marie-helene kutek

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



   

Hellooo

Will I respond? won t I?
difficulty with most elements which are prescriptive, everyone should, noone ought to etc....
Greatest diificulty is with lying. dishonesty, fraud, theft, cruelty,

Yesterday a mate told me that I was very negative. Hmmph.
My response is that I was relating challenges we all face,
There s a lot of learned helplessness about.
I happen to address some of these because it is easier to do so than not to.my water meter move dropped from 3000kE to 400kE.
Oh a mistake madam.

It also gives scope to my acting talents when an official is trying it on,
Humour, and I appreciate that officials are often in untenable situations but have not yet discovered that they have choices and
yes these have consequences.
I did my Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina bit, I will live in this room for a long time, or something like that, standing by the wall.
The tax official managed to comply with my request after my departure.
Did I sanction licence  to act differently?
There was no aggression, surprise definitely. I do what I can not to get angry but creative

If you fancy a laugh
A friend told that she would have to move her postbox.
She lives on a narrow country road, of which we have many in these parts.
Drivers of postal devilery or is it delivery vehicles will soon be FOBIDDEN from driving in reverse. Reversing is deemed too dangerous.

Please don t shoot the messenger.

I explained to the friend who thinks me negative that I am awake not woke and collecting material for comedy stand up and yes I do have
a RMH and composting facilities and a spot of attitude with a laugh.

Thanks to us all
Blessings
MH

sauerkraut production and ratatouille too

saluti tutti

Moments of hot pepper madness or is it folly?

The mention of candy reminded me of misspent middle age
A friend with asian antecedents used to consume at least 6 chili peppers, every day.
One day, chewing the cud, I came across chocolate covered plums, and before I or we could help ourselves,
we made some chocolate covered chilis. A treat nor for the faint hearted though a wonderful marriage of sensations.
By the by, I also make a delicious hot cocoa drink with boiling water, lots of ground spices and grains, maybe a nut or two and chili of course.
It s a wonderful winter pick me up,

Mark Land, hello, mentioned chili and medicinal properties.
I have red green and yellow chilis so I have prepared traffic light tinctures.
Sliced chilis in attractive glass jars in traffic light colours
I added some turmeric root to the yellow chili.
The idea is that I can add drops of tincture to food preparation, oil, herbal teas etc as it is allegedly a boon to one s blood system and a pain
reliever.
I believe one can acquire a chili salve which can be used like tiger balm. Or you can make some up yourself and live with the consequences.
Yes, I do like chili.

https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/recipes/chili-crisp/  a link someone kindly put up on a forum recently, I m in the middle of studying it
at the moment.
Thank you for the link.

We had 9mm of rain yesterday on seriously parched soil. Better than nothing and more big heat forecast.
I have lived in the tropics so maybe I make an effort to adapt but it is harder for the local flora and fauna to handle climate madness.
Good thoughts to those experiencing harsh realities.

off to make nocturnal sauerkraut, it s dark outside,
Blessings
MH

Hello
Yes an interesting thread and there is another peach flavoured thread referring to the tree as a hedge ingredient.
I am blessed with loads of helpful gardeners who share the fruit with me and other bipeds, then plant the pits all over the place.
Well I never???
They are short lived trees here, replacing each other without any effort on my part.
Last year, 2025, was excessively peach.
This year, hail, drought, monsoon, have contributed to thinning out most of the fruit.
That means lots  of pits have fallen to the ground.
Will there be a glut of peach trees?
To be continued......

blessings and happy planting whatever method is selected.
MH  

PS it s been noted that flowers and fruit appear to be smaller in size, apples roses plums etc some are plain roasted in situ, on the tree or bush.
I have picked dried blueberries and surprise, the blackbirds were not queuing for their lion s share.
Blackbird lion? ok

Hello hello,

Iappreciate all the exchanges.

A few years ago, I invested in a whole heap of spawn and plugs, followed instructions, neighbours swapped some spawn for freshly cut logs.
I was a most disappointing experience for us all.
Couldn t work out why.
It was hot and dry, we had all done the required preparation to provide optimal conditions. Heyho

Recently, I harvested loads f oyster mushrooms off a fallen walnut tree.
I mention this because, if I remember rightly,  in Mr Stamets Mycelium Running, walnut is mentioned in relation to lion s mane LM
I have not seen any around and my mates at the mushroom club don t appear to be familiar with LM.

From the photographs that I have seen, LM seems to prefer not exclusively flourishing up high in trees.

I do have some consolation, morels, but not every year not far from the house.

Happy myceliuming with blessings
MH