I still wish I had a few purple mulberries. They don't seem to like it at the farm and the few I have are all boys
My MIL has a huge mulberry tree. Unfortunately the berries are always full of those tiny little worm things... ick. As for the thread topic; I don't have any projects going on right now. Just some laundry and plant-watering... I'm all tuckered out.
I have been picking beans and drying apples today. Everyone should come over. My house smells like an apple pie. Tomorrow, no one should come over. I will be putting up beans and I will be hot and grumpy.
My early elementary school in Houston was Cooley, the perimeter around the school was loaded with mulberry trees. When the berries were ripe they made excellent bullets and it really made the janitor mad when he had to use a tall ladder to clean the ceilings and hallways.
Back to projects. I bought a heck of a lot of 'space blankets'--mylar sheets for emergencies. I am thinking of making drapes/curtains for my patio door and the kid's windows. Question: on which side does the mylar/vapor barrier go? Towards the window or the room? And if I put it between two sheets of material, does it matter?
I think your question may be answered here. One side retains moisture and they recommend a layer to catch moisture. https://chillmamachill.com/mylar-blankets-10-tips-on-what-to-use-them-for/
Thanks, I think it indicates to put the mylar toward the warm/indoor side. I can put the cloth material toward the windows to catch moisture.
I don't know if I'd call it a project, but it's indicative of what my state of mind has been recently. I installed a water softener and 2 whole house filters 7-8 years ago. The filters are supposed to be good for 6 months. Being alone in the house, they would likely last much longer than that. But the softener has a Reminder to run a cleaner through it every 4 months, so I change the filters when I run the cleaner through it. I've never missed a cycle by more than a week or so. I think the last time I did any of this was maybe a year ago...yeh, I'm late by 8 months. The Reminder light has been flashing at me (at least I didn't put a piece of tape over it), and my pressure has been OK but not 100% lately. I finally changed the 2 filters, ran the cleaner through the softener and topped off the salt. The downstream filter (sub-1 micron charcoal cartridge) was pristine, but the upstream one (5 micron polypropylene filter) was pretty nasty. I've [obviously] never seen it so bad. The upstream one has a clear canister on it, and when I change it I can often see the little flakes of mica swirling around when I turn the water back on. What I cleaned out of it today looked like sludge. It took me less than half an hour. At some point I bought an upgraded canister wrench on Walmart's website and started greasing the canisters' o-rings (and replacing them annually) so they would not leak or seize. It's made of stamped aluminum rather than plastic, and has a long handle on it for leverage. It beats the heck out of the cheap plastic or strap wrenches. I run an old sock around the canister and then slide this over top of it. The sock fills up the gaps snugly and protects the plastic from getting nicked. This time it took a little more effort to break things loose, but without this wrench and without the grease on the o-rings, I don't know how I would have got the canisters off. I think I procrastinate on these things so as to experience the relief when they're finally done.
We re-covered our old woodshed, and dug horseradish. I am working on a "snow shield" to reduce the amount of snow that blows onto the covered deck during winter, but that is still in progress. I wanted to redo the roof on the old travel trailer we keep as our "ark" for emergency evacuations, but I haven't had enough clear , dry, warm-ish weather to complete the task, so I will probably cover it with a tarp and wait till next year. The electrical utility put out a warning to be ready for power outages this winter. They have never done that before, so they may know something we don't, but we always try to be ready for almost everything.
My electric company is a co-op. I received a invitation to attend a meeting next month. I've attended one before. I plan on asking about anticipated outages and what's gonna drive them...if someone else doesn't beat me to it. I'll survive until they ban burning wood.
Which will probably be next Thursday. I worry about that. My barnhouse stove has a pipe coming out the wall for smoke. It faces the highway. If anyone is checking...