Homestead - Tumblr Posts
Sustainability in Zone 5
When I first started this adventure in January, I did what I always do and devoured every blog, book, and podcast I could on the subject. And you know what I learned?? It's a lot easer to live sustainably in a place where the growing season is longer than 5 months. It's a lot easier to eat local when your state grows 90% of the county's produce. I don't live in California. While the rest of those homesteading blogs were posting pictures of local strawberries in March, I still had snow on the ground. And boy was I bitter. This is going to be a blog about living sustainably with very little space. I live in a 600 sq ft apartment with 4 windows. They are my growing space in the winter. I have a small shaded balcony. That's my garden. This is homesteading for the rest if us, for the broke, for the people without access to land, and those of us always dealing with the late frost.
Class field trip at Profound Microfarms today. I learned so much from Jeff and the farm techs. When the pandemic started, they adapted by offering home delivery. The quality of these greens were outstanding. The industrial supply chain for grocery stores takes 3ish weeks to reach the dinner plate of Americans. By then, the shelf life is maybe a week or two before those greens start looking wilty. These are picked at peak ripeness, and are delivered a day before delivery! This shortens the distance driven to our homes, by effectively cutting out a good chunk of the middle men involved.
Random thoughts and questions:
I look forward to learning more. Maybe I can apply this knowledge in my next job or home?
Does anyone know someone who has experience with 3D-printing homes, or shipping container gardens?
https://getchipdrop.com offers free woodchuck mulch
https://grodan.com was the seeding substrate they used to germinate under red and blue lights.
Greenhouses may not be 100% sustainable rn. The monthly costs for the Profound Microfarms is:
- $1,000 to $2,000/mo for electricity. Though maybe cheaper to run the greenhouses 24 hours than in 12 hour increments, since turning the automatic systems on and off is a sizable tax on power.
- $100 to $200/mo for water (Collin county also taxes additional homes that reclaim rainwater)
- $600 to $1,000/mo for propane for the greenhouses themselves.
Metrics collected within the greenhouse:
- water temperature
- dissolved oxygen
- air temperature (72°F - 73°F is what PMF aims for)
- Jeff also noted that lower, more squat ceiling greenhouses are more difficult to control temperature and humidity-wise.
Common insects in the geeenhouse:
- aphids. Aphids, APHIDS -- Jeff noted that they use a combination of ladybugs, predatory wasps, and praying mantis to help regulate when aphids are apparent in the closed greenhouse system.
Greenhouses in Texas need to be oriented North to South, and away from all over-reaching shadows and tree cover. Fans and an insulating wall need to be built on the Northside.
Since you got this far, NFT is an acronym for a style of hydroponic farming that stands for nutrient film technique.
Collin County Master Gardening (https://ccmgatx.org) offers classes to become a master gardener that I may be looking into for the future!
Stay curious!
HI!!!! I found you through ex machina!!! I would sell my bones for more of it. It is SO GOOD. i understand if you dont plan on writing more of homestead, but please, tell us what was gonna happen next !!!!! (If you had an outline already, if not its ok)
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa that's a pretty huge compliment, thank you!!!
Homestead, Homestead, Homestead. It isn't that I don't want to write it, really. It's just that the tf2 fixation is dormant at the moment, and has been for a while. And at the time I didn't like writing Melissa lol. I do wanna write more of it, but the issue is that right now I have stuff I wanna do MORE, and that list is always growing. My creative process is kinda just. You know. Hoarding WIPs that I'll "work on later." 😂
I was an even less disciplined writer back then than I am now, so I kind of just had some loosely connected ideas that I would write whenever I ended up feeling like it. So, seeing as at this point the most likely way I'll get back to Homestead is after an Ex Machina rewrite (and who knows if/when I'll get to that), sure, I'll share some ideas I had for Homestead under the readmore. Hypothetical spoilers below.
For starters, Engie is sterile. He and Melissa wanted children, but didn't find out until later that Engie couldn't have kids. It's why there was a room in the house that didn't match the rest, it's why Engie immediately latched onto the idea of caring for Mal (and partially why he didn't always have the best instincts even when his intentions were good; no practice), and it's why Melissa was initially REALLY uncomfortable with the fact that he'd "built a son in all but name."
