My new digs

A~, being the greatest and most supportive wife in....oh, I don't know... the world, refurnished and decorated a very cool old writing desk that we had in the garage and put in up in our bedroom so I have a nice place to sit and do my writing at nights. Now I won't be leaning up against the wall, sitting on the floor with a pillow behind me. No really, that's pretty much how 90% of my posts have been written to date.

This is a desk that we picked up a couple of years back at a thrift store for probably $5.00 max. It was in our youngest son's room for a couple of years, a place I like to call the wrecking room, and got pretty beat up. When we traded it out for a dresser, we offered it up on Freecyle but got no takers. Probably because it was so beat up. It was largely surface stuff though, and after A~ sanded it, did some Decoupage to the surface of the top with pictures of our family and the garden, it looks great and I feel like a real writer in my own personal creation station!

Thanks honey, for your love and your support of all my crazy whims. You're the best!
P~

Reuse and Recycle

I thought I'd showcase a couple of great finds that A~ picked up at our local thrift store and surprised me with. We really like to take advantage of reused and recycled items around our house. It helps us to stretch a dollar, which we all know are getting pretty tight nowadays, and it feels good to know that we are helping to conserve resources at the same time.
Check out these bushel baskets that we got. They're a bit dry but are in otherwise very good condition. I had been using a basket that I picked up at the same thrift store until just recently but, with the HUGE hauls of food that I've been getting... naw just kidding, actually the handle broke off the basket. Although no doubt this was due to the poundage right? Anyway, we scored these babies for a buck a piece. Great deal!

Since we've been really been trying to put up the stuff we've been growing, we have noticed how expensive it is to buy these suckers new. I mean, yeah, we have bought them new. But if we can buy 10 of the quart size jars for $2.50 then you can bet we're all over it. On a side note, we always saw a glut of these in years past when we weren't really canning much but now, they always seem to be snatched up right away. It sucks if your in the market for some, but I'm really glad to see that more people are putting up food.
And my pride and joy. The Precision Garden Seeder. This is one of the coolest little gadgets. My boys saw this and somehow knew what the heck it was. It's a little big for the scale of gardening that I'm doing currently, but truth be told, I have aspirations of grandeur that some day I'll have some land and you can bet this baby will be in full use.
I wonder what these things go for new. This one was only 6 bucks and there's not a thing wrong with it.
Have any of you ever used one of these? They have interchangeable seed gears on the inside to allow them to be used for different types of seed.
Well, that's about it for tonight. It was a long day today, working on cleaning out our garage and straightening up around the house and tomorrow hold more of the same. Time to get some late season stuff into the ground you know. Plus it's about time we get serious about our expansion to liberate some lawn.

Till next time.

P~

outsourced compost

Although I do actively produce compost at home, and it is of very good quality, I simply can't make enough of it to bring my very clay rich, soil to the level and quality that I want it to be at. Because of this I have, over the last couple of years, taken to buying compost from our local waste management facility. i.e. "The Dump". I did this last weekend, and wanted to share it with

you sooner but with being sick most of the week, I just hadn't gotten around to it. You can see I was kinda running against the weather clock here. Luckily I got up at a decent hour and got an early start, but even at that, the weather was coming down the mountains so I had to get going.
Now when I said I got the compost from the dump, some of you probably cringed, however, the facility and the quality of the compost that I've received from here is, I have to say, very high. Above you can see the pile of the sort of green waste that is collected. Gardeners, lawn care, tree trimmers and such dump their "waste" here under constant supervision. Anything inappropriate is removed and only compostables are allowed to be processed.
Throughout the summer and winter, long (100+ yard) piles of compost 5 feet high are lain out and mechanically turned and watered with agricultural sprinklers to maintain optimum moisture and temperature conditions. This facility also produces three different grades of mulch, from essentially chipped and shredded wood. I've used this before, also with good results. But today, compost was the order of the day. If you click on the picture for a larger image of it, you'll see that I am only paying $20.00 per yard, a VERY good price, (The mulch is only $5.00 per yard.) and a yard is a healthy amount of compost. They are figuring about 1600lbs with it as wet as it is right now. You can see the dump bucket below, it basically fills the bed of my truck.
After getting it home and waiting till the next morning, (That's weather in Utah, snowing one day, and blue skies and clear the next) my backyard neighbor let me back up into his yard to dump the compost straight out of the back and into my back garden bed (Below). I was pulling some weeds at the time, but with the help of my strapping young boys and the lure of a couple of dollars, I got the compost unloaded and the garden prepped. At least part of it.
Below is the area I've chosen to plant my peas in this year. I'm trying a new technique this year; it's trellising, but with a twist. Rather than just go straight up and have my peas in a row, I decided to try something new to optimize the planting area. You may be able to see that the steel trellising is not vertical, but A-framed.
The theory is that when the peas get to a point where they are reaching the top of an A-frame, I can either add another A-frame on top between two frames (Like a pyramid), or simply run some twine between the frames and let the peas run on them. It's a new theory, so we'll see how it works. I'll detail my thoughts on this more in a later post.

