water and ground slope

so life needs water,
it is critical
and usually the more water the more life,
at least up to a point,
but out here in the desert you don't hit the limit of to much water,

if you go look around here you will see places where the ground slopes to catch the rain,
and they have lots more weeds growing in spots like that,
the places that are steep with nothing to catch the water have almost no life,
no matter how you water your plants the slope of the ground will make a difference,
make the dirt near your plants catch and hold as much water as you can,
lets say you have an orchard and you make hills and depressions that leave each tree at a depression they will grow much better than if all the land was just flat, and it appears to be worth the work.  

if you live in a super wet area and plants tend to have roots rot from it,
then that is what raised beds and planting on hills is for.

just keep in mined of how the ground is sloped and what that does.

pictures of dirt are not that fun or informative, so I did not bother to post them 

cheep test hardware

cheep test hardware is annoying,
I know this is not quite farm related,
but I spent lots of time trying to figure out why all my volt meters did not match,

charging a battery takes a very specific voltage if you are not to mess it up,
and if you get a + or - 2 volts on the volt meter, the reading is kind of pointless,
the picture of the volt meter on the left is from harbor freight tools and cost about $5...
it is the worst of all, the one on the right is way more advanced, be still very bad,
the only ones that work well have cost me somewhere in the range of $100...
I am usually not in the habit of over paying for things I could get for less,
but if you are to trust numbers spouted by hardware,
make sure that they really do what they say they will.
because as it turns out many manufacturers lie about the accuracy,

with farming or cooking it is usually temperature that gets you...
so read up on how to check your thermometers
http://www.ehow.com/how_4526037_calibrate-a-thermometer.html

and good luck with your other readings,
took me a few months to figure out if some of what I have is reading correct.or not.
and super cheep hardware is often but not always wrong

cast iron and soap

cast iron pans are great for a few reasons,

the homesteaders like them lots,
but why ?
they are very heavy when looking at other types of pans,
and when traveling by wagon weight counts,
so you know that it has to have some amazing advantages for them to have bothered,
and the distribution of heat is sure one advantage, but copper does that with much less weight,
cast iron is cheep, but then so is tin (or was at the time)

but the real selling point is that they don't need any soap to make them work.
and they are non stick if you use them that way,

the modern cast iron pans almost always come with a rough sand casting surface,
and that will just not work at all,

some people fight with them and let the carbon build up till they are flat...
it works but takes a few years,

sanding the surface down with sand paper and a block works even better,
get the "wet or dry" sand paper and sand it under running water in the sink,
it takes about 45 min. of work and you will have got down to where there are no more high points that will grab the utensils you use, I have done this on many pans (I use to fix them for others)

then you want to dry it out (under heat to get it very dry)
then oil it (use your favorite vegetable oil or lard) and heat it up to let the oil sink into the metal,
now you don't want to bring the oil to the smoking point or burning,
you need the oil to be a liquid and to seep into the metal,
that way when you heat up the pan again the oil seeps back out creating a non stick surface,

you need to heat up a cast iron pan before you put food in it for this to work.
also in heating up the pan first you sterilize it, so you don't need any soap,
try this with a stainless pan can get you nickel poisoning...

if you get soap on your pan it takes that oil away,
if the soap gets into the metal then ruins future oil from getting in the metal,
and you loose that fantastic non stick surface,

if you do mess up a cast iron pan there is a fix for it,
burn it.
if you have a bond fire you can tie wire the handle (so you can find it later) and toss it into a bond fire,
it will not hurt the pan at all,
but it will burn off all evil from it.
a very hot camp stove will also do this, but it has to be a very hot one.
then you locate it, wash it off (remember no soap), dry it under heat, oil it, and heat it up so that the oil soaks in.

you can never just leave cast iron wet,
don't put it in the sink for a day or two and expect it to be ok, or even a few hours, and you can't use a dish washer,
it will be a rusted mess if it is wet for to long, though you should be able to leave it dirty on the stove all day and be just fine.

after you are done cooking with it,
wash it with water (no soap !), scrub brushes and metal tools are just fine, but rinse the soap off your cleaning tools first,
and dry it (with a towel or not, but it will stain your towel, and paper towels work great )
then dry it with the heat of the stove and re oil it. (super thin coating is ideal)

it may not seem like a big deal to no need soap now,
but out on the rough edges of civilization you might not have much if any soap,
and was is a much appreciated feature long ago.

