wild

I keep talking to people that want to just set seeds free and let them go wild,
they have the idea nature will take care of them once they do that,
if it were that easy, then everyone would do it,

many plants are only 3 to 5 generations away from being totally useless to people,
once the seeds are set free, then they start to do what they want...
you must save the and replant seeds from the plants that do what you want.

there are things that do what the birds want, and they are safe to set free because the birds are making the plants do what they want, but something has to do it,
you can find some plants that you can use wild, but they are not like most foods you likely enjoy

not only that,
but many domesticated crops don't have seeds that fall on there own,
they will just keep the seeds on the plant till they rot.
if they do get planted, they immediately sprout with no thinking about what season it is,
you have to take care of them, or they will do nothing at all.

greens

so here is where I planted the parsnips, but that is not greens

 here is a box that has greens planted in it, it is all set up to keep them from getting to cold

 now I did not plant or build the box, but I am caring for it now

 pak choy going to seed

 arugula

 mixed lettuce and other greens

 kale

you can grow lots of greens in a small space,

carbohydrate type

when planning meals, and thus planning what to grow, it is good to think about carbohydrate types,

some research is starting to show that alzheimer’s is a brain form of diabetes
http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/alzheimers-diabetes-brain
so it might be a good idea to not plan on living on potatoes and other simple starches, but use flour corn or dent corn or yams as they have much better carbohydrates in them, and why take risks if you don't have to
so I think I am going to give up on growing large amounts of potatoes and focus on things with more complex carbohydrates

also, I saw an ant

butane

cooking with butane can be annoying,

anyone know why people out of a city usually use propane ?

the boiling point is about -44F

the butane boiling point is about 32F

so if it is less than 60F out, your liquid butane stove will start to mess up from the cold,
but the propane one will work just fine,
people in a city often never notice 

just something to keep in mind
I had a peanut steaming failure from cooking with butane a few days ago when it was 58F inside,
it is just another factor to keep in mind when planning your future world.

cooking with sand

much of the buckwheat out there as food is toasted,
it is why it has such a strong flavor,
if you don't like the strong flavor of it, then use the non toasted kind,
but have you ever wondered how buckwheat is toasted ?
you can just put it in a pan and keep stirring as you add heat,
but that is not how it is usually done,
they mix it with sand,
and cook it in the hot sand,
just keep stirring it and the sand distributes the heat incredibly evenly,
then you just use a screen to recover the buckwheat from the sand,

it leaves me wondering what else I can cook in sand.

rain

it has been raining,

there may be hope of growing a full size garden yet,
but my task is to figure out how much water there is in the ground,
the wells here have spacers to keep the well pipe from wearing on the walls,
so I can't just lower something in and check the water level,

I can check the spring to see if it is still empty after the rain stops,
but not sure it will mean much if it is full, but
it will mean something if it is still empty...
as of now it has one foot of water in it, (yay, pictures work again here)

it is 12 foot deep total, or was it 14 ? (I like my laser tape measure, works better than my memory)

I guess that is better than totally dry like it was last month

I have looked into how to dig a well by hand,
and it needs things that I don't have (and should not really buy) to dig it with,
so likely not the way to figure out how deep the water is,

I guess I will have to just guess by rainfall

sugar peas

so I planted the sugar podded peas a while ago,
the lessons of last year have been learned and I have screen over them to keep the birds out,
and they are sprouting now,

I was debating planting them in the ground or putting them in pots, so I have them in see trays at the moment,
so I have to decide where to plant them soon

sugar peas are fun.