Bargain Book Roundup

There are a few interesting looking books on beekeeping marked down at Amazon today.

Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper ($2.99), by C. Marina Marchese

Book Description
In 1999, Marina Marchese fell in love with bees during a tour of a neighbor's honeybee hives. She quit her job, acquired her own bees, built her own hives, harvested honey, earned a certificate in apitherapy, studied wine tasting in order to transfer those skills to honey tasting, and eventually opened her own honey business. Today, Red Bee® Honey sells artisanal honey and honey-related products to shops and restaurants all over the country.

More than an inspiring story of one woman's transformative relationship with honeybees (some of nature's most fascinating creatures), Honeybee is also bursting with information about all aspects of bees, beekeeping, and honey—including life inside the hive; the role of the queen, workers, and drones; pollination and its importance to sustaining all life; the culinary pleasures of honey; hiving and keeping honeybees; the ancient practice of apitherapy, or healing with honey, pollen, and bee venom; and much more.

Recipes for food and personal care products appear throughout. Also included is an excellent, one-of-a-kind appendix that lists 75 different honey varietals, with information on provenance, tasting notes, and food-and-wine pairings.

The Healing Powers of Honey ($3.99), by Cal Orey

Book Description
Did you know?...

• Known as Mother Nature's "nectar of the gods," honey was praised for its healing powers as far back as 5,000 years ago by Egyptians.
• Eating honey can help lower the risk of heart disease, cancer , diabetes--even help reduce body fat and unwanted weight!--and increase longevity.
• Pure, raw, unprocessed honey is a healthier sweetener than table sugar and high fructose corn syrup. It's chock-full of antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins--and only has 21 calories per teaspoon.
• Super "bee foods" (including nutrient-rich bee pollen, propolis, and royal jelly) are used and touted for their healing powers by beekeepers and medical experts in the present-day.
• Honey can relieve a variety of ailments, including allergies, coughs, fatigue, pain, and stress, as well as boost libido.
• The honey bee pollinates about one-third of the food we consume (including nutritious fruits and nuts).

Drawing on the latest honey buzz and interviews with medical doctors, beekeepers, and researchers, this charming and enlightening book (sweetened with stories about honey bees and humans) reveals 30 healing honey varieties paired with cinnamon and teas, tells you how to incorporate honey into Mediterranean-style, heart-healthy recipes like Honey Custard French Toast, Honey-Glazed Game Hen, and Filo Pear and Honey Tarts, and provides more than 50 home cures that combat digestive woes to skin woes. You'll also enjoy Cleopatra's milk-and-honey beauty treatments and eco-friendly beeswax household uses--all made with the amazing honey bee's gifts!

Cooking With Honey: Healthy Honey Recipes (free), by Daisy Jane, is a short self-published cookbook.

Book Description
Oh Honey, Honey!

When we think honey, we think sweet, sticky... possibly, Winnie the Pooh. But what many people aren't aware of are the health benefits honey has to offer.

In this concise booklet you will get effective honey tips, information on honey and health, practical tips on cooking with honey, among countless recipes that include this succulent ingredient.

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day!

Well, the free book promotion at AllRomance is over for another year and the audiobook download of Walden has changed into a streaming listen only (it's still free elsewhere, see below), but there are still plenty of free ebooks around. In fact, you can still get the Walden audibook - Tantor read the blog post, saw that you were wanting to download it and gave us a link to get zip file.

Here are a few that have become free in the US Kindle store, that were previously UK only, or that have been added to additional ebookstores as free selections.

• Walden
• RX from the Garden
• Generation Rising
• Griselda Takes Flight
• How to Make Money Marketing Your Business with Tumblr
• Let's Go Europe 2011!

Since today is Earth Day, I've picked out some bargain books that are relevant to the occasion. Note that if you go to Kobo, coupon code KoboSpring1 will get you $1 off and redtag2 should get you $2 off (both unlimited use for non-Agency titles) and giftread gets you 25% off, where a quick search turned up some interesting titles: Organic Gardening For Dummies is $7.89 with the coupon code, Gardening For Dummies is $1.89 and Organic Gardening For Dummies® Mini Edition is free (in fact, all the Mini Editions are free with the coupon code). Below are a few more I found at Amazon.

Green Made Easy: The Everyday Guide for Transitioning to a Green Lifestyle ($0.99), by Chris Prelitz, was briefly (and apparently mistakenly) free at Amazon UK, but is a great deal on a relevant title (with almost all 5 star reviews and enough that they can't all be friends of the author).

Book Description
In Green Made Easy, author and green pioneer Chris Prelitz shares how to be both environmental and economical at the same time. Going green is not only good for our planet, it’s good for your pocketbook. For over 20 years, Chris has been helping businesses, home owners, and corporations lower their monthly expenses by going green. Chris and his wife, Becky, share a green solar-powered home in Laguna Beach, California, which Chris designed and built. Most months they produce more power than they use and receive a credit from their power company instead of a bill!

In this book, Chris shares personal experiences, lessons learned, and reflections that humorously touch the heart and inspire the spirit. The chapter “Busting Green Myths” will sway even the most cynical person toward better eco-choices that will also save money. Chris says, “We’re rediscovering that it’s so much healthier, more lucrative, and better for every living thing to transition away from wasteful, polluting technologies and make choices that work in harmony with nature.”

Green Made Easy is written in a friend-to-friend, conversational style and examines our daily lives from personal care and cosmetics to solar-energy systems. This book will delight and inspire any and all who dream of making a difference and wish to create a thriving, healthy future for generations to come.

A Guest in the Jungle ($3.99), by James Polster, was originally released in 1987 and is credited with creating awareness of rainforest destruction.