Well, that's how I outsource my compost. Do any of you have similar things available to you?

Resolutions begin - extreme simplifying

In my resolutions I said that we wanted to downsize, eliminate clutter, and simplify our life. A~, my wife, and I spent a goodly part of the weekend going through our basement, garage and storage totes to pick out what came up to be enough to fill a parking stall in the garage with "Stuff". These are things that were "great deals", or are things that we have used in the house, that we just don't have a reason for anymore. We have been toting a lot of stuff around for years that we basically just said to ourselves, " if we haven't used it in the last three years, we can live without it!".

We are having some relatives of my wife's over, that are just starting out on their own, take a look at what we have and we will be giving it to them if they want it. The rest I think we will post of Freecycle for a week and see if anyone needs it, or it will be donated to the local charity store. We thought about having a garage sale. I'm sure that we could make a 150-200.00 if we did. We have been the recipient of a lot of help from both family and the generosity of others throughput our time together, and we want to give back a little if we can. Someone out there will appreciate the stuff that we no longer need.
The other side of this simplifying is that we have made a commitment to each other to not purchase any new junk this year. There are things that we have determined that we will need; a chair for the front room that is not fabric (allergy issues...), a cast iron pot for bread baking, and essentials like clothing of course. The main idea is that we will talk purchases over before we make them, identify whether or not it is a need or a want, and make a slow decision as to whether it is something we actually want to purchase. I hope to have this change of thought process help us to reduce our consumption, simplify our lives, and save us money.

I'll keep you posted as we finish and have more info.

P~

Compost Day

Thought I'd spend a little time on compost today, there were a couple of things that I'd cover. For one, I learned recently of a program that Starbucks Coffee has in place. It's called Grounds for your Garden and it's something they put in place to help take care of the some of there coffee grounds waste. All you need to do is go into you're local Starbucks store and ask for their old grounds for your garden and you will get one of their old bean bags filled with used grounds.

Now, what do you do with them? I'm putting mine into my compost pile, of course. With the nitrogen to carbon ration that they have, mixed with a healthy bit of carbon rich browns, in this case straw, I should be able to kick up the heat in my pile and help it to break down faster and more completely.

If any of you are new to composting, or are thinking about getting a pile started, which I heartily encourage, then one thing I have learned is that getting the pile "cooking" is one of the most important things you can do. Getting the heat turned up inside your pile cooks the seeds, sterilizing them. It also helps the organic material inside the pile break down more completely and more quickly. Getting this heat turned up comes from having a good balance of greens and browns, nitrogen rich plant material and carbon rich dr material such as dry leaves, straw, or dried grass clippings. So far I have found straw to be the most consisent material that is easily gotten in my area. When you have this mix in the right proportions you'll need to turn the pile regularly to make sure the organisms in the pile can breath and make sure it stays moist. Not wet, but moist.

Once you have all this in line, you'll be sure to have your pile cooking like a pro. In the little video I made, you can pretty easily see that there's steam coming up out of the pile, this is a sure sign you're on the right track. I hope to cook this pile pretty well through the rest of the fall and into the winter and then finish it off in time for spring planting. If you haven't cleaned out the garden yet, or can still get a last mowing of the lawn, I encourage you to get those greens and some good dry browns together and get cookin'!

