OLD & STRIPED

thoughts why and how after I finished my dissertation and became a doctor, and now have to think about what to do when I grow up. Most of my work has been on figurines which are small, cute & striped and are from northern Mesopotamia, very long ago. I also garden, guerrilla and otherwise, often in rows/stripes. Sometimes I reblog from another tumblr I write about feral cats, many of which are stripey too...

[oldandstriped]

Shed and Platform, land update

Morning view from the tent in August 2022

Having a look at this old account, and finding I left the few followers I have here in suspense perhaps. Here is where I am with my little camp on the land. I bought an 8x10 loft shed from Nantucket sheds in 2021, cost delivered and installed approx $5000.

in 2020 I hired someone to build me a platform, after watching far too many videos on DIYing such a thing. Cost approx $8000.

I really enjoy my little camp and it serves as any anytime destination to get away. This 2022 summer I caught Covid and just lay on the platform, in the tent and sat in the shed in isolation for close to a week staring at the trees and thankful for my little camp.

Every time I come I work on improving my little camp. Here it is in October 2022. Since then the shed has been raised and levelled and we spread a lot of the gravel around the shed and platform. Next spring or summer we will stain and protect the shed and platform and set up a little outdoor kitchen.

[oldandstriped]

Sheds

An article on sheds says that 8 x 10 is the most common size.

Nantucket Sheds on MV thru Eden Nursery

3 designs - 8x12 = ~$3500.

Tom Thumb Sheds

Pine Harbor Sheds has outlets on Cape, not MV

MV High School teaches students how to build Sheds then sold at cost for people, but I don’t know how to get one

Jamaica Cottage Shop - can deliver a kit to MV

8x12 “Church Street” is a salt box design. 

[oldandstriped]

Guest House Ideas & Plans

It seems that a guest house that is not a garage and is less than 800 sq ft will be permitted on the land. So here’s some ideas for that scenerio.

Martha’s Vineyard Post and Beam

Cavandish Gathering house = 728 sq feet (but needs a downstairs bedroom to replace one of the sleeping lofts).

Foxtail Cabin = 838 sq feet (with more than is needed on the upper loft)

Squash Meadow Construction

didn’t see plans for small houses, but inquired.

Here’s an article about -800sq ft homes they built on MV

South Mountain Homes

Has built quite a number of small homes - shown here

Their M-Line Home could work - the plans are free.

Here’s a small home in Vineyard Haven

They've also moved some small houses slated for destruction

[oldandstriped]

24 x 24 = 576 sq feet

A two car garage/carriage house/barn has the square footage of 576 above. Here are some houses of around that same footprint that I like.

Nook Tiny House is  400 sq ft - wood reclaimed and milled from the land. Don’t like the lofts, do like the eating space. video tour

A small house outside of Montreal 480 sq feet no loft, w/ deck its 550sq ft

Ravenhouse Original 24 x 28 Overall footprint, including the screened sleeping porch & open deck Interior floor area: 501 sq ft/ Screened sleeping porch: 120 sq ft - these plans are for sale

Random pictures of small houses built over a slope

Cute log cabin with a wide roof over wraparound deck + hot tub

A Frame on a slope with a hot tub & sauna under deck instead of a garage.

Vermont reTreet small tree houses

Decks

This tiny house (10 x10) in Ontario on a floating foundation sitting on concrete blocks on well drained soil with bracing. Heres some videos of him setting up the foundation and cross bracing the posts

other stuff

Pacific Dome - provides plans for decks. Video

[oldandstriped]

Resources List for the Land

This is a record of several resources I’ve recently found useful for planning, maintenance and staying on the land shared with my sisters. In no particular order.

Tree/Logs/Forest Resources

For Cutting, Processing and Milling (?) trees on the land. An article on the Arborists of Martha’s Vineyard

Women owning Woodlands

Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation Videos - especially the one on horse logging

How to cut trees and logs with a bow saw

Small/Tiny Houses & Sheds Sources

In Ontario they call them “Bunkies” more here and here and here and here’s a company that offers bunkie-kits

Jamaica Cottage Shop - ships post and beam kits, which is what I’d have to do because they don’t ship pre-made buildings to the island. I got in touch, explained my situation and they recommended these models: Gable * Salt Box * New Yorker A * New Yorker B * Nantucket A they are all really nice and have options to customize including insulation for 3 seasons (which I would want)  Here’s a video of a New Yorker with a sleeping loft and a deck set up on a slope

Pine Harbor sheds - doesn’t install garages on Martha’s Vineyard but does install sheds.

