Brighter Planet's 350 Challenge

About Us - Heirloom, Untreated, Open Pollinated, Vegetable Seeds - Sustainable California Seed Company

This seems like an awesome local site for chicken feed; we will be checking them out for gardening, etc.

About Us - Heirloom, Untreated, Open Pollinated, Vegetable Seeds - Sustainable California Seed Company.

Redwood Deck Contest Winner, Sonoma County Backyard Deck

Some great advice from a local deck builder - he talks about an important aspect of  “building green” is to build it to last - and has some good pointers about how to do that.

Redwood Deck Contest Winner, Sonoma County Backyard Deck.

Thinking about Trim

Doug Fir (Knotty)

Doug Fir (Knotty)

Cx and I went shopping several months ago to look for trim, and decided that Doug Fir is beautiful, with a tight vertical grain and a gorgeous reddish color akin to cedar; and it is not as expensive as some other tight grain varieties. It is also, we have discovered, a native of the United States, which likely means its forests tend to be better ecologically, and many of the forests it inhabits have been managed since 1912, and are mostly from the Northwest region - probably as local as we are going to get, unless we go with oak, which I don’t particularly like.

There is a great article about doug fir here.

Of course, we will also be looking for a supplier that is FSC certified; I don’t know yet if we will go with a local supplier, or try to find something less expensive online.  Mt. Storm seems to be the best supplier locally - they have all sorts of interesting FSC - certified lumbers and plywood.

Preserve your food easily and deliciously!

I have been reading the Four Seasons Gardening book - by a couple of gardeners who live in Maine, and have been determined to raise fresh food for all four seasons - in Maine! They went to France (same latitude, if you can believe it) and learned how they grown veggies in the winter; they built “cold frames”, which create mini-sun rooms for their plants. But they are also a big fan of Dehydration as a route to having delicious food. They note that canning decreases nutrients, is EXTREMELY labor and resource intensive, etc. Which brings me to my topic - how I LOVE dehydration!

We just bought the Excalibur, which Cx did a lot of research on, and liked because of the fanning (horizontal, not vertical) the size (9 great big layers), that it is square (offers more space,) and for its adjustable thermometer and timer, key for precise drying.

We have been drying for our first round, and have several pounds of fantastic cherry tomatoes, and a bunch of dried pears. They are amazing. Irresistable in fact.

Big thumbs up on the Excalibur Dehydrator. I won’t give up canning entirely (not quite anyother way to do large quantities of apple butter) but I have a feeling much more will be devoted.
Excalibur Dehydrator

Clothes-Drying - What to do when you don’t have a dryer

Dry clothes - save energy!

Dry clothes - save energy!

When we moved in, we chose not to purchase a dryer. in our energy star research, it turned out that dryers, no matter how old they were, were about equally efficient - it was more a matter of keeping them lint free than the newness. So we went all winter hangdrying our clothes - and are quite happy it is now hot outside, and our clothes tend to get all the way dry, instead of mostly dry (Sonoma County is WET in the winter, even inside where we were hanging our clothes.

Our happy handiman sent us a little email about hangdrying clothes that I thought I would share:
THE BASIC RULES FOR CLOTHESLINES:

1. You had to wash the clothes line before hanging any clothes-walk the
entire lengths of each line with a damp cloth around the lines.

2. You had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always hang “whites”
with “whites,” and hang them first.

3. You never hung a shirt by the shoulders - always by the tail! What
would the neighbors think?

4. Wash day on a Monday! . . . Never hang clothes on the weekend, or
Sunday, for Heaven’s sake!

5. Hang the sheets and towels on the outside lines so you could hide your
“unmentionables” in the middle (perverts & busybodies, y’know!)

6. It didn’t matter if it was sub zero weather . . . Clothes would
“freeze-dry.”

7. Always gather the clothes pins when taking down dry clothes! Pins left
on the lines were “tacky!”

8. If you were efficient, you would line the clothes up so that each item did
not need two clothes pins, but shared one of the clothes pins with the next
washed item.

