Boy, did I cause a ruckus on that local facebook garden group. Contentious postings regarding the value of wasps. (Useless, arrogant a-holes vs misunderstood pollinators.)
craig howard wrote:What kind of wasps were stinging you?
The brown colored wasps around my door don't bother me unless I put my hand on them.
And the stings don't hurt for long.
I never saw the Saturday one. The Sunday one was yellow. Might have been a yellowjacket, may have been a hornet. A friend id'd it as a yellowjacket bit she picked it up with a tissue and tossed it outside.
Pearl Sutton wrote:I sorrow you had a bad time with wasps
Personally, if I had been stung twice without provoking them, I'd check what soap/shampoo/fragrances/laundry detergent I was wearing. Wasps react to some odors like that. Things I have heard they definitely react to include Tide laundry detergent, some herbal essential oils on the skin/hair/clothes, several types of perfume/aftershave, and I won't wear muscle rub when I'm outside, because I'm not in the mood to learn the painful way if they dislike it.
Now I'm gonna be eyeing my Adirondack chairs with suspicion... Never thought about the slats.
I haven't changed personal hygiene habits. The first attack (Sat AM) came 12 hours after my last shower; the second on Sun PM came 30 mins after showering. I use the same hygiene/care stuff as ever.
I may go to Facebook and post a question in some WNY gardening Groups and inquire as to whether anyone has noticed wasps being more obnoxious than usual.
We use muscle rub a lot, never noticed that provoking anything after going outdoors. But your mileage may vary
OK, so there I was on a nice Saturday morning. The sun was sunning, the birds were chirping and wind was breezing. Relaxing in my Adirondack chair and pondering the steps I'll undertake in starting my garden next week, (we can't really plant stuff until about the last week in May) I was blissfully unaware of the horror that was to follow, ruining my day.
I done got stung by a wasp. The target area was my back, below right shoulder blades. The little b*****d snuck through the slats and got me.
I wasn't even doing anything to aggravate the little f***er, just sitting quietly in my chair. I went inside and took Benadryl for any allergic reaction and this made me doze off until later afternoon.
And if that wasn't enough, on Sunday night my wife and I went to a Last Chance Slacker Mass at our parish down the road. Ok, so there I was on a nice Sunday evening, relaxing in a side chapel praying and meditating, blissfully unaware of ANOTHER DANG WASP LURKING RIGHT BEHIND ME!!! I done got stunged again. Right side of my neck. It still hurts.
Frii dec 24 - was Christmas Eve - and another half-assed wheaton labs holiday. Consisting a half day of:
- Paul will going into Missoula and get chinese take out for everybody
- egg nog
- fudge
- confections
- add an ornament to the tree
o must be something that can be used for many years
o says your name plus "christmas 2021"
Proenneke Day was celebrated in mid January by the boots.
- small roundwood projects all with hand tools
o coat hooks (cut forked branch style)
o coat hooks (dry pegs in green half-round of wood)
o a kitchen chair (probably pretty big and blocky)
o repair projects
o sawbuck
On Jan 10 - the Boots at the Labs celebrated National Houseplants Day Half-assed Holiday . The boots had to:
- overhaul all of the houseplants
- modify stuff to be houseplant pots
- coleus seeds
- plant edible stuff, maybe herbs
- add plant shelves and grow lights
- experiment with self watering stuff
it was super fun connecting with these beautiful beings that give us so much oxygen and aesthetic appeal around the house.. we re-potted some, made new pots for others, and pruned their malfoliage.. (not sure if that's a real word.. disturbed leaves, per say)..
Last month on Jan 26 - the boots celebrated Pina colada day Half-assed Holiday!
- blended drinks (with umbrellas), pizza and the house is 80 degrees
o beach music
o drink from pineapple cups
- improve the dock
o add tropical somethings
- improve the library
- movie featuring pina coladas or beaches
o shrek (plays the pina colada song)
o pirates of the caribbean
o lilo and stitch
o fantasy island
o swiss family robinson
o guardians of the galaxy
Dez was as he is so often, "grateful for so many things" .. including "pina colada day.. we put pineapple on pizzas, got the room up to 85 degrees to make the cold pineapple drink taste extra refreshing.. the dock lighting got some love too.."
