Straw Bale Garden Not Dead Yet!

I got the bales into place, soaked 'em down good for several days, sprinkled the nutrient mix on as I went, and then went to put the bedding plants and seeds in.

Reaching down into the bales to make openings for the potting soil and plants/seeds, I was pleased to find that the bales were pretty warm inside. It makes me happy because that heat is an indication that the bales are already in the process of breaking down. As they do, they'll provide nutrients for the plants whose roots are even now growing down into that warmth.

I put in sweet peppers, tomatoes, onions, carrots, and beets. The cantaloupe and watermelon get five gallon pails, and I'm thinking to see if I can get green beans to grow up along the fence.

So far things are looking pretty good (knock wood) and the peppers are beginning to flower.

So we shall see what we shall see.

*laughing*

One thing that I do see is that apparently that wasn't ALL just straw in those bales. I'm going to have to weed them as I have a strong suspicion that if I don't I might have a good crop of wheat coming.

Electronic difficulties are the reason I haven't gotten photos into these posts, but hopefully that will soon be figured out and fixed.

Straw Bale Garden

I'm finally going to try that straw bale garden idea.

I've got the bales, which was somewhat a minor adventure all by itself. We, my cousin Bill and I, drove over to the next town to pick them up. I ordered them and paid for them a couple of days ago but had only a little car. A pickup making a lot more sense, I asked Bill if I could use his to bring them home with.

It's been raining (showers of blessings for this area) and the bales had been sitting outside and were soaked already when I ordered them. Sideways glances from a couple of people let me know that they thought I was a mite off, not fretting about those bales being soggy. They tried to talk me into taking the ones that had been under cover and were dry (the way they're supposed to be). Nope, sez I, it will save me having to use so much water to wet them down.

Not explaining further was possibly not nice of me.

At any rate, on the way over to pick them up, hoping being wet wouldn't make them fall to pieces (don't want Patsy Cline bales), it started raining cats and dogs, a real gully washer for just a little while there. But it was just for a little while; then it calmed down to a nice steady rain, which is a good thing all the way around.

Bill handed me the keys when we got there so I could go get the bales loaded while he shopped (for boots as it turns out) and out I went to drive over to pick them up.

Right.

The humidity had the windows so fogged I couldn't see a darned thing. Plus I can't get the seat to advance in that pickup to save my life so was hanging onto the steering wheel to keep myself where I could reach the clutch, brake, and gas pedals. Backing out of the parking place it dawned on me that there might be somebody behind me that I wasn't able to see, so I held onto the steering wheel with one arm while I used kleenex to wipe the windows clear of fog with the other hand, and rolled down the driver's side window while I was at it.

Now the loading guy was apparently watching.

He asked me if I wanted to put one of the straw bales in the driver's seat so I could drive.

No.

Just put 'em in the back.

But I was grinning when I said it.

I only got a half dozen and they filled the box of the pickup nicely.

By then the fan was keeping the windows clear so the short trip back to the parking place was less traumatic.

Since we were in the vicinity we made another stop and got a few other things. I picked up another little round washtub for the other half of the geraniums I'd gotten, and a five gallon pail since I can't find the one I just got not that long ago.

I'll get the bedding plants I need in a few days when it stops raining, but I did get seeds for carrots and beets. If I end up with any kind of crop at all I'll be able to make borscht. That's like a vegetable soup that's a purple-red because of the beets. Unless you're a very careful eater, don't eat it when you're wearing white. You have been warned.

By the time we got home the rain was in abeyance for a bit so we unloaded the bales, which weren't as heavy as I was afraid they would be. Either that or I'm stronger than I thought I was. Whichever, they're lined up in my back yard along the fenceline between my house and Bill's.

They're plenty soggy, but might be still dry inside so tomorrow I'll put a hose on them to make sure they're thoroughly soaked all the way through.

Then I'll sprinkle them with a nutrition mix and get more water on them to spread it down through the straw. Until that straw begins to break down it needs a bit of a boost on the nutrition end of things or my plants aren't going to be much to write home about. They might not be anyway, but I'll give them the best shot I can.

For the next few days that's what I'll be doing with my straw bale garden - getting it wet and getting the nutrients distributed through them as best I can.

Then I'll get on with the rest of it.

