Inaka Life 田舎の生活

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Oh Vermont!

East towards the White Mountains of New Hampshire

North and West towards Lake Champlain , the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and Canada

Painted Bluff at Buffalo National River, Ozark Mountains, Arkansas

back to the world

My first stab at wheat, wish me luck.
Since I missed dandelion season the only other option was crimson, clover that is

basically copying the dandelion recipe and winging it

boil about 10 minutes

Seriously red

should be ready for Thanksgiving or Christmas, guess this decides the menu

plowed under half of the regular clover green manure and sowed another 100 or so corn seeds

2 comments:

kenelwoodMay 16, 2011 05:46 AM
Welcome home ?!

Nice shots there in the U.S.. You sure do get around (travel).

Grey and Marilyn are doing great here. Today I observed them literally sucking bugs out of the air. Seems everything I've read up on them being big bug and mosquito eaters is true. Also seems that they're not "mud suckers" or "puddle muckers" like the aigamo, and stick more to clover and airborne bugs and grains.

Also, I won't type anything about Marilyn's wings, but you can imagine.

Cheers,

ken
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johnMay 21, 2011 03:56 PM
Glad to hear the muscovies are getting on better, mine is not quite the carnivore yours is yet, but the toad/insect population is yet to explode
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some background

We've been living in our present home in the mountains of central Hyogo for 8 years. I'm trying to slowly evolve our lifestyle into a more green or energy efficient one . Some parts such as food and transportation are very difficult to say the least. Others are simple.

Our best efforts in efficiency are through heating/cooling. Our home has no central heating or cooling system. We heat 90% with local wood, usually scavenged for free or almost free. We also run two kerosene heaters for short periods, using about 10L per week. Cooling is through ceiling fans in almost every room.

Our latitude is the same as Tennessee, with very wet, hot, humid summers. We also see a good amount of snowfall due to proximity to mountains and the sea. Summer high temperatures are usually 35C/95F , 80%humidity. Winter lows are usually -5C/ 23F. The coldest I've seen here is -10C/14F. Summer temps indoors are usually 25-30C/80-85F. Winter temps indoors 15-20C/ 60-70F.

We use electric for cooking, hot water and of course lighting. We average a little over 600KWH usage per month. Less in summer, more in winter. Our hot water is through a very efficient "eco- cute" heat pump. We also enjoy "candlenight" once per month, this is very fun.

In cooler months we use greywater from the bath to do laundry. 2 washloads can be done from one bath. We probably do over 50% with greywater per week. Oct-May. Greywater pumps are standard on most washers here now. All laundry is line hung, usually indoors in a dedicated drying room.

I am currently trying to produce a percentage of the food we eat. Of course this goes up in summer and down in winter. Now we are at perhaps 5-10%(in season) of food produced, which is better than nothing. How high I can raise this remains to be seen.

It only takes 1 meal per week out of 21 (3meals per day X 7 days in a week) to equal 5%. ONE MEAL. If your homegrown ingredients only account for 1/2 the meal, then 2 meals per week. It is that simple. It adds up to substantial savings, even taking into account outputs such as gardening/farming supplies. There is nothing more satisfying for me than to eat a homecooked, homegrown meal.

In other areas I am slowly working on a small solar power system, and hope to install a small wind turbine in the future. These will be used for outdoor/recreational lighting or emergencies. Eventually I would like to get the house lighting onto these sources.

Inaka Life 田舎の生活

Sunday, May 15, 2011

2 comments:

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