The problem is still the problem...sending list back in time to me 1.5 years ago

I'm gonna try to put five problems down per day here.  (I have a problem of being lazy and getting pulled into new directions or losing motivation suddenly also, so not promising that I'll post.  But I'm sure to still have problems).

By getting these listed out ahead of time before I'm tired and frustrated, past me has the exciting oppotunity to pre-solve these problems (slash pre-turn-them-into-solutions).  (The obvious thought that's kept coming to mind is a bit of a cop-out--make an entertaining complaints e-book and get some money for my eloquent elucidation of problems.  But I think there's more solid solution in the problems than that.

Day 1.

1. The dog [livestock guardian puppy] eats garden hoses and poly pipes, chews up the ends, makes holes in so many places
2. And leaves bits of plastic around in the landscape
3. A copper pipe to run water to the pond or the ducks would be expensive
4. The spring pipes aren’t still operative and so difficult to locate
5. The cuttings I’ve tried to root of honeylocust have never made it (rooted with a cutting of willow to increase rooting hormone)

Well I suppose I could bucket out the rainwater catchment barrels into the pond myself, and get lots of lovely excercise, instead of using a hose dog toy, but then how would Rudolf get his fun?  or I could pre-realize that he's going to do that and apply mint oil to the hose all along its length...or be unlazy enough to pull it back out of the perimeter fence every time I'm not actively transferring water.  Wow, you've helped me already maybe, good talk.

They are problems or opportunities to learn, its just which mindset you choose.
I choose opportunities.
"3. A copper pipe to run water to the pond or the ducks would be expensive"
- how long is it?
- what alternatives are there?
- Can I use short lengths and join them?
- What other material could I use?
- Can I protect the plastic pipe?
- Steel tube on outside
- Bricks or timber laid over the pipe

John C Daley wrote:They are problems or opportunities to learn, its just which mindset you choose.
I choose opportunities.
"3. A copper pipe to run water to the pond or the ducks would be expensive"
- how long is it?
- what alternatives are there?
- Can I use short lengths and join them?
- What other material could I use?
- Can I protect the plastic pipe?
- Steel tube on outside
- Bricks or timber laid over the pipe

writing up my problem prompted me to post an ask on social media for used, corroded, or leaky copper pipe.  

Clay could possibly be home-made but that's a ton of work.

of course i'd get 10' lengths and join them.

Protecting plastic from Rudolf is futile--if there's plastic he's going to sniff it out, dig up the bricks, timber, etc., until he finds it and murder it.  C'est la vie.

Leaky pipe is useless
Can the dog be trained?
Can you buy some pipe?
How much do you need?

Hi,
how about a concrete brick irrigation ditch? Concrete bricks are inexpensive.
Maybe an underground pipe? You can cover it with stones for discouraging puppy. Then you only need to cage the extremes.

Or make do your pond without irrigation, but that might require earthworks.

1. I feel lonely a bunch of the time
2. I don't feel like this still has a purpose a bunch of the time
3. There's more weather instability and I only just $*%&#ing started this, gimme a break please!
4. only one pawpaw has germinated, and the slugs decided it would  a good idea to use that for cooking their dinner
5. there are never any slugs on the land, whatsoever, none, nada, the neighbor tells us she has never seen one in 12 years here...so we have a _surplus of ducks problem_

thanks

Abraham Palma wrote:Hi,
how about a concrete brick irrigation ditch? Concrete bricks are inexpensive.
I don't like concrete, I'd do a clay ditch but it's not a great slope from the barn to the pond.  it would have to be up on stilts.

Maybe an underground pipe? You can cover it with stones for discouraging puppy. Then you only need to cage the extremes.

maybe, that'll be a bunch of work.  if I feel motiivatedI may just do that.  

Or make do your pond without irrigation, but that might require earthworks.

what do you mean by that exactly?  the pond is overflow storage for the water catchment system--more for the sake of keeping the barn basement dry (and not frost-heaving in winter) than anything else.  last year we had superdrought, this year we've had superflood, so it's on my mind

Thanks..