That would be digging holes in the straw, putting in some potting soil, and planting the seeds and bedding plants.

Part of the reason I'm hoping this works is that it keeps my garden up where I can reach it more easily.

Another part, of course, is that I want to make that borscht.

Yet another part is the ease of harvesting the root crops. When that time comes, the rebuttable presumption being that there are going to be potatoes, onions, carrots, and beets to harvest, all I'll have to do is knock the straw off. 

It's an experiment for me.

Everything is hypothetical and Bill is skeptical but keeping an open mind.

Another benefit, if it works right, is that the straw bales will break down and can be tilled into the ground right where they now stand, making for some good mulch for next year.

So we shall see what we shall see.

2015 12 07 Happy Feet Boots Getting Ready For Leather Soles

Contrary to what management at my part-time shift-work job may think, not all of my always belongs to them.

The whole rest of my time, aside from when I'm clocked in there, belongs to me.

Since those long hours of pounding on concrete floors are brutal on my feet, legs, back, shoulders, arms, and neck ... it behooves me to do the best I can for them with the rest of that always. It kind of stinks because the whole thing was to spare my body the hurting feet, shin splints, aching muscles that I had assumed just went with the territory of that job. I assumed it right up until the 24 shifts I put in wearing the experimental versions of my happy feet boots and learned the difference.

Being as appearances trump health and comfort, my poor body is going to have to cope with the consequences and hope it never amounts to anything more than the 'normal' pain associated with the job when my feet send the hurting up my legs, which makes them hurt and not want to take the burden that usually belongs to those big strong muscles. That pushes the load onto my smaller more vulnerable back muscles, which makes them rebel and refuse to take the strain. That puts the load onto my shoulders, arms, and makes for a pretty stiff neck from stress and tension. And that's not even counting the headaches from said tension along with those bright spotlights that trigger my bad eye into its own kind of pain and flips the headaches into migraines.

So yeah.

I'm darned well going to get these pairs of happy feet boots soled in leather and finished up - even though I can't wear them for their intended purpose, there's not a soul in this big wide world with the authority to inform me that I can't wear them whenever I'm not at that shift-work job.

Okay, that's it for my rant.

In case you don't already know, that blue stuff is liquid rubber - not exactly 'liquid' but it's a consistency a person can paint onto stuff. It makes the soles and a bit up the sides of my happy feet boots waterproof and non-skid. The smurf-blue is newly painted on; the darkening stuff is drying into the dark navy blue it will stay.

Not that you'll see it.

Once these coats are dry I'll add another one just before I put the leather on.

One thing about this rubber stuff is that it's a terrific adhesive - bonds things together, it does. So it will work as a waterproof glue to hold the leather in place.

The plan is to run the leather up the sides far enough to be able to use for lacing bases.

IF I were going to use these for that shift-work job I'd take the leather and laces clear up past my ankles for that extra support - but - since I don't have to worry about that I'll save my leather for when my friend gets the new thick felted wool boot forms to me and I actually make the final version of these happy feet boots!

*laughing*

Not that there's any real shortage of leather.

I hit the jackpot recently on a jaunt to our local Frip Shop, remember. I've got lots of black leather and some really really beautifully buttery soft brown.

Even so, there's no point in wasting it, right?

Right.

Onward.

The top pair up above (the ones that are almost dry now) go with a matching sweater vest (the boots were the sleeves) and a pair of ear muffs made from the wide upper part of the sleeves I cut off to make the boots fit right. I'll wear a pair of black wool pants tucked into the boots and a wonderful black merino sweater under the vest.

The lower pair has a matching scarf and mittens to go with them.

Yep.

It's all an experiment to see what still might need adjusting before I get the actual final pairs of boot forms. Which isn't to say that I'm not going to wear these, because I most certainly will.

I've also got a pair of lightweight bright red ones I wear lined with my felted wool 'footprints' as inside soles - very comfortable with wool socks. They're my slippers.

And I've still got the original pairs (one black, one brown) my friend made for me. I'm still using them for experimental purposes.

So that's it for the time being.

This woman is heading for bed and some good solid rest while the rubber stuff finishes drying. Tomorrow will be soon enough to get the leather designed and cut.

