What did you do today to prep...

[Knecht]

Food and medicinal agriculture: sowed corn (Iroquiz white corn, seeds that I got from my first corn harvest last year). Just a small patch, no big field. About 60 plants or so.
Yellow beans in their pots are starting to sprout, won't take too long before we transplant them to the garden.
All of my fruit trees from last year are alive and growing! Even the quince that I thought was dead is showing some green now.
Sowed some chamomile as well. We used to have some in the garden, but it was mostly gone, so we started a new patch for it. Other herbs in the garden are doing well (thyme, agrimony, mint, balm mint etc.). Most of the other medicinal herbs and plants we use are wild, so they can take care of themselves. Already picked and dried some primrose.

Craftsmanship: my leg vice bench is holding strong, so I guess my little carpentry practice went well. Forged a billhook blade yesterday, looks good. Will do some grinding on it today and then finish it and turn a wooden handle for it. Forging billhooks, sickles and other blades with inward curved edge is quite a challenge. The nature of the material works directly against you and the blade tends to curve in the opposite way as you draw the edge thinner. Once finished, I'll list it for sale on a reenactor's market page. Lesson learned, money earned. Just the way I like it

[Stwood]

Made up a batch of laundry soap. Enough for at least one year according to that website, maybe two years. It isn't visually a lot but it's claimed to just use 1TBS/load or 2 or 3 for heavily soiled stuff. It's just the two of us so hopefully it will last a good while.

 

We've got a 5 gal bucket of it, which is actually a double recipe. It should have been for 10 gallon. 
As long as it doesn't eat the washer up I guess we're good. 


Planning on heading out to get plants today.
I wanted to get them in the ground today, but mother nature decided we needed more rain.
We have onions coming up

[Redman]

The recipe I used doesn't make that much. 1 bar Zote grated, 3 cups each of borax and washing soda. All mixed together in processor. Got enough left over stuff for make another batch which I will if we like it. Borax and washing soda can also be used for kitchen and bathroom cleaning.

[Greekman]

a fail and a win

Fail
I messed up refueling my can out of a 10lit jerry can. spilled about 0.5lit of gasoline. it turns out the funnel i was using is iffy. it requires one hand holding it. unfortunately the 10lit can does not cooperate well with the standard 20lt jerrycan pouring spout.

Win
I just finished programming my new mobile radio. With the CHIRP program of course!

[Stwood]

Bought a few storeroom supplies yesterday, plus our tomato and pepper plants.

[Knecht]

Received and started tasting some new food that I may use both for my rice diet and for long term supplies.
Did a little bit orchard maintenance, new stakes for some trees and such. My wife managed to weed some of the herbal garden.
Finished the billhook and already it's been reserved by a customer. Practiced forge-welding while forging a piece of chain for a flail.
Planning to cut some firewood tomorrow, if the weather allows. That will both make firewood and clear away all the stuff that fell of trees over the winter.

[Stwood]

Annual town garage/yard sales were today in town. So we ventured in about 9am.
Hit about 12 sales, scoured a few jars in a couple of places, then a case in another.
Dirt cheap prices, .10 each, .25 each.
Then, we stopped at another place, one older guy there, and most of his stuff seemed high for a yard sale. I was about to leave then remembered to ask. *Ya got any mason's?*

Yes, around back, though I need to wash em up first. I told him not to worry about that.
So around back we went. Holy chit........5-1/2 cases of regular pints. Score for $15.00 
wife got to yacking with him. Come to find out, he's a widower and doesn't cook well.

We'll be dropping off some canned stew and tomatoes for him next time we hit town.



All total. 8 cases, mostly pints which is what we're gonna need this year, was about $19.00

[Applejack]

Stwood you hit on a great bargain.  We planted green beans, tomatoes, butter  beans, radishes, and working on a new spot for herb garden. Will be getting that finished up next week. Getting ready to plant cucumbers, lettuce, squash, green peppers.  Weather has finally gotten warm enough to start planting. We may have a spring yet.  My grand dog passed away yesterday so daughter and grandkids have been a bit upset. Will take awhile but they will be ok. Dakota passed just as my son in law got home to help my granddaughter who works for a vet take her in to have her put down. She had bone cancer and it was to aggressive to be able to do anything for her but to take pain meds. Sad times.

[Stwood]

Thanks. Yes, good deal on the jars. Sorry to hear of your Dakota passing.


Also did some garden when we got home. Picked up some zucchini and yellow squash seeds while in town, and got those planted today.

[Bradbn4]

Only thing I did was some minor PM on my truck; now it is happy for another 6 months until the next oil change.  I don't put enough miles on the truck to change more freq.

[Redman]

All total. 8 cases, mostly pints which is what we're gonna need this year, was about $19.00

Nice score.

  My grand dog passed away yesterday so daughter and grandkids have been a bit upset. Will take awhile but they will be ok. Dakota passed just as my son in law got home to help my granddaughter who works for a vet take her in to have her put down. She had bone cancer and it was to aggressive to be able to do anything for her but to take pain meds. Sad times.

Sorry to hear that AJ.

[Stwood]

Yesterday, set out 17 more pepper plants. Rain has been holding off for us.
Garden is about 1/3 full now.
Onions coming right on up. Taters are kinda slow, but starting peeking through.

[Knecht]

Went to see two houses for sale yesterday. One was nice, but too small for me, wife and future kids, not to mention my workshops. The other one though, that's something different! The living house itself isn't nice at all (modern-wannabe cube, built in 1960s), but there is an old homestead on the property, with three buildings (likely 19th century) still standing. There actually was a forge and a woodshop in one of them! The forge chimney is still usable and the whole shop coule likely be saved yet. There are even some of the old tools still there, laying all over the place. I'm just worried that the beams on these buildings aren't in good condition, need someone to look at it for me. But maybe I'll finally move to my own house! Oh and there are many fruit trees there and pleny of place to grow stuff, so it would be great place for self-reliance.

