Al Marlin

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Could you show the backside, please, so I can see how they are attached to the wooden pin?  glue? rivet? screw?

Sorry I didn't answer. I've been without a computer for 2 wks.

These clothespins use no glue, rivets or screws just slots in the wood. One narrow slot midway down the inside to hold a small tab of metal  to prevent the clip from pulling up and then a deeper vertical slot at the top to prevent the clip from slipping off the peg sideways.

FYI I TOTALLY agree this clothespin would be a $$ opportunity for someone to manufacture. Maybe even Permies.com??? It's soooo in the permies wheelhouse. I'd certainly pay to have lots more of them.

paul wheaton wrote:I was listening to a book on CD and they said that the word "pulley" comes from something to get your laundry up to the ceiling.

This charming video shows how one of these pulley airers work/are installed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCJjeZVqMCU

Her specific pulley clothes airer can be found at https://www.pulleymaid.com/ but there are several other brands available online.

I grew up (in Canada) with my mother using the clothesline year round. I have memories from the early1970's of clothes and sheets coming in hard as a board from the clothesline in winter. Any comments about it being "weird" to dry clothes outside at -20' would have Mom (a physicist by training) give a short chemistry lecture of the phase change process of "sublimation" (transition of a substance directly from the solid to the gas state). Mom's secret weapon for efficiently getting things on and off the line in the cold weather was her special clothespins. Mom would pre-pin everything inside, carefully placing the laundry in her basket with all the clothespin pointing in 1 direction & then she only had to quickly clip the laundry onto the line to hang it. I still have 12 of her old clothespins (which I guard jealously). I wish I knew where I could get at least 100 more.

Thekla,
Nexcem neither keeps water out nor keeps it in. It works similarly to how hempcrete works; it both absorbs and releases humidity to keep the air's humidity within a certain range. The "technology" is centuries old as many building in Europe are built with hempcrete. However Nexcem differs significantly from traditional hempcrete builds in that its "hempcrete-like" part (made of wood fiber and Portland cement) is an ICF block. The outside half of its central cavity of the block has Roxul insulation and the inside 1/2 of the central cavity is where the cement is poured into. These block walls are reinforced both vertically and horizontally with fiberglass rebar - which has 2x the strength of metal rebar. With insulation to the outside and thermal mass to the inside that's what makes it easy to maintain climatic conditions within a structure. In the root cellar we'll have to see how we can override Nexcem's humidity modulation as root cellars should have their humidity above 90%. Conversely our basement dry storage area will greatly profit by this humidity modulation capability.

FYI If you go on the Nexcem website you can see lots of great research done by independent agencies like University of Toronto and University of Waterloo.

Our current root cellar was built as an experiment in the fall of 2019 and proved to be an excellent way to store food long-term in our climate which routinely dips to -40 in the winter.  In essence our root cellar is a buried 8'x14' insulated aluminum box taken off an old refrigerator truck which then had several traditional root cellar modifications made to it. Total actual cost for this project was less than $500 CAD. I posted the details of this build with lots of construction pictures and a long list of learnings on another permies thread - "refrigerator  that doesn't use power" (https://permies.com/t/40/132501/Refrigerator-doesn-power-build#1393637).

We are now in the process of constructing another 8'x14' root cellar based on one major lesson learned from our first root cellar: as we age, we don't want to have to venture outside in the winter to access our veggies. So our new root cellar will be accessible directly from the basement of our new addition.

All of the block walls of both the addition and root cellar are being constructed of Nexcem (an NON-styrofoam ICF block which is fireproof; vermin, termite and insect proof; does not support fungus growth; highly energy efficient [up to R28]; constructed of 80% recycled material including clean softwood aggregates, does not contain or emit any toxic elements; and is lightweight and yet very durable to build with). Yet despite all these desirable traits, Nexcem still may have to be modified for a root cellar application as it is also hygroscopic. This vapor regulator trait typically keeps indoor relative humidity levels at healthy/comfortable levels (not exceeding 70%) - which is highly desirable for living quarters but not ideal for a root cellar. Thus we may find that we will need to seal the blocks inside the root cellar to prevent them from vapor regulating. We plan to use 1/2 the addition's basement (which will have a cement floor) as a dry cool storage, as <70% humidity is great for onions, garlic, and canned goods.