Here's Dez next to some scary-looking dude (who's he fooling?) getting into the party spirit:
Typical for a bunch of permaculture goofballs, Wheaton Labs has a bunch of half-assed holidays! The day after Thanksgiving traditionally features the Day of Fire half-assed holiday. While a lot of people all over are acting silly camping out at stores trying to buy stuff on the cheap, the folks at Wheaton Labs are playing with fire! Well, it's not quite like it sounds. Here's what's going on:
day of fire - a half day of improving fire stuff
- build indoor and outdoor firewood racks
- do all rocket spots have
o a kindling cracker
o a poker
o an ash bucket
o ample fire starting paper and a propane torch
o a nearby fire extinguisher
o good firebricks for the wood feed
- find quick and easy ways to upgrade rocket mass heaters
- make improvements to the bun warmer space
- evening with the bun warmer
o plus a tiny camp fire in the middle (with our little camp fire contraption)
o smores
o hot dogs
o hot drinks (tea, spiced cider, etc.)
Last year the Day of Fire was held on November 26th. Here's some pics from Will's Bootcamp Experience of it.
Cats rule teh interwebz and Wheaton Labs is not excluded from their domain. February 16th is Cat House Day, another Half-assed Holiday in which the boots:
- build a cat house
- eat lasagna
- maybe a movie featuring a cat
Magdalene was busy on Cat Day. Here are a few of her images taken of the doings at the Labs:
"Jeff and grey mounting the new cat house inside the library. It’ll have a hole open to the outside so the cats can have both a safe and warm place to rest There will also be a window so that we can see them."
"Lasagne because it’s a cat named Garfield’s favorite food."
On Feb 9th the boots at Wheaton Labs celebrated Dye day dye dye dye half-assed holiday (just a half day)
- just one natural dye color for each year
- a white t-shirt (or similar) for everybody
- dingy sheets and other house fabrics could go in
- everybody can bring their own stuff too
- thai food
- fruit punch color matches the color of the dye
This past December 1st, Wheaton Labs celebrated the Day of Light Half-assed Holiday. During this, the goofballs spend a half day of improving the lighting in and around their nests. To get an idea:
- add mirrors
o on walls
o in window wells
o lots of creativity
- add lights that are more efficient by lighting people more than the room
- add solar night lights outside - find artistic themes
- different sorts of prisms in the windows
- add indoor night lights
- make full room lights that can be turned on at the source that add HUGE light to the room
- light experiments
- possible candle lit dinner
- an evening campfire (bun warmer or pavilion)
- maple foods
o maple meringue cookies
o maple rolls
o maple cookies
o spaghetti with each person adding about a tablespoon of maple syrup (tip of the hat to Elf)
o horchata sweetened with maple syrup
o fresh bread served with whipped maple butter
- hot spiced cider
Ben Peterson has a book on building solar stations: "Solar made: plug-in ready, multi-use, simple, DIY. This solar station can also double as a shelter to camp in, and can be easily transported from one area to another, as it easily fits on a trailer bed.
The plans include a complete tool and material list, detailed instructions for everything from the skid structure to battery storage and solar panel installation, and everything in between!"
- we all carve wood kitchen utensils
- maybe one cutting board
- make lots of soup that people eat with wooden spoons!
o make bread bowls for soup
- ice cream to test the strength of wooden spoons
Last year, the Wooden Spoon Day Half-assed holiday was celebrated on December 8th. Magdalene reported, "Who knew carving spoons would be so fun?"
Even December 25th is a holiday at the Labs; the Boots celebrate Fancy Foodening Half-assed Holiday.
Dez was "...grateful for wonderful gifts.. presents, good, a natural hot springs tub, with a view of 200 geese gliding in across the steady eastern breeze, down for a landing at the neighbor’s pond , for a good 20 minute squawk session.. then more amazing food.. then a movie.. thanks Santa."
This last Christmas was Dez's second a the Labs. His first one, in 2020, was: .. best xmas ever..
.. merry merry..
The Art Day: Half-assed Holiday was recently celebrated on Feb 23 at Wheaton Labs.
- signs and labels
- maybe tiny rock jacks to hold up outdoor signs
- food that would be served at an art gallery
o foods impaled with toothpicks
o foods served on a cracker
o grapes
Dez starts us off with reporting, "Yesterday was Art Day—we made signs and labels, and then prepared a charcuterie spread with schmears and crackers and other horsdvuers.. because an Art gallery might serve such a thing..!"
Looks delish:
Magdalene shows off a spiffy. sign for the seed library:
More deliciousness:
Remember the Arrakis sign up above? Here it is in the creative stage from Caleb's journal:
Caleb also worked on a support for an existing sign: Quote: "While everybody else decided to create a sign of some kind I decided to build a miniature rock-jack for a sign we already had. Pretty impressive what round wood will take without splitting but maybe that's just because it was wet from all the snow. Hopefully it holds up to the dry summer heat as well. Regardless, a quick fun low intensity project and now i've got the muscle memory to build bigger ones for fencing."
