Brad’s Take

Last summer I didn’t get around to hacking down the Johnson Grass growing along the barn, in the pasture, and in the yard behind the barn. So every once in a while, when the tops towered over the pony, I got out the scythe and laid some down. Then a day or two later, I turned it, then came back with the wheel barrow, fork, and a ball of garden (sisal) twine. Gather a bundle on top of the wheel barrow, stretch a span of twine around and snug it tight, and call it a “bale” (though it looks more like a ragged bundle with a string around the middle). I stacked it in the barn “for now”, on some boards I have been saving, and I think there are some extension cords and air hoses under there, too.

I figured, hey, I can flip a bundle, er, bale, over the fence to the pony every day or two, and we can eak out the winter that way.

The last month when the first frost was due, I looked behind the barn and there was all this half-grown Johnson grass just waiting to lose most of it’s nutrients when the frost hit. So the day before the frost I scythed a bunch. I am not getting younger, I don’t do physical stuff all that often, and I get tired, so a “bunch” isn’t like taking down a 20 acre hay meadow. More like about 20 or 25 minutes of huffing and puffing.

I had read about hay stacks, and you you need to do them correctly to keep the hay from spoiling before you can use it. And I looked. A neighbor claimed he played in haystacks a lot as a boy, but never learned to build one. I found an online story where a guy build a frame using four “uprights” leaning to the center where they were bolted together, a frame build about the ground and bolted to the uprights, and used a plastic tarp over the hay instead of doing the traditional haystack building. This story intended to add to the stack over the season, which you don’t do with a traditional hay stack.

I have a hay ring. This is a round steel ring a couple of feet high with eight loops that make eight openings for horses to get to the hay. You roll the thing on edge up to a round hay bale (5×6 foot, nominal), cut the strings/net from the bale, and drop the ring around the bale. The point is to keep the horses from pulling the bale apart and trampling much of the bale instead of eating it.

I have a hay ring, and some used boards. I set two 2×6 boards, on edge, between feeding spots, so the boards are parallel and maybe 5 feet apart. I laid four 2×4 boards crosswise on the 2×6′s to nearly touch the edges of the ring. And I forked that downed, dried Johnson grass onto my new “hay stack”. It turns out that “a bunch” of Johnson grass, when I am scything, doesn’t make that much of a stack on an 8′ diameter. Maybe 6′ high in the middle of the mound (remember, the bottom is already 2′ up off the ground). I tied a plastic tarp over it, using cotton sash cord to tie to the hoops of the hay ring.

The tarp fell.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the cords, which had been at the top of the hoops, were now near the bottom (nearly level with the bottom boards). The mound looked a little flatter, and was definitely shorter. And the pony? Showed a bit less rib than before The Great Haystack Improvisation.

Last weekend I untied part of the tarp, and plumped down three of the bundles, er, bales, from the barn in the middle of the stack. Well, middle, right. Johnson grass gets to be six to eight foot tall, and in casually stacked, ragged bundles I gathered, they stick out both ends. So the bundles were plumper in the middle of the stack/hay ring, but were right there at the edges. Anyway, I cut the baling twine, er, garden twine, retied the tarp, and the pony has been munching right along. It was empty today, and I put out two more bales. Er, bundles.

I put up hay a bunch at a time, and the grass is usually growing by late February/into March, so I don’t need *all* that much more hay. But the five-ten bundles I gathered each haying exercise makes big stacks in the barn. And the bales I have fed so far make a noticeable dent.

Small square grass hay bales are going for $8.50 each, now, if you can find any. There isn’t much here, and most of the time the price is much higher. The round grass hay bales that sold for $25-40 last year have sold for $135-150, and can be tough to find.

So I am glad the pony is doing OK with the Johnson grass, I am pleased that the tarp hasn’t blown to pieces in the wind, and seems to adjust it’s tie-downs as the pile gets smaller, and I am surprised that the Hackney pony doesn’t mind munching hay from under the flappy blue tarp.

I would have fretted myself a treat if I had planned this to come together this well.

Geekdads at Wired.com describe 30 venerable children’s games, from Button, Button, Who’s got the Button? to jumping rope and Red Rover – and Kick the Can.

The rules and play for non-tech games can enliven vacation days, picnics, and recess. Almost all are low carbon footprint, most are organic, and few require buying gear – maybe an empty can, a jump rope or two, or a play parachute.

Play on!

Geekdads at Wired.com report on the book, “Little House On The Prairie”, Pa Ingalls – Pioneer GeekDad?.

