Came back here with the intention of deleting that last post. I guess it really wasn't too bitchy, but it felt bitchy. I was in a bad mood when I wrote it, and the words felt moody in my head. Feel free to ignore that last post. There's some very good advice in it, but it's rather bitter advice, and I try to tell myself I'm more optimistic than that.
Anyway, another thing.
I finally published my novel. Here's a link. I doubt anyone comes to this blog, but I'll leave it anyway. The novel is called There were Spirits in the Stone and it's a post-apocalyptic sci-fi. If that's your kind of read, then follow the link to get a better description and some free sample chapters. If you enjoy the sample chapters, the rest of the book is only $1.99 which is pretty affordable.
It's a first novel, so publishing it has been sort strange. Not really emotional so much as just strange. I was telling my fiance earlier tonight. I can't sit down and read my novel, because every time I look at it, I hear a different voice reading it to me. Normally when I read a novel, I envision the author's voice reading it to me. Every author writes to his or her own specific cadence, therefore, I can hear every author's voice as a unique voice. My own writing doesn't sound like anyone's voice. It sounds... weird in my head.
So, I've put the book away. I don't know if it's a good book or a bad book. I'm really hoping someone will give me some feedback, because I think it'll be quite a while before I'll be able to just open it up and start reading it like a normal book. And I've already started on the next book. This first one was actually a prequel for a series. Don't worry, the series will be better written than the first book. I hope.
In other news, I've drawn up plans for several different imaginary houses. There's the concrete one, which is definitely my dream house. There's also a few different ideas regarding what to do with the trailer, since we've got it and I might as well no waste it.
It might turn out to be good to have, because building a wooden house will be very difficult in the woods in the middle of nowhere without access to tools or electricity. If I realize I need a special kind of screw out on our land (middle of nowhere), it'll take me four hours to drive out, buy it, and drive back. But if I do it on the trailer on a property near a home depot, my chances of getting it successfully finished are higher.
I'm still not gonna take help from anyone in making it. I'm really not trying to sound bitter with this, but I'm not taking help making this unless its from my fiance. It's no one's fault, it's just that people have schedules and they get busy and things don't get done. And it's more than that. I want the learning experience of turning the trailer into a tiny house on wheels, because if I understand how to do that, I can then move on to bigger projects (like the concrete dream house).
So... now all I need is money. Since I'm going to be making this with the cheapest material I can find, I should be able to make it with about $2000.
I'm gonna have to sell a lot of books...
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
My Recent Obsession
I must be a crazy woman. In my spare time I've been compiling information on the requirements of a DIY house-building project. I call it the Imaginary House. It's my guilty pleasure.
Guilty because the trailer didn't pan out, and I spent $800 to get a series of unpleasant, practical, and "you'd think I'd know better" lessons. The trailer is going nowhere. It started going nowhere within the first week and when we had our unexpected relocation, I decided to scrape what remained of my dignity into a thimble and abandon the thing. I could gripe and complain, but the fact of the matter is that I really needed those lessons to know what not to do with the Imaginary House.
~Imaginary House Rule #1: Have a very precise cost analysis of all materials required, money set aside with which to purchase them, extra money for unexpected expenses, and purchase all materials ahead of time. (You'd think I'd know better...)
~Imaginary House Rule #2: Be capable of doing everything yourself. If you can't do it entirely by yourself, have money set aside to hire someone to do it. (Since hiring someone is expensive, might as well learn how to do it by yourself.) People might volunteer to help. That's very nice. Don't expect them to follow through. People have busy lives.
~Imaginary House Rule #3: Understand the logistics of everything. Have a clear plan for how every little piece of every step works and do not deviate. People will tell you the "correct" way to do things. Unless its a safety issue, thank them, then ignore them. They do not necessarily have a vested interest in completing the project. They do not necessarily have a working knowledge of what you want the project to look like. And even if they do have a working knowledge that could greatly improve your project, refer back to Rule #2. Nothing sucks like waiting around for several months for someone to finish the key element of one comparatively small piece of a project that only they know how to do.
~Imaginary House Rule #4: This is more like a dire warning about rule #3. I like to think I'm not so arrogant as to ignore a professional when they tell me I'm doing something wrong. Normally I'm a strong advocate for listening to other people and considering their advice. The problem with this comes when they tell you you're doing something wrong then refuse to offer a workable alternative. So, when issues arise with Rule #3, consult Rule #2. If someone tells you doing something is vital to the completion of your project, does doing that something depend entirely on them finding the free time to do it for you? They might think they're helping by offering to do this complicated thing for you. But really, they're not. Nothing sucks like being stuck on a project with nothing to do for several months because someone started to do something vital that you don't understand and didn't finish it.
So... yeah, those are the first rules of my building plan for the Imaginary House. They sound fantastically bitchy. I do apologize. I had a lot of help from several well-meaning people on the trailer, and it wasn't anybody's fault (expect probably mine) that it became such an absolute disaster. There were several points during which, if I'd had any leadership qualities at all, I should have taken charge and said, "No, we're going to do it this way." However, I have no leadership qualities. I'm an antisocial person. I'm not a team player, and my plans for the trailer should have reflected that.
So, because of this, my Imaginary House plans will be based on the assumption that I don't play well with others, except possibly Fiance. If something needs to be done, I will do it myself.
Of course, this opens up a whole new door that I would never have expected to open in the past: the sheer mental joy of learning everything about building a house from the foundation up.
Last week, I spent hours trying to figure out how to correctly design and hand craft large beam trusses for a cathedral-style ceiling. This week, I'm beginning to look at electricity. Half the challenge is finding out how these things work in the first place.
I should mention that I'm one of those odd folks who gets an enormous jolt in the pleasure center by learning something new and foreign. I'm in house-building heaven, weighing the pros and cons of different roofing materials because installing roofing is something people always tell me to hire someone else to do. How many people who've never worked as roofers install their own roofs? And what about all the stuff that goes on underneath the roofing material? Trusses? Support beams? How about some fancy-looking purlins?
Roofs used to scare me. I didn't know how they were designed, and because I didn't know that, I assumed that I'd have to hire someone to put them up for me, thus tremendously increasing my imaginary building costs. Before roofs it was plumbing. How on earth does plumbing work? And then I saw youtube videos of people who'd installed tankless water heaters in DIY off-grid housing and some of the mystery's gone.
I feel reasonably confident that I can install my own plumbing, build my own roof, and assemble my own walls.
So now I'm studying electricity, which is perhaps the biggest and scariest of the big scary things I don't know how to do. I'm not sure I'll be able to make electricity work for me. I might have to cave a little and hire an electrician to make sure I don't burn my house down or electrocute myself. But I'm going to study it first. I want to understand it. I want to know how it works. I want it done my way.
I'm sure that sounds spoiled and bratty. Maybe it is, but I want to understand the Imaginary House. I want to build it and, having built it, I want to be able to dissect it with my eyes and identify all the inner workings that make it what it is. If something breaks down, I want to understand why and how. I want to know which parts broke down and how those parts can be fixed or replaced. I want to be capable of doing the fixing/replacing myself. I don't want to feel helpless in the Imaginary House until a professional comes and magically fixes whatever broken thing I don't understand.
Of course, there is a possibility, the Imaginary House will never be built. It is imaginary after all. If that's the case, I still want to learn and understand how it works. If only because it's way too fun to learn about.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Why I haven't posted in a while...
Due to a series of unforeseen events, we ended up moving away from where we lived very hurriedly. We packed up all our belongings, spent two nights in a hotel room shopping for apartments, then a month at a good friend's house until our new apartment was ready. It's a beautiful apartment and we're very happy here.
We were able to bring the cats with us (they're like our pre-children children). We were not able to take the chickens with us. The last I've heard, they were sold to a very humane chicken farm. The trailer is sitting in someone's driveway.
The move was a bit stressful-- as I suppose any sudden relocation would be-- but I'm very happy that we ended up where we are. This is a beautiful place, and both my fiance and I (and even the cats) are very pleased with out new home.
That said, today I finally began looking at what to do with the trailer. Since the sudden move, I've been considering abandoning the trailer altogether to build more permanent housing on the land we purchased. However, we've begun discussing the possibility of leaving the state altogether.
If this were to be the case, we might benefit from having a livable trailer to plop on a new plot of land in a new state and live out of until a more permanent dwelling was constructed.
So... I might begin working at the trailer again. I'm pretty sure it would be mostly me doing the work on it this time around. The people who had been available to help me in the past had a lot of schedule conflicts, and several aspects of the trailer work were delayed indefinitely while we waited for our schedules to line up.
So, this time, I'll just work on it myself. If it turns out okay, it turns out okay. If it doesn't, I'll consider it a learning experience. My long-term goal is to live someday in a house that I've built (more or less) with my own hands. As the trailer will be a much smaller project, it might give me an idea how realistic my aspirations are.
It might all be a disaster. Certainly there will be at least a few problems that I don't have the experience to remedy correctly. So I'll just have to make due with the flaws and try to compensate as best I can.
Wish me luck. One of these days, we'll get back on track. One of these days, I'll be able to start up a new flock of chickens and build that tiny house I've wanted to build. We'll just have to wait until we can do it in a place that's more stable.
Every experience, good or bad, is a learning experience. I'll look at the world that way, and just keep going. It's all any of us can do.
Monday, April 30, 2012
The Coop is Finished! :)
Yesterday, my fiance came to me at about noon and told me the chickens didn't seem to be handling the heat well. We'd managed to put a roof on the coop and move it outside, but the run wasn't finished, so we'd kept them inside the coop for the last two days. It wasn't ideal, but it was roomier than the tub.
I went to check on the chickens and they all looked uncomfortable in the coop. The window that I'd hoped would give them ventilation didn't seem to be venting out enough. They were all panting. So we did something I read about in my research (I was not voluntarily being mean to my poor chickens) and carried them out of the coop one at a time and poured water on them from one of those sprinkly watering pails.
They weren't thrilled about it, but they did cool off very quickly. They seemed a lot more lively afterward.
This meant that the rest of our day was devoted to finishing the coop and run so that they could go outside to cool down on hot days (like yesterday). I was a bit burned out on coop-making and a tad under the weather, so I ended up watching while my fiance finished the chicken ramp. I was very grateful. He did a wonderful job (better than I would have).
So, we have our completed coop and run. The chickens seem happy. We lock them in the coop overnight and open the ramp up for passage during the day. We need to water them regularly, and make sure the have food. In the evenings, I plan to give them some sort of "treat" to lure them up into the coop. Last night it was squash guts which they seemed very excited about.
Our chickens have now become considerably more low-maintenance. This means I can return my attention to cheese-making. From thence, onward to goat-owning (and the subsequent goat-cheese making and goat-cheese selling).
Hopefully all of this works. So far nothing's gotten into the coop and killed any of our birds, and the birds themselves don't seem to have any illnesses (knock on wood, knock on wood). I do hope to make a small detachable tractor for them sometime in the near future so that I can house sick or broody hens as they come up. I'd prefer to have the tractor and not need it for several months than need it and not know what to do without it.
Anyway, for now all seems to be going well. I need to go make dinner. ttyl :)
I went to check on the chickens and they all looked uncomfortable in the coop. The window that I'd hoped would give them ventilation didn't seem to be venting out enough. They were all panting. So we did something I read about in my research (I was not voluntarily being mean to my poor chickens) and carried them out of the coop one at a time and poured water on them from one of those sprinkly watering pails.
They weren't thrilled about it, but they did cool off very quickly. They seemed a lot more lively afterward.
This meant that the rest of our day was devoted to finishing the coop and run so that they could go outside to cool down on hot days (like yesterday). I was a bit burned out on coop-making and a tad under the weather, so I ended up watching while my fiance finished the chicken ramp. I was very grateful. He did a wonderful job (better than I would have).
So, we have our completed coop and run. The chickens seem happy. We lock them in the coop overnight and open the ramp up for passage during the day. We need to water them regularly, and make sure the have food. In the evenings, I plan to give them some sort of "treat" to lure them up into the coop. Last night it was squash guts which they seemed very excited about.
Here they are, clucking and fluffing happily around the ramp J. made for me.
Our chickens have now become considerably more low-maintenance. This means I can return my attention to cheese-making. From thence, onward to goat-owning (and the subsequent goat-cheese making and goat-cheese selling).
Hopefully all of this works. So far nothing's gotten into the coop and killed any of our birds, and the birds themselves don't seem to have any illnesses (knock on wood, knock on wood). I do hope to make a small detachable tractor for them sometime in the near future so that I can house sick or broody hens as they come up. I'd prefer to have the tractor and not need it for several months than need it and not know what to do without it.
Anyway, for now all seems to be going well. I need to go make dinner. ttyl :)
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Chicken Taming and Land to Live On
So, yesterday, my mother-in-law, R. and I all drove to this plot of land and met with a very pleasant lady who posted it for sale on Craigslist. It's a bit out of the way (understatement) but it's within our price range. It's a beautiful stretch of land. We'll need to clear parts of it. Maybe we can get a goat to clear it for us... not yet.
Anyway, here's a picture:
Beautiful, eh? I was a little nervous, because this is a Craigslist deal, and you get what you pay for, but the seller seems honest. It's worth a try.
We won't be able to live on it right away (even if we could magically clear the whole half acre overnight). But if my fiance and I work with the land during the weekends, clearing and building, it might prove to be a very beautiful (getting-in-touch-with-nature type) bonding activity for us. I'm trying to give my inner optimist a voice here.
And, now for something a little more entertaining.
The birds are getting big! I didn't get to see much of them yesterday, and it looks like they grew visibly overnight.
I've been trying to tame them. At least to the point that they don't flee and cower at the far end of the coop every time I approach them. (Chickens, apparently, are instinctively afraid of people. I really can't fault them on that one.) So I've been making sure to bring a treat every time I spend any time with them. I've been using dry oatmeal because I have access to it, but I'd like to switch over to sunflower seeds, which are supposed to be good for healthy feather growth. I had to buy the salted kind and wash all the salt off. It was that, or barbecue flavor.