South Mountain Company designs and builds small sustainable homes on Martha’s Vineyard - I love this garage with a studio above & this little shed they built from salvaged materials. An inquiry to them found them fully booked into 2021 and possibly my budget may be too small for them.

Martha’s Vineyard Post and Beam  again - my budget is probably too small for them to want to do this project

Tom Thumb Sheds - lists a tiny guest house build for $35k

Island Coalition for Tiny Houses

Article mentioning recent conflicts over smaller houses on Island.

Small Houses, Enthusiasts & Makers on Various Platforms

I try to learn from those that are not straight cis white men, I’ve added a * to those that are women/BIPOC/LGBTQ

New England Glamping - lots of area small/tiny houses

Dirt and Glass

Capable Carpenter

Reagan in the Woods*

Cabin Chronicles

Cheap Nordic Houses*

The Winston Homestead*

Anne of All Trades*

RavenHouse design - sells full plans for several small houses

Some pictures of Houses I can visualize on the land

Solviva farm, is on the market in Tisbury, and has several small/tiny houses on the land as well as sustainable systems for all.

Small cabin with downstairs bedroom and lofts

Racoon Retreat*

DIY cabin built on a slope with decks in UK

Honey Crisp Cottage (is 280sq ft)

A 12 X 12 X 12 plywood house with sliding doors

Lots of cabin/shed/tiny house builds on YouTube,

I’m a bit obsessed but I also note the [mostly bearded] white cis masculinity on display here. Certainly none of them are reflexive of the privilege that allowed for them to choose off-grid lifestyles “self-reliance” and “homesteading”

Woodness Goodness cabin build on a slope

Modern Self Reliance -builds a lot of structures in Canada

My Self Reliance log structures mostly using handtools

Salvage sources

Jarmak Reclaimed Wood - southern MA (Oxford)

Cataumet Sawmill - Falmouth, MA

Habitat for Humanity MV sale

Reconstruction Works, Brattleboro VT

Interesting Ideas, Not Necessarily Practical/Possible

A 1904 Train Caboose for sale in Wisconsin

A cottage in Wellfleet built on a slope

B & B Tiny House company in western MA

Craft and Sprout Tiny House company in North CT

Tiny House Listings in the area here’s one for sale in E. Falmouth

New England winter “Bob Houses” also called ‘Ice Shanties”

cute 1919 Sears & Roebuck Aladdin kit house on the other side of the Lagoon

Tiny Turf House in Iceland

[oldandstriped]

How I got from Major Revisions to PhD

On May 1st, 2013, I walked onto campus with 5 copies of my PHD draft for distribution. It had taken me 20 years since starting this PhD to get to this day but it wasn’t ready.  The dept. chair said I had no choice, it had to be distributed that week; soon after he told me it was too late to have a defense that semester, but also too late to take it back and revise it. So, finally at the end of September 2013, I spent 2.5 hours defending myself and work in front of 5 dissertation committee members. I was the oldest person in the room, and also one of two people that had tenure.  I stumbled out of that room, held up by my partner and advisor, fighting back tears holding the heavy weight of incomplete/major revisions and one year to get them done or never graduate.

It took a couple of months to actually receive the 162 revisions from two committee members, which ranged from small typos to huge “the methodology chapter makes no sense”. I also carried the weight of verbal criticism at the defense which never got put into writing by one other committee member including “it is obvious you will never understand theory enough to write about it ” and “the catalog is the only good thing about this dissertation - everything else should probably be deleted”.

It was time to get to work on finishing this PhD to the best of my ability and leaving the trauma behind, ASAP, but how? I had already read all the ‘how to write your dissertation’ books (there’s a whole genre of these things) but they all ended with the defense; none provided information on how to deal with major revisions in the dissertation process. There’s several very sad stories in the comments on  post about doing major and minor amendments post defense/viva by the Thesis Whisperer.

