Michelle Reasor

We ended up getting two goslings and two chicks. I tried introducing the goslings to the gander. Honked and came a little near....and then wandered away. We tried a few times, and he just wasn't too interested.

We put the goslings with the chicks. They were both very young and tiny, and so far, they've been getting along wonderfully. Maybe it's because they are young and don't know any better? The chicks love to snuggle on and under the goslings. The goslings don't seem to mind at all. I haven't seen any pecking. My kids love seeing them together.

The gander is still just kind of doing his own thing. He's not crying anymore. But, he still tries to bust open his door, and he won't stay in his yard. He'll hang out with the ducks, and then escape. He stays close to the house most of the time, but I still worry he'll get eaten.

He's not walking around calling for her as much, and he's still eating. I had hopes that he'd bond with the ducks, since he spent a day with them. But, the last two days he's just burst out of the duck yard to walk around the house.

At least he doesn't seem too depressed.

I'm not sure if he'd do will ducklings. His mate was always very motherly, but he'd often peck at them. He never seemed to hurt the babies his lady took in, but I don't know if he'll keep them warm.

My kids want to get two new chicks. Maybe we could put two goslings with the two chicks, if the gander rejects them? We had a gosling with ducklings in the past, and that went well. But, that was just one gosling, so he only had the ducklings to bond with. I'm not sure if the same will work for chicks and goslings... Has anyone put a pair of goslings with a pair of chicks?

Maybe someone else has ideas what might help? Should we just try to get a girl of a different species of goose. He hangs out near our ducks, but he still searches and cries for his love every day. He also tries to smash open his house door every morning in attempts to get out and search for her.

Two days ago, we noticed that our girl goose was missing. Her mate is super sad. He circles the house over and over, calling for her. We don't see any feathers or signs of her being taken by a preditor. But, I'm thinking that, if she's on a nest, he'd know about it? We've taken every egg, too, and didn't see any missing, so don't think she's had a chance to hide any.

We can't find any other Toulouse goose girls in our area. I'm wondering if he'll be less sad if we get him some goslings. Maybe one will grow up to be a girl for him. The local farm store will have some for sale in a few days, so we could get some then. But, will goslings sooth his broken heart?

Pastels are hard, but your chicken looks like the one in the book. I watched the video here on permies.

I'm feeling this today!

Anyone have any luck with treating/managing bipolar disorder through natural means? One of my loved ones was diagnosed years ago with bipolar disorder, but hasn't been on medication for over 15 years. During that time, it didn't seem like a problem, and we all figured the doctor misdiagnosed them. (The doctor was one of those doctors that will put in a diagnoses for anything, and didn't really do any testing). But, in over the past two years, they seem to have gotten a lot more unstable (much lower lows, while still going through highs). Is there anything I can do to help them?

Anne Miller wrote:While I know nothing about earthbag structures or a wofati, it seems to me that building a wofati would be the ideal structure for making a survival shelter/root cellar.

I wonder if anyone knows of a price comparison between building a wofati vs building an earthbag structure, especially on relatively flat land.

Earthbag is supposed to be really cheap--just the cost of excavating and the sandbags, which are supposed to be cheap. People usually say something like $400 to build one. And, it seems a lot simpler than wofati. My husband and I aren't good at building stuff, and staking earthbags seems really simply. I don't like the idea of using so much plastic, though.

We're in the foothills outside Seattle. I tried finding out what our ground temperature is here, but all I get is people talking about how high the ground got in our heatwave. Maybe I'm not telling Google the right words?

I'm not sure if it's better to dig down deep into the earth, or to only dig down a little and cover with earth like a wofati. We get a lot of rain here, and the place we're thinking of building the cellar is on a hill and drier than other places....but it could still have water issues.

These people made an earthbag cellar up in Alaska, digging straight down into flat ground to make it. The water level was 10 feet down when they dug, and in the spring it rose to 3 feet. Their cellar flooded. They explain what happened at around 9 minutes into it. The cellar was only 1 year old when they filled it in!



I don't know if it would be better to just excavate down 3-4 feet, and then mound earth up. My husband wants to go down deep, but I'm afraid that would cause the walls to cave in.

I tried to get pictures of the area, but there's lots of salmon berries and ferns in the way. It's shaded under a bunch of trees and facing north.

The recent heat wave in my area got my family thinking again about making a root cellar. We need a cool place to be if the power goes out and it goes over 100 again! If we make a root cellar, we might as well make it be a survival shelter, right? I think it'd be grand to have the structure act as a cellar when we need it to, a cool place to sleep when we need it to, a shelter to stay in if an earthquake hits and breaks our home, even a shelter if there's nuclear bombs. One shelter for all disasters.

But, the temperature and humidity of a cellar is supposed to be 32-40, just above freezing, right? And a humidity in the 90%. That doesn't seem like something I'd want to live in for more than a day or two, let alone with my kids who'd be cold even in sleeping bags.

Is there a way to make the shelter flexible enough that we can heat it and lower the humidity if we need to sleep in it in winter because a disaster made our house unlivable??