Anyway, this morning I opened the door to give them some fresh water and food, and I brought a piece of zucchini (they haven't been able to go outside, so I figured they'd enjoy something green). They all ran up to me when they saw something in my hand. Then they noticed that it wasn't oatmeal, and stood in a little circle around my hand, staring at the zucchini. Eventually one of them walked up and pecked at it, then backed away quickly. A few of the others tried, but it was too big a chunk for them to do much with it.
I put the zucchini away and sprinkled some oatmeal in my palm. Chicken feeding frenzy. They all ran up to me and started nibbling at my hand, picking up little oats, and chewing at my fingers. They have this very delicate bite and twist technique that tickles.
So, good. They're starting to associate me with food. That means picking them up to check them for parasites will be easier. Plus it's fun to see them all come running up to me when I open the door. They are cute, funny little creatures.
People keep telling me they'll breed like flies. I really hope that's true. Anyway, I must finish building that chicken coop. Until next time :)
Anyway, here's a picture:
We won't be able to live on it right away (even if we could magically clear the whole half acre overnight). But if my fiance and I work with the land during the weekends, clearing and building, it might prove to be a very beautiful (getting-in-touch-with-nature type) bonding activity for us. I'm trying to give my inner optimist a voice here.
And, now for something a little more entertaining.
I've been trying to tame them. At least to the point that they don't flee and cower at the far end of the coop every time I approach them. (Chickens, apparently, are instinctively afraid of people. I really can't fault them on that one.) So I've been making sure to bring a treat every time I spend any time with them. I've been using dry oatmeal because I have access to it, but I'd like to switch over to sunflower seeds, which are supposed to be good for healthy feather growth. I had to buy the salted kind and wash all the salt off. It was that, or barbecue flavor.
Anyway, this morning I opened the door to give them some fresh water and food, and I brought a piece of zucchini (they haven't been able to go outside, so I figured they'd enjoy something green). They all ran up to me when they saw something in my hand. Then they noticed that it wasn't oatmeal, and stood in a little circle around my hand, staring at the zucchini. Eventually one of them walked up and pecked at it, then backed away quickly. A few of the others tried, but it was too big a chunk for them to do much with it.
I put the zucchini away and sprinkled some oatmeal in my palm. Chicken feeding frenzy. They all ran up to me and started nibbling at my hand, picking up little oats, and chewing at my fingers. They have this very delicate bite and twist technique that tickles.
So, good. They're starting to associate me with food. That means picking them up to check them for parasites will be easier. Plus it's fun to see them all come running up to me when I open the door. They are cute, funny little creatures.
People keep telling me they'll breed like flies. I really hope that's true. Anyway, I must finish building that chicken coop. Until next time :)
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Separated the Flocks
Bits of info today. I've sliced my hands up so much now that this morning when the tomato stake I was carrying broke and split open the skin between my fingers, I didn't really even notice that the blood was oozing all over my hand until I was in the car and halfway to the hardware store.
Got hinges for the coop door (the one the chickens will use).
We separated the flocks last night. Her chickens are in the tub (she has four). And mine are in the coop I made. They don't seem to object to the wire mesh floor. I finally managed to look it up. (You know how, when you google something, you don't necessarily find any information pertaining to your topic?) So, people say it's okay. The birds won't mind. Awesome.
So, they should be ready to live outside permanently in about a week. I can't wait. Of course, the coop's not done yet. I wouldn't call it a defensible structure just yet, and I wouldn't want them outside in it until it reaches that point.
I started work on the run yesterday. In fact, that's all I worked on yesterday. I wove the wire mesh for the roof together. Then, since I didn't have wood to complete the frame, I went out into the woodsy area behind the garage and found some fallen limbs which I then sawed down to the appropriate lengths. I'm using those to support the over-all frame, which has been going relatively smoothly so far. (Knock on wood.)
I should be getting back to work any minute, but I wanted to burn some time just sitting and doing nothing. I've been working like crazy to get this coop done. Once it is done, I realized I'm probably gonna have to sit around for a week and wait for the birds to get big and strong enough to handle being outside.
I also need to take some time today just sit with them and let them grow accustomed to my scent. They scratched me up pretty good last night when I started carrying them from the pen we had them in outside. They're getting big enough that they can do some damage if they want to. Must remember to look up the best way to pick up and hold them so that they'll stay calm.
So much do to. Will post pictures of the run once it's up and running (no pun intended). Wish me luck.
P.S. Received a renewal notice for my stripper license. Tore it up. So that's the end of that part of my life. Now I just hope I make a satisfactory housewife.
Got hinges for the coop door (the one the chickens will use).
We separated the flocks last night. Her chickens are in the tub (she has four). And mine are in the coop I made. They don't seem to object to the wire mesh floor. I finally managed to look it up. (You know how, when you google something, you don't necessarily find any information pertaining to your topic?) So, people say it's okay. The birds won't mind. Awesome.
So, they should be ready to live outside permanently in about a week. I can't wait. Of course, the coop's not done yet. I wouldn't call it a defensible structure just yet, and I wouldn't want them outside in it until it reaches that point.
I started work on the run yesterday. In fact, that's all I worked on yesterday. I wove the wire mesh for the roof together. Then, since I didn't have wood to complete the frame, I went out into the woodsy area behind the garage and found some fallen limbs which I then sawed down to the appropriate lengths. I'm using those to support the over-all frame, which has been going relatively smoothly so far. (Knock on wood.)
I should be getting back to work any minute, but I wanted to burn some time just sitting and doing nothing. I've been working like crazy to get this coop done. Once it is done, I realized I'm probably gonna have to sit around for a week and wait for the birds to get big and strong enough to handle being outside.
I also need to take some time today just sit with them and let them grow accustomed to my scent. They scratched me up pretty good last night when I started carrying them from the pen we had them in outside. They're getting big enough that they can do some damage if they want to. Must remember to look up the best way to pick up and hold them so that they'll stay calm.
So much do to. Will post pictures of the run once it's up and running (no pun intended). Wish me luck.
P.S. Received a renewal notice for my stripper license. Tore it up. So that's the end of that part of my life. Now I just hope I make a satisfactory housewife.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Coop!
(Still getting used to this new composing program. I adapt slowly to things. Painfully slowly lol.)
So, yesterday, I finally finished enough of the coop to house birds in it. It's not perfect, and it's definitely not ready to go outside. (Only half of it is finished, and it has no roof.) But, I was concerned about the larger birds. They're broilers, and they're prone to irritation of the stomach because they don't walk around as much as the smaller birds do. They lie down a lot, and if they lie down in their own filth, the ammonia gives them rashes.
I've noticed all our broilers going bald on their stomachs and I've been concerned that they were over-crowded in the tub we originally had them housed in. (They grew so fast!) We've been trying to keep them clean, but pooping is like a twenty-four seven hobby for these guys.
So, yesterday, at about eight in the evening I finally finished the fourth removable door of the coop, which would enable me to secure the birds inside at night. (It's not predator proof, but it will contain the chickens.)
My coop design has been rather interesting (to me at least) in that it is a hybrid coop/chicken tractor. It's a complete coop in and of itself. However, it is designed to be disassembled and relocated from time to time to give the chickens constant access to fresh, clean grass. (Clean is a big thing with me. Clean is healthy for them and not-stinky for me.)
Anyway, there are four "removable doors" on the coop that can be unlocked and then lifted off so that the coop is light and moveable. Once the doors are in place, it's far too heavy to move. The second part of the coop, which I'd like to start building today will be a chicken run/chicken tractor which the birds can be housed in while the main coop is being moved. At some point I'd like to add an isolation pen on the other side for introducing new birds to the flock. But that's not happening anytime soon. I'll be happy if I can get the tractor/run up and working.
So far, our coops cost us about... seventy dollars? The wood was free (thank you again to R. for negotiating to keep the junked lumber and wooden pallets, and to my in-laws for letting us have the wood). The wire was a big ticket item because I bought hardware cloth instead of poultry fence (which is pretty useless at stopping anything other than poultry). After that, there were the eye hooks, hinges and various odd bits of metal that held the thing together. Those add up... ugh, and I need to buy more.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling. Here's some pictures:
So that is the update on my little poop factories-- er-- baby birds. The coop is made. The birds don't seem to hate it (that I can tell). And now all I need to do is construct a roof and a chicken run/tractor. Wish me luck. (If anyone's even reading this... I don't think anyone's reading this. Oh well.)
So, yesterday, I finally finished enough of the coop to house birds in it. It's not perfect, and it's definitely not ready to go outside. (Only half of it is finished, and it has no roof.) But, I was concerned about the larger birds. They're broilers, and they're prone to irritation of the stomach because they don't walk around as much as the smaller birds do. They lie down a lot, and if they lie down in their own filth, the ammonia gives them rashes.
I've noticed all our broilers going bald on their stomachs and I've been concerned that they were over-crowded in the tub we originally had them housed in. (They grew so fast!) We've been trying to keep them clean, but pooping is like a twenty-four seven hobby for these guys.
So, yesterday, at about eight in the evening I finally finished the fourth removable door of the coop, which would enable me to secure the birds inside at night. (It's not predator proof, but it will contain the chickens.)
My coop design has been rather interesting (to me at least) in that it is a hybrid coop/chicken tractor. It's a complete coop in and of itself. However, it is designed to be disassembled and relocated from time to time to give the chickens constant access to fresh, clean grass. (Clean is a big thing with me. Clean is healthy for them and not-stinky for me.)
Anyway, there are four "removable doors" on the coop that can be unlocked and then lifted off so that the coop is light and moveable. Once the doors are in place, it's far too heavy to move. The second part of the coop, which I'd like to start building today will be a chicken run/chicken tractor which the birds can be housed in while the main coop is being moved. At some point I'd like to add an isolation pen on the other side for introducing new birds to the flock. But that's not happening anytime soon. I'll be happy if I can get the tractor/run up and working.
So far, our coops cost us about... seventy dollars? The wood was free (thank you again to R. for negotiating to keep the junked lumber and wooden pallets, and to my in-laws for letting us have the wood). The wire was a big ticket item because I bought hardware cloth instead of poultry fence (which is pretty useless at stopping anything other than poultry). After that, there were the eye hooks, hinges and various odd bits of metal that held the thing together. Those add up... ugh, and I need to buy more.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling. Here's some pictures:
So here's a side view of the coop, with the little
chicken window for the birds to see out of.
Here's a view of removable doors one and two. Made from pallet wood
which R. and I took turns sawing loose from the pallets they were nailed to.
Each of those two doors is hinged and locked in place, but they are relatively
easy to lift up and off the coop for cleaning and coop relocation. Without
the four doors in place, the chicken coop is incredibly lightweight.
Here's a view from the chicken window in the first picture. The demonic
red light is the heating lamp we put up to keep the chicks warm overnight.
You might be able to see the mesh floor of the coop. I was rather concerned
when I first constructed this. I didn't want it to be uncomfortable on their feet, but
I did like the cleanliness factor. Most of the chicken poops drop through the mesh,
which means they won't be lying on their own filth. I left the cardboard box in
there, though, so that if they were uncomfortable, they'd have somewhere soft to lay. I
worried that the wire would also be hard on the broilers' stomachs, but I was
surprised to notice this morning that they seem to be regrowing a little of
their fuzz. Maybe it's just my imagination.
And here (in case you were wondering why I don't simply clean the coop more
often if filth is an issue) is the reason frequent cleaning alone won't stop the filth. We put
them in the new coop right before going to bed. When we woke up in the morning, all
of this was lying under the coop, having fallen through the mesh. And this is just
the stuff that made it through the mesh. There's all the stuff in the box to consider.
And there's also all the stuff that didn't make it through the box. The big puddles
are from the water feeder, which leaks occasionally, and then dribbled down to
make a nice, fetid poopy-soup. And if they'd been in their tub, they would have
been sleeping in that. Let me reiterate: they did this overnight.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Another Infodump (regarding chickens)
Wow. New posting format... I'm kinda lost here. Anyway, today is another infodump. A lot's happened that's been keeping me away from the computer. Namely: the birds are getting big! (I call the cats "the girls" and our chicks "the birds".)
So, yeah. They're getting big. Too big for the galvanized tub we originally had them set up in. They're dirtying their bedding overnight, which means we've been replacing it very regularly, but even that isn't quite good enough.
So I've been trying to make them a coop. I've kinda been in a hurry because, as soon as I've got the coop part of the coop ready, we can move them into that overnight, and put them in an outdoor chicken run my father-in-law built during the day (while I continue to build onto the coop).
So, once again, behold the innate messiness of the infodump:
1.) Blight. We lost half our seedlings to it. I've still got my rosemary and lavender seedlings, and plenty of tomatoes or peppers, but unfortunately while we were throwing away all the blighted plants, the remaining got mixed up. So we'll have some surprise plants growing. I know the peppers and tomatoes will probably cross-polinate, but since it's all going into my Infamous Throw-Together Burritos anyway, I don't think that'll be too much of a problem. Live and learn. Learn and live.
2.) Roof. I cannot thank R. and my in-laws enough for letting us have the junk wood salvaged when they were having their roof redone. Hail damage--> Insurance--> New roof--> wood for poor man's chicken coop. Long story short. Anyway, I'm very grateful for that, and all the help I've gotten figuring out how to use the power tools in the garage. And on that note, I'm also very grateful for the use of the power tools and all the nails, screws and drill bits you guys have let me use. This would quite literally have been impossible to do without that.
3.)Hands. I used to think my hands looked rough compared to the other strippers because I refused to wear nail polish. I didn't know the meaning of the word. My hands are now covered in little red dots where the hardware cloth poked through the skin. I've got burns on my right thumb and forefinger. I've got a slash on my left ring finger. I'm just happy I haven't lost a finger yet.
