Saturday, October 31, 2015
Elizabeth Bowen
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Thomas Hood
Apple Press Mods
We have just juiced up some more apples, for both cider and juice. We processed four crates in four hours (including set up and clean up time), making a total of 11 gallons of juice. We've frozen some, but the majority has gone to cider, which will last longer without having to take up freezer space. Leo helped with the whole process and was not only very useful, he also had a blast. I really like this "kids getting older" business. We've made a few mods to our apple press design, and they work great, making things go that little bit smoother.
- We cut the bottom off a 5 gallon bucket and drilled a bunch of holes in it. We then cut our boards to fit inside the bucket. Now, when we press the various "cheeses" of apple pulp, nothing slides around and we can press it a lot faster. The juice comes out the holes and out the bottom.
- We also put a grommet into the hole that drains into the collection bucket. It has stopped the small problem we had with dribbling.
The post Apple Press Mods appeared first on VelaCreations.
Apple Press Mods
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Monday, October 26, 2015
Kurt Vonnegut
Nursery
As we continue to enlarge our forest garden and the swales around the property, our demand for trees has increased. Although we can grow a huge variety of plants in the orchard itself, where there is irrigation, we are trying to cultivate drought tolerant trees for the swales. That way, they will be able to survive drier years, and still provide our animals with food.
So Abe germinated and planted a bunch of older seeds, for Mimosa, Palo Verde, and Honey Locust. Each of these three are nitrogen fixers, require very little maintenance, and make an excellent feed for animals. We also have several mulberry and pomegranate cuttings (trees that have proven that they thrive in our area and soil).
Of the seeds he planted, a huge majority came up and are doing very well. You can almost watch them grow (and Abe does!). Their little pots currently fill our inside grey water beds (in between my young plants and herbs).
We finally have a nursery.
The post Nursery appeared first on VelaCreations.
Nursery
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Helen Hunt Jackson
Friday, October 23, 2015
B. C. Forbes
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Albert Einstein
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
E. F. Schumacher
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Theodore Roethke
Monday, October 19, 2015
George Washington Carver
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Preserving Prickly Pear
By: velacreations
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Saturday, October 17, 2015
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Friday, October 16, 2015
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Socrates
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
William Hazlitt
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Joseph Joubert
Monday, October 12, 2015
William Shakespeare
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Friday, October 9, 2015
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Alexander Pope
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Frank Lloyd Wright
Air-layer results
I don't know if you remember, but a while back we did some air-layering on a couple of different tree limbs. One of the ones we tried it with was a mulberry tree, and it worked great!
Abe opened up the ball of dirt around the de-barked part of the limb, and it was a very healthy root ball. He cut off the limb and put it into a pot. We are keeping the tree inside for now, by our south window, and it is doing fantastic. It has shown zero signs of stress and is even putting on some new growth.
So, not only did we do some needed pruning, we also got a fairly big and mature tree out of the process. It is definitely something that we plan to do again, and again, and again.
The post Air-layer results appeared first on VelaCreations.
Air-layer results
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Joseph Wood Krutch
Monday, October 5, 2015
Super Lunar Eclipse
When we heard that there was going to be an eclipse, we decided to get out our old telescope. We had to take the whole thing apart and clean it, but it was definitely worth it. And now we have it out to gaze at stars.
I don't know if any of you caught the eclipse, but it really was pretty spectacular, especially with the moon being so close to the Earth and therefore so big. The kids loved it.
I managed to get some photos of the whole thing, although the zoom on the camera doesn't do it nearly the justice of a telescope!
The post Super Lunar Eclipse appeared first on VelaCreations.
Super Lunar Eclipse
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Friday, October 2, 2015
Prickly Pear Fence line
We had several crates of prickly pear pads that we’d collected, amounting to about 150 pads. These are now planted about three feet apart around the property’s fence line.
It took two people four hours, and almost half of the 10 acres’ perimeter has been planted. We hope to get another couple of hundred pads to do the rest of the property, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to get to it this year.
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Prickly Pear Fence line