John C Daley wrote:Leaky pipe is useless

Not if it is good enough to get water away from the barn, I don't really care where it ends up.  irrigating the landscape is fine.

Can the dog be trained?

He can, he simply chooses not to be most of the time

Can you buy some pipe?

I can, but I'm cheap
How much do you need?
250'/ I guess that's about 80 meters

1. There’s no duckweed around here, only lilies, and they’re poisonous to pigs (don’t seem to be nourishment for ducks either)
2. The duckweed I brought from the city died, I probably gave it too much nitrogen
3. The other duckweed that seems to have appeared magically in another random container died too—it spilled when I knocked it over in the dark (not rudolf’s fault this time)
4. A bunch of ducks died, by tangle in the fence, by tangle in the fence electrified, by I have no idea what, and by Rudolf.
5. Then one by limberneck—but only long _after_ I’d gotten rid of the maggot bucket in panic that it might be causing them limberneck (but the ones that died in that spell didn’t really have the same symptoms—they just did that duck thing where they’re fine one day, sick the next, then dead, or fine, sick and then fine, and you never er freakin know which it’s going to be, and by the way aren’t ducks a bit overbred if they’re this fragile that this many things can kill them???)

Oh, the problem of no apples whatsoever during the drought year was not a problem this year--thankfully one tree has produced a heavy set!  and they're delicious.  They definitely look diseased and spotted and such, but they taste great and the ducks love them some apples.  Weirdly, the tree that did this amazing yield this year is not the one I pruned heavily, and that one looks thick and the one that I didn't prune looks kinda open and airy.  I am confused.  These were existing orchard-style trees with lots of black stuff painted on them and a ton of woodpecker holes, long neglected, a neighbor said they did produce though.  Just 4 of them on a slope.  The one downslope was the high producer this year.  The few from the uphill one (one that I didn't prune either) are definitely the tastiest and reddest.

"what do you mean by that exactly? "
Earthworks for your pond:
It's digging on contour around your pond so any water, be it rain be it runoff from your system, that reaches the ditch will go to the pond. This works best for floods, when these 'swales' can't infiltrate the water and most of it goes to the pond.

Abraham Palma wrote:"what do you mean by that exactly? "
Earthworks for your pond:
It's digging on contour around your pond so any water, be it rain be it runoff from your system, that reaches the ditch will go to the pond. This works best for floods, when these 'swales' can't infiltrate the water and most of it goes to the pond.

Yep.  And that brings us to the next ones:

1. the land is flat flat flat flat, and sandy dandy dandy dandy sandy.  Swales are unlikely to work.  Hugels maybe.
2. even on the sloped part on the far field, the water doesn't pool up at all but slurps down into the sand before it even starts raining
3. wind wind wind wind wind in the early spring--so drying
4. weirdly large amounts of moisture off the river, lichen on everything and mildew in the basement, even while not much percolates to the ground/collects in the form of dew to stabilize things during a drought
5. late late frost unexpected wipes out the oak leaf tips, the flowers on the chestnuts and all hte fruit trees, not that we had any of those but if this happens again when we do then oh crap.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:
1. the land is flat flat flat flat, and sandy dandy dandy dandy sandy.  Swales are unlikely to work.  Hugels maybe.

Hugels positioned carefully might help with 3, 4 and 5?

2. even on the sloped part on the far field, the water doesn't pool up at all but slurps down into the sand before it even starts raining

I recall David the Good making biochar to help with sandy soil. (but he's got 5 green thumbs!)

3. wind wind wind wind wind in the early spring--so drying

I've read that fences with gaps helps more than solid obstacles for slowing that wind. Tough shrubs upwind to protect the more delicate/flowering plants might help - you don't need to save all the flowers, just enough that you still get a crop.