4.) Trees. I can climb them. Like a black bear. I didn't know I could do that. I was trying to get a dead limb from this rather tall tree which had no limbs near the bottom to use for support, so I just climbed right up it, grabbed the dead branch and hung from it until it broke loose, at which point both the branch and I hit the ground. (I landed on my feet.) So... awesome. I'm a cat. Cool.
5.) Roosting rods. Of my birds, Wings seems the most willing to tolerate my interference, so I've been using her as a "stunt bird" whenever I want the others to catch on to a new idea. For example, I made a mini roosting rod for the tub. I put Wings on it, and she very obediently sat in place, chirping in that way she does when she's content with whatever it is that I've done to her. While she was doing this, the other stopped cowering away from my hands and ran up to the rod, pecking at it curiously to determine whether it was edible or not. I left them to it and came back to find three of them perched on the roosting rod. Sadly, it's too small for the broilers. I'd like to make them all a little birdy ladder that they can climb to get up to the perches in the coop. People who've looked at what I've made so far say the coop looks like an aviary in a zoo. Basically, it is an aviary. These are birds. Yes, they're chickens, but they're also birds. Birds are happiest in aviaries. So, I'm making them an aviary coop. LOL
Hopefully, it's sturdy and not just pretty. I'm rather concerned about predators getting in. I built the first removable "door" of it yesterday. (Will post pictures soon.) I've also run out of hardware cloth, and apparently the store is sold out. Which reminds me that I need to go out and buy a latch for the removable "doors".
So much to do. Anyway, ttyl. :)
So, yeah. They're getting big. Too big for the galvanized tub we originally had them set up in. They're dirtying their bedding overnight, which means we've been replacing it very regularly, but even that isn't quite good enough.
So I've been trying to make them a coop. I've kinda been in a hurry because, as soon as I've got the coop part of the coop ready, we can move them into that overnight, and put them in an outdoor chicken run my father-in-law built during the day (while I continue to build onto the coop).
So, once again, behold the innate messiness of the infodump:
1.) Blight. We lost half our seedlings to it. I've still got my rosemary and lavender seedlings, and plenty of tomatoes or peppers, but unfortunately while we were throwing away all the blighted plants, the remaining got mixed up. So we'll have some surprise plants growing. I know the peppers and tomatoes will probably cross-polinate, but since it's all going into my Infamous Throw-Together Burritos anyway, I don't think that'll be too much of a problem. Live and learn. Learn and live.
2.) Roof. I cannot thank R. and my in-laws enough for letting us have the junk wood salvaged when they were having their roof redone. Hail damage--> Insurance--> New roof--> wood for poor man's chicken coop. Long story short. Anyway, I'm very grateful for that, and all the help I've gotten figuring out how to use the power tools in the garage. And on that note, I'm also very grateful for the use of the power tools and all the nails, screws and drill bits you guys have let me use. This would quite literally have been impossible to do without that.
3.)Hands. I used to think my hands looked rough compared to the other strippers because I refused to wear nail polish. I didn't know the meaning of the word. My hands are now covered in little red dots where the hardware cloth poked through the skin. I've got burns on my right thumb and forefinger. I've got a slash on my left ring finger. I'm just happy I haven't lost a finger yet.
4.) Trees. I can climb them. Like a black bear. I didn't know I could do that. I was trying to get a dead limb from this rather tall tree which had no limbs near the bottom to use for support, so I just climbed right up it, grabbed the dead branch and hung from it until it broke loose, at which point both the branch and I hit the ground. (I landed on my feet.) So... awesome. I'm a cat. Cool.
5.) Roosting rods. Of my birds, Wings seems the most willing to tolerate my interference, so I've been using her as a "stunt bird" whenever I want the others to catch on to a new idea. For example, I made a mini roosting rod for the tub. I put Wings on it, and she very obediently sat in place, chirping in that way she does when she's content with whatever it is that I've done to her. While she was doing this, the other stopped cowering away from my hands and ran up to the rod, pecking at it curiously to determine whether it was edible or not. I left them to it and came back to find three of them perched on the roosting rod. Sadly, it's too small for the broilers. I'd like to make them all a little birdy ladder that they can climb to get up to the perches in the coop. People who've looked at what I've made so far say the coop looks like an aviary in a zoo. Basically, it is an aviary. These are birds. Yes, they're chickens, but they're also birds. Birds are happiest in aviaries. So, I'm making them an aviary coop. LOL
Hopefully, it's sturdy and not just pretty. I'm rather concerned about predators getting in. I built the first removable "door" of it yesterday. (Will post pictures soon.) I've also run out of hardware cloth, and apparently the store is sold out. Which reminds me that I need to go out and buy a latch for the removable "doors".
So much to do. Anyway, ttyl. :)
Friday, April 13, 2012
Infodump
So, a lot's happened. So, I'm just going to drop a lot of info.
1.) Chickens
My God, they're getting big. I think it's safe to say they've entered the awkward teenage stage of their development. They're growing their feathers, and every time I look at them they seem just a little bit bigger. I woke up this morning and found Pip sitting on top of the feeder, about an inch below the top of the tub they're living in. So we put some chicken wire over the top to prevent them from getting out prematurely, and put a few sturdy twigs in for them to roost on. My in-laws started building their chicken coop this evening. My fiance and I will probably start tomorrow morning. The time is rapidly approaching that we will have chickens and not just chicks.
2.)Hair Gel
It's good, but at the same time, the way I made it is not. There's a reason everyone tells us to use whole flax seeds. I improvised with milled, since I had no money to buy whole. This means I ended up with a whole lot of very fine grains of flax in my hair gel. This means that when I used a whole lot of hair gel yesterday on my hair, I ended up with this sticky black goop all up in my hair that them combed out in itty bitty black crumbles. It looked like flea poops. Very gross. So I washed out all my hair gel, and I will be trying a new recipe soon, either with whole flax seeds or something else (gelatin, guar gum, xanthum gum... who knows what).
3.)Spring Water
So, apparently, we've been drinking untreated, fresh spring water. Which is awesome. Yesterday, we went to the spring to get more water. We literally drove for a way out into the countryside, then pulled over on the side of the rode in the middle of nowhere. Around here there are a lot of rock faces on the side of the road. There was one at the spot where we stopped, and sticking out of it was a pipe. And a bunch of fresh spring water was flowing out of it. Ground spring. Beautiful. Here's what it looked like:
So, that... seems like it'll be it. I'm sure there's more but I don't remember.
1.) Chickens
My God, they're getting big. I think it's safe to say they've entered the awkward teenage stage of their development. They're growing their feathers, and every time I look at them they seem just a little bit bigger. I woke up this morning and found Pip sitting on top of the feeder, about an inch below the top of the tub they're living in. So we put some chicken wire over the top to prevent them from getting out prematurely, and put a few sturdy twigs in for them to roost on. My in-laws started building their chicken coop this evening. My fiance and I will probably start tomorrow morning. The time is rapidly approaching that we will have chickens and not just chicks.
2.)Hair Gel
It's good, but at the same time, the way I made it is not. There's a reason everyone tells us to use whole flax seeds. I improvised with milled, since I had no money to buy whole. This means I ended up with a whole lot of very fine grains of flax in my hair gel. This means that when I used a whole lot of hair gel yesterday on my hair, I ended up with this sticky black goop all up in my hair that them combed out in itty bitty black crumbles. It looked like flea poops. Very gross. So I washed out all my hair gel, and I will be trying a new recipe soon, either with whole flax seeds or something else (gelatin, guar gum, xanthum gum... who knows what).
3.)Spring Water
So, apparently, we've been drinking untreated, fresh spring water. Which is awesome. Yesterday, we went to the spring to get more water. We literally drove for a way out into the countryside, then pulled over on the side of the rode in the middle of nowhere. Around here there are a lot of rock faces on the side of the road. There was one at the spot where we stopped, and sticking out of it was a pipe. And a bunch of fresh spring water was flowing out of it. Ground spring. Beautiful. Here's what it looked like:
Lovely, no?
So, that... seems like it'll be it. I'm sure there's more but I don't remember.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Ode to a Masculine Handkerchief
(Yay! Sleep deprivation, lotsa caffeine, and way too many parentheses!)
Sorry, guys. This is probably gonna be a long one.
So my fiance and I woke up at fourish this morning. (Actually, I'd been awake since one, so I was all bouncy and happy when his alarm went off.) I decided over my morning coffee (which I keep forgetting to drink, and instead carry around with me absentmindedly from place to place like a ceramic teddy bear full of hot liquid) to make hair goop.
So let me tell you about hair goop. I've been doing the "no shampoo" thing for a couple months now. (Which is not to say that my hair is perpetually dirty. It just means I use chemical compounds other than shampoo to wash it. Something I will never stop repeating.) Anyway, I've been very happy since giving up shampoo. I'm not as prone to dandruff as I used to be. Since dandruff is generally pretty gross, I figure this is a good thing.
But, I miss my hair conditioner. I mean, my life hasn't been the same since I threw away the last of my precious hair conditioner. Seriously, folks. I loved that hair conditioner. I needed that hair conditioner. Every morning.
Why, you may ask? (If you're reading this... I think Mom and I are the only ones reading this thing. Aren't we Mom? Mom? Okay, I might have over-estimated my readership, there.) Reason I love my hair conditioner number one. It makes my hair smell pretty. I haven't really ever worn perfume or body spray. I generally pick out a nice pleasant-smelling conditioner and the smell just sort of envelopes me and trails in my wake all day like a loyal puppy. Well, that puppy is gone now. And I miss it.
Reason I love my hair conditioner number two. I have super-curly hair. It has a mind of its own. If I don't coat it in something nice and slippery after getting it wet, it turns into one giant, brittle tangle. Fancy hair conditioners are too waxy or thick to do this, but that ultra-cheap Suave conditioner you see in the grocery store is actually the perfect texture and consistency. I used to dump a ton of that in my hair after the shower, smear it in and leave it in. It allowed my hair to dry into nice, clean frizz-free little ringlets, and there was no giant, brittle tangle issue.
Now that is gone. Oh, how I have missed it. The first thing I did was begin experimenting with oil. I would wash my hair (with my own stuff) then pour some oil into it. Problem one-- the oil all stuck to my hair in one place like a giant grease spot. So, then I would pour a large bowl full of hot water and let the oil float on top of the water and dip my hair into this, swishing it around until it was all nice and coated with oil. Problem two-- not enough oil. So I added more oil to the bowl. That didn't do it, either. More oil. My goodness, how much oil will this take? This is getting kind of expensive.
At last, I get it working right. This seemed like a solution until I realized that the oil never completely dries. My hair looked greasy (which is was) and filthy (which is wasn't necessary, but who cares at that point?). Worse than this, anything will stick to that much oil, so dirt, dust, foul odors, everything. I'd start a day with clean hair, but I'd end it with hair so filthy I couldn't stand myself.
So I shampooed it all out, and did not allow any oil to touch my hair again for quite some time.
Which left me with the giant, brittle tangle issue. I decided to try and let the natural sebum in my hair take care of that. Instead of getting my hair thoroughly wet every day like I used to, I would keep it dry and spray it with vinegar that way. Moderate success. My hair went completely straight (which was fun at first, but I started missing my "normal" hair after a while). It didn't tangle, but it didn't have the life or the bounce it used to.
The day before yesterday, I remarked rather sadly to my fiance that I miss my hair the way it was when I still used hair conditioner. He said he did, too. I sighed and figured what was lost was lost. (I'm a bit stubborn about the no shampoo thing. I'm determined to make it work, even if my hair type and body chemistry conspire against me.)
Anyway, yesterday, I was wandering the internet, contemplating returning to my hair much-beloved hair conditioner and trying to work up the determination to stay away from it. So I decided to look up just what chemical compound made that stuff so slippery (I assumed it was glycerin, and I was wondering about getting my hands on some vegetable glycerin to see if I could reproduce the effect on my hair).
Anyway, my google search showed up a recipe for homemade conditioner, which I clicked on fully expecting the usual "just use vinegar and all your tangles will magically disappear" which only works for people who don't have radically curly hair like mine. Instead, I found this recipe which got my very excited.
I realized that all my searches for "conditioner" were turning up fruitless because I never used my conditioner as conditioner. I used it as a kind of hair gel. So I did another search for homemade hair gel, and hit the mother load.
There's hair gel made with gelatin, hair gel made with guar and xanthum gum, hair gel made with flax seeds. Apparently, there are a lot of natural hair product-using people in this world who need hair gel the way I do.
Which is what led me, at five a.m. to my mother-in-law's kitchen armed with a copy of Naptural85's flax seed hair gel recipe. I didn't have half the ingredients. Well, I had water, which is technically half the ingredients. I didn't have the whole flax seeds which are kind of key for the recipe. I still don't have any essential oils at all, sadly. I did have a lot of determination. If this failed, it failed. Life would go on. If it succeeded, though...
Oh, my hair, how I've missed you!
So I took milled flax seeds, thought to myself that there were so many things that could go so wrong with using it, and added it to the water. I low-balled the flax seeds because I wanted something only faintly gel-like, the closest consistency to my old hair conditioner I could get.
Then I boiled it, thinking the whole time I was stirring, "This isn't going to work. This totally isn't going to work. If this doesn't work, I'll turn it into soup stock." And I would have, too. But it worked.
After what seemed like a small chunk of forever, I noticed the spoon getting just a little slippery. I got all excited and added more flax seed flour. Then, stirring with one hand, and rummaging in the spice cabinet with the other, I pulled out some ground cloves and added it to the brew. Like I said, I am still without essential oils, so whatever's in the spice cabinet ends up getting thrown into my creations. Like my fiance's rosemary, dried mint leaves, cloves, vanilla extract, orange extract. If it looks like it might smell kinda pretty, into the recipe it goes.
I brewed it a little longer, to let the cloves steep, and thought "This might work! This might actually work! I really didn't think this would work!"