2015 10 21 Tonight's Boot Experiment

Today’s experiment has the thick brown felted wool ‘boot tubes’, flip-flop inside soles, taped outer soles and heels, and felted wool sweater sleeve ‘socks’. I’ve got the leather straps around them at the ankle, too. They're concealed by the folded down boot tops.

The ‘socks’ work (so far) better than I had hoped. With the cuffs up at my knees, the wider part of the sleeves (where they join to the body of the sweater) gives me plenty to wrap around my feet, providing the cushioning I want at the toes and arches. I’m amazed.

Whether I’ll still be amazed by the end of this concrete-pounding eight hour shift remains to be seen.

If my feet are happy, I’ll go ahead and get the felt (or leather, we'll see what I feel like) cut to cover the taped parts and start the layers of liquid rubber. But I won’t do that tonight because I’ll want these for the rest of the shifts I’ve got to fill before I’ll have the days off I’ll need to get all those layers on and dried and seasoned so I can wear the boots again. I don't want to be leaving wet rubber Smurf footprints!

Also, even with the sweater socks providing that extra cushioning, there's still plenty of 'wiggle room' for my toes! Once I find the most comfortable fit (each foot is wrapped differently for this experiment) I'll finalize the wrap design and stitch it into place for the feet of the socks.

#

Results:

1] The left foot wrapping was better and I didn't even need as much cushion as I gave myself. I think I'll try just stitching these sweater sleeves into regular socks or turn them into boots themselves because I like them. I can always make other liners with cushion pockets stitched into place. 

2] The taping held the inside soles in place perfectly. I'll cut the tape off, keeping it in one piece, and use it as a basic pattern for the felting that will replace the tape - with the waterproofing going on next and leather (probably) with maybe (likely) more protective coating on the outside.

3] The leather straps give my ankles some extra support and also keep everything snugged into place when I'm walking/trotting/running. Laces do the same thing.

4] Over all it was a good combination and my feet are in fine shape. They were warm but could still 'breathe'.

Up next:

- I want to try stitching a bunch of layers of some flannel into liner boots and see how that works.

- I've got a couple of lighter-weight sweaters (one's lambswool/angora and the other is merino, bright red and black respectively) I can make into boots themselves and also use as liner boots just by taking the inside soles out. (see below) So I can 'layer up' on my footwear if I want.

One thing about the lighter weight fabrics being turned into boots is that you can remove the inside soles and the lighter boots fit right into the heavier boots as liners, even with thick socks inside of them - or you can put some layers of whatever you want cut to your foot outline inside of them and have pretty darned comfortable soft-soled stocking slippers. The rubberizing makes 'em waterproof but is almighty flexible.

- The bodies of the sweaters are up for grabs as to what I'm going to do with them. I've got mittens and a scarf to get stitched to match the dark red boots I've got done; a sweater vest was left when I cut the sleeves (above) off of that one and I'll probably just keep it that way. The neckline of the black sweater is perfect for the headband part of a pull-on cap; mittens from part of the bottom hemline (pretty standard because it's a sensible use of that part of the sweaters, and matching mittens are always fun); there will be a bunch left so who knows what that will become - socks maybe, or a scarf ... 

- Another option for liner boots would be fleece, yep. 

- Hmmm ... I wonder ... you know the athletic tube socks? Why can't we make that kind of sock out of fleece, the soft snuggly stuff we use for those funky blankets all the time. Well, we can of course. How easy is that? Pretty easy.

*laughing*

I may be a little over-tired, but the thought of Pippi Longstocking thigh high socks made out of that snuggly fabric sounds like a great thing for winter, yes it does. Gotta use really wide elastic (and not too tight) at the top though, or you'll cut off your circulation.

*laughing again*

Yep. Put a pair of those foam soles in them, rubberize them, take the inside soles back out, add a few layers of the same stuff cut to fit your feet to replace those foam soles, and you've got some really weird (but snuggly and warm) slippers. Or some awesome winter liners for the felted wool boots.

Mm-hm ... over-tired. Told ya.

And that's about the extent of my thought processes for this night.

At any rate, I've got a weekend off coming up so (as soon as I get my winter firewood situated) I can get some stitching done.

Heh.

Once I get these plain (very plain) boots done, I can bling the heck out of them if I want. It's not like there's a shortage of beads and wire and ... stuff ... around this place, you know. Peacock feathers even. Pheasant too, for that matter. There are times it's nice to live in hunting country. No we don't hunt peacocks, but we hunt pheasants and all kinds of other critters who have useful feathers and such.

