, grading the land on contour and creating swales. The other side of the garage is where I save the water in rain barrels. The house gutters need a total clean out and evaluation. The gutter I want to use has a skunk living under it. I'll concentrate on the backyard for now.

For those of you who stuck with me so far, my work in the front yard has paid off. The hummingbirds are back. There are also butterflies we've never seen before. The Mexican sunflowers are very popular as are the salvia plants. Now let's hope for some relief soon from the heat dome. Stay cool my friends!

ursulas_alcove

So much going on! Tariffs hit on August 1st. We looked over everything we could think of for things we won't be able to afford afterwards. For the moment, many companies are trying to hold prices. Several, including myself, ordered last December to prepare for this. As inventory dwindles, tariffs must become part of the retail price. It'll show up gradually in the financial data. 🤞🏼

What did we get? Since my DVD drive died, I ordered another to replace it. The old drive was circa 2011. The computer it belongs to, needs a bit of repair for other problems but is still going strong. I ordered a mini chainsaw but it has yet to ship. I have a lot of trees to maintain. We also picked up a bit of necessary clothing in July. My husband got shorts (organic cotton), my daughter got bras (also organic cotton) and I bought a black skirt (organic cotton, fair trade certified). I also picked up 2 Birdies raised beds. I only did it because a different order was cancelled as no longer available. I have work to do before building those raised beds. One will be a dedicated sweet potato bed. Birdies beds will get hit with 2 tariffs, one for steel and another because it's from Australia.

Before I can even think about next year, trees must be trimmed. There is too much shade covering my garden and also power lines to avoid. Both the tree and the line to the garage were here before I bought this place. I have the breaker switched off regardless. I'm anxiously awaiting that chainsaw.

Fall planning has begun. There will be beets. We'll see if the peas take. It's too hot for germination. Same goes for the late season beans. Lettuce, spinach and cabbage need to be planted. Harvesting is ongoing. Still have more potatoes to harvest. Tomatoes are picked daily or every other day. We watch for cucumbers, zucchini, and beans. Today, the first batch of cucumbers got turned into bread and butter pickles. I also made jam out of the farmer's market cherries. The jams and jelly shelves are full. The empty half pint jars are almost gone. I'll probably watch for plums at the market. Last week the plums weren't quite fully ripe. They did have apricots. I'd like to dry some of those. Maybe next week. . .

I have a long list of other foods I want to "put up". It's in the 90's through Thursday. Not happening until after that date. I'm looking at the baking I can get done using the solar over. I could do more zucchini bread or muffins. I freeze it. I have to remember it'll have to last a year so maybe another batch would be good. The neighbor has also promised me her extra summer squash. You may think me mad, but zucchini has a hard time here. Ground hogs love it. Last night, (probably) the skunk hopped the fence and landed on my best producing zucchini. Leaves were smashed, not eaten. One zucchini was missing. The skunks like to climb my fencing. They can usually manage to climb 4 ft before falling. The runt can only climb 3 feet. The fence is 3 ft. It has poles across the top to keep deer from reaching over. Deer would have gone for the beans. A ground hog would have gone for the squash leaves. Mice go for the squash seed inside the fruit. The juvenile skunks just think fence climbing is a wonderful game. Teenagers!

We are at about 50 pounds of produce so far. The zucchini each came in at 1.25 #s. The cucumbers are for pickling so they are about a third of a pound each. The big black containers I got for seed potatoes house 2 plants each. One pot yields about a pound of potatoes. The grow bags only house only 1 seed potato. The yield varies between a third of a pound and a half a pound. The big containers work so much better. They hold very close to the same amount of soil as the grow bags but yield so much more. I've tried 2 potatoes in a grow bag before. Still only yields a half pound. The potatoes are in the curing process. I pulled some for next year's crop. The earlier harvest has already been stowed, either for use or for seed potatoes. I did blanch some and dried them for scalloped potatoes. I'd like to do more.

It's been a busy week.

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

smallhobbit

This week's

thefridayfive questions:

1. one place you volunteer (or would like to)? Why?
Gloucestershire Bundles. Because they're a local charity, which provide clothing, equipment and toiletries to families with children up to the age of 16 who find themselves in crisis situations. They're a small local charity who seek to make life better for children, regardless of their family situation. We are a 'baby bank' - a bit like a food bank - but our remit is up to 16. I'm a trustee, the treasurer, so take care of the finances, make grant applications and speak to groups etc to promote what we do.

2. one book you'd like to see made into a movie? Why?
Karolina, or the Torn Curtain by Maryla Szymiczkowa. It's set in Krakow in 1895. I'd like to see the characters, the fashions and the settings. The plot is both great fun, but also very realistic in its outlook.

3. one creature (living, extinct, or mythical) you'd like for a pet? Why?
I'd like a dragon, please! 'Cos dragons are awesome.

4. one place on Earth you'd like to visit? Why?
Prague. We were planning on going pre-covid and haven't yet made it. Maybe next year?

5. one talent or skill you'd like to develop? Why?
I'd never claim to be proficient at what I do, but I find my current abilities are sufficient for the time I have available, and while I could improve some of my crafting skills, the enjoyment is in the doing, so why rush?