Speaking of Melissa, she definitely didn't like Mal. She's seen enough of Engie's craft to know it's sound. But this is the first time he's (as far as she knows the situation) BUILT A GUY. Inspired by a coworker or not, that's weird. That might even make it weirder. It doesn't help that she barely gets to see her husband, and now he's brought home what might as well be his artificial kid, and barely pays her any mind because he's so set on advancing the robot's AI and teaching it ABCs. Melissa wouldn't resort to outright sabotage, because she loves her husband more than life itself, but she DOES inadvertently start a petty rivalry with Mal (if a slightly lopsided one) because frankly, she WOULD prefer that darned robot gone. Even if she wouldn't overtly say so.
I was kind of hoping for her and Mal to eventually warm up to each other, but considering Melissa's visceral distrust, and Mal's tendency to be either terrified or vindictive when wronged, to this day I'm not sure what would have spurred them to make up. I think I was just gonna keep writing as I go until an idea came up that kinda felt right.
I'm pretty sure that was it for actual plot stuff. There wasn't a whole bunch, seeing as Homestead was meant as a sort of drabble collection anyway, with a string of AU canon to tie them together. But here's some other random ideas I had for themes and chapters and stuff!
Mal really would find a horse. It wouldn't be HIS horse, but it would be a big enough horse for him to hop on and then IMMEDIATELY realize he didn't know how to ride one. No horses would be harmed in the making of that chapter.
Mal learning about sign language, and wanting to learn it. It would be difficult, seeing as he has three fused fingers and a face that can't emote, but it's close enough to what he and M-146 did that he would want to try.
Engie upgrading Mal's pattern recognition software so that it could run fast enough for him to enjoyably watch cartoons, simply because it bothered Mal that he couldn't make anything out in animated material. He would immediately swear off almost all of it for a variety of reasons (he ends up not really liking slapstick or fantasy violence, for starters), but he would quickly become hooked on shows like Scooby Doo whenever his cooking show wasn't on.
Engie would also work on de-noising his speaker system because Scout would call sometimes, and talking to a robot whose voice is 80% grain is a nightmare over the phone.
Speaking of Scout calling, Engie tended to always get surprised immediately after a call because Mal would have learned like 20 new words, and would have more varied intonation for words he already had. By the time the fic ended, Mal would have been capable of nearly flawless speech, and his intonation and even accent would become startlingly different from Scout's. And no, Engie would never fully get used to it. XD
There was gonna be a chapter of July 4th. That was uhhhhhhhhh gonna be how Engie learned Mal had pretty severe PTSD. This would have led to some newfound understanding of Mal's prior behavior, and that awareness would have in turn led to better management of— and workarounds to— Mal's anxiety. Not using certain power tools in his vicinity, for example, or slowly introducing him to stimuli that he found stressful in other contexts. (I'm no expert in how PTSD is managed, and at that age I DEFINITELY wasn't, so like, I would inform readers not to take my approach as like, a PTSD tutorial fjdkdjddhdj)
Once Mal had the words for it, he would reveal his favorite colors were yellow and green. He wouldn't want to be repainted, but he WOULD start occasionally wearing clothes about it.
Mal likes watching Engie work, but should NEVER be expected to help beyond handing him tools. (Engie learns why after the July 4th incident, when Mal has the words to share some of his backstory. Which got loosely addressed in a side fic because I literally retconned his origin like halfway through Ex Machina lol whoops)
I toyed with the idea of Mal making friends so that he wasn't 100% dependent on Engie at all times forever and ever. But I never came up with anyone, nor the circumstances for how he would even meet them when he barely gets to leave the house.
Mal eventually learns he likes to draw. He's not good at it by any stretch of the word, but he likes it.
Anything else I could put here would be me coming up with modern ideas, but these were some of the thoughts and themes I had in mind when I was first writing Homestead. Or at least the ones I could remember; there's a notebook somewhere that had a few ideas listed, but I have no clue where that is lol.
