Garden Planning 2012

Posted on February 16, 2012 by De

When it’s seed catalog time, this song describes my state of mind: I Want It All by Queen.

When I was a little kid we often went to the K&S cafeteria. You won’t catch me dead in those places now, but at the time it was quite exciting to me. It all looked good, so I grabbed it all! My Dad was always last in line, and he would check out with an empty tray except for an iced tea. He knew I could only eat 10% of what was on my plate, and he would get the rest. The perennial family joke was that my eyes were bigger than my stomach.

I'm really excited to try Appalachian Red garlic, bred in Floyd County VA (next county over!) from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

I’m no different now, as a grown-up, at least when it comes to plants. I want them all. And when these eyes-bigger-than-my-garden receives gobzoodles of seed catalogs, my eyeballs almost explode with excitement. Perhaps I could plant them all on my 27 acres in the country, but my “stomach”, that is – my time, is not big enough.

Therefore, I must Plan.

I have a philosophy that every year I try to grow a new vegetable. Last year for some reason I decided to try about 6 new vegetables. Parsnips did not even make it out of the seed packet. Parsnip seeds, as it turns out, only last one year, so I wasted them. I *hate* to waste things!  So this year, I am going to take a different tack – back to basics. This year, my new vegetable is going to be winter greens. I ordered a 6-pack of seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange called Even Star “Ice Bred” Hardy Winter Greens Mix. Yes, this is more than one vegetable but they will be planted together. I can’t tell you how damn cool it is to harvest greens from your garden in the wintertime!  With few other distractions during winter greens season I should be able to not screw this up. Perhaps.

I have also committed to a major project this year to create a large, brand spanking new garden bed that will surround a deck we have in front of an out-building we call the “Playhouse.” The playhouse was originally built by previous owners to grow pot and host bands (long story) but now holds our toilet and fridge, and sleeps certain friends and their dogs when they visit, among other things. The deck in front is begging for some plantings around it.

Future Hugelkultur Insectary project

I’ve been inspired by Anna at WaldenEffect.org to grow an insectary garden, which will be the basis of this new garden. Being a permaculture wanna-be I will grow some food in there too, and also make it a hugelkultur bed. (The hugelkultur bed is already in place, waiting for plants, a future post.) Keeping the deer out without an ugly fence could be my biggest challenge.

Back to The Plan. Since I am a geek I do this with a spreadsheet. There’s lots of ways to plan a garden, but the best way for me is to simply list what I “need” (i.e., I NEED corn and tomatoes) and what I want. I then go through my box of leftover seeds and mark off any needs and wants as Have.

Type Variety Company Price
Asparagus Jersey Supreme Pinetree $6.75
Basil Aroma have $0.00
Beet Bulls Blood Have $0.00
Bergamot Wild SESE $2.25
Cabbage Early Jersey Wakefield have $0.00
Calendula Resina SESE $2.10

Then, I pore through catalogs and fill in my need and wants with variety names and the company I’d order them from. Poring through the catalogs creates new wants. Of course, I end up with way too many items. I start to purge, and create a list at the bottom called Maybe Next Year. After decades of doing this, I have a pretty good feel for what I can handle. I lie to myself though, so this year I moved a few extra items to Maybe Next Year. It hurts, but it’s for my own good.

At least that’s the plan.

Posted in Farming and Gardening | 2 Comments

Hot Water Heater Losses: Should you go tankless?

Posted on January 7, 2012 by De

Absolute proof that you can find any damn thing with google (“songs about hot water”) Hot Water by Level 42.

I’ve always wanted to figure out a way to measure the natural gas usage of our appliances. Perhaps I need help, from a mental health professional, but seriously I’d love to own a clamp-on gas meter if such a thing exists. How else to really know how much gas something uses? I just don’t trust the “experts”, things you read on the web, and certainly nothing from the equipment manufacturers.

But sometimes, sometimes you get lucky and things just fall into your lap. Most people would not think a broken hot water heater as a lucky break – but a few chilly showers aside, I got some happy out of it.

If I had one of these in my backyard, wouldn't need no stinkin' hot water heater!

One summer morning after a weekend away, I “enjoy” a not exactly freezing but definitely inadequate shower. Dan investigates, and relights the pilot light. The next morning, the pilot light is out again. For a couple weeks, while we are very busy with other things, Dan just relights the pilot every morning and we take our showers. The occasional dishwasher run or day-that-he-just-plain-forgot resulted in a couple more inadequate (or even abandoned) showers. Dan decides to try to fix it, but the new thermostat part doesn’t do the trick.

I start pricing new equipment. I got a quote to install a tankless heater (which is an “obvious” energy saver) but even with multiple and very large incentives, the cost is $2400.  Ouch.  The payback as told by the installer was way beyond the life span of a house in a tear-down neighborhood, and probably beyond my own life span. Regular natural gas tank models run about $400. Dan decides that he will relight the pilot light every morning, and we should be fine.

