October 6, 2022

Grow Something Part One

Garden Flowers
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Growing stuff is a great hobby.  And it’s good for your health and general well being.  Not all of us have green thumbs (and some of us may even think we have black thumbs!)  However most of us can grow at least something, and who knows where it might go from there.

Indoor Plants

We haven’t had many indoor house plants recently.  We did when we were younger but somehow busyness has taken over and so fewer and fewer house plants.  However when I look at all the possibilities at the home centers and even the grocery stores they are hard to resist.

I’ll mention two easy possibilities.  First there is cactus, and there is an unbelievable number of varieties.  Some don’t even look like cacti!  The big advantage here is for those of us that forget to water our plants until they are dried up sticks!  In fact the biggest mistake would probably be watering too much!

I also want to suggest an Aerogarden.  I covered this in detail here.  An Aerogarden is a product that is basically a little hydroponic system.  It consists of a tank to hold the growing medium, an overhead light for artificial sunlight, and electronics that keep track of everything.  I had great luck growing an assortment of lettuce varieties, and next I think I’m going to try cherry tomatoes.

Flowers

I can remember gorgeous catalogs of flowers and bulbs showing up every winter.  It seemed like once you got on one mailing list you were on many.  The variety was incredible and it was hard to resist giving gardening a try.  Of course the reality of what they showed in the pictures and the amount of time and work it takes to get there would soon become apparent!  Now with the Internet there are less paper catalogs and more online, but the draw is the same.

One more idea on flowers.  Instead of giving cut flowers maybe give something to grow.  I would often bring my wife flowers for anniversaries and Valentines
Day, regardless of her being somewhat allergic!  I suggest instead switching to something that can quickly be planted in a garden.  The sentiment will still be appreciated but the flowers might be around for years instead of just days.

Vegetable Garden

A vegetable garden is a great way to get into growing things. It is probably the area I’ve had the most experience, although I’m certainly not a guru!  Here are some pointers for what I’ve learned.

Start Small

A new gardener wants to try growing everything.  I was guilty of that early on.  When you plant a lot of things they will grow all over the place, and you can’t keep up with weeding, watering, and even basic care.

So What Is Easy To Grow?

Of course you’ll get different answers depending on who you talk to.  I’ve always had good luck with tomatoes.  I would usually try two varieties and some cherry tomatoes for salad.  There is no comparison between a tomato fresh out of the garden and store bought.  I’ve also had good luck with cucumbers and green peppers.  Only issue with cucumbers is that the vines go all over the place, and when they start ripening you can’t use them fast enough.

Not Much Space or Bad Soil?

If you don’t have much space consider container gardening.  There are books and a lot of information available on how to do this.  Tomatoes do well in containers.

If you have bad soil don’t despair.  When we first moved into our house the developer had scraped away all the topsoil leaving only clay.  The first couple years were tough, but gradually over time the soil improved due to fertilizer and plants left over the winter to decompose.  

Another option is a raised bed, which is something I would like to try.  This is basically just an above ground frame that you fill with good soil.  This option is a little easier to care for and again, gets better over time.

So I hope this article has got you thinking.  It has me.  I think I’ll get my Aerogarden working again now and think about spring!

Filed Under: Hobbies, Things To Do Leave a Comment
June 24, 2022

My Favorite National Parks – Part One

Badlands National Park Sign
Photo by everett mcintire on Unsplash

This article begins a series about my personal favorite national parks.  I say personal because these are not the most popular, most scenic, or biggest.  But they are some of my favorites.  This started as one article but I quickly realized that it deserves a series.  I’ll start with Badlands National Park.

Badlands National Park

My personal favorite national park is Badlands.  Badlands National Park is located in the western half of South Dakota.  The park is an almost alien landscape of geological formations.  You really must walk among the rugged formations to appreciate what this park has to offer.  Many people have never even heard of Badlands but I said this is my “personal” favorite.  I’ll explore why.

Below are some excerpts from my post “Funny Long Trip Stories.” 

My wife and I had been married a short time.  I had done several camping road trips with my family.  My wife had very limited camping experience.  For the first time my job allowed me three week’s vacation and on a whim I got the idea of a cross country road trip.  Surprisingly my wife agreed.

The first few nights were uneventful.  We stayed at campgrounds in Indiana and Iowa.  We were so exhausted after driving 12 hours we barely could set up the tent, eat some canned food, and collapse into our sleeping bags.  By the middle of the third day we reached our first real destination of Badlands National Park in South Dakota.

We stayed at the KOA campground in Interior, SD, just outside the park boundary.  We set up camp right along the river with the car parked under a big tree about 50 feet from our tent.  Overall it was a perfect setting.  More canned food for dinner, and we were tired but more relaxed because we were finally somewhere where we planned on staying a couple days.