4. weirdly large amounts of moisture off the river, lichen on everything and mildew in the basement, even while not much percolates to the ground/collects in the form of dew to stabilize things during a drought

Makes me wonder if the fog net concept would help you collect water and direct it to useful spots?

5. late late frost unexpected wipes out the oak leaf tips, the flowers on the chestnuts and all the fruit trees, not that we had any of those but if this happens again when we do then oh crap.

Particularly hard if it's unpredictable. If you can know or guess it's coming, you might be able to protect the most critical crops - I think smoky fires can help, but those aren't nice for the air. Trees are hard to protect as they're so big.

Also, my ducks rarely die. Wrong ecosystem for ducks? Do you give them soaked wheat in a bucket of water so they clean their nares daily, and get enough B Vitamins? Bad genetics? (We have crappy viability of duck eggs on our Island, but the ones that do hatch, are generally pretty good.)

So many challenges!

You can't make a pond on sandy soil, but maybe there's a better layer underneath. That requires a survey.

In your conditions, I'd say that the best chance is using living mulch for keeping the ground moisture (if you don't want to irrigate frequently and add massive amounts of fertilizers). When the soil cannot hold it, it's the plants who must capture water. I'd look for a high ratio of carbon fixers (plants that produce fibers very fast).
For wind, other than using wind breaks, there's also tree species that have hardened leaves, that suffer less evapotranspiration. However, they might not be suitable for your climate.

More problems

1 the dog loves to dig up anything that is an edible tuber, but I don’t think he has a plan for replanting so they come back.
2. The training we’re supposed to do is only positive reinforcement—so waiting until the one millisecond in the day when he is not a) uprooting something b) harassing a duck to death or c) destroying a hose is rather challenging
3 I am not a person with lots of patience. And then he does the puppy dog eyes, sheesh.
4 pee does not seem to have any effect, positive or negative, on the plants’ health
5 even the volunteer tomatoes still get holes and disease—and that’s without even getting red. They need more calcium I sense, but I’ve been too lazy to get it to them, plus it was pretty late in the season. (The solution—stewed green tomatoes taste just fine to me, like a green pepper that’s not bellpeppery (ew). I just wish they didn’t have any disease
Bonus one—building hugels takes a ton of time and then I am tired and don’t seed it quick enough before it sags. I need hugelbotox. Or an excavator. Or an excavator friend.
7. Excavator friend hasn’t answered texts about using the excavator this winter.

Does your region have any bamboo that might grow under your difficult conditions? You might find it's biomass particularly useful, even if it takes 5 years to get its act together. Definitely a *long term* fix, not a short term.

There's a thread somewhere about all the uses for bamboo, but quick fencing and trellising are ones I use a lot. Most people don't use their bamboo, so if they've got it as an accent plant, they might be happy if you "thinned" it for them in return for taking the material. That would make it a short term fix for #1 - lay it down in a pattern across the tuber bed so doggy can't dig. Light and easy to pick up when you want to dig.

Item 3 : Sheesh is right - the eyes that focus on me are not puppy dog eyes, they're Muscovy duck eyes and they're housed in an adorable duck who is absolutely convinced I've got chicken feed to share... I get it. You're human and love is powerful!

Item 4: in sandy soil, pee is likely just sinking out of sight. I try to put our pee on biochar or wood chips to give it a fighting chance to hang around even though I'm not so sandy. I think as much as possible, it's good to put pee on plants that are actively growing (winter's a problem here) and are plants that love nitrogen. Also remember that there are a lot of nutrients that plants need that can't be found in pee. Unfortunately, mycorrhizae are your friend for those other nutrients, but I'm not sure they're very happy in sand either!

7. Excavator friends are worth cultivating... (sorry, I couldn't resist...)

Sometimes I am not sure what is appropriate for posting here so I will trust that someone will zap my post if I am guessing wrong.

