errantember

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Reload page in style: light

So there's this rectangular area in front of my house, delineated by a sidewalk, that previously has just sort-of sat there. It's actually perfect for a vegetable garden, because it gets lots of sun, is very close to the house, but just far enough from the street not to draw too much focus. My intention is to use the greywater from the kitchen sink, run it through a small constructed wetland to sweeten it a little, and then irrigate the garden and a small water feature. This water comes 365 days a year, like clockwork, and currently just goes down the drain. I use eco-friendly dish soap, and not much of that, and also do almost all of my own dishes by hand.

Like many permaculture projects, this one starts with the brutal murder of existing plants, habitat, and wildlife.
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Current Location: The Front
Current Music: Apocalypse Now

After failing to dissect the last remaining rawhide chew toy to distribute to Loki and Louie with both a hack saw (too slow) and tin snips (too little torque) I finally resorted to a Dremel with a metal cutting disk. After reading The Omnivore's Dilemma I wasn't planning on buying any more industrially produced meat products, anyway, but the smell produced by this operation combined with my disbelief that any organic substance could be so strong has sealed the rawhide's fate.

Ew.

However, this makes it very clear why various types of armor worn throughout history were made of boiled leather. The chew toy I just cut apart would have handily deflected both a razor-sharp katana or a 30 lb. two-handed broadsword wielded by subject-matter experts. It's also ridiculously light for it's strength, certainly better than most metals and somewhere equivalent to polycarbonate.