Tereza Okava

Timothy Norton wrote:How early can you plant peas in the spring coming out of winter? Will they do all right with some chilly overnights as we haven't reached the last frost date?

I've got a whole bunch that I'm going to plant to see if I luck out, but wanted to see how other's have fared with trying to grow peas as soon as the ground is workable.

in my experience they're fine with a frost, although maybe not with the kind of north american hard frost that freezes the ground hard. If it were a small plot, what have you got to lose, really?

**cough cough** goats???
training your goats to pull things

we still have people (mostly elderly) who plow with horses and oxen. Not many, but some. Generally the properties are too small to merit a tractor, or located in such a situation that a tractor might not make it in (access through a forest, rocky slope, etc) or would be risky (i saw a field that was really steep once).
There is a tradition of mule and oxen trains here that is kept alive for show purposes too.
I would love some oxen, but unfortunately I know from training horses (and dogs, sigh) that this kind of skill takes a while to train and needs to be exercised often. In all that spare time I don't have. Maybe I could teach the dog to plow my garden, which would be the ultimate multiple-birds-one-stone thing.....

ants will be coming to help break down the organic matter in a hugel. If theyre not damaging your plants it's one thing, but if they are I'd consider harrassing them. Find their hole and flood it and see if they move. Stir up the dirt nearby and see if they decide to go somewhere else. Keep in mind, the next place they go might be even worse!
(with leafcutter ants that destroy my plants, I'll find their nest and dump boiling water on it, or soapy water from washing dishes.)

This week i read a longer-term ag forecast that said for the next 3 or 4 winters here we will hit colder low temps than usual. This from the same source that predicted this summer would be extra hot and wet, which hit the nail on the head.

I'm currently planning my fall/winter garden (we are going into fall) and am going to double down on cold crops. Also considering which of the frost-vulnerable plants are going to be protected and which sacrificed.

Vegan-ness is always defined individually, since every vegan decides where to draw the line or else will not be able to eat or use anything (even fallen fruit has small insect life on it, for example). I've known vegans who didn't get a driver's license because the photo used gelatin in the process, and I know vegans who will buy used leather shoes. Everyone does it their own way, there is no "vegan court" that decides what is okay or not.

I agree that the AI is not able to tease apart vegan and vegetarian. Keep in mind AI answers are also always trying to "make you happy" and in doing it never poses your statements as plain wrong.
I live in coffee country, grow coffee, make coffee, unless they are adding some sort of flavoring (condensed milk? i'm really stretching here to think of anything) to the roasted coffee I can't see how any animal product would be involved. One exception might be bone/blood meal fertilizer, but as mentioned above, that isn't mentioned for any agricultural product I've seen. And if this were the case, the term would probably be "veganic" rather than vegetarian.

Nancy Reading wrote:(1 teaspoon of tea leaves for the day would be tough!)

Every time I see these wartime ration things, this is the thing that makes me shudder!! that's really not much!

oh nooooo! and hiding under the covers until, say, May isn't an option huh.

Hopefully you can dig up an old face mask and a container of vapor-rub and occupy yourself thinking about anything that's not pasty, squishy, squicky or even worse. Think about ducklings, maybe. I Love Lucy. All the kinds of mushrooms you know. Maybe all together.

ah i don't miss this part of living in snow country....
what kind of surface is it? hoping for something hard (concrete) that you can shovel and then hose? (ideally, sprinkle some sawdust over and then shovel....) gravel? (ugh)

if you don't have a shoe tree, find something that you can wedge in there to create some space. I find that wadding up kitchen or hand towels often works just great for the toe box of too-tight shoes. Really bang it in there and let it sit overnight. In your case maybe wad up a sock and put it in the toe and then wedge in some sort of kitchen utensil against something that will push back the irritating padding part, maybe a rubber eraser? see what you have around. It will definitely involve invoking the spirit of MacGyver, which I think you're probably darn good at!!

I would try that and maybe putting some tape on my heel where the thing rubs for the next few wears. I get blisters from almost all shoes, even when they're not new, it's constant. I have medical tape around at all times, and between that and wearing very thin socks (those low stocking socks ladies used to wear are ideal, you can sometimes snag them from shoe stores for trying on shoes) under my normal socks to make the friction go elsewhere, I somehow manage to wear shoes every day.