I had already used this blog post by 𝚃𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚊 𝙶𝚘𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚑-𝙱𝚘𝚣𝚊  for a revise and resubmit article I had published, it was helpful for working through this much larger task too. I sorted the revisions into small, medium and large tasks and gave each a row on a spreadsheet, I located and added the chapter/page number and marked each location with an endnote, highlighted in yellow for easy location. I had exclusively used footnotes for the text of the dissertation, so it would be easy to delete all endnotes, after the revised dissertation was accepted. Here’s the data in each of the columns of my spreadsheet

Endnote number

Chapter and page in the original distributed draft.

Initial(s) of committee member requesting revision

Copy and paste of the revision, or my description if it came from my defense notes

Action ie: reject revision & why, delete, edit, write, move, hire copy editor, ask advisor for help

Status ie: done, ½ done, move this to here, I hate doing this revision

Response to revision (sometimes duplication of #5).

The final spreadsheet submitted with each chapter to the chair of the revision committee was winnowed down to columns 1, 2, 3, 7. However, the final draft reader took an unexpected amount of care to check each revision and had trouble correlating the spreadsheet to the text.  I should have also copied and pasted data in columns 3 and 4 into the text of the endnote for easier reader reference.  I then should have used the spreadsheet as a duplicate record of revisions including those that no longer had an endnote in the final version, because those passages were deleted or there was something that needed changing throughout the dissertation.

As discussed and debated on the Thesis Whisperer, I did hire a copyeditor; I recommend this editor. Richard did an excellent job, but like all good work, it did not come cheap, I already had a tenured position and a steady paycheck, so I could afford the cost, which was a couple thousand dollars – worth every penny.

Eventually, all the chapters got accepted, and I deposited my final dissertation and graduated in October 2014. It took 6 months before I could open the dissertation again, but I am super glad to have it now and I consult it often. You can download and read it here.

[oldandstriped]

Planning for 2020 Summer Shed & Deck

As reported in previous posts, the sisters now own an acre of trees, slopes and poison ivy. I’d like to get something in place there this summer, using minimal effort, money and available resources, materials. Its going to be temporary and off grid for a little while until grid connections are available. Not exactly roughing it, as one sister, 5 goats and 3 dogs live across the road. Everything else is walking/biking distance - people are always trying to get rid of stuff that maybe I could use- but new & specific materials are mostly available only the mainland.

I think I can budget around $5K for a small off grid place to stay sometimes. The plan is for a deck on which a small tent could be set up adjacent to a shed. I have a really nice shed already, built by the same person that built this tiny house, which seems to be for sale.  In addition to the details below I’m thinking about a

a composting toilet  Like this ‘cabin can’ $200 - but I can probably make one that’s not as nice for free

outdoor shower, This one is cool

Portable power station - here’s one by GoalZero $300

Step one - poison ivy mitigation of area [ DONE! - sept 2020 ]- this will be the goats job. I watched several fun videos about goats eating up unwanted growth. There are several different fencing options. Probably going to go with goat/cattle panels ($30 ea) & T-Posts ($5 ea)- I think I can do this myself. Materials to be purchased new, but are reusable. Cost - maybe $500?

Step one & halves - install steps down to where the deck will be. I already made post about this.  and make a compost bin. Cost very minimal - I think I can do this myself, maybe from some cut down trees on the property.

Step two - build a deck & adjacent structure to support shed - the challenge here is the deep slope of the ravine. I am inspired by the decks and structures built in the forest by Elevated Spaces - Maybe costs cost $2-3,000? - Jan 2021 note - Lumber costs are very high right now, maybe significantly more expensive.

Step three - Plan and prepare a site to put a shed (much info available on the web on shed site preparation). Would like something more stable than concrete blocks. Either move an existing shed to this area or buy or build one.  in 2019 we got a quote for $1,000 for moving a shed across the road from a local contractor. New good quality sheds (or shed kits) which are up-gradable to 3 season useability would cost around $4-5,000 delivered to or built on the site. 

Step four - insulate the shed and make it a bit nicer by adding a floor and interior walls. I’m inspired by the videos on the Darbin Ovar Channel about the transformation of a shed to a studio.  Maybe these materials could cost around $700? I may be able to do this myself.

Insulate the walls with Sheep Wool. There’s a bunch of videos of installing sheep wool in houses and sheds seems its really popular insulation or vans and converted school buses. There’s a lot of sheep on the island but seems like I’ll have to buy the specially prepared stuff. Wool insulation costs around $1.50 a sq foot.

