Composting

1 February 2010

Composted 10 5-gallon buckets of various stuff yesterday, mostly coffee grounds. That was a lot of work. It built up because I was out of state for 12 days and it’s been cold, which makes it difficult.

The main compost pile is now close to being frozen — it was reading 35°F in the middle of the pile, and it had a frozen layer outside of that I was unable to fully break through with my compost fork. I pulled the straw aside and put the new stuff on top, which worked okay for now, but it’s going to get tall fast if this situation continues. The worst of the cold weather should be pretty much over (famous last words), so maybe it will thaw a bit and become more active in the coming weeks.

Finished filling my 5-gallon bucket of char with a mix of roughly 50/50 urine/fish emulsion (diluted to normal fertilizer strength). That will soak for a few months, then it will go into the West beds.

Still trying to figure out ways to make char. I may try buying some of those wood pellets that you use in a pellet stove both to heat the retort and to turn into char.

Posted in Biochar, Composting, Gardening | Leave a Comment »

Butternut and Bees

30 January 2010

I baked an excellent butternut from storage today — good sized, and excellent flavor and sweetness. I dug in the compost bucket and pulled the (uncooked) seeds out of there afterwards to save for next year. It’s a Waltham, which as far as I can tell is a non-hybrid. Seed-saving is such a no-brainer, I’m surprised I haven’t been doing it all along.

UPDATE: The Butternut seeds did not look good after drying for several days. They just weren’t plump, and several of them were quite flattish. I threw out the really bad ones, but will try the better ones. Not much loss if they don’t come up — I’ve got more. I think another two weeks of summer would have helped them fill out — or a better start in the Spring, unhandicapped by me making them grow roots through a layer of corrugated cardboard before they could get into the earth.

M attended a beginner’s bee-keeping class today. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but it’s also as I remember from previously reading about it: a daunting amount of work and equipment and knowledge is required.

Why do we want to do it? To have a post-collapse skill and a product to sell. To teach the kids how to take care of animals. To help the bees. Those are all still good reasons, but do we need more to do, especially in the Spring and Fall? On the other hand, I’m not getting younger and if I want to do stuff in my life I need to do it.

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And There You Have It

20 December 2009

M works in an institutional kitchen. That kitchen makes an effort to do the right thing by composting the voluminous vegetable wastes they produce and growing some of their own food.

However, M told me today that that effort is run by volunteers, and stops in the Winter. So for 5 months or so, all their vegetable scraps go to the landfill. What a waste!

I don’t blame them, and I’m not passing judgment. I know that composting in the Winter is difficult and time-consuming. I made some additions to the compost pile today, and what with the temperature being in the low 20s (°F), and cleaning out the buckets afterwards, and just moving through the deep snow, it was no fun. And if I feel so strongly about it, why don’t I volunteer to do it?

But still, that just goes to show you the shallowness of the effort to recycle and create a sustainable food system, even at an institution that, in general, cares about environmental and social issues. If it mattered enough to the higher-ups at that institution, composting would happen all year round.

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Backyard Biochar, Take 2

20 December 2009

Okay, so I did another burn today in my second attempt to make biochar. I used the same system as before, but with only pine (to get the fire started) and oak, no brush.

It seemed to work better, and definitely produced less smoke and more heat. I could see smoke coming out from under the lid of the inner trash can and getting burned in the fire. Most of the initial charge of wood was used up after about 45 minutes, and I only added a little more oak.

I think the biggest problem is with the size of the barrels — I can’t fit enough wood in between them to make a fire that is long-lasting and hot enough (although I haven’t observed the results of today’s burn yet). I need either a larger outer barrel or a smaller inner barrel, or both. I don’t want to have to be standing around for hours feeding the fire one kindling-sized piece at a time.

Other things to do to improve this system: make more holes in the bottom of the large can, insulate the large can.

Other ideas: make a masonry enclosure for cooking/biochar production; make a rocket stove/biochar production system, perhaps based on that 10-gallon trash can.

Update: The results were, if anything, worse than the first time. I’m just not getting enough heat into the feedstock.

Posted in Biochar, Climate Change | Leave a Comment »

Doubter

18 December 2009

So yes, the doomers are all wrong as of today. They don’t matter.

What does matter is making a life for my family that I know is right. I know that it’s right to be as self-sufficient as possible in all aspects, I know that independence is good, I know that debt and spending money frivolously is wrong, I know that politicians are liars. I’ve moved beyond reason and logic and into what I know to be true. There’s not much else that matters. I’ve been a self-doubter all my life, and now it’s time to live on the basis of what I know to be true. There just isn’t enough time left to be a doubter any more.

Posted in Family, TEOTWAWKI | Leave a Comment »

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