And then came the moment of truth (and the reason I titled this post as I did). I didn't have any pantyhose, so I poured the brew into a common man's handkerchief draped over an oversize coffee mug. I've very recently realized just how awesome handkerchiefs are. I mean, yeah, you can blow your nose on them, but they're good for so many other things. For example, this particular handkerchief had recently been used as my labneh cheese-cloth and, in my opinion, worked better than the commercial cheese cloth I'd purchased for my first batch. I figured if anything would work for me, my best bet was the humble (but oh-so-useful) man's handkerchief.
Surprisingly, despite all the difficulties so many people seemed to have with this recipe, it worked like a charm. It strained out all the gritty bits of clove and flax seed perfectly. I'm pretty sure the finer grains got through, so for all I know, I'll have little grits of flax seed in my dried hair, but the current mixture looks pretty uniform in consistency. It's viscus, but not so much as some of the recipes I've seen. It's browner, too, because of the cloves and flax seed flour (as opposed to whole flax seeds). I added orange extract to it once I'd filtered it, and now it smells like some sort of tasty holiday beverage.
I don't think I'd mind one bit smelling like a tasty holiday beverage...
So, anyway, I popped it in the fridge to cool, and it now looks (the coffee mug helps this illusion) like some sort of goofied cappuccino.
Wish me luck putting it in my hair. I'll probably post a followup consisting mostly of either "it worked, it really worked!" or "OMG, it took me half an hour to get the gunk out of my hair."
I'll post pictures, too. :)
Sorry, guys. This is probably gonna be a long one.
So my fiance and I woke up at fourish this morning. (Actually, I'd been awake since one, so I was all bouncy and happy when his alarm went off.) I decided over my morning coffee (which I keep forgetting to drink, and instead carry around with me absentmindedly from place to place like a ceramic teddy bear full of hot liquid) to make hair goop.
So let me tell you about hair goop. I've been doing the "no shampoo" thing for a couple months now. (Which is not to say that my hair is perpetually dirty. It just means I use chemical compounds other than shampoo to wash it. Something I will never stop repeating.) Anyway, I've been very happy since giving up shampoo. I'm not as prone to dandruff as I used to be. Since dandruff is generally pretty gross, I figure this is a good thing.
But, I miss my hair conditioner. I mean, my life hasn't been the same since I threw away the last of my precious hair conditioner. Seriously, folks. I loved that hair conditioner. I needed that hair conditioner. Every morning.
Why, you may ask? (If you're reading this... I think Mom and I are the only ones reading this thing. Aren't we Mom? Mom? Okay, I might have over-estimated my readership, there.) Reason I love my hair conditioner number one. It makes my hair smell pretty. I haven't really ever worn perfume or body spray. I generally pick out a nice pleasant-smelling conditioner and the smell just sort of envelopes me and trails in my wake all day like a loyal puppy. Well, that puppy is gone now. And I miss it.
Reason I love my hair conditioner number two. I have super-curly hair. It has a mind of its own. If I don't coat it in something nice and slippery after getting it wet, it turns into one giant, brittle tangle. Fancy hair conditioners are too waxy or thick to do this, but that ultra-cheap Suave conditioner you see in the grocery store is actually the perfect texture and consistency. I used to dump a ton of that in my hair after the shower, smear it in and leave it in. It allowed my hair to dry into nice, clean frizz-free little ringlets, and there was no giant, brittle tangle issue.
Now that is gone. Oh, how I have missed it. The first thing I did was begin experimenting with oil. I would wash my hair (with my own stuff) then pour some oil into it. Problem one-- the oil all stuck to my hair in one place like a giant grease spot. So, then I would pour a large bowl full of hot water and let the oil float on top of the water and dip my hair into this, swishing it around until it was all nice and coated with oil. Problem two-- not enough oil. So I added more oil to the bowl. That didn't do it, either. More oil. My goodness, how much oil will this take? This is getting kind of expensive.
At last, I get it working right. This seemed like a solution until I realized that the oil never completely dries. My hair looked greasy (which is was) and filthy (which is wasn't necessary, but who cares at that point?). Worse than this, anything will stick to that much oil, so dirt, dust, foul odors, everything. I'd start a day with clean hair, but I'd end it with hair so filthy I couldn't stand myself.
So I shampooed it all out, and did not allow any oil to touch my hair again for quite some time.
Which left me with the giant, brittle tangle issue. I decided to try and let the natural sebum in my hair take care of that. Instead of getting my hair thoroughly wet every day like I used to, I would keep it dry and spray it with vinegar that way. Moderate success. My hair went completely straight (which was fun at first, but I started missing my "normal" hair after a while). It didn't tangle, but it didn't have the life or the bounce it used to.
The day before yesterday, I remarked rather sadly to my fiance that I miss my hair the way it was when I still used hair conditioner. He said he did, too. I sighed and figured what was lost was lost. (I'm a bit stubborn about the no shampoo thing. I'm determined to make it work, even if my hair type and body chemistry conspire against me.)
Anyway, yesterday, I was wandering the internet, contemplating returning to my hair much-beloved hair conditioner and trying to work up the determination to stay away from it. So I decided to look up just what chemical compound made that stuff so slippery (I assumed it was glycerin, and I was wondering about getting my hands on some vegetable glycerin to see if I could reproduce the effect on my hair).
Anyway, my google search showed up a recipe for homemade conditioner, which I clicked on fully expecting the usual "just use vinegar and all your tangles will magically disappear" which only works for people who don't have radically curly hair like mine. Instead, I found this recipe which got my very excited.
I realized that all my searches for "conditioner" were turning up fruitless because I never used my conditioner as conditioner. I used it as a kind of hair gel. So I did another search for homemade hair gel, and hit the mother load.
There's hair gel made with gelatin, hair gel made with guar and xanthum gum, hair gel made with flax seeds. Apparently, there are a lot of natural hair product-using people in this world who need hair gel the way I do.
Which is what led me, at five a.m. to my mother-in-law's kitchen armed with a copy of Naptural85's flax seed hair gel recipe. I didn't have half the ingredients. Well, I had water, which is technically half the ingredients. I didn't have the whole flax seeds which are kind of key for the recipe. I still don't have any essential oils at all, sadly. I did have a lot of determination. If this failed, it failed. Life would go on. If it succeeded, though...
Oh, my hair, how I've missed you!
So I took milled flax seeds, thought to myself that there were so many things that could go so wrong with using it, and added it to the water. I low-balled the flax seeds because I wanted something only faintly gel-like, the closest consistency to my old hair conditioner I could get.
Then I boiled it, thinking the whole time I was stirring, "This isn't going to work. This totally isn't going to work. If this doesn't work, I'll turn it into soup stock." And I would have, too. But it worked.
After what seemed like a small chunk of forever, I noticed the spoon getting just a little slippery. I got all excited and added more flax seed flour. Then, stirring with one hand, and rummaging in the spice cabinet with the other, I pulled out some ground cloves and added it to the brew. Like I said, I am still without essential oils, so whatever's in the spice cabinet ends up getting thrown into my creations. Like my fiance's rosemary, dried mint leaves, cloves, vanilla extract, orange extract. If it looks like it might smell kinda pretty, into the recipe it goes.
I brewed it a little longer, to let the cloves steep, and thought "This might work! This might actually work! I really didn't think this would work!"
And then came the moment of truth (and the reason I titled this post as I did). I didn't have any pantyhose, so I poured the brew into a common man's handkerchief draped over an oversize coffee mug. I've very recently realized just how awesome handkerchiefs are. I mean, yeah, you can blow your nose on them, but they're good for so many other things. For example, this particular handkerchief had recently been used as my labneh cheese-cloth and, in my opinion, worked better than the commercial cheese cloth I'd purchased for my first batch. I figured if anything would work for me, my best bet was the humble (but oh-so-useful) man's handkerchief.
Surprisingly, despite all the difficulties so many people seemed to have with this recipe, it worked like a charm. It strained out all the gritty bits of clove and flax seed perfectly. I'm pretty sure the finer grains got through, so for all I know, I'll have little grits of flax seed in my dried hair, but the current mixture looks pretty uniform in consistency. It's viscus, but not so much as some of the recipes I've seen. It's browner, too, because of the cloves and flax seed flour (as opposed to whole flax seeds). I added orange extract to it once I'd filtered it, and now it smells like some sort of tasty holiday beverage.
I don't think I'd mind one bit smelling like a tasty holiday beverage...
So, anyway, I popped it in the fridge to cool, and it now looks (the coffee mug helps this illusion) like some sort of goofied cappuccino.
Wish me luck putting it in my hair. I'll probably post a followup consisting mostly of either "it worked, it really worked!" or "OMG, it took me half an hour to get the gunk out of my hair."
I'll post pictures, too. :)
Sunday, April 8, 2012
More Chickens
Happy Easter everybody! :)
So, yesterday morning, I went out and bought six more chicks of indeterminate genders in the hope of getting a rooster in the mix. So we now have two red, two black and five blonde chicks. My mother-in-law's chicks are one red, one black and two blonde with black spots. The garage is filled with the cheeping peeps of many tiny critters.
The cats are scared of them. My poor babies.
Anyway, I have pictures all over my Flickr account, for those who are interested in seeing them. (Click the slideshow in the upper right hand corner.)
And I'll add a picture here while I'm at it.
Isn't he/she adorable? I actually can't wait till they get bigger and we can keep them in the coop out-doors. If they live that long, then I know that I'm considerably less likely to make a mistake that will get them all killed.
Anyway, wish me luck. :)
So, yesterday morning, I went out and bought six more chicks of indeterminate genders in the hope of getting a rooster in the mix. So we now have two red, two black and five blonde chicks. My mother-in-law's chicks are one red, one black and two blonde with black spots. The garage is filled with the cheeping peeps of many tiny critters.
The cats are scared of them. My poor babies.
Anyway, I have pictures all over my Flickr account, for those who are interested in seeing them. (Click the slideshow in the upper right hand corner.)
And I'll add a picture here while I'm at it.
Anyway, wish me luck. :)
Friday, April 6, 2012
CHICKENS!!!! :)
So we are now the proud owners of CHICKENS. :) So happy. So excited.
I bought four pullet chicks, and my mother-in-law bought two pullets and one chick of indescriminate gender. Their names are as follows. Mine are Wings, Spotlight, Shadow and Tiny. Hers are Pipsqueak (Pip), Star and Paulie/Polly.
I didn't expect them to be so ADORABLE! The tub (which we will convert to a bathtub after they're grown) is full of the sound of little cheeps. I'm trying to look up all their requirements.
Plus, I'm rotatilling the area where our garden will be.
And I'm trying to resist picking them up and holding them and cuddling them, and holding them some more :)
Anyway, here is the first in what will inevitably be a long stream of chicken pictures:
Aren't they just the cutest little things?
I bought four pullet chicks, and my mother-in-law bought two pullets and one chick of indescriminate gender. Their names are as follows. Mine are Wings, Spotlight, Shadow and Tiny. Hers are Pipsqueak (Pip), Star and Paulie/Polly.
I didn't expect them to be so ADORABLE! The tub (which we will convert to a bathtub after they're grown) is full of the sound of little cheeps. I'm trying to look up all their requirements.
Plus, I'm rotatilling the area where our garden will be.
And I'm trying to resist picking them up and holding them and cuddling them, and holding them some more :)
Anyway, here is the first in what will inevitably be a long stream of chicken pictures:
Aren't they just the cutest little things?
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Labneh and Chickens
After the trials and tribulations of yogurt-making, I wasn't to sure the labneh would be as easy as the instructions suggested. I kept expecting some small, fatal flaw to make itself evident in the finished product. Instead, what I got when I opened the handkerchief was perfect, yummy cream cheese. Exactly like the stuff you buy at the grocery store. It was perfect! I was overjoyed. I immediately used some as filling for these heart healthy dark chocolates I've been making. (Mostly for my fiance, but partly for me.)
So, I can make labneh cream cheese! I'm ready to attempt the next step, which is Neufchatel cheese. It's another creamy cheese, and generally that's what you're getting when you buy "goat cheese" at the grocery store. I need to make my own buttermilk first. And I need to get my hands on some rennet. I can't wait, but I think it'd be wise to take maybe a week to let the yogurt and labneh information sink into my head first.
Besides, we're getting chickens! WE'RE GETTING CHICKENS!!! (So happy.)
I've wanted chickens for years, but it was one of those things I didn't think was going to happen for at least a couple more years after this. But apparently, we're getting chickens. Either today or tomorrow. (Tomorrow, I think.) I imagine the journal will be full up with notes about chicken care and handling. I don't need to distract myself from that with another attempt at cheese. I've decided I must be a remarkably distracted person, because I can really only focus on learning one new thing at a time. The chickens will occupy my brains front burners for at least a couple days, more likely a couple weeks.
So, that's the matter I'll focus on for a while. And I will post pictures! Chicken pictures! I can't wait!!! :)
RECIPE:
HEART HEALTHY DARK CHOCOLATES
So, I'm sure someone else has thought of this, but coconut oil solidifies in the refrigerator at about the same texture and consistency of a Hershey's chocolate bar. So, lately, when I get a yen for sugar/chocolate, I've been mixing cocoa powder in with melted coconut oil, dribbling it into an ice cube tray, and sticking it in the fridge. (I don't add sugar, because I like my chocolate dark... like my coffee, LOL.)
Once it's solidified, which takes all of five minutes or so, I pull it out then drop a little piece of filling in. I think I'm going to experiment with raspberries and cream cheese (since I've got cream cheese). Then I pour more cocoa powder/coconut oil over the top and pop it back in the fridge.
The end result looks thus-ly...
...and it tastes like a very dark chocolate truffle. Usually if the filling is vaguely sweet, the chocolates are sweet enough for our sugar-avoidant palates. For people who actually do eat sugar (like normal, sane folks do), you'll probably want to sweeten yours. :)
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Yogurt Attempt 3. Success. Labneh Attempt 1...
Hopefully, I don't kill any more gallons of milk trying to do this. I know I will. It happens.