Floors - I’ll probably use whatever is obtainable as surplus. But I love end grain flooring. Seems like it would be a lot of work to make an end grain floor tiles. DIY is possible from from cord wood collected in a forest  or cut from beams as was done in a blacksmith shop.

I hope it will be possible to get under the shed to install foam board insulation too.  Also considering radiant foil bubble wrap barrier too.

Interior Walls, whatever is available around from surplus, hopefully wood.

[oldandstriped]

Tiny House/DIY/Sustainable Houses & White Privilege

I’ve been doing a bunch of research (procrastination from doing other research/writing) on my plans for my camp/tiny house/shed cabin. I intended that this post to record my research and ideas about decks, insulation, interesting floor ideas, composting toilets and goat fences - fun stuff like that. I’ve been watching a lot of videos on You-Tube - I’ve subscribed to a number of ‘Vloggers’ who have graciously shared how they’ve done things.

Some Examples of internet video channels I’ve enjoyed watching: Tiny House Big Living | Tiny House Nation | Exploring Alternatives | Fair Companies | Mr. Chickadee

The Resources available on the web are overwhelmingly white!

Most or all of of the videos/blogs/chats about building tiny homes, off grid houses, sustainable homes are distressingly and glaringly by and about white privileged persons, several of whom are quite vocal about being christian. I suspect that the reason many are living off grid to avoid living among diverse groups of people. Many are also homesteaders, preppers and home school their [many blonde] children. Are they also white supremacists? I worry that they are - or at least are not reflexive about their reasons to “live off grid” or “mortgage free” or “get away from it all”. I’ve tried to find black, brown and/or queer voices in these videos without success.

Watching these videos often unsettling to me, I turn them off when vloggers start talking about guns or God.

When watching these videos, I’m often thinking of the many people of color in precarious or non existent housing situations for whom a DIY/tiny/off grid house may be a good solution to their family’s needs.

I do however appreciate many women DIY’ers represented in these videos - some of whom are real inspirations, as construction is often presented as a male dominated space. I really am inspired by Darbin Ovar’s videos for example. But I think [white] women’s presence in DIY/Tiny House videos really just reflects an un-acknowledged truth that women have always built, planned and documented personal and family dwellings.

I don’t see POC represented in the available resources. Here in NYC, so much of construction is performed by POC, perhaps they are involved projects like these but I don’t see it on the web. I do see DIY constructions all over my Latinx neighborhood - for example, community garden casitas.  Of course the original tiny/sustainable/DIY homes came from indigenous, brown and black peoples in villages and towns across the world - it would be nice if those in the ‘tiny house movement’ and others at least acknowledged this.

I guess that is what I need to say before making posts about what I learned and hope to accomplish on this empty plot of land. I am happy to report that the three existing houses on this small road are populated by immigrants of color and queer people. At least one of the new houses to be built will be owned by a construction worker.

[oldandstriped]

An initial land plan

This weekend the sisters met to discuss the land we purchased. Much of what we will do is in the future. But I decided that in the next year or two, I’ll

1. Use the existing felled trees to build terraced steps

The steps I have in mind are similar to the ‘cliff steps’ to the lagoon at the end of the Landbank Ramble Trail Preserve

I’ll pay someone to cut them as long as it is possible to split the logs in half - I think they will be small enough for me to pick up (3-4 feet long?)

Here’s an article about building terraced steps down a slope with felled trees

Below is a diagram of how to install and stabilize the logs from this article

Here’s a blog post with other ideas for upcycling felled trees and branches

Here’s another way to use logs to make steps [1/2021 edit]

2. Build a 10 x 10 foot deck at the bottom of those stairs. - midway down the slope away from the road

This platform would be used for short visits, probably pitching a tent.

Here’s how to make a deck using logs as support

A much less elaborate version of Setsumasa and Mami Kobayashi’s weekend retreat outside of Tokyo

Here’s an article on building an elevated deck - including materials lists.

Here’s an instructable on how to do this.  = maybe I should build a bigger deck?

Because of the slope, open storage would available underneath - for stuff like logs,

Maybe the goats would enjoy walking and laying on/under this deck.

3. Move an existing shed to a platform or foundation adjacent to the deck. [Jan 2021 edit - this shed is no longer available, E is looking into buying another shed]

Someone with a crane working nearby gave a quote of $1000 to do this.