Using few tools, the book follows Pa Ingalls as he builds a house – using nails when he gets to the roof. The door, without hardware?

“First he hewed a short, thick piece of oak. From one side of this, in the middle, he cut a wide, deep notch. He pegged this stick to the inside of the door….”

For other pioneer, geeky gadgets – a frame to make bales of hay in, by hand, and mangers to scalding tubs – check out Farm Appliances and How to Make Them, George A. Martin, copyright 1887, 1999. (Lyons Press, Amazon.com)

Call it cogeneration, call it Combined Heat and Power (CHP). Say you are harvesting the waste heat created in generating electricity, and using the heat and the electricity.

The DOE is spending $156 million to explore returning to the central steam plant model.

It seems to make sense – but will require many miles of piping and many tons of concrete and a lot of (union?) labor to dig the access tunnels, install the steam distribution lines, and rig buildings to make use of locally generated steam for heating and cooling. Not to mention the new, locally (Not In My Back Yard?) sited cogeneration units.

If we can get past what we have today that wasn’t around last century when it worked – that is, lawyers and protesters – we face a daunting obstacle.

Steel.

America used to make steel in large quantities. But mining ores creates rubble, slag, and refining ores creates toxic piles of slag. Working steel is dirty and energy intensive.

A tremendous lot of steel made in America has been rusting away for decades, in auto salvage lots, in scrap yards, in abandoned farm and industrial machinery, in untenanted buildings.

China.

But not all the unused steel is simply rusting away, waiting to be captured and reworked to build today’s equipment and cars, and tomorrow’s steam lines.

A whole heck of a lot of scrap steel, brass, and other scrap metals have been sold and shipped to China. Some comes back as gadgets, tools, and other products, but much went into building their new factories and machinery – and won’t be coming back to us at any price.

CHP – Combined Heat and Power

So I see this CHP as being primarily distraction from the Obama administrations actions they want less scrutiny toward, and a way to buy off tree-huggers looking for real change. Because laying or updating new steam lines will be minor issues – once we find the steel to make the piping and build the CHP plants.

Oh, and we need to find the fuel to fire all these new plants.

Peak Oil posits that energy will get more expensive, that demand will outpace the supplies of oil and other energy sources. They call this the end of cheap energy, and see the result as partly depriving the economy, and people, of petroleum products, but more immediately, pricing public utility electricity and other economic commodities outside the reach of the average American.

More than half of Americans, according to Peak Oil, will be unable to pay for utilities, by 2012.

Is the electric grid about to shatter?

We all know about what ice storms do to electric power. In places where the power lines are still strung on poles, and around trees, the lines come down. Or a car knocks a utility pole over. Or a squirrel gets fried in a substation and lights go out for several blocks.

Or there are too many air conditioners running, and people experience “brown outs” as the voltage on the line falls when over-demand for the energy available. Or the power company pulls a “rolling blackout” – when the power company deliberately cuts off power to a segment of their customers. Then turns it on as they turn off another segment.

Stacking another layer on a house of cards

There are experimental installations in Ohio for transmitting broadband Internet hookups over the power grid. Talk and technology is progressing for “smart meters” – meters that charge different rates according to varying schedules. And can turn off your power if the meter “gets the signal”. Or when your neighbor opens his garage door?

Increased exposure to risk of failure of the grid.

Wired covers a story from the Wall Street Journal, about foreign adversaries targeting the electric utilities.

Peak oil advocate focus on surviving without the utility grid. And they want to develop local sources of food and expertise.

Perhaps an intermediate step would be to return to regional and local sources of power, not just personal solar panels.

Just as chickens in California and sheep in Wyoming won’t feed anyone, if the cost of getting them to hungry people is too high for the hungry people to afford, I am not real happy about losing power in Oklahoma so that California air conditioners keep running.

Parasite regions.

I have nothing against California, I lived there from 1984 to 1989. But even then they were making stupid choices, legislating away their ability to live on the water available, the ability to generate the power they consume, or to raise the food they eat.

Southern California is merely one of the best recognized regions for making foolish energy and food choices. Most cities require vast regions to supply food for their people, power for residences, commerce, and industry, and often rely on tourism for enough revenue to support themselves.

i drive my tractor in pearls…, writing at My Modern Country Home, takes pride in the independence of the Oklahoma state constitution. I wonder – is she comfortable that Oklahoma could supply enough energy for Oklahoman use, if the national grid came apart?

Radishes, carrots, potatoes. Easy – scratch some dirt, plant some seeds, watch the soil that it doesn’t dry out, watch the drainage so water doesn’t stand when it rains. Pull the weeds.