We were tired from our very busy day and fell asleep quickly in our big roomy umbrella tent.  Around 1:00AM my wife woke me concerned about an approaching thunderstorm.  I assured her I had camped through lots of thunderstorms and that we should just go back to sleep.  I carefully closed and zippered all the tent flaps to protect from the expected rain.

A few minutes later all hell broke loose!  A huge gust of wind came from nowhere and brought the tent down on top of us.  Howling wind and pounding rain were mixed with screams all around the campground.  We were all tangled up in the tent that I had just fastened up so securely!  When I finally found the door and managed to undo the double zipper I was greeted with what seemed like pure white light from the continuous lightning!

We dashed in our gym shorts to the car though wind, downpouring rain and 1 inch hail.  The hail felt like rocks hitting us.  Our perfect sandy campsite turned to pure mud and by the time we got to the car we were soaked and covered in mud.

Right about that time I realized all the money we had in the world was still in my pants pocket in the tent!.  And the last time I saw the tent it was blowing in the wind wrapped around a tree.  So out of the safety of the car I went.  I did retrieve the money but at the price of multiple hailstone strikes.  Back in the car we took stock.  My head was bleeding from a hail stone strike and we both had welts from other strikes in the short dash to the car.  We slept in the front seats of our Ford Tempo that night as the rain continued but the wind and hail subsided.

We woke at 6:00 AM to a beautiful sunny day as often happens after storms.  I was afraid my wife would want to make a beeline for home, but she never even considered it.  It was time to take stock and assess the damage.  Everything was wet but a couple hours with the campground laundry’s dryer fixed that.  The tent looked terrible but as we untangled it we found nothing was broken, just muddy and wet, so we cleaned it up and set it back up so it could dry. 

We have told this story a hundred times and amazingly it is one of our favorite memories.  Funny how that works – a disaster in the present sometimes becomes a cherished memory in the future.

Badlands National Park Landscape
Photo by Josh Carter on Unsplash

And so Badlands has become one of our favorite parks.  We live outside Philadelphia Pennsylvania and have taken quite a few cross country road trips.  Badlands is often one of our first stops.  We have it timed so that after a couple long days of driving we can make it there around lunch time on the third day.

We have many more stories, including getting knocked flat a second time, and a couple of rattlesnake stories.  And there are so many other great places to visit in the general vicinity of Badlands.  They will have to wait for a later post.

As I’m writing this is early summer 2022 we considered a quick trip to Badlands but ran into issues getting reservations anywhere in the area.  As the pandemic is easing a little I guess the whole country is hitting the road.  So we’ll postpone until things are a

Filed Under: Things To Do, Travel Leave a Comment
April 9, 2022

Making One Room Off Grid

Solar Cells
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Been Thinking About This

Ok, this post is going to seem a little crazy.  But I’ve thought about it occasionally for years and I thought I would share.  Like many people I am environmentally conscious and solar energy has always been an interest.  An off grid home has been a goal, and still is, but is there an “in between alternative?

My crazy idea is to have one room in my house off grid!

I’ll Cheat a Little

I’ll fully admit I’ll cheat a little.  Heating and air conditioning for the room is a challenge.  Not impossible, but not easy.  I guess you could always use a wood stove and cut dead wood,  Or your room could be south facing and rely on solar heating.  However I envision more of a small room internal to the rest of the house so that the room benefits from the insulation and residual heat and cooling of adjacent rooms.

What Will Be In My Room?

Office / Reading Room

Obviously a good room candidate wouldn’t be power intensive like a kitchen or laundry room.  I’m thinking of a small combo office and reading room.  I like to write and read, and the basic requirements would be a laptop and lighting.  A cell phone could be included as they are easy to charge with very little power.

So we’re talking about an easy chair for reading and a small desk for writing.  Everything else is optional.

There are lots of low power consumption lighting solutions.  Powering a laptop with long battery life requires enough power to charge the battery.

Video can be on the laptop as can music.  Probably headphones or ear plugs work well.  Maybe a simple radio with rechargeable batteries ..In fact I have an old Grundig radio that charges with a hand crank.

Sleeping Room

A plain old sleeping room would probably work fine too.  Again you need lighting, but not much else, power-wise.  Your alarm could be your phone or a small rechargeable battery unit.  And again, low power lighting solutions are available here too.

Where To Go Next

So how to power all this?  I think a fairly simple solar panel setup charging a couple of solar batteries would work fine.  There are plenty of 12 volt lighting options available.  You might need an inverter to provide 110 volts to provide a charging outlet for your laptop.

I’m starting to see various levels of solar generators on the market.  Some would probably work fine.  A quick search on Amazon shows models from a couple hundred to several thousand that claim to be able to power your home for days.  Or you could go with a DIY approach.  There is lots of solar information available.  You just need to do your research.

Either way you will need to find a way to route some wires from your solar source to your room without destroying your house!

So what do you think of my crazy idea?  I’ll keep you informed if I decide to give it a try.  And of course if we ever take the plunge for a full off grid homestead I’ll let you know that too!

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