Building the foundation onto which it goes is also an expense. Here’s a post about building a platform for a shed on a slope

This would hold a composting toilet, and store other supplies for visitors. Here’s a DIY Composting Loo video and here’s a store bought version.

Shed is currently not insulated - might be worth adding sheets of insulation to the floor and walls.

4. In May when the first poison ivy shoots come out, build a fence around the area to allow the goats to graze this area to keep it clear of poison Ivy. [Jan 2021 edit - Ellen, Philipp, Lee and Sara spent a hot day getting this done in September]

Goats require special fencing, the easiest to install is goat fence panels, which are around $30 each. [And that’s what we did - cost more like $700 for the panels and stakes]

In riverside park they used a roll of fencing on stakes, but I think it required a lot of equipment to set up.

[oldandstriped]

Three Sisters Meet about Building Houses

We three sisters met to talk about house(s) to build on the lot we bought here in MV.  Zoning for land is 3 bedroom home - could possibly be changed with subdivision.

Conversations

We all want sustainable building. No one has a ton of cash nor any prospect of cash coming in.

No one is in a rush to do anything immediately. [Jan 2021 edit - E wants to get going on a temporary place to stay in warmer months ASAP]

Anything(s) we build would also be rented out at some points during the year. [Jan 2021 edit - this is probably not true for E, definitely part of M’s plans]

No wood burning stoves, mini-splits, possibly all electric - running off solar when possible. [Jan 2021 edit - E is thinking about a Cubic Mini Stove or similar for a shed]

Outdoor showers - definitely.

A large shared deck - many possibilities for outdoor living. [Jan 2021 edit - this isn’t probably going to happen for M & E]

M wants her own house built on her design

E doesn’t want to spend a lot of money, wants to go prefab.

Location of building(s) would be situated with an eye for not too much change to the land and possible subdivision of land later. 

M & E want light and sun.

Slope of land is a challenge. Houses below are almost all situated on flat open land

Thoughts expressed

M might build a 2 bedroom home from her design Lots of windows, modern. 1,000 sq feet? - we still don’t know how much that might cost $2-300,00?

E might build a small dwelling with bedroom on lower level and small loft above. Likes A-frames, post and beams, old houses, DIY houses - can it be done for less than $100,000? 

S likes barns, needs storage - but she also will probably need to add an extension onto her house soon (which is across the road). Lives here and likes the idea of a garage with an apartment above.

Here are the options we discussed.

Prefabs - there’s a few builders on the island with connections to a few prefab companies.

Yankee Barn Homes  here’s an article about one built in MV  And here’s an article about one of their garages with an apartment above - [Jan 2021 edit - the contractor/designer on MV for this company has not expressed interest in a small house - whatever they build would be probably more than E wants to spend]

First Day Cottage MV Habitat for Humanity built a few of these. [Jan 2021 edit - someone who built one says they are crap]

Westchester Modular Homes  [Nope they are not made of sustainable materials [Jan 2021 edit]

Plans for building from scratch.

M-Line plans are available from South Mountain Homes - possibly without cost [Jan 2021 Edit - South Mountain Homes is booked solid with projects into 2022]

Island Housing Trust has been building many small sustainable houses in partnership with several builders, here’s an article about some of them

Initial expenses

Bringing in electric, water = $5-10,00

We would need to cut down trees, make a driveway. A place for building as well as staging the building materials.

Enhanced Septic (required) = $30-50,000

auxiliary structures ideas

 2 bedroom home, and another ‘guest house’ attached by a deck - Kitchen is an issue for this.

[oldandstriped]

Slow and Small Archaeology: Some Thoughts

Recently I got into a twitter-conversation with Sean Graham &  Bill Caraher about Slow Archaeology. Sean had written a blog post “Slow Archaeology?” in response to Bill’s chapter (starts on pg 21) Slow Archaeology: Technology, Efficiency, and Archaeological Work , Bill responded on his blog Preliminary Thoughts on Digital Practices in Archaeology.  I believe that Sean and Bill have been working on a few projects together of which I know nothing, I just jumped in to a twitter-convo without knowing the background.  Nor have I ever met either Bill nor Sean, we are just tweeple - who haven’t [yet] interacted in the real world. In a weak moment I suggested I might write my own blog post, and Bill tweeted some interest in such a thing. So here it is.

