Chris Coulter

Working every day on the farm I have one of various models of pocketknives, as it is boring to carry the same one all the time!  They need to be auto-opening or one hand opening, as the other hand is generally holding back a mad calf or some such thing.  It is used for everything, but 90% of the time I use it to cut balers twine, which in itself is used all of the time.  A Leatherman multi-tool (Rebar) on my belt does almost everything else I need.  My trusty Felco #6 pruners are often on my belt  when orcharding/horticulture is on the schedule for the day.  My pickup is full of everything else, but I agree with an earlier post that a pair of bolt cutters are critical, as they do cutting jobs nothing else can do well.

You might want to check out this conference which is coming up in South Central KY in September 2022  Should be lots of like-minded folks there.  I'll be teaching the Intro to Permaculture class if you want to swing by and say hi.
www.homeplacefarmky.org/homesteading-conference.html

Love the thread.  KY Coffee is one of the most underrated hardy legume support species for our area and is common on our farm.  I have only had mixed results germinating seeds, with hot water and/or bench grinder scarification, so I normally pop up seedlings I find that have sprouted on their own.  The pods hang on the trees over winter here--they are still hanging in March, and out of my reach right now!  I do collect them though, as I never have enough of these trees in the permaculture plantings.  They are dioecious, so there are male and female trees, so some may not have any pods.  They grow quick, drop most of their compound leaves to leave a bare look in winter that allows the winter sun in--a great overcanopy tree for our area that fixes N.  A winner in my book!

We started a youtube channel last year, in part because we spent a lot of time answering the same questions about our farm.  So we thought we'd make a few videos and point people to those.  It takes a lot of time to make and edit decent videos, so we don't do that many.  We are full time farmers, not youtubers, but it has been positively received by many and we'll probably keep doing it.  We've been farming for 20 years but are new to permies, and have been enjoying it!

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheGoodEarthFarmChannel