Readers' tips to live by

Margie Buchwalter provides a recipe for a homemade honey substitute; John Raabe recommends perspective solar builders download his sunkit on-line; Lisa Prong offers suggestions for building a natural swimming pool; Russ and Sharon Silljer give recipes for homemade fast food; Judy Depal uses vinegar to kill weeds; Mrs. Quintin Hadley tells how to catch fruit flies; Arthur Lee uses a drinking cup and telescoping pole to pick hard-to-reach peaches.

February/March 2003
By the Mother Earth News editors 
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Be a Bee: Make 'Honey '

A friend of mine, here in Alaska, makes his own honey substitute. Here is the recipe:

10 cups sugar
1 teaspoon alum
3 cups water
2 cups fireweed blossoms
1 cup red clover blossoms
2 1/2 cups white clover blossoms

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Boil the water, sugar and alum for 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Rinse blossoms in strainer and drain well. Be sure not to leave any green parts on blossoms or honey will be grassy tasting. Stir in blossoms and steep for three hours. Remove flowers; strain through cheesecloth if necessary. Reheat to a boil, then pour into jars and seal. Makes about seven 8-ounce jars.

MARGIE BUCHWALTER
Bethel, Alaska

Solar House Resource

I enjoyed your recent article on simple solar heating. I've been designing sun-tempered and passive-solar houses in the sun-starved Pacific Northwest for more than 20 years. It still amazes me how many people build a new house without ever thinking about the light that falls on it. Not only must they live much of the year in the dark, they are spending perhaps 20 percent to 30 percent more than they need to for heating.

Your readers planning to build solar homes might want to check out my do-it-yourself, downloadable Sunkit that will plot the sun for any building site in the mainland 48 states. This Sunkit includes the most effective and simplest solar strategies and also tells how to adjust them to fit local climate variables.

The Sunkit can be found at countryplans.com/solarkit.htm .

JOHN RAABE
Langley, Washington

Swimming Pool Tips

Regarding your recent story about natural swimming pools (August/September 2002), here are some do's and don'ts that we discovered after we built our natural pool four years ago.

Do — line the pool with a thick layer of gravel. An exposed, soft clay bottom is easily churned up by swimming and wading.

Do — if there's no natural spring or stream, augment the water in the pool with a runoff catchment system from nearby buildings. Connect the downspouts to underground tubing, piping the water directly to the pond. This often eliminates the need to top off the pool with house or well water.

Do — dig and fill postholes or pier holes when you dig the pool. (After the pool is filled with water, empty holes dug adjacent to it may fill with water too.)

Do — install a windmill to aerate the pool. [Go to www.koenderswindmills.ca to view the system or call (306) 287-3702.]

Don't — keep koi and goldfish in your swimming pool. They are extremely dirty fish and will cloud the water.

Don't — berm the pool with excavated dirt. Water, wind and footsteps will erode the berm, and loose dirt will settle into the pool.

Don't — expect to have a sand beach. People, animals and Mother Nature will move the sand into the pond.

Don't — let dogs into your swimming pond. They will erode the bank and trample perimeter plants.

LISA PRONG
Brunner, Ontario

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