Sunsaver, Livining Off-Grid In Suburbia- Happy Taconight America!

[sunsaver]

The rains have returned, too soon in my opinion. The ground was still damp from the last 4 inches of rain, and wouldn't it be nice to return to those days when it rain just enough and only when it was needed? Drought, flood. Drought, flood. This extreme weather is really getting old. But, i guess too much rain is better than none at all. I'm staying optomistic. Spring will arrive eventually.

 

[Denim Deb]

My pasture dried up but only because it froze. Now the temps have gone back up, and I'm back to mud in front of the stalls. Plus, it's supposed to rain again tomorrow night into Thursday. I'd love to send it where it's really needed. :/

 

[Gypsi]

we're muddy here, but in a day or 2, more rain wouldn't hurt. We are still well behind normal rainfall.

 

[Denim Deb]

And for last year, we were well over.

 

[sunsaver]

The rains have returned, and days like today make me reflect on all of the lost opportunities that we have had. So many times we could have embraced clean technology, or avoided war, or fed the hungry. I often feel dissapointed with this nation of idiots, this ship of fools, especially the disfunctional corporate robots in the US congress. Youth is wasted on the young. The vote is wasted on the American public. Rainy days often bring about a melancholy and disgruntled version of my personality. A rebel with several causes. How much time do you have? I could ramble all day with the multitude of vehement opinions that i have, and back them up with an extensive background in science. It's hard to argue with scientific facts, unless you are a politician. Those guys just make up facts as needed. Science and religion are studies of the truth. But politics is the study of deception, secr3cy. I have no patience for politics, and i avoid the daily news like the black plague.
Wouldn't it be nice to return to those days when it rained only when needed? The ground around my little forest garden was still damp from the last four inches of rain. The sky was dark. Fog covered the garden. Green plants dripping with moisture- it was a temperate rainforest during the rainy season. I yawned, my eyes still half closed and crusted with morning goo. 'So, this is what they mean by 100 percent chance of rain.' I thought. As i stood on the back step of a hundred year old farm house, oddly placed in the middle of a modern subdivision, i stretched my arms out. Just then a black cat came bolting out from under the porch. "Hey there, Monkeygirl!" I greeted.
"Meow", she replied.
"Screw this weather, baby! I said. "Lets go back to bed."
"Meow", she replied.
"Maybe if we sleep long enough, we will wake up in a world more worthy of being graced by our involvement in it." It was an arrogant, malcontent, anti-social, and selfish thing to say, but Monkeygirl seemed to like the idea.
"Purrr!" She said. "Purrrrrr!" And back to bed we went.:/

Even though the young raspberry plants had been set out a couple of weeks before the rains set in, their tender new rootlets had not yet moved past the peat that they had been born into. They didn't have time to move out into the silty, well drained loam of the garden forest. Sitting in wet peat, starving for oxygen, some of them died. It had only been an expirement, almost an afterthought; even so, it felt like i had lost something important, little botanical children that i had raised as my own. "Raspberry plants require good drainage." I made a note in my record book. The boysenberry starts had faired much better. Only two out of a dozen had succumbed to the monsoon like weather. "Boysenberry plants are well adapted to typical Louisiana weather." I scribbled into my notebook. "Greenwood cuttings of raspberry and boysenberry should be taken in late spring or early summer, and set in a soiless mix of 1 part vermiculite to 2 parts sphagnum peat moss." The boysenberries rooted almost twice as fast as the raspberries, and about four times as fast as blackberry root cuttings. In fact, boysenberries are so vigorous that they can probably be rooted from a single leaf.
Now that i have learned about all that i need to know about the propagation of Rubus family berries, i will spend the coming spring and summer months doing expirements related to blooming and fruit set, and the effects of different organic ferlilizer ratios on the rate of blooming or quantity of fruit set. With the exception of the handful of starts that drowned with root rot, i have many dozens of young plants in the field that can be divided into control groups and expiremental groups. I think that if you want to have fun with science, you should take the time to do proper science. And part of that responsibility is to share the results with others. As i always do, i will post all of my results online for others to replicate. For now, all i can do relax, sip on a latte, build a fire in the wood-burning stove, and wait for the weather to warm up.