I am doubtful. I give him three strikes – three inadequate showers (inadequate is determined by me) and then we get a new hot water heater of some sort or the other.

Meanwhile – the next gas bill arrives, and it is so low, under $14, that my brain starts a-thinking. We only used 4 therms of gas for the month, as opposed to our normal summertime baseline of 7 therms.  I can turn this misfortune of the pilot light, and use it to figure out my hot water heater losses. Sweet!

Warning: Math Alerts ahead:

7 therms (old baseline) – 4 therms (dead pilot light baseline) = 3 therms

See, that wasn’t so bad.

This calculation is going to be darn close to my actual monthly hot water heater losses. Dan lit the pilot about once per day, which got us 2 showers per day. The occasional dishwasher run is made up for by weekends spent away from home.  We wash all our dingy clothes in cold water.   That’s about it for hot water usage.

Three therms costs almost exactly $3 of natural gas in my area of North Carolina. Per month. Payback for the on-demand hot water heater =

(2400 – 400) / 3 = 667 months = 56 years = not worth it.

Disclosure: Our tank is 40 gallons. Yours may be larger and may lose more energy. We do not have a blanket or insulator on the tank, but we do have a few feet of pipe insulation on the hot water pipe leaving the tank. Dan installed the tank heater, an easy replacement, but for tankless we decided we would rather pay an installer to run all the extra plumbing, gas lines, and venting ductwork. As always, YMMV.

Bottom line: three therms/dollars per month is not a whole helluvalot.  Even a few summertime cool showers were unpleasant enough that we went and bought an ordinary tank hot water heater. Our experience though, does shed some light on how to prioritize your energy retrofitting dollars. For one thing, tankless is not all its cracked up to be.  And more importantly, you can’t always believe what the experts tell you.  There are many energy saving devices and practices that are not worth it, no matter how many people say they work.  You have to check the data for your own situation.

Posted in Home Energy | Leave a comment

Living Big by Living Small: Homesteader Dog Toys

Posted on January 3, 2012 by De

Put yourself in a good mood, play Toby Keith’s Every Dog Has His Day to go along with a fun photo gallery of my dog and his favorite toys.

I'm so booorrred with all these squeaky toys. When can we go to the farm?

Your average spoiled, sissy city dog like Barley has his very own giant toy chest full of colorful squeaky toys, most of which are supposed to look and sound like animals. In our house we’ve had most of the “Migrators” series, different types of stuffed ducks that honk. We’ve had an aardvark (I thought was a possum), possums, squirrels, bears, tigers, elephants, postmen, and flamingos – all that squeak. These $5 – $8 toys can destroyed in minutes, or if we’re lucky they’ll last a couple months. It would be downright cruel to deny squeaky toys to a dog that was bred to have something in his mouth 24-7, but still it bugs me to have a consumable line item like this in the budget (yup, dog toys is a line item in our budget.)

But then – on weekends when Barley morphs into cool country dog – he has a whole new set of free (and often yummy) toys to play with. Unfortunately, I’m not talking about the Groundhogs but that’s not for a lack of trying on Barley’s part. Here are some of his favorites – see what you can think of for free and natural dog toys too!

Nothing beats a good creek to swim in!

Except maybe a big pile of wood chips to roll in.

Or a snow bank full of critters!

A good pasture to romp in is always fun...

But just look at this hole Daddy dug for me!

I really think a deer ham bone is the bestest...

But Antlers are lots of fun too, and Mommy says they last a long time.

But my very favorite toy of all is Daddy's hat!

Posted in Living Big by Living Small | Leave a comment

Who Owns You: Your Employer

Posted on December 28, 2011 by De

Playing Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash will certainly enhance your reading experience.

I’ve worked at Large Corporation (hereafter abbreviated as LC)  for 27 years.  Until about 10 -15 years ago, I was a loyal employee of LC and thought they hung the moon.  It was a good company, and hard work was generally rewarded. Very few people got laid off, and those that were laid off were often thought of as slackers or inept. I felt bad for them, but as we were told – this is not charity, it’s business.

At my party for surviving 25 years at Large Corporation

That lesson comes down hard though, sometimes – the fact that it is business. First, we lost our pension. Layoffs started to get personal when good friends and hard working folks got the pink slip. I’ve had at least three jobs that were moved offshore.

I’ve long since stopped drinking the Kool-aid.

Darling you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
If you say that you are mine
I’ll be here ’til the end of time
So you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

I began to lose my loyalty, as I felt no loyalty extended to me. I got mad, and started cooking up plans to do something else. But what? Writing mystery novels was fun until I realized how difficult plotting is.  Learning to become an energy auditor was cool until I realized how difficult it is to break into the construction industry (not to mention find customers in rural mountain areas.)  I have ideas, but then reality sets in once I start looking at them seriously. I don’t make huge amounts of money, but I definitely have a bad case of the golden handcuffs. LC owns me, and they know it. It’s not that I’m mistreated worse than any other corporate employee, but LC has the upper hand. This year, I got a promotion and LC paid for me to get a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification (the excuse reason for my 3 month blogging hiatus was studying for the exam.) Three years ago, we had a 20% layoff and I my primary solace was the book Escape From Cubicle Nation. I go through sine waves of thinking “I MUST ESCAPE” versus “Well, it’s really not that bad and I’m lucky to have a job.”

