Ransacked!

Yesterday, I used the word "ransacked", and my 4-year-old daughter ("Little Miss") asked me,

"What's ram-sapped?"

I explained to her that it's when someone breaks into your house, and leaves a big mess, while looking for something to steal from you.  (One of my favorite little mental games is trying to break down complex words or ideas into a sentence that even a 4-year-old could accurately understand.  What can I say, it keeps me occupied.  ;-)

Well, that same afternoon, it became obvious that our garden had been "ram-sapped"!  You see, yesterday was, in the words of Winnie the Pooh, a "very blustery day".  Apparently our deer netting had blown down at some point in the last 24 hours, and our all of our kale, carrot tops and some of the outer leaves of our red cabbage were stripped bare by some wild and reckless herbivore. Even some of the parsely was gone... I guessed that devious creature wanted to have sweet breath after such a bountiful feast.  So, we pulled the carrots -- a fine lot of orange, yellow and purple specimens -- pulled the worst-hit cabbage and prayed that the kale plant, with its stalks intact, would continue to grow more leaves.  Yes, it is the end of the growing season, and the nights here are dropping below freezing, consistently, but the kale has been thriving in spite of the cold, and was producing some very dark, sweet leaves that we were thoroughly enjoying.  We'll see what comes of it all.

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Saturday, November 9th will be "hunting day" with my 14-year-old son (the "Man Cub").  I've read that the cattle on a thousand hills belong to our Great God... I'm hoping he'll bring one or two near to our muzzles, for a harvest.  Should we be blessed in such a way, I'll post pictures here.

Have a blessed day, and remember, "my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

Is Safety an Enemy?

Photo by history.howstuffworks.com

I checked this book out from the public library today:

 

Now, it's no surprise to anyone who has even scanned this blog, that I would want to devour a book like this.  Just the very title encapsulates a life-dream of mine... an "item on the bucket list", if you will.  However, I wonder if my de facto familiarity with conventional modern housing construction -- as well as my fear of failure at such an intimidating goal -- represent significant obstacles to my getting serious about actually building such a home?  In other words...
Is safety an enemy?
Not safety as in, "don't run with scissors"; but safety as in, "I don't want to fail in a highly-embarrassing, financially devastating way, so it's safer not to try".
When/if the opportunity presents itself (whenever that may be), will I have the guts to try, to persist?
I hope so.  Safety schmafety.

Crowded Cabin

Lately, I've been checking out every possible library book about owner-built dwellings.  You know: log cabins, "pole-buildings", even off-beat stuff like cordwood cabins and yurts.  In nearly every case, these manuals are written by people who have successfully built their own home... for a family of three or less.

What the heck?

Is there some unwritten rule that says: "In order to be able to build your own home from scratch, from sustainable resources, without paying an arm-and-a-leg, your birthrate must be less than the average for say, Russia."???  Come on, authors, aren't you aware of the Demographic Winter we're having?

Well anyway, My wife and I are the proud and vibrant (albeit often-harried) parents of five (5!) incredible children.  And yes! --  we fully intend to build our own home, on a strict budget, big enough to accommodate our family and the occasional visitors.  This is a major part of the vision that the Good Lord has planted in our hearts, decades ago, and we believe that He will see it through.  We have a goal of accomplishing this task without debt; for debt, in the economy-to-come, will become the enslaver of hundreds of millions of people.  (Look what it's done to our nation's well-being, thus far!)

So, if you are wandering through your local book retail store (if they even continue to exist apart from Amazon :-), and you happen to spot a title that looks something like "How To Build A Sustainable Cabin for a Large Family Without Completely Losing Your Sanity or Family Unity", buy it on the spot!

After all, it'll probably be mine.

Have a blessed day, friends.

Dandy Lions

This week, I've been assigned the monumentally important, earth-shaking task of... cleaning up around the shop.  You know — spray weeds, demolish old fences, etc.  Now I must confess that my thinking is being radically altered in the way of re-purposing old materials: I'm attempting to always think outside the box ("O-T-B") when it comes to "de-comissioned resources", so to speak.  But make no mistake: I'm not a disciple of the Anthropogenic Climate Change movement (AKA "Global Warming").  Too many slippery slopes into pantheism and too much bad science, yessir.  However, I do try to practice what Yahweh commands humankind to do in Genesis 1:28 — "...replenish the earth, and subdue it..." (KJV).  Perhaps "replenishing the earth" implies that in order to continue to enjoy the earth's natural resources (water, wood, plant life, minerals, etc.), we ought to squeeze every bit of good that we can out of whatever it is we're working with, and not be quick to discard things, as is the custom of our wildly-consumerist culture here.  Anyway, back to our story.

I was getting ready to spray the unwelcome "weeds", when I realized that the plants in question were mostly dandelions.  Now even a cursory search for the health benefits of dandelions will reveal that they are far more useful than they are given credit for.  And these particular dandelions had the healthiest, most perfect leaves I have ever seen on such a plant.  I mean, they grew en masse back in North San Diego, but they always seemed a little dingy and dirty — not something you'd want to throw on a salad.  But these... well, they were Montana dandelions.  'Nuff said.

Before spraying the doomed shrubbery, I clipped the leaves and soaked them in some hand soap for a while.  After I tackled that pesky fence for a while (recovering about half of those 2x4's and 2x6's for building a square foot garden, later), I came back and rubbed, rinsed and dried the dandelion leaves.  Man, are they pretty!  Check these out:

The Dear Wife and the kiddos will be joining me for lunch today, and I plan to impress them with my scavenging/gardening/re-purposing "skillz".  Now, what will YOU do today, to think "O-T-B" and re-purpose something?  "Leave" (pun intended) a comment, if you will.

Have a blessed day, friends.

Update:  I just ate a couple of the leaves, and they are a little on the bitter side, at first, but the after-taste mellows quickly, leaving the satisfaction of knowing how happy my liver will be to receive them.  ;-)

Ric the Tanner, part 2 (NOT FOR THE SQUEEMISH!)

(Warning:  If you are a card-carrying member of PETA, please know that I did not harvest this animal.  She had already met her unfortunate demise before our acquaintance :-)


For those interested in how that bearskin is coming, here are some pictures.

(Scroll down for the slideshow)

Ric, the Tanner??

Yes, being the aspiring Mountan Man, I've been reading the definitive primer on the subject of tanning hides:



After deciding that I should, in fact, attempt to become adept at this primitive (but complex!) skill, I decided to post an ad on Craigslist, to see if anyone had any "hides" laying around in their freezer, just itching to be tanned.  Well, as it turned out, someone did!  Here's what I got back:

"Hi...  I shot a nice black bear last fall, the hide [and skull attached, I've been told] is in my freezer.  Was not quality to make a rug out of as she sat on tree limbs to eat apples and rubbed off alot of butt hair. I was shocked at the prices to get hides tanned. I don't want it to go to waste, so if you are interested in working out some sort of deal. If it turned out nice I could pay you for your time and get it back or if not we can say we tried to save it.  [He leaves his name and phone number here.]  Get ahold of me and see what we can do..."

So, I'll be picking it up on Saturday (of course I'm bringing the kids), and we'll see what becomes of it.  I'd like to look back on this day and be able to say it was the beginning of my long experience in the tanning trade.

"Urban Danger" - the movie

My dear bride and I are so diggin' this awesome documentary... It's long (2+ hours), so we'll have to finish it tomorrow.  I hope you enjoy it, too!

Watch "Urban Danger" on YouTube