9. Clothes off of the line before dinner time, neatly folded in the clothes
basket, and ready to be ironed.

10. IRONED?! Well, that’s a whole other subject!

A POEM

A clothesline was a news forecast
To neighbors passing by.
There were no secrets you could keep
When clothes were hung to dry.
It also was a friendly link
For neighbors always knew
If company had stopped on by
To spend a night or two.
For then you’d see the “fancy sheets”
And towels upon the line;
You’d see the “company table cloths”
With intricate designs.
The line announced a baby’s birth
From folks who lived inside -
As brand new infant clothes were hung,
So carefully with pride!
The ages of the children could
So readily be known
By watching how the sizes changed,
You’d know how much they’d grown!
It also told when illness struck,
As extra sheets were hung;
Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe, too,
Haphazardly were strung.
It also said, “Gone on vacation now”
When lines hung limp and bare.
It told, “We’re back!” when full lines sagged
With not an inch to spare!

New folks in town were scorned upon
If wash was dingy and gray,
As neighbors carefully raised their brows,
And looked the other way . . ..

But clotheslines now are of the past,
For dryers make work much less.
Now what goes on inside a home
Is anybody’s guess!

I really miss that way of life.
It was a friendly sign
When neighbors knew each other best
By what hung on the line!

Thanks, Jay!

Don’t Be an Energy Glutton: How to Wash and Dry Your Clothes Efficiently : Chelsea Green

This is TERRIFIC article about how to dry your clothes, why to dry your clothes, even how to wash your clothes more efficiently without buying the very cool top-loading washing machine that we did!

Don’t Be an Energy Glutton: How to Wash and Dry Your Clothes Efficiently : Chelsea Green.

Sawing our own Wood Part 1

We have just cut down several trees - a couple of young redwoods, two cedars, and two mulberries. While it was hard to cut them down, we are excited about having clear solar access for our garden, our house, and eventually solar panels. They were all blocking the morning light, were in the way of a clear path, or were (in the case of the cedars) falling down because of misuse.

So, now we would really like to use them for our own purposes - a picnic table, for example. But how?

After calling our Local Tool Lending Library (where we have happily borrowing an electric 18″ chain saw), they suggested we call around to see about a horizontal band-saw. We ended up at Healdsburg Lumber - who suggested a portable saw mill.

So far, I have found a great article on portable sawmills, with links to different varieties to purchase for the “personal user’s forest.” We don’t really have a forest, though, and the cost for a pretty simple, manual Wood Mizer is $3700.

Ouch!

Now, if we had enough wood that we could make, say a deck, out of it, that would be terrific..

So, how much wood can we get out of our trees?

Well, according to the Ohio State University Fact Sheet, if we have a 16 foot log with a 12 inch diameter, we can get 30 board feet. Except that our trees are not that big - while we have three logs that are about 12″ in diameter, they are all only 6 feet long. However, this fact sheet did explain clearly about how people go about calculating board feet. So, when I looked a bit longer, and found a Wood Board Calculator, I knew that I needed to check the “Doyle’s measurement,” which US foresters typically use as their form of measurement.

It looks like, if I have done my calculations right, that we may have about 250 board feet waiting for us. That suddenly becomes worth it!

So, onward in my search for someone who has a portable saw mill for us to use.

Definition of Permaculture

drawing of a permaculture treeI first heard the word “permaculture” in 1990 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, during my junior year in college. The co-originator of the concept, Bill Mollison, was coming to Santa Fe to be a part of an Earth Day festivity, and there were flyers around town with compelling line drawings that caught my attention. The word “permaculture” is a contraction of permanent and agriculture, coined in Permaculture One, written in 1978 with fellow Australian David Holmgren. 

I didn’t get to meet Bill, but I did attend a memorable talk by Scott Pittman, a long-time friend of Bill’s. I had recently read Mansanobu Fukuoka’s One Straw Revolution, and after the talk I asked Scott about a very provocative statement that Fukuoka-san made: “there is no rain in the desert because there are no plants.” Obviously we normally think of it the other way, that there’s no plants in the desert because of the lack of rain. In response Scott explained how Pseudomona syringe bacteria live on shrubs and trees and waft up into the atmosphere and become the ’seeds’ that rain drops form around. Interesting, a scientific explanation for Fukuoka-san’s spiritual insight. That was enough of a hook for me, after graduation I spent ten years developing a permaculture teaching and design practice. 