Pulling weeds is simpler if the ground is kept looser – hoeing cuts off some weed roots (you don’t hoe where your crop roots grow). And pulling weeds is more effective if you pull when the weeds are small – once a week might do, more often is better. Weeds are much more problem on soil that has not been a garden long.

Keep the weeds; compost them. You need to keep trimmings, even kitchen scraps for compost, too. Because when you harvest in your garden, the veggies and fruit you take, take from the soil. Working the ground takes minerals, takes fiber – compost helps keep the soil healthy, ready to grow more of what you want. Which is why it is better to get the weeds early – they rob your plants of less moisture from the soil, less nutrients from the soil, shade out the sunlight that makes your plants grow less- if they are enriching your compost pile sooner in the weed’s life.

Tomatoes. Learn to grow tomatoes, and many years you get a nice return. The more attention you pay to growing tomatoes, the better, most years, the harvest.

Beans. Beans are a great source of protein, many types dry well, and are easy (and cheap) to store for long periods of time. Great fiber, beans can be the center of meatless meals, if meat becomes difficult to come by (i.e., no refrigeration if the electricity is off, and you don’t have an Amish or RV ammonia-cycle freezer/refrigerator).

Peas. Peas are easy, shelling peas for fresh use is a time-honored family affair, easy and pleasant to share with a parent or child. Peas cook well, can be canned for storage, or dried.

Squash, gourds, melons, pickles, cucumbers,pumpkins. These gentle vines can be a bit irritating on the skin to handle. Give them lots of room – plant a few seeds in hills several feet apart. The good thing is that most cover the ground well – keep the weeds down as they start growing, and when they cover the ground they shade the soil so densely that weeds won’t be a problem. But separate species – these vines will inter-pollinate, and you lose the distinctive characteristics. Separate as widely as you can, species from species. Pumpkins here, squash there, watermelons over there, and the ButterNut squash out in the corn field.

Lettuce, cabbage – for garnish, cabbage fresh or kimchi or cooked or pickled provides vitamin C.

Bok Choi, rutabaga, yams, beets, celery, bell and other peppers, horseradish, rhubarb, these all grow in gardens, in various regions.

What about tobacco? Tobacco is grown in fields in South Carolina. Most people know that. It grows in Turkey, too, I guess. But what about your garden? The price of $4-15 a carton today makes me wonder why people aren’t growing the stuff in their garden.

Especially since tobacco has a long history of uses in healing – antiseptic, drawing infection, and other uses. Prepare and store tobacco for smoking in a pipe, for rolling in cigars – or if you have the papers even rolling in a cigarette recall the old-time ‘plug’ of solid-rolled tobacco? Manage the moisture when storing to keep the virtues of the tobacco intact. If nothing else, growing tobacco will leave you something to trade to those looking for an version of it.

Celery grows. In gardens. I found if you stick the heart of a stalk of celery in a glass, it will throw roots – and mature in a window box. Maybe a living room scented with growing celery isn’t the first thought that comes to mind, but like an aquarium or bird cage, adds an air of life, of shared space. And celery is very good, for dipping or spreading with peanut butter, cheese, refried beans – or honey butter.

Isn’t it Marigolds that you can plant around your garden? – and keep out many insect pests?

The old song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ that Melanie recorded some years ago, the lady that gave us, “I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates/You’ve got a brand new key”. The song includes a line about ‘Farmer, farmer, put away the DDT. Leave the spots on the apples, but leave me the birds and the bees.” DDT was a nasty pesticide, and many in use today have to be handled correctly – all of them kill or maim *something*, including hopefully the targeted pest. But the issue was only partly about spots on apples – yes, an unblemished apple sells quicker, usually, outside a Farmer’s Market. But what about an apple with a worm? Or a bell pepper or cucumber or tomato? The cost to plant and till the soil is the same – so what about the 1/4 to 3/4 of the crop that withers or is consumed by weeds or insects – when the cost in labor and materials to raise a crop falls short of the return in food or sales, it gets stupid to plant the crop. Thus, for many crops, pesticides will be with us. Learn about this class of poisons, how and when to use them, what they mean about cleaning or using treated plants or animals. Choose wisely.

