Lucrecia Anderson

I will try that! I struggle to get the dog hair off clothing, especially dark clothing. It comes out of the washing machine with the hair on it.

Another trick that works well is to use a rubber glove to get stubborn embedded dog hair off the car upholstery. Just rub a kitchen glove over the hair as you vacuum it and most of it comes right up.

Honeywell Servus PVC Boots (Models 18821 and 18822)

Rating: 9.5 out of 10 Acorns




Amazon Link

I bought a pair 3 months ago and absolutely love them. I was especially happy to find them since I wear a women's size 12 which really limits my options, and I didn't want to spend $50 on rain boots that will crack within one season of gardening/digging etc... These were the perfect option at a great price.  They are also comfortable.

Pros:

Completely Waterproof -- Made from seamless injection molded PVC

Tough and long lasting, designed for commercial and industrial use (could easily last many years depending on your use)

Available in Soft or Steel Toe

Made in the U.S.A

Non-Slip textured soles

Unisex sizing -- Men's sizes 3 to 15, Women's sizes 5 to 17

Color: Black

Removable insole so the boots can be washed out inside

Kick tabs on back to easily remove the boots without handling them

Over 1600 Reviews on Amazon -- Rated 4.5 stars

Price:  $15 to $20 online from Amazon, Ebay, etc...

Search by part number since Honeywell makes a lot of similar boots:
Honeywell Servus Steel Toe 18821
Honeywell Servus Soft Toe 18822

Cons:

Removable insole is okay but thin, folks may want to buy a padded insole

Not available with a steel reinforced sole (for digging) but the sole is fairly stiff

The steel toe version is rather heavy so if you don't need that level of protection the soft toe is probably the better choice

Note on sizes: The boots are unisex so if women don't see their size listed just buy the men's boot 2 sizes smaller (both women's and men's sizes will be stamped on the bottom). Men with wide feet may want to go a size up, these are a bit narrow than standard men's boots since they are unisex. There are a lot of vendors offering these so if one vendor does not carry your size just google the part number and exact size and you will find another vendor that does carry it. Also not all boots have the gold Servus logo, they are still the same boot.


I also made a review video:

Meg Mitchell wrote:I saw a promising video of someone in a colder-weather part of the US protecting early tomatoes in April under cloche. So I'm planning to put them under hoops and plastic set up around the raised bed. 🤞 If not, I still have some seeds packed away as backup, but while I have a really long frost-free season, the length of time where the soil temp is above 60F is relatively short, so I think to get good results from my tomatoes/peppers, I'm going to have to keep cheating quite a bit.

Is there really a Zone 9 in Canada? I have to think that must be a joke. :)

Yeah I hope to put mine out in late March even though the old time farmers say last frost hits around Easter.  We end up having weeks of warm days (high 70's or low 80's) before that date though.

I put up hoops for a low tunnel too. I am going to try this string method which makes it super easy to raise and lower the tunnel plastic without removing it. Works especially well for folks like me that may forget to cover the rows until near dark, as it will be much easier.

Video is in Spanish but you can see how they run the strings, I think it is very neat:

Mike Barkley wrote:Next up to start indoors will be some chili petin peppers. They need a long growing season & I need a fresh supply of those seeds so not taking any chances with them this year.  

Glad you said that, I forgot hot peppers grow slower, I should probably start the cayenne soon.

I put PVC hoops up over 2 beds so I can get the peppers and tomatoes out a bit early. We always have super warm weather for 2-3 weeks before the last frost so hopefully this year the row cover will be enough.

Tyler Ludens wrote:I'm going to try direct seeding all my warm-weather things, and protect them with covers.

Good luck with that. Do you have raised beds? What are you going to plant?

The only thing I start outdoors is beans/peas since they are big and grow fast. Everything else is started in seed cells mainly because we have a LOT of weeds, they even pop up in pots and seed cells that spend time outside.

Just wondering who else out there is starting some plants for the spring garden.

Last year I started peppers (way too many) in January and had to carry them in/out for 6 weeks when they were too tall for the grow lights. So peppers will wait a while, however I did start some Poppies and Echinacea today. Got the lights set up and the little grow area is glowing away. I want the poppies to go out very early this year, and I am finding conflicting info on the Echinacea. Some sources say put outdoors at 6 weeks, and some say after the first frost. Any advice on that? I suspect the little plants could handle a frost.

Will also plant some snow peas and regular peas in the garden tomorrow.

Is anyone else starting their transplants? Or at least sorting through seeds and seed catalogues?

Anne Miller wrote:Welcome to permies!

You could dehydrate those meals to store in Mylar.  Then when you are ready to eat them you would add boiling water.

I have not eaten a MRE though I believe the meal part is dehydrated.

I don't think regular MREs are dehydrated, they are just canned or packed (professionally) in mylar for long term storage. They are in fact "ready to eat" cold or hot though the military may package freeze dried meals for long missions. Dunno.

Guys opening and eating foreign or even ancient MREs is a "thing" on youtube. The old ones are interesting, they may not all be edible but some like the German WWII rations had chocolate, cigarettes, coffee and other things that are still good.

Pressure canning and mylar are two totally different methods.

Pressure canning sterilizes everything inside the jar and preserves the food usually with a high amount of water.  Mylar is used for DRY foods, and an oxygen absorber is added to remove moxt of the oxygen and therefore prevent oxidation.

Only certain foods store well long term in mylar, those are foods that have a low moisture content AND a low fat content. Fat goes rancid regardless of how you preserve it so the shelf life is generally a year or less.

Big difference is that mixing ingredients together for dry storage in mylar is usually not recommended because the it will spoil faster. Usually people only store single ingredient ultra low fat items like pasta, rice,  grains, crackers, dehydrated veggies etc... Most store the individual ingredients in mylar and then mix them together when they use them. If you re just trying to save time by preparing meals ahead then freezing is likely your best bet. Dehydrating takes a long time and it does have its lilmitations.

There are numerous recipes online for dehydrating things like chili, pasta, and other dishes for backpacking but they always say keep frozen until the trip. They don't store the dehydrated mixed meals at room temp for any length of time.

The packaged meals you can buy online (like Mountain House) are actually freeze dried, not dehydrated.

Leora Laforge wrote:The article recommended soybean, canola, and cotton seed meal as garden amendments. Not sure about cotton seed but soymeal and canola meal are very commonly included in poultry feeds as a protein source. In garden soil feather meal would be a slow release source of nitrogen. Feather is mostly composed of keratin, a protein, it could be fed to chickens. .

I bought a 50 lb bag of soybean meal at the feed store, It is 49% protein so I thought it would make an emergency food source for the dogs/chickens and me.  The stuff was horrid, I tried it and hated it, the chickens didn't like it, and I didn't feel right about feeding any of it to my dogs.

I looked up whether it could be used as fertilizer since I didn't know what to do with the bag, turns out it has an n-p-k ratio of about 8-1-2 makes a great slow release fertilizer. Easy to apply and a little goes a long way!

Trace Oswald wrote:

Lucrecia Anderson wrote:Some brands of yogurt advertise they are high in probiotics (can't recall which brand but Jaimie Lee Curtis made commercials for it claiming it was a remedy IBS or something). Not sure if they add extra probiotics but that would be one quick and easy way to replenish your system.

I love yogurt, I just didn't know if commercial yogurt actually contains the probiotics they claim,  or if it's just advertising hype.  I'm willing to risk it  :)

You can also buy probiotics in a powder or pill form and they probably contain more types of flora. I would think the ones that have to be refrigerated are the best.