Back To Basics

[Illini Sky]

After reading what all you've been doing these past several months, I'm worn out!!!

Love the Jimmy Durante orange!

[ilbegone]

Nice job stacking the wood, AG.

Got an idea, will PM you.

[Ayatollahgondola]

Garden update:

we've already eaten all the Radishes, and have made at least two large salads from the lettuce, The carrots are slow, but coming up, and lo and behold, we have Broccoli crowns a' formin'. Broccoli and carrots should be on the table in two weeks or so. Also, Garlic is about 5 inches high.






we've also made quite a dent in our firewood. we've burned about a cord and a half, and it's really starting to show in our diminishing stacks. Actually, some stacks are gone completely. We haven't really stopped burning for weeks. The fire goes out, but there are always glowing coals beneath the ash that allow for it to start back up in the evening by just stacking some small chips on the top and let it sit there for 20 minutes or so. at night, I close the air intake down quite a bit, and throw on a couple big logs, and the house is always warm in the morning.

[wetibbe]

Back in October 2011, 2 days before Halloween we had a huge snow storm. The leaves were still on the trees. There was massive damage. My property has 80 trees. I chain sawed limbs and branches for three days, saved the big ones and drug the rest to curb side for Town pickup. My power was off for three days.

I have a fireplace. I researched wood pellets. There are wood pellet furnaces and there are fireplace baskets. The furnaces are a major installation and an expense well North of $3,000.

I ordered the pellet basket. http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...=pellet+basket

It fit's into my fireplace grill. And I bought bags of pellets from Lowe's, less than $4 per bag.

Hard wood, oak, firewood gets a little expensive from the Guy's who cut, split, haul and sell it.

[Ayatollahgondola]

So here's a few recent pics of our spring crops:


We've eaten about 4 rows of lettuce already. There was lots of that. Also almost gone is the broccoli. But we just planted squash, tomatoes, more radishes, corn, carrots, and a few herbs.

[Ayatollahgondola]

Forgot these too:

Our first real crop of Loquats. Last year we got about 1 dozen of them, because this tree's pretty young. It was planted some years ago when the in-laws gifted it to us. this year we got about 350 loquats. I always ate these as a kid, but liked them best before they were real ripe. Always liked a tangy bite to fruits. I did use some of these as spice for some salmon we ate this week.





Also, a bumper crop of lemons. I've been juicing them by the hundreds. Then strain the juice and pour it into one of those old ice trays with the long lever on the top. they make the biggest cubes. We been freezing up zip-lock baggies full and sticking them in the bottom of the freezer for summer and beyond. Also, my wife's been making lemonade.

[Ayatollahgondola]

Check out the size of these Radishes. Big ones!






also, strange coincidence, but this lemon grew on our tree and I found it during the eclipse last weekend. I call it eclipse lemon.









And here's pictures of the eclipse shadows refracting on our wall as we saw it just before I picked the lemon: