Aj Kopec

Along the same lines as swallows, bats and frogs (homes for both are relatively easy to install)! And then of course, finding the places where large populations of the insects are breeding and making them less hospitable.

Geoff Lawton has netting of some sort wrapped up around a rope that his animals have to walk under, to get to their milking stations. The netting is soaked with a solution that contains an oil that repels flys! The animals instinctively understand that the oil-soaked netting is beneficial for them, and rub up against it.

I'm sorry I can't find it right now, but he shows it in one of the two Zaytuna Institute tour videos available on youtube.

That is indeed horsetail. I have it memorized because I'm allergic to it! But as a folk remedy, it's a diuretic and astringent herb high in silica, used for hemorrhaging, ulcers, infections and the like.

Keep up the good work, man.

I've been lurking around Permies for a long time, but now that we are actually, really, truly, honest-to-goodness in the planning stages of our permaculture homesteading future, I reckon it's time we actually joined the forum! We have some background in rural living/skills, but are basically both both babies in this, starting from scratch. So we'll have lots of questions as we go! We are a couple with two (soon to be three) children, gearing up to leave the military and go full civilian on a homestead (tbd) in the Northeast early next year. We are originally mid-west people, but fell in love with New England when we were stationed there.

Hopefully we will eventually have help to offer at the forum, too, not just a million and three questions to ask