Re: Daily Posting

I often get emails, even text messages & phone calls, when I fail to post a message in a daily basis. A guess that some of my friends and readers fear my eminent death.  LOL.  I don't dwell upon the thought, but yes, some day I will cease to post this blog. But apparently there are folks out there who rely upon my posts as a sign that I'm still kicking, breathing, and capable of using a computer. So ok, I'll do something to appease their fears. 

As long as I have access to a computer and the Internet, I'll post something every day.........assuming that I remember. Now, that's one BIG assumption at this stage of my life. But I'll give it a try. 

What to post? Well, sometimes I just too busy or too tired to write a sensible article. And I'm not fond of the idea of making this blog into a daily personal diary. So I've decided I'll post photos from around the homestead. So if you're not interested in farm photos, you can just skip these posts. And I'll make it easy for you. I'll entitle the subject "Photos". Now how simple is that! 

Thinking More About Waste

I've been pretty busy this past week, so I haven't had time to think about the blog. So when I sat down tonight, I reread my last entry and it got me to thinking. Waste. Wow, we modern humans sure can generate a lot of it. But my own lifestyle is actually generating less and less, even no thanks to modern retailing.

While I've come to terms with food waste and enjoy a piece of self satisfaction knowing that I'm not sending edible things to the dump, there's surely more to waste than my kitchen and garden scraps. What about everything else? 

So much stuff ends up in landfills. It's mind boggling, at least to me it is. Looking at it realistically, I bet very little really has to be trashed if just a bit of effort (and money, of course) was put into it. The old saying is true .....one person's trash is another person's treasure. Even if broken or damaged, most stuff can be repurposed in some fashion. 

When I was a child I went to the local dump with my grandfather. He was looking for some metal gadgets while my eyes feasted on slightly damaged buckets, a pogo stick, a broken bike, that sort of thing. Back in those days society didn't generate so much trash and municipalities were willing to let people cart most of it away. No longer. The amount of trash is astronomical and far more toxic than back then. Plus there's the legal liability issue that petrifies the gizzards of today's officials. 

Out of curiosity I sat at our local "trash transfer station" the other day and was shooting the breeze with the station worker for about 10 minutes. At the same time I was watching what as being discarded into the trashbin, fantasizing what it could be repurposed for. I don't know what was in the black trash bags, but lots got tossed without being bagged. 

Chunks of concrete ...driveway fill?

Cardboard and paper ...for worm bins?

Recyclables ...into the recycling bins, of course

Carpeting ...for under houses to keep the dust down? 

Coolers ...for container gardening?

5 gallon buckets ...for carrying things, storage, container gardening?

Barrels and trash cans ...ditto

Windows, doors, screens ...for mini greenhouses?

Lumber ...for building projects, firewood? 

Clothing ...rags? 

Glass bottles ...recycle or craft projects? 

Plastic bottles ...recycle or pots to grow seedlings?

Plastic containers ...ditto

Metal ....recycling

Brush and tree trimmings ...chipped for mulch? 

Lawnmower and bicycle ...metal recycle or use on projects? 

Screenwindows ...mini garden screen boxes? 

Ladder ...bean trellis? 

Fencing ...for trellises?

Kitchen pots, pans, grills, crockpot, dinnerware ...people could use them

Old garden hoses ...wow, I could have put them to use even if they leaked, 

Tis a shame that people are not allowed to scavenge trash here. I bet a good portion of the stuff would be taken. 

Then there's all the green waste. Shame it's not chipped in my area. People have proven that they will use every scrap. 

So, do I generate waste? Of course. It's almost impossible not to. Things nowadays are sold with bits of plastic that can't be recycled.  Most stuff is plastic coated, has plastic parts, or comes shipped in plastic. 

Food Waste

I recently read in the National Geographic Magazine that 21% of food at the consumer level gets wasted. I've read other reports that claim percentages closer to 50%. Egads. That means, for most people, lots of food gets thrown away in the trash. Wow. I would have thought that restaurants were a bigger waster, but it turns out that people in their own homes are the major throw-away'ers. 

One thing about most homestead farms is that there is no such thing as food waste. Uneaten and spoiled food doesn't go into a trash can. There's always something else on a farm to do with it. 

First of all, homesteaders tend to eat food that I've seen city friends discard -- kale leaves with holes in them, green beans that some bug ate the tip off of, an ear of corn with a corn worm in it, that sort of thing. Homesteaders just cut off the damage and eat the rest, while I've seen my city friends ditch the whole item into their trashcan.

