Laurel Robertson

How you hang the clothes is important for the drying time, too. My practice is to put anything that will finally end up on a clothes hanger on a hanger to begin with. Saves effort and they dry more quickly on a hanger, I find. Pants I turn inside out and hang each leg on a separate (parallel) horizontal - that way the crotch is open to the air and dries quicker. Avoid folded over fabric (when possible) and leave as much space as possible between items. More space =  more air circulation = less drying time. A fan, especially aimed from above or below, decreases drying time by a large factor.

In warm weather (here that means HOT 4-5 months/year) I wear sturdy shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt, with maybe a longsleeve white cotton shirt covering in the afternoon sun (but I try not to work in the afternoon sun...). And a big brim hat. In the winter I wear old jeans, or on cold days my insulated bib coveralls, a thermal shirt, insulated vest with a barn coat over. I can remove the barn coat when I'm warmed up and the insulated vest  keeps me warm, while allowing for unrestricted arm movements. The one thing I wear in any weather is my very sturdy slip-on-and-off work boots with thick cotton socks. The protection they offer from twisted ankles, foot injuries and FIRE ANTS are worth the slight heat factor  in summer (tho it's really not that bad). And they look so fetching with shorts! If I wore nothing else at all, I would still be stomping around the gardens and fields with those babies on....

One point that hasn't been brought up is the SPACE in the kitchen that an automatic dishwasher takes up. I live in a small house, and efficient use of space is critical. Since nothing permanently lives in a dishwasher (just passes through on its way to permanent storage in a cupboard or drawer), I consider that a waste of space - unless I REALLY hate handwashing dishes. When my kids were growing up here, I had a dishwasher. Now that they're grown and I live alone, I have opted to hand wash and have extra cabinet storage space.

I've had success using metal binder clips for holding cattle panels together for temporary fencing. They're quick to connect and hold the panels together firmly. They do rust after a while in the field - but they're not expensive to replace and are recyclable.

I've been to two bug-eating workshops in the last year, both hosted by a regional bug-eating expert. I could have learned most of what I wanted to know from books ("Man Eating Bugs" is a good place to start) but I knew I needed the support and peer pressure of a group to actually put that first creepy-crawly in my mouth! Now I'm pretty at ease with frying up the occasional scorpion I come across (overtones of bacon with a hint of popcorn) and I'm keeping an eager eye out for a red wasps nest - the toasted larvae are better than pine nuts! I was a little underwhelmed with crickets and grasshoppers, but that's just personal preference.

The real reason to bother with eating bugs (admittedly - it takes quite a few of them to make a meal, but then they do often hang out in large groups....) is the high protein/fat ratio they offer (generally hard to come by in wild harvested food). If you can override all your cultural programming and pop that first one in your mouth, you'll see (and taste) the sustainable logic behind it. Hakuna matata!