20110530
Beautiful Cota
20110529
Who Are You?
There's alway a plant that evades me. The one shown here was obviously planted by me, there are about 30 plants in a stand. It's in the mint family, the stem is square, yet it's not minty. I don't recognize the smell at all. Anyone? ? ?
Herb Drying & Seed Saving
This year I have made a real effort to save seed and dry herbs. I've put to use a variety of widgets for the cause. The grain mill seen here has been very handy at separating seed from plant material.
Keepin' it Wild: Navajo/Hopi Tea, Globemallow
Globemallow is also blooming. This native plant is so drought resistant that the lack of rain has not slowed it down one bit. The plants soft and almost fuzzy leaves give up a clue to how it is used, which has to do with its mucilagenous properties. Mallows soften and soothe. This family of plant can be added to salves or made into a poultice. But where it works magic is in the gut for irritable bowel, constitutional dryness and chronic inflammation. Mixed with chamomile it's a divine medicine.
20110527
Good Sport Plumber
Awwww, thanks Mikey!
Sage Varities
The Pool is Back
The Pool is Back
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
Our town pool is open and we were at the front of the line to do laps this morning. We are shooting for daily distances of .5 mile to mile. The pool is under new management and has some crazy new billing which could cost us as much as $400 a month to swim there. Hopefully their passes will be more fairly priced.
Potato Talk
Two years ago I knew I'd become a gardener because my potatoes woke me in my sleep. I dreamed of them all night as though on a ferris wheel of endless repetition, "potatoes, potatoes, potatoes!" Then when I woke I went outside to discover they were ready for picking.This year my method is a bit more linear. When the plant dies back it means that the potatoes below are ready.
Surprise! Underplanting Magic
Humm. . . never ate beets. Anyone have a good recipe?
Harvesting & Replanting a Garden's Second Turn
It's not yet June and we've already had a full turn over in the garden. We've been eating fresh lettuce and radish for weeks. The broccoli rabe came and went. The carrots are flowering. Potatoes are ready to eat along with bok choy, onions, bean, leeks, beets (to name a few). Simply put the whole garden was early. The warm crops that we started early bolted and will need restarting.Today I cleared out what was bolting to make room for hot crops like peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, okra, castor, loofa, melon, pumpkin and the like.
Timing: Harvesting Coriander
Coffee Presses That Don't Filter Mead
20110526
Strawberry Mead Update
Strawberry Mead Update
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
It has been two weeks since I started a strawberry mead. I decided to rack it over to another bottle to reducing the sediment. I thought maybe the aeropress would be helpful to filter out the yeast from the
mead, but that totally failed. The mead tasted horrible like a cheap alcohol. I'll leave it in the secondary fermenter for 2 months then bottle it. I'm hoping that if we wait a year it should taste amazing.
Umm, Relays
Umm, Relays
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
Relays arrived for the BDC3 battery charger and desulfator.
Cutting Plexiglass with a CNC
Cutting Plexiglass with a CNC
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
I have been making custom enclosures out of plexiglass with my CNC. I've noticed that plexi is a tricky material to work with because it melts if the machine moves too slowly (heat builds up) and it is brittle enough to crack if the machine moves too fast. The best results I've found is to cut at a depth of 10 mils using a feed rate of 100 and a 'V' shaped carving bit. Even for a thin plexiglass material this means a minimum of 8-9 passes. It is best to stop short and not cut all the way through the material. This avoids a piece getting loose and flying out of the machine.
Robot Vacuum and Mopper Repaired
Robot Vacuum and Mopper Repaired
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
I just repacked our iRobot vacuum and mopper battery packs with
replacement cells. I have had to do this on a annual basis to keep
them running. I've switched from Li-Ion packs which I had been making
by hand back to the standard 14.4V NiMH packs. I'm using my new
capacitive charger to charge two packs at a time. It can charge up to
6 packs simultaneously. Maybe with the new charger I can make these
packs last longer.