I am not a master yogurt-maker by any stretch of the imagination. Streptococcus thermophilus (as the name suggests) loves heat. But if you get it too hot, it will die. This last batch, instead of trying to play it safe at the low end of thermophilus's temperature range, I cranked it up and started working with the high end of the bacteria's heat tolerance. My thermometer kept fogging up, so I kept having to rinse it and restart my measurements. Which meant I was far hazier than I would have liked on the exact temperature of the milk and the heating bath in the cooler. (I got a cooler this time, because I was tired of making perfectly good yogurt and letting it sit in a too-cold house overnight.)
But it survived. I'm pretty sure if I do it all over again, I'll run the risk of killing my starter, but in a few more batches I think I'll get good and comfortable with it. (As an added bonus, everyone in the family will have enough sour cream substitute, soup thickener, fro-yo, and smoothies to last them a lifetime.)
Who ever thought that cooking up a batch of bacteria could be so exciting? (Or stressful?)
So, here comes recipe #2. Labneh. Hopefully, this won't prove to be as tricky as yogurt was for me.
I'm going to copy the recipe down in my journal in case anything ever happens to that beautiful, wonderfully informative website. (Have you ever noticed, it's always the websites with the best info that suddenly seem to shut down when you most need to find that recipe/chunk of information?)
Anyway, after copying that. I'm gonna pull out my newly purchased gentleman's handkerchief and make myself some yogurt cheese. Blue cheese, here I come!
PS: So I started making the labneh, and it looked so pretty sitting in the fridge, surrounded by veggies and healthy-type things, that I totally had to show it off. So, here you go: Labneh! (I still don't know how to pronounce the word... oh well.)
I am not a master yogurt-maker by any stretch of the imagination. Streptococcus thermophilus (as the name suggests) loves heat. But if you get it too hot, it will die. This last batch, instead of trying to play it safe at the low end of thermophilus's temperature range, I cranked it up and started working with the high end of the bacteria's heat tolerance. My thermometer kept fogging up, so I kept having to rinse it and restart my measurements. Which meant I was far hazier than I would have liked on the exact temperature of the milk and the heating bath in the cooler. (I got a cooler this time, because I was tired of making perfectly good yogurt and letting it sit in a too-cold house overnight.)
But it survived. I'm pretty sure if I do it all over again, I'll run the risk of killing my starter, but in a few more batches I think I'll get good and comfortable with it. (As an added bonus, everyone in the family will have enough sour cream substitute, soup thickener, fro-yo, and smoothies to last them a lifetime.)
Who ever thought that cooking up a batch of bacteria could be so exciting? (Or stressful?)
So, here comes recipe #2. Labneh. Hopefully, this won't prove to be as tricky as yogurt was for me.
I'm going to copy the recipe down in my journal in case anything ever happens to that beautiful, wonderfully informative website. (Have you ever noticed, it's always the websites with the best info that suddenly seem to shut down when you most need to find that recipe/chunk of information?)
Anyway, after copying that. I'm gonna pull out my newly purchased gentleman's handkerchief and make myself some yogurt cheese. Blue cheese, here I come!
PS: So I started making the labneh, and it looked so pretty sitting in the fridge, surrounded by veggies and healthy-type things, that I totally had to show it off. So, here you go: Labneh! (I still don't know how to pronounce the word... oh well.)
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Yogurt. Attempt 2. Fail.
I can cook. I'm not too terribly bad at cooking, even. But for some reason, my yogurt is a complete fail. And it bothers me. I follow the directions. I do what I'm told to do, and the yogurt fails. I try again, I do what I'm told to do. Again, a fail.
And I know what it is, too. I can't seem to keep my yogurt warm enough for the bacteria to thrive in the milk. The problem is, I don't really know what else I can do to keep it warm. I stuck it in the stove with a bunch of boiling hot water. Still not warm enough.
I'm pretty sure I shouldn't even attempt to make cheese until I've got yogurt down. I'm trying to make a yogurt cheese, but because my yogurt's so runny, it just seeped right through the cheese cloth. Another fail.
It doesn't help that every website I read up on says things like, "It's practically fool-proof" and "don't worry, this isn't rocket science!" Tell that to the two gallons of milk I've ruined so far. I suppose I need to buy a cooler, line it with blankets and then put a kettleful of hot water in a jar in with them just to make sure they stay warm enough.
Because we've got an early summer and every air conditioning unit in the house is going at full throttle, it's probably cooler in here now than it is in the winter. And yogurt likes warmth to grow.
I'm tempted to dump this batch. I suppose it'll work well enough in a smoothie. I just don't know where to go from here. I'm frustrated.
I'll try again. Eventually, I'll get this right.
And I know what it is, too. I can't seem to keep my yogurt warm enough for the bacteria to thrive in the milk. The problem is, I don't really know what else I can do to keep it warm. I stuck it in the stove with a bunch of boiling hot water. Still not warm enough.
I'm pretty sure I shouldn't even attempt to make cheese until I've got yogurt down. I'm trying to make a yogurt cheese, but because my yogurt's so runny, it just seeped right through the cheese cloth. Another fail.
It doesn't help that every website I read up on says things like, "It's practically fool-proof" and "don't worry, this isn't rocket science!" Tell that to the two gallons of milk I've ruined so far. I suppose I need to buy a cooler, line it with blankets and then put a kettleful of hot water in a jar in with them just to make sure they stay warm enough.
Because we've got an early summer and every air conditioning unit in the house is going at full throttle, it's probably cooler in here now than it is in the winter. And yogurt likes warmth to grow.
I'm tempted to dump this batch. I suppose it'll work well enough in a smoothie. I just don't know where to go from here. I'm frustrated.
I'll try again. Eventually, I'll get this right.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Journal, Cheese, and Goats.
So, yesterday was my official "end of stripping" cut-off. It ended with a whimper and not a bang. I guess I'm glad. I don't know what a bang would have been like. Probably unpleasant, considering the nature of the job.
Anyway, I am no longer a stripper. Or at least, I no longer consider myself a stripper. Which isn't saying much. I haven't considered myself a stripper for some time now. I haven't worked in... a while.
I saw going to post something to mark the occasion, but as it turned out, I had a to-do list as long as my arm. And other things just seemed more important. For example:
I was researching cheese-making. I knew I really wanted to do it, and I figured getting cozy with yogurt-making would be a good way to break into cheese. But this was something I assumed I wouldn't be able/ready to do until I had my own livestock. I particularly wanted goats. I don't know why. I just like goats.
So, I went online and finally looked up cheese-making. I got this lovely site right here. And I can't wait to try out their recipes. The thing that got me laughing though, was that they use goat milk. From their goats.
So, then I was researching goats. So now I'm all kinds of excited about having goats someday in the future. I've wanted goats for forever, but now I have another reason to want goats. I now have recipes for cheese. That I can make myself. With milk from goats.
I guess I get manic about weird things. Anyway, in order to do any of these things I so very much want to do, I need to figure out how to make yogurt without destroying gallon after gallon of grocery store milk. If I can make yogurt, I can make lebneh. If I can make lebneh, I can try to make... yeah, just visit the link above.
In all of that confusion, I got myself a journal at the Walgreens. A cheap thing. The cheapest I could find. It is now my new bestest best buddy (after my fiance). I spend a massive amount of my spare time visiting websites for all kinds of information. How to make relaxing bath salts. How to make your own soap. How to make your own cheese.
So, that's great and all, but the problem is that I usually have to re-read most of each of these lengthy articles to get the ingredients and steps of preparation of a lot of these things. A good writer adds entertaining anecdotal whatnots to their article, and most of the articles I read are written by excellent writers and bloggers. So, I find myself wasting lots of time fishing through my massive bookmarks collection for the right page that has the right recipe. Having done that, I have to scroll through the entire article to find the right ingredients. And then there's always the danger that I'll miss a step. "You mean you needed flax seed flour for that? But you didn't mention flax seed flour with all those other ingredients in paragraph six!"
See my problem? So I went through and copied down all my favorite recipes and cures into this journal which I now find myself using for everything. Wanna de-flea the cat? Journal! Wanna make the beet hummus you can't stop eating? Journal! How do you plant garlic? Journal!
So far I've copied twenty pages of information into that thing, and I'm nowhere near to stopping yet. How do you make cheese? This must go into the journal. What do goats eat? Journal!
I love it. Everything in there is scattered in this disorganized hodge-podge. And at the same time, because it's all hand-written, I remember where everything is just by the feel of the pages. (It's weird, but I'm like that with stuff I touch. Particularly stuff I write.)
At some point, I do want to write an index on a piece of loose-leaf and shove it in there. And I think I'm going to print out the cheese-making instructions, because those are very detailed and my hands are already cramping.
But I'm very happy today. I'm also very energized, because I couldn't sleep last night and I made up for it with lots and lots of coffee. So, I'm typing all this a mile a minute, and feeling perfectly wonderful with Everything while I'm doing it. Oh, blissful euphoria of coffee. My only drug.
So, I'm making a tincture (?) of rosemary and mint in vinegar. I know it's supposed to be used for cleaning, but I'm thinking I might use it to wash my hair. I've been using the vanilla/clove/vinegar spray in my hair and its worked out wonderfully.
But now I've got to run off and do more errand-y kinds of things. If anyone's reading this, I hope you're having a good day. I will be until the coffee filters out of my system. :)
Anyway, I am no longer a stripper. Or at least, I no longer consider myself a stripper. Which isn't saying much. I haven't considered myself a stripper for some time now. I haven't worked in... a while.
I saw going to post something to mark the occasion, but as it turned out, I had a to-do list as long as my arm. And other things just seemed more important. For example:
I was researching cheese-making. I knew I really wanted to do it, and I figured getting cozy with yogurt-making would be a good way to break into cheese. But this was something I assumed I wouldn't be able/ready to do until I had my own livestock. I particularly wanted goats. I don't know why. I just like goats.
So, I went online and finally looked up cheese-making. I got this lovely site right here. And I can't wait to try out their recipes. The thing that got me laughing though, was that they use goat milk. From their goats.
So, then I was researching goats. So now I'm all kinds of excited about having goats someday in the future. I've wanted goats for forever, but now I have another reason to want goats. I now have recipes for cheese. That I can make myself. With milk from goats.
I guess I get manic about weird things. Anyway, in order to do any of these things I so very much want to do, I need to figure out how to make yogurt without destroying gallon after gallon of grocery store milk. If I can make yogurt, I can make lebneh. If I can make lebneh, I can try to make... yeah, just visit the link above.
In all of that confusion, I got myself a journal at the Walgreens. A cheap thing. The cheapest I could find. It is now my new bestest best buddy (after my fiance). I spend a massive amount of my spare time visiting websites for all kinds of information. How to make relaxing bath salts. How to make your own soap. How to make your own cheese.
So, that's great and all, but the problem is that I usually have to re-read most of each of these lengthy articles to get the ingredients and steps of preparation of a lot of these things. A good writer adds entertaining anecdotal whatnots to their article, and most of the articles I read are written by excellent writers and bloggers. So, I find myself wasting lots of time fishing through my massive bookmarks collection for the right page that has the right recipe. Having done that, I have to scroll through the entire article to find the right ingredients. And then there's always the danger that I'll miss a step. "You mean you needed flax seed flour for that? But you didn't mention flax seed flour with all those other ingredients in paragraph six!"
See my problem? So I went through and copied down all my favorite recipes and cures into this journal which I now find myself using for everything. Wanna de-flea the cat? Journal! Wanna make the beet hummus you can't stop eating? Journal! How do you plant garlic? Journal!
So far I've copied twenty pages of information into that thing, and I'm nowhere near to stopping yet. How do you make cheese? This must go into the journal. What do goats eat? Journal!
I love it. Everything in there is scattered in this disorganized hodge-podge. And at the same time, because it's all hand-written, I remember where everything is just by the feel of the pages. (It's weird, but I'm like that with stuff I touch. Particularly stuff I write.)
At some point, I do want to write an index on a piece of loose-leaf and shove it in there. And I think I'm going to print out the cheese-making instructions, because those are very detailed and my hands are already cramping.
But I'm very happy today. I'm also very energized, because I couldn't sleep last night and I made up for it with lots and lots of coffee. So, I'm typing all this a mile a minute, and feeling perfectly wonderful with Everything while I'm doing it. Oh, blissful euphoria of coffee. My only drug.
So, I'm making a tincture (?) of rosemary and mint in vinegar. I know it's supposed to be used for cleaning, but I'm thinking I might use it to wash my hair. I've been using the vanilla/clove/vinegar spray in my hair and its worked out wonderfully.
But now I've got to run off and do more errand-y kinds of things. If anyone's reading this, I hope you're having a good day. I will be until the coffee filters out of my system. :)
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Well, We Ripped Out the Floor
So I altered the title. Because most of my entries in here seem to be about our conversion to an off-grid way of life. Maybe now when people read this, they'll know what most of it is about.
So, yesterday, Randy and I tore up the floor of the gypsy wagon. Randy sawed up large chunks of it; I carried the chunks out and cleared out the insulation underneath. The previous owners, upon realizing that their floor was rotting out, simply covered it in glue and lay a new floor on top of it. How very... special of them.
Of course, our gypsy wagon's changed hands plenty of times. Maybe they just did the quick fix to get it sold to the next unlucky pair of hands to take charge of it, before it was then transferred several more times before we got a hold of it. I know I need to fix virtually everything about it, but I still like it. For now at least.
Stepping across those beams felt a little bit like being in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was relatively sure I'd go plunging through the floor at any minute. But anyway--
I reread the instructions for yogurt making and I'd like to give it another try. Wish me luck.
I also read this article on glass jars which suddenly makes me want to get my hands on even more mason jars than the ten or so I've got right now. So far, I've used glass jars as--
~drinking glasses
~vases
~containers for many random collections of objects/insects
~yogurt-making jars
~tincture-making jars
~containers for perfume
~sprout-growing jars
But there are so many other uses. I'm particularly excited by the idea of using them to hold leftovers, since plastic containers can make the inside of a fridge get so ugly so fast.
