Turn Blogs Into Audio Books

I awoke today to snow, yes it was snowing big fat flakes, and not just a few, it was a mini-blizzard I couldn't see the mountains across the road! Fortunately it only went down to 36 F, it didn't freeze, so I think my tomatoes will be OK. Now it's sunny and  54 F, and you'd never know it ever snowed today.

I also started my tobacco seeds, actually did this about a week ago, right now they are about an inch tall, I started them in plastic drinking cups, I have been saving them for over a year just for this purpose. I cleaned the cups with bleach water to sanitize them, then poked a hole in the bottom of each one. The tobacco seeds are tiny, very very tiny! What I did was I folded a white piece of paper in half, creased it then unfolded it. I tapped out as few seeds as possible onto the paper, then tapped them a few at a time into each cup. I had already moistened the soil before packing them into the cups, I found it much easier that way, the first ones I did, I put the dirt in dry, then tried to water it, the dirt would not absorb the water, so I put the dirt into a large bowl, added water and stirred it like a cake batter until the dirt was evenly moist, not soaking wet, then I packed it into the cups.

I put a few seeds in each cup of soil, then I used a spray bottle to make sure the soil and seeds were moist. I used plastic wrap to cover the cups to keep the soil (and seeds) moist. It only took a few days for the seeds to sprout. They are a bit leggy because I didn't have them close enough to the window, I was afraid they would bake in the sun. Now I have them pushed up all the way to the window to get full sunlight. I mist them several times a day to keep the soil moist. I can't wait to get them outside and in the ground. I have about 34 cups, most of them have at least 2 plants growing, some have 3 or 4. I'll try to take the extra plants and transplant them into their own containers later.

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OK, this part has nothing to do with living off grid, but I find it interesting and fun to do. I enjoy learning, reading books, but I don't have the time to do much real reading any more. When the sun is shining and it's light enough to read, I have other things to do, when it gets dark and I'm at home with the time to read, it's often too dark inside the skycastle to read, I don't want to waste power by having higher wattage lights on just to read.

I love listening to audio books, any time you see me with my MP3 player, I am listening to an audio book, not music. I solved the problem of not being able to read when I want. I get a digital copy of the book (or any other reading material I wish to listen to). I create a new blog, then I copy each chapter to the blog, this is easily done with copy and paste. One thing, you will want to copy your book in reverse, starting with the last chapter and work your way backwards (by chapter) through the book, the reason being is Blogger puts each new post first, so if you start with chapter one and work your way through all the chapters in order, then the last chapter would be the first post. Hope that makes sense. You can also create the chapters in order, then go back and change the date and time to make the chapters go in reverse order so that they appear in the correct order on the blog.

Be sure to respect copyright, don't make this available to the public at large, I always go in on Blogger and make sure that it doesn't show up on my blog list. I also tell it to not show up in search engines and not show in Blogger lists. But do not make it a private blog, otherwise the next step will not work.

Once the entire book (or other text) is copied to your new blog, this next step is optional, but I go ahead and do it. Go through each chapter, just scan through, I remove chapter numbers and anything else that will not work well as spoken word, anything that you would not normally read aloud when reading, I remove, I also go through and any sentences I see that do not have punctuation at the end, I add a comma or a period, the reason is when this is read by the computer, any sentences with no punctuation will be read with no pause at the end, it will treat it as one continuous sentence with the following sentence. For example:

Test Sentence
Often you will see a title with no punctuation, the computer will read the title and the following sentence as if it were one sentence with no pause.

I would do this:

Test Sentence,
Often you will see a title with no punctuation, the computer will read the title and the following sentence as if it were one sentence with no pause.

I added a comma to the title, that way when it's read by the computer, there will be a pause after the title. Also anything in brackets ( ) or anything with ... will be read as a whole sentence with the next sentence with no pause, I just remove ... and replace with one period, and I add a comma after a closing bracket, especially if this comes at the end of a sentence. Often lists of things will not have any punctuation, I just add a comma after each one.

A list of numbers,
one,
two,
three,
four,
five,

Also, anything that has a dash - in it, I remove the dash, when you read aloud, you don't usually read the dash aloud:
one-two
is read normally "one to two", the computer would say "one dash two" which is incorrect, so in that case, I would replace the dash with the word "to" or I just remove it all together, just depends on how it would be read aloud. If it's a hyphenated word, then leave the dash.

Now, you will want to go to Odiogo.com, sign up with your new blog, this is a free service, it reads your blog out loud, after you are set up, it takes a few minutes for them to finish and make the MP3 available, then you can go in and download the MP3 versions of your book making it an audiobook. The voice is a computer voice, and it's not perfect, it will mispronounce words from time to time, but all in all, it works pretty good, especially for something that is free. You can have as many as you want. I just create a new blog for each one I want to do. Be sure to download your MP3s as soon as possible after creating them, I have found that for some reason, especially if the blog is not active, the MP3s of your blog (on line) will not be there, they will stop working, so go ahead and download them within a few days, the same day is best.