Book Description
When Pittsburgh attorney Whitehill begins his vacation, he is anticipating a leisurely jaunt across South America. But he gets more than he bargained for when a sightseeing trip goes awry, leaving him stranded in the heart of the Amazon jungle. Whitehill isn’t exactly the outdoorsy type—he hikes in Brooks Brothers pants—so he is relieved when he meets a scientist perusing the jungle for medicinal plants and insects. Of course, the good doctor’s true motives are less than altruistic, and Whitehill soon finds himself being forcibly marched through the rainforest en route to certain death. When he escapes, with the help of some hungry vampire bats, Whitehill falls in with an English-speaking Indian whose tribe is at the heart of a raging land conflict. Trapped in the jungle, Whitehill must gather what little courage he has to stop an Indian war and preserve a vanishing culture from rapacious developers. Along the way, he has a fling with a gorgeous native, narrowly survives being sacrificed to the gods, and is rescued from a bombing by a pair of hard-drinking American expats. A Guest in the Jungle is a smart, engrossing, and uproariously funny novel about the power of one man to make a difference in the world.

Kidnapping the Lorax ($0.99), by Patricia K. Lichen, obviously has a bit of an agenda, but might be an interesting read nonetheless (at least five people thought so, but that may be just the author's agent, close family and friends).

Book Description
Three young environmentalists kidnap the Secretary of the Interior and take her to the Pacific Northwest woods to reeducate her, in the belief that when she returns to D.C., she will begin making correct, informed decisions for the land.

Greening IT ($0.99), edited by Adrian Sobotta, Irene Sobotta, John Gøtze and Connie Hedegaard, is a large volume on paper, but bargain priced as an ebook. It's also free on their web site, as a PDF (there is a "low-res" and "hi-res" version, which seems to apply just to the included images, as the text is readable in either version).

Book Description
The IT sector itself, responsible for 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, can get greener by focusing on energy efficiency and better technologies - we call this Green IT. Yet, IT also has the potential to significantly reduce the remaining 98% of emissions from other sectors of the economy - by optimising resource use and saving energy etc. We call this the process of Greening IT.

This book explores the great potential of greening society with IT - i.e. the potential of IT in transforming our societies into Low-Carbon societies. This is a global problem and demands a global solution, and in the spirit of this fact, this creative commons-licensed book is the result of an internationally collaborative effort by a number of opinion leaders in the field of Greening IT.

The foreword is written by European Commissioner for Climate Change Connie Hedegaard.

Foreword - By Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action
Chapter 1 Prologue
Chapter 2 Our Tools Will Not Save Us This Time - by Laurent Liscia
Chapter 3 Climate Change and the Low Carbon Society - by Irene N. Sobotta
Chapter 4 Why Green IT Is Hard - An Economic Perspective - by Rien Dijkstra
Chapter 5 Cloud Computing - by Adrian Sobotta
Chapter 6 Thin Client Computing - by Sean Whetstone
Chapter 7 Smart Grid - by Adrian Sobotta
Chapter 8 How IT Contributes to the Greening of the Grid - by Dr. George W. Arnold
Chapter 9 The Green IT Industry Ecosystem - by Ariane Rüdiger
Chapter 10 Out of The Box Ways IT Can Help to Preserve Nature and Reduce CO2 - by Flavio Souza
Chapter 11 From KPIs to the Business Case - Return on Investment on Green IT? - by Dominique C. Brack
Chapter 12 Computing Energy Efficiency - An Introduction - by Bianca Wirth
Chapter 13 A Future View: Biomimicry + Technology - by Bianca Wirth
Chapter 14 Greening Supply Chains - The Role of Information Technologies - by Hans Moonen
Chapter 15 Epilogue

Oceans: The Threats to Our Seas and What You Can Do to Turn the Tide ($3.86), by Jon Bowermaster

Book Description
This unique tie-in to the major motion picture Oceans—coming this April from Disney & National Geographic—explores the health of our oceans, and what we can do to improve it.

More than 75 percent of the globe is covered by the oceans. It is sometimes difficult to understand why it is called Planet Earth rather than Planet Ocean. Since half the world’s human population lives within a stone’s throw of an ocean coastline, the oceans’ health is increasingly important. Rich with resources and potential—as a source of renewable energy, new drugs, drinking water—for years we have treated them as both infinite and undamageable. But they are not.

Over-fishing, climate change, pollution, acidification, and more have put the world’s oceans and marine life at great risk.

Oceans gathers some of the most insightful visionaries, explorers, and ocean lovers— marine biologists, politicians, environmentalists, fishermen, sportsmen, deep divers, and more—in a unique anthology, in which each speaks to a unique aspect of our world’s most dimly understood dimension.

Getting Back ($2.99), by William Dietrich, is one of three backlist titles from this Pulitzer Prize winner and natural history correspondent for the Seattle Times that are bargain priced.

Book Description
Getting Back is a futuristic thriller, an eco-fable with a touch of 'Survivor,' Mad Max, and Avatar. The world's population has doubled. Wilderness exists only in old movies. Every region on Earth has been explored, organized, and tamed. But in this brave new age one secret organization promises the most forbidden pleasure of all: a true outdoor adventure. The price is a year's salary. The destination is a continent that disease has put off-limits. And the catch is that on this expedition, you may never return...

In the belly of a shimmering 21st Century pyramid, Daniel Dyson occupies Cubicle 17 and fantasizes about love and escape. By day he pursues petty ways to subvert his overly programmed life. By night he flirts with a shadowy group that dares him to rebel and reclaim his autonomy. Then he stumbles onto Outback Adventure.