I was far from planning on blasting my face on Tumblr but for the point I'm making I'll have to.
I am a queer man, I am also a man who happens to be trans. Now I pass to almost everyone, I do not take fondness in people knowing I'm trans. But due to facial piercings a lot of those in the Agricultural industry have already made the correct assumption that I am gay.
This has never been met kindly. Four generations of cattlemen and women behind and yet the nicest I get is being treated like I'm a bumbling idiot of a queer. It does get to me, it takes long nights of self hatred and doubt to get up and continue what I'm doing. Especially since I'm building everything back up from the ground.
The reason I'm yapperin on like this is because, Agriculture is for everyone. This industry is not only the life line of America, but the backbone of the world. It doesn't matter who you are, what race, sexuality, or gender, you belong. And if you choose to start a farm, homestead, or anything of these lines, you belong here.
The world of rednecks and American country culture has be diluted into being seen as a Republican wasteland. But I'm here to tell you that ain't it.
A real redneck, a real farmer, they don't care. It don't matter to them who you are, where you came from. If you put in the work, if you have the willpower and spirit, you belong here.
A true redneck isn't some racist hick, but a man beaten down again and again but still gets up. Ain't no redneck gonna praise a politician or a government, as they ain't never helped the poor folk. There ain't no difference between who you like, who you are, we're all in the same boat.
Please, for the love a god who you don't have to believe in, don't let anyone tell you this industry ain't for you. Hell, I may not like you or your choices, but that won't never stop me from beaten a fellow farmer down.
picture this
you’re in your late-20’s, early-30’s; you’re married and have two young kids. together, you live in a large house in the countryside. the house could use renovating, but it doesn’t need it.
wildflowers grow all over your large property. bees buzz by, but never sting. they make honey for your family to sell and enjoy.
in your backyard is a garden. you and your spouse wear overalls and bandanas while you harvest the fruits and vegetables you’ve worked so hard on; you sell whatever you don’t eat.
next to the garden is a pasture: you raise cows, bunnies, sheep, and chickens. you’ve taught your children to collect eggs every morning, while you and your spouse milk the cows.
although you have technology, wifi, and service, your family doesn’t rely on it for entertainment and communication. you play board games, read books, and write letters.
your house is your own. you fall asleep in the arms of the person you love, happily content with life.
Landscape - Mulch Image of a large farmhouse with a vegetable garden in full sun and mulch in the fall.
Bridgeport Farmhouse Bedroom
I always hate to break the news to people in this situation.
If your chicken has an eye like this they have Ocular Mareks 😔
This hen is a good example of why you always want to be cautious adding new birds to your flock. This hen in particular came with a group of other older hens and given to this person. It is likely their whole flock is carriers of the virus now.
Biogas is a mixture of different gases produced by the breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen, called also anaerobic digestion. It is produced from biodegradable materials and more than half of the resulting gas is methane. You can run that through a propane burner or a stove, and worldwide, lots of subsisting people do. It’s about as close to free fuel as you can get.
Of course, if you source a self-renewing pest crop like kudzu to produce your fuel, it becomes even more cost-effective. Of course, nothing is truly free. There is some physical labor involved in maintenance and cleaning.
Cost of overhead is minimal, and a 55-gallon drum biodigester can be hacked together from found items and salvage with minimal skill. Unless it’s larger than that, a digester setup should take no longer than one afternoon.These DIY pages are pretty concise, with detailed shopping lists. If you want this to happen, it’s not hard.
Granada biogas project start to finish
https://youtu.be/mWefbc1spd0
Four free, hot-weather plans, perfect for the Southern United States:
https://www.completebiogas.com/digester-plans
The success story of the biogas digester in Merida, Mexico:
https://youtu.be/ApDq4I20ZfU
How-to in Hindi and Urdu:
https://youtu.be/pKZgnXQCp98
Community-sized biogas plant reportback from Richmondvale:
https://www.completebiogas.com/B_55Gal.html
Solar Cities plastic drum biogas plant plans
http://www.solarcities.eu/education/472