Voila!
Pam, a new boot, got into the spirit of the Art Day Half-assed Holiday' sign making ritual.
On Wed jan 19 the the Boots celebrated Quilt day - half-assed holiday!
- collectively make one quilt for one thing
o maybe a window quilt
o maybe a curtain for somthing
o maybe a bed quilt
- each person has their own square or two to be added to the quilt
- they can add messages with laundry markers
- each boot can add their name
- somewhere it says "bootcamp 2022"
- ravioli served so it looks like a quilt
Magdalene took this photo of a window quilt being made for the kitchen:
I counted NINE half-assed holidays celebrated during December at Wheaton Labs. Right in the middle is the Christmas Stocking Day- Half-Assed Holiday! Which is:
- a half day of
- making christmas stockings (for current and future boots)
- baking
- further cool decorations
- christmas movie
Earlier this month on Feb 2 - the boots at the Labs celebrated Groundhog Day (a half day). This was the agenda:
- the movie - duh
- music "I got you babe" by sonny and cher
- pancakes for dinner
- if 6 more weeks of winter - build more shelves
- if spring comes 6 weeks early - seed stuff
Grey appreciates the half-assed holidays, quoting: "There's a reason for the holiday season: keeping the winter blues away. The Bootcamp celebrates a plethora of "Half-assed" holidays, during which half the day is spent doing something a bit different. From putting up lights or shelves, to making a quilt or heating the house up to 80°F, we keep each week interesting with our own unique, themed holidays."
He has a special connection to this movie, being from Pennsylvania:
We continue with Dez, who was "…… grateful for Groundhog Day.. we built a shelf and ate donuts and flapjacks.. in the morning we did more work on red cabin.."
Who's the old guy in overalls?
And they of course HAD to watch that movie:
Magdalene got into the spirit of the holiday with the shelf-building and pancake and pancake making.
Continuing on with our review of this season's Half-assed Holidays, last Wednesday, Dec 22nd the boots at the labs celebrated Christmas baking day - half-assed holiday.
christmas baking day - a half day of baking
plus
o christmas movies/quote]
Since Paul is bringing up stretch goals, what would you backers and supporters like to see? Would you prefer items that are related to the Rocket Mass Heater and wood heat? Or mix it up a little and have unrelated things offered?
We are experiencing odd formatting errors in two ebooks. They were formatted and compiled in Calibre, and look quite fine there. However, when viewed in Apple Books, there is an odd error message:
“This page contains the following errors:
error on line x at column yyyyy: Opening and ending tag mismatch: div line 0 and p
Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error.”
(the 'x' and 'yyyy' are actual line/column numbers. They differ for each book since the location obviously differs in each.)
We don't know what this means, and can't figure out a way to fix it. One book is reported to be corrupted; although Apple Books opens it briefly, long enough for me to see the error message, I can't proceed from there.
Eco Hacker Farm is a group of like-minded individuals practicing permaculture in Europe. I like them. They are innovative: developing some software projects related to agriculture and permaculture and such like.
microdoc: building the easy bake coffin About the easy bake coffin microdoc and how to buy it Join Tim Barker and the Appropriate Technology class as they explore how to build a better crock pot. The easy bake coffin is an appropriate technology that sort of combines a crock pot and a haybox cooker. This one uses power, but can cook three times the food using less than half the power. And this technology can be scaled down for home use.
While perusing various wikis to add Permies stuff to, I ran across this interesting thing on Appropedia: the Ecoladrillo, which are houses and other structures built out of empty plastic bottles.
They don't really look like they're made from bottles; there are finishing touches added to conceal the chief component.
NOTE: The none of the Natural Building forums seemed appropriate for this, so I posted it here.
Brody Ekberg wrote:I didn’t read through this entire thread so forgive me if this was already asked and answered.
What would be an age/grade suggestion for this book? I ask because I just ordered 12 and plan on donating them. School teachers came to mind, but I dont know whether to target elementary school teachers, middle school or high school.
At the very least, high schoolers could read the book and gain knowledge; quite possibly middle-schoolers can grasp the contents.
Normally, a Fandom wiki is on a pop culture fandom, i.e. Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Marvel Cinematic Universe, and various anime and manga things and so forth. Television shows and movies. There are others that don't cater to that audience, however. There is a permaculture wiki! Similar to Appropedia,, the PermaWiki has only 250ish articles, but is growing.
There will also be a window so that we can see them." 
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