Nine's Bootcamp Experience (BRK)

Cindy Haskin wrote:Wow, Nine! (It's very counterintuitive to call you by a number, but I like it. There is an animated movie out there to the tune of a number; and I think it is Nine!) You can cross ALL your toes!? I can get my big toes to cross over, but not the rest of them. I can also wiggle my eyes! And I've taught my children how as well!

It was a little odd at first, but I've grown to like it. There are so many Jennifers in the world, and I get tired of people having to differentiate from all of us. I'd much rather have a new name than have to deal with the hoop jumping in conversations.

I am sure you will know what you have planted when you see each one's true leaves. Or can you make a diagram to help you remember?

I'll probably still need my ID app to figure out some of them. There are a lot of plants I've never seen but have seeds for because they're either tasty, medicinal, soil building, and/or for pollinators. Some I've never heard of even! I mostly am trying to see what will grow in different areas of the yard, so I've scattered seeds kinda everywhere around the house. There are a few things that are in one particular space (chicory/mache on the hill across from the front door), but quite a few things got tossed into a jar with a bunch of other things and got planted a bit willy nilly. If they survive, I'll be much more organized about it next year. Mostly just hoping to get seeds from most of the plant kids (or they can self seed if they want) so I can start doing a landrace program for the Labs.

I've been drawing out on paper my garden/yard for a number of years now so that I can keep track of what has grown where. Sometimes it's as simple as plain paper with the beds and what went in them. My favorite is to create the whole thing on the computer using excel (spreadsheet style of gridding) and printing that out to keep in my gardening notebook. So I basically create grid paper by adjusting the cell sizes, then use the other tools to delineate my various growing sections, using circles for trees that are a permanent feature, and often using one cell per letter in the direction of a crop, if that makes sense. Then I will tape the pages all together for a complete view of the property!

That's really smart. I want to eventually get an aerial shot of the plot so I can plan out what all we'd like to do with it. It's an acre and a half, so I imagine it'll be a few years in the making to be as lush and productive (for us and the forest critters) as I'd like it to be. Having an over-view would help a lot and then I could draw it out on the computer as an overlay. There's still a lot of infrastructure type stuff to put in place on the hugels/berms to quell some of the erosion. After that, I can start picking out our thistle/hound's tongue/burdock friends and put them on the edges of the property where our deer friends like to come and go. I'd love to have a thick, semi-impermeable hedge around the plot to give bird habitat and natural fencing. *wistful sigh* Someday.

Thanks for posting some great shots of all the stuff going on up there. My heart is with you all, on all your adventures. I have been trying to plan out my own adventure on paper and with "book" and internet learning for the activities I expect to be doing once we move to my daughter's in western West Virginia on 40 acres of hilly forest land. Of course there will be chickens, likely goats and rabbits for both food and fiber, likely a pair of turkeys cuz I love me some turkey carcass soup after the yearly requisite bird in November!!! I could eat turkey several times a year for a week or two! My daughter wants to get a couple bovine critters for their freezer camp as well. I want to focus more on fiber. And I dearly miss my first chicken flock of just 6 for eggs. They were fun to watch. And I used them to work in the garden when I could, cleaning up buggies and scratching in the materials I used to improve the plots.

Thank you! Having support means a lot to us. It sounds like you have quite an adventure ahead of you as well! I'd love to have more critters, but not until we're living out on the plot. Chicken/Guinea friends will probably be first on my list because they're so ridiculous. Chicken TV is a favorite past time of mine.

Should I send you some graph paper?

haha.. I think I have some around here somewhere. With how hilly the place is, I'd have to really wrap my head around how to draw it all out. Might have to incorporate some topographical drawing from my Observation course. Hmm.. We'll see how things fall out next year with who went to seed and how many I was able to collect, then I can think about planning. Maybe a winter activity for myself later this year..

I was watching this YouTube channel last night, and was really blown away by their garden. Have you seen it?

Congratulations!
In the BRK I offered to knit a wool hat for everyone who has 100 posts with photos.
Soon I will start knitting hats again. Then I can send a few to Wheaton Labs for all boots with 100 posts who did not yet receive one of my knitted hats.
Sending a package from here to Missoula takes several weeks it seems and there are the costs of shipping, so I can't send everyone who has 100 posts their hat immediately. But I think that is no problem, as now isn't the time to wear a wool hat.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:Congratulations!
In the BRK I offered to knit a wool hat for everyone who has 100 posts with photos.
Soon I will start knitting hats again. Then I can send a few to Wheaton Labs for all boots with 100 posts who did not yet receive one of my knitted hats.
Sending a package from here to Missoula takes several weeks it seems and there are the costs of shipping, so I can't send everyone who has 100 posts their hat immediately. But I think that is no problem, as now isn't the time to wear a wool hat.

I would love a wool hat knitted by you. The ones you've knitted that I see people wear are gorgeous and I'd be honored to wear one as well. Having a quality wool hat would allow me to minimize the collection of winter hats that I own that aren't as good quality.

I measured my head where I'd want it to sit, and it looks like it's 58cm. Do you pick the colors and style?

#101

Worked on Erica's car today and a little on Judy. Found a blown fuse in Judy, so we'll get a new one next week for her. Still having another issue, but one thing at a time.

We were able to figure out that Erica's negative battery post lug was split and not getting a solid connection anymore. She was having intermittent failure to start issues and if we start with getting a new, tight lug on there I think it'll clear up some of her issues. If there's a ghost draw after that, we'll track it down.

Took a walk in my garden patch with Waldo to take pictures of some of the babies I was talking about the other day. See below.

I spent a bit of time looking for a couple tools and other odds and ends we can now purchase, and I'm pretty stoked about that!
Big thanks to our BRK supporters/donors!

Hope you're all having a terrific weekend!

Jen Tuuli wrote:

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:Congratulations!
In the BRK I offered to knit a wool hat for everyone who has 100 posts with photos.
Soon I will start knitting hats again. Then I can send a few to Wheaton Labs for all boots with 100 posts who did not yet receive one of my knitted hats.
Sending a package from here to Missoula takes several weeks it seems and there are the costs of shipping, so I can't send everyone who has 100 posts their hat immediately. But I think that is no problem, as now isn't the time to wear a wool hat.

I would love a wool hat knitted by you. The ones you've knitted that I see people wear are gorgeous and I'd be honored to wear one as well. Having a quality wool hat would allow me to minimize the collection of winter hats that I own that aren't as good quality.

I measured my head where I'd want it to sit, and it looks like it's 58cm. Do you pick the colors and style?

Thank you for measuring your head in centimeters. I have wool here from the 'Deventer Schaapskudde Wol Project', that's hand spun and from local sheep. And I have leftovers of wool. So I think it will be a combination of those (maybe with stripes, maybe with colourwork, like the one Dez got).