Caveat - I have not raised and trained a livestock guardian dog. I have German Shepherds. They are smart but do need certain points driven home. For example, we have trained them to bark when there is a human approved reason. NOT the evening doggy bark train. They howl in chorus when they hear sirens but that is lovely to listen to. Anyhow, at this point, we open the door, check to see if there is a reason, give a harshly worded correction if not. The second time, they have to load in their pen. The third time - and we seldom get here these days - they get wet by hose. Now these dogs happily jump into water in freezing weather. But they hate to "be wet." it is unpleasant and humiliating to them but causes no injury. And we have no unauthorized barking for at least 3 months.

Now, having given an example of our dog situation (we only train them to do what we need), they are not allowed to jump up on people. But they don't respond to sit. lol
Please ignore incomplete sentences, what I want to say is that I think positive reinforcement can only take you so far. Some behavior needs immediate correction. I think it is more humane in the long run because temper is not lost when you have a way to correct. I personally would correct and then crate. If you don't use a crate, uh, I highly suggest crate training. Truly changes the dynamic and helps so much with other training. Anyhow, we used a "bonker" which is simply a rolled up towel secured by rubber bands. It is impossible to hurt a large dog with a bonker but it will interrupt the behavior and get their attention (well vice versa). I learned this from a guy named Jeff Gellman. People love him or hate him. You can find him at his website or youtube solidk9training.

Also, we use galvanized pipe on anything the dogs can access. That is all that works for us. Their pen is out of welded steel horse panels.

I love hte idea of bamboo piping, that would be a good price and cheap to replace at end of life too!  I wonder if they can nest one inside the next?  There are some native bamboos but I imagine those aren't the huge pipe-y kind that I would want.  

5 more problems

1. The dog needs to get drugged to go to the vet.  (This isn't till year 2 but the deal was sealed in year 1, so consequences of year 1 commitment)  This is stomach-turning and heartbreaking at first/conceptually, then it turns out that 4 trazadones and 2 gabapentins barely slows him down.
2. He's smart so he finds the pill and spits it out of the treat.  Every. Time.
3. So then you have the bright idea of disolving it in milk--which works great. Once. And then suddenly he's vegan.
4. The drought killed the companion plants.  The rhubarb, the comfreys, every one by the apples kicked it.  RIP companion plants, you are missed.
5. Late frost kills all of New England ftruit tree flowers, chestnut flowers, oak tips mostly, blueberry bush crops, outside of maybe Boston area.  
5a when asked if anyone had better luck with a flowering tree shaded on the east side. . .no one has.  So we don't know if that would work with this extreme frost (25 all night long up in VT, here I think it was 30; the alfalfa looked sad for a few hours in the morning but "I get knocked down, But I get up again, Ain't nothing gonna keep me sad."  

I can't remember if I mentioned that alfalfa is also an aggressive weed that chokes out every tree or grain crop you plant in it/after it's grazed, also because the pH of the soil is so alkaline perhaps.  Alfalfa sounds so innocent, it's a nitrogen fixer, it's a friendly, gentle helpful plant, right?  I apparently have to weed it out by the root whenever I want to put in a tree and have a chance of its survival.

Thankfully the butterhearts have survived (2/4) and miraculously there are now 4 sprouted pawpaw seedlings started from seed in a place I can have pawpaws!  And teh daikon radish is yummers.  Too bad it is intended for soil building, because now it's going for stomach building.

I hear that.  We're supposed to just ignore him (walk away and then come back) when he does something unloved.  But sometimes I have to tackle him just to rescue my partner, or a duck.  He does seem to be mellowing a bit, but he is the most strong-willed and wily member of our family.Oh, problem 7, we have both fallen madly in love with him.  

Karen Lee Mack wrote:Sometimes I am not sure what is appropriate for posting here so I will trust that someone will zap my post if I am guessing wrong.

