I finally got around to taking pictures and wanted to show what I had been working on all this time (click on the pictures to expand):
This is the yarn I made during that spinning marathon several months ago. I finally got it washed and measured and skeined.
The salmon is from hand-painted merino/mohair roving [...]
Gas prices are going up again, and it looks like that small spike in crude oil production back in 2008 is still holding as the peak of global oil production. (the little star on the black line of reality is what I’m referring to in all that speculation) Are we at the top of the [...]
The Oklahoma Wildlife Expo 2009 is over at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie this weekend. I’ll be heading out there in a bit.
Presented by the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation and a coalition of conservation organizations, agencies and sponsors, Expo celebrates our great state’s natural diversity and opportunities for the sporting enthusiast. From [...]
Crunchy Chicken is doing a Cloth Wipe Challenge:
I did this on my own for a while, when I experimented with peeing in a bucket during the 90% reduction thing. Using cloth for toilet paper is really not all that bad (I’ve only used cloth for #1 and will continue to limit it to that), and [...]
Got too much produce? Are your neighbors hiding because they don’t want any more zucchini?
Don’t you hate it when you have so much produce from your garden that some ends up going to waste?
I just found a wonderful website called Veggie Trader, which lets you put your excess produce up for trade or sale, without [...]
This looks like fun!
Le Tour de Fleece is a spinning challenge done during Le Tour de France (July 4-26). You can pick any challenge you like during that time, from learning to spin to spinning enough yarn for a major project.
My challenge will be to spin every day, I’ll be posting here to let you [...]
We had a week or so of nice weather and now we’re back to cold again. And that reminded me of the “Freeze Yer Buns” challenge, and that I hadn’t written about how that went since I started participating.
At first everyone whined and moaned about how cold it was, except my husband who likes it [...]
The United Nations has declared 2009 the International Year of Natural Fibres! All sorts of events are planned for this year, but one I just heard about that sounded particularly interesting is an international fiber artist competition sponsored by KeepTheFleece.org.
If you’re interested, go take a look! Entries have to be in by August 15th, 2009, [...]
I decided to try the recipe from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day site.
I think I put in too much water; this is more like The Blob than what the videos show.
I’m using my pizza stone to set it on. I guess we’ll just have to see how it turns out!
One of the things I love about Oklahoma is that you can grow sweet potatoes here, since that’s one of my favorite foods. They’re really easy to grow if you can get hold of a slip. Slips are just sweet potato vine tips that have set in water a few days and rooted. Once the [...]
The last few days have been a lot of fun.
At the Okiefiber Retreat, I learned about types of wool and when to use what, the difference between woolen and worsted spinning, a bit about basket weaving, and how to do punch and “lockerhook” rugs. I got to see the results of various plant dyes (osage [...]
Dinner was fried local ham, local apples and local butternut squash (I cheated and cooked them in the microwave), and homemade cornbread (with cornmeal from Kansas, so that’s regional). Simply delicious.
Planted: more garlic. I just got in a dwarf Orinoco Banana plant, which is supposed to be hardy to zone 7. So I potted it [...]
I love dehydrating food.
I had never done anything like this before, but it sounded like a good thing, so I got an Excalibur food dehydrator (which I absolutely adore).
I haven’t had much from the garden this year, so I’ve gotten tomatoes, apples, and peaches from the local food co-op to learn all these things (canning, [...]
I got a lot done today so far: planted two tomato plants, repotted a grapevine until I can plant it and an olive tree that will stay in pots (too cold in the winter for it), cleaned out a bunny bin and composted the litter, and for the finale, I made peach lemonade and peach [...]
I cooked local leg of lamb in my solar oven. I put it in at around 11:30 am, rock hard frozen. At 4 pm it was done perfectly, using free energy and the house not heated at all.
I could get used to this
John brought up a really good question the other day: where do you find the resources to learn what you want to?
I could talk about using the internet, or the library, or the bookstore, but what I think is the basic question here is how to learn things. Schools don’t seem to teach how [...]
My son loves canned peaches, so when I saw the listing for peaches in the co-op,
(cue dreamy music)
I thought of beautiful jars filled with perfect golden slices, layered ever-so-nicely, rows upon rows in my pantry …
That’s not how it went today.
First, I had the idea to get the skins off by putting them in boiling [...]
I’m not sure if it’s been the heat, allergies, or just plain old funk, but I haven’t been able to get much done the last few days. I’m supposed to be at the co-op right now, as I normally go volunteer there on sorting day.
Food is getting more and more expensive even there, but it’s [...]
It’s been hot and humid here this week, rained twice, with some golf-ball sized hail the other night. Fortunately nothing got damaged. I’ve been under the weather (still not feeling all that well today), which is why I haven’t been posting.
My plants all seem smaller than usual for this time of year, I’m not sure [...]
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