THL Giveaway Win a copy of Weekend Homesteader by Anna Hess!

Since were right in the midst of the holiday season, wed like to give one of our readers the perfect gift for an aspiring homesteader: a real live paperback copy of The Weekend Homesteader by Anna Hess. We love the book to pieces, and we recently acquired a second copy. (Thanks, Anna!)  Were grateful for the duplicate, because it allows us to host the first ever Homestead Laboratory giveaway! How exciting! (You can read more of our thoughts on the book here.)

Now hopefully, yall are in a giving mood, too, because you (our readers) can help us out immensely with a very simple gesture. You see, the biggest item on the Homestead Laboratory wishlist this year is to grow the community here, and we cant do it without getting additional eyeballs on the blog.

So, heres the deal: take a few seconds to share your favorite Homestead Laboratory post on your favorite social media platform, then copy the link to your shared post and enter it into the widget below to earn an entry into the giveaway.  Next Monday, well randomly select a winner and drop the book in the mail, hopefully getting it to you by the end of next week (for United States addresses, anyway).

Thanks in advance for helping spread the word about THL.  Ok, ready, go!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Electrify Africa Act Wins Approval in Congress and a Group of Students at UNM Helped

Photo montage from ONE

The Electrify Africa Act  is now law. The initiative directs the President to establish a multiyear strategy to assist countries in sub-Saharan Africa implement national power strategies and develop an appropriate mix of power solutions, including renewable energy, to provide access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable power in order to reduce poverty and drive economic growth.

There are many people to thank for helping to make this happen. Over four years, ONE members worked tirelessly to turn an idea into a law.

Sherif Aboubakr and Jielin Pan staff ONE table at UNM?

With petitions, letters, tweets, and in-person meetings, ONE members continued to raise their voice in support of this bill. This included a group of students at the University of New Mexico, who set up a table at an international fair on campus in 2014 to gather signatures to be sent to Congress.

Members of Congress played a key role as well. Many worked across party lines, and across Chambers, to build a strong bipartisan bill built on private sector partnerships. Electrify Africa would not be the law it is today without their hard work and support.

Take a minute to send a note of thanks to Congress. 

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Cycling A System Should You Go Fish

Aquaponic systems are closed loop systems that replicate the naturally occurring symbiotic relationship between plants and fish.  Fish provide nutrients for the plants and the plants clean the water for the fish.  Like all relationships, this one takes time to develop as well.

Whether you are designing your own system or looking to purchase a prefabricated system you should be aware that it will take some time for your system to function so that fish and plants are both healthy and growing.  The process of establishing this symbiotic relationship is referred to as "cycling".

You can cycle with fish or without fish.  The choice is yours.  Whether you cycle with fish or without fish, you will need to keep an eye on the water chemistry so go ahead and invest in a good water quality test kit.  These kits will allow you to test for pH, ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates.

I have cycled systems both ways and I prefer fishless cycling.  I will admit it:  I am a mushmellow.  It bothers me when fish die.  I feel like I am their steward and when they die I have failed them.  The truth is when you cycle with fish some fish are going to die.  During cycling there will be ammonia and nitrite spikes that will kill fish.  It is a natural part of establishing the system.  Even if they are just the cheap little feeder goldfish from the pet store, it hurts me when they die.  So I like to cycle without the fish.

In fishless cycling you add ammonia to the fish holding tank (that has no fish in it) in an amount sufficient to bring it up to 0.5 ppm.  You then test the water daily until levels fall back below 0.5.  You add ammonia again to bring it up to 0.5 and wait for it to drop.  After a week or two of this you will start to see some nitrites show up.  These are the nitrosomona bacteria that are establishing themselves in the system and will start to convert that ammonia to nitrites.   You should see a big spike in nitrites before the nitrates show up.  Once the nitrates show up that means you have nitro bacters growing in the system. These guys will take nitrite and convert it into nitrate.  Once this cycle is established you can safely add fish to the system. 

The amount of time it takes to cycle a system without fish can vary from 3 to 6 weeks.  Things that affect the cycle time period are water temperature and pH. Keep your water temperatures on the warm side and the pH in the neutral zone. Also, if you start cycling with water straight from the tap, it will have chlorine in it.  This chlorine is there to kill the unsafe bacteria in your drinking water.  It will also kill your nitrifying bacteria.  That means anytime you use straight tap water you are setting yourself back.  Luckily chlorine readily off-gasses and if you let your water stand for 24 hours the chlorine/chloramine will dissipate and you can safely use it in your aquaponic system.  This is especially true when you need to top off an existing system.

