Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Hodding.

Thanks for the comments, my steadfast readers.  My site host has a program that shows me how many unique visits I get.  Surprisingly, even though I hadn’t written in 3 weeks (was it really that long?), nearly 500 people were checking in every day.  It says that those roughly 500 are different web-surfers than the 500 who checked in the day before.  I find that both flattering and difficult to believe.  I’m sure I’m reading the analysis incorrectly because it also appears to be saying that in the first week or so, nearly 8,000 different, “unique” visitors stopped by.  I MUST be misunderstanding the information.  If that many people were following along as my family groped its way toward financial maturity on the Gourmet website, I’m sure Conde Nast would have paid me much, much more for my weekly column.  Otherwise, it would seem they were taking advantage of my desperate situation, right?  (Ok, I’m only having fun at the media giant’s expense.  It compensated me just fine considering how little we were, and are, trying to live on–although I wouldn’t mind being able to pay off larger chunks of our debt.)

Thank you for not giving up on us.  I will continue to blog.  We–Lisa, the kids and I–will continue to mess up.  We will try to entertain you with our constant attempts to improve the way we live.  And we will not give up–so please don’t give up on this lazy but humble chronicler.  Ok?

To those who care, Kirsten was right.  I did write yesterday morning’s update rather quickly.  In less than 5 minutes, to be precise.  I just wasn’t expecting to write and then it suddenly came gushing out, uncontrollably.  I guess my subconscious had gotten used to those weekly therapy/blog sessions (and yes,  I do feel better today as a result: lighter). Of course, it’s debatable whether or not that slap-dash blog is any good, or any of my writing, for that matter.  Certainly some of you out there don’t think so.  In fact, I googled myself late last night and found a bathroom-stall scrawler, er, I mean blogger who lives out west who absolutely abhors me.  She, and most of the others who express hatred for me (yes, they actually use words like “hate” and then, when refering to me, “ninny” and “poser” and “idiot” and “liar”), seem to hate the idea of me (well, maybe not me me but instead the “me” who I’ve allowed various publicists to create and put words in that me’s mouth) as well as how Gourmet and my publisher, Algonquin, promoted me.  I sort of get the latter–who wants to hear from yet one more writer who is Living a Year without _________? You can fill in the blank with whatever you want, and the funny, or annoying, depending on your outlook, thing is, it’s probably been done in the past few years–except maybe “A Year without Showers.”  I haven’t read about anyone who’s gone an entire year without washing and written about it–unless what’s his name didn’t shower when he was living biblically.  Now that I think about it, if he did shower then he cheated, right (Just joking–I hear it’s a great book.)?  But I’d buy a book by somebody who gave up on personal hygiene for a year, as long as he/she did things to get themselves good and stinky and then went out in public repeatedly.  I’d also like to see a chapter on deodorants and anti-perspirants.  Who sold us on all that useless cover-up crap?  Who decided regular body odors needed masking?  I’m guessing Americans didn’t start rubbing these ridiculous things under our arms until after the early 1940s (turns out I was right, at least when it comes to antiperspirants: a clever little aluminum-based b.o.-killer called Stopette was awarded a patent in 1941; you can buy a $238 book on the subject by Karl Laden or check out this Wikipedia entry, knowing the facts aren’t verified: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deodorant.).  Before that, lo and behold, people went to the workplace and their co-workers somehow “endured” their odor–for centuries and more.  Once again, much like the necessity of using credit cards, we were sold a concept–the odorless human–and then we readily bought into it.  I hope most of you reading this realized long ago that you can live happy, productive, and worthwhile lives even without sprucing up with a stroke of Old Spice, or Secret, every morning–and that you can even be attractive to someone else when you smell like yourself.  What a concept, huh?

Anyway, back to my original subject: It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve tried to set the record straight this past 15 months–the misinformation is caught in cyberspace and haters seem to stumble upon it no matter what.  But, again, just for the hell of it, I’ll repeat: we’re living this way–scaled back, credit-cardless, bartering, improvising, manure-shoveling, egg-producing, etc.–not for a book but because we finally faced reality.  And we’re going to continue living this way, continually tweaking the parameters and methods, forever, for one simple reason: It’s a better life.

And yes, Bev, it is Eliot Coleman.  I wrote “Evan,” right?  Sorry Mr. Coleman, if you ever see this.  Your books are great and your methods ground-breaking, and I made a misidentified you only because I was in a mad rush to get back out to the most glorious pile of composted manure that has ever existed.