 

[dragonlaurel]

"Monkeygirl!" I greeted.
"Meow", she replied.
"Screw this weather, baby! I said. "Lets go back to bed."
"Meow", she replied.
"Maybe if we sleep long enough, we will wake up in a world more worthy of being graced by our involvement in it." It was an arrogant, malcontent, anti-social, and selfish thing to say, but Monkeygirl seemed to like the idea.
"Purrr!" She said. "Purrrrrr!" And back to bed we went.hmm "


Of course that appealed to her! Cats are arrogant, malcontent antisocial and selfish quite frequently, so they understand when you are.
Plus you were offering her a chance to stay warm and dry, and get petted by her person. Win-Win situation.

Taking notes on your garden experiments is great. It reminds you of stuff that might matter, but you probably would have forgotten otherwise. Now I just have to remember to do it.

 

[sunsaver]

The cold front moved through taking the clouds with it. I built a big fire in the stove last night, made hot cocoa, and watched "Person of Interest" and "The Mentalist", my two favorite TV shows. There's nothing on tonight, and my DVD player is broken, so i will probably just curl up by the fire and read a book, or practice my scales on the classical guitar. The temperature dropped down to 20*F last night, which isn't very cold for Wisconsin, but is one of the colder winter nights for northern Louisiana. My plants needed the cold to help them stay dormant and set fruit buds, especially the blueberries and raspberries. With all the warm weather and rain that ive had lately, some of my plants seemed to think it was springtime. A couple of spears of asparagus popped up, and all of the bluebells are sprouting. A light sleet or snowstorm is in order. We don't get much frozen precipitation around here, and at the first sign of snow, all schools and public buildings shut down. I think its more so the people can get out and play in the white stuff, rather than for safety reasons.

I can feel cabinfever setting in pretty hard. I'm trying to save what little money i earn for vegetable seeds and some new types of berry plants that i want to purchase this spring, so that means no going out for entertainment, no luxury purchases, rice and beans for dinner with greens and salad from the garden. No more fancy restaurants, and of course, no more "Adventures in Vodkaland". I guess i'll have to clean house tonight, find something to keep me from going completely insane. If only i had internet at home. I would never get bored. I could chat online, watch silly utube videos, download movies. I have temporarily slipped back in time to the 19th century. If it weren't for my solar panels, i wouldn't even have electric lighting!

 

[snapshot]

YooHoo! What is going on in your life today?

 

[sunsaver]

Haven't been here in a while, but i finally got a new computer, so no more trips to the library for now. Now i can write as much as i want without a time limit. I have been getting pms from some folks wanting me to post to my journal on SS more often, so im back on here to get yall up to date. Some of the stuff i post on here will be found in other parts of the web: sorry for duplicity if you get any.

I guess i'll make a post and hope someday i will be able to go back and read it, see if anybody else did. Sucks being censored for "drugs" when i never talk about drugs except to say that nobody ever got sick from a lack of toxic chemicals, so why eat them in pill form? The brain can cure the body, mind over matter: but the witchdoctor's potion? Of course it will, if you believe it will.
My first plant sale was a better success than i had hoped or expected. I took the attitude that it's better to start off with only a few plants and have no customers than to not start at all. I was planning to be home all day Saturday anyway. Maybe i would meet some interesting person or have a neat experience that i could share with my friends on the internet. If i sold a plant i would make money, if not i would have nice plants to put in my garden. Win, win, so why not? I put what i had that was ready to sell in the driveway, put out some signs on the highway and at the local gas station. I think i spent about four bucks at Dollar General on some neon colored craft paper. That was it. Beat, tired, hands calloused and cracked with work, i went to bed. I slept well. I got up at 6:30 am, and made my green tea, went outside to check the berries, then watched the sun come up. At 7 am on the spot i put out my "yes, we're OPEN" sign and started potting up plants, weeding the permaculture beds, and doing anything else i would be doing on a typical sunny Saturday in the spring. 'The spring is finally here!' I thought. 'The sun is shining, too.' My first customer was a kid on a bike.
"Hey, Mr. Sunsaver, whatcha doing?"
"I'm having a plant sale. What are you doing?"
"What is that?"
"A plant sale?"
"No, that plant. What type of plant is that?"
"Thats an ivy."
"I want one."
"Do you have any money?"
"I have a dollar."
"Well, that's a four dollar plant there. Let me see if i can find you something less expensive." I went to the back and got one of my best starts of blackberry and brought it back to the little girl in my driveway. "Here's a baby berry bush that will do real good at your house, and if it dies, i will replace it with another one just like it. How's that sound?"
"Thanks! Let me take my bike home, and i'll come back and get it!" She sped off on here bike, and came back with a whole troup of little rascals. 'Great!' i thought, 'i'm going to have to entertain kids all day.' One of them brought his mother with him. He had begged her for money because he wanted to buy some broccoli plants to eat. What mother could resist that? The kid actually WANTS to eat his veggies! Soon the odd highway traveler was stopping by:
"Saw your signs. Thought we'd stop and see if you have any..."
"Well, i haven't got those in yet, but i DO have some of these..." Every one seemed to leave pleased, if only for nothing else more than a friendly visit or freely offered education about my unusual vegetables.
"I didn't know you could grow that here!"
"Only in the winter. Our winters are so mild here, spinach and broccoli do very well."
"Well, i'll be!"
It was a lot of fun. I made about $100. I'm in the plant business now.
I might not get a single customer at the next plant sale, but i'll keep shop anyway