Download the MP3s, put them on your MP3 player and listen.





All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

Pressure Cooker and Garden Friends

Woohoo! PB finally found it! Our pressure cooker, I've wanted to cook in our pressure cooker for quite some time now. The rubber parts are still in good shape, it holds pressure, I tested it last night with plain water, it came up to pressure and made the rocker rock.

I have been cooking in a friend's pressure cooker, mainly cooking pinto beans, I also made chili and chicken soup. Her pressure cooker is a 4 quart size, it's barely big enough to cook in, I have to be very careful when making beans not to overfill the pot, I can cook a half a bag of beans, which is fine for one person. I can put in 2 chicken leg and thigh portions but not much more. I was thrilled to find out that ours is a 6 quart size, it's big enough to cook a whole chicken if I want to, plus all the fixens that go with it. PB had 5 teeth pulled a few weeks ago, so I have to make foods that he can easily chew, so this will come in very handy. The other nice thing about using a pressure cooker is it cooks so fast, it uses much less fuel to cook, pinto beans normally take 4-8 hours (or longer) to cook, it's basically an all day affair, but with the pressure cooker, it takes about 10 minutes, you start timing once it comes to pressure, but that's still better than hours and hours!

I have a half of a package of pinto beans soaking, I'll cook those for dinner tonight. I would like to try dehydrating the cooked beans, I should be able to do it, I just need to make a dehydrator.

We started working on the garden a couple of days ago. We removed the last of the dead plants from last year, then using a shovel, we turned the dirt, added some ash from the woodstove, our soil tends to be on the acid side because of all the pine trees and the oak trees, we have added lots of mulch from under these trees to amend the soil, so I figured the wood ash would be good. I also sprinkled in a whole jar of water crystals, these will soak up water and turn into a gel, it will hold water longer and be good for the plants, all of this was dug in well. The only plants left from last year are the carrots and asparagus.

A friend of ours gave us a whole bus tub full of ever bearing strawberry plants. These came from another gardener out here who was thinning out his strawberry patch, we were gifted with some of these. We planted them in one corner of the garden, they look so good, some of the plants already have blooms, I can't wait to eat my first strawberry! Thanks LL and DL! We have really good friends out here.

I think this year we are not going to plant as many different kinds of plants, the garden just isn't big enough to plant so many, so we will pick out a few that we really like and plant lots of them. I know we will have black seeded simpson lettuce, that grows very well here and we love eating it. We also love cherry tomatoes, so those will definitely go out there. Perhaps some spinach, I'll grow a few radish plants, but not for the roots, I love the seed pods, they are fleshy and have a mild radish flavor. I have to sneak in some peas somewhere, though PB says he doesn't like them, I suspect he hasn't eaten fresh peas, they have such a different (and better) flavor than canned or even frozen.

I wish I could grow okra, but after 2 years of trying, I have decided that the old timers out here are right, they just don't like the altitude, they grow knee high at best and put out a few straggly okra pods. These are the same variety that grow so tall by the end of summer that you need a step ladder to harvest them, that is true where I used to live, not here, so I guess, reluctantly, I'll give up on growing okra.

I also want, and want so bad, to grow blueberries, I hope the nursery in town still has some next time I get out there, I know they will grow well here, with the acid soil. I'll have to protect them from the munching hoards of deer and javelina, don't know about the birds yet, might have to throw a net over them, I'll find out for sure.

So far I have only 3 pests that I know of, the first is grubs, while digging up the garden, we found dozen and dozens of them, I squished as many of them as I could find, I suppose I'll have to buy something from the store next time I'm in town, can't have them chewing on the roots of my plants. The other pest is ants, they aren't such a problem themselves, but they bring in aphids so I need to keep them out as much as possible. The third and biggest (figuratively and literally) are the grasshoppers. They have already started showing up, right now they are small, a half inch to an inch, but once they find a food source, they grow into monsters that don't seem to be bothered by anything I put out to kill or discourage them. Last year, the garden was decimated by grasshoppers, if I had done something about it when I first saw them, I might have been able to save the garden, but by the time I actually tried to do something about it, it was too late. This year I will hit them fast and hard, I'll not give them a chance to grow into garden chomping monsters.

The other thing I will grow is tobacco, as far as I know there are very few pests to bother tobacco, the animals shouldn't bother them so I'll plant them outside of the garden. I'll be starting the seeds inside this weekend. I might try direct sowing a couple of plants just to see how they do, hopefully I can direct sow them, but I have read that it's best to start them inside, they start slowly but once they sprout and get a few inches tall (or more), they are quite hardy after that and can go outside with no problems.

