marie-helene kutek

Hellooo,

Looking at batteries to ramp up my solar array,
During my research, a mate mentioned fork lift truck batteries.
Good old lead type, he swears by them,
They are not given away but are way cheaper than options at fork lift truck dumps. around 1euro per kg, so about 60euros
Happy searching
Blessings
MH

Sorry, forgot to mention aircraft pilot suits, possibly vintage now.
A friend living in a rather sad old manor house, would wear his super pilot suit , plug himself into the mains and stay blissfully warm.
It s a wearable electric blanket really and it would be useful for those who remain fairly static.
More blessings as there are never enough
MH

Helloo

Thank you for all the timely reminders and new suggestions.
For some years I have noted the hot water bottle type methods to get used to using non electric defaults for heat.
Throws and blankets and activity and cooking and eating appropriately to stoke the internal furnace and yes, porridge works
rather well.
T shirt and salad just don t do it.

I keep pits, cherry mostly, which sit on the RMH on a dish warmer accumulating heat, pop them into a sock which can then go into a pocket or bed or wherever. No danger of an uncomfortable spillage.
The cherry pits stay warm for a sensible length of time.

Newspaper is also a friend and thank you to neighbours who still read them and are generous with supplying them.
Working outside I put some newspaper in the bottom of my boots which I wear very rarely, barefoot being preferred option when there are no brambles about.    
When motorcycling, I used loads of newspapers when other were not available and then they became a very efficient option to insulate chest from head on wind.

Warm thoughts have their uses too.
So warm thoughts with a topping of whipped blessings
MH

Hellooo,

How appropriate, this thread.
Swept the 2 chimneys just yesterday and changed the hat on one of them as it was getting a bit tired and the horizontal rain manages to get in.

Fire lighting, well there s a thing.

To share intimate habits on a forum ...... and short story long
Composting toilet, pee makes the bucket both heavy and stinky, so if possible, visitors are invited to sprinkle their nitrogen in the great outdoors, possibly on the woodchip piles.
I have my special easy fit pee watering can and sometimes avail myself of bathroom stationery, otherwise referred to as bog or toilet paper.
And yes there is a bag to collect said paper which is then used to light fires.

For the RMH, I sometimes have to resort either to a hair dryer or gas blow torch to heat the vertical pipe to get the draft going.
Yes, there are plans afoot to improve the system when time allows.

As a member of our local mushroom club, I am looking at all the wondrous benefits the mushroom provides, including  
Fomes fomentarius, commonly known as the tinder fungus or horse hoof fungus, is a perennial bracket fungus historically prized as a reliable natural fire starter and ember - this last bit copied from oogle
It also has medicinal virtues and was one the two mushrooms found with the 5thousand year old man buried in the Alps.

I don t do hand sanitizer, have sometimes resorted to wax.

It is still warm and very dry here with no rain expected till mid October but there are rumours that there will be a winter.

Thanks to all with autumnal blessings
MH

Last week it was panting hot weather and this evening, it s jolly nippy.

Hello and under floor heating,

Well, I have come across 3 related thoughts or is it recollections,
2 date back to the very early 1980 s.

Visiting the palace with the pet minotaur in Hania, Crete, I noted the channels in the floor.
I was given to understand that these carried water and perhaps even hot water.
Coming from cooler climes I immediately thought of heating, even if this wasn t the reason for these constructions  

Some months later, I was in southern Portugal doing business running spuds and virginia tobacco, don t ask, a girl has to make a living
and having an experience participating in the  community building of a not very big house, shared veg gardens and learning to arc weld.
Someone mentioned a Victoria, an under ground floor space, where trash was fed and set alight, this time definitely for heating purposes.
This would have been a practice ages and ages ago, from the Moors, the Greeks or the Romans??
THey all had central heating of sorts.
We wondered what was being burnt before our wonderful trash rich times.

The last bit which I introduced where I now live.
The first floor has a double floor because I thought it was nuts to have a RMH downstairs and let all the heat rise to the ceiling one and a half floors up,
So the double floor was a normal ceiling with geotextile covering it above and buckets of clayee earth from outside carried in and up a ladder to cover
the floor. Some garden hemp was mixed in to lessen weight and powdered with lime to prevent growing a prairie under the floorboards that came on top. The hemp also seems to discourage rodent activity
When I described this to an elderly neighbour, he said oh under floor heating, they used to do that around here.
It was a job and a half carrying those buckets of clay.
Was it worth it? Don t know what it would be without.

