Kara Ann

Oh Jan - that is such an evocative story - it has all the ingredients of a funny children's book about a wonky day on the homestead. Thank you for sharing that!!  

John C Daley wrote:Kara, some questions;
- you have not allowed for any catchment off roofs in the wet period
  what is your expected rainfall in that period?
- A couple of large, 5000 gallon tanks will be better value than IBC units. joined together.
  Just connecting them together will be expensive and prone to leaks.
- Dexter cattle may use more than 12 gallons a day it may be calculates 10 gal / day winter, 20 gal/ day summer for a start

Hello, John - hey thank you so much for taking time to look at my water spreadsheet - it is really wonderful the way you share your passion for water management and your experience with all of us here on Permies!

You are absolutely right about the dry season documentation. We were sizing/estimating to get through the dry season because the wet season is... welllll... really wet here in the PNW, with frequent rain and easy expectation of full tanks and ponds, with attention going to ground work for  redirection of excess into swales.

Rain: Oct–May brings about 58.9", out of 65.2" a year.
Catchment: the 1,425 sq ft of greenhouse / tinyhome roof catches about 710 gal per inch of rain (1,425 × 0.623 × 0.8 efficiency). Over the wet season that’s about 41,800 gal.
Wet-season drinking water for animals roughly 18,700–30,400 gal over those 243 days, depending on whether you use the low or average rates.
What’s left to store: about 11,000–23,000 gal. Most of it arrives November through March. By May the roofs fall behind what the animals drink.

And thanks for the update on the Dexters - updating the documents now.

For the IBC tote series, I am using nozzle splitters / hoses at the spigots to connect them, rather than drilling holes/pipe connections in their lower sidewalls. Definitely less prone to leaks. A food grade, cleaned, used 275gal tote (which I buy from a cider pub) is $125. So these are practical, easy to move and connect, and in my budget for now. Longer term, I do expect to move to larger tanks and repurpose some of these for channel catfish tanks in the greenhouse.

The 5000 gal tank cost (over $6K) is an overly big step for me right now, and a lot of those tanks are too tall to support rainwater catchment from the structures I have onsite. A farmer buddy a little further south in the state  has a very large water tank on their property that they do not want, and it will be coming here soon. I don't know the exact capacity and dimensions of it, but will add it in to the planning once those are known.

I appreciate your help  

Eric Hanson wrote:I was also going to suggest an alternative to the banana jacks.  Banana Jacks are convenient and easy to hook up, but they are wild dangly things and can accidentally contact unexpectedly.

I have been moving towards Anderson PowerPole connectors.  They are becoming standard connectors on my electrical builds.

Eric

Thanks, Eric - I am not familiar with these - are there known methods to adapt Anderson PowerPole connectors to the use case described with my Pecron E2000LFP and expansion NEBUQUIC battery? Maybe a reference you can direct me to?

Thanks!

Hi All -
thanks for the encouragement to find a better connection to replace the banana plugs.
The friendly peeps at Pecron support tell me that the MJ32 does not connect with my E2000LFP model.

Maybe there are other options that someone knows of? For now, I have been checking the banana plugs, and the battery end fuse, ensuring they are not getting warm, the wires are safely snugged down, and I am really glad to have the larger energy pool to draw from! I was even able to bake cookies in the little toaster oven - a big treat for a glamping scenario.

Next step will be setting up the Pecron unit to power the pump for the well that was just drilled on the property. Well came in at 224 feet with 33 ft static water. Plan is to use Grundfos SQ ½ hp, 120 V, 5 gal/min model. It draws a maximum of 1,200 W and has a built-in soft start (no surge power demand on start up). The pump will pull water into a 1550 gal tank that also collects rainwater, and will be used for greenhouse / tiny home. Looking forward to running water - a true mark of civilization.

Anyone else using this kind of pump running powered by a Pecron (or other solar similar), with comments on its energy draw?

Hi All,

Drillers were here this week, reached water yesterday at 224 depth. We have 15gpm with 33 ft static water. Hooray.  Working now with consultant on off grid pump / solar etc.  Running water on demand - such a gift!

When I get the final set up for the pump / solar / etc I will post here again.

Hi Chance - this is a great topic, so glad you have started this thread, and best wishes for your backyard nursery goals!

Regarding specialty areas... one of mine is medicinary herbs. Many do not have straightforward propagation (or even clearly understood needs for propagation), and there are real concerns about depletion due to wildcraft harvesting. For some of these to be sustainable, we just gotta become capable of a farmed production base.  (You can see more about the at-risk species here: https://unitedplantsavers.org/species-at-risk-list/)

To this end, I can recommend this book by Richo and Sena Cech: 'Growing At-Risk Medicinal Herbs'. Richo Cech is all in on herb seed saving and production, propagation, creating appropriate environments for herbs, etc.  I have tied in one of his YouTube interviews below.

Carefully written, based on practical experience, and I am finding some successes with the guidance here that I would never have come up with on my own.  This is the most specialized in   Richo's full series of books on plant medicine.  All of them are good, though this one on the hard to cultivate at-risk herbs really provides an invaluable service with info I have not seen anywhere else.



If you are interested in having medicinal herbs as part of your future backyard nursery, these might want a place on your growing bookshelf.

May Lotito wrote:It's been very hot and dry in my area and I water the several large sunflower "trees" daily as many wildlife are depending on them. I notice the bees are out before dark (still at 90F) to visit the flowers and just go to sleep on site. They get active for a few hours in the morning and hide out during the day. I enjoy my night walk in the garden but have to take detours here and there because of the spider webs. I would try to find small grasshoppers and throw them at the web. Wow! The spiders are very fast to catch the prey. Sometimes the grasshopper is too big and the spider has to battle quite a bit, wrapping and hoisting the package to the center of the web to enjoy.  And of course, the goldfinches love the sunflower seeds and empty every head before the seeds are even mature.

Wow May, thanks for sharing your sunflower micro-world with us!

And... since it is October and Halloween is coming, maybe this thread also has room for the other ways that the wildlife lets us know that it has been around... the deer tracks in the sand bed prepared for the new water tank... the shed snake skin by the rock pile in the garden... the web in the crotch of the apricot tree coated with this morning's droplets of fog.

A little vole was out wandering near the hoophouse, climbing clumps of grass and nibbling on seed heads. He seemed completely unaware of me, busy in his task. I redirected him into the scrubby areas, before the chickens could find him.

A little PNW tree frog decided to camp out in my car - tiny frog, big voice.  He very cooperatively hopped into a little jar and was carried to a tree.

We have to choose just ONE favorite???  🤣  I would sure love to try reindeer - you aren't just joshing about that - it's really a thing??

Thanks Gentlemen, for your comments. Good thought about the copper which would definitely solve the toxicity side. The catch for me is my gun: the Winchester SX4 has a smoothbore field barrel. Sabot slugs are built to be spun by a rifled barrel so in a smoothbore I'd be getting worse accuracy. A rifled choke tube is an option I could look into later - do you suppose that would be a good investment?

Good idea, Robert, about the 'less lethal' options - I had not considered those at all, will look into that!

Good to know that you have transitioned your ammunition to steel, John... and the loud report for sure freaks out the animals.  There is a silencer (Salvo12) that could work with my shotgun - I should look in to that. If you get one for your Ruger, let me know how it works out.