Dennis Barrow

I just went to cut off the plastic wrap from an all weather electrical cover I was going to install outside my garage.  My knife poked a hole in it but would not cut the plastic wrap on the first 2 inches of blade.
Time to sharpen.
I have an old whetstone that was my grandpa's sitting by my utility sink in the garage.  I gets plenty of use from me.  I am never without a pocket knife on me.  (When we fly somewhere on vacation I feel naked without one on me, but one always goes into checked luggage).
One minute or so and my knife is now very sharp again.
Several years ago a guy I worked with had gone to a garage sale and picked up a bucket full of whetstones for a couple of dollars.  He asked if I wanted any, of course my answer was "YES".  I now have whet stones in all my various tool boxes, vehicles, hunting packs, etc.
Favorite pasttime for me is sitting around the fire at hunting camp sharpening all the knives.

I just cleaned our dryer vent last week.  6 years of neglect from me.
I borrowed my son's leaf blower.
Took the cover off outside, Made a good seal with it in the house and my son in law outside said it was like a winter blizzard for about 30 seconds or so.  
Then did the same with the dryer itself, but used an old pillow case for catching the lint.  Really not that much came out of the dryer.
Piece of mind for another few years.

They definately don't make stuff like they used to..
My in-laws gave us their old fridge when they upgraded.  That was around 30+ years ago.  We gave it to one of our kids when we moved 6 years ago.  He still has it in his garage and it is working great yet !  It has never had to be fixed in any way, even the freon is still going strong.

The crickets were so loud last night when I went outside that I couldn't hear my tinnitus !!!

Anne Miller wrote:
We plant our corn in a 4 ft by 4 ft raised bed so that is too small to do the Threes sisters method of polyculture.

Many years ago my mother would plant inside an old tire.   She would put a squash plant in the center and  8 or 10 corn around that and pole beans next to each corn after it came up.
I remember she had several tires just touching in a straight line.  

I might try that this next year as I need to amend the soil in the tires I have used for the past 3 years for zucchini.

I'm so close to becoming a Billionaire !!!

I have all the zero's, just need a one now !!!

Kate Estes wrote:For those of you scatter planting, how are you controlling weeds?  Or aren't you?  I'm wanting to grow a large crop as fodder but have been overwhelmed at the idea of needing to till up grass (we've been all no-till so far) and then keep weeding the area.  Is there an easier way?

I don't plant fodder  but did a few squash plants in an area that had a lot of native grasses.  I just dug a few spadefuls out, manually sifted the roots our and put the dirt back in with a few seeds.  The ones that came up have now over shadowed the grasses and none grow under them.

I was forced into repairing our dryer about 25 years ago.  Out of warranty and no money to pay someone to fix it.  I had a big thick book someone had given me a few years prior that happened to have repairs of many appliances in it.   A clothes dryer was one of them.  $5 part, a few curse words from cut knuckles and it was back in service.  Lasted for about 15 more years before we sold it.

That got me started NOT spending money on things I might be able to fix myself.  Since then I have managed to fix almost every household appliance we had that broke, and that was almost everything we owned !  Not having much money back then we bought a lot of used things.  (6 years ago when we were building our new home we bought new appliances across the board.  Stove and dishwasher both had problems and the same as Josh, getting someone out to fix them was several weeks timeline,  a few $ for parts on both items and I had them running in a couple days.)

I did maintenance and remodeling for several years and fixed a lot of different items for people.  Always told them "time and materials and taillight warranty".  (warranty was good as long as they could see my taillights.  :-)

I the last few years I believe I have earned a "doctorate" in YouTubing fixes and doing projects.

Cristo Balete wrote:Dennis, I have not had onions work.  In fact, the voles have chewed chunks out of them as they sit on top of the soil.  They also went after some walking onions that were expensive, so I had to put chicken wire around those.

The latest plant I've just discovered gophers and voles leave alone is mustard, field mustard and salad mustard, which is pretty prolific in its ability to reseed.  Even traditional farmers on the West Coast will use mustard as a soil amendment between crops, so when they turn it under it adds biomass to the soil.  The salad mustard I got in a mix does well in a hot greenhouse and doesn't instantly go to seed, makes a nice, mild salad.

Cristo, I was just down in my garden that I have had problems in.  I checked around the onions and my mustard's.   No activity near them.
I grow comfrey at the base of my trees also.  Good biomass there.
Next year I will try the mustards by my trees also.  Thanks for the idea.

Lots of fall work this year getting things ready for next spring.  Soil prep and amendments for garlic and onions.  Have more mustard seed on my list of things to purchase this winter, I might get a big amount of them.  I am thinking a 3 foot diameter circle around the base of the trees with mustard, garlic, onions and also the gravel.  I am looking forward to trying these new ideas!!

Cristo Balete wrote:Dennis, just to be sure, the garlic and other plant deterrents only work down at the tunneling level.  Any voles that are above ground won't be deterred by garlic/asparagus/daylilies as far as chewing trunks or leaves and stems.

I just found the voles had circled the chicken wire basket I put Shasta Daisies in, exposed the top couple of inches to the air, so I filled that in with 1/2" rough rock (not round, slippery rocks.) and that stops them from circling, but wouldn't stop them from chewing.   I check those rocks every couple weeks by tapping with the end of the shovel to see if they've tunneled underneath the rocks.  Mostly they don't fall, but if they do, I just add more.

Good point on the above ground varmints. ;-)
I do have a lot of 3/4" crushed gravel.  That would work on top of the mulch mats I have around the base of the trees, I would think.  Couple inches deep of that inside a circle of garlic and onions.  I will have to get a bunch more garlic though.
It would look nice, too.
I have 9 fruit trees and the rest of the garden.  Probably 50 garlic and 100 onions.  Onions I can start from seed in the winter.
Thanks for the idea's, Cristo Balete.