bi-cycle, bicycle

Its a thing,

Two wheels, frame, human is the prime mover, has gears multiple or two, handlebars.

I went on a little trip with my neighbour. Along the Trans Canada Trail, from Lindsay to Campbellford. It was fun, I was surprised at how well I was doing, though it got a little tougher once we hit the 82 or 84 km mark my legs didn't seem to want to go any further. Took a couple extra breaks.

I thought something was rubbing on my rear wheel maybe the brakes or or maybe something from my saddlebags(panniers) but nope totally just my legs telling the to F-off.

Got the Campbellford, got to the motel, showered changed and had a Burger at The Bridge Eatery and Public House, pretty fancy little spot for a small town, the burger was awesome, and the specials sounded long winded but fantastic(sign of a good place right?), but I just really wanted a burg.

Had three beers and that about did me in, fell asleep watching The Simpsons or some stupid discovery show thing about cars.

NO POO: Hair cleaning, Degreasing, Deodorizing.

Vinegar

Baking Soda

Hair Care

Gross.(not really though)

I have been washing my hair for that last 2 years give or take a few months, with Baking Soda and Apple Cider Vinegar.

I have tried this method off and on a few times, with long hair and short hair. Works better for me with short hair, as it fried my long hair but that could have been the way I was doing it.

The first few times I kept a container of dry baking soda in the shower just dumped a little in my hand and added enough water to make a paste. Then tried to evenly distribute it through my long locks. That fried my hair, I gave up after a few try's.

Then I cut my hair and donated my pony tail to Locks of Love for wigs for children, it made my heart feel good.

Well then I tried it again with short hair same process, made a mess of my hair again. Gave up again! F-this noise I tells ya.

So I did some more research, and I can't remember if I followed someone elses idea or plans or if I just made them up myself, in this case pffff, I made them up myself, "those who dout me........" add your own profanities, expletives this is family friendly... Well I try. It's a quote from the HBO show Deadwood, you get my drift, It has a lot of swearing in it, and crude comments, it is fantastic.

So we found some glass jars with cork style lids at a yard sale or thrift store or someplace like that.

The tools and ingredients - water

 For the baking soda I take a little more than a handful of baking soda load that into jar then add water to fill the jar put the lid on shake it up.

Then for the Apple Cider Vinegar, I fill up the jar 1/3 up then top off with water, put the lid on, shake.

The How To, NoPoo

This method has been working very well for me the last two years. Now your supposed to be able to ween yourself off of this stuff, when your hair starts "naturally" cleaning itself, I have never gotten to that point my hair gets pretty gross if I don't wash it for more then two days. I thinks its all a load of what? you may ask your self, BULL, ya maybe if you don't do to much with your day and sit around in an extremely Air conditioned building then you might be able to get away with weening your self off. Me? no I'm in the heat and humidity too much, just doesn't seem plausible.

Final product with its relatives

Now these two containers last me about 3 showers a piece, I don't use the Vinegar wash every time, just like you don't use conditioner every time, unless you do then go for it. 

Day of the Gardening

So we have spent a few days planting our tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, flowers, weeding the gardens, and the community garden beds while weeding our garlic bed found this pretty little moth.

Good? Bad? I don't know but I left it there.

Salt Marsh Moth apparently, I looked it up could be wrong.

Wow

I have been bad at this lately, I have not written a thing in quite awhile now.

First off gardens are coming together, back yard is a mess, big circle fenced off from the dogs trying to grow some grass there, and trying to get grass in the front also, its full of weeds, I don't really like grass I think its rather stupid why would you put something on your property that you constantly have to work at and spend your hard earned money for a fancy lawn mower, grass seed, time and energy. But that is what people want and if you want to sell your home you gotta make it look the way people want it. People are stupid..............

Second off...... i will get to the second later.

Well that's that. Peace I'm out.

Unwrapping the layers

Peeling back the layers one by one of matted straw and leaves to reveal the ground with all the critters and bugs vacating for the season, worms, millipedes, beetles and the little mouse highway zigzagging and around and around, pulled the roof off all that fun to bring my garlic to the light. checked them out a few days ago, they were busting through the layers of mulch just raring to go. So I went to assist, took the layers off that were weighing them down. There were a few that were struggling to get through, got a little bit of a bend to them. The larger cloves must of gotten a shove out with the frost, they were sticking straight up on top of the ground pushed them back in and covered the clove with the earth. almost all of them seemed to have sprouted, but I found another one laying on its side not in any of the rows so I put that one in the place of a dud that was rotted when I dug it out. We re-mulched with straw and are hoping for the best.