Outback doesn't advertise and keeps its Internet site heavily encyrpted. Yet Daniel, partly to seek deeper meaning in his life, partly to find a woman who doesn't want to be found, soon finds himself taking a perilous trek across the forbidden continent of Australia. There, Outback has promised he will find out what it means to be truly alive, to test his limits, and to understand real survival. What he and his two dozen fellow adventurers don't know is that all their high-tech gear and all their plans haven't prepared them for what lies ahead. Because this journey will not only plunge them into a stark desert and through a gauntlet of natural dangers, it will force them to face the most dangerous creatures on earth: their fellow humans.

Getting Back is a novel of survival and a search for meaning where both have gone extinct - a thriller that asks us whether getting back is the object of the game, or the punishment for losing...

The Collected Works of John Muir (Unexpurgated Edition) ($1.99) is a popular collection from Halcyon Classics. This edition is DRM free, includes an active table of contents for easy navigation and errors and omissions have been corrected (versus scanned editions available free).

Book Description
This Halcyon Classics ebook collection contains nine works by California conservationist John Muir (1838-1914). Scottish-born Muir was an early advocate of Conservation in the United States; his activism led to the establishment of the Sierra Club. Muir is perhaps best known for his efforts to preserve the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park, and his unsuccessful attempts to stop the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley near San Francisco.

Contents:
Studies in the Sierra (1874)
Picturesque California (1890)
The Mountains of California (1894)
The Grand Canyon of the Colorado (1902)
Stickeen: The Story of a Dog (1909)
The Yosemite (1912)
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913)
Travels in Alaska (1915)
Steep Trails (1919)

Green Living For Dummies®, Mini Edition ($0.99), Organic Gardening For Dummies®, Mini Edition ($0.89) and Green Building and Remodeling For Dummies®, Mini Edition ($0.99) are just a few of the For Dummies®, Mini Editions that are under a buck at Amazon.

Green Living For Dummies®, Mini Edition
Minimize your impact on the world and enjoy a green lifestyle

Whether you want to repair, restore, or reuse, this practical guide is packed with realistic ways to help the environment and create a better home for you and your loved ones — from reducing energy use and waste to scaling back reliance on your car to making a difference in your diet.

Open the book and find:

• Ways to work greener transportation into your lifestyle
• The best ways to eat locally and organically
• How to rid your life of clutter
• Tips for conserving water and energy in your home today

Organic Gardening For Dummies®, Mini Edition
Grow a bountiful garden without harming the environment

Whether you're cultivating fruits and vegetables or growing beautiful flowers, this handy guide shows you how to work with nature, not against it, to create and maintain an organic garden your whole family will enjoy.

Open the book and find:

• How to beat weeds at their own game
• Tips for keeping pests away without chemical pesticides
• Ways to buy or make compost and build healthy soil
• How to work with, not against, your soil

Green Building and Remodeling For Dummies®, Mini Edition
Your hands-on, practical guide to the materials and construction methods of green building

Want to build responsibly and help preserve the environment? This friendly, step-by-step guide introduces you to key facets of green building and remodeling, from looking at long-term costs to working with green professionals to reducing energy and water use.

Open the book and find:

• The benefits of going green
• Green material substitutions
• Where to locate green professionals
• Ten green things you can do in your home today

Green Living by Design ($3.99), by Jean Nayar, is even greener than the recycled paper of the paperback edition, when read as an ebook.

Book Description
What if someone told you that you could make your home look gorgeous, be more energy and cost efficient and be kind to the environment at the same time? With the help of Jean Nayar and the experts at PointClickHome.com now anyone can remodel, renovate, or decorate their home, all without hurting the planet.

Filled with easy, insider tips on everything from insulation, carpentry, lighting, and complete renovations to simple projects like redecorating; Green Living by Design is the source for anyone who wants their home to be chic and eco-friendly.

Chapters include information on furnishings, fabrics, water use, choosing locally made products, harvesting and controlling sunlight, composting and disposing and energy-efficient appliances.

Laid out in an easy-to-follow format with step-by-step instructions, special tips and hints and material guides, this book makes it easier than ever to follow your conscience while protecting the earth.

The Quarter-Acre Farm: How I Kept the Patio, Lost the Lawn, and Fed My Family for a Year ($9.87), by Spring Warren and Jesse Pruet, is a bit above my usual cutoff (as is the next one), but is one I'm sampling and may make an exception for - if it saves me $5 on food, it's back to bargain priced and might save me hundreds (or maybe at least one), if it improves the production from our garden this year.

Book Description
When Spring Warren told her husband and two teenage boys that she wanted to grow 75 percent of all the food they consumed for one year—and that she wanted to do it in their yard—they told her she was crazy.

She did it anyway.

The Quarter-Acre Farm is Warren’s account of deciding—despite all resistance—to take control of her family’s food choices, get her hands dirty, and create a garden in her suburban yard. It’s a story of bugs, worms, rot, and failure; of learning, replanting, harvesting, and eating. The road is long and riddled with mistakes, but by the end of her yearlong experiment, Warren’s sons and husband have become her biggest fans—in fact, they’re even eager to help harvest (and eat) the beautiful bounty she brings in.

Full of tips and recipes to help anyone interested in growing and preparing at least a small part of their diet at home, The Quarter-Acre Farm is a warm, witty tale about family, food, and the incredible gratification that accompanies self-sufficiency.

Urban Agriculture: Ideas and Designs for the New Food Revolution ($9.99), by David Tracey

Book Description
Urban Agriculture is packed with ideas and designs for anyone interested in joining the new food revolution. First-time farmers and green thumbs alike will find advice on growing healthy, delicious, affordable food in urban settings. From condo balconies to community orchards, cities are coming alive with crops. Get growing!

About the Author
David Tracey is a journalist and environmental designer who operates EcoUrbanist in Vancouver. A certified arborist specializing in organic fruit trees and edible landscapes, he is also the Executive Director of Tree City Canada, a non-profit ecological engagement group. David is the author of Guerrilla Gardening: A Manualfesto, and an advocate for all those reclaiming our right to great food through urban agriculture.