DIY Felted Wool Boots - Getting them cut down to size

Yeah I know this doesn't how much. I'll get more 'in progress' types of photos when I get time. I'm cutting it close the way it is here before I have to start getting myself ready for work.

A few days in a row with shifts to fill has been plenty of motivation to at least start getting those incredibly comfortable flip-flop soles trimmed down to size. They're not  yet shaped the way they're going to be but I'm in no great big hurry to make my cuts too deep.

If ever you've carved something out of wood (or stone for that matter) you know that once you've removed a bit of it ... it's removed forever. You can't jut glue it back on and have it be the way it was.

So I'm taking my own sweet time with these soles.

For tonight's shift I've got them in the thick brown felted wool boots. The soles are taped but not the sides yet. Those won't get done until the sole is in its final shape.

The time to work on these is extremely limited by the very job whose demands spur me to get them done.

This time I've dispensed with the leather strap ankle fastenings in favor of yet another experiment: leather laces that happen to be the same color as the boots. 

heh heh 

Not that you can see them anyway since the boot tops are turned down over them.

So we'll see how they hold up. I've got them criss-crossed five or six times (they're plenty long!) around my ankle and so far they're doing the job. We'll find out soon enough what will happen during eight hours of constant speed-walking. 

My feet have plenty of room in them, especially the right one at the moment because i don't have time to even trim it down any more right now. That's the one I'm liable to walk out of if the laces give way, LOL!

I'm not ever going to pare these things down to a snug fit, not the ones I'm planning on using for shift work. I do have a pair that is snug to my feet which is fine when I want to show off my darling little feet - but those are not for these purposes.

These are for WORK.

Even when I get the inside soles the way I want them, the edges taped securely into place (to give them their final shape on the outside), the backs of the heels reinforced (to keep my toe-walking from pushing the inside soles backward), and the rubber coating applied to the bottoms and up the sides (for water-proofing and grip) - I'm still going to leave plenty of space in the uppers.

I want that space both for wiggle room for my toes, breathing room for my feet, and to accommodate the felted wool 'booties' - the liners that will add their comfort to the whole by providing a bit of cushion to the toe part and at my instep for extra arch support - those cushions will be built into the liners.

At any rate, I'm out of time so had best get on my way to the eight hour on the job trial of this particular stage of the development process.

People tell me I ought to market them but that's not exactly gong to work to well.

Mine are specifically designed for my specific feet and my specific gait and my specific ob. I'm doing my experimenting as I go along, testing and testing to see what works and what doesn't.

I reckon I could get outlines of peoples' feet and build them some boots that would without a doubt be a lot more comfortable than what they're probably wearing - but the individuality of their arches, their unique gaits (how their feet and legs move when they walk or run) and where they tend to put their weight ... these are variables a person can't get from a simple foot outline. AND I wouldn't know what they want them for necessarily. 

These are for this job. I wouldn't want to run a footrace in them and I wouldn't want to climb a tree in them and I wouldn't want to ride a horse in them (thinking stirrups and boot-heels here). When I get my final pair finished I'll leave that pair there and wear them only for that job. Other pairs will be for other uses, each specially designed to fill the needs of whatever that use might be.

DIY Progress on Boots

And here we go!

Cut sweater sleeves from sweater.

Slip the foam soles inside.

Wrap  edges around - I leave a space for the tape to adhere to the soles.

Secure with duct tape (or however you want).

Screwdriver to open can of liquid rubber.

Paintbrush to apply.

Water for clean up.

One hand inside to hold while painting.

First coat painted on.

Waiting for paint to dry.

I've got two coats of the liquid rubber on. It's thick, almost like a glue, but spreads well with a stiff-bristled brush. It probably wouldn't go on quite as well with a really soft brush.

I let it dry for a couple of hours before putting on the second coat. We'll see how it works with two and add more if needed.

At any rate, the liquid rubber isn't nearly as smelly as I was afraid it would be, and actually does clean up with water. That surprised me because its function is to be waterproof!

