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"It’s always the people who don’t fit in who are interesting." - Wallace Shawn

Good morning. Enjoy the sunrise.

That’s at about 6:45 am right now. As you can see the snow and ice is gone. It was about 60 today, and will be about 70 on Sunday. The weather around here can be a bit strange. The issue here is that we are right on the line between the midwest and the south. We live in USDA Zone 7B, Zone 8A is like 8 miles south of me. So….the weather….. tends to swing a bit around here. It’s literally 60 degrees warmer today than it was on last Monday. This was 10 days ago.

Now, the Harleys are spreading their noise everywhere. The olive trees are still here, but I’m not sure about 1 of ‘em. We will see.

So…we have been working outside again. We tend to get a little stir crazy when we have to be inside for too long.

Cleaning, and cutting, and burning, oh my!

Notice the pile of crap on the left in the last picture. That’s a part of the next trailer load of shit to leave El Rancho.

I also fixed / modified the compost spinner.

As you can see, the handle wasn’t up to the task. The forces were applied to too small of a part of the handle, the fit was a bit loose, and the mounting hardware failed. Here is the new design. Compost spinner Mk1. Mod 3.

For those little engineers out there following along, here is what we have done:

• Much tighter fit on the crank to axle. Less flexion during the moment of inertia, so there is less of an opportunity to shock load the hardware.

• Upsized the mounting hardware for the crank to the axle to 5/16.

• The crank is now applying force equally to both sides of the crank. While the lever may be less, the force is applied to both sides.

• The round handle allows full force to be applied by the operator regardless of the location of crank.

• The round handle is also attached in multiple locations to the crank, thus spreading the force across the full length of the crank.

Remember math is good kids.

I canned up some beans on Sunday.

For my little cooks and homesteaders following along out there here is my method of making pre-cooked beans for meals. First, I must give my standard disclaimer.

“This method is not USDA approved. That being said, it works for me and many others. IF you are not comfortable doing this…..don’t. In fact, you probably shouldn’t”.

What I do is cook the beans while pressure canning them. The process of pressure canning also fully cooks the beans (which are often cooked in a pressure cooker). I will also add the spices that I would normally put into them so it cooks right in. First we are making “frijoles charro”. Often these are turned into “refried beans”. Despite what my Grandmother used to think, not all Mexican beans are refried.

One cup of beans per quart is a good rule. Sometimes a bit more.

Add your beans & your spices. In this case:

• Chili powder

• Cayenne pepper

• Black pepper

• Salt

• Cumin

• Mexican oregano

• onion powder

• fresh garlic (didn’t have any powder)

• 1 tablespoon of vinegar to boost the acidity

Or…whatever you want. Remember: NO DAIRY, NO GRAINS. Home canning cannot safely process those.

Add your water to the line, and wipe the jars & lids with vinegar to clean and check the surfaces.

My canner is 7 quarts. Process for 90 minutes for quarts at your altitude. For me, it’s 15 lbs. Check back next time, and I may give you my hummus beans recipes.

Here are a few pictures of FarmDog©.

She has recently discovered the “big ass throw-a-ball” that my Brother sent her last July. It’s now the best thing ever. OMG.

Stay tuned for “Project AdventureDog©”. This project is starting now and will be tits. Seriously.

The Wife has been hard at work building her textiles empire. She recently began to assemble the main pieces of her current project. For context here, working with modern ultra-lightweight outdoor fabrics is not easy. These fabrics require special techniques and sometimes special tools to work with them. She is also sewing 8’-12’ long sections together.

And calculating “cat curves”. Again, my math folks understand what I’m talking about. Yay trig…

So, that’s about it this week. Since this is the last week of the month, I am going to go ahead and clean out my meme folder for the month. We wouldn’t want to get backed up again, now would we?