edd anderson

If you were to band clamp a strip of canvas around the end of the stove pipe elbow the chips would lose much momentum and fall more than shoot away.

In the 1970 s we had goats and in mother earth news, organic farming  mag there were several articles on the use of comfrey. It was a popular topic. We began planting some plants to feed the goats more than for our consumption.  Then came reports, with proofs,of a person who feed large amounts to her goats and they developed liver problems. further info came in and It was confirmed that it caused liver damage. people seemed to settle for its use as a medicinal and in limited amounts as feed. There seemed to be agreement for its use as a stimulant in composting. That seemed to reduce or almost eliminate the articles that were praising comfrey as a superfood and popular fad food for man and beast.   We have many problems with deer as veggie predators in the interior of B.C.  I have learned that deer have food prejudices just as humans do. What deer eat here they wont eat elsewhere. There are whitetail and muledeer whose taste in food differs. It also depends on the time of year on what they prefer. A friend said to me a few days ago that back east in canada he had not heard of deer eating cedars and here it is deer candy. I try to be careful in making firm statements about things that seem to be true for me ,here that may not be so true elsewhere. I think that come with age. We were part of the back to the land movement in the mid 60 s and 70 s. It is too bad that the years of magazines and the wisdom they compiled are not available to those today.

I have spent time in a tent in cold weather. one of the problems is moisture. if the tent is closed tightly,  to conserve heat it will become quite moist and the air stale. you will.  need to provide some ventilation.  if the air is moist it will seem colder more quickly. your bedding will get wet.

 I think it is 2.1 vertical feet of rise will give 1 psi of pressure.  so to pump water 26 ft high you will need to provide about 15 psi to get it just to 26 ft includes some friction loss. if you want water to flow out of the pipe you will need to provide for more 'head' there are 12 volt pumps that will provide more head and jump  wire them to a auto while pumping. That assumes you have an auto that may reach the house,  a wind mill will work  when the wind blows whether you are there or not but may be vandalized. the important info is that you need to provide more than 15 psi to over come the back pressure of water in the line.

Kathleen Cotter wrote:Hello,

I'm looking for any advice on getting hold of a high-powered manual water pump in the UK.

We collect rain water from our roof into a battery of water butts. Unfortunately our garden is on a slope, with the house at the very bottom - and our three ducks at the top.

My current method is to lug buckets of water up to the small duck ponds several times a week. I've got hold of two large IBCs which we've put at the top of the garden, and when I've got the time I also bring up a few extra buckets and tip them in to the IBCs. One's almost full now... I use the water from the IBCs when the water butts are empty, or when I'm too rushed/sick/lazy to carry the buckets up.

In an ideal world I'd be able to pump water from the butts up to fill the IBCs.

We estimate that the IBCs are about 8m (26ft) above the water butts, and 12m (c40ft) in horizontal distance.

We do have an electric pump, but this is not able to lift the water that distance. I also would prefer not to use mains electricity to lift the water.

I would love to find a manual pump to slowly lift the water. I already spend quite a bit of time and effort in carrying buckets, and I'd be quite happy to pop out and work the pump for some time each day as needed to fill up the top reservoir. However, I can't seem to find anything that would be suitable. All of the manual water pumps I've seen seem to be either designed for wells, or for smaller distances.

Does anyone have any experience or ideas about a suitable manual pump? Some kind of step pump that could manage the distance?

Thanks a lot,

Kathy

I am using ponderosa pine cones, Im in interior bc., they frequently leave a hard core that is not finished or breakable. the biochar site I frequent says they are not good char. I do burn the needles and they need to be fed slowly. I have read that nepal makes pellets of pine needles and burns them for heat.  They must clean their chimneys often.

the estimates I remember for scything grain is 1 acre per day for an adult male ,experienced and in awesome shape.

I have looked on the posts for any results of the osage orange seed dispersal of 2 years or so ago. were any of the plantings successful? there is a tree growing in naramata bc canada which produces fruit but no seeds. I am very interested in growing abt 10 trees.

I live in orchard country , okanagan bc, there is an agricultural research station in town that sometimes does interesting work. they experimented with a papermache mulch and found that the tree roots grew closer to the surface under the mulch which caused some winter root damage in the winter. we also have a lot of rodent damage to fruit trees,girdling at the soil level. they live in the grass mulch that grows around the tree and thrown there when mowed. some times the orchardist does a kind of grafting called inarching to save the tree. that is to graft a small branch from the root to an area of cambium on the trunk this bypasses the girdeled area. to avoid this problem most orchardists in this area have gone to herbicides to kill the grass around the trunk area. this unfortunately poisons the soil the tree and the fruit. a win/lose.

the third photo is in the amaranth family. the seed head looks identicl to red root or also called pig weed. there is a limited market in b.c. in the chinese community for young leaves. I encourage it to grow as a cover crop since it is difficult to get rid of as a weed.

I think a good solution is to make a pot,pipe,container that is a comfy height and fill it with charcoal/biochar. the biochar has an incredible ability to absorb and store nutrients then slowly release them as needed by plants through micro organisms pee into the pipe filled with biochar and eventually add it to the compost or directly into the soil. a visual screen can be set up easily. doesn't solve the traveling the byways problem though.