Caveat - I have not raised and trained a livestock guardian dog. I have German Shepherds. They are smart but do need certain points driven home. For example, we have trained them to bark when there is a human approved reason. NOT the evening doggy bark train. They howl in chorus when they hear sirens but that is lovely to listen to. Anyhow, at this point, we open the door, check to see if there is a reason, give a harshly worded correction if not. The second time, they have to load in their pen. The third time - and we seldom get here these days - they get wet by hose. Now these dogs happily jump into water in freezing weather. But they hate to "be wet." it is unpleasant and humiliating to them but causes no injury. And we have no unauthorized barking for at least 3 months.

Now, having given an example of our dog situation (we only train them to do what we need), they are not allowed to jump up on people. But they don't respond to sit. lol
Please ignore incomplete sentences, what I want to say is that I think positive reinforcement can only take you so far. Some behavior needs immediate correction. I think it is more humane in the long run because temper is not lost when you have a way to correct. I personally would correct and then crate. If you don't use a crate, uh, I highly suggest crate training. Truly changes the dynamic and helps so much with other training. Anyhow, we used a "bonker" which is simply a rolled up towel secured by rubber bands. It is impossible to hurt a large dog with a bonker but it will interrupt the behavior and get their attention (well vice versa). I learned this from a guy named Jeff Gellman. People love him or hate him. You can find him at his website or youtube solidk9training.

Also, we use galvanized pipe on anything the dogs can access. That is all that works for us. Their pen is out of welded steel horse panels.

Oh, problem 7, we have both fallen madly in love with him.  

Here you are! This is the cause of 80% of your problems.
Had you learned to love your friend without falling in love, you wouldn't have so many problems. It's hard to do the right things when you are in the ground.
Dogs are pretty hierarchical and he will be doing as he pleases as long as he thinks he is in charge.


About the draugh, I hear you. Our garden is a mess and we've even lost a few trees this summer.
I don't know about the alfalfa. I tried to grow it and it didn't seed. But you know, permaculture is about local observation and finding what works and what doesn't work for you. Can you find any plant that is able to stop alfalfa? Sometimes is a garlic with a strong smell, sometimes a kind of borage with deep roots, but it could be another kind of plant. If you find it, you can grow it in the borders so the alfalfa remains inside.
A little note on nitrogen fixers. They don't magically add nitrogen to the soil. Nitrogen fixers are able to grow even with low levels of nitrogen in the ground, and when they die, they provide more nitrogen than what they have taken. But you have to kill, graze or mow the plant so it releases the nice organic nitrogen it gathered. Until then, they are nitrogen suckers.

I hear that.  We're supposed to just ignore him (walk away and then come back) when he does something unloved.  But sometimes I have to tackle him just to rescue my partner, or a duck.  He does seem to be mellowing a bit, but he is the most strong-willed and wily member of our family.Oh, problem 7, we have both fallen madly in love with him.  

I am more sympathetic than I sound.

I had a boxer like that. He ran the house.

Two things kept that from happening when we got German Shepherds. The first is my now husband must be the Alpha, he will not accept anything else.
The second is knowing we bought German Shepherds from good solid police lines who could be dangerous kept us on the basic We are Boss path.

I can't remember if you have kids? We have eight grown kids between us. Not training them would have been the least loving thing we could have done. Not purporting to have perfect grown children. But all can and do show up to work on time, pay their own bills and have no baby daddies/baby mommas. I don't know if that helps but that is all I'm trying to do. The more you love a dog or child, the more you want them to be a useful, loved family member. I hope that makes sense.

But when all is said and done, age on a dog does help. A lot!

Our dog is definintely maturing. He's been licking us now a lot, instead of nipping, about 20% of the time.  I think it is aging.  

For the alfalfa, that's a great point about growing some borage or something as a barrier.  I don't think it's actually that aggressive, just that it grows back through mulch if I don't actually pull out the root, so it's a little more work.  Live and learn. But having a solid guildy type of growing area around the tree is definitely a good idea.  

i give them a little extra super special number 1 liquid gold soil amendment when I transplant trees in (mulberries), or the new chestnuts I just planted.  I expect a lot slurps down but the mulch should help that a bit.