Getting my ducks in a row to move out here was a slow process. Glacial actually. The average New Yorker would have ironed out the details within a week or two, and this is one of the things that makes me think that I'm just not a New Yorker anymore.
Upon returning from FG I started reading up on “biointensive” agriculture and pouring over seeds catalogs. It took me quite some time to get a seed order in. For someone who’s never really grown food, it’s hard to know how to begin determining how many beet seeds are needed to grow enough beets for three people, how many packages that translates into when accounting for the germination rate, how much space will be needed, which of the many varieties of beets make the most sense (or will be the most fun), etc. Multiply those questions by about 30 different crops and you can start to imagine how perplexed I was feeling. And then there's the fact that the catalog is over a hundred pages long and reads mostly like this,
Open-pollinated WINTER SQUASHPlant 4–5 seeds per hill. Allow 4–6 feet between hills. Approximate seed counts:acorn, butternut 280 seeds/oz, buttercup 160 seeds/oz, hubbard 120 seeds/oz, spaghetti 190 seeds/oz. 1/8 oz packet sows: acorn, butternut 7 hills; buttercup, delicata 4 hills; hubbard 3 hills; spaghetti 5 hills...Galeux d’Eysines (98 days) C. max. Its full name Brodé Galeux d’Eysines translates to “embroidered with pebbles.” Garden writer Barbara Damrosch says “it looks as if peanut-shaped worms were crawling about its surface.” Depending on your point of view, it is either among the ugliest or most beautiful of all squashes. I vote for the latter. This heirloom, hailing from the Bordeaux region of France, was listed by Vilmorin in 1883 as Warted Sugar Marrow. It resurfaced at the Pumpkin Fair in Tranzault, France, in 1996. Shaped like rounded slightly flattened pumpkins, the 15 lb. fruits have salmon-peach skins covered with large warts. Although Galeux is worth growing for beauty alone, its tender moist sweet orange flesh is delightful in soups or baked. Amy Goldman recommends sautéing it in butter or using it in place of white beans in garbure, “a fabulous main course soup” from Bordeaux. Ripened easily from direct seeding both in 2004 and 2007, neither prime squash years. For your autumn pleasure; not a good keeper.1651GE Galeux d’Eysines ➂A=1/16oz, $1.80 B=1/8oz, $3.40 C=1/4oz, $6.20 D=1/2oz, $12.00
E=1oz, $22.00 K=4oz, $60.001652 GO Galeux d’Eysines OG ➀ OT-certified.A=1/16oz, $2.00 B=1/8oz, $3.60 C=1/4oz, $6.50 D=1/2oz, $13.00E=1oz, $24.00 K=4oz, $65.00All the while I was reading up on diesel vehicles and what is required to run them off waste vegetable oil (WVO). After some research old Mercedes from the late 70’s and 80’s started to sound like a decent way to go. They are fairly ubiquitous, have engines that last forever and are way more affordable than a new car even when considering the inevitable repairs. I spotted a MB diesel wagon on Craig’s List and jumped on it. It had about 300,000 miles on it. I say “about” because the odometer is broken. Also broken are the oil gauge, the engine temperature gauge, the fuel gauge, the lock on the driver’s side door the antenna and the rear window motors. The car goes from 0-60 in around two minutes. That said, it fires right up (when full of diesel) and doesn’t complain too vociferously on hills. It’s also as cute as a button.
When Diesel invented the Diesel, he designed it to run on vegetable oil and to this day you can still run any diesel on veg. As you can imagine, WVO emissions are generally better than running off petroleum, it can be produced domestically, yadda, yadda, yadda. And then there’s the fact that WVO is a ubiquitous byproduct of the food industry and often available locally at no cost.
The Chinese restaurant around the corner from you fries the hell out of almost everything. They fry in the same oil until it looks like molasses and becomes a disposal problem. (If you ever see the stuff that comes out of Chinese food fryers you’ll be loathe to eat there again). Depending on several factors, the restaurant may have to pay to dispose of it’s WVO, or it may sell it for 10-20 cents per gallon. Generally it is poured from the fryer into the 4.5 gallon cubes that it came in or into a dumpster that is reserved just for WVO. The company contracted to pick up the oil generally cleans it, mixes it with a bunch of other crap to make feed, sells it to farmers and then suckers like me who don’t entirely avoid factory farmed meat, eat it all over again.
During times when restaurants pay for oil disposal, they are often happy to have someone pick it up for free and even if they do make a pittance selling waste oil they are often happy to give it to a customer with whom they have a relationship. The oil can then be filtered and dewater at almost no cost.
As it turns out, the guy I bought my car from has been driving on WVO for four years with no modifications to his vehicle. He just pours the stuff straight into his tank. In colder weather he mixes WVO with diesel, 50/50. With that in mind, I found a guy in Queens who sells filtered and dewatered veggie oil for a buck a gallon. I did the math and went out to Queens a few days before my departure to pick up 40 gallons; enough to get me to Ohio.
In cooler weather a car won’t start on straight veg because the oil too thick to flow well and the engine isn’t warm enough to make it less viscous. That in mind, I planned to drive a few miles to let the engine heat up and then pull over to fill the tank with straight WVO. My plan changed when I opened the trunk to pack and discovered that one of the containers was leaking.
It was unclear exactly which container was leaking and the leaker had to go before I piled all my belongings into the rear. The only thing I could think to do was to empty as many them as possible into the tank despite the engine being cold.
After the first 4.5 gallon cube was emptied into the car I turned the key in the ignition and learned that the fuel gauge was broken. I kept filling until it dribbled down the side of the car. When it’s veg, you don’t feel so bad about spills. Car loaded and goodbyes said I crossed my fingers and turned the key. The engine grunted and otherwise stayed stubbornly silent. On the second attempt it fired up, jiggled some and then settled into a low, grumbly idle. Those near the rear said it smelled like cooking. Off I went.
Every so often I would pull into a service area or a gas station and empty another container into the tank. I can’t tell you how good it feels to pull into an Exxon station, fill up with vegetable oil and then leave. It parallels my relationship with McDonalds and Starbucks, where I don’t eat but enjoy shitting.
The drive was long and initially nerve wracking. Not long into the trip I smelled a pretty pungent burning smell. I pulled over and checked everything I could think of and it all seemed in order. I kept on keeping-on and 9 incident-free hours later I pulled into the Duttons’ gravel drive in Navarre. When I knocked on the door to the farmhouse a thick arm emerged and extended a tall cold beer to me. Meet TJ Dutton.
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