Dawn Hoff

Metok Vlasblom wrote:Hello

Do you also run PDc courses?

Peace, Ange

We don't sorry - but we have some friends in Coín who do

Sonny Hegarty wrote:i want to use the olla watering technique but i cant find any vessels that are adequate. we have a lot of clay here so maybe i should learn how to use it 🤔

I got at local potter to make me one - actually I have had 2 different ollas made (~10Euros each). I never really got it to work properly for me bc I wanted automatic irrigation... I live on the other side of Malaga. If you want you can try the 2 ollas I have?

Hello Abraham
We live outside Malaga (in Cartama) on 6ha of land. We should meetup one day.

/Dawn

Oh this is amazing. I tried to raise chicks a few years back only w a warm water bottle and a hay box, but they practically stamped each other to death... and I have been reluctant to try again. This might actually do the trick!

Abraham Palma wrote:I'm interested in reusing waste cook oil too, since I got more soap than I ever need. Oil lamps sounds nice, but so far what I've managed are more like oil candles, not a very bright light. It's a cork with a cotton wick floating in a vase with oil. Very dim light.

Hi Abraham
I haven't been here for a while, but just checked in bc. I am making soap from used olive oil and wanted to see if there was anything on it here. I'm done now and have made 4L of liquid olive soap. I can see that you are in Malaga, I live in Cartama - if you are interested maybe we could do it together one day?

Thank you

Thank you! Do you know approximately the quantities needed for this sandy cob?

Our house (in Spain) is 200 years old, and built w. Cobb and rocks, traditional Spanish style. Most of the walls are plastered, but in the living room we have opened up some of the wall bc we think it is so beautiful. However it needs care... the cob is crumbling and falls of bit by bit. So how do I care for it? And how do I seal it, without covering the beautiful stone work, so that it doesn't continue to crumble?

Casie Becker wrote:Okay, poking around makes it look like there are two different camps of kombucha brewers. Does anyone here have strong feelings or particular experience of the differences between batch brewing and continuous brewing?  If this turns out well I will probably want to spend some money to get some large volume fermenting equipment so I'd like to start early determining if I am looking at dedicated brewing crocks or just large traditional fermenting crocks. I know I don't have enough experience with fermenting to form a complete picture of the pros and cons0 of each.

I have two co tinous brews set up these days - bc. we found that the sugar content would often be too high.if we had one... (I would get blood sugar crashes and my husband's eczema would flare). So what I am doing is almost batch except I have jars w. spouts, bc. It is so much easier. I've bought mine in IKEA, very cheaply - they are made of glass.

To us it was pretty simple...

We were using something like €750/month running a generator (living off grid w. husband who works full time online... from home). Our closest neighbour went on grid and payed €12.000 for the line into their house - and they were only 50m from the closest line, we are more like 200-300m from there... and we would have to get the line across someone else's land, which means a building permit would be necessary... so it was solar or running the genny.

6 kWh solar + batteries = €18.000 (plus a shed to put the batteries in and renting an excavator for a day to have terraces dug for the panels to sit on). If the batteries only last 10 years that is 1800 pr. year (plus maybe running the genny 3x pr. year)

vs.

€750x12/year = €9000/year

And we have much more freedom to do what we want with this system (much more power), than we did with the generator. And that is not included if the energy prices rise (which they will), and not included numerous repairs on the genny and the times the mechanic gave up on it and we had to buy a new one... (more than once in 4 years) = €500 every.single.time. Edit: I love using the wood burning oven so much - but I dare not use it in the summer, so I aprechiate having a regular oven for those times

We don't use the oven on a rainy day, we don't do laundry on a rainy day. We have 2 propane burners for a rainy day (and 2 induction for the rest of the year). We have a wood-fired oven for a rainy day - plus a propane barbecue which can also be used as an oven, plus a haybox for slow cooking. We live in the south of Spain and have 300 days of sun/year.

Hopefully in 10 years there will be better and cheaper batteries on the market.