The Perils of DIY

When I have googled sufficient or sufficiency, I often get self-sufficient or self-sufficiency or self-reliance in response. It is understandable. The concepts share something linguistically. But they are not the same. Sufficiency means having enough. Self-sufficiency means having enough and providing it yourself. Self-reliance means being able to get things done by yourself.

Now that I've clarified that with simplistic definitions, it's the practical that has hit me in the face. Last night we (mostly) finished the bathroom project. I like do-it-yourself projects. I save a little money, sometimes doing a project for a quarter of the professional cost. Sometimes things turn out alright. The plumbing, including the disappearance of the pedestal sink, turned out just fine. I needed to drill a couple of holes in the vanity to allow for the wall connections for the water supply and the drain was a little stretched because the feet on the vanity put it 3/4" out further than it should have been (I could have fixed that, but didn't). But, it works and it looks nice.

The wallpaper on the other hand is less than perfect. It is probably acceptable, but wallpaper is tricky to get down perfectly. And there is a difference between being perfect and it being good enough, which is to say, sufficient for our need. I think I hit the sufficiency level for the wallpaper. What makes plumbing different is that for it to be sufficient, it has to be perfect. So, I was self-reliant (I did it myself), I wasn't self-sufficient (other people around the globe produced everything that went into the project, I just assembled it), and we have something that is quite sufficient for our need.

Recently there have been other things about which I was not about to try to be self-reliant. Some shingles blew off our roof and I discovered a small leak in the roof between two skylights that I had installed several years ago. Roofs are not something you take on as a do-it-yourselfer unless you want a lot of expense and pain. There was an ad in the local paper for a roof tune-up. The price said, "bait and switch" but I also thought that even with that in the offing, it would be better to forgo self-reliance and fork over some cash and let the other guy take the risk. We needed repairs.

It turned out of course, that the repairs needed were even greater than we anticipated, mostly I installed the skylights without enough shingles around them. Evidently, shingles should need to go up all the way over the flashing. A small mistake that added $800 to the cost.

There are perils to do-it-yourself. I like being self-reliant as much as possible. I love projects and building things. And, as I discussed with Kathy as a means of lessening the guilt and dissonance, the overall cost of the attic build out, instead of being 25% of the professional cost, is now 30%. I gained skill and knowledge. It just took 3 years to complete.

Sweet Potato Time

I've never grown sweet potatoes before. Back in June, I saw a 9-pack at Lowe's and thought, "what the heck!" The 9-pack quickly became an 8-pack as one didn't have the wherewithall to survive.

I honestly didn't know what to expect or how to grow them or what conditions they liked. With "potato" in the name, I presumed they would grow like potatoes. Unlike potatoes, they sent out long vines, but that was just something new to note. I didn't know if the tubers would form from the original plant or if they would form along the vine. I just kept them watered and let them go.

When it froze last week, the vines died (just like the vines on the volunteer potatoes that had come up where I had left an unseen potato behind when I harvested last June).

So, last night I harvested. I got a little less than 20 pounds from the eight plants. They emerged in all sorts of sizes, shapes and colors. While most were the pink I associate with sweet potatoes, there were some that had very dark skin. I'm wondering if I left them in the ground too long or if they have some sort of blight. (After posting this the first time, I read up on it and think I have scurf.) It will be something to ask my seasoned friends in the future.

Most of the tubers were too small to have qualified for the grocery store. I was most entertained by a few that seemed to have wanted to wiggle underground.

The varied sizes make me wonder what cooking them will be like. I guess I will find out soon. Next year, I will probably do the same thing; wait until I harvest the regular potatoes before I plant them, although I might do better planting a little earlier. I presume they can be grown just like regular potatoes from seeds.

Investments October 2009

So, money isn't everything, but the goal is to have sufficient for your need. There are two problems. First is defining what qualifies as having sufficient for whatever needs you think you have. Second is figuring out how to get a sufficient amount in a moral way. Tackling the first problem has been a bugaboo for all of human history. Fortunately, my concern is not the rest of humanity, just me.

The last 10 years of my mother's life, whenever I would visit, she would tell me the same story. It went something like, "One day Daddy came home. He said, 'I just paid of the last installment on the china dishes. Make me a promise that we will never go in debt again.'" And then she would give me the same mini lecture about staying out of debt and living within our means. I'm not really sure why she felt strongly about it, except for the fact that we have always had debt -- the house, a car (not now), and credit cards.