Well, I’ve written this just as quickly–not counting the nodding off–as yesterday’s offering, and it’s still not the blog I want to write–that one is all about making cider from free apples and then there’s another one that is about my most recent batch of MEAD!  I’ll write those, and soon, but I also want to get my book finished for Algonquin so I can figure out exactly what we’re doing.  See, I really only understand myself, those around me, and what I’m doing, when I write.  In fact, that is why I write.

Posted in writing, history of deodorants, Perfect manure, Life, Gardening | 15 Comments »

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 by Hodding.

I promise I am posting an entry later today… well, tonight most likely.  I have no excuses beyond the fact that swim season has begun.  I’m the head coach and now have 80 swimmers.  We only had 40 when I began coaching two years ago.

I’ve also been overwhelmed with fall-type mini-farm chores.  It’s amazing how long it takes to distribute 3 (8 X 5 X 3) trailer-loads of composted horse manure.  Yes, you read it correctly.  Lisa and I did strike the motherlode of perfect, ready-for-planting horse poop!  A few weeks ago I casually mentioned (be careful what you casually mention, considering my very tired back) to our family doctor that I was looking for a greenhouse.  I’m not sure why I told him.  he live sin town and certainly doesn’t have the time for hobby-planting.  Well, his eyes lit up, his face said, “Ah, a sucker at last!” and he gushed, “Yes, Hodding, I do.  We have a greenhouse!”

He quickly got  controlled himself, though, and continued in a carefully controlled manner: “Uh-hhhmmmm. My wife and I just might have what you are looking for.  I’ll have to check with her to make sure she really doesn’t want it anymore.  I’ll call you later in the week.”

Ok, ok.  He didn’t really get a hold of himself.  Instead, he made it very clear that he would do just about anything if I were to take it off his hands and even admitted that it was a bit beat up.  I told him I didn’t care.  It’d be a starter greenhouse and how could I be choosy?  He was giving it to us.

Sensing this was “my moment” I went fro broke and asked him for the other item we’re desperate for: “You don’t happen to know anyone who has some extra horse manure, do you?”

And that’s when he almost fainted.

“Well, let me see how I should put this, Jesus, my savior (ok, he didn’t say that but I could tell he was thinking it).  I should contain my utter glee at the thought that somebody wants to come over and remove even a smidgen of this accumulated waste but I can’t.  So, in short, yes, Hodding, I do have manure.  Way too much manure and you can take as much as you’d like.”

It turned out that the greenhouse has seen better days but I think I can get it up and nurturing again.  If not, I can use the metal pipes to make a roof for our various broken-down very small boats so they can be safely stored for the winter.  Thank Man for global warming! Tt’s been the warmest November in Maine that I’ve ever experienced and I’ve had extra weeks to winterize everything.

Back to my story: The greenhouse may or may not get us growing things this February but teh manure.  I’ve never seen such perfect, aged manure my entire life.  Admittedly, I’ve never been on the lookout for quality, aged manure until now but even so, even subconsciously, I’ve never seen such perfect, fluffy aerated garden-candy (should I trademark nickname?  Lisa?).  As I waded past the mounds of fresh, greenish briquets of horse manure to stab what looked like a mound of topsoil, I furtively glanced around to make sure nobody else was witness to my discovery.  When my shovel entered the mound like it was stabbing a hill of popcorn I actually squealed with delight.  This was it!  The gift from heaven that I’d been hoping for.  With this mother-nature-processed poop, our gardens are going to make leaps and bounds into a totally different, higher class of gardens.  I wanted to shout for joy–and did, of course–but then I got back to loading up the trailer.  Boy, if there’s one thing a lifetime of writing has prepared me for it’s shoveling shit.  I scooped the poop for two hours straight (and am going back for more as soon as I’m done writing this.  I don’t think I could ever get tired of doing it.).

With this poop, Lisa and I will enter the realm of–dare, I say it? yes, yes, I do.  this manure is simply too superior not to crow a bit.  With this poop, Lisa and I will rival Evan Coleman, the current reigning king of all that human’s grow.

Yeah, okay.  I just went too far but I’m so excited.  I can’t wait to post pictures of what we grow next spring and summer with this stuff.

Now if I could only get that greenhouse back together…

Postscript:  Like I said at the top, I promise I’ll make an entry later tonight.

Posted in Frugal winterizing, Perfect manure, Extreme Frugality, Gardening, Hens | 9 Comments »