P~

Repurposing #3

Well here we are, number three. Have you been hanging on the edge of your seats waiting for what I'll re-use next? No? Well I can't see why not, this is exciting stuff! This is money in the bank, something for nothing, a free lunch... well alright I wouldn't reuse someones lunch, but you get the point.

Today's installment in the repurposing trilogy is something that I'll be using in the garden. Something that I've been wanting to get a hold of for a little while and have been diligently keeping an eye, or in this case an ear, out for. Old single plate wooden frame windows.

I've been wanting to find some of these windows for some time to use in the garden for building cold frames to help me harden off plants in the spring, and to extend the growing season for some of the cold weather crops that are able to be grown through into the late fall. One of the things that I hope to be able to do over the winter months in preparation for next springs sprouting is to go through at least a few of these windows and strip and refinish them to extend the life of them as well as to pass the "don't junk up the back yard" test that all of my projects must vet before being deployed. As you can see from the picture at the left, these have seen better days. The Gazing needs to be removed and the paint stripped. I'll probably mix up some of my own white wash for them, and give 'em a new coat before re-glazing, or more likely, caulking. If you've never done this before, it's not a hard process; I'll surely cover it to some degree when the time comes.

As I said, I was able to come across these by keeping my ears open. I was talking to one of the guys in my office on Thursday last week when he mentioned that his co-worker, a mutual friend of ours was changing out all of the windows in his older home. I jumped into action! After getting a hold of him and getting the all clear to take the old windows, I had my wife meet me with the truck and we headed over there to get them right away before the window man threw them away. Obviously, mission accomplished.

One that subject I thought I would leave this trilogy off with my Golden Rules for Effective Repurposing:

1. 
   
   Know what you want. You can't find the thing that will fill the need, or whose parts may fill the need, unless you know what the need is.


2. 
   
   Keep your eyes and ears open. Once you can picture the thing clearly in your mind, and how you will use it, you'll be surprised at how quickly it will randomly appear available if you are keeping a lookout on a regular basis.


3. 
   
   Timely Action. When it's available, get it. It may not be there later, or tomorrow. Sometimes this will get you a queer look from a friend or stranger when your putting a bunch of "Junk" in the back of your car but you'll have the last laugh. (All the way to the bank I might add.)


4. 
   
   Buy the best you can afford, whether new or second hand. When you decide to repurpose things you already own like the table in Repurposing #2, you will have much better luck when you already have quality that you're working with.

I hope you'll try your hand at repurposing around the house. I know a lot of you already do, I'd love to hear about your triumphs, and link if you have any. Share, motivate, and encourage!

Happy reusing all!

P~

Repurposing #2

Yesterday I talked about recyling/reuseing from sources outside the home. It's a great thing! today I thought I'd look into what I think is an even better way to repurpose an item, that when you're able to get a second life out of something that you already bought. In this case it is a table that we had in our living room for the last couple of years being used as a computer desk. To begin with this desk came from a second hand store, bought for about $15.00, so it was already on it's second life. This will be a third life remodel for it.

The wife wanted to have a runner table to go along a will in the living room. This will be a narrow table to hold seasonal decorations and display pictures and nick nacks. To accomplish this I first disassembled the table took measurements and made some marks. Careful measuring cannot be overstated as the next step is to cut the table in two.

Now, having a much narrower table top, I took more measurements and took apart the bottom leg support peices. What I needed to do was shorten the peice in between the legs on the now narrower side of the table. I cut the board and ripped new channels for the leg hardware. While the table was completely disassembled A~ took the opportunity to sand the top of the table so that we could refinish it for a new look.

After all the trimming, sanding and modifications to the table it's reassembled and moved to the living room. A~ will refinsh the top with "Tried and True" lindseed oil / wax finish. We will very easily get a few more years out of this solid peice of furniture.

A couple of considerations. When you buy furniture, even if it's second hand, buy the best quality you can when possible. Solid wood can very easily be modified, repaired, or restored whereas particle board can't. That's not to say it's no good, just something to consider. Another thing, when you feel ou may have expired the usefullness of a peice of furniture at the house, take a look at it out of context, perhaps the whole peice can't be reused, but you may be able to use a peice of it. For instance, the other half of this table may see life as a cutting butcher block cutting board, or a heavy duty shelf in the garage. Things are often more useful that we are trained to believe. Take a minute, save a dollar, and repurpose. More again tomorrow with installment #3.