Cycling takes patience.  In the mean time, enjoy the plants that you put in your system.  You have to have plants for the cycle to be established, so plant some water loving plants.  Things like basil, mint, and tomato will do well in a system that is not cycled.  This is because they like water and the lack of nitrogen doesnt really bother them.  In fact, if nitrogen levels get too high, tomato plants will grow but not bloom!  Onions are also great plants for cycling. Ive even cycled with petunias!

There is another method of fishless cycling that is mostly promoted by men. It is called "pee-ponics" and instead of adding pure ammonia from the store into the system, human urine (referred to as "hummonia") is added to the system.  Dont really understand why men want to pee into their aquaponic systems, but to each their own.

You can speed up cycling by inoculating your system with bacteria from a healthy system that is already established.  This can be done by taking water from the filter of a healthy system or simply taking water from a healthy system.  Be very careful when doing this.  If the system from which you take your water is not healthy, then you have just spread its disease to your system.  If you have one already cycled and well operating aquaponic system, then by all means harvest the bacteria from your existing system to jump-start your new system.

Lastly, you can go to a pet store that deals in aquariums and purchase bacteria in a bottle.  I am not a fan of this because it is pricey and honestly, how long can those bacteria live in a bottle?

How do you cycle?  Id love to hear your experiences.

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Dorothy Day A Model for All Catholics

From National Catholic Reporter

During his address to the US Congress on Sept. 24, Pope Francis cited Dorothy Day as a model for all Catholics. Who was this remarkable woman, who brought community to so many in need?  

Dorothy Day asks us: Isn’t this love the sacred center we seek in prayer, celebrate in the Eucharist, try to express in community outreach to those in need? If we are hospitable, will we not make everyone feel welcome, especially the stranger and even our enemies? If we have differences, can we not simply talk to one another? Don’t we all hunger for respect within the community and for meaningful, purposeful lives? If we expose our common vulnerabilities and shared sufferings, will we not, as occasion arises, practice the corporal works of mercy for one another? If we start small, do what we can where we are, will not the circle of our concern expand gracefully and naturally?

Read full article by Patrick Marrin in Celebration Publications

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Compost with a Capital P

A last spring, we wrote about a few ways we reduce the water used by our toilet.  Unfortunately, most of those methods still result in the loss of the valuable nutrients in our urine.  Weve read a lot of anecdotes about using urine in a compost pile and how great it is for activating the pile (e.g., page 149 of the Rodale Book of Composting).  But the assumption always seems to be that there is already a pile to which the urine can be added.  What about all those budding homesteaders who might want to recover these nutrients, but dont have a place for a compost pile?  What about all those skinflints like us, who want to make use of all of the urine, not just enough to activate a compost pile?  What about especially territorial people with a compulsion to deter would-be compost thieves by marking their compost as theirs alone?

Its possible to dilute the urine and use it to water plants, but because of urines high nitrogen and salt content, weve got to be careful about using it that way too frequently, especially on potted plants.  (Although there is an interesting story about a sort of in situ urine composting experiment in Mexico City.) Similarly, if we had a fishless aquaponics setup, we could convert it to be pee-powered, but that would also be maxed out before long.  Its obviously possible to distribute it around the yard and count on rain to dilute it before we have to pee in the same place twice, but again, what about those poor blokes with an apartment and no yard?  (Dont apply the distribution principle to the back deck--your downstairs neighbors will not forgive you no matter how many plates of cookies you bring them.)

In the interest of full disclosure, we confess that we now have enough space for full-size compost bins.  Can you guess which side has some of the chicken leftovers in it?

That got us wondering what would be the minimum-size compost pile that is able to absorb 100% of our pee, or, alternatively, how frequently would we have to make a new pile for a given pile size (e.g., a five-gallon bucket).  And now that weve spent way too much time playing with engineering calculations (this post was originally going to come out on Sunday, but we got lost somewhere in Nerdland...), we figured it was time to wrap up our theoretical composting, summarize the results here, and start practicing.

It turns out that a human produces (normally) 0.8 - 2 liters per day, of which around 95% is water, and the other 5% is made up of nitrogenous waste products like urea and creatine, and some inorganic substances like potassium and phosphorus.  The C/N ratio is on the order of 0.8:1.  The very high moisture content and very low C/N ratio make it difficult to balance a compost pile with a high fraction of urine.

A proper compost pile will have a moisture level of 50-60% and a C/N ratio of around 30:1.  Higher moisture contents limit the access of air to the pile and can cause anaerobic conditions, which lead to stinkiness.  The organisms that turn the raw materials into finished compost need a C/N ratio of about 25:1--too much higher and the pile takes forever to break down (and doesnt get hot enough to kill weed seeds or plant pathogens), too much lower and the excess N lets the bacteria make the pile too hot and they die, which in turn also leads to anaerobic conditions and stinkiness.  Its worth noting that C/N ratios closer to 35:1 will preserve more of the N in the finished product.