Last, but not least, today's Magazine bargain is a one-year subscription to Hobby Farms for $5.00, valid today only.

Description
The ultimate owner's manual for rural enthusiasts, Hobby Farms embraces the growing segment of the population that is returning to farm life in search of a more meaningful existence. Hobby Farms is ideal for everyone from pocket farmers looking to make a profit from their part-time farming endeavors to hobby farmers who have a passion for farm life.

Green Books campaign: The Organic Farmer's Business Handbook

This review is part of the Green Books campaign. Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally friendly way. The goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on the Eco-Libris website.

I learned of the campaign fairly late in the signup period, but managed to find a book that piqued my interest. The Organic Farmer's Business Handbook: A Complete Guide to Managing Finances, Crops, and Staff-and Making a Profit ($23.07 Paperback), by Richard Wiswall, was provided by Chelsea Green Publishing for this review. This is large format paperback, 184 pages, printed on chlorine-free, recycled paper and includes a companion CD-ROM with four spreadsheets and a doc file, all of which worked fine in the Open Office included on my netbook. A Kindle edition is available ($18.46), but I would not recommend it, even on the DX - the worksheets can be a bit of a strain to read even on paper and may be impossible as tables on the Kindle, plus you don't get the companion CD.

Most books on organic farming/gardening approach the subject from the gardening viewpoint. This book, however, introduces the organic farmer to several of the concepts needed to run a farm as a successful business, starting with the principle that profit is not evil (including a chapter on how to plan for a retirement where you don't have to keep working the farm until you die or sell off the farm to afford it). There are worksheets to help determine which crops are making money (after expenses which include more than just materials) as well as track payroll taxes (although I'd suggest considering a program like Quickbooks to handle that part of the business). The worksheets are pretty involved and some of the print is quite small on the page, but each one is included in one of the spreadsheets on the companion CD. The book may not make the actual gardening any easier (or find you reliable laborers), but it should assist in deciding which crops to grow and which markets to attend (if it costs you more to get ready for a market than you sell, you're better off not harvesting the crops at all). With a bit of hard work, good weather and proper planning, you might even get to the income level he discusses in the first chapter, bringing in after-expense profits in the six figures (at which point you might want an accountant rather than a do-it-yourself book for tax planning).

All-in-all, I felt it was a pretty good introduction for someone with an organic gardening background that wants to make it as a commercial farmer. The chapter on production efficiencies uses all organic methods, but doesn't avoid machinery that will be needed for larger operations, while chapters on calculating expenses and costs include hidden costs, marketing and CSAs, as well as special considerations if your spouse is also working on the farm. Most other books on the business of farming have an overwhelming focus on chemical rather than mechanical controls and wholesaling of commodity crops, rather than selling to smaller markets or direct to the customer.

Book Description
Contrary to popular belief, a good living can be made on an organic farm. What's required is farming smarter, not harder.

In The Organic Farmer's Business Handbook, Richard Wiswall shares advice on how to make your vegetable production more efficient, better manage your employees and finances, and turn a profit. From his twenty-seven years of experience at Cate Farm in Vermont, Wiswall knows firsthand the joys of starting and operating an organic farm-as well as the challenges of making a living from one. Farming offers fundamental satisfaction from producing food, working outdoors, being one's own boss, and working intimately with nature. But, unfortunately, many farmers avoid learning about the business end of farming; because of this, they often work harder than they need to, or quit farming altogether because of frustrating-and often avoidable-losses.

In this comprehensive business kit, Wiswall covers:

* Step-by-step procedures to make your crop production more efficient
* Advice on managing employees, farm operations, and office systems
* Novel marketing strategies
* What to do with your profits: business spending, investing, and planning for retirement

A companion CD offers valuable business tools, including easy-to-use spreadsheets for projecting cash flow, a payroll calculator, comprehensive crop budgets for twenty-four different crops, and tax planners.

Garden Recap - April

I haven't made many posts here recently - the rain that settled in this summer put a huge damper on my gardening (but not on the weeds). Most of the fruit simply rotted away (from fungal infections, it looked like) after 3+ weeks of solid rain. One exception was the muscadines and the kiwi (which we don't get every year). The kiwi is finally ripe enough to eat (you must wait until they soften or they are so sour that they rival lemons), although they are not much to look at. No pictures of them today, but I'm going to include some pictures from the garden, from April of this year, before the weeds took over.



This is the eastern fenceline of the garden (we have deer, but not very persistent ones - the fence is too low for an area with heavy deep populations; our stay outside the garden and graze in the fields), which is covered with kiwi plants (4 females and one male) and closeups of my female Kolomikta kiwi (finally large enough to flower and start to get a bit of color and the Arguta female that actually has had fruit a few times, both in flower. I also have a fuzzy kiwi, which blooms each year, but has been unsuccesful in setting fruit. It turns out that my male blooms at too early a time and misses the females most years (it is also smaller and more frost damage prone, so doesn't flower at all some years). I do wish I'd set the plants farther apart - they are at 8 feet and I think 15-16 would have been better (and so would a taller fenceline, maybe 8' instead of 5'). However, as you can see they would make a great, edible privacy fence (although your neighbors might complain a bit about having to trim their side each year).



In this set of pictures, you can see the potatoes that are up (and the soaker hoses that I don't think we used all summer), the late, purple asparagus and the meal we had the next day, after digging up a few of those early potatoes. The thinner asparagus is an all green variety, which was billed as Super Male and although it is mostly male, it definitely isn't all male. The Purple variety also isn't all male, yet it makes a much larger and more tender spear (males supposedly are better, as they don't waste resources growing berries). Since we do have berries on the plants all summer, each spring I find more asparagus hiding out in the garden (and in the orchard, under the fence for the grapes, so I know birds love the berries). These baby plants do take a bit longer to grow (2-3 years longer than buying roots), but they are also entirely free. Sometimes they are purple, sometimes green - the strongest ones I usually move to the asparagus row to fill in bare spots and extend it's length.