[Stwood]

but there is an old homestead on the property, with three buildings (likely 19th century) still standing. There actually was a forge and a woodshop in one of them! The forge chimney is still usable and the whole shop coule likely be saved yet. There are even some of the old tools still there, laying all over the place. I'm just worried that the beams on these buildings aren't in good condition, need someone to look at it for me.

  I wish you luck on that. Yes, do have those beams looked at.

[Knecht]

Thanks! I'll see if I can find someone to do that.

[Stwood]

Yesterday, set out 16 mater plants.
Have more to set today. 

[Knecht]

Practiced forging a chain again, different style. Chain forging is good practice for making many identical pieces and to do lots of small forge welds. Will use the chain for another flail for sale...also forged spikes that will be driven into the flail's wooden ball. Two-sided nails of sorts. Annoying, but again, forging the same item over and over is great practice for certain blacksmithing operations.

[bsteimel]

Planted the vegetable and herb gardens plus tended to the compost as well.

[Stwood]

Set 16 Roma, 16 Rutger, and 4 Golden Jubilee maters yesterday.

[Billie D]

Man Stwood, your garden must be amazing. 
Seems you're always planting something! Very awesome

[Stwood]

Thank you. Yes, big garden, big task.

[Knecht]

Bought 11kg of lead pipes at the scrapyard. Great resource of nice soft lead. Searched the iron pile as well, but nothing good today.

[Redman]

Bought 11kg of lead pipes at the scrapyard. Great resource of nice soft lead. Searched the iron pile as well, but nothing good today.

That'll keep you going for a bit.

[Knecht]

It will! Lead is a great resource for self reliance. Plus I've started casting and selling musket balls at reenacting events, found out that people are lazy enough to buy their ammo, rather than make it. If I sell 35 balls next time, it pays me the whole lead purchase. It's also good idea to have a shot mould, in case you wanna hunt small game with muzzleloaders, or reload shotgun shells. Casting any large amount of shot in mould surely isn't quick, but if you just want to reload couple shells now and then, it's fine.

[Smurf Hunter]

It will! Lead is a great resource for self reliance. Plus I've started casting and selling musket balls at reenacting events, found out that people are lazy enough to buy their ammo, rather than make it. If I sell 35 balls next time, it pays me the whole lead purchase. It's also good idea to have a shot mould, in case you wanna hunt small game with muzzleloaders, or reload shotgun shells. Casting any large amount of shot in mould surely isn't quick, but if you just want to reload couple shells now and then, it's fine.

I thought for muskets and early muzzle loading rifles, they often needed barrel specific molds as there was some variation in bore diameter?

But I suppose re-enactors aren't really concerned about winning a real life battle - LOL

[David in MN]

Well I put in the garden. At least most of it. Took the family to the local garden store. We all picked up some stuff. I got food, the Mrs. got some pretties for around the mailbox, and the baby big girl got a pretty of her own to pot up and care for. I do seed starting but it's fun to see what oddity we might not have heard of. Then we found the Holy Grail. The University has come out with a peach that will survive zone 4. I'm in love. I don't have space for it but I'm already scheming how to get it in.

Planted everything. Got the herb pots set up, and my 2 year old ran around with a watering can to help. She had to check that the apple, cherry, and hazelnut were starting to open and literally jumped for joy as I put in our new blackberry patch.

Took about 5 hours and I'm exhausted. I got it all done, cracked a Spotted Cow, and looked over my backyard. Maybe I was just tired. Maybe I can't believe what I have accomplished growing food here. Maybe I was dreaming how to get a peach tree in. Maybe it was because I was listening to Johnny Cash sing Hurt. Maybe it was seeing my daughter so happy to garden. But I sipped my beer and I cried.

[Stwood]

Awesome  .
Our garden is about half in.

Oh. Bought storeroom supplies today. Coffee, spaghetti was on sale, etc. 

[Redman]

But I sipped my beer and I cried.

You done good guy. 

[Knecht]

I thought for muskets and early muzzle loading rifles, they often needed barrel specific molds as there was some variation in bore diameter?

But I suppose re-enactors aren't really concerned about winning a real life battle - LOL

THe originals surely did, but nowadays the guns are either made in "standard" calibers, such as .45, .50, .54 (mainly rifles) or they are made in unified musket bores of their era (mainly for 18th-.19th century) and besides that, there are many custom pieces made by gunsmiths, but since they need to use seam-less steel pipe for the barrel to have it proofed and seam-less pipes are only made in two usable sizes for guns (at least here) and that's 12 and 18mm, it's not that hard to supply ammo for these. I mainly cast and sell 18mm balls, as they are hard to find. For the 45-54 range, you can geat readily made balls in gunshops and eshops, but the large musket balls are in much lesser demand and most sellers don't carry them.
As for winning a battle, there are not only reenacting battles (where you fire blanks only), but also target shooting competitions of course, so yes, people want proper sized ammo.

[Applejack]

Garden is mostly in now.  Riding lawnmower died. It is 23 years old so maybe a new one in order. Getting some work done in kitchen in a few days.  Needed a backsplash and counter needs some repair as well as kitchen needs painting and I can't do it this time with my arthric hands.  First time ever I have hired someone to do the painting. It has been over 20 years since it was painted last time.  Gotta love Bear paint. It last many years. Will be having caterac surgery on 21st so that will slow me down a couple of days or so.