One modification I'm going to make is to cut a piece of felted wool that fits the bottom of the foot and goes up the heel area. I'll still use tape but just a strip down the center of the sole to both hold the sides in place on the underside and keep a grip on the soles. I'll cover it with the felted wool, mainly for aesthetics. I can do that with this pair tomorrow if I want, and just put another coating of the liquid rubber on over the top.

So tomorrow will be my first day wearing the sweater boot design with rubberized soles. 

*laughing*

I'd better make darned sure they're all the way dry or I'll be leaving Smurf-prints all over the place!

WHOOP! Boot Experiment In Progress!

When they say blue, they mean blue.

This is the gallon of liquid rubber I found on my front porch when I got home from my shift tonight. I won't be able to do anything with it for a while - between my job shifts, Duck Fest, and gathering winter wood my hours are pretty well spoken for - but it's here!

I'm having a tough time right now, restraining myself from getting those flip-flop soles cut down to size and shaped, and am eyeing the foam pads I've got ready to use for patterns ... thinking about putting them into the liners and giving them a dip ... but no I'm not going to do it. This stuff has an adhesive quality; it would without a doubt permanently glue my foam soles to the wool outers (which is kind of the point, after all) - and there go my patterns.

So ... 

I'm going to wait until I've got time to cut myself another set of foam soles before I go wrecking my pattern soles. 

The foam soled boots are still experimental, using the old worn out boot tubes. They'll be fine themselves, but not as great as the boots that will have the thick soles of the flip-flops. Those are the ones I'm going to want to be not experimental so I'll hold of on making them until I've got the new sets of tubes that my friend is making for me.

Meanwhile, I've got these two old sets of boots to work with, foam to cut into soles, and liquid rubber to dip them in or paint onto them for the outer water-proof soles and sides. I've also got those sweaters coming, remember. They'll be experimental as well since I'm not sure exactly how they're going to felt up.

Being as it's already been a long day and I'm tired, I'm seriously reining myself in here and not going to try anything tonight ... much as I want to, it would end up keeping me busy and awake all night - not smart when I've got a very long and busy day tomorrow already. I'll wait until I've got the time to devote to it before seeing how the felted wool will absorb the liquid rubber, whether it will adhere to the foam soles, and how many coats it will take to make these boots the way I want them to be.

Thankfully tomorrow is supposed to be dry so I can wear my experimental pair (without the water-proofing, the untreated felted wool gets soggy when it gets wet) for my shift. I've had a couple of days without them due to it being wet out - my feet aren't happy with me about that.

As soon as possible, it's on with the experiment!

DIY Work Boots for CNA Shifts

Eight hours of walking/trotting on concrete will give your feet a pounding case of foot-ache. I can't afford to buy expensive shoes that never seem to be able to stand up to the pounding they get for more than a few months at the most. 

So I decided maybe I ought to take a shot at creating my own.

Over the course of the past year or so I've made pairs of boots out of felted wool (an old coat) so I know I can do it. The problem in this case is having a sole that will protect my feet and legs. The ones I've made have really soft soles of the same felted wool. They're great and I love them, but I know for a fact that they'd never ever be comfortable for long at my CNA shift-work job.

A friend of mine made me a couple of pairs of 'boots' for me to use with my Character Wardrobes - she used 100% wool yarn, knitted big tubes (stitched the big knitted rectangles into tubes that is, with one end closed), washed them on hot setting, dried them on hot setting (checking periodically for size), and handed them over to me. I made insoles out of layers cut from an old wool blanket (felted again) and have never in my life had happier feet. They're about worn out, the boots I made from the felted wool 'tubes' my friend made, but they're going to get put to use again.

As a first experiment I cut foot-shaped soles out of some scrap floor padding that had been used for a gymnastics program, just a little bigger than my own foot. These I put into the boot tubes in place of the old felted wool blanket insoles. 

Tonight I took along to work the mock-ups of the work shoes/boots I want to try ... and my feet/legs never hurt at all once I put them on! So that's one idea that was worth trying.

Tomorrow I'm taking it a step further. 

I have a pair of old flip-flops with thick soles that I have a hundred thousand times wished I could wear to work, or that they made shoes with such soles.

In the photo above you can see how deep those soles are, and that I've clipped the toe straps out of them. They're also significantly too big for me but they still fit into the boot tubes! And, since I've been wearing them for years on end, obviously they're not too big for me to walk in.

