Pearl Sutton

steward & bricolagier

+ Follow

news 16,343 Posts 543 Threads

since Oct 02, 2015

Merit badge: bb list bbv list

Forum Moderator

Pearl Sutton currently moderates these forums:

Biography

Chronic reader, creative dreamer, a LOT of hand skills to make things real, intense health issues that limit my activity, but not my creativity or dreams. Moved to southern Missouri with enough tools and junk to build a life that might work well with my health. One of god’s gigglers, I punctuate with smiley faces and exclamation points when I type, and smile and laugh a lot in real life. (Often at things no one else understands.) And I both curtsy at people (even when wearing grubby work clothes) and purr when hugged, both online and in real life. “Normal” is not a word that has ever been used for me.
Been organic gardening all my life, and bought 4 acres that I have designed from the ground up. Making it happen is being the most fun I have ever had in my life, the best 3D jigsaw puzzle ever! Reading Mollison’s Designer’s Manual was like coming home, ah, THERE I am! A reality where I can use all of my multifaceted talents and skills!
Dumpster diver, recycler, second hand store shopper, I tell people I am attracted to rust and lace. I have violated every warranty I have ever met, I’m a tool using animal, and I use my tools to modify everything in my world. And it only gets weirder...
Bricolage: something constructed or created from a diverse range of available things. Adding ier to a french word means one who does that activity. I am a bricolagier, the things I do are all made of a wide range of things that I have acquired from diverse places.

For More

SW Missouri

Apples and Likes

Apples

Total received

In last 30 days

164

Forums and Threads

Recent posts by Pearl Sutton

jokes

Want to hear a Swedish joke?

Never mind, there's Norway I could Finnish it.

22 hours ago

meaningless drivel

You know you're a permie when...

...when you sometimes wonder "is my resume tattooed on my forehead?"
At a thrift store, had chatted with a guy about long underwear season coming, and up at the counter he looked at me and said "You know about juicers, right?" Not worded like "do you?" but worded like "I assume you do..." Why yes, yes I do. I looked at what he was buying and taught him how to not burn it out like he did his last one :D

It must be tattooed on my forehead "Ask me weird stuff! Of COURSE I can answer it!!"

1 day ago

meaningless drivel

You know you're a permie when...

And a story that I can't find when I search, guess I never told y'all...
Spring of 2025 my mom's Subaru did something horrifying. I ended up having it towed to the house. The tow truck guy was wearing a pink safety shirt, was a nice guy. Got the car where I wanted it, then looked at the flowers by the driveway "What are those?" I named off several types including zinnias. He was staring at them like he'd never seen a flower before. I said "Pick some if you want." He kind of panicked, "Oh, I can't do that, you GROW THEM!" I said "Look, this zinnia matches your shirt!" He agreed that it did. I cut the zinnia and gave it to him. He looked stunned and awestruck by it, looked at it very closely. I have never seen that expression on someone's face, I don't think he'd ever been given a flower before (or honestly, I'm not sure he's ever even noticed them growing.) Was odd.

You know you are a permie when what's a casual zinnia to you is sheer shock and awe to others.

3 days ago

meaningless drivel

You know you're a permie when...

I was out pulling weeds by the road, a neighbor came by, walking her dog. We were chatting, the dog was eating plants, and I told her "Oh, look at this cute bug!" and I lured a maybe 1.5 inch long caterpillar onto my hand, and showed it to her. "Isn't it pretty? Look at the colors! It's a swallowtail caterpillar, will be a a swallowtail butterfly." She admired it, I went to put it back, realized where I was going to put it needed the weeds removed out from under the plant. Didn't want to put it back just to traumatize it immediately, couldn't pull the weeds with one hand, so I said "Oh. Will you hold this cute bug?" She laughed, we put it on her hand while I pulled the grass out from under the biggest parsley plant (they LOVE the parsley!) and then she gave it back to me and I put it where it would be happy and safe while I worked in the area.

She looked at me and said "You know, you are the only person who would not only tell me to look at a cute bug, but who would then ask me to hold the cute bug, that I would not only look at it, but hold it for them!! It's always weird to stop by when you are working in the gardens..."

You know you a permie when you can talk innocent ~~victims~~ people into holding cute bugs for you.... :D

3 days ago

meaningless drivel

It's good to be a space case....

Several years ago (2023 maybe? Or 2022) I picked up the neighbors leaves, as well as my own, and stomped to compress them HARD into 33 gallon trash cans for storage, as I had a LOT of leaves and not enough trash cans, and I knew I wanted most for summer use. Things happened, yesterday I finally went to use what I think is the last one of that batch. It was HEAVY, I looked in it, leaves. Guess I stomped it harder than I thought. Dragged it out to where I need leaves. Took out a bunch...

And under a layer of leaves is about half of a 33 gallon trash can full of the best leaf mold compost I have ever seen!! (No wonder it was so heavy!!)

The picture doesn't do the color justice. It's super dark and crumbly and just LOVELY!! What a wonderful find! Some people grow trees by the Sheer Utter Neglect system, I seem to make leaf mold compost that way :D

3 days ago

composting

Sugar snap peas in the house?

The sugar snap seeds I'm planning on using are 60 days to harvest, short, and I have grow lights, they will have a good long day length. Probably about 12 hours. I want the sugar snaps for continual pick, I do have some short, 60 day beans but they are, like you said, determinate, and will go all at once and that's not what I'm looking for.

I have weird parameters, including bad head space for them, the grow lights are LED strips that I have hooked to the underside of the plate and cup cabinet. So at BEST they have the height of the counter to the cabinet. BUT the problems I had last year stemmed quite a bit from pot size and dirt depth, so I have a bottom watering planter that's 28 inches by 16 or something like that and they'll have at least 6 inches of dirt (maybe more) that I'll have them in, so they'll get even less head room. So plant height and continual pick matter most to me. The rest I can work with.

:D

4 days ago

beans

What do you do when you Lose your phone?

I came up with a good way to make your phone returnable, if you lose it out in the world, especially if it happens a lot. Neatly write a the number of a recovery phone on paper, write something like "If found please call" and take a picture of it. Set it as your lock screen picture. If someone finds it, they know what number to call to contact you.

4 days ago

meaningless drivel

Basil blanch time before freezing: SDSU says 15 seconds, NMSU says 60. What do you actually do?

I have never blanched it, I just freeze it. I don't expect it to come out looking fresh, I expect it to come out tasting good. The oils that give it it's flavor don't do well when cooked, that's why I add basil right at the end of cooking.

1 week ago

food preservation

What do you do when you Lose your phone?

Because of the "my phones are locked" bit, I use someone else's phone to call mine so either I can hear it if it's close, OR if someone has found it, they can answer it. I have also emailed people off my computer to call my phone. I had a flip phone fall and get kicked way under a fairly unmovable object. That was fun to find. Told the guy I was emailing to call once a minute until I answered.

A couple weeks ago I helped a lady who lost hers, it was set on vibrate, we could just barely hear the noise but not find it in her car, I called it and called it, we unloaded her groceries, dug between the seats. She texted me later when her husband finally found it, it had slipped off a seat, into a crack, into the space between a seat cover and the seat, then slid from there in between the the seat mechanisms. He had to remove the seat and take it apart to get it out! Made us both feel better about not being able to find it while in the grocery store parking lot.

1 week ago

meaningless drivel

What do you do when you Lose your phone?

How do you "break into someone's phone"? I have a 6 digit passcode on mine.

1 week ago

meaningless drivel