We had bumper crops in Citrus this year as previously explained. We eat our Citrus daily and juice it for breakfast and give it away, but we still had too much.

One of our sons who is an excellent cook has a Sorbet/Ice cream maker but some of us never really liked a lot of the recipes (especially when he had a vegan girlfriend). But, we got to talking one night about the old ice cream bars which were orange Popsicles with vanilla ice cream inside. With this idea, which wasn’t new at all, we thought we could juice the Citrus use a Sorbet recipe but then add some cream to make it a sherbet and see how it turned out.

First, we did Orange, and it was exquisite.

Orange Sherbet Recipe:
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
Boil both and let cool down in frig
2 cups fresh squeezed orange juice (about 6 oranges)
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1/2 cup cream
Combine everything and chill
Add to Ice Cream Maker per manufacturer’s instructions

Then, we did Lemon, it was superior, but probably needs more cream and/or less zest as the almost brilliant taste of the fresh fruit is powerful.

Lemon Sherbet Recipe:
1 cup water
1 cup sugar (we are arguing whether we need more)
Boil both and let cool down in frig
1 cups fresh squeezed orange juice (about 4 lemons)
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 cup cream (there is a vote for another 1/4 cup)
Combine everything and chill
Add to Ice Cream Maker per manufacturer’s instructions

Third was the real surprise. We always have a massive excess of excellent Grapefruit. Some of us have come to prefer it for morning juice versus the Oranges which are just too sweet. In the Sherbet, it takes one by surprise and then takes over. It was just excellent. A real keeper.

Grapefruit Sherbet Recipe:
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
Boil both and let cool down in frig
2 cups fresh squeezed grapefruit juice (about 4 grapefruits)
(no zest)
1/2 cup cream
Combine everything and chill
Add to Ice Cream Maker per manufacturer’s instructions

The net of all these activities is that store bought ice cream just sort of went away. Though store bought cheap ice cream is cheap, another $2 a week went away in exchange for the cream and a wonderful home grown experience to make and to enjoy.

Now, we just have to figure out how to convert the ice cream savings into renewable energy.

We saved $3,963.62 in water and power from 2008 to 2009. The results are somewhat skewed due to the consolidation of our office into the household, but the savings are real as the office was an electric hog, and its equipment still is….even though it has been relocated to the house. The office savings were $2,923.80.

The Household savings were $1,039.82 with more usage (more people in the house for more hours), and many more trees in the yard.

Per the construct of this project, we can now invest this amount back into the household to further reduce the energy and water consumption.

There are many little projects where we could make an impact for this amount of money, but I really didn’t get excited about any of the conventional solutions.

In the last decades of the Computer Industry there have been “religious wars” after war on what was the best technology and efficiency, etc. But, over time simple, modular, and inclusive seems to win over elegant, efficient, and proprietary solutions. Interfacing multiple disparate systems always seems to win over uniformity (API’s or USB, etc).

So, we set for ourselves not to assume a Grid, or standards (safety yes), but to think in terms of small modular units which could be constructed by Reusing Parts, Recycling Parts to obtain renewable energy.

We want a functioning systems from Cats, and Dogs, and Junk for our energy. Thinking in efficiency terms tends to bring us always back to the same place: Large, Elegant, and Expensive.

We would like modular, common and effective. What has always made these systems work has been the wiring or wireless backbone, and the interfaces. These we will have to work out, but we want an inclusive system: Wind, Solar, Big, Small, Micro.

What got some of this thinking moving was a number of Youtube videos using computer printer motors to light LED’s, and some Wind Turbines using Tape Drive motors. We have been throwing these motors away for years where apparently they might have a second life as power generators.

So, we gave a $1,000 to a friend to see what he could come up with….and he has found a couple large Squirrel Fan carcases which he will try to convert. And, gutted a printer to get our first two motors probably to drive LED lights.

The vision is to keep creating power sources on opportunity with whatever is at hand and then to build a backbone with common interfaces to we can exploit this energy to reduce our expenses and foot print with: Modular Reused Recycled Renewable Energy

So far, this year, we added:

10 Fruit and Nut Trees

20 Grapes (from last year’s slips)

14 Boysenberries from cane strikes

Strawberries and more asparagus, garlic, and Kiwis.

1000+ vegetable seeds in flats. Very early for us mid-January. We created a PVC pipe frame which we will use later in the year for tomato stakes, and cover them with cheap plastic painter’s drop clothes. Very happy with the results.

Got all the mature trees pruned and fertilized. Good thing we did…with the early spring, many have already bolted without ever having lost their leaves from the fall and very short winter.

We made a mistake last year fertilizing the the trees using Citrus/Avocado mix for everyone. The peaches, plums, pears, nectarines, apricots were not happy. Lots of green growth with few blossoms. Surprisingly, the apples did not seem to care. The bananas, mango’s like it. The papaya was very upset with ridiculous bizarre growth.

Of course, we had record crops in citrus with more grapefruit, lemons than we could handle. Oranges (unbelievable seedless navels) which we always consume are almost at the excess level. The Bearless lime which we hate had a reasonable crop. We will replace this lime with a sweet lime and a Mexican thorn less which we prefer.

We had a surplus crop of Avocados which we were able to sell and still had way too much to eat.

Looking forward to our first nut crop of Almonds followed hopefully in a few years with Walnuts and Pecans. Still looking for pistachios and macadamia trees for CA (or from seed which we have not been successful at…..). Might get some passion fruit this year.

Very few items left to find to complete the coverage for the “Shopping List” which we updated. Slowly but surely we are moving to Fruit, Vegetable and Nut independence.

We are very happy with the results and derive a lot enjoyment from working in the yard. We putting in a “Granny Path” eg no obstacles so you walk in between the trees and gardens with your hands full without worrying too much so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Quickly we scurried around the house looking for swag from business shows which have been giving these Reusable Shopping Bags away for the last few years. We were lucky and found 5 of them so we are off the hook for now with our project leader, and we have taken another step towards conversation.

The mulching pattern we have kind of fallen into (not a whole lot of thought went into it…more of practical reality) was to put about half of the debris up in the far back around the fruit trees to save water usage and improve the soil (basically alkaline clay over boulders). And, then the rest we pile up in the seedling area and we add the daily wet garbage from the Kitchen. This effectively adds the green mulch which are missing. The Bugs love this combination and the piles get reduced faster than I would have thought. We used to occasionally water the piles to help the mulching process, but that took more discipline than we had. It was easier to let the bugs do the work. Occasionally, we turn the stacks but far less than we should.

Given the uneven nature of our mulching process and a somewhat hap hazard approach to mulching, we need an easy way to exact the mulch we could use as planting soil. We took an idea from the basic History Channel on Egyptian archeology where the workers were using flexible sifting screens rather than the fixed screen mess box framed ones we often see used in the US. So, giving it a try, we used some old flexible plastic support webbing from the vegetable garden, we threw in a mix bag of mulch and rocked the webbing back and forth so the small pieces fell through and the bigger ones went back to the mulching piles. Seems to work. We do the sifting over an old wheel barrel and then fill the container from it.

A turned over trash can works as a make shift planting bench and we are good to go…..Now we need the energy to keep the pipeline full.