As you can see, by mid-April, some of the younger asparagus has already started to grow out. Once the spears on a clump get smaller than a pencil in diameter, I let that clump grow and stengthen up for the next year. As a result, we seldom eat asparagus as small as that seen in stores and ours is a lot more tender, as well. Since the harvest often starts in early march, but the time it quits, I'm glad to see it gone and don't miss it during the rest of the year. By this time, we've also started harvesting rhubarb, as you can see from the dead leaves left as mulch from a previous picking. Rhubarb isn't the happiest of plants in our garden (or anywhere in the south) - the summers simply get too hot and it's been much too dry, of late (this year being an exception). I can't help with the heat, although it has been much cooler this year and the rhubarb has been thriving, but I can help with the dry. You'll see a utility sink a bit upslope, that I use to wash off produce before it heads indoors, which keeps most of the mud out of the house. I hook up a short hose to the drain and let the runoff seep into the rhubarb, effectively watering it each time I trim and rinse produce. Since I've done this, the rhubarb has went from a couple of shriveled leaves all summer to looking like a healthy plant (but still nowhere near the size you'll see wild in much wetter climates with colder winters, such as South Dakota or Minnesota. The last picture in the set is the greenhouse, now stripped of plastic and nearly ready for the spring/summer season. We'll have to replace the chicken wire at the bottom (nailed to the foundation boards), or the rabbits eat everything inside that survives the puppies playing in it (which would not be much, as the puppies play pretty roughly ... maybe next year they'll have grown up enough to allow in the garden when I'm working). The ribs and supports are just standard PVC used for plumbing - we were told it would not stand up to outdoor use and we have had one rib crack and need repair, but it's now been in place nearly 15 years and the main upkeep has been a new plastic covering each fall (a black walnut tree used to attack it each year, but we've now removed it, as it was also dropping nuts into the garden, plus the greenhouse would get too hot to grow anything in the summer if left covered, so we take down the covering each spring).

Muscadines

It's nearly the end of the harvest season and the last of the muscadines have now been picked. The only fruit that remain are apples, crabapples and a few stray figs (that will continue until frost).

Unlike European grapes, muscadines must be picked one at a time, rather than in clusters, and the stem separates from the fruit, which reduces shelf life somewhat. One bit, however, and you'll wonder why you waste your money on those flavorless marbles they call grapes at the grocery store. Just as with tomatoes, there is simply no comparison to a vine ripened fruit and the easy to ship, but green and bland varieties you find in the store.

With other nectar sources nearly non-existent due to the lack of rain, however, you have to be doubly careful as you reach into the leaves and grab the ripe ones - some had small holes drilled in and were occupied by honeybees or a small bumblebee (and sometimes both) and have been covered in yellow jackets in some years. Although easy to dislodge by shaking, accidentally grabbing one of these valuable pollinators will invariably mean a nasty sting.

Rain or the lack thereof!

We've been back from South Dakota for a two weeks and the list of chores to finish before winter seems to be getting longer and longer. We've still got trees down in the yard that we are working on sawing up (in summer, the 90+ temps and 90+ humidity means the trees are ignored until fall). At least the brush is disposed of and the smaller limbs piled up now; still the main trunk on two large trees will need to be sawn into lengths and then split before stacking to use next winter. This winter's firewood was split last February and has been drying all summer. We trimmed up runaway seedlings on one slope last weekend (more sun from the missing trees and everything in the world sprouted); still have half the yard to do, though, before the leaves fall and we can't tell keeper trees from the rogues.

The garden is mostly dried up - but rains started today, which means it's time to plant winter greens. And if we had time to work on it (will have to can, as the freezers are stuffed), apples and crabapples are ripe now and black walnuts have started dropping and should be picked up. The muscadines are still ripe (pick-your-own places sell them at 1.50 a lb, so I feel guilty if we don't grab them all) and there are even a few figs (and the rain will help, although they'll all be gone with the first frost).

As long at it was raining, though, all those outdoor chores will have to wait. Instead, I spent a couple of hours cleaning up the seed catalog folder (more than one, in truth). First, duplicates and old versions were purged (although I kept a few old rose and daylily catalogs; I cut out pictures for our paper scrapbook of varieties that are growing). It seems several companies haven't sent catalogs for several years now - the next chore is to track them down and determine if they are even still in business (quite a few went under several years ago). Once the survivors have been identified, I'll need to start requesting new catalogs - prices and varieties change even year to year and most 5 year old catalogs are good for little other than finding a web site.

Update: We ended up getting over 2 inches of rain before it stopped, all of it a steady, gently rain that soaked in rather than ran off. But it hardly makes a dent in the deficit of rainfall in this on-going, multi-year drought. With the fire season just starting in TN, already several counties have full bans on all outdoor burning and the leaves haven't really started dropping yet.

Back from South Dakota

We're back from our trip to South Dakota, where fall is definitely close and it rained nearly every day. Several nights were down in the 40's and we had both the propane and electric heaters running in the camper (good thing, too, as we ran one tank dry in the middle of the night and it would have been quite chilly by morning if that was the only heat source). Our sweaters were out nearly every day, as were rain jackets; neither have seen much use here in TN lately -- rumors are it rained while we were gone, but you can't tell it from the ground in the woods or the garden.