P~

Repurposing #1

I am a huge fan of reuseing items. Whether you call it dumpster diving, recycling or the new term de jour, re-purposing, I call it good common sense. If I can make good use of something that has already seen a good life of use, or better yet, as is the case with this installment something that has not been used at all and is being discarded, I get a warm fuzzy happy feeling inside. Part of the reason for this is because I think it's a great thing to do, reusing that is, but honestly the biggest part is that it saves me a bunch of money of the course of a year. A lot of times I am able to do things around the house or the yard that I may not be able or willing to do if I had to pay for them. You can see a couple of examples of this HERE or HERE.

Earlier last week we were moving people around the office where I work. This became a good reason for cleaning out and going through a lot of the stuff that we had been collecting around the building. Some guys from our network support team asked me if they could throw some trash into the back of my truck so that we could bring it out to a dumpster, I said yes and that I'd be out

in a bit to move the truck. When I got there, I found that the "trash" was a bunch of the unused keyboards and new sets of computer speakers; they were literally still in their boxes. I couldn't allow them to go in the trash. I took the three boxes of "trash" and the 15 boxes of new speakers home and went through them. After sorting, I found in addition to the obviously useful keyboards and speakers, nearly a hundred old Cd's. After pulling the old CD out and the labels, I now have a box of good CD cases. something there's always a shortage of around our house since we usually buy them in spindles without cases. (Cheaper that way.) Amongst the Cd's were five full versions of Microsoft Word with Certificates and serial numbers. Now granted these are Word 97, they are not the most current versions. But there are a lot of people out there running older machines, or that have their kids running their old machines, that could potentially use this software; it will be donated to our local thrift store who's profits go to both local and global relief for people less fortunate. What of the keyboards and speakers you ask? Well, as with many of our children's schools, ours is always looking to be able to augment it's current computer equipment. I gave them the first chance at the equipment and they jumped at it. My kids will not be at they school for many more years, but I like knowing that classes after them may get to have some use from it.

What did all of this cost me? A little gas from work to home, and a little motivation and time. I find that when I keep my mind and my eyes open, I see so many opportunities to reuse and re-purpose so many things. Often, I find myself thinking "what could I use that for?" when I see something that I know is usable. It becomes a habit once you're able to get beyond the notion that if somebody had something or used something before you that it's no good, it's "trash". When simplifying life and trying to stretch a budget there are few things that can benefit a home or in this case a community like effective reuse.

There's been a lot of reuse opportunities around the house lately. Check in tomorrow for post #2. Till then...

Future recycle

Made a great find the other day! Our city is building a new main city hall and sheriffs department HQ. Somebody must have messed up in a big way, because yesterday their dumpster was overflowing with this 4' Diameter PVC pipe, and some 6" PVC. These are going to be used in the future as some sort of hydroponic system. I love being able to find something that's being thrown out and reuse it for something that I have been putting off. These would have cost me quite a few bucks to get new.

Now I just have to stumble over an air and water pump and I'll be almost there.
P~

Compost Day

You may remember a while back when I built myself a DIY homemade Compost Tumbler from an old pickle barrel and some salvaged wood. Today I pulled and screened the finished product of that endeavor. The rich brown humus that is the finished product couldn't make me happier. I was told that if you can't recognize what was put into the compost then it is done. Well, this pile has garden cuttings, grass clippings (some of those from the last addition are still recognizable but barely.), egg shells, kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, sawdust, paper towels and shredded documents from work. I'm sure there's a lot of other things that I can't remember, but it is a very well rounded mixture I assure you. I was not really too happy with the physical performance of the composter itself however. The plastic barrel that I used as the main portion of it, was warped pretty seriously because of the double to triple digit heat that we've had this summer, plus the couple hundred degree internal temperature caused by good composting action. I have a method that I am going to try to solve the problem with it, but in the mean time, I was able to procure a new, metal food grade barrel for a measly 3.00 dollars. It was originally a bulk wheat barrel for the Church storehouse and I got it from their thrift store. I haven't modified it too extensively yet. I only punched a bunch of holes in the top and bottom. The lid is removable so I can take it off to add content, or water the mix. Rather than put this barrel in place of the other one, since it has no side opening yet. I decided to leave it on the ground, and roll it across the grass to tumble it. This method I am happy to say, took considerably less time to come up with, and works great. I thought I'd try something new, and post a short clip of it here.