So, the golden question remains: how much urine can I add to various materials to make an optimal compost pile?  The calculations we need to do can be found here, but we wanted to (potentially) check out a lot of different combinations and have the ratios automatically calculated. We needed a spreadsheet.

We took the most recent version of Cornell Universitys compost spreadsheet and tricked it out a little to make it more user friendly (in our minds, anyway).  We imported a table of different materials one might want to compost (also from Cornell), and filled in some of the missing data with other info from the Internets. (Urine wasnt in the table? Seriously?)  We also automated the section on the first sheet to select materials from a dropdown list based on the table we imported (except for a few odd materials like pharmaceutical waste--for those youre on your own), and the moisture, carbon, and nitrogen contents are automatically populated.

We also added a feature to specify the volume of the pile desired, and added an error box to let Excel numerically solve for the most optimal mixture of the ingredients selected.  So, even if its not possible to get exactly the target moisture content and C/N ratio with the ingredients selected, you can use Excels Solver function to see how close you can get. (One caveat is that you might have to try multiple starting points when optimizing because numerical solvers can get stuck at local minima--i.e., there can be more than one composition that minimizes the error.)  The spreadsheet can be downloaded here.

Ok, then.  What did we find?  Well, as we hinted above, we found that its very difficult to balance a compost pile with a high urine content because of its high moisture content and low C/N ratio.  We were most interested in balancing it with just dry leaves or just wood shavings, since those are the ingredients of which we currently have an abundance.  But, if we balance the C/N ratio, the moisture content is too high.  And if we balance the moisture content, the C/N ratio is too high.

The first look--attempting to balance compost ratios with just urine and a high-carbon ingredient.  The Actual moisture content and C/N ratios are the optimized compositions based on error minimization from Excels Solver function. Note that oat straw gets the closest of the high-carbon materials.  So to those folks advocating straw bale urinals (and here), we say, touché!  (Also, in hindsight, maybe labeling the second ingredient #2 wasnt such a good idea for this post...)

However, if we add urine, a high-carbon material, and some food scraps, like would normally be found in a standard backyard compost pile, we can get a pretty good balance.  With the two main high-carbon resources on our homestead, we can mix up a five-gallon bucket with about a half-gallon of urine.  If we had oat straw, we could get up to 0.66 gallons of urine per bucket.

Second attempt, with the third ingredient being food scraps.  All of the high-carbon materials will work for some combination.  (Fresh) grass clippings still dont work because theyre on the same side of the target C:N ratio as the urine and the food scraps. 

 
The upshot is that, if we wanted to keep a five-gallon bucket in the garage and do all our peeing there, wed need a fresh five-gallon bucket every 1-2 days.  If we do half our peeing away from the home (e.g., at work, on the neighbors bushes, etc.), we could extend that to 2-4 days, or about two buckets per week.  That would still add up quickly.  The other problem is that the compost wont get very hot (unless we insulate it really well) because a five-gallon bucket is too small.  That in turn means that the materials will take longer to break down, and we would rapidly amass a small army of five-gallon buckets full of ingredients about which our neighbors and guests probably wouldnt want to know, but would probably ask.  (Sorry for the bad news, apartment dwellers.)

On the other hand, if we had a compost bin at the recommended standard size of one cubic yard (202 gallons), we could handle 20 gallons of urine in the pile, which would keep us covered for 6-12 weeks. Thats the same time frame as experienced compost chefs say will be required for finished compost with biweekly instead of bi-daily turning of the pile.  Thus, in theory anyway, a regular-sized compost bin should be able to supply one person with all the pee absorption they need.

In reality, that size pile can probably do more than that for a couple reasons.  First, were adding the ingredients gradually over time, meaning that the early additions start breaking down and losing volume before the last batch is even a twinkle in our water bottles eye.

Second, we havent accounted for evaporation of water or nitrogen (as ammonia, NH₃), which can be significant.  The evaporation rate depends on a lot of things, including temperature, atmospheric pressure (to a small extent), relative humidity, wind speed, and surface area.  There are a number of models one can use to predict the evaporation rate for a given set of environmental conditions, but just for fun (nerd fun, anyway), we calculated the evaporation rate wed expect just by diffusion (based on Example 1.2-2 here), the simplified model developed by Irving Langmuir for a different purpose, and the model NOAA uses to estimate evaporation rates of chemical spills.