I know people that use cast iron without dong much of what I say,
and they sure work if you use soap to clean them,
but you loose lots of the potential they have doing that.

time to take things down, it is already getting sparse...

seed catalogs

so many of the seed catalogs showed up today

it is pretty exciting
lots to read
online versions if you need them



seed companies from plant breeders, if you can, get seeds here

http://rareseeds.com/ (huge selection, large company)

http://www.adaptiveseeds.com/ (amazing seeds that have a large DNA variation, so saved seeds will give you a good local variety fast)

http://sandmountainherbs.com/ 

http://www.seedstrust.com 

http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/


these also have very good seeds

http://www.southernexposure.com/index.php

http://www.seedsavers.org/

http://www.seedsofchange.com/

http://www.bountifulgardens.org/

http://www.nativeseeds.org/ (wonderful native corn seeds and other natives from america, tested by natives for thousands of years )

http://www.kitazawaseed.com/ (asian seeds)

large commercial places worth ordering from especially if you need things in bulk
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/

http://www.fedcoseeds.com/

by the way,
I have ordered from every one of the seed companies I list and they would never carry a GMO seed,
some are organic, some are conventionally farmed

onion seed planting

so I kept all the good onions that I grew over the summer,
and have been storing them,
I waited till about half of them went bad for one reason or another,

so I have now selected out for:
the good growing ones,
the ones that make 2 bulbs (I kind of want large bunching onions),
and the ones that store well

I will know what seeds happen in many months from now,

now I have to wait till fall to plant the seeds,
and make onion "sets" out of them for spring planting,
so it will be a year and 6 months till I know what I have got at all,
likely the next generation past that before I have a good idea of what I have,
I have my tiny bunching onions to hold me over till then.

pop corn

so I have decided that pop corn is the ideal corn to grow,
and I decided it because it needs no special hardware to cook it,
you just pop it and you can eat it,
no grinding or chemical reactions like other corn is going to need,
and sweet corn will not store for the winter, so it is off the list for a winter storage food,

and the miniature pop corn is also very cute !
the lower 3 are a regular miniature pop corn, and the upper one is strawberry popcorn (seeds are easy to find)

christmas present

I got likely the best christmas present of all times,
anyone that knows me knows that I have had some health issues for as long as I can remember,
modern medicine has failed me entirely, I have gone to them so very many times and finally gave up,
I tried everything, one thing after the next for as long as I can remember,
and I fixed some major issues over the years, but nothing really fixed me totally,
a few things worked for a week or so, or masked problems, but that is about it...

but it seems that I finally figured it out,  my body seems to not make an amino acid (or not enough of it),
and it is one needed to deal with protein,
if I eat protein it makes ammonia in my blood, and it has been hurting me very badly, 
if I eat the amino acid and don't eat much protein, then I seem to be just fine,
I have tried it for almost a week now, and am weary that I have figured out what is wrong,
but all is going well, I can even exercise enough to cause pain in my joints (yes, lots of pain, today I have found out that walking on uneven ground with a cane is hard, so I will likely never be able to deal with big hills in my daily life, but that is not to hard to deal with, just don't exercise to much or move to flat ground),
so it really looks like I have finally figured it out (and have a fix!),
can't believe it took me so long to figure it out, I even recorded what I ate every day for 6 months trying to figure out if some food was hurting me...

but this is the best christmas present ever because I can finally sleep pain free,
even if it is not the real issue and only lasts for a week it has been the best thing ever (but it really seems like it is the real fix),
I am so very happy right now,
marry christmas all