But we have always had assets, too. One of the traits I've had since I was small was saving. My Aunt Eva would take me with her on vacations and learned to give me two dollars if she wanted me to actually buy a souvenir because I would save one if that's all she gave me. I kept a homemade ledger of the money I earned as a pre-teen and teenager mowing lawns in the summer and shoveling walks in the winter. By today's standards, my income was minimal.

I opened my own bank account at age 11 or 12, going to a neighborhood bank with my meager savings (I kept them for a long time in a pill bottle). This was a different bank than the one my step-dad worked at. When I worked during the summer in my college years, I saved nearly all of it. I even saved $25 a month as a starving graduate student.

Then, in 1984 when we were still relatively young and with three children under the age of two and needing all the money we could gather just to keep our small family fed, I got an offer for a promotion to a tenure-line faculty position at the University of Southern California. I initially turned in down. Dean Biles had me in his office asking me why I didn't want it. I had three reasons. I would have to teach (which I am not good at), I would have to serve on committees (which would take me away from research), and no raise had been offered. So, in my mind, I was getting more work for no more pay. We negotiated a raise and I took the position. He also gave me advice about joining the faculty retirement plan. USC gave a liberal match (9%). I gave half of the raise (5%) as my pre-tax contribution and I was off to saving and investing again. I continued the practice when we moved to Bowman Gray School of Medicine and when I left Bowman Gray to start my own company.

How much do I need? I'm not sure. My goal isn't to be wealthy. My goal is to simply have sufficient for some as yet undefined needs. But I can imagine what some of those needs will be based on what they seem to have been in the past. They have nearly always been unexpected (mostly because I haven't been smart enough to anticipate them and because they are defined at least as much by my family and their needs as my own). My needs are things like the garden and greenhouse; not expensive, but not cheap, especially when you are wanting money that is more urgently needed elsewhere. So, instead of trying to figure out my needs, I have simply tried to follow a pattern of regular additions to my retirement accounts and then wise investing after that.

Up until October 2008, when I should have pulled the money invested in mutual funds out -- like everyone else -- I had done well; up 22% on average per year over a 14 year period. I lost 40% in the crash, but, as I reminded myself at the end, I still had sufficient for my needs.

I started investing again in March of this year (2009). The funds I picked have done well since then, although I was cautious and kept more money out of play than I put into play. Hindsight is wonderful, but not practical. There are no guarantees about the future. I anticipated the crash before it happened, but didn't act. Wise investing has to be a long term process.

I still think I have sufficient for my needs, however now, because I am past that magic age of 59 1/2, I am aware that the government takes a large portion of retirement accounts when they are withdrawn. So, ultimately, I may not have sufficient for my needs and the needs of my family.

There are economic perils ahead. The dollar is going to lose value. Markets may yet crash again. Money isn't everything, but having sufficient to help you provide for your needs is a basic issue that occupies at least 10 minutes of my life every week.

Too Much, Not Enough

I had planned today to have a focus on harvesting carrots. We have been picking them to use in meals the last couple of weeks and I have had the feeling that it was time to get them up before they started splitting. It's just that today turned into a day of too much and not enough. Too many things to do, not enough time to do them.

I started off well enough. I went to Lowe's and got some duct tape to complete the cold frame covers (the inside edges are formed by folding over extra plastic that will gather water if they aren't sealed). I also got some supplies to redo our main floor bathroom (wallpaper, a faucet, a light fixture). I figured I would be able to get it all done. I should have known from the beginning, you cannot do three tasks on one Saturday.

I got the first task done in 10 minutes. I used blue duct tape to match the tape used to set the grommets and the cold frame cover was done.

I went out and picked carrots, getting a little fewer than half into the bucket before it started to rain. It was still only 9:30. I was feeling pretty good.

I sorted the carrots into six piles. There are the ones with two legs. They get their own group to hang with. I don't know what I am going to do with them. Then there were the split ones. There were only about 8 of those. They are in a place of shame next to the toaster. Then there were the very large, the moderately large (mostly slender), the very slender, those of overall moderate size, and then the small. Kathy and I started with the small ones, vacuum packing them with the FoodSaver 2440.

