P. Pitcher

I'm wondering if anyone here has a good source for how to spot a potential infection in your flock? My quick search across the net shows lots of "bird acting unusual" which is awfully vague and unhelpful. We tend to keep some older birds around at bit past their prime as I'm often too busy to harvest them, and right now there's a sad sack bird in our flock that is on culling priority, but she seems to be garden variety bottom the pecking order unhealthy, not any sickness.

Timothy Norton wrote:I have taken to incorporating my tomatillos into my tomato sauce processing. I tend to keep an almost 80% tomato to 20% tomatillo ratio and I find the end result to be just as good as straight tomato. You probably could increase the amount of tomatillos by quite a bit before you might face some tartness but I haven't experimented that much.

My next batch might involve roasting the tomatillos before I put them through the food processor. Give it a bit more flair.

THis this THIS!

40 years ago my mother planted two (2) tomatillo plants in the garden. We have never again actively cultivated them, but they still run wild around the edges of the beds, and some have followed me into the mountains, presumable in soil that came with another plant. As a teen I was hard to sell on Salsa Verde, but was desperate to have a cabinet full of canned tomatoes, so I would usually make a mix of about 50% tomatoes and tomatillos. Once they are nicely ripe and bursting from their husks they are agreeably sweet and don't seem to diminish the tomato sauce in any way except that the color shifts from a rich red towards a yellowy orange.

I live at 9,000 ft. in the Rockies, I keep a shade cloth on the greenhouse starting in about July and usually don't bother to take it down until the end of the season (I have it just over the apex of the hoops, so once autumn hits the sun comes in under the side). I feel that it doesn't change the temp in the greenhouse all that much, but we get lots of sun scald up here and it gives the plants a little respite from that.

I've had good success taking a hot toddy at first hint of symptoms - Very hot water, a spoonfull of honey, two spoons of lemon juice, and a shot of whiskey. Drink it as hot as you can stand, it's a bit "heroic" (we're not doing this for pleasure)

I will also have a more mellow version when recovering from a cold/flu or just wanting a warm drink on a winter's night. I make that on an earl grey base, and reverse the honey/lemon ratio. Never added cinnamon, but that sounds like a winner! (Or ginger? Pepper? Now we're on our way to just making masala chai...)

I'm in a very different zone here (4, t 9,000 ft), but I've gotten plants from native foods nursery that've done pretty well despite our harsh dry conditions! Many of what they shipped was bare root which is much easier to package but you would do well to have temporary pots you can put them in as soon as they arrive.

https://nativefoodsnursery.com/categories/native-berries/

Heads up to anyone considering planting lupine in/near pastures - Some types of lupine are toxic to livestock in large amounts. They can be quite hardy and spread well, ideal if you want them, bad if you're trying to control them!

It looks to me like a missing piece from a larger device, my first thought was the insert on a 'coffee dispenser' sort of thing, but if the pole isn't hollow I'd be less certain of that. Any small kitchen appliences you've junked in the last decade?

I'm also a fan of *free* growing mediums, and live in a pine forest. I've added pine needles to soil, and used it extensively as mulch. My concern would be simply the acidity? We have very basic soils by default here, so it only seems to bring balance to my beds. I also will be curious to hear about moisture retention, I feel like needles tend to hold more air spaces in them when we gather and disturb them (as opposed to them falling naturally), and in the mountain west humidity is rarely high. Let us know how the experiment goes!

A goodly bit of our ash goes into the garden, and it's made my root veggies bigger than they ever were living in the city (where wood ash was a special limited substance)

But my favorite use is to nixtimelize corn! I make lye and soak good flint corn that we buy from a the Ute Mountain ag co-op, and it becomes the best posole you've ever eaten in your life! (Not to mention corn bread, tamale pie, tortillas etc)

We live high in the Rocky Mountains, and have to deal with both frozen water and frozen eggs for most of the winter months. Because fire is such a major concern for us we're not comfortable with electric heaters! Instead, I picked up two metal water fonts (I had to dig a while to find them, but I think they came from tractor supply or some other big chain). They have been much sturdier than plastic, and are less susceptible to temperature shock than glass.

We check on the birds twice a day, morning to release them into the yard, and evening to close them up. When it's bitter out we fill the font 3/4 full with the hottest water the utility sink makes (which is scalding!) and hang it out, then bring in the previous (often frozen) font and give it a short hot bath to start the melting. Usually in 12-ish hours when its time to switch again the ice is melted enough to dump and refill. In the coldest temps it freezes over, but not until about the time to switch. (I often check for eggs midday to catch any that are starting to freeze)