25 Acre Woods Digest (2022-04-26): Spring 2022 Myth-Busters
Alternative facts bedevil the homestead ... get the real skinny.
Up here at 25 Acres, we’ve been a bit distracted over the past few weeks with a side consulting project. As we return to the homestead with fresh eyes, we are seeing that fake news and alternative facts have bedeviled us. Today’s edition: Mainely Myth Busters.
Myth: One can start plants by putting them in a window facing south.
We’re looking forward to the cornucopia from our garden in the fall. How’s our start?
Well. This is a 2-week-old onion sprout. Leggy. Sad. Due to insufficient light.
In the background, you can see our evolving Franken-seed-starter featuring LED grow lights. We’re optimistic.
While this lesson cost us our onion crop for the year, it’s a fair price as the onions were probably our least interesting planting: grocery store onions are fine quality & cheap anyway.
In the background is a more interesting collection: six kinds of lettuce and two kinds of tomatoes. Another month and they can go in the ground.
Myth: A woodshed that’s designed to hold two cords actually holds two cords.
We’ve restocked Woodshed 1. And, pictured, we have heaps more split firewood waiting in the woods. In the fall, we’ll cart this up to The-Space-That-Will-Eventually-Become-Woodshed-2.
Intuitively, our firewood team felt like we had maybe 6 cords in inventory.
Until we took a tape measure to it.
The cold facts: maybe 3 cords of wood split. Oops.
This represents such good news on so many fronts!
Since we have ~50% less wood piled up in the woods than estimated, we have many opportunities for exercise in the coming months.
Since we stored <3 cords wood by the house last winter instead of the 4 we had thought, we weren’t quite as inefficient burning wood as had feared.
And since 3 cords likely won’t be enough to get us through a winter, we can begin planning for where to store more. Woodshed 3, anyone???
Truly the 25 Acres cup runneth over.
Myth: Supply chain issues are for city folk.
So, how will all that firewood get from the woods to the house? Will you recall, faithful reader, that we will splurge this year and buy in some help?
We’ve decided on the model: Mule MX-Pro. Plus aftermarket power steering and yet another trailer to complement Surus (too big!) and the Gorilla Cart (too small!).
The issue: There are very few available in stock anywhere remotely close to us and they come with some pretty stiff fees. $500 for “assembly”? $1600 for a couple of at-best-nice-to-have accessories?
We cannot even place an order at this point. New slots open in June.
Dear reader, will you gaze into your crystal ball and predict when the Mule will actually arrive?
We’ll order June 1 and our dealer-man says historically they arrive in 60-90 days.
No undue optimism allowed. The faithful reader who gets closest without underestimating wins.
