Whew! Am I ever so glad that I didn't completely do away with my old blog site! Do I look shipwrecked and stranded? That's kinda how I feel at the moment! I'm so out of my element with all this web stuff! Sometimes it's a bereft, helpless feeling....and now I'm getting messed up font sizes on this one. I'm officially raising the white flag. Well, this should be fun actually--I can not only load my pix but I can load videos much easier on this one, too! Although I'm a bit rusty on how I used to do everything over here!
Since we have only about one week of official Spring left, I wanted to focus on the remnants of 'Spring topics' I haven't managed to get up yet--like the spring cleaning, window boxes, early strawberries, and of course, some recipes!
Although the days are certainly heating up for us now, we still have quite cool-ish ones as well as the evenings remaining wonderfully cool and breezy. I just so happened onto a gorgeously simple baby blanket to knit on Purl Bee that you've just got to check out! Beginner knitters, be happy--you can do this one no problem! And I also still want to get those pantaloons made!
I've also got some great stuff on horse-drawn farming being done by Harlow Post and his gentle giant draft horses as well as some great baby animals photos from the farm! And speaking of outdoors, and picnics, nature walks, and great books and poetry read under the trees....I found this whimsical The Buttonwillow ChronIcles that is everything Green Gables, Beatrix, Potter, Jane Austen and more all delightfully wrapped up together! And here's a wonderful tidbit on the romance of rainy porches by one of my favorite romantic moms! Enjoy!
Babycakes can't believe her tastebuds! Is this really fresh, green, non-dried-unsprinkled-with-dust GRASS that I'm chewing...???!!!
I'm in heaven! I'm never, ever leaving this spot...right here...or this one....over here.....or THIS one...!!!!
She loves her red halter (red's her color, ya know!) and her picket line. She says, "Sit on me, brush my belly, pick up my ticklish back foot--do WHATEVER you want to me--just let me munch....!! Got it?"
Got it! You go, girl! My lawn-mowin', fuzzy fertilizin' machine, you!
What we thought was frozen snow was instead frozen, u-hum, muck--as
you can see, lots of it! Now don't you go pitying us because this is
actually heaps and piles of none other than 'garden gold' soon to be
rounded up, seeded, and ready to do its thing! And, boy, does this
stuff ever do its thang. I'm talkin' it leaves Miracle-gro in the dust!
And there's our wonderful, indispensable little producer of our hallowed 'garden gold'--none other than garden-gold encrusted Babycakes herself. We love you, girl! You'd never know she gets brushed every single day, would ya? She's actually a piggy disguised as a pony.
So just feast your eyes on that pile...bet you're really envious...ready to race me for that big shovel so you could start a-diggin' right now! Oh, no you don't! Hey, I've gotta run!
Did your grandma have a root cellar? Hey, mine did too! By the time I got to see the root cellar though, it was pretty dilapidated with only a few crooked shelves and some broken glass and rusty can lids scattered on the floor. Not very impressive. The door was old and rickety and I remember it was very dark in there. In fact it was a little scary. So I'd like to get THAT image out of my mind. How 'bout a nice 'Martha Stewart-ish' type root cellar? Does Martha do root cellars? Oh surely she must! Hmm....let's investigate this further.
Okay, I'm back. My Martha-Stewart-root-cellar search was a big disappointment. If she's got one, she's not letting any of us see it. Mary Jane, on the other hand, (the farm-y version of Martha) came through spectacularly. Thank you Mary Jane Butters!
Another great one I stumbled on to was the Tiny Farm blog. I'm going to have to camp out on this one even more. They're trying all sorts of creative ways to make 2 acres work for them. My kind of people! And here is a nice little article about root cellars (She also gives manners on having tea...can she tell me how to hold a teacup?--I'm very impressed! She must be a Romantic Mom too). O-O-H-H!! And here's another good one! She gives us a bona fide tour of her root cellar with lots of pix! C'mon, let's take a look!
Wow! That was fun! Did you have fun? I had fun...and I learned some things too. I'm beginning to think I might actually be able to do this...where's the shovel? Now let's look at root cellar construction. How might I go about doing this whole root cellar thing? Walton Feed looks like they know quite a bit on this subject. They've got everything from the old-fashioned version (like my grandma's--without the broken glass or rickety door) to a "Grandpappy of all Root Cellars" version you just have to check out! And here's one for all of us DIY's who need a little jump-start:
For an even simpler DIY one, Treehugger really comes through. I think my 8 year olds could handle this one.....even hog-tied! (that means tied up like a hog, which means....get back with me later!)
Earth-House has some good info and many styles to choose from--complete with photos (I love photos! No, let me clarify...I NEED photos!).
And we mustn't miss the Root Cellar Capital of the World, of course. If you're easily entertained (like some people I know personally) make sure you click on the cellar doors. Pretty clever, huh...! Wish my web site could do that. Where's that web master brother of mine and his clever, talented, co-partner-in-master-webbering wife of his when I need them? Excuse me, I just had to do a little plugging there--ya, know families have to do that.
Doo-ta-doo-ta-doo......still with me? Ready to start diggin'? Inspired to do that homestead thang? Okay one more. Here's a blog with some links--probably the same ones I found or better. I like their "100 mile diet"....very catchy, good idea.
