Manda Bell

Like so many others of you we both hate shopping so do it as little as possible, once a month at most or preferably much longer (until we crave something fresh again that forces us to shop). Our shopping strategy is based on how long foods last:

1. Only buy fresh foods that we can eat before they go bad. That includes things like bakery bread, berries, leaves, tomatoes, etc. No matter the price, it's not a good deal if you're won't eat it before it goes off.

2. Next, get fruit and veg to eat after those in #1 are gone, like root veg, citrus, apples, things in the cabbage family, etc. Anything that will last longer in the fridge.

3. Make sure we have enough frozen veg and fruit to last for a couple of months. We try to eat as much of this before we shop again. That way we don't end up wasting frozen food by misplacing it in the bottom of the freezer either.

4. Lastly, always keep dry goods on hand, usually ordered in bulk from essentialOrganics dot com or countryLifeFoods dot com. We always have a variety of grains, beans and spices on hand. You can do great things (and always have healthy, filling and delicious meals) with these humble ingredients. You can grind your grains into flour if you need and make your own tempeh or koji anytime as well. We would almost always rather make a thing than go shopping for a thing. Bonus, this keeps us from snacking on garbage bc we don't actually buy it and don't live close to any stores. It sort of forced us to learn to make snacky foods too (or skip snacking altogether) which are undoubtedly better than anything store-bought.

It takes some serious fresh food cravings for either of us to *want* to go to the grocery store.

Cats are usually blamed for toxoplasmosis transmission and that causes us to miss all of the other potential and potentially common sources of infection. Cats aren’t special. They are not the only animal this parasite infects nor are they the only potentially often/recurring source of exposure for most people, especially if you keep your domesticated cats indoors.

There are many places you could be exposed — for starters, anywhere raw/undercooked meat or even unpasteurized (goat, mostly) milk touches in your kitchen (including your hands or eating it), contaminated water on produce you buy or even contaminated poop in the garden that you didn’t even know was there. Biology is messy and not exactly easy to track.

It’s more complicated than that (isn’t it always?) but focusing solely on one potential source of exposure isn’t the best way to prevent exposure in my opinion.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5488655/

We have no ac so we mostly just leave our windows open from spring through fall. In summer when days reach 80 (way too often lately!) we shut the windows and close our cellulose shades completely immediately open waking. This keeps the house surprisingly cool as long as night temps were nice! We only open them again when the day temps have dropped below our interior temps.

We are surrounded by very tall pine trees and that helps protect us from the worst of the evening heat, at least. But I see a possible heat wave coming up and the worst part is nights will be in the 60s as well. This is not cool enough for the house to remain comfortably cool all day, sadly. Hopefully it won’t last long.

Anyway, you may be surprised at just how effective (and free!) it is to use exterior night temps to regulate your home’s temp where possible.

Maurice van der Molen wrote:(Sorry if my english is a bit sloppy, I'm Dutch)

I've had some experience with insecthotels through the years and they are great! Anything (organic!) that's stacked in large piles and slightly protected against rain will do and will host thousands and thousands of different creatures from the whole range of the animal kingdom. I'm personally not afraid of the 'wrong bugs and parasites'. As long as you make a lot of them, make them big enough or create a lot of small ones, there will be an ecological balance. The more you have of them and by using many techniques, the more biomass you attract/create and the more ecological complexity there will be. Many birds, lizzards, hedgehogs and so on, will be attracted to this richeness and they all poo in your garden for free!

I encourage you not to make insecthotels but insectcCITIES!

This one I created on my piece of land in the northern of France and is about 6 yards long, 2 yards high and 1 yard deep, so more of a "Insect Metropole. All in all  have about 30 cubic yards of "piles" on the property. Even snakes are wellcome because they are rare and harmlous. And I don't have any problems with rats either because they are pretty harmlous too.

Some recent beds with extra animal accomodation:

My 'gate' also attracts insect because the wood is full of holes from larvae and caterpillars:

Your structures are incredible! I hope you’ll post updates since it’s been a decade since these were posted. It would be wonderful to see how long these held up and how you’ve maintained or built new ones.