I disconnected the light fixture, the old faucet and the sink from the wall. Then I hit my snag. One of the nuts that held the faucet to the sink came of without a hitch. But the second and third nuts were corroded. I tried to get them off, sprayed them with liquid wrench, but they wouldn't budge. I had Jeff try. No luck. I got a different penetrating spray. No luck. I had Bobby Dean come over with a chisel. Bad luck or good luck depending on your point of view. The pounding didn't loosen the nuts and cracked the porcelain sink.

After that, I retreated back to the bathroom and primed the walls while Kathy thought. Then I went outside and picked the rest of the carrots while Kathy searched for a solution. The good luck part of breaking the old sink was that she really didn't like a pedestal sink anyway. It was not sufficient for her needs, I think.

We ended up buying a vanity to replace the former. She found a deal. The new one will hide the floor boards that have been discolored from some ancient water leak and has a granite top. Well below market price because it was sold through a furniture discount place where we have bought things before.

By then, it was 5:30. That's much too late to work on plumbing or wallpaper. So I retreated to storing more carrots. I am leaving the two legged ones as is for a while. I worked up from smallest to all but the largest, packaging them for storage appropriately. The small ones were packaged for the refrigerator and kept with their skins and their trimmed tops (half an inch of green). The long slender ones were peeled, lost their tops, and were blanched and frozen. The moderately large ones were peeled and cut into thirds (about two inch pieces), blanched and frozen. I haven't done the large ones yet, but the plan is to peel them and then use the Cuisine Art to cut them into little round pieces and freeze them.

I have done a rough calculation based on how much we have stored. We don't have enough carrots to last a full year. I planted a 4' x 8' section of a raised bed. It produced about 30 pounds of carrots; 25 pounds picked today and 5 pounds picked before today. We don't eat carrots everyday, but even eating them once a week, that is not enough for our family. Next year, I will need to expand the planting to a full 4' x 12' bed. Then we should have sufficient for our need.

In the middle of this, though, there was yet another distraction. Somehow, the condensation drain line for the air conditioner in the attic broke. Two pieces separated. The result has been that the corner of the ceiling in our bedroom has been damp. Well, damp turned into dripping wet. So, I needed to return yet again to the store and get some PVC glue. I have a ceiling to patch sometime in the future.

And I didn't get to the Anaheim peppers I had picked earlier in the week.

Bee's Last Supper

It was a warm day and tomorrow and Saturday it is supposed to rain. I have already fed all my hives twice, except for the hive at Clarence Brown's. Today after work, I ate a quick bite and then Kathy and I headed over to Clarence's. My job was doing the feeding. Her job was taking photos.

The bees at Clarence's place have always been very gentle, so I didn't bother putting on my veil or gloves. I didn't even use the smoker.

This hive was one that was split from my first hive in April. The hive had grown too large and was about to swarm. It was my first experience at splitting. Both hives ended up being a little weaker than I would like, but I guess that's what happens when you do a split. I moved the hive to Clarence's place in June.

What is interesting about this hive is that there have always been other critters inside. Today, on top of the inner cover there were cockroaches and a spider. This hive has always had small hive beetles, too. I'm not sure how much these other bugs weaken the hive. Clarence reported during the summer that they were very busy. They did store some honey, but not enough to make it through the winter.

To feed them, I used some sugar from food storage. The label said 1999. It had lumped together. I chopped it apart with a knife. Probably not the sugar we would eat, but the bees don't seem to mind at all. A gallon of sugar to a half gallon of water, heated, not boiled, until it formed a syrup. The yellow box is a top feeder. It has two wells that can contain the syrup and each has a wooden float that the bees can walk on so they don't drown.

The bees take the syrup into the hive and make it into honey. The last I checked they had some unfilled comb in the blue box, but they may have to make some more on some of the frames where they hadn't drawn comb yet. (The white box is the brood box where the queen lays eggs.)

I hope it holds them. There won't be many foraging days left and they'll be stuck in the hive until spring. I think they should have sufficient for their need now.

A Persimmon

Yes, a persimmon. Just one!

My fruit growing skills are not yet developed. Several years ago, I started planting fruit trees. I planted 9 heirloom apples from a supplier in the North Carolina mountains. Since then I have planted 3 pear trees, 4 pecans (2 died, but 1 of those sent out a new shoot from the root), 6 peaches, 4 trees that I thought were sour cherry (but probably are not according to Clarence Brown), 2 plums, and 2 apricots (both died but the roots have sent out new shoots). I think one of the apples has since died. It bloomed this year, but the leaves fell off prematurely. And then there is the single persimmon tree, that I planted this year and didn't expect anything from but ended up with a single, small persimmon.

