Salvaging various things
I plant a lot of greens in winter, not just for us but also for the fur and feather, given that we don't have a lawn. With 3 chickens, 2 Flemish Giant bunnies and 2 humans (the 1 feline is of course supremely indifferent to anything green except the odd blade of grass) greens are a constant need. Most of the time I can keep us all supplied with the good stuff but at this time of year, when growth has almost ground to a halt, it gets a bit difficult to keep the supply lines going without stripping the perpetual spinach, chard, brassicas and winter lettuces to the ground.
There is a solution though. Back in my younger years I used to get outside leaves from my supermarket for my then tiny little Netherland Dwarf bunnies. This works quite well, except that the majority of what you get tends to be lettuce, which can give bunnies (and chooks) the runs (fatally, if you feed them enough; though a little bit as a treat is fine). Recently a friend asked at their local place if they could do this and were told that policy had changed and they were no longer giving the stuff away (one wonders why?) but it could still be worth asking your local.
My new take on the situation is to ask at my local farmer's market. I've run out of my own root vege so I'm currently buying from a lovely organic (and very reasonably priced) stall. They have crates of outside leaves of brassicas that they strip off as they sell the vege. They were happy to stuff a bag full for me along with my purchases - apparently their pigs get them, but there's always far too much.
Problem solved. Happy chooks, happy bunnies.
I was stymied in my other mission at the market though - usually there's a guy there who sells these really great stacking strawberry planters (being able to go up in a garden as small as mine is a really good thing) which I'd saved my pennies for and was all set to get. He wasn't there! Waaargh. Oh well, maybe next week.
Oh yeah, I was going to explain Thursday's and Friday's book-burning thing. The reason we librarians were indulging this vice was as a training exercise in fire salvage, organised by the Canterbury Disaster Salvage Team (a volunteer group which provides training for museums, archives and libraries) and hosted by the good folk of Woolston Fire Station. We filled a shipping crate (our "building") with a bunch of very old and boring books, ledgers and dead and broken nik-naks (our museum/library "collection") and the fire service kindly proceeded to burn and put it out for us.
Thereafter followed two days of learning to methodically salvage, inventory and process (for any possible conservation) the remains. The exercise was enlivened with some role-play for realism: we had to cope with hysterical curators, looters and a very pushy journalist. :-) I learned a helluva lot about what to expect in that kind of situation and what kinds of storage help, hinder or obliterate your chances of salvage. A really fascinating couple of days.
There is a solution though. Back in my younger years I used to get outside leaves from my supermarket for my then tiny little Netherland Dwarf bunnies. This works quite well, except that the majority of what you get tends to be lettuce, which can give bunnies (and chooks) the runs (fatally, if you feed them enough; though a little bit as a treat is fine). Recently a friend asked at their local place if they could do this and were told that policy had changed and they were no longer giving the stuff away (one wonders why?) but it could still be worth asking your local.
My new take on the situation is to ask at my local farmer's market. I've run out of my own root vege so I'm currently buying from a lovely organic (and very reasonably priced) stall. They have crates of outside leaves of brassicas that they strip off as they sell the vege. They were happy to stuff a bag full for me along with my purchases - apparently their pigs get them, but there's always far too much.
Problem solved. Happy chooks, happy bunnies.
I was stymied in my other mission at the market though - usually there's a guy there who sells these really great stacking strawberry planters (being able to go up in a garden as small as mine is a really good thing) which I'd saved my pennies for and was all set to get. He wasn't there! Waaargh. Oh well, maybe next week.
Oh yeah, I was going to explain Thursday's and Friday's book-burning thing. The reason we librarians were indulging this vice was as a training exercise in fire salvage, organised by the Canterbury Disaster Salvage Team (a volunteer group which provides training for museums, archives and libraries) and hosted by the good folk of Woolston Fire Station. We filled a shipping crate (our "building") with a bunch of very old and boring books, ledgers and dead and broken nik-naks (our museum/library "collection") and the fire service kindly proceeded to burn and put it out for us.
Thereafter followed two days of learning to methodically salvage, inventory and process (for any possible conservation) the remains. The exercise was enlivened with some role-play for realism: we had to cope with hysterical curators, looters and a very pushy journalist. :-) I learned a helluva lot about what to expect in that kind of situation and what kinds of storage help, hinder or obliterate your chances of salvage. A really fascinating couple of days.