Of the three, the diffusion model goes too slow, the Irving model seems way too fast, and the NOAA model seems about right, based on our intuition and love for the baby bear in everything.  (The calculations are also included in the spreadsheet if you are interested in channeling your inner nerd and/or checking our work.)  From the NOAA model, we would expect to lose about 0.5 pounds of water every 10 days from a five-gallon bucket (at a temperature of 68 °F and 45% relative humidity).  By contrast, these same conditions would lose upwards of four pounds of water per day from a 3 x 3 x 3 cubic pile, if the five sides not facing the ground are all included.  That assumes a very modest wind speed of 0.7 m/s, which is in the range that one sees inside a house just from natural convection (e.g. near a cold window or warm radiator).  Also, 68 °F is a pretty modest temperature for a compost pile, so the actual water loss rate is probably even higher.  (Heavy evaporative losses are also common in industrial compost setups.)  Rain on the compost pile washes some of the urine away into the surrounding area, which spreads out the urine burden even more.

Bottom line is, a standard 3 x 3 x 3 compost pile is conservatively about the right size to handle all the urine from one person.  If you want to calculate for your own needs, scale from there according to volume, number of people, and personal risk tolerance.


Do you compost your own pee?  How big a compost pile do you use?  Whats your setup?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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A Short Video from the New Mexico Faith Coalition on Immigrant Justice

Archbishop John Wester of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe has scheduled an immigration symposium at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Wednesday (tomorrow) evening.  The audience will almost certainly include members of the New Mexico Faith Coalition for Immigrant Justice, which put together this short but powerful video with a message from an immigrant family.

A full version of the video will be shown at the Circo for the Community fundraiser on Saturday, March 5, which benefit the NMFCIJ as well as New Mexico Interfaith Power & Light, the New Mexico Conference of Churches, La Mesa Arts Academy and the Albuquerque Aerialist Collective.  (We posted a video from the NMFCIJ earlier this week).Tickets are $35 and can be purchased on the NMCC site or at the door (you can write a check for any of these organizations). The cost of the ticket includes dinner and a reception.

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A Powerful Prayer to Open a City Council Meeting in Boise Idaho

“We come before you to confess we seek peace through violence and find security in weapons. And we abandon the hungry and the sick and the homeless, and we pursue wealth at all costs. We mistreat the creation you have entrusted to our care. Forgive us, Holy One for our hubris and our short-sighted behavior. Even so, you love us.” 

-Rev. Marci Auld Glass, Pastor,Southminster Presbyterian Church, in Boise, Idaho, Tuesday, Jan. 5, at the start of a city coucil meeting. (Read more this srticle in Idaho Statesman).

Rev. Glass is a member the governing board of  Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico

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Christmas in Bangladesh A Great Gust of Joy

The term "Peace on Earth, Good Will to All," relates to the Jewish concept of Shalom: wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord.

This account of a Christmas celebration in Bangladesh reflects a true sense of shalom. The reflection, entitled "On Christmas Day: a great gust of joy," was shared on the Taizé website in 2012. Here is an excerpt from this uplifting piece:

The mid day meal today was festive, although the menu was simple. There were at least 150 of us who sat down together! Thankfully our house is surrounded by a large garden, close to the Bramaputra River which flows through the town. Among our guests, we had over 50 children and young people with a mental disablement whom we know well, accompanied by young volunteers who share their daily life. Most of these children and young disabled people were abandoned at birth by their very poor parents. There was also a good number of very poor children from our two “children’s clubs” situated in two of the disadvantaged neighbourhoods of the town. Some of them live in a little shanty town near the station, or else in the station itself when they have no family. They had prepared songs and dances which they presented after the meal, during an entertainment improvised out of doors.

There were also a good number of Moslem friends, as well as Hindus and Christians from our little community, who were very happy to spend this time together; among them were crippled people, a blind man, and beggars we had invited the evening before….

This was a very beautiful moment to live together with much laughter and singing. It was like a great gust of joy and shared friendship that carried us along…. Added to all this, it was a beautiful sunny day; the previous days had been particularly cold."

Read the full reflection

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A Brief and very Abbreviated Account of World Food Day Commemorations in Albuquerque

"Millions of poor people face hunger and poverty this year and next because of droughts and erratic rains as global temperatures reach new records, and because of the onset of a powerful El Niño – the climate phenomenon that develops in the tropical Pacific and brings extreme weather to several regions of the world."  -from  Oxfam America briefing note (published on Oct. 1, 2015) entitled "Entering Unchartered Waters"

World Food Day has been observed in Albuquerque every October 16 in one way or another over at least the past couple of decades. The commemoration was created by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1979, and the first observance took place globally  in 1981.