Insect lives and needs are complex, just like nature. As you said— we must try to mimic the variety in nature and provide habitat for all otherwise we’ll never have a balanced ecosystem.

Bravo! Love these! Thanks for posting them.

We rarely bake bread but we do have lots of batters and every weekend we have waffles. Really. Maple is a good group here.

I keep my starter at 100% hydration and usually starting Monday or Tuesday begin gathering discard everyday into the silicone container I use for batter. I also add raw amaranth seeds, thickly rolled oats and various grains to mix it up sometimes, souring them during the week with using the discard. Don’t be afraid to add small whole grains like quinoa, amaranths, millet, teff, poppy, whatever. They give it a delicious crunch! By Friday I’ve got a very sour batch of too-thick batter. That’s when I make it waffle ready by adding vanilla or other flavors, spices if a please, some salt, a bit of yeast and enough water or plant milk to make it thin enough to pour. Over the weekend I usually rest my starter in the fridge and start over next week. If we need to add to the batter I just add another discard and mix it in. Super easy and flexible.

Of course you can always use your discard whenever to make crackers or quickly waffle a corn bread or anything like that really. It comes in handy and is easy to just keep alive cold when not in use. You can even use some of the discard to add to your compost tea (that you make outdoors!) in summer.

If you have a fridge you don’t have to worry about missing a week or two of feeding. It’s much easier than I thought it would be and wish I had tried it decades ago.. but I’ve been using my starter I began, like many people, during plague quarantine. I’ve even taken it on our moves across three different states now.

“I do have an InstantPot. Would it be sufficient for 90 minutes?”

This is exactly how I make my grain spawn bc I also don’t have a large canner. Maybe someday but this totally works for now. It’s slower bc you can only make 4 16oz jars of spawn at a time. But it’s easy to do a grain-to-grain transfer into larger jars and expand the spawn that way.

My easy everyday method is to layer used coffee grounds and filter + a bit (less than the amt of coffee you add) of grain from these small jars into a larger jar. Then when it’s nearly filled I start another and keep it going. We drink a lot of coffee so it adds up pretty fast and I’ve had zero contamination in these jars too, which honestly I was surprised by!

Does anyone (in Maine perhaps for pickup?) have any fruits, frozen or fresh, or cuttings for sale? The description of the sour taste sounds lovely to me!

I’ve had success planting seeds from sun-dried and frozen fruits like goji and cranberry so thought this may also make it easier to sprout sea buckthorn from the berry as well.

david danielson wrote:links to my  Instagram are within the video makers description...

I answer more and all questions via Instagram,not here really

Oh, sorry I completely forgot to check under the video.

Perhaps I'll check out instagram eventually. Thanks for the info and the video inspiration!

david danielson wrote:I have built another and it is my factory.

Is there a site or video for your greenhouses too? Did I miss it? I would love to see how you did it! You clearly know more about this than we do.

We're comparing the pros and cons of building up with insulation versus digging. We want to start with the greenhouse since it should be easier and require less investment on an experiment.. but I would love to get the largest gain possible because we won't be using electricity to heat. I'd like to hold on to as much as I can! I'm sure that means digging would be better -- but cost will also be a part of the equation and we have no idea what it'll cost yet.

Just watched that video of you on YouTube and immediately searched for more info about your home. I must say, I was blown away by the interior- it is spectacular! You would have no idea what’s buried under there from a glance. Bravo.

I’m very interested in at least partially burying our next home, which is in a very cold and snowy climate. Did I miss how you dug out the original structure? Did you dig or perhaps just add to the top of the hill? We’ve always wanted an earth-covered shelter but haven’t found one that we want to imitate yet.. but I did love how natural in shape your earth covering looked.

Since you dug out your home I’m curious if you also considered a walipini, or buried greenhouse? That is something we plan to do first and that’s what got us thinking that burying the house would be equally nice.