Back Burner Blogging…

I know it seems like the blog here is dead. It appears Twitter has taken over and I’ve given up writing longer form articles. It’s as though my world has moved from 1400 words, to 140 characters. When you get right down to it though, I’ve just not had the time or motivation to get things posted here. I don’t have anything to say at the moment…

I’m in the process of buying a house, my first house. In keeping with my current life goals of growing an increasing amount of my food, I’m trying to find a livable place with a good bit of land for short money.… Click here to read more!

Grow Your Own: The Garden is a Reality!

The garden has been built, planted and is now growing. Some might say that since no posts have come forth that those facts prove that I am behind in my posting. Those people would be correct.

The garden is a single 4′ x 8′ raised bed. For it’s construction I bought two 12 foot 2×12’s and cut 4 feet off of the end of each. A attached them with an internal bracket and a top bracket. It took only a few minutes to put together but think ahead as to which screws you will use. Make sure they are the right size for both the bracket and the depth of the wood.… Click here to read more!

Grow You Own: Good News Update

So, We grabbed the two drums I have and stuff the end of the sump pump hose into the barrel. I thought that we might fill a barrel over the course of a few days. I had been monitoring the amount of water flow from the pump for a few days and while it was a good bit of water it just didn’t seem like all that much. Little did I know we could move 55 gallons in about 90 minutes.

The house we live in was built in 1899 and has a dirt basement. The water pours down the walls when it rains, and especially in the spring as the snow melts.… Click here to read more!

Grow Your Own: Collecting Rain – Planning

Well, up here in the northeast we still have a bit of snow on the ground and it’s still dropping well below freezing at night so it’s much to early to start planting, but it’s time for my winter thinking and planning to start coming together. The first step is finding a source of water to use to water the garden. We have a well that works great to meet our needs as a family but general consensus is that it won’t be sufficient to water the garden as well. To that end I need to get water from somewhere else..… Click here to read more!

Progress Check In

I’ve been as busy as ever these past few weeks but I have been slowly making progress on all my little projects. Yesterday Apple posted a few 160GB iPod Classics to the refurb site so I scooped one up. Should be here next week. When I bought I considered also getting an apple dock but at $50 it doesn’t seem worth it for my needs. I did pickup one of the JBL On Stage II speakers. It’s kinda pricy at $129 but it gets great reviews and sounds much bigger then it is. I’ll review it when I’ve gotten a chance to test it out.… Click here to read more!

Using all that you can

Well, the greatest holiday of the year has come and gone and what do we have to show for it? Heaps and heaps of food. Sure, we all know how to make the turkey last, making all manner of turkey recipes for weeks to come but what about the bones? The carcass. You make stock of course!

I’m a meat eater and I have no problem with that. I have a lot of problems with they way meat is produced, hence my on going effort to try to produce at least some of it on my own, but eating meat is not something I find offensive or wrong.… Click here to read more!

Book Review: The River Cottage Year

As mentioned in a previous post, I bought two of Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall’s books, The River Cottage Year and The River Cottage Meat Book. While I finish reading about raising my own meat I thought I ought to post some of my thoughts about The River Cottage year.

The book is pretty good, it’s well written quite concise. It’s a bit more of a cook book then I was expecting though. Basically it’s broken up into 12 chapters, once for each month and Hugh talks a little bit at the beginning of each chapter about what he is doing at this time of year for his farm, usually about 2 pages worth.… Click here to read more!

Grow Your Own: Sorting Out Step 1

Alright, I’ve made the decision to try to produce some of my own food. Now what? Seems step one should be to do a bit of research.

The root of this decision comes from a British television series called River Cottage. It’s basically about a guy who leaves his life in London to start a small farm to feed himself. This is not what my intention is really; I want to feed myself but I don’t want to leave my job or support myself off of the surplus. Not today at least. The show was hosted/created by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall so I figure that it’s to him I should look for some advice.… Click here to read more!

It’s Time to Make a Resolution!

As my more loyal readers will remember, I don’t believe is waiting for January 1st to make a ‘resolution’. I think that whenever you come to a decision you should do what you can to fix it right now. I am making a decision right here, right now (September 24, 2007) to do what I can produce my own food. I’m not saying that I am going to start a farm and produce all of my own food but by the year 2010 I want to be producing a substantial portion of my food.

The fact of the matter is, I’m not comfortable with the way food is produced these days.… Click here to read more!