If you are interested in growing your own tobacco, read my review of a great tobacco book
I personally recommend this one! Click here for the review now!
and go here to get it
Grow Your Own Tobacco-Grow-Roll-Smoke!


All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.


Wretha,
properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader),


Thanks for visiting!

Time To Grow Tobacco - Spring Is Here

Spring is here, while the nights are still rather on the cold side, 24 degrees F last night, the days are warming up nicely, it's a lovely 71 degrees F with a slight breeze and a high, thin overcast.

Click here to see all the pictures I took today.

The garden is calling, well OK, it's been calling all winter for some TLC, it's high time to get out there and get it ready for some spring planting.

I am about to start my tobacco seeds, I'm not worried about planting them in the protection of the garden, I don't think anything will mess with them after the first nibble. I saw a show on one of the history or nature channels that showed tribes of people living in high mountains, the only thing that they could grow well was potatoes and tobacco. They had to protect the potato plants from the pigs that ran around, they had lots of pigs. They only had to protect the potatoes, the pigs wouldn't touch the tobacco, I figure if pigs wouldn't eat it, then nothing else will either.

I'll start the tobacco seeds in plastic cups, one or two seeds per cup. I know the tobacco plants will grow well here, I have a neighbor up the road who grew some test plants last summer and they did very well.

I received a disturbing email a couple of days ago, it seems that TPTB, in their infinite wisdom have been trying their best to make it illegal to purchase cigarettes through the mail, this will hurt the Native Americans who raise tobacco and sell cigarettes, most of their business is done through the mail. This will make it impossible to get inexpensive cigarettes, and will ultimately hurt the poor folks of this country, they/we are the ones who will have to pay higher costs at the register. Apparently all this bill needs now is to be signed into law by our prez. Here is a copy of the email I received:

On March 17, 2010, S. 1147, The PACT Act, the bill designed by the Congress to prevent tobacco companies from sending low cost cigarettes through the mail, passed.  Now that it has been passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives all the bill needs is a signature by President Obama before it becomes law. 

We urge all of our customers to contact President Obama today and ask him to veto the bill.  Not only will this bill be an excessive hardship on people with fixed incomes, it will also devastate Native American communities nationwide.  Many of these Native American communities are in remote locations.  Without the ability to get their products to market via the United States Post Office, they will have no opportunity to earn an income.  Does the government really want to return to the days of massive Native American poverty?

Please call and write President Obama today. Please forward this email to everyone you know and ask them to call too.

Let the President know that you are against this bill and all other bills that encroach on the freedom and liberties of Americans.

You can call or write to the President at:

Phone Numbers:

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

Mailing Address:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

TTY/TDD:

Comments: 202-456-6213
Visitors Office: 202-456-2121

If you really feel strongly about this issue, please call more than once.  

We thank you for your support!

Sincerely,

Black Hawk Tobacco, Inc.

So now more than ever, if you are a smoker, you should really consider growing your own tobacco, and processing it into your own smokes. If you aren't a smoker, then you shouldn't start, but for those who are addicted, or just plain enjoy it and don't like the gov reaching into every little part of your life, strike back, grow your own tobacco and roll your own smokes. Click here for the of a great book to teach you how to grow your own tobacco and how to process them into cigarettes.

Click here to go directly to Grow Your Own Tobacco-Grow-Roll-Smoke site!

Get your seeds from this guy. tell him Wretha sent you. :)






.All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.


Wretha,
properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader),


Thanks for visiting!



Disclaimer-
This article is promoting a book that I believe is a great book (otherwise I would not promote it), if any sales occur through the links on this article, I will make a small commission. Thank you for your support, all support goes toward the upkeep of this blog and life.

Grow Your Own Tobacco – Book Review

A while back, I had some trouble with the government about buying cigarettes from outside the country (USA), it is perfectly legal to order cigarettes for import into the USA for personal use. I assure you that the cigarettes I ordered WERE for personal use, I did not trade, sell, barter or in any other way distribute these cigarettes. After receiving a threatening letter from the Dept of Homeland Security, a very scary thing to find in your mailbox, especially for a law abiding citizen! I decided that I needed to find a better way to get smokes without having to pay an arm and a leg, or having the threat of the government over my head. I found an alternative way, it’s legal and it should be doable by nearly anyone.
Another note of interest, in the USA, the government is trying to make it illegal to buy cigarettes through the mail, so no matter what your source, whether you are buying overseas or buying domestically or from Native American reservations, if the powers that be have their way, this way of buying cigarettes is about to become illegal. So what can you do about this?

You can grow your own tobacco plants. I immediately started a search for information on how to grow your own, as well as how to process it to make a smokable product. It turns  out that there are not many sources with good info readily available on the internet. Fortunately I was able to find this source, it not only teaches you how to grow your own tobacco plants, but how and when to harvest, how to dry and cure your tobacco, and much, much more. Here is my review on this book. I hope to have a follow up interview with the author, when I have it, I’ll post a part 2 to this article. The link to the book can be found at the bottom of this article.