Local folk wisdom says that 'you can't poison either a bear or a pig'. Accordingly, my partner's experience is that pigs won't eat anything that would hurt them.
Could be my partner has just been lucky for all the years he's had pigs. Could be that we don't have yummy but poisonous-to-pigs plants around here - - -  Or maybe the old timers knew something about pigs and bears.

For my lime whitewash, all I do is add (pickling/ non-iodized) salt to my lime mixture. The lime/salt combo seems to help keep the nasties down in the coop while not being toxic to the girls. And since summers are very humid here, I figure the coops walls actively cycle as the humidity raises and falls (& the walls lighten up and appear not whitewashed and then dry again and go a dark white).

I was reassured that my whitewashing is probably on the right track when I visited Upper Canada Village (a live museum running as if it were the 1860's) last summer. After each milking, the farmer shoveled any manure off the floor and then threw down a bucket of lime water whitewash. This was the only sanitizing they did of the milking stalls. Since they sell their dairy products, this procedure must meet with current standards as well.

One question: Can you reuse the significant amount of lime at the bottom of the jar?"

I don't. That doesn't mean you can't, but I find that once the lime starts smelling even a bit like ammonia, even though I know those eggs are fine, I'm loathe to add any fresh ones back into the same container. It may be fine, but I just can't bring myself to do it, lol.

I'm saving my old lime water to reuse this summer to whitewash the inside of my coops.

In the summer, my girls spend their days outside, running about. So I'm not worried about any additional ammonia smell in the coop as that will dissipate quickly once the whitewash dries.

"The only other recipe I found for red eggs involved madder and that doesn't sound like it would necessarily taste good."

Although I'm going off-topic I couldn't resist commenting to this - - The colours from beets and madder are not the same. I don't know what madder tastes like, but it's sure a pretty colour - a deeper orangier/slightly browner than this picture portrays.  It was the "red" used to make the soldiers' redcoats for the British - because it was a cheap plant dye. FYI the red for the British officers was made from conchineal - $$$$$.

Our experience has been very similar to Carla's storing eggs in a hydrated/slaked lime solution. Our first year we did a comparison between keeping eggs in isinglass versus in lime. The isinglass batch went totally rotten versus the eggs in the lime were good/edible after 15 months. However, we suspected that the rotten isinglass batch might have been caused by a broken egg. Regardless, after thinking it through, I preferred the idea of storing in lime as lime's pH makes a very poor habitat for bacteria to grow. After all, that high pH is the reason we white wash the coop walls with lime.

Since our first year, we inspect each egg's shell in the light of a high intensity flashlight before putting the egg into the bucket for storage. Even with this candling, we're still concerned about losing a big batch, so we use the small buckets our coconut oil come in. These buckets comfortably fit 2 1/2 dozen eggs. No need to worry about the oldest eggs being on the bottom of these small buckets. To keep the eggs cool and dark, we store these eggs in our root cellar - which is another reason for using the plastic buckets. The lids won't rust.

My partner eats 2 eggs for breakfast every day. He prefers his eggs sunnyside up. But as Carla stated it is hard not to break the yolk of the lime eggs - especially as the eggs get older as their yolks tend to stick to the membrane of the egg.

are you in the states? i’m in canada but brought the ‘pulley maid’ ends back from england. however, someone on my patreon found them on etsy and she is in the us. have a look for pulley maid cast iron and see what you find. they are not necessary but i admit i adore them. you’ll also need a cleat, a double and a single pulley

Your generous info provided us with a multitude of leads we can pursue to customize the rack to maximally suit our needs. Thank you, thank you once again.

FYI We live in Group of Seven/Tom Thomson country bordering the Algonquin Park. The beauty, climate and land here are quite different from yours on Salt Spring (which I knew well as a child in the 60's).