All comments welcome and thank you for the posts above.

Windfall Apple Chutney and peach spread without sugar on the agenda

Blessings with long sleeves where needed
MH

Saluti tutti frutti

Can t help it, just have to add my tuppence worth.
The list of what the critters eat sounds like the words for a pilot s alphabet,
a is for apple, b is for beet  or banana, c is for carrot, sliced as suggested......z  is for zucchini
 
I admit to having chuckled at the exchanges, then I looked up ground hog as not sure of its morphology and they are cute.
Apparently they do appear in France but in higher altitude thank God, in the serious mountains.

My neighbours used to tease me about having the best nourished rivals in the garden, big garden.
Today, they just get on with it, I talk with or at or to them to leave me some.

Thank you for the suggestions and yes big men with serious tools.
When I lived in town doing serious academic work, my cat thought it wise to offer distraction by bringing in sewer rats through the cat flap.
Great.
Pest control arrived, a seriously charming chap, with a very big holdall.
Do you need help shifting the book shelves?
No he said, I ll  just be a moment if you don t mind waiting outside. He took out his baseball bat .
There were some squeaks, job done.

Would that he were here to assist with the creative creatures but I have an aversion to obliteration.
I appreciate you all for catching and moving your visitors, not residents.

Grape juice production before the birds snack it all up
Thank you and blessings
MH

Hello
I just came across this recently, heard about him then looked for Marco veg without water ..........
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kJvPjAaokY
In the Essonne region of France, wherever that is, a market gardener called Marco works without any irrigation and has done so like his forefathers, supplies veg locally, wow.

Beautiful photographs above of the veg growing without irrigation, thank you.
This year, again very very tricky, watered veg nearest house, in  a sorry state.
Veg in the field, blessed and left alone to get on with it have produced some champion courgette or marrows, loads of chili pepper and the sweet potato is hanging in there.
Spuds weremost damaged with 2 lots of hail.

I confess I was surprised.
My planting had a hint of Fukuoka and shall be doing same again very soon, coating with all manner of goodness, compost,
manure and clay to hold it all together.

hope, peace and blessings to us all
MH

oh and thank you

Hellooo
We ve had rain, not enough but gratitude anyway, accompanied by rip roaring thunder.
It was quite fabulous but the cats thought otherwise.
They are my principal livestock. There has been a canine presence and may well be another, soon.
To minimize feeding all the neighbourhood cats rats badgers fox, the usual suspects etc all the time, I too have galvanized bins outside under a roof.

For other stuff of interest to uninvited visitors, I have found washing machine drums useful as the holes are sufficiently
small to make access tricky.
When beekeeping, I was amazed to learn that tiny rodents can gain access to a hive with openings of just over 5mm, just under is too small. It s a fine line.
I don t know know how that translates into inches if at all it s that tiny.

Neighbours have old freezers, upside down commercial ovens and fridges. And of course silos but those are not immune to hungry beings.

I am full of admiration for the ingenuity of critters to gain access wherever, a bit like me really.

This year, I have put water out in all sorts of places and of course this attracts all and sundry, yet still haven t seen a hedhehog but where do the froglets come from?
They are most welcome as are the adders as long as they don t chomp each other.
I have asked, nicely.

Blessings from this cooler weather
Her

Hello hello,

Wonderful tips from a horsefly fav, they hunt me down whatever.
I use them to train my reaction times, probably handy for table tennis playing.

Some one mentioned Vegemite, absolutely, I have heard reference to Marmite, a UK equivalent of brewers yeast, loads of B vitamins.
Great for repelling mosquitoes.

In the Caribbean, I came across a perfume sold through the home party thingammijigs, don t know the name of the scent or the scheme
but it was very safe and effective.
Not very useful but it might jog someone s memory.

For the head and face, one can wear beekeeping kit or an Australian bush hat, like a cowboy hat with corks on strings attached so that each time you move, you swing the corks around or any other weight, could be buttons.It does keep bugs away and attracts quizzical looks from people who are not familiar with crocodile Dundee, you can look him up.

The heat is getting to me, xs garlic and marmite and msm and stuff

Blessings
MH