There was once a local group of volunteers that planned an event around a national telecast featuring a panel of experts. The event, which coincided with the national events held by the U.S.-Canada World Food Day organization, was usually held at the Technical Vocational Institute (TVI), which is now Central New Mexico Community College (CNM), or at the University of New Mexico. The event also included local speakers, panel discussions and special recognition for anti-hunger efforts.  For example, organizers in 2006 recognized the efforts of the (now-defunct) New Mexico Task Force to End Hunger to convince mayors of 103 communities to commit to end hunger. 

At about the same time that the momentum to hold the event faded locally, the local volunteers for New Mexico Oxfam Action Corps stepped in to hold their own commemoration of World Food Day on the Saturday closest to October 16. Over the past three years, St. Thomas of Canterbury Episcopal Church and First Congregational Church have opened their doors for the event, which has featured a Hunger Banquet, a discussion on how to support local farmers by buying food locally, the importance of women farmers, and much more.

An Invitation to the 2015 Commemoration
The fourth annual World Food Day commemoration sponsored by New Mexico Oxfam Action Corps will be held on Saturday, October 17, 6:00-8:00 p.m., Albuquerque Mennonite Church, 1300 Girard Blvd. NE (map) in Albuquerque. Enjoy a free locally sourced community dinner and live entertainment, but please RSVP online via this link.

The event will  celebrate small farmers, locally and globally, but will again place an emphasis on the impact of climate change on food production. This connection between global warming and hunger has been a common theme for local World Food Day celebrations, including the one that the previous organizing group held at UNM in 2008.

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A Story of Thanksgiving to Share This Holiday Season

By Karen Navarro

In November an appeal went out far and wide for help putting together 75-100 Thanksgiving Week food boxes for families who might not have enough food for not only Thanksgiving Day, but the entire week. While the children were out of school, they would not be getting school breakfasts and lunches. This is the story about how a whole lot of individuals, companies and organizations came together to make this happen.

The non-profit organization, Help Equals Hope, was in need of all food stuffs for these boxes, including the most expensive item, turkeys. Co-founders, Laura Burnett, Nancy Hays, Lisa Wilson and Bev Moore, reached out for some major volunteer help.

Two core volunteers, Debbie Trujillo and Debbie Vigil, immediately responded, as did others in the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Community Alliance. Fofo Voltaire offered her large event space, The Event Palace, free for the project, and many sponsors offered their assistance, including the Sandia chapter of Thrivent Financial, Guardian Storage (on Eagle Ranch Rd.), Chick fil-A (at Montgomery/San Mateo), and Smith’s Grocery Store (on Golf Course Rd.).

Other key contributors were the Route 66 Civitans, ABQ Health Partners, Pacific Dental Group, Juliette Applegate, Pegasus Legal Services for Children, Nathan Waites and W.I.N. (What’s Important Now), General Mills, Outcomes, Inc., Sweetheart Day Care (owner, Joan Davis), Donna Montano, Sol Acting Academy, GN Services, Inc., !explora!, Décor & More! Sports, and staff members from New Futures School.

Jeff Turocotte

35 Turkeys from St. Pius X
As Thanksgiving week approached, the organizers realized they needed 30+ turkeys. Jeff Turcotte at St. Pius X High School heard about this and the next day the boys’ and girls’ cross-country track teams he coaches rallied the money in three hours to purchase 35 turkeys, with help from members of the girls’ soccer team! When thanked, Jeff responded, "Glad our team could help your great team! Happy Thanksgiving!"

So in the end, what were the results of this community wide effort?

95 Thanksgiving food boxes with turkeys, stuffing, sweet potatoes, potatoes, canned vegetables, cranberry sauce, bread/rolls, chile, olives, rice, cereal, beans, gravy mix, desserts and drink mix.

At the direction of Help Equals Hope, a vast network of individuals, organizations and sponsors had all pitched in to feed 95 grateful families in need identified by social workers and other staff at schools, medical facilities and social service agencies, including:

• grandparents raising grandchildren (some with GAPP—Grandparents as Parents Program), 
• the families of clients at UNMH health clinics, 
• UNMH Psychiatric Center, 
• YDI (including Casa Hermosa and Centro de Amor), 
• UNM Forensics Case Management, 
• MCH Family Outreach, 
• Petroglyph Elementary, 
• Headstart,
• ten families in To’hajiilee.

Testimonials of gratitude poured in:

“The clients we delivered food boxes to were crying and so appreciative!”

Debbie Trujillo, Debbie Vigil, Laura Burnett, Nancy Hays

Food boxes “went to individuals and families who have next to nothing. Some of those people have had their food stamp money cut in recent months from $150 to $20.”

