Grackle's Malarkey

westward and the new ground

gracklesmalarkey — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 01:08:51 +0000

my friends, october finds me firmly rooted in Missoula, MT. broke, travel-weary, and dreaming big. if T-bird and I had a debut album it would be percolating in these cold months, nourished on five hours of weak winter light, the wood stove’s glow, and the hopeful drawings of seed catalogs. and in spring we’ll make our debut, on the big stage! with little spring greens, spicy mustards, and baby tomatoes. you ask, what does all this mean? what is this extended metaphor? it is our first farm! County Rail Farm, Dixon, MT. it is cause for celebration.

this makes….

gracklesmalarkey — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 16:24:12 +0000

me happy!

remember

gracklesmalarkey — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:49:11 +0000

Michael Pollan’s extensive dicussions of the troubles of small meat producers and local slaughterhouses in Omnivore’s Dilemma? I guess that Joel Salatin isn’t the only one who has trouble finding a good slaughterhouse. According to the New York Times Vermont has only 7 operating slaughterhouses to help deal with the new demand for locally and humanely raised meat.

comb to come: refining beeswax for candles

gracklesmalarkey — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:04:19 +0000

I melted a huge pile of comb the other day, it varied in color from white to gold to a dark brown. I probably should have done some reading before embarking on this strange adventure…..but it worked out fine. Only I’m thinking there has to be a more efficient way to do it. So here’s my process….

1st heat a large pot with several inches of water in the bottom.

dark comb from a top bar hive

2nd place comb in the boiling water and melt into a gross waxy cake. (At this point more gross than waxy, mine included lots of slimy black stuff)

3rd take pot off the heat and allow water and wax to cool and separate. lift out wax and pour off water.

4th take the same large pot fill in 1/2 way full and place a tall juice can in the water with the wax inside (books recommend placing a trivet under the can to make sure the wax doesn’t burn).

5th heat the wax until it is liquid, and then strain through a cheesecloth or screen. this separates the black gooey stuff from the golden wax.

golden moon o'wax

2nd thoughts…. when I do this again I might separate the light comb from the dark comb and see if either one yields more wax, and whether the dark comb is worth bothering with at all. also the pile that I started with was rather large, and the wax produced from it very small in volume.

yesterday

gracklesmalarkey — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:45:24 +0000

it was warm and we went around like bears, pulling back the covers on bee hives. and this is what we found. un-capped honey, comb both new and old, and a cluster of dead bees huddled around their queen.

a name change for local CSA

gracklesmalarkey — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:42:08 +0000

Last summer I was so lucky to be working on a farm with a great CSA, but also living on the site of a smaller, very community oriented CSA at Germantown Community Farm. This year with the influx of new brain and hand power (welcome Eillene and Nic!) As well as Ashely’s continued awesomeness, they are changing their name to Fog and Thistle Farm. They have a new beautiful website, complete with great farm art and a CSA sign-up page. Also in the great tradition of community agriculture they have low-income shares, and of course you can donate to help support the cost of offering those shares. Though I’ll be moving on come May, I’m so excited for them and their new green-house, and growing adventures.

hugelkultur

gracklesmalarkey — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:09:07 +0000

In my years of dabbling in permaculture and growing I have made many a raised bed in many a style. There have been double dug beds, complex spiraling beds with mow-able pathways, biodegradable plastic mulched beds, and their cheap cousin the cardboard and wood-chip mulch, but I have never heard of a hugelkultur bed until yesterday when I read this awesome article about the Crop Mob in North Carolina. Aside from making me want to start my own band of roving carhartt-ed volunteers, I was immediately curious as to what a hugelkultur bed was. Well its a raised bed that has as its base (or a large component) a great deal of rotten wood. The wood sort of works as instant compost, trapping and releasing nitrogen into the bed, and also retaining moisture, a plus in a dry environment. Like adding woodchips to your compost pile the wood helps will add structure to your soil as it breaks down. This fellow explains it well, and with photos.

late winter joys

gracklesmalarkey — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:25:22 +0000

knit wit?

gracklesmalarkey — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:36:32 +0000

dear blog,

I must admit that I have been unfaithful. I have been showering my affections upon another website, crafting and creating a different online persona. One that centers around makin’ a buck (hopefully) and a website whose main purpose appears to be filling the world with cute fuzzy stuff. Yes its true, etsy has caught my eye. In the past I’ve posted about making felted slippers, and obsessively knitting, so my friends here is the culmination of that journey–my etsy page Feltspar Knits.

Mostly I have felted slippers up so far, like these

but soon I’ll finish this great alpaca leaf lace knit hat…

based upon Sophy’s pattern, thanks Sophy the pattern is great!

yours truly,

grackle

ps. I am also trying to learn spanish!

the forest will make cake

gracklesmalarkey — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:00:08 +0000

a torrential rain and fierce wind swept through the area two days ago. The rain pounded the ground to a muddy pulp, whipping up a dense rain fog, and causing the snow to evaporate and linger in the air. when the storm had cleared I noticed the leaf mulch, how it was flattened and defeated. how the snow and rain had like small children transforming old newspaper made leaf paper on which to write the new season. tramping with the dogs over a a flat ridge I counted the green revealed by the rain. wild violets had been there all along, their tiny heart shaped greens stark against the beaten ground. you can eat the flowers of the wild violet, and also there was wild onion. only a few months and we’ll be pulling ramps from the stream banks to eat with our morning eggs!