Growing Tobacco in the Home Garden
The Little Handbook
Review
As a smoker, you go out, you buy a carton or pack of cigarettes, (after you get over the sticker shock!), you open the cellophane, tear off the foil, you tap out a cigarette, you put it to your lips, you light it and inhale deeply. You fill your lungs with smoke and it’s good… or is it? What are you getting besides the nicotine your body craves? There is a whole laundry list of chemicals and toxins that you are also inhaling, what’s worse, these chemicals and toxins are not naturally found in the tobacco, these things are ADDED to the cigarettes by the cigarette companies. Why is that?

What if there was a better way? If you grow a vegetable garden or grow plants in containers, then you are already half way to a better and healthier way to smoke tobacco.  If you have been following my cigarette saga, then you already know the troubles I have had with the government about buying cigarettes overseas, so in an attempt to work around the problems, I investigated growing my own tobacco. It turns out that it is perfectly legal to grow your own as long as you are not selling, trading or bartering with the tobacco.

I found a seller on eBay who sells tobacco seeds and promptly ordered a set of 3 different types. I still didn’t know how to grow tobacco, how difficult (or easy) is it to grow? What are the best conditions to grow tobacco? How long do you allow it to grow, when do you harvest it? What do you do after that?

It turns out that the tobacco plant is fairly easy to grow, it is related to tomatoes, peppers and potatoes, it’s in the nightshade family, if your local conditions permit you to grow these plants, then you should be able to grow tobacco as well. But there are some steps that need to be taken to grow the best plants and know when to harvest them, and most importantly, to know how to dry and cure the leaves to get the most out of your tobacco plants.

I searched the internet and I found only one source that gives you step by step information on growing tobacco, everything from where to get your tobacco seeds, how to choose the varieties of tobacco plants to best suit what you want in a smoke and your growing zone, how to get the seeds started, how to transplant them, how to care for the plants (fertilizing, pest control…), when and how to harvest the leaves, how to dry and cure the leaves for the best quality in the finished tobacco.

This information is not a big dark secret, nor is it impossible to do, the hard part is just FINDING the information, the big cigarette companies don’t want you to know how this works. They have huge farms with proprietary processes, not to mention all the chemicals and garbage they add to the tobacco. Wouldn’t it just be better to grow tobacco in your own backyard or on your patio? Yes, you can grow tobacco in containers. It is a pretty, tropical plant with showy flowers and large leaves; many people grow it for purely decorative reasons. Another reason besides smoking to grow your own tobacco, it is used for natural, organic insect repellent in gardening.

I found a great illustrated eBook that explains all you need to know about growing your own tobacco plants.

Where to get your seeds
How  to start your tobacco plants
How to transplant them
The best conditions for them to grow
How and when to fertilize
Pest control
How and when to harvest the leaves
How, when and IF to prune
How to dry and cure the leaves for the best flavor
You will learn how to choose from the different varieties of tobacco
You will learn about the different blends of tobacco for flavor
What to do differently if you want to harvest the seeds for next year’s plants
How to troubleshoot common problems and issues

One question that many people ask is how many cigarettes or cartons worth of cigarettes will I get from one plant? This is a good question to ask as you will want to determine how many plants you need to grow to accommodate your personal smoking needs. You will learn the answer to this all important question within this eBook.

In this eBook you will find (table of contents)

1. Introduction to Tobacco
2. Different Types of Tobacco
3. Choosing Good Tobacco Seeds
4. Germinating Tobacco Seeds
5. Soil Types for Growing Tobacco
6. Planting Tobacco
7. Maintenance and Fertilization
8. Harvesting Tobacco
9. Drying and Curing Tobacco
10. Different Tobacco Uses
11. Interesting Facts about Tobacco

Thanks so much to Benjamin for sharing this invaluable information with us, I have searched high and low for the info contained in this eBook and so far, this is the only place where I have everything needed to grow your own tobacco plants and everything else involved in the process. With this information, you will save a lot of money by growing your own tobacco, not to mention the fact that the tobacco you grow is free of additives.

Disclaimer
I do not condone smoking or tobacco use in any form, if you are not a smoker or tobacco user, DO NOT START! I can’t emphasize that enough, there is no such thing as healthy tobacco use. If you are already a smoker or tobacco user, of legal age, then please consider growing your own, it is “healthier” for you in the fact that it will not contain additives or extra chemicals, you KNOW what is in the tobacco that you grow yourself.

I almost forgot to add, the author of this book is also including a free book on homebrewing your own alcohol, it’s an infomative book all about the ins and outs of homebrewing.
If you smoke cigarettes, you need the information in this book.

Click here to get your copy of this informative book.


Wretha

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