“One grandparent family has four grandchildren and was thrilled. She said she didn’t know how she was going to do Thanksgiving and then I called. Perfect timing!”

Another Help Equals Hope project
Help Equals Hope collects school supplies and backpacks year-round for children in New Mexico whose parents can’t afford to purchase them. Their major school supply drive is in August, but they gather monetary and in-kind donations year-round. Children are referred by school principals, teachers, counselors, social workers, police and sheriff department officers, court personnel, including probation and parole officers, and other professionals working with children throughout New Mexico. If you can help, please email Laura Burnett (laura@helpequalshope.org) or call her at (505) 715-0091. (Check out the Help Equals Hope Facebook Page)

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HOW MANY FISH IN A TANK

 HOW MANY FISH AM I ALLOWED TO HAVE IN A TANK?

Aquaponics, ækw??p?n?ks, pisciponics

Again this will depend on whether the system is a commercial or backyard system, with the commercial systems requiring the correct amount of fish and plants for optimum production. The more fish there are in a system, the more nutrients there are for the plants to consume, but if there are not enough plants to consume these nutrients, the excess build up in the water can cause the fish to suffer. As a general rule, backyard systems can stock between 10 - 30 kg of fish per 1000 litres of water.

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A Free Healthy Meal Seven Days a Week for Children and Youth in Albuquerque

Are you between the ages of 3 to 18 or have a child who is in that age range? If so, you can receive a free healthy meal at the Presbyterian Hospital cafeteria between 1:00 and 7:00 p.m., seven days a week.

The cafeteria is located on level 5-2, north side of the hospital, located at 1100 Central Ave. SE (map)

No identification is necessary, and any child or youth of 3-18 years of age qualifies.

You will need to order from a cashier and sign a log showing that you received a meal. The meal must be eaten at the hospital. A voucher is not necessary. 

The program is sponsored by Presbyterian Community Health.

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A Tale of Two Eggplants

I love nightshades.  They are one of the most diverse families of plants and contain some of my most favorite things to eat.  The Solanaceaes include tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and potatoes.  It also includes petunias and tobacco..  You can keep the potatoes, petunias and  tobacco.  I dont smoke, I dont like to eat potatoes ( I prefer rice) and petunias stink. But tomatoes, peppers and eggplants....Oh My!  And cooking all three together?  Even more Oh My!

I am currently growing several types of tomatoes, peppers, and one type of eggplant.  I have had poor luck with germinating pepper and eggplant seeds this season for some reason.  I put my eggplants in two different test systems this time to see if there was a difference in plant growth or production.  Early results say that my eggplants are preferring a flood and drain environment to a deep water culture (DWC) system.

Here is the picture of the eggplant in my flood and drain test bed. 

The largest leaf on this plant measures 9" wide and is 11" long. As a matter of fact I had to tie it up today as the leaves are so heavy the plant had flopped over and was shading the rosemary.

Here is a picture from the deep water culture test bed.

The largest leaf on this plant measures 4" wide and 4" long. It has just flowered.  Same type of plant, planted at the same time.  By the way, look in the background of this picture and you can see how much my onions love DWC. If you dont have onions in your DWC get some now!

The flood and drain system is only slightly older than the DWC by about 2 weeks.  Both systems were cycled early last spring so they are approaching their first birthday.  Both have the same number of fish.

So far, it is looking like flood and drain is the way to go for growing eggplant.  Part of making sure your garden can survive is testing things out to see what works best.  Before growing anything on a larger scale, I run a test garden. I am also currently testing peppers in flood and drain versus nutrient film technique (NFT).
Stay tuned for those results.

How do you grow your eggplants?

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A Sacred Peace

Sunrise in Albuquerque, December 8, 2015

Your moment of peace might seem small and fleeting, but its effect is not to be underestimated. Its a sacred peace that settles in your bones. Its an unexpected peace that grounds you in time and space. Its a mysterious peace that whispers of your part in the Divine creation, and sings of our unity with She Who Is. 

Excerpt from Moments of Peace, an Advent reflection by Lora East, Masters of Divinity, San Francisco Theological Seminary

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Using a Compass to Find Treasure

Back in February, we said one of the things we wanted to get better at was navigating by compass.  A common exercise for aspiring orienteers is practicing in a familiar area such as ones backyard.  As it just so happens, a treasure map showed up in our mailbox this week.  It even has a north arrow and scale bar!  What a considerate cartographer!  Lets follow it and see what we find!

It looks like a map of our yard, amateurishly constructed in PowerPoint! Somewhat disconcerting, but it seems to suggest we need to start at the mailbox, get a shovel from the garage, detour to the biggest tree in the yard, and then head toward the second-biggest tree at the northwest corner of the property.  The treasure is just southeast of that tree.  Whats the best way to follow the dashed line?  Since were trying to get compass practice, lets use a compass.