I don’t pretend to be a ‘digital archaeologist’ - I can’t even figure out how to link to the twitter exchange we had.  But I am an archaeologist that collects data and a librarian that digitizes and thinks more deeply than most about metadata, catalog structure, taxonomy, typology, and how to use them properly to get my research ‘out there’. I think this little exchange resonated with me because for several reasons I have been really feeling the slowness of my archaeological experiences and practices. I’ll elaborate a little below upon this.

I’ll just say that if anyone practices slow, its me. It took me twenty years to finish my PhD, although some of the delays in the last years were not entirely my fault, and it took some time to recover. I work full time, 11 months out of the year as a librarian, with very little time beyond nights, weekends and vacation time to devote to archaeology. But everyone has a work/life balance issue, and I have managed to get a lot of digging and studying of artifacts done, I’ve collected a lot of data, and false-started many drafts of chapters and articles over the past decades, and I did make tenure. While I’ve managed to give a lot of conference papers, and travel most years to archaeological digs, what I haven’t done is get a lot published. This has been weighing on me lately as start the process toward applying for promotion. The fact is, its not [always] me, its archaeology. The structure of archaeological publication is SLOW, and in my circumstance it’s really damn slow.

While archaeological publishing structures are slow, there are other systems and structures gumming up the works, including power and control and hierarchy - and I think also gender, money and status. Perhaps I just enumerated what’s wrong with the whole world, and we should just work to forward the revolution. But in the meantime, I’d like to get some of my research out the door so people can read it and I can move onto new projects!

I am not the director of a excavation project, I am a specialist. I’ve been working on digs in Jordan, Syria and Turkey since 1995. While I have been a field archaeologist at most of the sites I’ve worked upon, including digging some gnarly trenches, I have also been studying tiny things that some would consider more decorative than utilitarian, also known as “small finds”, mainly figurines, beads and pendants. I’ve been recently considering the implications and structures in place for small finds, and how they do and do not fit into how we study material culture and determine what is diagnostic to a particular culture.  I gave a talk called Discoverability of Small Things BANEA-Glasgow and I’ll give another talk titled ‘Doing’ Small Finds at TAG-Toronto.

OK- im tired, I’ll finish this post tomorrow.

12/2018 Update - I never did finish this post BUT looking forward to TAG-Syracuse 2019 - which has Slow Archaeology as the main theme

[oldandstriped]

Bokashi and Composting Together

This is an update on how we are integrating Bokashi food fermentation with regular food scrap compostable collection in our apartment and garden. In 2014 I wrote a post about making bokashi agent and fermenting food scraps at home. This is an update on that post amended with lessons learned over the past few years.

Thanks to a Compost Grant from Citizens Committee of New York, we were able to purchase and distribute 2 gallon buckets with lids to garden members. These are intended to facilitate at-home collection and transport of compostables to be added to our garden’s compost bins. These are small enough to fit in most bags, wheeled carts and bike panniers, and can potentially be simply carried by most people.

A full 2 gallon bucket probably weighs about 6-8 pounds. The advantage of using these buckets (and tight fitting lids) is to free up space in the freezer from compostables as well as facilitate handling & transport of drippy, potentially smelly food waste - which can be barriers to compost participation. A 2 gallon bucket can be brought to the kitchen counter when preparing food, and stored under the kitchen table when not in use. Once emptied in the bin, the bucket can then be used to carry finished compost home to amend the soil in tree pits, make seed starting mix, or plant a windowsill garden.

Most food waste bucket-toting garden members are simply filling them with vegan ‘green’ materials, including fruit and vegetable trimmings, tea and coffee grounds, spent cut flowers ect. However a few of us are using this buckets to collect and prepare food waste that cannot be directly added to an outdoor urban compost bin by using bokashi agent to ferment them. This includes grains (such as bread, pasta, rice), dairy (such as cheese, yogurt) and meat (such as uneaten cat food). In addition to keeping these materials out of the waste stream, the bokashi-fermented food waste serves as a compost accelerator; our piles steam through the winter registering 130-150 on the compost thermometer in the middle of the pile.

more later

Start with spent bread, broken up as neccessary

Add dairy and meat scraps directly above the bread and grains wasted. We keep ours in the freezer separately awaiting the starting of a new bucket. If no more grains, meat and dairy is to be added - make note of the date - you’ll need to count 2-3 weeks from this date to determine when it can be put in the compost bin. cover with half a cup of bokashi agent.