Stick in the pit

So I have all this beeswax which smells awesome every time I walk past it. So I thought to myself what else can I do with this stuff, I have already made a ton of candles, now to try something new. I work in a field that is at times physically demanding, or can be really hot and humid, being in boiler rooms or on top of office towers in the sun. I have tried many "natural", environmentaly friendly deodorants, and they don't really help in the curbing the under arm smell department, unless I apply it multiple times through out the day but that is just not practical for me.... cause I just don't want to do it, really. I am a pretty low maintenance fella.

I read a few instructional  blogs on the matter. found a couple that I liked. I started simple, didn't want to have to go out and buy a shit ton of stuff if it wasn't going to work, the only thing I had to buy was arrow root powder, and baking soda but that's because we ran out. So I made it, let it solidify overnight, and used it the next day for work instead of my Olde Spice, well it was hard, like really hard and sticky felt like it was ripping out hair, got back home after work, which was a good test day in a boiler room, doing a repair and having to carry stuff up a couple flights of stairs. And it worked I was surprised I had my doubts. So I came home melted the sticks back down added more coconut oil and a few drops of castor oil so the sticks weren't so hard and sticky. It is still a bit sticky for my liking, next batch I will try a different recipe with cocoa butter or shea butter, to make it a little more smooth. I am going to buy some more essential oils to add to the deodorant I am thinking Sandalwood, Cedarwood and a small amount of Tea Tree oil. Right now I have the last few drops from my bottle of Lemon oil, and a couple drops of citronella, It doesn't smell terrible but it could smell better.

Instructions and directions when I perfect this stuff. I want to try one more batch and then make a judgement, on what the best way to do it is.

And This is what I put them in left over deodorant containers, worked out beauty. 

Chicken Hawk

I was waiting for a customer at a job site yesterday when this fella swooped in. He landed on a tree close to my truck. I have been trying to remember to keep my camera in my truck, just in case something like this happens. I have had many times when I wanted and needed to take a photo and the camera on my phone just does not cut it. So I was lucky this time.

Coopers Hawk, lesser known as the chicken hawk, which actually deemed them a nuisance. Though they rarely would go after chickens, since they are not much larger than a chicken.

Kept on looking around and not towards me, so I would whistle, he would spin his head around and look around trying to find the victim. They are agile flyers, and hunt in wooden areas through the forest looking for small song birds, that they catch in flight. They kill their pray by squeezing while in flight. Danger to the poor birds at bird feeders in your backyard. 

I am assuming his feathers are all fluffed up because it was cold out, -15C. Those eyes adults have red eyes, good key for identifying this raptor.

I whistled again and I was spotted. He had a good gaze on me for a while, he was probably pissed and wanted to rip my eyes out, customer showed up perfect time to get back to work.

Coopers Hawk, I was honoured to be in your presence.

Pretty cool, maybe you don't think so, but maybe your also lame.

Peace I'm out.

if my name was Rosemary

If my name was Rosemary it would be kind of weird, not in the bad sense, I would get funny looks "Hi, my name is Rosemary." Especially in my line of work, and being a dude. But maybe it would be a 'boy named Sue' type of scenario. I would have grown up with gravel in my guy and spit in my eye. I mean I love my name I have now, and I did have to learn to be tough, being called Jessica from kindergarden to even still people think it's funny now. I learned, 'my fists got hard and my wits got keen'. But Rosemary would have gotten me in more trouble.



 On to what this is really about FOOD!.... Easy peasy, lemon squeasy.

Roasted Veg. and Rosemary.

 4 cloves of Garlic
 1 Onion
4 small to medium Potatoes
4 Carrots
4 smallish to medium Beets
2 Sweet Potatoes
Salt n Peppa Rosemary

natural sunlight from the back door made this glow.

 Cut all your Veg. Around the same size varying dimensions are not an issue, make it fun and easy don't be worried about it, it's just food and it goes into your belly. Crush Garlic leave in skin.
 Add everything in a 13x9 pan, oven@ 400°, drizzle olive oil all over those suckers, add as much salt and pepper as you want. I like pepper so I make sure there is lots every piece, same with Rosemary, Mix it all up, use your hands its fun. Put in the oven, dish uncovered, for 45 mins, stir the veg in the pan after 25mins/halfway. done when all veg is cooked.

Lack of sun made this photo terrible.

I will post pictures soon. This has been sitting for a while and I haven't actually made this in a while so I couldn't take pictures, don't get mad at me, I am too damn awesome.