Right now, ‘fertilizer’ is something in a bag that Wal-Mart and Ace Hardware and the local garden center sells. Steer manure? Expect the local farmer to have some, but not in bags, not dried, and sterilized, and prepared. It still works well. Even sheep, and goat, and horse, and other livestock droppings. Maybe you can work out a deal – rake a pasture regularly, keep part of the droppings that would otherwise sour and kill the grass underneath it, gather a part and scatter the rest. Help keep down parasites and benefit the pasture, while gather some useful .. fertilizer. Throw the result on your compost pile, and biologic away!

Soil amendments include adjusting the pH of the soil – whether it is acid or alkaline (excess acid or deficit acid ions, compare to an even-steven balance of 7.0) – and mineral content. Potash, lime, and other materials occasionally come available.

And some plants change the soil around them. Legumes, such as beans and soybeans, alfalfa, enrich the nitrogen content of the soil they grow in. A walnut tree can amend base soil – note this is *not* a quick solution! Your county extension office or garden center can help you plan soil enrichment and amendment. You may want different soil balances for different crops. Some things prefer partial sun – plant in the shade of leafier, taller plants. Some like more acidity, others less.

Some garden products are perennials – trees, for instance. Strawberries. Rhubarb. Asparagus – be prepared to sow a bit of salt with the cuttings for asparagus.

Plan your garden. Lay out on paper, the amount of space for each packet or handful of seeds. Calculate the row spacing – some things need to be close, others can be, still others – cucumbers, tomatoes – need lots of space for one or three plants. When you plan, allow for when things mature. Today, we can read on the packet this one comes in in 45 days, that in 65. Try to plant time-wise, to stagger the crop – perhaps a row of lettuce is planted a bit each week, so that fresh lettuce matures over several weeks or months. Tomatoes will be good fresh – but you will want to them to be mostly ready to can all at the same time. Peas are nice fresh, and you can stagger the planting to extend when they will be ready to eat.

Sweet corn comes to mind with ‘fresh from the garden’. Corn, sweet or field corn (also called ‘dent’ corn) takes a lot of resource for the yield. If you have the space, then by all means, corn is a very good crop. Especially if you want a few rows of corn to space out some melon or pickle patches, or something you need to shade. Dent corn can provide livestock feed, corn meal, and wild bird seed.

And wild birds can be part of your post-Peak Oil program to manage insect pests, both garden pests and general people-type pests.

Did you know, with planning, that parts of your garden can be weeded by geese? Once the plants begin maturing, the geese look for newly-germinated plants – weeds. Quite efficient. And geese can be easy to keep, and pretty good for watch animals – it is *tough* to sneak up on a couple of geese.

You will want to consider fencing for your garden – to manage neighbor kids, and to control the theft of food by rabbits, squirrels, and other four-foot raiders and destroyers.

And maybe most important of all you can grow in a garden – is personal satisfaction, and a wholesome place to raise children, re-train adults, etc. “He who plants a seed and waits, believes in God.” My mother tacked that up in the kitchen, back home.

Right now, there is a truck.  A big truck.  Rolling down the road.

That truck has an engine that drives the gears that makes the wheels go round.  The wheels grind their rubber against the pavement or blacktop or dirt or gravel, and scrape by to nudge the truck on it’s way.

While the engine is metering a tiny bit of fuel, a measure of air into each cylinder, waiting for the time to come that the fuel and air combine under pressure and heat, and explosively drive the piston part of the cylinder chamber away, to push a crankshaft, to twist a gear, to turn a wheel – the aftermath of the explosion in the cylinder is cleaned up.

After the fuel and the air have been burned, their exhaust products, water vapor, unburned fuel, any impurities in the air, will be vented through various mechanisms to limit the impact of the aftermath on the environment around the truck.

A bit of heat will remain.

When the air and fuel burn, they will heat the cylinder, the piston, the valves.  The heat will be conducted to the outside of the engine, and will warm the air around the engine.  This big truck engine is water cooled – water treated to manage boiling and impurities, is pumped into the engine to absorb heat.  The heated water is sent to a radiator that uses a driven fan to draw massive amounts of air through the coils of the radiator.  The radiator is designed to convey heat from the water to the air efficiently, and the cooled water is circulated back to the engine.  The heat carried from the engine is important.  Keeping the engine from overheating prevents overheating related breakdowns.  Too much heat can warp bolts and cylinders and pistons and gaskets and seals and ..  The potential for overheating damage runs from minor to quite major component failures.

So – why is the extra heat thrown away?  Instead of a radiator to heat the air around the vehicle, can’t that heat be transformed into stored energy, in the form of heat, or of ice (an ammonia-cycle freezer?), or of electricity, or compressed air, or ..?

We burn the fuel.  Why are we wasting the heat?