Nick Williams

Friend of a friend has an ATV that has two springy pieces of steel out at a 45 in front, and a high powered blower at the bottom of the vee blowing into a big bag. Drives through fields, the wires kick the grass up, and the grasshoppers jump inwards towards the middle of the vee where they get sucked into the bag.


In a more low-tech version, I saw a book once that had plans for what I think was called a "grasshopper tractor". Basically two skids. At the front of the two skids was a wire stretched that does the same thing, causes grasshoppers to jump. Mounted towards the back of the skids was a wide, flat pan filled with water with a thin coat of oil. There were vertical posts to push the contraption at the very back, and a screen between the operator and the pan, so grasshoppers jumped up as the tractor is pushed, bounce against the screen and fall into the oily water to drown. Might be something to tinker with...  

In certain localities (eastern Tennessee in particular is the one I'm aware of), structures were taxed on their footprint, so the cantilever barn was born. Large hayloft (which is what that door is for), storage space on the ground floor for tools, large overhang to keep animals dry, but teeensy little taxable footprint.

Not sure if that's the same intention of this particular barn, but it has precedent...

I'd probably bolt it down myself, but looking at the product review photos, looks like there's plenty of folks that didn't.

Could take the middle ground and put a couple hundred pounds on the baseplate? Couple sandbags or that sort of thing...

Do you get any water out at all?


Is there a foot valve, or are you relying on the check valve to maintain prime?

Joshua Frank wrote:

Nick Williams wrote:That's generally considered achieved at about 250 F.

I don't have a pressure cooker, but I do have an InstantPot, which is said to hit 10 to 12 psi above sea level pressure and reach 239°F to 245°F.

Would it be sufficient, do you think, to leave it at that temperature for 90 minutes or so?

Yeah, that will do it.

Joshua Frank wrote:

Nick Williams wrote:you'll want to STERILIZE, not just pasteurize

Do you have any guidance on the difference here? Is it just a matter of hotter or longer in the pressure cooker, or some essentially different procedure?

Basically, pasteurization kills most live organisms, weakens the rest, and doesn't do anything to most spores. Need 167 F for a sustained period (like a couple hours) to prepare substrate. That's fine for low nutrient density substrates and aggressive mycelium, because bacteria (for instance) digests cellulose a LOT slower than say... oyster mushrooms, so the mushroom mycelium can outcompete any contaminants.

When you have something like grains, or flours, there's a lot of starches and sugars that are easily digestible by your competing microorganisms, so you need to sterilize (i.e. kill EVERYTING, including spores) the media. That's generally considered achieved at about 250 F.

The "PF Tek" for growing "special" mushrooms uses brown rice flour on vermiculite as a growing media, 2 parts vermiculite, 1 part flour, 1 part water, mixed and then sterilized.

That's... kind of a specialized case though. I think you'd need to put it on some sort of bulky, less nutritive media, maybe wood chips or sawdust, and you'll want to STERILIZE, not just pasteurize, as the tiniest contamination will rip through the highly nutritious flour, and even then, you'd want a very aggressive mushroom like oysters.

Rather than salt, drill holes and fill with saltpeter/stump remover. Will kill and speed the decomposition of the stump.

Worth an experiment I suppose, but my suspicion is that even with a reed bed and secondary treatment, you'll have too many surfactants in the water for healthy aquatic life. Definitely need to be EXTREMELY sparing and selective with soaps.

If you've got room in front, I'd probably go for slide-out shelves myself. Love me some extra storage space...