The Craftiest Workshop

Sometimes I feel like I dwell on the negatives when I write. I thought maybe today I could highlight things that we have learned or things we have figured out to make life easier.

After Chris’s brother delivered the two large water totes last weekend, he realized that we would need pallets for them to sit on in order to fit a five gallon pail under the spout. My “go to”spot to find things is Facebook marketplace. After a quick search, I could see two businesses in town that advertised that they have free pallets on an ongoing basis with supply depending on shipments etc.

Chris headed into town on Sunday last week to buy rubber mats for a workout space in the basement and came home with the mats and a stack of pallets. Merle had to check them out almost immediately. She seems to enjoy weaving through them like a maze.

After that first load of pallets, he decided to go and check the second business during the week as they only allow people into their fenced compound 9am-5pm Mon-Fri. He was pleasantly surprised that they were giving away hardwood pallets with thinner boards. This is the type of wood he likes to use to make furniture with. I had requested some crappier pallets to build a 3 bin compost area. He was too excited about the hardwood, and only so many would fit in the back of the truck, so he only brought one back for me.

He made one more trip into town to Napa to get more pallets today. There were a couple hardwood ones in there but most of them were for me to use. After the three trips we had 21 free pallets. Ten were hardwood, five were needed to stack the water bins on and the other six I will use to build my compost troughs. We know how to take apart pallets to use for other projects. Finding free wood that we can repurpose seems to be something we are able to do well.

Another that has gone well since we moved in is establishing our garden area. We did nothing the first summer so this is really our third summer working on the garden and we almost have all the garden boxes in place, trees planted and some plants producing fruit. It is so big that taking a good photo of it from the ground is impossible.

We have figured out a way to keep the birds away from the raspberries. The deer fencing that we used for our first “fence” came in handy day to repurpose over the raspberries. These are the raspberries that were 4 bare canes when we got them in 2022. I picked 4 cups of berries off them this morning and that will continue every few days well into September. A taller similar fenced area will be built for the Haskaps next spring.

We have learned that spending more money on better tools is always worth it. Those weeding tools I got from Lee Valley have been a life saver. No dull blades and nothing has fallen apart. The gas brush cutter that we changed the metal head on to now use the orange plastic blades is amazing. I actually WANT to go out and use it. Having a new lawn tractor that always starts and automatically shifts was well worth the money.

I have my steam juicer now for all my berries. I used it this week to juice my veggie scraps and made broth. For some reason, when I am steaming things that have more liquid or are right from the freezer, the lid lifts a little and some of the steam escapes. The water in the bottom pot goes down faster. I had replenished it at about the 45 min mark and was convinced it would be fine another 45. When I went to remove the system from the stove I saw that the bottom pot had gone dry! I was holding it with pot holders and one bead of liquid from above had dropped into the pan. It was circling like a marble around the pot. The metal was extremely hot. I ended up running water in it and it steamed up the whole kitchen while it sizzled. The bottom of my pot was blackened quite a bit. Once it cooled, I tried baking soda and water then I boiled vinegar and water in the pan. It didn’t change much. Finally I bought something called “Barkeeper’s Friend” from Canadian Tire. It is a mild abrasive powder and it works like a charm. Here is the bottom of my pot on the outside before and after. The inside of the pot looked worse but is back to normal now. I learned that I need to set a timer when steaming in the future. I will be using the powder to freshen up all my pots.

The last thing I will mention is learning to deal with birds and wildlife. I have been trying to deter the grackles from the feeder as they come in such a large number and the chickadees don’t get much of a chance. A lightbulb moment this week when I thought to only put out a small can of seed into the feeder each morning. The grackles can’t balance well on a nearly empty feeder and the seed is so low they can’t get in there to grab it. The grackles just aren’t bothering. My squirrel problem is all but fixed to where I am comfortable again. I tried to offer some mushrooms this week and see what types squirrels can/will eat. They can eat mushrooms that humans can’t. The ones that grow in the grass they definitely like and we’ve had some rain this past week so I picked a few. Merle was very happy trying to eat a mushroom almost as big as her! I don’t mind giving them a mushroom snack in the afternoon. They know now that the peanuts only come in the morning.

I am glad that living out of town forces us to figure things out and make do with what we have on hand or can get access to easily. Every day feels like a new learning experience. I am constantly looking things up on my phone when I see a new plant or hear a new bird. We are never too old to learn new things!