Tag: winter

Breathtaking Photos of the Coldest City in the World In the village of Oymyakon, Russia, the average winter temperature is minus 58° Fahrenheit. That’s minus 50° Celsius. Does that make you feel a little warmer? Coldest temperature on record, from 1924, is minus 96° F (minus 71° C). Eyeglasses freeze to faces. Cars outside need […]

This video captures the sense of community at the Winter Farmer’s Market in Port Washington, WI. Created by Pat and Amy Wilborn, the market attracts local farmers, artisans, musicians, and residents with a feeling of old-time camaraderie. It’s a welcome contrast to the hectic nature of modern society. Pat is also the creator of PortFish, […]

If you have cold winters and a small space you might want to get yourself a kotatsu. The kotatsu also adapts for warm weather use. Japanese optimization of space at its best. TweetFacebookLinkedInTumblrStumbleDiggDelicious

Last September we visited our friend Pat Wilborn at his aquaponics farming project outside of Port Washington, WI, and shot some video of his operation under construction. Pat is determined to discover whether growing vegetables in a 96-foot-long greenhouse using poop from yellow perch for fertilizer is economically feasible. As I’ve written elsewhere, Pat is […]

On January 26th, a Saturday, we went to the Port Washington Farmers Market to shoot some video. The winter market is held indoors until spring, at the First Congregational Church. It drew quite a crowd. Our friend Pat Wilborn created the event three years ago, along with his wife, Amy, and it’s now showing signs […]

“Of the many thousands of hours spent around kitchen tables—those eternal kitchen tables of the poor!—there is not much to say.” ~Joyce Carol Oates, in Them. “Of those eternal kitchen tables of the poor there is considerable to say.” ~Two-Bit Guru Looking back, the first thing about kitchen tables is that they were in the […]

We made our second batch of canned sauerkraut, ever, in December. We let the first batch that we made in the fall ferment for two weeks and then eagerly canned it before it turned into some kind of unexpected sauerkraut monster, dripping slime and taking over the kitchen. That first batch turned out edible but […]

When I wrote about the cold frame heater I’d just made, I didn’t mention that the other side of this story involves the several hundred thousand red wiggler worms I’ve got living in plastic buckets in the garage. They aren’t squatters. They are there because I built an insulated room for them and now I’d […]

For a couple of years now I’ve fooled around with adding heat to cold frames to extend the growing season in both spring and fall. In a recent DIY project I made a low-wattage electrical heater that heats the soil rather than the air above the soil. In the spring, I might use this unit […]

Notice: Since the end of the world may occur tomorrow, you might want to hold off starting this project until Saturday, if there is a Saturday. If there is no Saturday, it’s been nice knowing you. Do you remember those big old heat registers at Grandma’s house? They were vertical against the wall and the […]