Big trees take a lot of water and the garden sits in full sun. Both seem to be parched, with the heavy clay soil having the basic consistency of baked adobe bricks. The corn here has long since dried up (but hasn't been cut down, as we'll use some of it for fall decoration) and the cucumbers are looking pretty heat blasted. The okra wouldn't look that bad, but a neighbor left a fence open while we were gone and the rabbits have eaten most of the leaves off the plants (they don't like the pods). There are still a few tomatoes (small, from water stress), but the peppers look absolutely great. The plants are not as big as in years past, but the peppers themselves are nearly as numerous and are full size. Most have even been ignored by the 4 legged intruder, so there will be plenty more peppers going into the freezer (sweet) and dryer (hot). Although we seldom use all the hot peppers, the sweet ones disappear each winter, finding their way into various dishes and stews. All the hot peppers left next summer, when new ones are being prepared, will either be ground into a mixed spice blend or marked to use as a hot pepper spray against garden critters the next year, so they seldom go to waste.

Packing Silage

Chopping Corn

The trucks and tractors are running 24 a day, stopping only for downpours of rain, here in South Dakota. We have our camper parked a parking lot in the center of Veblen, one of the many tiny towns in South Dakota with little industry other than farming. We have water and electric hookups, which is equivalent to the local parks (but not so scenic a view as when we've stayed at Roy Lake), at a total cost of $0.00 per night, due to the kindness of my mother-in-law's landlord.

The town has finally fixed their campground (four sites) and mowed the grass, for the first time in the many years we've been making these annual visits, but also raised their price from free to $20.00 a night. That may sound reasonable in some parts of the country, but the very nice park at Roy Lake (and several others throughout South Dakota) only charges $12 per night and includes bathhouses. We paid $21 a night for the only commercial campground we stayed in on the trip up - it had the same full hookups as the town has installed, plus cable TV and free shower facilities. The next town over gives visitors three free nights at their campground, then charges $10 a night; similar rates and free spots are found throughout the mid-west and we often spent under $10 a night for full hookups in city run campgrounds across upper Michigan on our last trip. I didn't check, but suspect the commercial campground in Sisseton doesn't charge much more than Veblen charges for their four mown spots near an unused ballfield.

So, what makes them think that they can get away with such high prices, especially in a town that is many miles off a seldom used interstate, a town that isn't on any road going to or from another major location? A town that has no real grocery store (sure, the co-op gas station has some stock, but not a lot more than many large convenience stores in the eastern states) and is more than 20 miles from even a very small version of a chain grocer (and 80+ from a city of sufficient size to have an actual department store, bookstore or mall).

Two things: first, there is now a commercial dairy operation at each end of the city limits (carefully placed in the county, just in case the city thinks they might get any tax money - apparently, unlike our local city, they haven't heard of strip annexation to extend fingers out roadways and then gobbling up any local industries while ignoring farmers that would use costly services) and, second, the influx of crews that are chopping corn. Dairy cows eat a lot of corn, but not picked field corn, where the ears are separated from the stalks after they have dried, or sweet corn, still on the cob. Instead, cows eat corn as silage - the entire stalk of corn, ears, tassels and all, is chopped up into a green mass and then piled for use later in the year. We arrived just as the chopping season was starting and they were expecting 20 crews to do the chopping. In addition to the actual chopper (photos to come later), there are many trucks used, as the chopper mows down a field without pausing and the trucks jockey into place to grab all the silage that comes out of it's chute, then make the dusty trip over to where they are weighed, dump and then several tractors are used to pile everything up and pack it down so that it will last for a long feeding season. Those chopping crews were the ones they were anticipating filling their campground (we only saw one there for the two weeks we were in town), but most probably ended up staying in motels in other towns nearby (none of those here, either).

So, there we were, with trucks driving thru town from early morning to night, tractors running the entire time as well (at least they shut down around 10pm - one year they went 24 hours a day), kicking up a green dust that covered everything and required washing your windshield every day, even if hadn't been anywhere. The only thing worse - now that there are feedlots and their holding ponds at each end of town, any still day or if the wind comes from either direction means the stench is so bad you can't stand to be outside. At least a northern or southern wind removes the smell, but one of those won't be a fix soon, as there are plans to put in a third dairy. Much of the surrounding areas is reservation land - and the native Americans are now mostly blocking these large feedlot operations. But Minneapolis uses a lot of milk and they have found at least one area in South Dakota that wasn't as aware of the downsides of modern dairies and fell for the promise of increased jobs revitalizing the town. Instead, few locals will work in the dairies (instead, large numbers of mostly illegal hispanics work in them) and much of the money is sent to families in other countries. The local bar has been remodeled (but is now owned by the dairy - as is much of the rental housing) and seems busy at night, but sitting on your porch and enjoying the evening is something that can only be done when the wind is blowing from the right direction. Somehow, it doesn't seem that life in this town has been improved in the several years that these dairies have been in operation.

Late Tomatoes

Unlike the peppers, the tomatoes have not been so happy. They are on the same soaker hose section and have the same mulch, but just never go enough moisture to keep up production or fruit size. Maybe with the rain last weekend and what is predicted to come our way as Gustav heads north, there will be some late fall fruit to make up for the very poor summer results. The only fruit close to a normal size are the paste tomatoes - others are roughly 1/4 normal size and the heirlooms simply refused to set more than one or two fruit each. It's been enough to keep up in fresh tomatoes for eating and cooking this summer, but no new ones went to the freezer or were canned this year. Luckily, last year was a bountiful one and there are still whole tomatoes frozen and many cans of sauce and "stock" left to tide us over during the winter.