Three of the apple trees actually produced fruit. However, I didn't harvest any. One got too heavy with fruit and a branch broke off in the wind. One (the one that lost its leaves) had fruit, but I didn't get any before it gave up the ghost. The last one actually produced nice sized fruit, but the birds and bugs got to them before I did. I'm not a successful fruit grower yet, except my small persimmon.

This reminds me of a Japanese tongue twister. Tonari no kyaku wa youku kaki kuu kyaku da. The customer next to me eats a lot of persimmons.

Of course, I thought it was ready to pick, so it now sits in the kitchen. But Kathy informed me that she had just talked to a friend today who has a large persimmon tree. Evidently, you aren't supposed to harvest persimmons until they fall from the tree. I actually had to tug pretty hard to get this one to come off. I don't think it is ripe.

One persimmon and I harvested it incorrectly!

A garden is tended by a gardener. What do you call someone who tends and orchard?

A Day for Thinking

Activities: It only got down to 34 over night (33 just before the sun came up). This means there was no critical test of the cold frame I installed last night. On the other hand, its only purpose is not to defer freezing, but also to provide a little extra warmth. The bigger test therefore is to see whether or not thnigs under its cover start to thrive a bit better.

I did go out to just look this morning. The covered cold frame looks fine. I picked up a handful of ripe Marino (Roma) tomatoes. I'm not sure exactly what to do with these. I don't seem to get enough at any given time to actually process into paste.

The day I started the blog, I went to the Google blog search site and searched for "garden." The first entry that popped up was a note that the blogger was sad because it was the end of the season and they had just put the garden under for the year. I was just starting something up in the garden. Why put your garden under just because the summer growing season is over? I remember I used to think that way. I no longer do. I eat all year. But, I am also the beneficiary of having read Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest. As I drive around my area, there are many flat ground vegetable gardeners who have, indeed, put their gardens under. There are a few who raise broccoli, cabbage. collards, cauliflower, and turnip greens. The fall/winter garden can provide a variety of foods. The cold frame is key.

Thinking: Tuesday evenings I spend at the Greensboro Family History Center. I have too little time between work and my assignment to spend time in the garden. So, its a time I can use to think.

The topic "sufficient for our need" was selected as a theme for my blog quite on purpose. It's a concept that I have been thinking about for a long time. The first time I heard the term, it was used in response to a question about money. And, to be honest, money seems to be important to people, especially some people. The need for money, the love of money, the value of money are all old topics. Nothing new there. And there are a lot of commentaries and quips about the importance of money. There are quotes like, You can never be too rich or too thin. and Money isn't the most important thing in the world, but it's ahead of whatever is in second place. Comments like these, are often made in defense of having wealth or a desire to have more than you've got. And, from the outset, there is no use arguing about it. Especially in a time of recession, telling people that money isn't important would seem to be total folly.

But there is a difference between poverty and wealth and having sufficient for your needs. When you are wealthy, by definition, you have more than you need. When you are poor, again by definition, you have less than you need. And it's not necessarily being cursed with poverty or blessed by wealth that is the issue I think about. In many ways, it would appear that people not satisfied with having sufficient for their needs are those who have put the rest of us in dire straits.

While not for everyone, I find that wanting no more than I need and being satisfied when I have sufficient for my needs is a key to well being and happiness.

I got a call at work today from Chad Werch. We talked about the business of research. At one point, he asked how I was doing. My response was, "We have sufficient for our needs." When I said it, it actually surprised me. It's a different response, isn't it, than focusing on whether sales or income is up or down from the previous year? I actually did look at our income and bank accounts at work today. I'm very glad that we have money in the bank and I know from past experience that being in debt would bother me terribly. But in fact, based on what I saw, we have sufficient for our needs. For the moment, we may actually have a little more than that, but life is self-correcting and there won't be a surplus for long.

So, whether it's money, or food, or friends, or housing, I think the key is hoping and striving to have sufficiency.