I'd really like to get my hands on a notebook to write down all my recipes and ideas, too. Computers (and websites) always seems just a little bit unreliable. It's too easy to lose a web-page in the massive overflow of information. Or have my computer break down. Or anything else I haven't thought of yet.
But now, I'm rambling. I'm going to read up on making something interesting, artistic and useful. And I'm going to crochet something while I'm doing it.
Of course, our gypsy wagon's changed hands plenty of times. Maybe they just did the quick fix to get it sold to the next unlucky pair of hands to take charge of it, before it was then transferred several more times before we got a hold of it. I know I need to fix virtually everything about it, but I still like it. For now at least.
Stepping across those beams felt a little bit like being in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was relatively sure I'd go plunging through the floor at any minute. But anyway--
I reread the instructions for yogurt making and I'd like to give it another try. Wish me luck.
I also read this article on glass jars which suddenly makes me want to get my hands on even more mason jars than the ten or so I've got right now. So far, I've used glass jars as--
~drinking glasses
~vases
~containers for many random collections of objects/insects
~yogurt-making jars
~tincture-making jars
~containers for perfume
~sprout-growing jars
But there are so many other uses. I'm particularly excited by the idea of using them to hold leftovers, since plastic containers can make the inside of a fridge get so ugly so fast.
I'd really like to get my hands on a notebook to write down all my recipes and ideas, too. Computers (and websites) always seems just a little bit unreliable. It's too easy to lose a web-page in the massive overflow of information. Or have my computer break down. Or anything else I haven't thought of yet.
But now, I'm rambling. I'm going to read up on making something interesting, artistic and useful. And I'm going to crochet something while I'm doing it.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Sprouts! (And, of course, nice-smelling hair.)
So the thyme and the Italian and Genovese basil sprouted yesterday morning. I was shocked, because I'd expected a much longer waiting period after planting them in the little egg carton I had them all nestled into. By the end of the day one of the oregano plants was peeping its tiny head into the world as well. I'm very excited.
Yesterday was definitely a day of... something. DIY-ness? Crunchy-ness? Sadly, I haven't really researched what people call what I'm doing so much as I've just been doing it.
For example. I've been doing the no-shampoo thing for perhaps a month so far. But I missed the way my hair used to smell when I poured half a gallon of conditioner into it every morning (and never rinsed it out). So yesterday morning, I researched the ingredients of my one of my two homemade air fresheners a little before spraying the stuff directly into my hair. Now, my hair smells awesome. (And it's a pretty color, too. See?)
So then, since I was feeling inspired (and my skin had been dry for days) I tried using coconut oil in place of lotion. I honestly think it works better. No, that's not just my "it's good for you, so it must be better" side talking. I mean that I always hated lotion. It left this sticky residue stuff on my skin that left me feeling like I needed a bath. But the coconut oil just seemed to absorb into my skin, leaving it smooth and soft and healthy-feeling.
Yay. And then, because my mother-in-law had a bag of kale that was going to go bad, I made mixed berry/orange/ginger/kale smoothies. And those were pretty good.
So yesterday was a good day. I did healthy things. I tried new things. And my plants started sprouting! All totaled, it was a very good day.
That evening, a final thought crossed my mind before bed: in our purge of excess belongings, I've been careful to keep a hold on a single bag of stripper gear. A just-in-case bag. One pair of dance shoes, a few outfits, some makeup. I realized now's probably the time to go through that bag and let of the final vestiges of my stripperdom. I think that stage of my life just might be done for good.
My new job will be to publish my (damn) novels and garden organic food so as to save us money by cutting our grocery bill as much as possible. Knock on wood, but I don't believe I'll be returning to the strip club.
Yesterday was definitely a day of... something. DIY-ness? Crunchy-ness? Sadly, I haven't really researched what people call what I'm doing so much as I've just been doing it.
For example. I've been doing the no-shampoo thing for perhaps a month so far. But I missed the way my hair used to smell when I poured half a gallon of conditioner into it every morning (and never rinsed it out). So yesterday morning, I researched the ingredients of my one of my two homemade air fresheners a little before spraying the stuff directly into my hair. Now, my hair smells awesome. (And it's a pretty color, too. See?)
So then, since I was feeling inspired (and my skin had been dry for days) I tried using coconut oil in place of lotion. I honestly think it works better. No, that's not just my "it's good for you, so it must be better" side talking. I mean that I always hated lotion. It left this sticky residue stuff on my skin that left me feeling like I needed a bath. But the coconut oil just seemed to absorb into my skin, leaving it smooth and soft and healthy-feeling.
Yay. And then, because my mother-in-law had a bag of kale that was going to go bad, I made mixed berry/orange/ginger/kale smoothies. And those were pretty good.
So yesterday was a good day. I did healthy things. I tried new things. And my plants started sprouting! All totaled, it was a very good day.
That evening, a final thought crossed my mind before bed: in our purge of excess belongings, I've been careful to keep a hold on a single bag of stripper gear. A just-in-case bag. One pair of dance shoes, a few outfits, some makeup. I realized now's probably the time to go through that bag and let of the final vestiges of my stripperdom. I think that stage of my life just might be done for good.
My new job will be to publish my (damn) novels and garden organic food so as to save us money by cutting our grocery bill as much as possible. Knock on wood, but I don't believe I'll be returning to the strip club.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Honey and the Proto-Potty
So I made a toilet. I got tired of not having a composting toilet, and I haven't been able to build one yet because I haven't had the materials I always thought were necessary to build a composting toilet. I had the five gallon bucket, and I had a toilet seat we'd salvaged from the trailer, but I didn't have any wood to build a box to put the toilet seat on top of. So on Friday (I think) after my fiance left for work, I went through several scraps we'd saved from the trailer, looking for something-- anything-- that could be used to build the box for a toilet.
Ultimately, I didn't find anything there. Instead, I kept walking past this lovely old chair I'd taken with me from my hometown in North Dakota. I think the rest of the table set it originally came from was lost in a complicated storage-space-management fiasco. Anyway, the seat of the chair had long since been torn up by the claws of the cats who had since been de-clawed (for this and other reasons). My fiance and I, who have been purging ourselves of unnecessary possessions (all that junk we own and never use) were just about ready to toss this chair along with the rest of our un-donateable junk in the trash. And that was when I came up with this idea:
Isn't it lovely? Okay, if you're thinking to yourself its one of the homeliest things you've ever seen, you won't be alone in that opinion. However, I think it holds potential. I tore the ripped-up cushion out of the chair and sawed a round hole in the wooden bottom of it and secured the toilet seat onto the seat of the chair. I still need to find a way to secure the bucket in place underneath it, but for all intents and purposes, that is a primitive but functional composting toilet.
I call it the Proto-Potty. :)
Anyway, having made this, I think I have a few more ideas of how much space we'll need for the bathroom part of the trailer, which I find very exciting. I have this idea about the sink we salvaged from the trailer that I need to try out. It might work out. It might be a disaster. As with all the new ideas I try.
And speaking of new ideas. If you haven't heard of Crunchy Betty yet, it's time I introduce you. I've been reading her blog like crazy, and today I finally decided to try one of her blackhead treatments. It's method number two from this page. I steamed my face for ten minutes (because I have acne) and then decided to try patting my face with honey because I had honey on hand.
I didn't really think it would work. I thought it would be like most of those blackhead treatments you hear about where you try it out and it doesn't work but if you think about it a lot, you realized your skin at least feels a little softer so it wasn't a complete waste. Because that's how all these "skin treatments" generally affect me: "I guess it might've helped a little? I guess?"
So, you can imagine my surprise-- my outright shock-- when it actually worked. I watched all the blackheads peppering my nose burst open and drain out like magic. I didn't have to squeeze them or anything. I just patted tacky honey on my face and they burst. Like Magic!
I couldn't believe it. My face looked so beautiful afterward. And there was an actual, genuine noticeable difference. So, yeah. I have to make some Parmesan flax seed crackers for my fiance and I. We've been eating a lot of awesome vegetarian food lately. I must post recipes.
Until then, hope everyone's doing well. :)
Ultimately, I didn't find anything there. Instead, I kept walking past this lovely old chair I'd taken with me from my hometown in North Dakota. I think the rest of the table set it originally came from was lost in a complicated storage-space-management fiasco. Anyway, the seat of the chair had long since been torn up by the claws of the cats who had since been de-clawed (for this and other reasons). My fiance and I, who have been purging ourselves of unnecessary possessions (all that junk we own and never use) were just about ready to toss this chair along with the rest of our un-donateable junk in the trash. And that was when I came up with this idea:
Isn't it lovely? Okay, if you're thinking to yourself its one of the homeliest things you've ever seen, you won't be alone in that opinion. However, I think it holds potential. I tore the ripped-up cushion out of the chair and sawed a round hole in the wooden bottom of it and secured the toilet seat onto the seat of the chair. I still need to find a way to secure the bucket in place underneath it, but for all intents and purposes, that is a primitive but functional composting toilet.
I call it the Proto-Potty. :)
Anyway, having made this, I think I have a few more ideas of how much space we'll need for the bathroom part of the trailer, which I find very exciting. I have this idea about the sink we salvaged from the trailer that I need to try out. It might work out. It might be a disaster. As with all the new ideas I try.
And speaking of new ideas. If you haven't heard of Crunchy Betty yet, it's time I introduce you. I've been reading her blog like crazy, and today I finally decided to try one of her blackhead treatments. It's method number two from this page. I steamed my face for ten minutes (because I have acne) and then decided to try patting my face with honey because I had honey on hand.
I didn't really think it would work. I thought it would be like most of those blackhead treatments you hear about where you try it out and it doesn't work but if you think about it a lot, you realized your skin at least feels a little softer so it wasn't a complete waste. Because that's how all these "skin treatments" generally affect me: "I guess it might've helped a little? I guess?"
So, you can imagine my surprise-- my outright shock-- when it actually worked. I watched all the blackheads peppering my nose burst open and drain out like magic. I didn't have to squeeze them or anything. I just patted tacky honey on my face and they burst. Like Magic!
I couldn't believe it. My face looked so beautiful afterward. And there was an actual, genuine noticeable difference. So, yeah. I have to make some Parmesan flax seed crackers for my fiance and I. We've been eating a lot of awesome vegetarian food lately. I must post recipes.
Until then, hope everyone's doing well. :)
Friday, March 23, 2012
I Get Craftsy When I'm Nervous
So we moved. And moving is stressful. No matter how organized or well-planned or easy (and this one was easy) it's still stressful. I've even got the stress acne to prove it.
It's been wonderful at the new place, but as part of getting settled in, I've noticed myself producing a flurry of new recipes for everything under the sun. I tried making yogurt. That didn't work. I've got two different times of homemade air-spray room fresheners stewing. I made a kitty-litter air freshener out of lime flesh and salt. I made beet hummus ( try it, it's heavenly.) I made parmesan flax seed crackers to go with it. And that was just yesterday. I also made zucchini slices with pizza sauce and toppings spread over them. Ate the last of that this morning. I made salsa. I'm growing scallions in my mother-in-law's window. I made... something else. I don't remember what.
We got seeds in the mail, so I'm probably going to go through those and figure out how much space each plant will need in our garden and how many of each plant to grow. I think I want an indoor tomato plant, too, because I want to eat fresh tomatoes all winter, too. Hopefully the scallions grow.
Maybe I should start knitting? I saw a beautiful diy fire pit that I could totally make for perhaps $30. Of course, before I do any of that, I really, seriously want to build my composting toilet. Seriously, I want this thing. Bad.
Right now, though, as I've run out of funds for the time being. So... that's that for now.
P.S. Finally got some pictures up. The first one is me draining my vanilla clove air freshener through a coffee filter. I later ended up spraying this stuff into my hair to make it smell pretty. It's awesome. :)
This second picture is both my air fresheners sitting in jars. The one on the right is a citrus vodka mix that's still steeping. (It started out smelling like vodka and ended up smelling like oranges.) The one on the left is the vanilla clove. I don't think the picture does it justice. It came out as this beautiful amber liquid that shone very prettily in the morning light.
It's been wonderful at the new place, but as part of getting settled in, I've noticed myself producing a flurry of new recipes for everything under the sun. I tried making yogurt. That didn't work. I've got two different times of homemade air-spray room fresheners stewing. I made a kitty-litter air freshener out of lime flesh and salt. I made beet hummus ( try it, it's heavenly.) I made parmesan flax seed crackers to go with it. And that was just yesterday. I also made zucchini slices with pizza sauce and toppings spread over them. Ate the last of that this morning. I made salsa. I'm growing scallions in my mother-in-law's window. I made... something else. I don't remember what.
We got seeds in the mail, so I'm probably going to go through those and figure out how much space each plant will need in our garden and how many of each plant to grow. I think I want an indoor tomato plant, too, because I want to eat fresh tomatoes all winter, too. Hopefully the scallions grow.
Maybe I should start knitting? I saw a beautiful diy fire pit that I could totally make for perhaps $30. Of course, before I do any of that, I really, seriously want to build my composting toilet. Seriously, I want this thing. Bad.
Right now, though, as I've run out of funds for the time being. So... that's that for now.
P.S. Finally got some pictures up. The first one is me draining my vanilla clove air freshener through a coffee filter. I later ended up spraying this stuff into my hair to make it smell pretty. It's awesome. :)
This second picture is both my air fresheners sitting in jars. The one on the right is a citrus vodka mix that's still steeping. (It started out smelling like vodka and ended up smelling like oranges.) The one on the left is the vanilla clove. I don't think the picture does it justice. It came out as this beautiful amber liquid that shone very prettily in the morning light.
Monday, March 19, 2012
"...and that was when I realized I was a hippie." Part II
So, things have lulled. We aren't lost in the whirlwind of moving.