Peace I'm OUT

"I don't wanna be a granola head"

Made deodorant tonight will let you know how it goes, wear it tomorrow at work see how that pans out.

I am a Pillar of my Community

See what I did there in the title...... oh well because I have been making Pillar candles, it really isn't as funny when you have to explain it. I'm sorry.

Since filtering of the Bees wax has occurred, candles I have been making. Actually I have been making candles since before the wax was filtered I am that impatient, but so far so good..... I have been learning from my mistakes.

Making dipped taper candles is the easiest way to make a candle, but the most time consuming and the ugliest if you don't know what your doing.

I have been experimenting with different mediums for molds and how as to keep the wick centred. Two of the sizes I have been playing with seem to be working out well. I need a few more different sizes of wicks and molds to try out. This has been fun and because of this we have been burning candles everyday.

I have since run out of wax need to go make another purchase and start filtering again, I have given away all our 2" and 1.5". So I need to make some more, then I can take pictures for the Burning Wax! Tips post I wrote up earlier, so go check it out and if I haven't put up pics then check it out in about a week or two, after I get myself some more wax.

I have on order some more sizes of wicks, to try and make some better tapers, the smaller size I have is still too large, causing to hot of a flame and they are dripping which is a no-no.

Peace back to doing house stuff... lame

Burning Wax! Tips

This is a quick tips guide for burning candles; what I have learned and found about burning beeswax candles. I use most of these tricks while burning my candles and testing them.

The wick on your candle when new is going to be longer than 1/4".  Before you light the wick, cut it down to 1/4" (about 4 pennies stacked... oh we don't use pennies anymore okay well then 3 nickels stacked, or 5 dimes or 4 quarters equal 1/4"). When lighting the candle, light at the base of the wick to help soften the wax and/or melt it so that the wick has fuel to burn. A wick works as a siphon. When there is a hot pool of wax around a lit wick, the heat from the flame draws wax up the wick and it is used for fuel to create light and more heat. The wick is still burnt but much slower then the wax. If lighting the wick from the tip you will burn more of the wick before it has a chance to create a pool of wax to feed from.

When deciding to burn a candle, estimate the time the candle will be burnt for (how long is the candle going to be lit). That's when you can choose what size of candle you should light. A candle that has time to make a pool of wax right to the edge, or with in an 1/4 - 1/8" of the edge, is a candle that is burning properly. A candle that only has time to make a small pool of wax around the wick, is a candle that is going to tunnel.

Oh no my candle is tunneling, don't worry we can fix it.

If a candle wants to start tunneling there are some tricks that are easy to do.

First is hugging the candle, where you can wrap your hand around the outside of your candle and put gentle pressure on the outside, squeezing in. Be careful when doing this so as to not spill wax on yourself. The wax is very hot and will do some serious damage to your skin.

squeezing the sides in enough for the heat from the flame to start melting the tunnel.

Another method of hugging is just using your thumb or finger and pushing the edges in to the center, raising the pool of wax, to allow for 1/4" of the wick to stick out.

Press the sides in and down towards to wick evenly all the way around, while raising the pool of wax,
with out drowning the wick. Make sure to leave a 1/4" of wick above the pool of wax

Alternative method is adding more wax.  If you have wax drippings from a previously burned candle than you can add some pieces to the pool if it looks like it is starting to tunnel. Again, just add enough to bring the pool up so 1/4" of the wick is protruding.

Some people like the tunneling look of the glow of the flame behind a golden wall of beeswax. So if that's what you like than go for it. Just keep the shell of a candle and break it up to feed other candles so you don't waste any of the wax.

When you have decided that you have had enough, and want to extinguish the flame. It is recommended that you push the wick into the pool of wax to put out the flame, so to essentially wax the wick. After dunking the wick in the wax push back up to straighten out, and you will have a prewaxed wick to re-light.

Pass the honey, Honey. Pass the sugar, Sugar. Pass the tea, Bag?

"We're putting it on Wax,(it's the new style)"

Yep, that is a quote.

Well we decided to try something new, we like honey, we use a lot of honey, and it smells awesome. So what have we got planned? Bees wax candles, Why? Cause we need to make a mess somehow. but at least it is a mess that smells good.

raw, pre-cut, dirty, smells awesome

I purchased some raw bees wax from a local apiary, where I go to get the liquid gold. On this trip I asked if I could purchase 5lbs of wax also; show up and there it is, chipped off the old block with a chisel and marteau. Fill up a few jars of honey and we're off. So then after about a day of the block sitting on the computer desk and smelling terrific, I decide to start chipping it into smaller pieces to ease the melting process. This is a little bit of a task, so I make up a double boiler with an old mason jar, old pot, and a coiled up piece of copper wire. Filled the mason jar with water and placed my chisel and putty knife into the mason jar to heat up. I then push the chisel and putty knife into the wax till it starts breaking apart and repeat this process till I am left with pieces in the 2"-3" with a ton of little chips and flakes everywhere. They look like good sizes for quicker melting, so I start melting them down in the double boiler system.  While that is happening I start creating a makeshift filtering system, now that's the secret part can't let that one out. Filter is made, wax still melting. after about 30mins wax has fully melted. Pour wax through filtering media, onto baking pan... old baking pan, lined with parchment paper.