Knowing what that is, is not necessarily easy. Last night I went with Jenna to Best Buy. She has her allowance and wanted something. She ended up not finding what she was looking for and I was proud of her that she didn't spend her allowance foolishly. However, she did make me walk with her over to the cell phone aisle where she drooled over a couple of cell phones that her friends have. Does an 11 year old need a new cell phone, or is the one she currently has that was a hand-me-down sufficient for her needs? We just looked, but I worry about how to teach her, without making her resent it, to recognize what her needs are and what will constitute sufficiency.

First Frost

I went to bed last night a bit worried about frost. I haven't created the cold frame covers yet and a frost was predicted. Sure enough, the outside thermometer (Oregon Scientific) read 29 when I got up this morning. It was at its over-night low. After I walked the dogs and ate breakfast, I walked out to see whether there was frost or not. There was frost on everything. However, after my morning shower, I returned and found that the leaves on all the plants had apparently recovered -- even the lettuce, which is the first to wilt in my experience. There is now an urgency to get the covers made because a frost is expected again tonight.

I plan to follow the method of creating covers I previously experimented with, using sheets of 6 ml polyurethane sheeting, fit to the size of the raised bed (plus the frame) and tied down with short bungee cords. I went to Lowe's at lunch to get the materials. It occurred to me when I was buying the sheeting and bungee cords that self-sufficiency isn't cheap. The cost of the frames wasn't great -- the plywood was under $10 before taxes and the nuts, bolts, and washers was about the same, and that for the two frames I built -- but things add up.


The polyurethane went for $59 for a 10' x 100' roll. That will make 5 covers. Then there's the grommets, etc. to put the bungee cords through and the bungee cords. Buying lettuce, turnips, broccoli, etc. at the store would be cheaper. But I figure I can use the frames and the covers for years to come and, should hard times or inflation come, an investment now that makes us more self-sufficient and allows me to gain skill at growing things in cold weather is a reasonable trade off. If I didn't have the money, it would be different, but there may also be cheaper ways to accomplish what I am after. Besides, last night, we had potatoes, onions, and carrots all from the garden; fresh or frozen veggies from close to home.

Eric Reese helped me complete the first cover. Time is another cost. It took the two of us about an hour to measure it, cut it to size, and put the grommets in. However, in the end, it seemed to fit nicely.

An end note: the frost did the potato and sweet potato plants in. I'll have to look under ground when I get a chance to see what they produced.

Starting Off

What I think about a lot is the concept of having sufficient for our needs. It's an interesting concept that has led me to think about the economy, self-sufficiency, and what I value in life. It also has some practical aspects that I think about every day. So, why not have this the topic of my blog.

I think what prompted me to start this blog was a couple of things. First, I have been gardening ever since we bought our first house back in 1982. I think about it a lot, but haven't documented very much. From a practical stand point, I can use the blog to keep track of what I do in the garden and with the bees.

For instance, today I harvested about two dozen carrots. They were pretty nice looking for the most part. I peeled, cut, vacuum sealed and froze them. The point I should remember is that some of them had started to split.

Second, yesterday I finished building two frames that will be turned into cold frames when I attach plastic. I have raised beds -- six 4 x 12 boxes. The cold frames will allow me to keep gardening through the winter. But the story of building the frames is something I should document. (Here it is.) Last week, Jared, my oldest, came home for a few days during fall break. I like to have Jared as a helper, because he joins in and also questions what I am doing and why I am doing it. I had been dreaming about how to replace my old cold frame (made of PVC) for some time. I finally decided on a thin plywood cut into 2" strips and bent over the raised bed. We went to Lowes to get some, but didn't take the trailer; we just tied it to the roof of the Volvo station wagon. We got a few miles successfully, then I must have sped up past the point of catastrophe and, wham! it broke in two and lay behind us on the road. We drove home without it. But then he questioned the basis of how to make it, thinking that what I had planned wouldn't work because the plywood would just break. I showed him what I had planned on a similar piece of paneling (that worked perfectly). So, I went back and got the plywood off the road. We changed the plan a little, and yesterday, with the help of Jeff and Kathy, I installed frames on two of the raised beds.

What I like about these frames is actually two things. One is that there is an artistic element of symmetry and balance to a half-circle. The other is that they are very functional. Rain will run off. (It used to gather on my flat frame.) The sides are relatively free from obstruction. (The flat one had a cross member that ran where you wanted to reach.)

It's a good thing I did this -- build the frames, that is -- because it got down to 33 last night based on the outdoor thermometer. I will need to cover the cauliflower, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and turnips very soon.