Yesterday, we dug up some bamboo that had managed to form a little patch in the ditch across the road. The ground was rocky, but I think we got a few decent root balls. I've got some in a planter next to the trailer with a little solar lantern hanging next to it. It's pretty, and it makes our little husk of a trailer seem homey. It only takes one potted plant to feel home. LOL
My fiance made me this wonderful vegetarian dish for supper yesterday, because he's fasting and I've had too much meat lately. In fact, lately, I've been reading up on raw food meals. They just look good to me.
When I went to brush my teeth, I realized that I've been brushing my teeth with neem paste instead of regular toothpaste. After reading up on soapnuts/soapberries I looked up a website where I can order seeds to plant a few of these. Because I want to wash my clothes with golden berries. It might be a bad idea. For all I know the berries are even more toxic than the shit they put in detergent... yeah, right. Who am I kidding?
I'd like to make some castille soap, but that's going to probably be a later project. For today I'm going to make seasoned roasted cauliflower for my fiance and figure out what I want to do with myself in this new place. I need to make yogurt soon. So, if I've got enough money to buy both cauliflower and a gallon of milk, we might have some good yogurt soon. So long as I can find a place to let the bacteria grow.
I guess I'll take a portion of today and go through all our packed-up belongings and start putting things in a donation pile.
And I need to exercise today...
Anyway, this is probably a very confused post. The title refers to the fact that I'm once again noticing how very unconventionaly my life's become. I'm very happy, but I wonder at just how very far I've strayed from "normal". It's been so many little changes.
What would normal people think of a woman who washes her hair with apple cider vinegar, hates wearing makeup, prefers raw food to good ol' steak and potatoes, plans to build herself a composting toilet, wants to grow most of her food in the field next to her in-laws' house, and plans to give up most of her earthly belongings and live in a 17x8 trailer?
Have I gotten weird yet, or am I still halfway between here and there? Does it matter? I didn't do any of this to challenge society. I did it because it seemed right for me. It seemed right to my fiance, too. Either that or he's just a very supportive, loving partner. LOL. Either way. It's all good. :)
Yesterday, we dug up some bamboo that had managed to form a little patch in the ditch across the road. The ground was rocky, but I think we got a few decent root balls. I've got some in a planter next to the trailer with a little solar lantern hanging next to it. It's pretty, and it makes our little husk of a trailer seem homey. It only takes one potted plant to feel home. LOL
My fiance made me this wonderful vegetarian dish for supper yesterday, because he's fasting and I've had too much meat lately. In fact, lately, I've been reading up on raw food meals. They just look good to me.
When I went to brush my teeth, I realized that I've been brushing my teeth with neem paste instead of regular toothpaste. After reading up on soapnuts/soapberries I looked up a website where I can order seeds to plant a few of these. Because I want to wash my clothes with golden berries. It might be a bad idea. For all I know the berries are even more toxic than the shit they put in detergent... yeah, right. Who am I kidding?
I'd like to make some castille soap, but that's going to probably be a later project. For today I'm going to make seasoned roasted cauliflower for my fiance and figure out what I want to do with myself in this new place. I need to make yogurt soon. So, if I've got enough money to buy both cauliflower and a gallon of milk, we might have some good yogurt soon. So long as I can find a place to let the bacteria grow.
I guess I'll take a portion of today and go through all our packed-up belongings and start putting things in a donation pile.
And I need to exercise today...
Anyway, this is probably a very confused post. The title refers to the fact that I'm once again noticing how very unconventionaly my life's become. I'm very happy, but I wonder at just how very far I've strayed from "normal". It's been so many little changes.
What would normal people think of a woman who washes her hair with apple cider vinegar, hates wearing makeup, prefers raw food to good ol' steak and potatoes, plans to build herself a composting toilet, wants to grow most of her food in the field next to her in-laws' house, and plans to give up most of her earthly belongings and live in a 17x8 trailer?
Have I gotten weird yet, or am I still halfway between here and there? Does it matter? I didn't do any of this to challenge society. I did it because it seemed right for me. It seemed right to my fiance, too. Either that or he's just a very supportive, loving partner. LOL. Either way. It's all good. :)
Sunday, March 18, 2012
"...and that was when I realized I was a hippie."
In the chaos of loading all of our belongings (packed carefully away in boxes) into the van that would transport them to our new home, my fiance and I were both repeatedly impressed by how much stuff we have.
We'd already decided to discard or store away the majority of it. There's not enough room in a trailer for all our junk. If you've ever seen a cluttered tiny house, you'll know why we're resistant to letting more than what is absolutely necessary enter our future home.
Both of us have remarked at this point on what a cleansing experience it will be to let go of all the material excesses we've been carting around all day. We don't need this much stuff. In fact, it's downright embarrassing that we own so much stuff. What's the point in having boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff, up to the point that we don't even know how much stuff we actually own because it's all been buried under more boxes of other stuff?
So we'll be garage-saling and ebaying and craigslisting away a lot of our excess stuff. I look forward to this process. I think my fiance does, too. At first, it seemed frightening. Get ride of that leather jacket I've never worn? Get rid of that electric fireplace that cost me all that money even though I've only used it twice?
And then it just seemed like a relief.
And that was when I realized I've become a hippie.
It's been over a month since I've washed my hair the traditional way. (Which isn't to say that my hair is dirty.) My wishlist on pinterest is dominated by essential oils. Just today I told my fiance we should give patchouli a try. I want to buy lemon oil to keep away the spiders and lavender oil to spray on my clothes before I go hiking (to keep the ticks and fleas away).
I want to grow my food this summer. I want it to be organic. I want to harvest the seeds so I can replant next year.
We want to live off-grid. Way off-grid. We want a solar- and wind-powered house. I want to turn our black water into manure that I can spread in the vegetable garden. Today, when it rained, I looked at my future in-law's house and thought, "I wonder if they'll let me set up a rain barrel?"
I don't think any of these things (or even all these things in concert) necessarily make me a hippie. However, I don't think the majority of the conventional/mainstream, non-hippie world will be able to tell the difference.
So that's that for now. And now I need to read about organic soap nuts.
We'd already decided to discard or store away the majority of it. There's not enough room in a trailer for all our junk. If you've ever seen a cluttered tiny house, you'll know why we're resistant to letting more than what is absolutely necessary enter our future home.
Both of us have remarked at this point on what a cleansing experience it will be to let go of all the material excesses we've been carting around all day. We don't need this much stuff. In fact, it's downright embarrassing that we own so much stuff. What's the point in having boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff, up to the point that we don't even know how much stuff we actually own because it's all been buried under more boxes of other stuff?
So we'll be garage-saling and ebaying and craigslisting away a lot of our excess stuff. I look forward to this process. I think my fiance does, too. At first, it seemed frightening. Get ride of that leather jacket I've never worn? Get rid of that electric fireplace that cost me all that money even though I've only used it twice?
And then it just seemed like a relief.
And that was when I realized I've become a hippie.
It's been over a month since I've washed my hair the traditional way. (Which isn't to say that my hair is dirty.) My wishlist on pinterest is dominated by essential oils. Just today I told my fiance we should give patchouli a try. I want to buy lemon oil to keep away the spiders and lavender oil to spray on my clothes before I go hiking (to keep the ticks and fleas away).
I want to grow my food this summer. I want it to be organic. I want to harvest the seeds so I can replant next year.
We want to live off-grid. Way off-grid. We want a solar- and wind-powered house. I want to turn our black water into manure that I can spread in the vegetable garden. Today, when it rained, I looked at my future in-law's house and thought, "I wonder if they'll let me set up a rain barrel?"
I don't think any of these things (or even all these things in concert) necessarily make me a hippie. However, I don't think the majority of the conventional/mainstream, non-hippie world will be able to tell the difference.
So that's that for now. And now I need to read about organic soap nuts.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Moving
So, I haven't written in forever. I need to take down the note that says I'll post something new every Thursday. At first I did. Lately, I haven't.
Today, we packed all our belongings into vans and moved out of the apartment. The cats are still recovering from the shock in the attic of my in-law's house where we're staying for the time being.
Now that I'm finally closer to the trailer (so I don't have to spend $20 in gas every time I go out to work on it) I can hopefully get some real work done on it.
In other news-- my fiance's parents have set out a plot of land for us to garden. I don't mean garden as in a couple tomato plants and maybe a flowerbed, either. I mean a GARDEN. This plot looks like, maybe, a third of an acre.
So... expect posts on organic gardening. (And wish me luck, because I'm not sure I won't kill anything I plant.)
Today, we packed all our belongings into vans and moved out of the apartment. The cats are still recovering from the shock in the attic of my in-law's house where we're staying for the time being.
Now that I'm finally closer to the trailer (so I don't have to spend $20 in gas every time I go out to work on it) I can hopefully get some real work done on it.
In other news-- my fiance's parents have set out a plot of land for us to garden. I don't mean garden as in a couple tomato plants and maybe a flowerbed, either. I mean a GARDEN. This plot looks like, maybe, a third of an acre.
So... expect posts on organic gardening. (And wish me luck, because I'm not sure I won't kill anything I plant.)
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Moving Prep, Death and Taxes
Well, it's Thursday, and about a month before my end-of-stripping due date. I'm so broke.
So, to take stock of this week. I tore apart the closet and put the vast majority of my clothes in storage, leaving out a few that I plan to take to the gypsy wagon.
I started writing a new book yesterday. More of a pamphlet, really. Anyway, I plan to publish it as an ebook and use it as an experimental how-to-sell-books-online kind of book. It shouldn't take much time to write.
Yesterday, still frustrated in my never-ending quest for the perfect purse, I broke down and sewed one. I'm still getting used to it (every purse has a breaking in period) but so far I like it well enough. I think I should have sewn some cardboard into the lining to make it a little firmer, but as it is it's nice enough.
The living room is full of boxes. And I need to work tonight because it's the first and the rent is due. It will be the last time I have to pay rent, though, so that's exciting.
Less exciting is the fact that I still have to pay last years taxes and the taxes from the year before that. And I need to find a new tax preparer because the lady who did mine last year charged me over $500 to do my taxes. That's almost half as much as I owed in taxes to begin with. So, yeah. I'm pretty sure I got ripped off that time.
It's amazing how many people will try to rip me off once they find out what I do for a living. I'm pretty sure this year I won't say. I'll just tell whoever's doing my taxes that I'm self-employed and I have zero business expenses and my only deduction is the 500 freaking dollars I spent having my taxes done last year.
I'm tired of being broke. I'm really, really tired of taxes. It wasn't such a huge deal when I was employed like everybody else. You take the form. You fill out the form. You do a little math. You're done. Now, I'm technically self-employed and there are so many freaking pieces of paper I'm supposed to be accountable for.
I feel very helpless at tax time. There's more information than I know how to compute so I'm at the mercy of someone else to put it all together for me. Then I have to pay out lots of money that I don't have on hand because I only ever seem to earn enough to live off of. And then, if for whatever reasons the government decides there was something wrong with all the math and paperwork which I had hardly any control over to begin with, they'll send me threatening letters and harass me to give them yet more money.
Furthermore, no one seems to understand this conundrum because they only have to fill out W2s. So every year everyone else is asking me why I never get money back, and I'm always explaining to them that my taxes are very different. Instead of getting money back, I'm expected to somehow raise several hundred dollars which I then give directly to the government. And that number changes from year to year. One year it was $4,000. Another it was only $800. Everyone says there must have been a paperwork error on the $4,000, but is the IRS ever going to give me that money back? Sure as hell they're not.
More likely than not, they'll notice that discrepancy someday and assume that I'm just lying about how much money I earn, and rain hell down on me while I huddle in my little trailer and wonder where the heck I'm supposed to get yet more money to give the government.
So there. That's my rant on taxes. I'd be so freaking happy if they just simplified it all down. You earn X which means you pay Z% of X. So much better than getting calls from my freaking accountant. "Now are you sure you didn't use your phone at all to contact your customers or place of business, because we could deduct that for you." For the billionth time, no! Don't you people charge by the hour? Stop asking me this.
So, to take stock of this week. I tore apart the closet and put the vast majority of my clothes in storage, leaving out a few that I plan to take to the gypsy wagon.
I started writing a new book yesterday. More of a pamphlet, really. Anyway, I plan to publish it as an ebook and use it as an experimental how-to-sell-books-online kind of book. It shouldn't take much time to write.
Yesterday, still frustrated in my never-ending quest for the perfect purse, I broke down and sewed one. I'm still getting used to it (every purse has a breaking in period) but so far I like it well enough. I think I should have sewn some cardboard into the lining to make it a little firmer, but as it is it's nice enough.
The living room is full of boxes. And I need to work tonight because it's the first and the rent is due. It will be the last time I have to pay rent, though, so that's exciting.
Less exciting is the fact that I still have to pay last years taxes and the taxes from the year before that. And I need to find a new tax preparer because the lady who did mine last year charged me over $500 to do my taxes. That's almost half as much as I owed in taxes to begin with. So, yeah. I'm pretty sure I got ripped off that time.
It's amazing how many people will try to rip me off once they find out what I do for a living. I'm pretty sure this year I won't say. I'll just tell whoever's doing my taxes that I'm self-employed and I have zero business expenses and my only deduction is the 500 freaking dollars I spent having my taxes done last year.
I'm tired of being broke. I'm really, really tired of taxes. It wasn't such a huge deal when I was employed like everybody else. You take the form. You fill out the form. You do a little math. You're done. Now, I'm technically self-employed and there are so many freaking pieces of paper I'm supposed to be accountable for.
I feel very helpless at tax time. There's more information than I know how to compute so I'm at the mercy of someone else to put it all together for me. Then I have to pay out lots of money that I don't have on hand because I only ever seem to earn enough to live off of. And then, if for whatever reasons the government decides there was something wrong with all the math and paperwork which I had hardly any control over to begin with, they'll send me threatening letters and harass me to give them yet more money.