Hope that works for you. It's my first time useing YouTube. So I'll mark two days ago, August 6th as the day I loaded the composter with the goods, and we'll see how long this batch takes to "cook". The last time I did it, it tooks something like 2 1/2 months, I kept adding as I went though. This time, I filled it with kitchen scraps, grass and sawdust and I'm leaving it at that to see how long it takes. Having two tumblers now, I can get one going good, while I start collecting in the other.
I'll keep you posted.
P~

Sunrise and torn up tee's

I ride along, golden light bleeding over the ridge.

Cold air passes like a cool spring breeze,

In my ears a melody, in my chest a fire.

a beautiful accident delivered me here; I'm glad.

~P

So in my fog that is waking up, I got ready, hopped on the bike and peddled off to work. As I'm riding along down the road I am struck by the gorgeous sunrise coming over the Wasatch Mountians. The sky was golden, and the clouds glowed. It was truely magical. Last week the bad weather that we had forced me back into my car and I have to say I hated it. Not the driving necessarily, as much as the waiting, and the impatient people. I saw at least twice people cutting one another off and cussing back and forth. I got stuck at three consecutive lights for two and three changes. Were I on my bike I could have leisurely blown right by. I may not get there any faster, but it will certainly would have been a more peaceful trip. But as I was saying, I head off to work this morning in my usual fog, and don't realize until I've gotten to work that I am an hour earlier than normal. I must've screwed up the alarm last night when I went to bed, and got up at 5:00 rather than 6:00 (No small miracle in and of itself I assure you.) So as a reward for my inept clock handling skills and foggy morning haze, I was shown a beautiful sunrise. I wish I could honestly say that I would try to continue getting up that early; I'd get to see all the sunrises and would get off work an hour earlier. But that just isn't going to happen. Really it's not. But it was a pleasant surprise.

I decided to continue one of my practices from last week with a little help from a neighbor of mine. He gave me a "Box o' Rags" which is basically just a bunch of old recyled T-shirt scraps in a box. I grabbed a bunch last night and packed them to bring in so that I can always keep one in my pocket for hand drying and such. I liked using a hand towel last week, and now that I know how many paper towels we actually go through in a week since I kept them all in a separate bag for composting, they are ruined for me. Not to say that I won't grab one here or there, but I don't do it without looking for something else.

P~

Sunday was composting day around the house. I took a bunch of pics of my process and equipment. I'll be working on getting those imported later today so watch for that update.

Mothers Day, garden update and relaxation

Being Mothers Day today, I first want to say Happy Mothers Day, I realize this is probably pandering to my audience, since for some reason it seems like the majority of comments come from the ladies that visit here. Guys you really need to speak up. Anthony, notice I said the majority of comments, not all. Since it was Mothers Day, we of course pandered to the most important mom in our house, my wife. What she wanted, and we were more than happy to accomodate, was to spend the day outside and enjoy all the work we've been doing lately. What a great idea! Today will no doubt go down as one of the best weather days of 2007 so far. Not too hot, probably in the low 80's, with just the right amount of a breeze to cool it off. While I was out there I thought it'd be a good idea to snap a couple of photos to update this years progress. First we got a picture from the house side of the garden with the really nice firepit we just put in. This was a steel manhole cover with great rustic, well, rust that we were able to get for nothing from a contractor that was going to junk it. Coincidentally an old bar-b-que grill fit perfectly on the inside. The next one is a picture from the other end of the length of beds facing the house. Those in the front are the peas, I finally
got a trellis thingie in place so they can climb. I noticed a couple of small pods forming this weekend. Speaking of which, I was shocked to already find a little cluster of yellow pear tomatoes shaping up. After the cold weather of last week, I guess I can safely say that the plastic sheeting pup tent method I used to keep them warm worked!
That next photo, is not too pretty, but is a lot better than the ugly pile that I had last year. This is the wood hutch that I mentioned a month ago that I had started. All the concrete work we've been doing took precedance so it hasn't been completely finished yet, but it is holding the firewood pretty well I'd say. Everything you see is salvage from all of the construction going on around us. We were lucky enough to find some roofing that matched ours, and siding that was close enough not to tell the difference. As soon as I find some decent corner peices or straight wood I'll finish it off.
The next two pics are in homage to Mothers Day. The first is obviously Dad cooking. Yes I do cook, but I have been banned for the most part from the kitchen (jeez, I misplace a pan or two, and they never forget.) but I do OK on the grill! This is my famous beer can chicken. Todays recipe was dubbed Tecate Chicken; Mmm Mmm good! Finally what Mothers day post during the National Bike Month would be complete without Mom and her "little" boys out on a ride. For that matter I can't think of a better way to end the day; we took a leisurely ride around the neighborhood, that way I could still breath (I'm trying to get over a cold so I can ride to work this week). All in all this was a great day. We spent the day together, played bocci and egyptian golf, shared a great dinner together and rode it off. I can only hope that you all were able to have as relaxing and happy a day and that you took the time to call your moms. Which reminds me, I love you Mom!! (don't worry, I called her this morning, but more than one shout out never hurt!)
P~

