Sam Potter

Id start with chickens or ducks. If you haven't raised alot of critters before you will underestimate how easy it is to get attached to them. Its easy to say now that you will butcher the cute fuzzy rabbit but then youl care for them and there offspring for a few months and now you have pets instead of livestock. Chickens and ducks are a easy way of getting experience and eggs for the table. Plus its easier to learn the mental thing of butchering a animal you have fed and bonded with on a angry jerk of a teenage rooster then a docile sweet doe the kiddos named snowball. That or start with Cornish cross chickens for meat, If you try to put off there last day they get to big and its painful to me to watch them waddle around on painful joints.

My old place had a problem with the path turning into ankle deep mud due to how the driveway and garage roof ran off into it. The whole yard would wash out after a big ran event and it was the only path to the back yard that Id take at least three times a day. So we made a inverted huglemound.  We dug it about 3-4 feet deep the whole way. Then added dead logs and branches and topped it off with free mulch. Its alot of work but the path way still works and that was 5 years ago now. I have a couple pictures of us making it.  It dose need a couple inches of mulch added to it once a year or it likes to sink down. We put fruit trees and garden beds along it where we could so they could benefit from the water in the pathway hopefully. The peach trees grow best along it to this day so I think it helps. Il see if I can remember to take any pictures of it now next time we visit.

P.S I thought I had more pictures but I must have them on another account.

Carla Burke wrote:Add gentle exfoliant to your list. It's great for your skin and with the massage required to use it for exfoliating, it also promotes lymph drainage.

It also works on hands, one, elbows and feet

So Iv now replaced my body wash due to this suggestion. It works great without causing my pretty sensitive skin to break out. I think Im allergic to all soaps just some more then others. The coffee grounds don't irritate my skin and I feel clean afterwards!

I tried the no poo thing and might revisit it again in the future but for now I decided to just reduce how often I shower and use shampoo. Did find out that used coffee grounds instead of soap works wounders as a body wash for me. And soap on my face causes pimples and over time it stopped producing so much grease. But my hair just couldn't adapt! I tried for 3 months and my friends have officially dubbed me a crazy hippie from that stint. I think there's a way but I don't have the freedom right now to have gross feeling/looking hair with work and stuff right now.

Im glad this post was brought back. I didn't know my marmalade would mellow over time. I have 2 jars left that were made years ago and they were dubbed prank white elephant gifts due to how awfully bitter they were. Iv never made the attempt to make it since. Il have to go dig them out and see if they taste any better then they did before!

I have no idea how to tell if a frame is good for canvas or anything on its own. But I have on multiple occasions gotten a print or mass produced office painting that is done on canvas with wood from the thrift store on the cheap for like 3$ just to steal the frame. I get art from some pretty awesome friends of mine and they happily take the canvas to repaint over them as well so I don't have to toss anything.

I do a green veggie mix of sweet potatoes leaves, lambs quarter and nettle every year to add to soups during the winter. The hard stem bits that dont powder down are good in soups and you wont notice them. But for baking I will send the powder thru a electric coffee grinder. It works really well and breaks up the dried fibrous stalks and leaves. I dont like blanching before drying them, It sounds counter productive so I take care of it this way.

My husband and I are just looking into Tai Chi. We'v been doing yoga since the start of this year nearly every day and the improvements have been so nice! But some variety is always welcome so we don't stagnate and get bored. Dose anyone notice a difference between the two for back and hip pain?

Iv never delt with them personally but i know ground wasp can be easily flooded out if you want to with water. My grampa connected his truck exhaust to the entrance and he just killed them all that way. It seemed pretty effective and they didn't freak out really during it.

I recently got a 60lb bag of coffee grounds for practically free and have discovered how cool they are! You can buy coffee grounds from most farm stores but they can be a bit spendy. Most coffee shops are happy to share there used grounds with folks thou for free. I picked it up originally just for our cat boxes and Im so pleased with how its been!

Our cats have been using those big bags of shredded cedar thats used for horse bedding. We switched from clay cat litter for cost reasons and health. Our home has 8 elderly cats and they were going right next to the litter boxes due to arthritis making walking on the pebbly clay litter painful. Think of walking on the beach compared to walking on a woodchipped pathway. We used pine for a spell but I found out I'm allergic to pines so we moved onto the cedar. To keep it smelling good I was emptying the boxes every other day, well... theoretically. It has not been completely sustainable cleaning 9 cat boxes everyother day. So I added coffee grounds in about a 1 part coffee to 5 parts cedar bedding ratio as a hope of keeping it smelling good if I miss a day. Iv been cleaning them like normal until now, we had to leave the house for a few days. With so many cats when routine is broken it gets stinky quick. But there was NO smell when we came back!!! Pet owners will get that when you come back to your house after a break, your nose picks up any pet smell you become blind to. I had resigned myself to just that's how it is. I did some research and found out that coffee is a deodorizer. We can go 5 days now without having to clean litter boxes and its kind of magical! I have time for so many more things, like reading permies!

Other uses wev found for coffee grounds

Degreaser on cabinets and sinks
Cleaning your hands after they are greasy from changing the oil in the car
Sprinkled onto the carpets to deodorize them  
We used coffee grounds to dye my wedding dress a nice light creamy coffee color
Fridge and freezer deodorizer instead of baking soda


I hope this is useful for any other folks living with pets, children, people or other sources of odd smells and unexplainable messes. And let me know if theres anything else we should try out with our bounty of coffee grounds besides sprinkling on the plants.