Assume that we dont know right where on the map we are to start with.  As it happens here, we can see two landmarks, which means we can triangulate our position.  If we hold the compass in front of us and face the northeast corner of the house, we see that we are standing along the 330° bearing line.  If we face the southeast corner of the house (actually the carport), the compass tells us were on a bearing of 250°.  Where those two lines intersect is where we are.  If we wanted to, and also had a ruler, pencil, and calculator with trigonometric functions (or sine/cosine/tangent tables) handy, we could draw those lines on the map.  Or, we could approximate with grid lines on the map or by holding the compass by the map.  In any case, it looks like were standing at the mailbox.  Thank goodness!  If things go badly, we can probably find our way home from here.

In the current scenario, we can see through the carport to the southwest corner of the house, which is where the black dashed line on the map almost intersects the house.  If we use the compass to get a bearing between our current position and the southwest corner of the house, we should be able to walk along that line to the point where we can peek around the corner and see the garage.  Its trivial here, but if that corner was half a mile away and we had to go through dense woods or fog on the way and lose sight of the landmark, the compass would be a lot more helpful.  Sorry the numbers on our little compass are hard to see--but the red North direction is visible, and the other large lines correspond to 90° increments.  The small lines (if you can see them) are 10° increments, and every 30° increment is labeled with text.

Garage ho!  Shovel ho!  [Insert music for video game character finding useful tool here.]

Now we need to head due west to the edge of the shed, at which point we can turn and head toward the big tree along the dashed black line.

Compass says the first tree is on a bearing of 330° from the southwest corner of the shed.  What a magnificent tree.  It must be a tree from heaven.  Actually, it is a tree of heaven, an invasive species imported from China.  Fun fact: the bruised leaves smell vaguely like peanut butter.  Dont eat them.  Katie says, "We can also see the tree next to the X on the map.  Why dont we just walk there?"  Because the map says we have to go by the big tree, Katie!  Who knows?  There might be bandits or crocodiles along the direct route.

Its sometimes a good idea to get high up in the air and survey ones surroundings to find landmarks and regain ones bearings.  Katie says, "The landmark youre looking for is 20 yards away and you can probably see it better from down here where there arent any branches to block your view."  Compass says we need a bearing of 275° to find the next tree.

Theres the X!  Its not red like the map shows, but this must be it.  Time to start digging!

A hastily-constructed wooden trunk buried in a shallow hole!  How mysterious!  Whoever buried this treasure must have been worried about getting caught.

Hey!  The treasure is Katies cell phone!  It must have been there for hundreds of years.  Katie says, "I cant believe you went to the trouble of making a wooden trunk out of pallet wood, hiding my phone in it, and burying it in the yard just to get some practice with your compass."

If this practice exercise didnt make sense, check out a real orienteerers guide with a different kind of compass.  For more advanced exploring, there are other things to think about, like the difference between true north and magnetic north and the inherent uncertainty in getting and following a bearing (especially with a little compass like ours!), but for now, we at least know how to find buried phones in the backyard.

What kind of buried treasure have you found in your yard?  What was a situation where you really needed your compass?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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Thomas Merton A Gift

Love is...like a spring coming up out of the ground of our own depths. "I am gift." All that I am is something thats given, and given freely. Being doesnt cost anything. Theres no price tag, no strings attached. 

 -Thomas Merton

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A Different Kind of Weed Brownie

Last April, we said that it wasnt really spring until we had had our dandelion fix, which is an assertion we still stand by.  But what happens when we havent fully scratched our itch, but Katie is tired of eating dandelion pancakes (or possibly just pancakes in general), and the dandelions are still blooming?  Weve got to figure out other foods to put dandelions in.

Weve been intrigued (and impressed) by desserts that feature vegetables: carrot cake (obviously), red velvet cake with beets, frosting colored with spinach or beets, and Katie even makes a pretty mean zucchini brownie.

So we thought, "Hey!  It seems like we can take a recipe for some kind of cake-type thing, add a bunch of shredded veggies (which would also be a good name for a band), and have a dessert for which its easier to justify eating four or five pieces at once!"  Also, it was April 20 last week here in Colorado, which seemed to carry some sort of significance that we cant quite put our finger on...and so the concept of the dandelion brownie was born.

We started with about 3.5 cups of dandelion flowers, which gave us about 3 cups of petals

Then we started making a regular brownie recipe.

We added the dandelion petals at the same time as the flour and chocolate chips, but the batter was really dry so we also added a half cup of milk.