Homesteaders tend to make their own broths and stock, so they use the bits of veggie scraps in the stock pot that many city cooks deem to be garbage. Things like celery leaves, onion ends, broccoli stems, radish leaves, etc. (I thought about making myself a t-shirt that says "I Eat Garbage & Drink Out Of Gutters" but most people wouldn't get the joke.) 

On a homestead, items not eaten by humans usually goes some place other than the trash. Depending upon the item it gets fed to the dogs, cats, worms, soldier flies, rabbits, pigeons, ducks, geese, chickens, sheep, goats, pigs, cows, or horses. What the livestock won't eat heads to the garden either via compost, nutrient teas, or dug directly into the soil. On my farm there is a LOT of competition for the "garbage". 

Where wastage goes on my homestead.....

Sour milk -- dogs, chickens, pigs

Molded bread -- chickens, pig

Molded cheese -- chickens, pigs

Wilted, spoiled veggies/fruits -- chickens, pigs

Stale bread and crackers -- sheep, goat, horse, dogs

Unwanted leftovers -- dogs, chickens, pigs

"Off" meat -- chickens

Uneaten seafood -- cats, dogs, chickens (in reality it usually doesn't get past the cats) 

Excess and trimmings from the garden -- rabbits, dogs, chickens, pigs

Certain non-edible items -- compost (onion skins, eggplant caps, grapefruit rinds, and such)

Zero goes into my trashcan! And I do indeed mean zero. 

Walking Path Around House Update

Progress is slowly moving along in spite of the rain. Only one small section at a time is getting built, little bit by little bit, the path is coming into existence. 

Above, pre-path. The clump of bananas have just been removed and gee, I forgot to take a before photo. So just image 6 medium sized banana trees just outside the sliding door. Those trees got cut up with a sawsall and used as fill for a pallet grow box. 

Next to go, those palms. That clump started out as one small plant and has expanded into quite a clump. Quite honestly, they're not my preferred style plant. Yes, pretty when well maintained, but I don't have the time to keep it cleaned up. Not that it takes long, but it's not on my to-do list, which already is too long. Thus I opted to remove it. (I gave the clumps away to various people who were glad to take them.) 

Now I had the room to run the walking path. I'm bringing the path close to the house so that it can take any spill from the rain gutters and direct it away from the foundation. Spill is not normally a problem but we have had major deluges in the past where water overflowed the gutters. 

Hand Protection

Perhaps I've wised up some because finally I purchased a pair of cut resistant gloves. Of course this is after making about 100 slices on the fingers of my left hand. Yeah, sometimes I'm a slow learner. 

I figure that I don't need super protection (famous last words), thus I purchased, as my first experiment with cut resistant gloves, a pair of NoCry gloves...cut resistance level 5, whatever that means. So I'll give them a try. I'll be wearing one of my left hand when I'm using the hand sickle or cutting knife. Not that I plan to get sloppy with the cutters, but I'm hoping to avoid those accidental slices when the blade skitters off its target. 

The big question.......will I be able to find the gloves and remember to wear them? Good question! 

ps- Wore the glove for the first time today. So I actually remembered to put it on. 

Hurricane Fizzle

Mother Nature chuckles. Meteorologists bambuzzled once more. Ha! The storm pulled a fast one by turning south and heading away from the islands. 

My area ended up getting light winds, by comparison to hurricane wind, and some rain. The winds right now are gusty but not violent. Tree branches have come down but it's still to early in the morning to see if any trees blew over. Parts of Ka'u got very little of this storm and rain, others more. As of this morning, the farm here has seen only 1.3". Now I need to hope that hurricane Lester will refill my catchment tanks.

Hurricane Madeline is Here

So here I sit, listening to the rain and intermittent wind. Things are fairly ho-hum. I've gotten less than 1/2" of rain so far, but according to the weather radar, the big rain is yet to come. In anticipation of heavy rain and wind, I emptied the catchment tanks by 2 feet and made sure that the covers were on tight.. Just a safety precaution. Other than that, there wasn't much to do in preparation. I already have plenty of drinking water, food, gasoline, and propane stored up. The livestock are always secured. I've already removed any suspect trees. So I'll just have to sleep tonight and hope for the best. 

Radar at 5 showed the center of the storm to be passing south of the island with a lot of rain heading our way. It's now almost 8 pm, so I'm assuming the eye is due south of me. Looks like it gonna rain all night.