And yeah, check out laser printers. I got my HP (B&W printing) for $100 with a trial (half-full) cartridge, and it’s still printing after the whole season, that’s hundreds pages of weekly CSA newsletters alone. A full toner cart is $90 and I think prints 2000 pages. I was getting AT MOST 200 pages of black text out of a $25 inkjet cartridge. I must’ve spent like $1500 in ink for a $70 inkjet over three or four years. Unless you’re addicted to printing full color photos on $2 sheets of special photo stock, go (cheap) laser!

I thought Amish and Mennonites were anti-tech. I will look into it before I poke fun at them again. In fact now that I think about it, a Mennonite leased the land next to our house and I saw him discing it with a tractor. Shows my ignorance I guess.

Your disdain for Thiodan tells me one thing: You don’t have stink bugs where you live. Without it, they make my tomatoes and peppers completely inedible with their stings. They murdilize green beans/peas as well. They even make summer squash disfigured, despite the fact that they only stay on the vine 2 or 3 days! Still edible, but too ugly to share with friends. If you have a better way of murdering those evil sons of… guns, please share it.

Robin: This one I have is supposed to be good for 100′. I’ve looked around for weather stations before, when thinking about that first 50′ or 100′ production greenhouse. There are companies like La Crosse and Oregon and Davis Instruments that make a whole range. For serious monitoring, it looks like a $200-400 investment is in order, with multiple sensors reading from one base, and a few hundred feet of range. Right now, the only time I really might use a remote usefully is for about four weeks in April-May, when I put seedlings out in the unheated hoophouse and have to manually fire up a propane space heater if there’s a cold snap at night (that’s the current state of my heating technology). A remote (at about 300′ from the Milkhouse) would save the walk to check the thermometer, but I kinda like walking in the dark with my 1 million candlepower rechargeable lamp (candlepower’s getting cheaper all the time, too!). With production greenhouses, for me I think it’d be a luxury, not essential, but still a useful convenience. I’d have to BUDGET.

Kevin: That was funny! You can be the official resident organics contrarian, just keep up the thought-provoking comments!! For some insight into my technology line, it’s not hard, it’s common sense. For an example of (tiny farm) tech that crosses my line, take “smart” inkjet cartridges, with a helpful little microchip that tells you when the ink is running low. I’m rushing to print out the week’s 55 copies of the CSA newsletter, ink is low, I slam in the foresightfully on-hand spare, and…SILENCE. Blinking lights. WARNING! The freakin’ smart cart misfired, it’s full of ink, but the chip thinks it isn’t and so has shut down the printer. I’ve NEVER had a problem with not knowing a cartridge was nearly empty, I didn’t want or need another chip in the printing part of my life. I wonder if it’s sending home the text of everything I print as well, for diagnostic and product improvement purposes. And I don’t want to have to know if there’s a way to jump the electronics and hotwire the printer, like, with a piece of chewing gum foil… This is obviously stupid (and greedily motivated) tech. There’s LOTS of it around, some friendlier-seeming when it works, but really all there to drain your resources, financial and MENTAL. Thiodan, Daconil, Kelthane sound TO ME like they’re in the smart cartridge category, since I’m managing to grow good veggies quite well without ‘em. (And I don’t buy Epson any more, in fact, reverted from color inkjet to a new, inexpensive HP laserjet—tech like years ago, just cheaper!—and I have faster copies at a fraction of the cost, no ink bleeding when the paper gets wet, no opportunity to impulsively print a page IN COLOR that’ll cost me six bucks in ink…)

I’ve been trying to figure out the Amish and Mennonite technology line, but it really isn’t at all clear. I’m gonna visit the new neighbors and ask. I’ve tried to get at it, but there are so many groups with apparently different rules: Amish, old order Amish, Mennonites, old order Mennonites. Some spray chemicals and drive tractors and use all kinds of gear, but don’t drive cars, but do have a driver to drive them into town. I’m getting a quote on a fork for the compact tractor, from a Mennonite metal fabrication shop down the road that’s fully equipped. I heard (on a radio special) that some orders are thoroughly…modern, drive cars and work as business executives in the city. Others have designated readers (those who are taught to read)—I’m not sure where I heard that one. I’ve been negotiating by phone with Clarence down the road over buying an old, old tractor, he’s Mennonite, I’ll ask him. Nothing, it seems, is simple…

You are technically aware both in what’s good to use, and also what not to use!

Enjoy these kind of exchanges.

Clayton