. So back to my first day as a nurseryman. The kids were going to hang around anyways, so rather than just answer questions all day, i put them to work so they could get some OJT.
"Put some mulch in the bottom of the pot up to this line here. Then you mound soil in the bottom like this. Spread the roots out gently, like its a little baby plant and you're trying to make it comfy..."
"Like this?"
"Very good, Lindsey. Now plant all of those 6inch containers, and i'll give you a dollar." I know, child labor is against the law. But they were a big help. The girls learned about how plants are propagated, and the boys rode around the nieghborhood on their bikes, yelling "plants for sale!" It was a scene right out of a Dreamworks movie. I kept expecting Steven Spielburg to step up and yell, "Cut!" Then, to top things off with the Hallmark movie moment of the month, a little girl wanted to buy a blueberry bush:
"That plant is sixteen dollars. How about one of these little one dollar plants?"
"I want to get that blueberry bush for my momma." She repeated. I thought, 'there's no way im taking sixteen dollars from a little kid!'
"Does your momma know you're buying a plant that costs sixteen dollars?"
"No. It's gonna be a surprise."
"A surprise! No, i can't let you surprise your momma like that... uh..."
"But she likes blueberries!" The little girl was getting upset, and seemed determined to buy the big blueberry bush with baby blueberries already set on. I don't have children of my own, so i just treat them all as miniature adults. After all, many of the adults i know act like miniature children, so i decided to try explaining my reluctance to accept her money. Finally i said, "Which house is yours?"
"The one on the end."
"I'll deliver the plant to your house, and we can ask your mother if it's all right." I drove up the street with the full expectation that there would be some drama, poor kid would get scolded for trying to waste her money on a plant. To my shock and awe, it was in fact the mother's birthday. The family had stopped by my plant sale that morning, and the little girl had over-heard her mother hinting to her daddy that she loves fresh blueberries. The mother was very surprised and delighted, no more so than i was, and she hugged the little girl. "It's beautiful!" She exclaimed. "It's the best birthday present ever!"

Every so often i see something that restores my faith in humanity.

Gotta go for now! Chat with y'all tomorrow!

Busy, busy week. Working, and working on my new plant sale business. Potting up plants, fixing flats on my old junker truck. Using bailing wire and duck tape more and more often as my neck gets red in the southern sun. Planting with my shirt off so i dont get that wierd looking arm band tan that makes me look like a neonazi. Getting threatening letters in mail about vacant property that i no longer own. Watching berries grow, sprout and set baby green fruit. Filling up two greenhouses with food and flowers of the baby plant variety, every variety that i can get a hold of. Spending time inside hugging Monkeygirl and the Fatman, while watching scaryass weather rip through Dallas and across north Louisiana, right over my head. Cleaning up a few large downed branches, and convincing myself that giant trees get they way by being consistant at what they do. Hoping to stop and smell the roses tomorrow, and maybe take more time to write about it. Hope all my NHH friends stayed safe. Chat with y'all later!

