Worms!

Tonight, for my birthday, I went to a workshop put on by the Town of Cary about composting, and specifically, vermicomposting - that's worms!

I didn't really look into the class too much before hand, but once I got there I realized that not only would we learn all about compost worms, but we would get to make our own worm compost bin to take home...including a half-pound of worms! AND! This was all free!

So, now we've got a little worm bin in the kitchen with a half-pound of worms chomping away. Hopefully within six months or so, they'll have grown and multiplied so much that they outgrow their box. At that point, they should be eating pounds of food scraps each week. We shall see, though.

Just Get Started

I'm in the middle of reading a new e-Book called "Your Custom Homestead: Awakening a Fresh Vision of Homesteading." The synopsis is:

Contrary to popular belief, a homesteader doesn’t have to be someone who lives on hundreds of acres with the perfect red barn and white picket fence.

Modern day homesteaders come in all shapes and sizes-
■They live in apartments in the middle of the asphalt jungle.
■They reside in suburban neighborhoods with minivans.
■And you might even find them on the outskirts of town on just a couple of acres.

Your Custom Homestead will take you through a 21-day process of moving closer towards your homesteading dreams, no matter where you may live.

So far, it's a good read. One of the main points that I've reached so far, and one that has really started to resonate with me, is that you don't have to and you shouldn't wait for the future to happen. You should MAKE the future happen, and do it NOW!

This idea is one that I have been thinking about for a while now. It's a theme I've run across in various situations, but the one that comes to mind has to do with peach trees.

I've got three peach trees in 3-gallon pots. This sounds ridiculous, but to make matters worse, I've had them in these pots for about three years now. Each year I've had to prune them heavily to keep them small enough so that the pot size doesn't kill them outright. Of course, this means that they aren't flourishing and have never flowered. Why don't I just plant them in the yard?

Well, I haven't wanted to plant them because I don't want to have to leave them behind "when we move to our forever home." That's an example of waiting for the future instead of making it happen. Firstly, how long will it be before we move? Secondly, how do I know that these peach trees will even be a variety that I love and want to put effort into at our forever home? Thirdly, and perhaps most realistically, wouldn't I rather use these trees as a learning experience now, when I have the time, so that when we ARE at our forever home I can raise peaches the right way without wasting time?

Good, healthy peach trees are so readily available that there is no reason to let these unknown, stunted trees hold me back. I can use them to learn about pruning and proper care, then when we do get to our forever home, I'll be ready to hit the ground running so to speak with the knowledge of how to do it right.

Anyway. That's how I'm feeling about things these days - don't wait for the future. Just get started now!

$40 Wheelbarrow Upgrade

In the past, whenever I needed to use one of our wheelbarrows (we have two), the tire would always be flat. Normally, this isn’t an issue if you’re just moving some rose bush cuttings or something. When you start moving heavier stuff like dirt, it starts to matter.

So last summer, I finally replaced the tubes in both our wheelbarrows. I wouldn’t say the tubes are cheap, but it wasn’t too hard of a job and worked wonders toward wheelbarrow satisfaction.

Then, after one load of gravel this morning, I ended up with this:

And this wasn’t any small little leak; it was flat as could be. I looked and couldn’t find a hole or anything, so I figure that when I was moving around the gravel, I must have turned it just right and popped the valve off the tube. Who knows. I haven’t taken it apart yet to see what’s wrong.

So, in the interest of getting back to work, I picked up one of these beauties:

It’s a $40 Flat-Free tire. It’s a solid tire made from very dense foam-rubber that’s really more toward the rubber side of things. It’s really really nice and I’m actually way too excited about it. The wheelbarrow itself wasn’t cheap and it’s been a real workhorse. Its wheel was definitely the weak spot and now that’s fixed. I loaded this thing up with hundreds of pounds of gravel all day long and it never complained. The flat free wheel doesn’t bulge under weight which means that even when full of stone, you can pivot it on concrete. Try that with a pneumatic tire and you’ll twist the tire off the wheel. Note that in the second photo, the wheelbarrow is full of gravel – hundreds of pounds.

My only complaint is that the new wheel came with a grease fitting in the middle where the axle goes. Firstly, this is a great idea and it should really help out. But, the grease fitting was completely worthless quality. The fitting was loose. I tightened it, but then it pointed directly inward toward the wheel wall – couldn’t hook up the grease gun with it like that. So I started giving it some grease even though it was loose. Then the little spring loaded nib of the fitting fell off. It was apparently screwed into the other piece and it just came out. The spring fell out. Then, I couldn’t get the little screw-in piece out of the end of my grease gun! I grabbed it with my pliers, but the tip of my pliers broke off. Arg! I finally got it out and just removed the whole grease fitting. Autozone sells them and I’ll put my own back in there so that I can grease the axle. Wonderful idea, but awful follow-through.