We gave up buying tomatoes at the store several years ago (when even "garden/vine ripened" tomatoes there meant hothouse, mealy, under ripe and tasteless. Instead, in winter we eat was we put away the previous year and look forward to that first fruit of summer. The same decision on asparagus was made about the same time - ours comes in the size of man's thumb, reaching 18" for harvesting and bears for about 6 weeks; it would probably be longer, but by then we are tired of asparagus and just let it leaf out and gain strength for the next year. No more imported, pencil thin asparagus that is so-so in flavor and often tough and stringy even 6 inches from the tip. Instead, we have great big fat spears grilled, steamed, broiled and stir fried nearly every day until we can't stand it any more. None of it goes into the freezer or is canned (ugh!); any tougher trimmings are instead dried and saved until winter, when they are powdered, reconstituted in chicken stock and cooked into cream of asparagus soup. Nothing else is needed, other than a bit of salt, pepper and perhaps a dash of sour cream.

Sweet Corn

Three weeks of hot dry weather took a toll on the late sweet corn. Watering meant there were a few ears to harvest, but the quality wasn't that high for eating fresh. Instead, this is going to the dehydrator and will become cornmeal. Not my first choice to use as meal (usually, fully matured ears that naturally dry on the stalk are used), but they will work as cornmeal. This variety was one of our favorites in early picking - it comes in yellow with a blush of red on the kernels, then matured to a full read ear, which was still perfectly sweet.

Hot Peppers

One garden crop that hasn't minded the heat, dry weather has been the peppers. Hot, sweet or anywhere in between, all have done well, supplemented with once a week watering via soaker hose and heavily mulched. No sigh of disease or insects, they plants hang so heavily with fruit that many seem to be creeping along the ground like vines, with branches in danger of breaking from the weight. This is just one of four trays going into the dehydrator this afternoon, while close to 5 gallons of sweet peppers are destined for the freezer.

There are four 2-gallon buckets overflowing with asian and european pears awaiting processing as well. This year, they'll go the freezer in a light syrup, rather than be canned (although canned asian pears are one of my favorites, we simply don't have the time to do them that way this year).

The Rain Continues...

Our first burst of rain looked quite hard - for all of maybe thirty seconds. After that, we had mostly just mist for the rest of the day and a bit of slow rain now and then. All total there was 0.08" of rain yesterday - while less than 25 miles south there was an inch and at the GA/TN border 3 inches fell. But the front has slowly pushed northwards and we have now received and inch of rain today, all from a very slow continuous fall. With any luck, the front will stay stalled (a cold front has pushed down from the north and the moist warm front from the coast, all centered just south of here, but close enough to keep us wet until one of them gives in) until the hurricane Gustav can swing up from the Gulf and bring us even more rain. We still need another 3 inches or more to be "average" for the year and any extra is welcome (of course, we don't live on a flood plain - nor does anyone else that pays attention before purchasing their property, at least anywhere for many, many miles). It'll still take several feet of extra rain to restore the water tables and it doesn't look like we'll be getting that much anytime soon.

Rain, rain, glorious rain!

It's Raining!!!

OK, those of you in many parts of the country are probably tired of rain - but here we have been having a drought. It's the driest August in over 60 years (last I checked) and our local rivers are drying up: the French Broad is now at the lowest level ever recorded and the flow rate is less than 1/6 the median at this time of year, while lake levels are 16 feet below normal. After 10 years of severely below average rainfall, estimates are we need more than 3 feet above normal next year to get the water tables back where they belong.

Here, we have had 0.07" of rain this month - barely enough to measure and all of it in the first day or two of the month. The ground is cracking and even when you water a garden area it will be bone dry again in a day unless well mulched and even in mulched areas plants start looking wilted again in a couple of days. Areas that are not watered look much worse - berry vines look scorched and fruit trees are starting to show yellow leaves and are dropping fruit. After the same stress last year, some probably won't make it (joining the mature apple tree that died last year from the same stress). At least the grass has mostly stopped growing, reducing the number of times the fields and paths have to be mowed.

Not everything looks bad, tho - the muscadines continue to shrug off the heat and lack of water, as do the kiwis (which unfortunately have no fruit again this year; even a moderately late frost always does them in). Most nut crops look pretty heavy - it's nearly time for black walnuts to start dropping anyway and they always are the first to shed their leaves (often before it even hints of fall outside). Where watering has been practical (if not always affordable), the harvest isn't completely lost. We are still getting blueberries and a few grapes from one vine near the house (those in the orchard at least don't look dead this year, but are still sulking and have no fruit). And the apples and pears are now ready for harvest (and mostly still quite heavy, due to the early rain and the diligent work of our honeybees). Despite the lack of water, the figs are starting to come in (but are pretty small) and the pawpaw finished ripening it's fruit (4 total, two very large) -- perhaps in a year or two the smaller trees will bloom and join the larger one. The smallest is a year younger (a replacement tree for an early one that failed to make it thru winter), but both are under 4', despite being 7 and 8 years old. They really prefer some shade and wet feet -- instead, they get full sun in a hot, dry field and have been under drought conditions their entire lives, which has no doubt set them back a year or two in what is admittedly always a long maturity cycle (the first couple of years, they only had two leaves each and apparently only grew roots, staying at about 6" tall).

As for the bees themselves - they pass their days fanning on the front stoop and making trips to our (very) small pond and waterfall (which requires water every other day, after no fill-ups at all earlier in the year). I know exactly how they feel -- I've wished we had a pond big enough to cool off in several times this month (and that we had enough rain to keep it filled).