"They're beautiful when they bloom. They look like white roses, and if you prune them right, they make a nice ornamental hedge. I don't usually do this, but come back here and look at mine." I led her around the front garden and through the arbor into the shady grove. The bluebells and azaleas had finished blooming, but my twenty foot tall loquat tree was set with yellow fruit and giant shamrocks of oxalis were covered in pink blooms, their green cloverleaf flora covering the woodland setting.
"This old house looks like it's been here forever"
"Yeah, i don't like cutting down trees, especially if they give me shade in the summer." We followed the woodland path around my monster pine tree, and into the back garden. I looked at the pile of garbage behind my house, a mountain of empty, black plastic planters peppered with empty peat bags, trays, and empty six-pack inserts. I suddenly felt ashamed. 'I'm living like trailer trash,' i thought. 'Like i'm a Bawcomvite, toothless and just coming off a bender down on Smith Street. I need to clean this mess up!'
"Sorry about all the mess." I said, "I usually keep it cleaner than this, but ive been so busy with my plant sales..."
"Oh no, not at all. It's like heaven to me!" She said. I was stunned out of my self-conscienceness, and into a realization of what she was feeling. It took me a decade of work, planning, planting, digging up and moving things to paint just such a fairtale picture. I had worked with the existing woodland setting to sculpt a landscape right out of an illustrated children's novel. For me, the plants are familiar, common. The rows of starter trays full of seedlings and cuttings, the jars of herbs rooting in water were just clutter to me, a mad scientist's collection. But for someone who is just getting started in gardening, someone who loves plants and flowers and woodland settings filled with containers of plants of every size and shape, it might as well be heaven. I have often felt like a ghost, creeping around the same old ground, year after year, trying to come to terms with the afterlife and eternity. These are my mulberry days. They are filled with peace, fresh fruit and clean living. Although i live alone, i never feel lonely, like i'm having walking conversation with God. I don't remember being particular religious when i was alive. I was very selfish, in fact, and i still am.
I want everything to go my way, and i get upset when it doesn't. Well, i don't remember dying, and i'm certain that i don't belong in heaven. Let's just say we are all on differnt legs of the journey. I'm maybe just a little older and further along the way. The trip is the important thing, taking time to share with friends or just stop and be in awe of what remains of God's great creation. If you can find pleasure in a simple flower or mystery in asparagus (a plant that grows as easy as a weed), then you surely are a soul on it's way to heaven. All good things come to those who can wait.
"If you see red around the edges of your blueberry leaves, that's a magnesium defeciency: just give them some epsom salts. Sorry, you probably don't even like to eat blueberries."
"No, that's very interesting. You're very knowledgeable!"

i have been giving tours of the back garden, and so far, it's a hit with the public. This is a very busy time for me: harvesting seed, composting, spring planting, not to mention the weekend plant sales and all the landscaping that i just want to do. I have been working more than usual, as i am trying to save up enough money for a new netbook. Once i do, i will come inside at sunset, exhausted each evening, and write in my journel until bedtime. I will be a fixture on here, like the old days on ss, chatting when i cant sleep, or getting advice from friends. I will have plenty of time to share photos, and i want to sell some plants online maybe as well. But for now, i have to keep doing what it is i do best: growing most of my food, and living off the land. I have lots of mulberries ripening, a few raspberries (my favorite food on earth) and plenty of dewberry as well as greenbriar and asparagus. I have saved seed from the green peas, and i'm waiting for the collard seed, broccoli, lettuce and cilantro, all of which are blooming now. The weather here has been nearly perfect this spring, although there has been much severe weather nearby. I have cut down a few more small trees, and i planted a dozen or so berry bushes and fruit trees, a couple more hazelnut trees, and two more fig trees. Aside from hard work and clean living, nothing exciting has happened, other than the wonderment i feel each time i spot a wild creature of some kind, regardless of how great or small. A new bug or plant unknown to me is enough to cause great and nerdlike excitement. One of my customers said "you are lucky to have these mulberries hanging so low within easy reach." Luck has nothing to do with it. I have spent the last 12 years observing, pruning, training, harvesting, and learning about the wild edible foods on my land. I have trained the mulberry to stretch around the mayple and over the garden path for years. Was it fortunate that birds planted mulberries and cherry trees, some fourty odd years ago, when a goat farm was abandoned and a subdivision grew up in it's place? Natural selection, followed by my own selections. Poison ivy and japanese honeysuckle have to go, but the virginia creeper makes a moisture and soil conserving, native ground-cover. The wild blackberries have to go, but thornless varieties with jumbo fruit are taking their place. I put a great deal of thought and hard work into the entire garden, every day. Was it Thomas Edison who said "luck" is 99% perspiration"? Or was it "Invention is the child of a well prepared mind"? I think i'm mixing quotes and metaphors here. "Blessed"? I'll take that one. Blessed with the desire to work my a$$ off in order to achieve my goal of living off the land in a sustainable way, and not having to work my ass off every day for disposable bs! That and just enough devine intervention to keep me respectful of the bs that is.

 

[Icu4dzs]

Welcome back, buddy!
Hope all is well and your health is improved.
Glad to see you writing again.
Best,
Trim sends
//BT//