Always tease tease tease
You’re happy when I’m on my knees
One day is fine, next day is black
So if you want me off your back
Well come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

Unless you have some soul-crushing debt (definition: keeps you up at night) probably no one owns you more than your employer. If you are self-employed, your customers and your business own you. We have somehow built up a life in America that demands a good income.  Almost all of us are debt-serfs to the system:  the American dream of owning a home, SUV, iPhone, and flat screen TV. The banks love to own your debt. The retailers love to have you buy. Your employer loves to keep you hungry.

Even though I only own one of those four above-mentioned items, grow a garden, and don’t shop for fun, we still spend thousands a month.

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So you gotta let me know
Should I cool it or should I go?

Bottom line, I’m not in love with my job. At times I hate it. I love being on my farm and gardening. I need to escape sooner, rather than later. Here’s my plan.

  1. Keep reducing expenses. Now that I’m done studying, I feel like I have time to spend on this. Corollary: selling more of our crap on eBay and Craigslist.
  2. Build a house at the farm for cash. I’m a good saver, so this is more doable than it sounds like. Dan is highly skilled scavenger, and moderately skilled carpenter, which will be hugely helpful.  And of course, I am now a certified Project Management Professional so I can boss everyone around during construction (groans from Dan.)
  3. Find several simple, fun, sane ways to bring in a little cash. This will be challenging for me, unless I get laid off and suddenly have loads more time to devote to this one.
  4. Learn better ways to invest than the index funds my 401k are sitting in (and decreasing in value every time Europe sneezes.)
  5. Move to the farm, and sell the city house. The city house costs $500/month just in taxes and insurance.  Requires cooperation from the better half. He’s willing but wants to hang on to his job a few more years.
  6. Make myself a viral I Quit video. (Can you make money off of youtube???)

This indecision’s bugging me
If you don’t want me, set me free
Exactly whom I’m supposed to be
Don’t you know which clothes even fit me?
Come on and let me know
Should I cool it or should I blow?

Posted in Musings and Grousings | Leave a comment

9/11: One Way to Fight Back

Posted on September 11, 2011 by De

A post on 9/11 calls for an ass-kicking song, so please play Misirlou by Dick Dale from the movie Pulp Fiction for full effect.

On September 11, 2001, while having lunch (ironically) at the Bull and Bear restaurant, I watched the towers fall on TV. I was suddenly gripped with this desire to become a fighter pilot and bomb the snot out of someone. Of course, I did not quit Large Corporation and join the Air Force, and I doubt they would take a middle-aged half-blind out-of-shape woman anyways. Still, I was ready to rock and roll, as was most of America.

Our president told us to go shopping.

Besides the fact that I hate to shop, the absurdity of shopping to show those terrorists who’s boss got me even more pissed off. Luckily I remembered what they say in murder mystery novels – Follow The Money. Even my golden retriever (who is very sweet, but only has one brain cell) could trace The Money in this murder mystery back to oil.

James Woolsley, a former CIA director, and not a tree-hugger, slaps a bumper sticker on every Prius, Volt, whatever fuel-efficient car he drives, that says:

Would Bin Laden have given a rat’s ass about America if it weren’t for oil? Let’s see what he had to say about it:

“For over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.”

Back in 2001, Dan and I owned a truck and a mini-van. No gas mileage heros in our driveway, but at least we had extremely short commutes. I even biked to work sometimes and I now regret not biking every day. But when my job moved 20 miles away, driving that 16 mpg truck every day became a spiritual burden.

I won’t recount my entire journey to electric-car-hood again. But at my very first Triangle Electric Car Club meeting, I had a good talk with Pete, the president of the club. Pete knew two people that died in the towers. Pete is a thoughtful, reflective person who likes to study a situation. His response to 9/11 was to acquire and rebuild an electric car. So while 9/11 was not my primary impetus to going electric at the time, in retrospect it’s a damn good reason to do it now.

In September 2001, electric was not easy. The car I bought in 2005 was slow and would only go 20 miles at a time before needing a charge. I drove it to work and the grocery store, the library and a few other places. I gleefully drove past gas stations, giving them the finger. Of course, I’m a little nuts. But now, with the Leaf, Volt, and more to come, it’s getting more and more reasonable, sane, joyous and liberating to drive without gas. Just imagine… driving past gas stations with $3, $4, $5 or more per gallon, knowing you’ll never have to stop there again.

I am telling you, it is a great feeling. Even better, it’s a powerful feeling.

Posted in Musings and Grousings, Transportation | Leave a comment