Off Grid

Laughing Wire Water Garden

Posted on June 2, 2012 by Laura

My cousin Vernie, one of my favourite people, let me know that he had some chicken wire to put over my garden to keep out the rodents.  So I went over to his place to pick it up and he shared a few hilarious anecdotes from the past.  He just slays me!  His daughter Tracey has also inherited his wicked sense of humour so we laugh a lot when we are together.  I love that my life is filled with hilarity!

Vern also shared one of his new inventions with us, a very cool corn planting machine.  The man is a genius!

With chicken wire in hand and though it was raining cats and chihuahuas we braved the rain to reseed and also to put the chicken wire down.  It looks pretty nifty and will be interesting to see how the plants can come though it.  Hopefully they will not all be gnawed off.

This morning it was still pouring but the seeds seem to one totally in place.  I hope it keeps on raining for another day or two since everything is dry as bone here and water is needed to get the food growing.

I left a small rubber container out on the cloth porch last night and it was about 2 inches deep this morning.  Thus it was a good rain.

My mom used to sing… “oh Lord don’t let the rain come down, because my roof has got a hole in it and I might drown”, but we are dry in Tiny House Ontario as well as in town doing a blog post.

I think I will sing… “oh lord how I wish it would rain down on me” to keep that water coming for a bit and get my garden going.

Categories: Environmentalism, Forest, Friendship, Off Grid, Ontario, Simple living, Sustainable living, Tiny House Ontario | 1 Comment

Cuddling Corner

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Laura

I rearranged the furniture at Tiny House and have found that I really like to sit in this little corner.  It is particularly nice if one of the dogs cuddle in with me while I read or write.

The photo of Honey is not too flattering, but she does not get on line much and I won’t tell her about it, so please don’t tell her about it either.

Categories: Dogs, Off Grid, Ontario, Simple living, Time, Tiny House Ontario | Leave a comment

Wild Strawberries…

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Laura

When the rain stops, I will go into the forest and pick a bunch of wild strawberries.  They are nearly ready at Tiny House Ontario.  I think that nothing tastes better than these little wild wonders.

Categories: Food, Forest, Off Grid, Ontario, Simple living, Tiny House Ontario | Leave a comment

Growing – Maybe

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Laura

It is now six months since I started the Tiny House Ontario Blog.  It is almost a year since the Tiny House was built enough to move things and myself into.

This year we got some soil from one of the local farm boys.  He delivered beautiful soil to me, far more than I needed for $40.  The best thing is that it is REAL soil not sifted dead crap that you buy from the companies who bring their interpretation of soil. Dead dirt.

The soil has lovely clay deposits in it which I took out and will make a clay oven from ( I now have half of what I need).  It also had some wonderful round granite rocks which are left overs from the ice age going over the Canadian Shield, these will be beautiful orange accents, for the stone fence, I also had four full wheel barrels of extra soil which I put beside my humanure/compost unit and this will be used to cover the organics.  I am grateful to the farmer and to the young man for sharing with me.

There was a good half day of digging and I am grateful that I have a husband who took care of this for me.  I am still quite winded from losing my grandmother, so it was nice to have him take care of the hard work.  He dug and I threw out the beautiful stones and clay, then raked and planted the garden.

We went to Sand’s Produce and picked up a few tomato and pepper plants from the Sands family business and planted them too.

The next morning we found that some little critter stole every single one of the zucchini and squash seeds as well as having dug up the bean seeds.  Today since it is raining, I put a few more in the ground and will put wire mesh over the seeds.

I am not sure if we can produce any food in a garden, in a small clearing, in the middle of a forest.  I guess it is fully depending on the cooperation of the other creatures who make this their home as well.

Categories: Environmentalism, Food, Forest, Nature, Off Grid, Tiny House Ontario | 1 Comment

Food Culture

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Laura

Yesterday My cousin Tracey came from the city, my husband HJ came from Hamilton, and my sister came from Saskatoon and I planned to make a meal for them.  I bought ingredients and then decided while I was still in Kingston that I felt too overwhelmed to make a fuss, so I stopped at the Pasta Shelf in Kingston and picked up a huge vegetarian pasta dish, some extra red pepper sauce, some roasted garlic as well as garlic bread and put it all on the BBQ to heat.

I know it is LAZY, but sometimes one has to allow themselves such conveniences.

The meal was nice, but I could not really eat, actually, only my husband ate well, so over half of the pasta is left over.  I think that this means that I don’t have to cook today either.  Just warm.

So… the problem is that I still have ingredients for a meal for four hungry people.  Having grown up on a farm, I always find that I over prepare food.  This over preparation, always thinking if there are no left overs that people did not get enough to eat, caused a funny situation in my marriage for the first few months.  I would cook big meals and my husband who grew up in a culture where leaving left overs is not acceptable… caused confusion.

I would cook bigger and bigger meals and he got fat a little bit at a time.  Finally, I said, “I think you might be eating too much” and he said, “I think you are cooking too much”.  Turns out that the poor man was in agony trying to get through these meals in order to prove to me that he enjoyed what I cooked him.

A funny cultural difference, I think.  Now I prepare proportionate meals unless I have guests, or I remove what will be for the next meal before I put anything on the table.

Categories: Cloth Porch, Friendship, Off Grid, Tiny House Ontario | 2 Comments