All chopped up.

She's always there happy to help, dangerous or safe

Getting wax off stuff is a pain in the ass,and anything used quickly becomes something old and something you don't care about. Kind of like how North Americans treat our elderly in old age homes.... ouch that's a sore spot. So was that wax that just dripped on my hand. Use caution and PPE.

All the crud left in the filter media

found this little fella, in the filter too. 

After filtering the wax and letting it harden it takes on a lighter colour since dirt and debris have been removed. Yes, if it is previously unfiltered it is going to have dirt, propolis, pollen, bees and bee parts, and who knows what else.

The whole process makes your house smell nice and sweet like honey.

Hot Chocolate Part Duex

So, I wrote a post with a recipe for Hot Chocolate last year, but I love the stuff too much, who can blame me right?! RIGHT!

So I am Lactose intolerant, that store bought junk just messes me up big time. So last year was an experiment in the making of hot chocolate. I just wanted to control what was in it. There still is a lot of sugar in it, which I might try experimenting with this year or next what ever comes first. But alas there is only skim milk powder where I live. Then I got adventurous, I looked on the internet went to these weird sites about alternative foods not found in your local grocery store cause they are the devil, am I right? YA! So doing some incognito web surfing(chrome has a setting for that) and I found Rice Milk powder, Soy Milk powder, other Milk Powders, Cocaine Powders....no, no I didn't, and last but not least Coconut Milk Powders, YEAH! BITCH!

So I go down to the local Health food Shop, Jo Annes, sneek aboot look in the baking section there, bammo there it is White Gold. So I takes that back home.  Mix up a little chocolove slam that back and then life was born on the 9th day.

So in all seriousness back to the recipe. AND pictures this time.

1 3/4cp  -  Cocoa Powder
1 3/4cp  -  Powdered Sugar
2 cp       -  Coconut Milk Power
1 tbsp     -  Corn Starch
1 tsp       -  Salt

All the Ingredients in the bowl, sifted but not mixed.

Everything all mixed up.

Sitting Pretty.

Looks like something out of a 70's magazine, But better.

Peace, I'm off to work.

Who smells like garlic?

I smell like garlic! Those who dout me, take a whiff.

This is our first attempt at growing garlic, K cleared out the community garden last week, I planted 194 cloves in it tonight. We really like garlic, almost all our recipes call for garlic and we usually double it. So hopefully if all goes well we will never have to buy it again...... maybe.

We got the garlic from a friend who grows copious amounts of garlic. All together there were 46 bulbs, 40 Music or "Musica" is another name thrown around, so I've heard and read a few times. It is a Porcelain variety which netted me 155 cloves of really good size. 6 Persian Star, which are of the Purple stripe varieties and got 39 cloves.

I really don't know a whole lot about growing it so I read quite a bit about it, and talked to some of our friends. Everyone seemed to be in the same boat with depth and spacing.

This is what we started with, spent a little bit of time separating them while watching some shows.

This is where all those cloves ended up. My rows aren't the straightest, but that's alright to me! I tend to wobble a little too.

And then it got dark @ 5:30, so this is how it ended.

194 so that's 8 rows of 24, two of those rows may have had 25 in them, you do the math. Rows are 10" apart, planted 6-8" apart and 3-4" deep with 2" of mulch and going to throw some more on there this week before the neighbours get rid of their leaves. Straw is a preferable mulch, but we had plenty of leaves off the neighbours lawn and he already bagged it so half the job was already done. That's permaculture right there, let someone else do half the work... haha I kid. But seriously straw would have been better, the leaves are going to turn into a mat, in the spring when the leaves thaw we will have to loosen them up so as to let the little garlics poke out. Just another reason to get out of the house and out of doors earlier in the season I guess.

well

Adios Amigos. Go listen to Ramones now.

Community Garden!

This is a video K. took while visiting the community garden plot. This was the first year we purchased a community garden plot, we enjoyed it. Reasons for the plot this year was because we don't have enough room for Cucurbits.