At this point I could not possibly care less how big my feet look, or how strange. I want to be able to work a full shift without hurting. The size of these will allow me to also put in layers of felted wool under my feet if I want to. Since it's all experimental, I'm going to go without the extra wool for tomorrow's shift, see how well it works with just the soles of the flip-flops.

Above, you can see the top and side views with the tops of the boots up instead of folded down. The ankle straps are sleeve cuffs from a leather jacket that I cut up to use for another project. They work great for both the initial shaping of the tube (get the tube a little damp, add the straps to hold the ankle part in place, and wear them until they're dry - they mold to your foot; in this case it's the flip-flop sole I want them to mold to) and for holding the boots firmly in place as you wear them. Any kind of fastening would do - I could use strips of fabric, too.

Now, what I'm hoping for is that the 'breathing' trait of the felted wool will work to keep my feet comfortable (no sweating but plenty warm) and the bigger size of the flip-flops will give my toes plenty of wiggle room (something that seems to be sadly missing in most shoes). I'm pretty sure I'm going to want to: add the felted wool insole liners, or (since I don't care how big my feet look) wear as 'socks' the form-fitting boots I made before out of that old felted wool coat, or ... I dunno ... come up with some felted wool 'booties' to wear. 

I'll no doubt end up making myself some variation of little slipper liners as the cutouts tend to follow my foot action and wind up getting pushed where they do me the least amount of good. I tried just putting a couple of layers of felted wool into my regular work shoes - it helped a lot, believe me - but they work their way back and toward the inside as I tend to toe-walk when I'm in a hurry (which is all the time on this job!) and most of the time I walk more on the outsides of my feet than the insides or dead center, don't ask me why. So slipper liners will help. I don't want to glue the liners in place because I'll go through a lot of them.

As for the outer soles ... right now I don't have any. Here's what keeps me from slipping and sliding on woolen 'soles' while I'm working out the design of these work boots.

Yup. Duct tape. You can see where the seam gave way in this tube from my wearing these boots so much. It's that gappy looking place down the center of the bottom of the boot. Rather than restitch it I just left it and taped over it. It's holding just fine so far but is not a perfect solution. Gives me a bit of extra space to work with, room for the soles to go in (although the felted wool stretches some, too).

When I get done playing with these, I'll ask my friend to make me another pair of tubes, cut and stitch to shape the toe the way I want it (felted wool does not fray!), get the soles put in, and dip the bottoms of them in liquid rubber (and up the sides of the 'shoe' part to about the height of the inside soles). That will keep them from getting soggy if I walk in wet snow or dew or rain-wet grass. It will also give me a good no-slip outer sole. I hope. If not, I'll go back to using duct tape and just keep my feet out of wet snow and such.

I do love wool.

Even if my feet do get wet in these things in the dead of winter, they aren't going to freeze. Again, I'm not exactly sure why that is but apparently it's true. They'd get cold, but not frozen. Haven't had to test it out and don't intend to, but it's reassuring nonetheless.

So ... hopefully I'll come up with a way to keep my feet and legs comfortable while I work.

LittleEthan told Alaric, 'You will do what you have to do when you have to do it, but you don't have to do it hungry,' when Alaric objected to accepting help for his people.

So now I tell myself, 'You will do what you have to do when you have to do it, but you don't have to do it with your feet and legs hurting.'

Nobody's offering me a kindgom's ransom - but perhaps I've been given something better: a creative mind that can imagine a way to 'fix' a problem, and the chutzpah to give it a try. And another try, and another, and another ... until something works.

No Wonder I'm Tired

We’ve got Realms 

and dimensions 

and ancient mythology 

and legends 

and creatures 

and Aduan 

and technology 

and the stars 

and quarks instead of quacks 

and nanometer transistors 

and strings 

and a MYSTERY 

and Spirals 

and a Phine Line 

and Guardians 

and History as we thought we knew it 

and the Sidhe and our Characters all mixed up all over the place (and time) running rampant through all of the above.

Geez.

No wonder I’m tired.

Blueberries, Chokecherries, and Red Cherries ... I'm dyeing here!

If you like pink ... hopefully this will be a bit lighter once dry!

Here's a link To DYE For!

*laughing*

It's a post in the Character Collections blog.