Why "The Knob"

knob

Pronunciation:

\ˈnäb\

Function:

noun

Etymology:

Middle English knobbe; akin to Middle Low German knubbe knob

Date:

14th century

1 a: a rounded protuberance : lump b: a small rounded ornament or handle

2: a rounded usually isolated hill or mountain

— knobbed \ˈnäbd\ adjective

— knob·by \ˈnä-bē\ adjective

Source: Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary

I don't know when this place became The Knob - in the 50's, my grandfather bought a number of parcels on top of a ridge, some to steep to easily walk on, the others only flat by comparison (perhaps gently graded might suit - although a fair portion is somewhere in between). Some were old home sites (a cistern lasted until the late 80's), the rest possibly part of an old farm (the old barn sort of lasted that long - held up only by the vines that had ripped apart the corners, it fell to the same bulldozer that had to be called when that old cistern fell in). The only flat spot is on the very top of the ridge and was once used as the emergency water tower site by the local water utility (long since gone, now there are air relief valves there, but I suspect the water department has forgotten they exist, since they never use them, even after several incidents where all water pressure was lost due to either large leaks or a crossover to the larger supply lines a few years back.

At the time, he combined the parcels into one "farm" and raised pigs and a garden (but lived in "town" - about 8-10 miles away in the city, this was considered quite far into the country then). Years later, he found a better location 15 miles further out - bordering a lake, it had it's own water source and rich, flat bottom land (ok, sure it flooded out some years - but that little inconvenience just meant a long drive thru a neighbor's farm and taking down a few fences when that occured). Dad purchased the property and rented it out for many years, then we purchased it and moved here in the 80's - fleeing the crowds of southern CA after a stint in the Marine Corps. It was perfect ... almost.

But it was always, from as far back as I can remember, The Knob. A farm on a perhaps not so gently rounded hill. The pigs were long gone by the time I first remember visiting, but not the garden. And on the same road was an old chicken farmer, with a huge brick chicken house. They still candled eggs by hand (and let any kid that stopped by have a try at it) ... and had grapes that they, with my grandfather, turned into wine (and yes, I'll never forget the truly awful taste, in my early teens, when they let me "try" some that was only about half fermented -- something that would cure most teens of even considering alcohol until long after turning a legal drinking age). A commercial apple orchard was next door and several others on this short, less than one mile road, raised cattle. All are now gone (although the apples trees remain, abandoned, it's just a matter of time, it appears, until they too, like the cattle farms, are sold off to become housing developments).

But when we moved in, all that was left were a very few fruit trees, all well past their prime, and a falling down mobile home (ok, it was a trailer) ... from the 50's, a single wide eyesore that we lived in for several years, while clearing that flat spot at the top of the ridge and then building the house we now call home. Since then we've cleared out the old orchard (covered with black locust from seedlings to full grown trees), removed all but one of the old trees as they died (one old apple simply refuses to die - this year it is once again completely covered in fruit, despite being at least 35 and more likely 50 years old) and replacing them with newer ones -- and with a larger selection. Instead of just peaches, apples and sweet cherries (which at 40' high, were unharvestable), there are now figs, nectarines, pluots, apriums, sweet and sour cherries, asian and european pears, several varieties of apples and even pawpaws (only 6 years from seedling to first harvest, these are NOT for the impatient). Grapes dont' do so well in the field (no irrigation), but muscadines are an easy to care for substitute - even the kiwis have a harvest now and then and the organic vegetable garden (in it's second location for the last dozen years) always has something to harvest, even in a dry year. Closer to the house, strawberries (which never survive the wild predators if out of sight) and blueberries (currently under attack by both squirrels and birds) are planted, while in between there are several berries growing wherever nature has planted them: blackberries, red and black raspberries and japanese wineberries (an import gone wild in this area). Rather than compete with tame varieties, we just try to mow these into pickable patches and let them do their thing - in return, they need no fertilizer, spraying or other care, but yield several pints of sweetness every year. There are even a few elderberries here and there - but if you've ever tried to harvest these, you know you really need hundreds of them to make the effort worthwhile.

So, this is The Knob. An organic farm on what is now the outskirts of town (and a fairly large one, at that). On the top of a steep ridge, we have over 450 feet of elevation change from the top to the lowest point (obviously, this isn't Florida, since that entire state has only a 300' feet elevation change and they call that a mountain there). Our house sits right on top of one of the highest points in the county, but the county is in a valley between two mountain ranges - this is definitely only a ridge, not a mountain we live atop. It's also quite a bit louder than when we moved in: a major interstate passes by about 3 miles away as the crow flies and the truck traffic can be heard all night long, while the view away from town now includes numerous houses that light up the night, where at one time you could make believe no one else lived within miles. Compared to those in the city of even nearby subdivisions, it is still quite wild - 20+ acres of mature deciduous forest and the other ten a combination of fields, orchards, garden and homestead. You still can't see those surrounding houses in summer, during the day - but in winter or at night, they are clearly now close by. A small waterfall with tiny pond, home to our amorous bullfrog, helps to cover the noise of nearby roads -- but it doesn't compare with the silence of a truly remote area (such as small town South Dakota, which we visit now and then). Then again, it's a lot less than 25 miles to the nearest store and it's never snowed up to the second story windowsills here, so there are trade-offs to every location.

Oh, and the "Bees" part - they sit in the hives on the border between field and woods. Although there were plenty of wild bees when we moved in, our garden and orchard began to suffer in the 90's due to the die-offs that here hitting wild populations of European Honeybees (at that time, tracheal mites and varroa mites were to blame, rather than the current unknown problems). The trees were often empty of fruit and what was there was misshapen -- even the zucchini didn't have many fruit on them. So, we put in a couple of hives of bees and there they still sit, although the two now there were once up to ten, the two remaining do a more than sufficient job, filling the trees with so much fruit that we often lose branches from the weight.

As to the residents - neither of us are your typical farmers or even true farmers at all (and one only participates under duress). Instead, both of us are from technical backgrounds: electronics and computers. Any work done around here is fitted into spare time and the subject of my posts are as likely to be technical (or about books) as they are to be about outwitting those wily voles that I know are looking for the potatoes again this year.