Lynne Cim

I have it, it can be embarrassing.  If I see someone every day in a certain setting like say the local librarian and then I see them at the supermarket my brain goes haywire - I recognize them but I cannot place from where or what their name is. I feel terrible when I cannot recognize aquaintance's kids or remember their names, but they know my kid's names and everything about them.  

Best purchase I ever made was my All Seasons Solar oven. My husband calls it my easy bake oven. I bought it used / missing a panel but easy enough to make the replacement.  My goal was to recreate it double the size. Unsure if it will be double the heat, but pretty sure it will make it much hotter. Right now I can certainly bake cookies (do this too often) and roast veggies and potatoes but it takes all day. I can almost boil water. Trick is to use an all cast iron pot and lid inside a completely enclosed glass bowl - 2 large round pyrex bowls work but I had an old convection oven that was all glass so I use that topped with a large glass plate from an old microwave. I decided not to buy the internal parts new so I'm now always looking around like a hawk for the just right cast iron pots and pans to fit it.

https://youtube.com/shorts/sQ4RWXSpsW0?si=ZsvBgLVN7T17YgnB

I would probably add a few flying saucers type sleds into to the mix to reduce friction. Having a pivot point would be helpful if you have to make many turns along the way.

A light dusting of snow could make the job easier too!

Stacy DeRemer wrote:Thank you Lynne! Great advice about the snakes, especially because I have some nice rocks that I’m sure they will love. I’m excited to learn that yours are doing so well, considering we are in near the same climates. I’m certainly going to employ the narrow path trick on the deer, fantastic idea.
I would love to know what you have planted in your bed?

On our hugel we have rhubarb, horseradish, strawberries (the little wild ones), and raspberries.  A nice surprise crop of rocket mustard just showed up. Next year it will probably be all raspberry at the rate they are spreading.  Last year I planted potatoes all around the perimeter and they loved it there.  Planting sesame seeds and skirret this year on my second hugel, so excited about these 2 new additions!

Nice job Stacy!  Snakes by us seem to love the inside of our hugel or find it a good place to curl up and hunt for the small mammals visiting.  Just don't want you to be surprised by the ecosystem you built!  I stomp and shout "coming snakes" before entering mine Hugels are great, rarely needs watering here in Upstate NY. We fenced ours in with minimal walkways around them. Deer will jump anything but they won't jump into a narrow path between a fence and a hugel so we've learned. I'm growing only perennial edible plants in ours and WOW, once it warms up a fully grown garden just appears out of nowhere.  Best thing we did on our property. New line of felled trees are stacked and ready for our next one, which won't be fenced as I am growing only deer resistant perennial edibles in that one.  Good luck!

Something I always wanted to try is a personal mosquito trap. I am a mosquito magnet. we live upstate NY USA. Sitting with a group of people and I'm usually the only one they will bite, I can easily get 10 bites in 10 minutes. Since they are always around me, I've noticed they have a typical behavior - they fly toward you and then land on something behind you. Then they attack. I've always wanted to set up a landing behind where I am sitting and coat it with oil. If their wings touch the oil they can no longer fly. Another idea is to use cedar oil on my skin to mask whatever is attracting them to me. We used to not be able to go outside due to mosquitos unless drenched in deet, but that recently changed in the last 2 years. I think it's the dragon flies, we now have some the size of birds. I get so happy when one buzzes by me!  Our new neighbor may also be treating the sitting water next to his house with mosquito dunks too.

I recently learned I can borrow a pressure washer from my library, ha!  Went there to see if I could borrow / use a high powered microscope but they did not have one, but found they had pressure washers on lend.  

I've flame tested buckwheat hulls both at home and in a government approved lab (when flame testing our buckwheat hull mattresses). I could never get them to catch fire. In the lab one of our fabric pods burst open and the hulls shot out and extinguished the flame. The lab told me that was certainly a first!  Anyway I thought it maybe could help someone here.  See my flame test videos here

Thank you for the note about the seeds attracting the asparagus beetles, good to know.  I moved my asparagus from one garden bed to another. The old bed had some random spears pop up over the years that never seem to have a problem with the bugs. The new patch I created had so many bugs we gave up on it. My thought is to just plant some asparagus randomly on my property (with a pirates map drawn to remember where they are) to see if keeping them separate would work in keeping them bug free.

A sled carries our Echo-flow battery which powers our small electric snow blower. I just pull the battery sled along with me as I go. Got me through the last dump of 30"

Before we had our EV we used to park at the end of the driveway and then shovel a foot path to the house. I hauled groceries with the sled.

But now that we have an EV we have to pull all the way up to plug in so entire driveway gets plowed now.  

Keeping a set of lounge chair cushions out front helps as I cover the windshield so I don't have to scrape the glass or free up the wipers, works great.

I do want to set something up across the end of the driveway to melt the ever growing berm. Maybe I'll lay out a long something to make a channel I can  insert a crock pot full of water inside to melt the snow away!