I got a comment that my gardening pants had a rip in them. I didn't realize how much LOL. It was a cold day, I wore warm pajamas under them, and was concentrating on the leaf haul. Can't believe I was wearing them like that for most of a day ! So much for my favorite garden trousers. I repaired them many times. I'll remove the buttons and zippers, then cut the cloth into narrow strips to use as tomato ties. That way, they will have one last summer in the vegetable garden . Good thing I wore those pajamas under them... It's cold this morning. I started a fire in the woodstove. In crazy efforts of frugality, the Spring fig tree prunings are cut to a good length and dried over the summer for kindling. They are light weight and good size to start a good fire. I am vegetarian, but make dog food for Rufus using chicken thighs. Recipe states they are rich in the important amino acid for dogs, taurine. Then I dry the bones in the sunroom, and store them. Come winter, those go into the woodstove fire. Lots of them. I'm impressed they burn so well. They leave behind some recognizable, pure white bone chunks, as fragile as chalk or egg shell. I smash those and spread the ashes on the raised beds and garden soil. Bone ash is mostly calcium and phosphorus compounds, and wood ash is mostly carbon, calcium, potassium, and some other minerals. Like @Melody Mc. said, a small amount is good but too much is not, so I scatter a dusting on the soil surface and mix it in. A few Redlove Calypso apples found their way into the apple pie. These Redlove trees have not been very productive yet. They also have not had great care. Will 2023 be better? I'm working on that. Alternatively, I might graft something better onto some of their branches. Even the notoriously difficult Honeycrisp apple did better this year. Enough Thai and Cayenne peppers, and a few Tabascos, ripened on the now, indoor, plants to make a small batch of Tabasco-sauce type hot sauce. This will be liquidy instead of spoonable like the others. I'll start that fermentation today. Have a happy (USA) thanksgiving! Or just a regular (everywhere else) happy day!
Happy Thanksgiving!! Those apples are beautiful Daniel. Reminds me of the colour of a pomegranite. Are they as sweet as they look? And those favourite pants....RIP ripped garden favourites. It is a very good thing you had a layer underneath, you could have been picked up for "Arson".......
Are your bones cooked Daniel with all of the meat removed? I'm curious about odour when you make char out of them. Do you think a similar process could be done with bones from a turkey or chicken whole carcass after making a soup for example? A neighbour that is relatively new to the area and struggling with an outdoor garden told me last year that she put all of her ash from the entire winter on her garden spot. We burn wood from September into May. That is a lot of ash. Buckets and buckets of it. Everything that she tried to grow was stunted. I'm far more careful now than I used to be. I like the idea of the calcium in the bone char added to the ash. Does it take very long to get the bones to that point?
Not sweet at all! More like tart as cranberry. Im not sure they are worth the garden space, more of a novelty. So wondering what next year will bring.
I cook the chicken thighs in a slow cooker overnight, before making them into dog food. At that point, the meat just slips off, rather cleanly. I dry the bones in the sunroom, which in summer is hot and dry, until they are dry as a bone . Then store in a sealed container. In winter, they just dry in a dish on the fireplace mantle. When thoroughly dry, there really isn't much odor at all when burning in the woodstove, but maybe there is in the smoke out the chimney. I just burn the bones in the woodstove until I clean out the ashes. I use the stove a few hours a day, so thats how long they burn. The remaining pieces are brittle and crush very easily. I use a paving stone to smash them, with the bones in a plastic bag, just a few smashes and they are ground up good enough. I used to call them the names of people I don't like, but now I'm more at peace with the world. Your neighbor went way overboard! It just needs a thin layer, and only if you have acidic soil (most in Pacific NW are acidic). I hope the excess alkalinity leaches out in a season or so. I think any bird bones that are easy to clean are OK. Getting a whole skeleton cleaned up seems like too much work, and meat remnants on the skeleton might be smelly when burned. Mammal bones are much harder, I don't think they will crush nearly as easily. I slice rotisserie chicken and dry the slices in a dehydrator to make jerky treats. Someone might think Rufus is a LITTLE spoiled. Plus that is cheaper than buying dog treats. Anyway, those bones get fed to the chickens. They eat every bit of it. Kind of remarkable. I remember a cartoon of chickens eating somme Kentucky Fried, with one remarking "You know, we are pretty tasty!" Getting his haircut. Not spoiled at all.
I liked this posting, Daniel, it did indeed have a bit of this and a bit of that. Your posts are always interesting, mate. Sometimes though, you just need to vent your feelings, I could see that you have done that with those trousers of yours. Ventilation. I am so tight though that I would not throw them away. I also had favourite working pants. When they began to fall apart, I just slipped them over whatever trousers I would wear to the lottie. Then slip them off when time to go home. I do this during the cold months only though. Yeah, I can still see service in those work trousers of yours. Ha ha.
