The_whingnut's road to ........................

[the_whingnut]

I have to say that the last week or so has been busy, exciting and nerve racking in all the same.
we found a farmers market we like with all local produce and eggs.
i smoked a 35lb hog for my gradutating class.
i was picked up for Chief Petty Officer .

the next six weeks or so will be very little posting for me as i will be busy with transition.

 

[the_whingnut]

Transtion is over I now have my Anchors. Over the last 6 weeks my garden exploded. Then promptly fell to ruin due to my lack of being home. I salvaged what I could my tomatoes took the biggest hit mostly due to being planted too close together and not staked well. Lessons learned. Now I have a decent compost pile. We are looking into container gardening more next year. Possibly setting up a vermiculture plant in the kitchen. I made a biomass briquette press this past week and I'm waiting on my biomass mush to finish mushing so I can test run it.

 

[moolie]

Welcome back! Sorry to hear you had garden losses, but glad you got something.

Curious about the biomass briquets, can you explain more about what you make them out of and how? Might be something cool to do with my Girl Guide unit for camp if it's not too technical

 

[Dawn419]

Hey whingnut!

Thanks for checking in and sorry to hear about your garden!

I'm with moolie...biomass briquets...inquiring minds wanna know.

 

[the_whingnut]

i'm back again. things here are starting to settle down a bit....... now that Hurricane Sandy is heading north. Such is life, well if all goes well we will be burning my biomass creations on Halloween in my fire pit. most of our garden is down, i dried a bunch of pineapple sage and peppers. been working on my beer and wines more that anything else. unfortunately I've been having bad issues with my hands breaking out in blisters the doctors are saying its dermatitis from allergies but they can't find the allergy, so far they think i'm allergic to blue clothing / industrial dye. funny i'm in the navy my whole uniform is blue, only the hands are breaking out. just frustrating. My Father was having the same issues before they diagnosed him with Celiac Disease, my younger sister is also having issues so........ as for being more self sufficient we have been lacking, its time to get back on track.

 

[the_whingnut]

Well i've been lazy and industrious for the past few weeks, went home with the wife and Dog to TN. Gave me a chance to see the good life. I spent most of my time driving back and forth from my Dads farm to my granna's house. my wife stayed with my Granna and learned a lot about southern cooking and i stayed at my Dad's working on the bug and helping him out. got little done on the bug but spent a lot of time with Dad. Made 150lbs of sausage, slaughtered 2 hogs and a deer. the usual trip home. After all said and done Bubbles got bronchitis, the dog got a new nickname (Cowsh*t face), and i got some great picture of home. I have been researching herbs and natural stuff for healing my hands. planning out for a larger garden this year, i've already started making my self watering planters and gathering my free materials for the planters (pallets), next is the worm composting factory. I picked up a meat grinder so i can do my own sausage, i lucked out and found a small counter top unit from a local flea market not a bad unit came with two plates a was rush / corrosion free. does about 5 lbs a minute first cut. we are also talking about doing mason bee house in one of the pallets but......... housing loves to spray pesticides on everything. last year i was able to get dandelions for my wine before they sprayed but not enough as i would like. i'm concerned with the herbicides and pesticides they use here contaminating my garden. besides being here when they spray and keeping them at gun point its almost impossible to prevent. i may keep my planters next to the house then shift them to the fence a week or two after they spray. the problem with that is if the patio looks junky they will harass us about it and we can be fined for them removing our "trash" when we are not home. so goes it i'll have pictures up later of the planters and composter once i finish them up. i got a lot of ideas for the designs from Youtube, and instructibles.com.

 

[SSDreamin]

Our dog has taken a 'shine' to the pig poo At least most of that is within the electric fence, and he's left the cow poo alone since he 'discovered' it!

My DS#2 really wants to get into worm farming, and I hoped to do some worm composting along with it.

It stinks that you have so many restrictions on you where you're at, but nice that you got to go home to TN and soak up some SS livin' for a bit! DH & DS#2 both love sausage (me, not so much) but the son prefers it smoked, which is an issue we haven't fixed yet. DH has some interesting plans for a smoker, that would 'attach' to my outdoor stove/kitchen, that has yet to be built

Can't wait to see the pictures of what you've come up with! All our pallets are in use, and DH gives me dirty looks if I start eyeballing any of them too closely for other things

 

[the_whingnut]

here are my pictures .....

the pot stand

the flower box

worm composting buckets! need worms!

self watering planters
side view

top view

water filter for drinking water and brewing (made from shower filter)

here is the link for the water filter
http://byo.com/stories/projects-and...self/402-build-your-own-water-filter-projects

more planters are in the works!

 

[the_whingnut]

i plan on using a form of hugelkultur with the planters and self watering buckets. once i get the worm composting going worm tea for everybody in the garden!

 

[Wannabefree]

Nice!!