L Anderson

Edward Lye wrote:


It must be nice to have an abundance of spoons.

My current number is equivalent to one hour of determined walking.
After that I get close to crashing.
How many spoons is that?

I haven’t figured out spoon math yet - but in my book I’d call that about 14 nickels. Only 6 left for the rest of the hours in the day.

This sounds similar to some good advice I received after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (primary progressive) in early middle age.
I had been the person who held up the world for others most of my adult life.
Not that I wanted to be — I’m a soft touch I guess.

Back to the we point. There are lots of challenges that MS throws at us, and it’s an odd sort of disease that provides a different combination of symptoms for different people. It all depends on where one’s lesions show up - what systems those particular brain or spinal cord nerve bundles happen to control.

Ok, I own up to another digression.

The similarity to spoons?
Fatigue is one of the most common symptoms associated with MS. Overwhelming fatigue. Predictable in its unpredictablity. Except when the weather heats up. Fatigue automatically follows.

For me, it’s body fatigue.
Back to the spoons.
A good neurologist told me this:
When you get up in the morning, you have a dollar to spend on the day. 20 nickels.
You need to reserve some of them for yourself - grooming, feeding yourself, cleaning your clothes, paying your bills ….

Decide each day how many nickels will be spent thusly.


As people start asking you to do things, think about how many nickels each will take.  Will that put you aver 20 for the day? You MUST decline or postpone some of those things.
AND: you must save at least a few of those nickels to do things that you want to do, necessary or not.  Those things will keep you out if the dr office, and make life worth living.

Spoons, nickels, whatever the coin of the realm is today: some of us feel too willing to squander ours so that others may be able to control theirs. (Boundaries — who knew?) Without them, we “givers” fall apart. And the “takers,” who usually don’t realize the value of their “asks,” find others to give them what they need.

Boy, that spoon thing struck a cord.

As did the thoughtful observation posted by another permie that there is often a mismatch in value of a particular act, whether measured in spoons or nickels, from the points of view of the giver and the receiver.

This is something I have been grappling with of late. I have a lovely group of friends who insist on helping me to avoid heavy work, like moving furniture or walking about at a good clip. Despite my frequent observations that, although I must take frequent breaks while doing heavy work (like growing food), it’s not the carrying and good walking that brings in pain and fatigue - it’s sitting around, or what I call “shop walking” (step, step, stand, read labels, repeat….grocery delivery is the greatest invention ever).

So let me walk fast and carry heavy things. Just don’t make me go shopping (which I suspect is something my lovely friends wish I would do instead … shop, and lunch).

OK - I could blather on a few more paragraphs.
I’ll conclude by saying we all should have spoon systems or nickel systems or whatever, and share the logic of those systems with the people that matter most. But those systems are especially important for those of us with particular challenges. They help us to live good lives.

I’ll be thinking about spoons as I spend the rest of the day working on my raised beds and planters, getting them ready for spring planting soI won’t have to work in the heat.

Here is a quick description of a successful experiment using madrone:

https://jenjoycedesign.com/2020/07/25/a-natural-dye-experiment-part-2/

Thinks to note:
The dye materials must be heated to extract color. A week-long soak in the sun is one way to get things started, but jus5busung the stove is fine. Don’t boil! A gentle simmer. Typically for at least an hour, though I unusually go longer.
Once it’sremoved from heat, let it sit for awhile, at least overnight. You will get stronger color the longer it soaks.

Soak your clean wool thoroughly (minimum 1/2 hour) before adding it to the cooled dye pot (after the dye material has been strained out). Don’t add room temperature wool to a hot dye pot - you risk felting/fulling* the wool.

Wool deteriorates in high ph. Most wool dyeing involves adding vinegar (the kind in kitchen cupboards) or citric acid crystals
Kool-aid makes a great fuss free dye for wool because it already contains citric acid.

Wool will also deteriorate if your dye pot is too hot. Heat is good, up to a limit. Heat the pot slowly, and try not to let it get above a slow simmer.  If it boils you will still get dyed wool, but it will most likely lose softness, become a little crunchy, and wear out faster.

Simmer for an hour or so, then let it cool before removing the fiber. In fact, for many natural dyes, the longer you leave the fiber in the dye water, the more dye that gets taken up.

There is great variation in color- and light-fastness when dyeing with natural dyes, depending on the plants used.  It helps to wash natural dyed items gently in cool water, and hang to dry away from sunlight.

When measuring and mixing powders (alum, ground dyestuffs, etc) wear a mask. You don’t want that stuff in your lungs.

I echo the benefit of including a little more information about the rocket part.  If I didn’t know anything about it, seeing the picture and reading that it is (may be) fueled by wood, I would probably imagine fireplace wood or woodburning stove wood. Pretty big pieces that have to be tended, and added to.  So something more about the characteristics of “the wood” and how easy it is to get it (you don’t need a woodshed) and how little tending is necessary —- all the stuff that makes the system economical and efficient in terms of time, effort, $$, and environmental protection.

