I've renewed my mortgage here. In Canada you have to renew your mortgage every 5 years at whatever the interest rate at the time is, even if it's supposed to be a 20 year mortgage or whatever. I'm not sure why they do that, but they do.

Benefit of living out here where I do: very low cost of land. Issue with living where I do: not much equity, so ( Read more... )

It's been hovering at freezing for a couple days now. These warming periods aren't unusual here, I have one just a little warmer recorded in 2019 for instance. This one, though, isn't really dipping above freezing nor below. It's hovering.

The snow gives up dense white fog. Meanwhile the top layer of snow softens, it's juicy when stepped upon but ( Read more... )

I've been making cleaning progress on my home. I've been making it mine in a way I had not before: instead of letting the inside just be function, I've been making it fit me. This means that, well, Threshold has always felt like the inside of the dryad tree that was my first MU* building project long back. It's all wood inside, it's tall and arched ( Read more... )

Bubbles for bubble tea are cooking on the stove. Behind me the aerogarden that I bought to function as a humidifier/sofaside lamp is casting its light. A cat is playing with a jingly cat toy beside me. The dishwasher is humming along, taking my kitchen towards tidiness. A gloom-grey sky is dimming from bright moonlight to daylight outside. I have ( Read more... )

Actually, typing that makes me realize I need to get up and water everyone pretty soon, but I wanted to capture this last little while.

Josh came up with a meat slicer he'd found for me on craigslist, which is a lovely machine and makes both bacon and charcuterie much better. We had a fun bacon taste-off, since I sent a bunch of bacon down with ( Read more... )

So last summer when Josh was going to come up, his drive was almost blocked by highways closed due to wildfires. He made it up ok, I don't remember if he detoured or not. Tucker definitely did around that time on the same route.

A month ago Josh was going to come up but flooding took out a ton of our highways, most of which are not open yet. We've ( Read more... )

It's looking like blue oyster mushrooms, winecap/king stropharia, nameko, enoki, and shiitake will work here. Probably shaggy manes too, since they grow wild. But here's the thought process:

I have a ton of aspen, which is actually between 3 and 6 clones connected by underground roots so they're very robust. They send suckers up all through my yard ( Read more... )

A friend sent me a link to a property listing (pond, fig trees, greenhouse) and said he was thinking about bugging out, what would it take to be self-sufficient and possibly scale up to being able to support some folks.

Obviously I love that sort of thing and pointed out the rocky outcrops under the soil there and put together the ghost of an ( Read more... )

Quick fb repost here, since I haven't written on this much:

I just want to acknowledge how many core beliefs food touches on how our bodies relate to the world and its creatures, and how big and significant restructuring that relationship can be, and finding good meaning in a new type of relationship. Especially if it's been such hard work to ( Read more... )

Pigs/Geese: winter over in greenhouse and then move through fields

March/early April onto frozen ground as the greenhouse thaws enough to plant: field #1 from frozen ground to 1" thaw: barley, kale, cabbage gets planted when the animals leave.

April till mid-May into field #2 for and tomatoes, squash, and corn go in after.

Mid-May into field #3, ( Read more... )