Finally finished with the concrete.

Well, I think we've finally had enough with the concrete already. My wife and I had a great idea to recycle some concrete and use it in our landscaping rather than buying a bunch of basically the same thing for $3.00+ a piece. I should correct myself, I had the idea to use the stuff for a retaining wall around our front flower beds and brought home a few pieces to show her. After she decided she liked it, I felt like I had created a monster. She figured, hell it's free and it looks good, why not put a wall around the back garden bed too? And while we're doing that, why not use it like flagstone under the pergola? We could plant some creeping thyme; it'd look like a old english garden. Mean while I'm like," Hold on now sweetie. I mean, this stuff weighs a ton. Maybe we could just do a little at a time?" But really, I have to admit, I thought I would have ended up doing most of the work, but I didn't. The amount of pure labor that this woman put into it, was nothing short of amazing. She went with me to get the rock, she stacked most of it, even started swinging the sledge hammer towards the end. By the end of this project we had put such a dent in the pile of scrap concrete that we used for these projects that what was a 10x10 and 5 ft high pile of ugliness laying by the side of the road, can now be entirely missed if you don't know that it's there. We hauled in around 7 loads of concrete scrap that we had broken up on site and worked for oh, I dunno a month I guess every weekend and a couple nights a week. but all told I would say we saved about $1200-$1300 plus the fact that not only did we keep the concrete out of the dump, we didn't contribute to digging more rock out of the ground. Win win situation in my book. So here I am, enjoying the fruits of my labors so to speak, and here shall I be as often as possible. But now, I need to get a second one for the wife, she certainly earned herself one! So, what do you think? Just because it isn't sold at the home store and just because the neighbors don't have the same thing doesn't make it not nice; in fact in my book it makes it that much better.
P~

Low Impact Week

Crunchy Chicken, as inspired by converstion over at No Impact Man, has come up with a great idea, Low Impact week. I fully support this idea, and to one degree or another I will be participating in the challenge. This whole idea I think goes right along with the way I believe that environmental impact should be addressed. It should be a personal matter. Not to say that we shouldn't talk about or raise awareness of it, or what would I be writing about most of the time? But I believe firmly in personal responsibility, and in our own personal journey to find our stride and live deliberately. I encourage any of you reading this to give it a look see, and set a goal for yourselves... I mean it is only a week right? I will post my goals soon, and see what I can do to prepare.
P~

Reduce, Recyle, Reuse!

Take one pile of "unusable" concrete waste left over from trampling march of urban sprawl.

Break into manageable pieces, and transport to "refining" facility.

Once there, add two heaping helpings of manual labor. (And yes, I mean HEAPING HELPINGS!)

And Voila! Beautiful, garden edging, complete with "Rustic" cobblestone-like appearance for that quaint English garden look!

To me this is what Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is all about. Reduce what you consume, Reuse something in order to accomplish your goal, and Recycle because it saves resources and $$.

Get out there and see what you can find to reuse. It feels great to have something beautiful for nothing, and to get a good feeling for helping the environment to boot!