1. You crack me up with your cat herding attempts ( no sarcasm there - it really did tickle me).

2. You already had me years ago with the sunchokes and the onions. But I’m still not eating kale.

3. I finished Restoration Agriculture last week. You’re right - Shepard already did all the work.

4. I wonder how many of your restricted target audience are already growing those things? If the answer is “most,” perhaps that’s why some of us persist in spinning off into other scenarios?

I love your posts. They always get me thinking differently about my own backyard. (Plus you can be very funny.)

Inge:
Thank you for this list of easy vegetables! It will help me to expand what I grow.
By the way, I wonder if your sweet beet is related to parsnip? I

Paul - I really like your food pump idea.  I am especially enthusiastic that you are focusing on a wide range of groups (people needs, stages, etc). This should result in a number of models that people can use and tweak and make them their own.

At the moment, I have a basic question (preoccupation?): how is “staple crop” defined and operationalized? The bullet points listed under your initial list (sunchokes, walking onions, and the other one that just slipped my mind) is helpful in  providing some different  ways to think about it.  Of course there will be variations in the actual plants that different people advocate for (or against)  based on their individual circumstances - growing experiences, tastes, resources, geography,
……

So I am assuming that you offer the 3 that you derived from your poll as an heuristic device. I am proceeding as though that is the case, and please pardon me if I am wrong about that.

Anyway, I am finding your project timely, and expect to be following it closely.   I have had to downsize drastically the space I have for growing food, and the space itself is fraught with challenges that I won’t bother to list here.  
I moved here last May, so had little time for planning and planting (and figuring out how to work around those challenges).  Having been a regular reader on the website for  a number of years, at least I was equipped with a lot of potential strategies in my back pocket and managed to get a little good out of my yard and generate some ideas going forward.

I’m just begun my second year here. I implemented some of those ideas, tried out new ones, got more food out of my yard than last year, and learned a lot more about how this plot of land works.

But coming back to the food pump idea, and defining one’s staple crops.
Gradually over the summer, I had to jettison so many taken for granted expectations regarding  what I grow, how much of it I grow, and how I grow it.  Years and years of gardening and eating.

It has been a difficult road, accepting that I couldn’t provide for myself as before, and have confidence that nearly everything I ate was produced in ways that nurtured the land and at the same time maximized the nutrients in my food.

Then, just a couple of weeks ago I realized I’d been in mourning and it was time to rethink my whole food producing system. That was daunting. But a few days after that, it occurred to me I couldn’t provide start by identifying which dietary niche I could best meet with the resources I have.

Hence, my question: how to define staple crops?

My conclusion for my situation:
1. Calories no longer matter in my calculus for what grow. If we get to a place where I can’t afford enough beans and rice, I’m doomed anyway.  
2. I’m getting older.  I like perennials. So much less work. Much kinder to the soil. And many of them provide much needed hedges and shade. I can nibble on fruits all summer and still have plenty to preserve for the winter, even after the  birds take their share. And, I can repurpose my stupid front lawn to food production without irritating my way too close to me neighbors  by planting the pretty ones out front. Persimmon. Elderberry. Plum. Interspersed with natives that might tempt the urban wildlife enough that they leave enough fruit for me.  (And eventually fill up the whole front yard until there is no more room for lawn, save a few paths).
3. Backyard: continue focus on high nutrition foods. Yes, I started some jerusalem artichoke.  Tree collards. Blueberries and raspberries.  But as much variety as I can get in the vegetable department.  Lots of raised planters (at least 2 feet high - I’m old, and my soil is heavily compacted clay fill. I can make it better but it will take time).

Bottom line:  my staple crops will be:
1. those which provide the greatest variety of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and all that other good stuff that others take pills for but I’d rather get from my food. So: maximize variety for good nutrition.
2. Those that I can find space for, or create space for, that I can manage (physically) while aging in place.
3. Those that are good for the ground and the air and help support birds and bees etc. And don’t require crazy amounts of water (it no longer rains here in summer), and can tolerate ever increasing heat.

Long winded, as usual. I blame Paul.  Having to think very differently in a very short time, and not of my choosing, has been a slog. Then Paul shows up with a framework that can help me to focus my goals (as in, what amI doing this for? What do I expect to get given what I have? What is important to me? Is it attainable given what I have available?).

So here is my stream of consciousness shaggy dog story offered as an illustration of one way to apply a food pump model.
Again, I apologize if I’ve got the concept all wrong. But I think it’s not there to tell us what to grow. Even Paul can’t make me eat kale. Ever.
Rather, I see it as a very helpful model to help us along the path of defining our needs and wants and figuring out the best way to meet them.

I learn best from examples. Not one or two, but many.
And given that this model aspires to focus on all different kinds of growers and growing situations, I’m thinking there might be lots of thoughtful examples to inspire me for a long time.  
And I’m not going to pay attention to stuff I don’t like in it (like kale, or making my own biochar).  
I’m going to pay attention to the parts that get me thinking of possibilities I hadn’t thought of.

Thank you, Paul.

Jinx

I found this today. It looks useful.

Dynamic Accumulator Database

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19S3wsjXU6VPzmbklZLVxKt6DCyZIPjCYw6zRrVg7M4Y/edit?gid=662104531#gid=662104531