Furthermore, no one seems to understand this conundrum because they only have to fill out W2s. So every year everyone else is asking me why I never get money back, and I'm always explaining to them that my taxes are very different. Instead of getting money back, I'm expected to somehow raise several hundred dollars which I then give directly to the government. And that number changes from year to year. One year it was $4,000. Another it was only $800. Everyone says there must have been a paperwork error on the $4,000, but is the IRS ever going to give me that money back? Sure as hell they're not.
More likely than not, they'll notice that discrepancy someday and assume that I'm just lying about how much money I earn, and rain hell down on me while I huddle in my little trailer and wonder where the heck I'm supposed to get yet more money to give the government.
So there. That's my rant on taxes. I'd be so freaking happy if they just simplified it all down. You earn X which means you pay Z% of X. So much better than getting calls from my freaking accountant. "Now are you sure you didn't use your phone at all to contact your customers or place of business, because we could deduct that for you." For the billionth time, no! Don't you people charge by the hour? Stop asking me this.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Putting Stuff in Storage
I said I'd post a new entry every Thursday. I lied.
Apparently, time's gotten away from me. I don't know what I've done these last several weeks. I don't know how long it's been since I accomplished anything. I think I just checked out for a while. Life went on. I lived it. I did not think too deeply on it.
I finished the novel and sent a copy to my fiance for review. He's been busy at work so it'll take a while. The day before yesterday I went through the kitchen and pulled out all the implements and appliances that we won't be using once we're situated in the gypsy wagon.
It was a lot of stuff. Several pots and pans. Several cooking appliances. More dishes than not. Most of the silverware. All of it is going into storage. And more. Today I hope to take it to my in-laws so we can start clearing out the apartment. We have less than a month left before it's time to move out.
I read an interesting article on backpacking http://survivalblog.com/2012/02/all-you-need-to-good-you-can-carry-on-your-back-by-charles-m.html By the way G.O.O.D. stands for "get out of dodge". I had to look that up. It was a very interesting article, and it definitely helped me reanalyze how I've been looking at the gypsy wagon.
There was a point at which I understood a transition would have to take place, but I couldn't quite wrap my mind around it. I would have to put away in storage most of our belongings. It sounds like a very simple statement of fact, but until I was actually going through the kitchen asking myself, "Keep or store?" over every item I touched, I didn't fully understand it.
I'm very excited about our life in the gypsy wagon. I've finally stopped being afraid of parting ways with all our Stuff. We aren't crippling ourselves. We aren't short-changing ourselves. We aren't giving up anything we can't live without.
We're simply cutting out all the excess. And there's so much excess in this world. In our lives. And our lives already very simple compared to most.
For all I know we'll live in the gypsy wagon for a month or two before we've gotten completely sick of living so low-tech, but it will be an experience. I think it might even prove to be an experience worth having. The world seems full of things no one understands. Where does my food come from? Where does my water come from? Where does my waste go?
But now I'm rambling. (I woke up just a short while ago.) So I'll stop for now. Today I want to put a bunch of kitchen stuff in storage, and I'd like to go through my clothes and separate the clothes I actually wear from the clothes I don't.
That is if I don't fall back asleep first.
P.S. Woke up feeling very peaceful today. I wish I could feel this peaceful every day. I hope all the rest of the world gets a chance to feel this peaceful. It's nice. I hope I don't forget it.
Apparently, time's gotten away from me. I don't know what I've done these last several weeks. I don't know how long it's been since I accomplished anything. I think I just checked out for a while. Life went on. I lived it. I did not think too deeply on it.
I finished the novel and sent a copy to my fiance for review. He's been busy at work so it'll take a while. The day before yesterday I went through the kitchen and pulled out all the implements and appliances that we won't be using once we're situated in the gypsy wagon.
It was a lot of stuff. Several pots and pans. Several cooking appliances. More dishes than not. Most of the silverware. All of it is going into storage. And more. Today I hope to take it to my in-laws so we can start clearing out the apartment. We have less than a month left before it's time to move out.
I read an interesting article on backpacking http://survivalblog.com/2012/02/all-you-need-to-good-you-can-carry-on-your-back-by-charles-m.html By the way G.O.O.D. stands for "get out of dodge". I had to look that up. It was a very interesting article, and it definitely helped me reanalyze how I've been looking at the gypsy wagon.
There was a point at which I understood a transition would have to take place, but I couldn't quite wrap my mind around it. I would have to put away in storage most of our belongings. It sounds like a very simple statement of fact, but until I was actually going through the kitchen asking myself, "Keep or store?" over every item I touched, I didn't fully understand it.
I'm very excited about our life in the gypsy wagon. I've finally stopped being afraid of parting ways with all our Stuff. We aren't crippling ourselves. We aren't short-changing ourselves. We aren't giving up anything we can't live without.
We're simply cutting out all the excess. And there's so much excess in this world. In our lives. And our lives already very simple compared to most.
For all I know we'll live in the gypsy wagon for a month or two before we've gotten completely sick of living so low-tech, but it will be an experience. I think it might even prove to be an experience worth having. The world seems full of things no one understands. Where does my food come from? Where does my water come from? Where does my waste go?
But now I'm rambling. (I woke up just a short while ago.) So I'll stop for now. Today I want to put a bunch of kitchen stuff in storage, and I'd like to go through my clothes and separate the clothes I actually wear from the clothes I don't.
That is if I don't fall back asleep first.
P.S. Woke up feeling very peaceful today. I wish I could feel this peaceful every day. I hope all the rest of the world gets a chance to feel this peaceful. It's nice. I hope I don't forget it.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Introspection
The last time I was at work, several of my customers advised me not to be honest on my resume for whatever future job I might pursue. "If you tell someone what you've done (exotic dancing), they're going to want to fuck with you." "So?" "Maybe I should be clearer. They're going to want to fuck you. If I didn't know you, I wouldn't hire you. No one in corporate America would want to hire you."
As usual, my customers have the sweetest way of lending me their vote of confidence. While I'm not necessarily inclined to believe them until I've tried and failed to get a traditional job myself, there's a part of me that's relieved.
I don't know how well I'd fare in a traditional job anymore. I'm far too accustomed to being my own boss. Maybe this will become my excuse not to waste times pursuing the traditional job-seeking model.
I don't know what to do next, though. It's been suggested to me, and I have to agree, that our generation seems to be saturated with this sense of entitlement, regardless of our lot in life. We've all been raised to believe we're secretly meant to be the superstar. No one remembers that we all need someone to flip our hamburgers. I haven't decided which of those two categories I'm ultimately destined for. (Most likely I'll end up somewhere in between.)
But is my insistence on finding a job that suits me a symptom of the entitled attitude of my generation or is it my own perfectionistic tendency to demand that I'm always climbing to newer levels of acheivement?
Honestly, I have a cold, my nose is stuffy, and I don't care anymore.
I've spent the last couple days going over my novel. Again. It's beautiful. But is it perfect? Nothing's perfect. And this will never be perfect enough for me.
I just keep running through it looking for flaws. Again and again. How am I ever going to publish this thing if I don't stop editting?
I'll finish this draft tonight. After that, I'll have to give it to someone to read. Probably my fiance. And while he's reading it, I'm going to run to work so I don't have to pace around the apartment feeling uncomfortable while someone reads my less than absolutely perfect novel.
As usual, my customers have the sweetest way of lending me their vote of confidence. While I'm not necessarily inclined to believe them until I've tried and failed to get a traditional job myself, there's a part of me that's relieved.
I don't know how well I'd fare in a traditional job anymore. I'm far too accustomed to being my own boss. Maybe this will become my excuse not to waste times pursuing the traditional job-seeking model.
I don't know what to do next, though. It's been suggested to me, and I have to agree, that our generation seems to be saturated with this sense of entitlement, regardless of our lot in life. We've all been raised to believe we're secretly meant to be the superstar. No one remembers that we all need someone to flip our hamburgers. I haven't decided which of those two categories I'm ultimately destined for. (Most likely I'll end up somewhere in between.)
But is my insistence on finding a job that suits me a symptom of the entitled attitude of my generation or is it my own perfectionistic tendency to demand that I'm always climbing to newer levels of acheivement?
Honestly, I have a cold, my nose is stuffy, and I don't care anymore.
I've spent the last couple days going over my novel. Again. It's beautiful. But is it perfect? Nothing's perfect. And this will never be perfect enough for me.
I just keep running through it looking for flaws. Again and again. How am I ever going to publish this thing if I don't stop editting?
I'll finish this draft tonight. After that, I'll have to give it to someone to read. Probably my fiance. And while he's reading it, I'm going to run to work so I don't have to pace around the apartment feeling uncomfortable while someone reads my less than absolutely perfect novel.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Stripping Pros and Cons
Worked last night. Made exactly half what I'm used to making in the club. This was on a Friday night, which makes it particularly depressing.
It seemed to be a bad night for everyone all around. The bouncers had to herd some guy out the back door because he kept breaking our rigorous local laws. And speaking of local laws, I managed to break one of those myself. I thought I was following the rules through the normal course of my stage set, but I found out very quickly that I wasn't. The bouncer told me right away that I shouldn't do that again, and then as soon as I got offstage, the manager was waiting for me in the back. "I know you probably didn't know better, but if you ever do that again I'm throwing you out of here."
Message recieved. Will not do that thing again.
It kind of startled me. After four years of dancing, it's been awhile since I've blown it. Of course, when I went to the manager to apologize once again and see if everything was cool, he told me that if there'd been a cop in the club, they would've shut us all down for a solid week. Have I ever mentioned that the local government would use an excuse to get rid of us for good?
The good news is, everyone knows me there. Everyone knows I don't cause trouble, break rules or even bend rules. Which might be why I'm not out of a job as we speak. It was kind of a startle for me, though.
So the night proceeded with its noticeable lack of money. At one point the manager called us all to the changing room to remind us that the bathroom is for numbers one and two and not for shooting up or snorting coke.
And then, when my shift was up, I started to get dressed in the back room and happened to be there right at the time the managers came back there to scour a girl's bags for... drugs? A stolen wallet? I didn't hang around to find out.
REASONS TO QUIT STRIPPING: I'm tired of the crime. I'm tired of girls I know getting drugged. I'm tired of always keeping my eyes open to avoid getting drugged myself. I'm tired of thieves, cheats, druggies, liars, prostitutes, etc. I'm tired of chatting up people who assume I'm all of these things and stupid on top of it. I'm tired of the shadow of the law hanging over every little thing I do at work. I'm tired of being literal, physical inches from criminal charges. And of course, the system is pretty unforgiving, because most of the people who operate in it will take any bit of slack they're given and stretch as far as they can and then some.
So that's today's rant. There's plenty that's bad about my job and maybe if I write it all out and have it down on a piece of paper, when that day comes that I feel any slight nostalgia for my job, I can pull out that piece of paper and remember all the bad that came with the good.
However-- so as not to forget the good:
WHY I LIKE STRIPPING: The pole dancing.
Because I haven't been working as much, I'm terribly out of shape, but it still felt wonderful to be back onstage. I miss the club in New Orleans with its thirteen foot brass poles, but the poles at the club are still slightly better than the battered practice pole I've got at home.
There's a pole competition coming up and our best dancer asked me if I'd be participating this year. Last year I was first runner up, and I dare say she might consider me to be competition. We both use some of the same moves, although her form's much better than mine. I told her I wouldn't be competing since I believe the competition will be after April 1st.
And at the same time... it might be fun to try.
It seemed to be a bad night for everyone all around. The bouncers had to herd some guy out the back door because he kept breaking our rigorous local laws. And speaking of local laws, I managed to break one of those myself. I thought I was following the rules through the normal course of my stage set, but I found out very quickly that I wasn't. The bouncer told me right away that I shouldn't do that again, and then as soon as I got offstage, the manager was waiting for me in the back. "I know you probably didn't know better, but if you ever do that again I'm throwing you out of here."
Message recieved. Will not do that thing again.
It kind of startled me. After four years of dancing, it's been awhile since I've blown it. Of course, when I went to the manager to apologize once again and see if everything was cool, he told me that if there'd been a cop in the club, they would've shut us all down for a solid week. Have I ever mentioned that the local government would use an excuse to get rid of us for good?
The good news is, everyone knows me there. Everyone knows I don't cause trouble, break rules or even bend rules. Which might be why I'm not out of a job as we speak. It was kind of a startle for me, though.
So the night proceeded with its noticeable lack of money. At one point the manager called us all to the changing room to remind us that the bathroom is for numbers one and two and not for shooting up or snorting coke.
And then, when my shift was up, I started to get dressed in the back room and happened to be there right at the time the managers came back there to scour a girl's bags for... drugs? A stolen wallet? I didn't hang around to find out.
REASONS TO QUIT STRIPPING: I'm tired of the crime. I'm tired of girls I know getting drugged. I'm tired of always keeping my eyes open to avoid getting drugged myself. I'm tired of thieves, cheats, druggies, liars, prostitutes, etc. I'm tired of chatting up people who assume I'm all of these things and stupid on top of it. I'm tired of the shadow of the law hanging over every little thing I do at work. I'm tired of being literal, physical inches from criminal charges. And of course, the system is pretty unforgiving, because most of the people who operate in it will take any bit of slack they're given and stretch as far as they can and then some.
So that's today's rant. There's plenty that's bad about my job and maybe if I write it all out and have it down on a piece of paper, when that day comes that I feel any slight nostalgia for my job, I can pull out that piece of paper and remember all the bad that came with the good.
However-- so as not to forget the good:
WHY I LIKE STRIPPING: The pole dancing.
Because I haven't been working as much, I'm terribly out of shape, but it still felt wonderful to be back onstage. I miss the club in New Orleans with its thirteen foot brass poles, but the poles at the club are still slightly better than the battered practice pole I've got at home.
There's a pole competition coming up and our best dancer asked me if I'd be participating this year. Last year I was first runner up, and I dare say she might consider me to be competition. We both use some of the same moves, although her form's much better than mine. I told her I wouldn't be competing since I believe the competition will be after April 1st.
And at the same time... it might be fun to try.
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