Giant Onion
Giant Onion
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
We grew this giant onion and ate it in our chicken soup yesterday. We have grown onions in the past, but they never came out this large. I think it is due to all the extra watering we have been doing to compensate for the dry weather.
Endless Plumber
Endless Plumber
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
I've been connecting up the irrigation system to our two new beds (12 x 4 ). The plumbing never ends.
Longest Period Without Rainfall Ever Recorded (here)
Longest Period Without Rainfall Ever Recorded (here)
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
As of this week we broke all the records. We exceeded the record of 120 days without rainfall. We have only received 1% of the rainfall we normally receive from last fall until today. Southern New Mexico and West Texas are both in uncharted territory. The scary part is that the temperatures are now nearly 100 deg. and the winds are still strong 20-45 mph. Millions of acres have already been burned, but it looks like there is more to come. The good news is there is slight chance of rain in the forecast next week. However, it looks like it will just hit the mountains and some areas surrounding us. We ordered another 2500 gallon water catch tank to add to our 1200 gallons so that we can be better prepared for these conditions.
20110524
The Swap-O-Rama-Rama Fashion Show at Maker Faire
(Photo by Angela Davis)
Ocotillo - Pepto Bismol - NEW in HS Store
I keep a bottle in my purse. When I went to New Orleans I put a few drops in every glass of water I drank.
It's wonderfully simple, the only ingredient!
Enjoy and cheers to your good health!
Holy Scrap Store Pointing the Way Back to Plant Remedies
Since many folks are just now learning to use natural plant remedies, we designed our labels in a way that teaches each plant's use and properties by way of association to common store bought products like Pepto Bismol, Bactine and No Doz. We've also rewritten all the item descriptions and simplified the text.
Creosote
Mormon Tea
Ocotillo
It's funny to consider that when the synthetic products came on the market their marketers has to teach people to move from plant remedy knowledge to learning the use of the synthetic variety. Now we're working exactly in reverse. In our view this is a good sign.
These three products pictured here are native "master" plant remedies. As a trio, a Southwestern Medicine Pack, they offer a basic and essential medicine cabinet for any home. We've offered them as a gift pack.
Product Review: Aerobie AeroPress for Tincture
I picked up a neat little coffee press by Aerobie with hopes that it would filter small batches of herbal tincture.
It works as you might think, a hollow dowel is pressed inside another slightly larger dowel with a filter at the end of it. These are placed over a container that catches the liquid that gets pressed through. A filter at the bottom of the unit catches small particulates. The inner dowel's strong gasket allows an air gap to maintain itself as liquid and solids slowly press their way through.
It's well made. The plastic is thick and sturdy. It comes with a lot of filters and the suggestion that one can clean and reuse them. In my own experience a quick rinse between filter uses readied the filter for several more rounds. I was able to get 4 or 5 rounds at best.
I also enjoyed all the accessories. They were well designed, sturdy and just what was needed as I worked.I did notice that when pressing, if I pressed too hard, the material would hemmorage out of the bottom where the filter was and spill over the edge thus missing being filtered by the filter. Slowing down remedied this problem.
In the end I think it is a fine product for under $30.00. It's great for small tincture filtering however it is not a press. It's a tad too clumsy to push down hard on to try to extract liquid from plant matter. And it's not designed for it either. But if you need to filter small particulates out of a liquid, this will do it just fine.
20110523
A Super Swap-O-Rama-Rama @ Maker Faire
From the producer of this years Swap-O-Rama-Rama at the Maker Faire. . .
A few cool things that happened:
Little boys being STOKED to use a sewing machine
Dads bidding on Ebay right then and there for sewing machines for their children
Three little girls made cool stuff and strutted it in our fashion show Saturday
20110521
Spring Garden - A Closer Look
Wendy wanted to show more plants and less people so she cut a second garden video.
Wreck the Economy - Give it All to the Billionaries!
The conversation left me wanting to send all of my money to the worlds billionaires. After all, they're the only people who have it all and still think they don't have enough. They are our poor, our burden! And they need welfare if they're ever to change. We can give it to them. We can't afford to let another day go by that proves to them that their belief in lack is true. Lets prove abundance is real and send them every nickel we have.