Cucurbitaceae is a plant family with hundreds of plants, Squashes, Pumpkins, Gourds, Cucumbers, Melons and lots and lots of things. Among all those things, they also like allot of room. We had three plants in there two watermelons and one squash, which we trained to just go around themselves many, many times. We ended up getting 4 Moon and stars watermelon and probably 12 to 14 Delicata Squash.

Also in the garden were Bush Beans, Garlic, Onions, and one poor nasturtium that was swallowed up by the vines but was still alive at the end.

6 experimental garlic, that were trans planted from a cell pack to the plot in mid spring. It really didn't have much time to make it. The garlic we did get from it was strong, it would have scared away any signs of a cold coming on, it burnt the tongue.

A bunch of Onions which only half started growing, and the ones that did ranged from small to 1 very large all red.

Beans, Bush Beans of the green variety. Well they did really, really well 6 plants, which were a struggle to start due to 3 or 4 year old seed, numerous attempts soaking, drowning, sprouting in paper towel, and just sowing directly in the plot. Beans,beans, beans we did get, were never with out, those 6 plants left us with 2 meals a week, for the two of us which was perfect.

                                         

Peace,
Time to get something done around here!

Getting to the end

I am not really good at keeping up with regular posts I have failed a few times already at trying to up date regularly, but I am doing it now so get over it.

The date is August 12th 2013, I am featured watering the plants and petting Herc while hes lounging in the grass, Zoey our fluffy ridiculous cat also makes an appearance, and some bees.

Tomatoes have really started producing at this point and everything is flowering.

thanks for watching, now go to bed
PEACE.

Tea Time

This is old forgot to post.
Tea, so many flavours, so many different ways to make it, so many different ingredients, so many different cultures, many many different things. My all time favorite is Lapsang Soochong....... no, no it is not actually I don't like it much at all I use it for something completely different from tea since I was so disappointed, maybe I will release my secret use for lapsang in the future. Really my favorite tea is Chai one of my old bosses said he thought North Americans were funny, cause we call it Chai Tea, because Chai means tea, so we are saying Tea Tea, he is Persian.

Well as I am making a big ole batch of tea for a pot luck at Greenshire Eco Farms, I will post my recipe.

So the way I make my Chai for a small batch enough for a few cups.

5-8      -  Cardamom pods (bruised/opened by pressing down with the back of a                   spoon or smashed with a mortar and pestle)

5-8      -  Cloves

5-8      -  Black Pepper corns

tbsp     -  Minced Ginger root

1"        -  piece of a Cinnamon stick broken up

3 or 4  -  Tea Bags (I use orange pekoe caffeinated and decaffeinated depending                 on when I'm making it)

1/2cp   -  Milk (soy, Almond, Coconut, or regular)

4 cp     -  Water

1 tbsp  -   Honey or to taste

bring water to a boil, add everything but the tes bags and milk, reduce to a simmer.
Simmer for about 5 mins or your house smells awesome, throw in the milk, tea and honey.

There you go my version (probably stolen or elaborated from someone somewheres) DEAL WITH IT.

Peace I'm out.

Another Video.....

Here is another quick video of our garden 17 days after the last video. It was a bright sunny day with wind. Please keep speakers down wind blowing can be a little loud. I have been pretty busy didn't have time to post this a lot of fancy book learnin been going on studying for EGSA (Electrical Generating Systems Assosiation) exam, taking online John Deere courses, and working way to many hours.

Here is the Vid starring Herc (our furry friend) at the end.

July 2nd 2013

This video is from July 2nd, the highlight of this video is the black cat Boss, who distracts the director during a few moments of filming and the giant cherry tomato plant. Everything looks a lot better in this video, all the plants have taken root and taken off very well, this is where the real excitement of gardening comes in. So with out further ado the video.

June 11 2013 Garden Updates and garage sale finds.

A few weekends ago I scored 3 pieces of vinyl @ a yard sale two doors down, $2 bucks for Paranoid - Black Sabbath, Who's Next - The Who & Frantic City - Teenage Head. Been playing them quite a bit. What a beauty find good thing I walked the dogs or I would have missed them. I stopped when I saw Teenage Head poking outah the back of a milk crate. To my surprise she had a few good records in an otherwise mediocre collection, she had all the same stuff you would find sitting for ages at a thrift shop.

Well this is interesting looking up our garden video to post for this blog I came across plenty other videos of people doing garden updates for the same day so here is some links just because I want to.

Alderman Farms - Brookhaven, Mississippi
J&J Acres - Toomsuba, Mississippi