If smell is a concern or problem, cover with a layer of coffee grounds. We keep these separate in a ceramic crock in our kitchen.

Continue to add vegan food waste in 2-4 inch layers, covering with bokashi agent after each addition. Unlike other composting systems, this is an anaerobic process, you actually don’t want air to properly ferment your food waste. Some cover with a paper plate or bag and push down on each layer.

When full, and 2-3 weeks after adding the meat/dairy/grains bring to your outdoor compost bin and dig it into what is already there. Cover with leaves, It can be a bit smelly. Note the white bloom on top, that means its been fermented properly.

[oldandstriped]

Neolithic Beads

I’ve been spending more and more time thinking about & researching Neolithic beads, pendants and other ornaments. I’ve also been thinking about how excavated Neolithic bead assemblages intersect with what I have learned during my 2 year old survey project, Lost Ornaments of New York.  Here’s a slide from a recent presentation at a recent Barcın Höyük workshop in Istanbul. In one of the earliest levels, we found many beads of different types in the doorway of a busy room in a multi-roomed structure.

[thefluffingtonpost]

Cat's Bottle Cap Collection Impresses No One

When Cersei the cat arrived at the International Bottle Cap Collector’s Association’s annual conference in Jupiter, FL this week, she was sure she had a killer collection. According to friends she’s been saving caps under the refrigerator since she was a kitten.  But other collectors weren’t impressed.

“It’s not volume that matters. It’s quality,” explained Toby Northfork, president of the Cayuhoga County chapter of the IBCCA in Cleveland, OH. “Cersei had a fair number of caps, sure, but most of them were from standard plastic soda bottles. Not the sort of thing collector’s get excited about.”

According to Northfork some of what the cat brought to the conference can’t even be classified as bottle caps. “There were gum wrappers, some candies, even a pen,” he said.

Northfork said that as a beginner, Cersei was on mostly on the right track. He encouraged her to keep collecting, but focus on rarer caps. 

“To get very far with this hobby, she’ll need to learn the difference between a plastic Coca Cola cap, and a vintage one from the 1930s,” he said. “Also, she needs to stop mixing twist ties and crumpled up papers into the collection.”

For her part, friends say Cersei was initially upset, but recovered quickly when she started chasing her bottle caps across the room.

Via jasonripp.

[rivbike]

baby, it’s cold outside                grant/jan 12 unedited, rough and now with reader suggestions and comments

For the SF Bay Area, 30-degree  nights are cold, and ….. this post has nothing to do with bikes. Not much. There’s a bike element possibility, but it’s not key to the story here. It’s a How To Help the Homeless issue, and I’m putting it here with the hope that one of you … well, I really don ‘t know.

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[morrisjumelcats]

Rey-Rey (the “King”) is a majestic fluffy ginger-colored purr-machine who would love to go home with you.  Rescued from prison grounds, Rey-Rey has been neutered, vaccinated, and tested negative for FeLV/FIV.  He is young (1-2 years old) and loves to play with you or all alone with his mouse toys while you are at work.  He is OK with other cats and dogs (see above), but won’t seek them out for play.  Rey-Rey is really a “people cat” who will head-butt your hand for strokes and affection. Low-key, calm with lots of love to give. Contact [email protected] and [phone]. His litter box habits are perfect, too.

[morrisjumelcats]

Adopt Pipes! - Super cute tuxedo kitten up for adoption!

So named because he meowed up a very loud storm when he appeared lost and abandoned on the block of 162nd street a few weeks ago.

Pipes is approx 3 months old male tuxedo kitten who was likely abandoned  by his mother. He is very healthy, no fleas, worms, or ear mites. He tested negative for felv/fiv. He loves to play with toys. He loves attention but is still getting used to humans. So he still needs patience to let him come to you on his own terms. We are sure he will be a great addition to any home. Gets along with other cats too.

Pipes comes with free neutering when he is old enough (5-6 months). Please let us know if you want to adopt or foster this cute guy! Contact us at morrisjumelcats [at] gmail [dot] com.

pictures of Pipes by Kelly