Well, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty well convinced I can do this. I think I have officially overcome my fear of root cellars. I can just see all those gleaming glass jars full of all sorts of delectables fresh from the garden already...smell the sweet scent from those rows and rows of apples....baskets full of carrots and turnips and squashes still dusty with the earth and soil...our very-own-garden earth and soil. Umm, I can see it already...and the daffodils haven't even bloomed yet! And I bet I can even out-do Martha Stewart...or at least beat her to it! Where's that shovel...where are those kiddos?!! We've got some diggin' to do!
I mentioned yesterday that we're REALLY ready for summer. Well, what I forgot to include is the breakfast picnic.
It all started with summer dresses and sun hats and the fact that there was a bare patch of grass outside....and the sun was shining. And, yes, it was 40 degrees out with the wind blowing. Before I was even out of my jammies, my oldest daughter had packed a box of an assortment of edibles (I removed the soda and marshmallows--who pronounces "marshmallows" marshMALLows? Shouldn't it be "marshMELLows?") and was headed out the door. They invited me but I politely declined by assuring them that I would be watching from INSIDE the house--recording it all, of course...
First we have the preparation
And now we have the feast (I actually went outdoors for this one)
See, I really am a Romantic Mom with die-hard children determined to actually exemplify their mother's (non-)attempts to live out the "romantic life!" See their zealousness? See their sheer and utter commitment to my "romantic" cause? Now I truly know that I am NOT unenthusiastic and lame. I must truly be an inspiration!!
Here's Kitty
He says, "I've had enough...thank you!"
I'll admit it. I'm a Texas girl in Maine. I'm a wimp when it comes to cold. I love it as I stare out at it from the cozy, toasty indoors. My kiddos, on the other hand...I honestly wonder what has happened to them. They are SO ready for summer that they have completely lost their senses...to the cold anyway. It's a fact. It's documented. It's all of 45 degrees F out there. You betcha.
Snow...ski poles....swimsuits....black glove. (The glove, by the way, is not because her right hand was colder than the left. She wears a glove when she gets an ow-ey. If it's on her foot, she wears one sock. Don't ask me! I just do what I'm told). Great-grandma Cady, God bless her (if she were still alive), would have the head shaking and the tsk, tsk, tsk goin' on big time (that we all miss so much)...and she would have repeated "they'll catch their death of cold" at least 783 times by now.
I know, Grandma, what kind of a mother am I?.....Really...!!
Forgive me while I'm still trying to figure this whole blog thing out! If you're interested in the "Going Green" Series, you can click on the Table Of Contents below: (There, that's better, I hope!)
The most efficient way to heat our home presents a plethora of choices. The price of heating oil has skyrocketed this year. We've had one of the longest, coldest winters in decades this year along with heating oil and gas prices the highest ever. This lethal combination of factors has hit hard this winter.
So, after better understanding the ideas of thermal mass and daylighting, we can better focus our attention on super-productive ways to supplement the heat in our home. This is critical if you live with long, very cold winters like we do in Maine. What we would like to figure out for our home are ways to use all of that heat generation to fuel more than just the fireplace! Could it also be heating a boiler that heats our hot water tank or perhaps even a steam (or heat) powered generator that runs some of the appliances? Could the hot water or steam generated also be routed through pipes in the floor for radiant floor heat (and perhaps in the driveway too...?! ) or through baseboard heat units?
And what about the kitchen? We love brick-oven pizzas! In Europe they have long been using kachelofens, a type of masonry stove, constructed of ceramic fired brick to heat their homes. They are different from our typical wood-burning stoves in that the whole mass heats up and continues to put out heat up to 8 hours after the fire has gone out. They can also be built in ways to allow for baking and cooking.
http://www.pyromasse.com/infoe.html
This is a Canadian distributor that also holds seminars on how to build your own
http://www.canadiankachelofen.com/
We discovered a couple in Norridgewock, ME who now build and sell these unique masonry stoves. They traveled throughout Europe twenty years ago and came back here with their designs in hand. They can still only get the cast iron doors from Finland. These are highly adaptable units and extremely efficient with all sorts of potential. They describe the features in this link.
http://www.mainewoodheat.com/gallery.html
Once again, we're attempting to discover ideas that might work for our climate and situation. Even if we can just learn or borrow the principles that are put to use. Our typical fireplaces are large, inefficient holes that draught more heat up the chimney than into the room. We need more than merely aesthetics. Some of these old world ideas bring both efficiency and beauty. Works for me!
Daylighting is a relatively self-descriptive term however there are lots of applications and variations on the theme. Daylighting also falls under the category of passive solar in a couple of ways. One way is to take advantage of natural lighting in your home with the use of clerestory windows, skylights, site orientation, etc. Another way is the use of windows to allow direct sunlight into the home to be absorbed and later released in the form of heat energy.
These links provide some great information on how to incorporate more natural light into our dwelling spaces, and the wonderful benefits daylighting produces.
This one is an overall description
http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/info/design/integratedbuilding/passivedaylighting.html
This one applies more to home design
http://www.homepower.com/basics/design/
This article relates the negative effects of the exclusive usage of flourescent lighting
http://www.daylighting.com/hazards.asp
This article gives lots of links to specific products and applications
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Lighting/lighting.htm#Solar
