seth blowers

My experience is from successfully keeping eggs in lime for the last two years now. We’ve had a few batches go bad. It seems to be that a combination of broken eggs and warm temperatures will quickly cause the rest of the eggs to become inedible. I keep 3 gallon food grade buckets outside in the shade year round, Being very careful not to bump the buckets and cause any breakage. I haven’t had any issues with freezing during the winter causing any problems. We live in zone7b pnw. Even a bucket with a few broken eggs (as evidenced by yellow water ) seem to not affect the other eggs for several months when the temperatures were cold. That said, I try to go thru that bucket first and clean out the broken ones. Hope this helps

This is a very cool option For anyone living in a warm arid desert climate.

https://regenerationinternational.org/2020/01/20/agave-power-how-a-revolutionary-agroforestry-and-grazing-system-in-mexico-can-help-reverse-global-warming/

We live in an oak savanna biome in western Oregon, so come September, there are plenty of dropping acorns. If we take the time to collect them, it makes an excellent supplemental feed for sheep. Probably for other domestic animals as well. Or the sheep paddocks can be rotated under the oaks. The acorns don’t store well because of worms. Unless they are frozen or sprouted and dried, or tediously sorted

From my experience with my sheep - Who love blackberries, but like us, will get sick of any one thing for too long- they are interested in the bigger leaves, and eats around the thorns. There are thorns on the stem of the leaves. I can imagine sheep eating dried high-quality dark green blackberry leaves. Chopping it up with any machine, I don’t think would work. Hand collecting of the biggest greenest leaves and drying them could work. And a mild enough climate The blackberry leaves remain edible all winter. So I am able to feed sheep with blackberries year round.

I live in Northwestern Oregon. A century ago people used to plant Italian plums for drying and selling. Walnuts were a common commercial crop. Both of these trees can be seen growing along the road sites and producing well even in the driest years. Cherries have naturalized here, those some of them look tend to lookstressed after a long summer. Apples and pears can be seen growing wild everywhere, and produce well, with no signs of drought stress. On our farm we have many Chestnut trees planted (as tiny seedlings, with the taproot intact). They are now growing without any supplemental irrigation, After the initial establishment phase(2-3 years). Mulberries, are also going without irrigation after four years. But they look pretty rough at the end of the summer. Olives are super drought tolerant. Figs are set after the establishment phase. Peaches, similarly, though the fruit can be small and sometimes bitter if unirrigated in the early years. Hazelnuts are native here. I have a grove of pawpaws that are flourishing without irrigation. They are very well mulched, in an area with rich deep soil. wine grapes are super drought tolerant, though table grapes seem less so.

I am growing (grafted and seedling) chestnuts from seed from commercial European varieties (European-japanese cross such as Maraval, Marigoule, precocce Migoule, Marissard, Bouch de Betizac, Maron de Susa) as well as trees from pnw region that have good qualities (especialy The Whitten grove near Olympia).

Yes, we were in the evacuation zone from massive wildfires last year. Our farm had lots of open space separating us from the fire as close as 5 miles away in the foothills, but I eventually evacuated the animals and stuff because it was nerve wracking and the smoke was so heavy (and the rest of my family had already left). A lot of the big fuel for a large scale fire threatening our area has been burned up, but we do annual mowing and fire mitigation measures. Then, in February we had a catastrophic ice storm which brought down many Oaktrees, and in June a “once in a millennium” heat dome that topped out a 115 F. What to say? Just keep doing what you love and loving Mother Earth.

Chestnuts!
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This is me continuing… I hit the publish button prematurely😆. We have a Hugel bed with raspberries. It holds water so much longer.. but still needs watering maybe once a month. I like to use fruit and nut trees with taproots (Chestnut, walnut, almond, pawpaw) and to plant them from seed or very young to get a taproot established. Other plants to better grown in a nursery for a few years until they’re big and vigorous, like figs and mulberries. Another technique has been to plant seeds and seedling trees in buried 18 inch tree tubes. For the first year or two I can water directly into the tube without mulch. Holding the seam closed while watering and or making a reservoir around each tube directs the water down. In this way I have established hundreds of trees across many acres. And it protects them from gophers 95% of the time. Later on I can pull the tubes up a bit and mulch.
Relying on such finite water, we inevitably have had mishaps where we lost thousands of gallons. Now I just keep one cistern open at a time so at least I wouldn’t lose more water from an accident (There are six 3000 gallon cisterns connected together) . Something I would like to do better is build up the organic matter in our garden soil so it holds water better. We try to keep everything mulched with straw, which is hard when you have a big garden.  I also use burlap coffee bags as mulch but the water doesn’t always penetrate well.

Living off grid in western Oregon. We have 60 acres with 2/3 of it planted in contour rows of chestnut primarily, and many other perennial food crops.We have a big garden. All of it relies on rain water catchment off of a 40’ x 40’ structure, Plus a low-flow old hand dug well that siphons into a cistern downhill. In total we have 18,000 gallons of rainwater captured -if we get enough winter rain to fill them up. The last couple of years have been less… We use gravity to move the water around the land in buried pipe. Our greywater is simply 1” black poly pipe that exits the dwellings and fills a big galvanized water troughs. I periodically use 5 gallon buckets to distribute the water. I’m pretty happy with the system. We have to be pretty conservative with our garden and watering trees. For the first several years I used all the water to establish trees. Now I’m able to use the majority for the garden. We’ve been here six years. I’ve learned a lot about What can handle drought and how to establish the perennials.  Our soil is super well drained. Are use five or 6 inches of wood chip mulch around almost everything. That really holds water long into the dry season.

For a few years now I’ve been experimenting with grafting pears onto hawthorns that grow wild on our property. I often cut down the hawthorns and then wait a year to let the water sprouts grow, and then graft onto those. I’d say they take about 50% of the time. I have also grafted quince and medlar onto hawthorn.