Of course the byproduct of this action will be that the billionaires will have all the world's money and the rest of us will be forced to create a world without it, yes we'll have to share and take care of one another, darn! But perhaps for a fleeting moment the billionaires will believe that they have it all, right before they realize that the paper ain't worth s*it if no one else but them uses it.
Have a heart and send your money to the first billionaire you can find. And thanks again for a great conversation this week.
(PHOTO: Billionaires for Bush)
20110520
Video: Our Spring Garden in 90 Seconds
Wendy takes us on a 90 second tour through our main south facing garden. It has been a good year for us.
Borage & Comfrey for a Homestead
I"m excited to add borage and comfrey to the garden. Both were started from seed. The comfrey is the smaller plant that's on an "IV," (aka a wine bottle full of rainwater). The borage is really taking off.
These two somewhat related plants have my attention because of their varied uses. They're food, medicine, and have applications in cosmetics. Comfrey is also a soil fixer and compost enhancer and could be food for animals. Click the links I provided above for great details on how to use them.
Onion Pickin' Time!
Things That Suck: Weed Cloth That Does Not Prevent Weeds
20110519
Pictures Worth a Thousand Words
Coriander in Crowds
Dinner...OMG...Yum
Dinner...OMG...Yum
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
We did have one super meal this week. Wendy mixed up a cream sauce gnocchi with prosciutto and fresh snap peas from the garden. We added our favorite garden salad of arugula, mixed lettuces, sunflower seeds, dried berries and a honey cilantro dressing.
Spanakopita ... Oopsie
Spanakopita ... Oopsie
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
Wendy and I have been talking about making spanakopita all week. We finally sat down to do it and made a pretty mediocre version. If we had done the following three things it would have been a lot better.
1. Lots of FETA - maybe 1 - 3 lbs worth
2. Butter instead of olive oil on each layer of phyllo
3. No phyllo in the center only bottom and top (12 layers)
Andy and Risi Wedding Gifts
Andy and Risi
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
Our friends Andy and Risi recently got hitched in Vegas. We wanted to give them something special that we made at home. We presented them with various things from the HSHS Store. Wendy and I also worked on putting together different images for a custom keychain rack that we let the CNC cut out.
20110517
Maker Faire Swap-O-Rama-Rama
In a few short days the Bay Area will bustle with makers of things in every variety: geeks, welders, fire artists, engineers, crafters, foodies, to name a few. Amongst the many ways to play at the MAKER FAIRE guests will find my own project, Swap-O-Rama-Rama, where all things texile reuse will be taking place. If anyone in the area wishes to be part of the Swap's creative staff, contact Erin (erinescholl-at-gmail.com), she's got room for a couple more.
SWAP-O-RAMA-RAMA is Here!
May 21 & 22 11am to 5pm
San Mateo Fairgrounds, San Mateo, CA
"There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness." Gandhi
Join in the communal process of reuse and celebrate our collective creativity! You are invited to Swap-O-Rama-Rama, a giant clothing swap and series of do-it-yourself workshops in which a community explores reuse and creativity through the recycling of used clothing.
It's easy to make the move from consumer to creator - and it's fun. At this Swap-O-Rama-Rama you'll find a host of talent brought together to teach you how to transform your new/used duds into works of your own. Together they bring you: DIY Stations where you can learn many wonderful ways to create out of textile reuse, Sewing Stations where local designers will teach you fresh clothing mod tricks, on site Silk Screeners with a host of original designs and extraordinary local designers who'll show off their work in the Swap-O-Rama-Rama reuse fashion show.
Of course the core of the swap is the gigantic piles of free clothing (several thousand pounds!). These piles are the collective total of each guest’s contribution of clothes, so clean out those closets and let go of what's no longer inspiring. Take home as much clothing as you can carry. Remainders go to the Salvation Army.
PASS IT ON!
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