The milk brought the batter back to the right consistency, despite all the extra nutrition (also here) we packed in.

We spread the batter out into a greased pan...

And baked it!

Since the petals are so mildly-flavored, they hardly affect the rich chocolatey taste at all. The brownies taste just like brownies, but the petals are visible as little yellow streaks.  Theyre like little pieces of confetti for celebrating healthy desserts!

The recipe (based off brownies from Glorious Treats):
4 eggs
1.25 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup butter
2.25 cups sugar
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1.5 cups (one 12-oz bag) semisweet chocolate chips
3 cups dandelion petals
0.5 cup milk

Beat together eggs and cocoa.  Melt butter, mix in salt, sugar, vanilla, and baking powder, then mix together with eggs and cocoa mix.  Add flour, chocolate chips, dandelion petals, and milk, mix well.  Smooth batter out into a 10" x 16" cookie sheet, and bake at 350 °F for 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.



What types of vegetables do you put into your desserts?  What other dishes do you put dandelions in?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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A Dancing Prayer for the Second Friday in Lent

Who says our prayers during the Lenten season have to be solemn? What is important is that we find a way to open up to the Creator. So, in that spirit I share a couple of "dancing" prayers on this second Friday in Lent.

Dancers Prayer
(From Living Prayers)

Lord God,
With every movement I make
I long to be close to you.
May I leap with your joy,
May I stretch with your passion,
May I balance with your strength.
I give you my dance, as a prayer,
As praise,
And as a testimony.

May my dancing tell of you love
And always point the way to you.
Amen.

"This delightful dance repeated around the globe will bring a smile to your lips and warm your heart."   Gratefulness.org 

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A Prayer for Justice at the Roundhouse Rotunda Ahead of the 2016 Session of the State Legislature

2016

Witness for the People

Our State of the State Address

Monday, January 18   1:30 PM

"Where there is no vision, the people perish."  Proverbs 29.18

Featuring the
New Mexico Peace Choir, directed by Christy Conduff, in the Rotunda of the Roundhouse
following the Martin Luther King Day Celebration sponsored by the Santa Fe NAACP

As our state legislature prepares to shape a new budget during this 30 day session
Let Our Voices Be Heard proclaiming the priorities for their work on behalf of the people of New Mexico.  

For more information, contact Rev. Holly Beaumont, (hbeaumont@iwj.org)

Here are a couple of videos from the 2015 commemoration, which featured the Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Senior Minister Emeritus of The Riverside Church in New York City, and President of the Healing of the Nations Foundation.



Rev. Bert Scott, representing the Interfaith Hunger Coalition, was one of several faith leaders to offer a reflection/prayer.

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After Igor a video from Newfoundland

Hi Folks,

Could you pass the following link on to friends. There will be several more in the series. However this one is important as it shows the storm damage that placed 230 people out of work and did so in less than 24 hours. The building you see was a shrimp processing plant where 230 people worked each year in order to make some sort of a living... which was seasonal at best. This plant unfortunately has a longer and larger history than this loss today.

This place was also once one of the largest fish processing plants in North America. Prior to the reductions in fishing quotas and the virtual elimination of a way of life that took place during the 1990s in Newfoundland, this same fish processing plant once employed over 900 people on a 24/7 basis processing Cod and other ground fish species and supported another several hundred fishermen. It was reduced (or rationalized) to a work force about 1/20 of its former size and recreated as a single species processing facility with only 230 people employed.

Now after the damage that resulted for Hurricane Igor, not even one of the remaining 230 have a job. In less than one day, in just one town, 230 people lost work. This is but one of the long lasting effects that Igor has imprinted in the the hearts, souls and livelihoods of the people that live on the Rock.

All I ask is that you consider forwarding this link, so that others can see how every deeply this act of god has effected hard working people, today and in the long term future. There are many more hardships in many more places of Newfoundland as a result of this storm. All of these are very important and so very sad and some are probably more devastating to the people that experienced first hand the wrath of Igor . This is only one very short video documenting the aftermath and how this storm effected over 230 plus people within hours. There are many,many places in Newfoundland that were adversely effected by Igor. My heart goes out to those people. I and my family got off easy as we weathered through this without any major damage and certainly no loss of life.

To the Family and friends of Mr Allen Duffet who lost his life during Igor, i send my heartfelt and deepest sympathy, and that is not enough measure to the sadness and loss by those close to him.

As hardy stock spawned from some of the first people that faced, endured and overcame the hardships and obstacles presented in helping to grow a brave new world, These people will as Newfoundlanders rise above it and once again play a significant part in creating new life, in a proud nation called Canada.

Have a look and pas it on so that others can give it a view. Thanks

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