Though I have spent the most recent ten years developing a slightly different line of work, permaculture is still near and dear to my heart, and we will be drawing out the process in the months to come as we develop our property. 

When I was actively teaching classes I collected definitions of permaculture to share with students, here are a few I particularly like:

Permaculture: the use of ecology as the basis for designing integrated systems of food production, housing, appropriate technology, and community development. Permaculture is built upon an ethic of caring for the earth and interacting with the environment in mutually beneficial ways. 

                                                                                   ~from Sustainable Living in Drylands

Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation, rather protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system. 

We’ll post more in time, the diversity of definitions is delightful!

 

How to Change the Way the Door Opens on the Refrigerator

This is your Gumview handyman again with his know it all tips. How will you know them unless someone tells you, you have to do it by trial and error. You certainly wont find out if you hire someone to do it for you. Today’s tip is how do I change the way the refrigerator door opens. Left or Right and it really depends, on your kitchen.

Back in the stone ages, when you bought your refrigerator, you had to know which side your door opened. Refrigerators were made left or right and that was it. If you moved and the door needed to open on the other side you got to buy a new refrigerator or you suffered until you could buy a new one.

In today’s world the doors can be switched from left to right. Here’s how to go about it.

  1. The first thing you do is get the tools,or in my case, the tool, to do the job. I have a ratchet screwdriver with many screw heads and hex head nut drivers. Pick out the right screw head, and undo the refrigerator handle.
  2. On the opposite side of the door covering the screw holes are at least two plastic caps. Remove them and reinsert them in the screw holes on the other side of the door.
  3. Now reinstall the handle because you will need it to support the door when you take it off the hinge and set the door on the floor in front of the refrigerator.
  4. Next insert the proper hex head nut driver in the screwdriver handle and unloosen two of the nuts. Get a good hold on the door and remove the nuts and lift the bracket up and away. Now you can remove the door. Set it on the floor in front of the refrigerator.
  5. The top bracket is then moved to the other side where the nut holes are also covered with plastic caps move them to the other side and insert them back in those holes. Now lift your door in place and line up the nut holes and replace the nuts.
  6. I forgot to tell you to make sure your doorstop is in position and turned the right way. It is plastic and is on the bottom pivot.
  7. Now proceed with tightening the nuts securely.

You will notice that it looks like the gasket will not seal properly - I also had that loss of confidence. Don’t worry though - you only have to run your finger along the side of the gasket to get it to expand in place. You probably compressed it while hanging the door. I did the same thing but I used the same fix that I just told you.

Congratulations you have just successfully switched the door on your refrigerator from left to right. In the process you saved your self at least one hour of paid professional time. Keep thinking green and you can do many things with a little help from your friends.

Great Article on Permaculture and Water Harvesting

Note from Genevieve - this is a terrific article about Local Water Harvesting, a project we are eager to do and already thinking about. There is also a great description of permaculture in this article. Thanks Deborah Rich!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

When Laura Davison decided to spend some of her inheritance on landscaping the weedy slope next to her house, she knew she wanted a garden that would nourish both the land and her family. She also knew she had a problem.

“The first year we were here, the water would just sheet down from the property higher up the slope, and this area would be mud. I couldn’t even walk out here; it was just slosh and goop,” she said.

Her home is near Occidental in Sonoma County, which can receive 60 inches of rain a year. “My husband and I were wondering what we were going to do, and how we were going to figure this out.”

Davison met a teacher at her sons’ school whose husband, Erik Ohlsen, had recently launched Permaculture Artisans, a landscape design and installation business.

Permaculture - the word plays on “permanent culture” and “permanent agriculture” - strives for sustainability by incorporating ecological cycles and principles into land altered for human use. Ohlsen took his first permaculture class in 1999 from Brock Dolman, who directs the Water Institute at the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center.

Interaction with water in the landscape has become fundamental to Ohlsen’s permaculture design practice.

“I was inspired by the concepts of water harvesting, ecological watershed management practices and erosion control and everything to do with water in Brock’s course,” Ohlsen said. Continue reading Great Article on Permaculture and Water Harvesting