Cécile Stelzer Johnson

I have a shelter that I had planned to winter bees over. It has 3 walls and a transparent roof and looks to the south.
Now that I no longer keep bees because of all the problems with -icides being used next door, I've gotten to storing their feed in homer pails under that roof. It is still accessible to me when it snows
I try to color code the various ingredients but it never quite works. Tractor supply isa now selling a mix with a great  variety of whole grains. Sunflowers, corn etc. get mixed at the last minute.
The birds and mice cannot get at their feed in those homer pails. I noticed that 50 LBS of feed fit nicely in 2 homer pails, and I can carry one fairly easily for the few feet between the storage and the coop.
I'm trying to fin a way to store them in the coop itself, but I don't care to grab a pail and find myself with a handful of poop.
Once there is snow on the ground, I can use a sled for food and water.
It's not a perfect system, but  it works. Everyday, meal leftovers go in a smaller (1 gallon) pail that I take to them daily. The hose runs from the house during the warm weather, so I'm taking advantage of that now.

Derek Thille wrote:Yes, Manitoba maples can be tapped - St. Pierre Jolys Museum holds a sugaring off festival each spring.  The community taps over 200 maples and is planting more around the town.  They sell out of syrup each year...I've never managed to get any.

That said, to get enough sap, you need to have enough mature trees to be able to tap to boil down for syrup.  Planting trees for this purpose may very well prove to be an intergenerational plan.

Intergenerational, indeed, but we are patient, or we would not be permaculturists! (Haha)
Maple Species Ranked by Sap Brix and Syrup Yield Efficiency:
Sugar Maple & Black Maple
Average Sap Brix: 2.0% – 2.5%+
Sap-to-Syrup Ratio: ~40:1 (takes ~40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup)
Red Maple & Silver Maple
Average Sap Brix: 1.0% – 2.0%
Sap-to-Syrup Ratio: ~50:1 (takes ~50 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup)
Boxelder (Manitoba Maple)
Average Sap Brix: ~1.0%
Sap-to-Syrup Ratio: ~60:1 or higher (takes 60+ gallons of sap for 1 gallon of syrup)
They consider "tappable" a maple that, at breast height is 10-12" in diameter. That takes time, and it takes longer for the sweeter maples  (30-40 years), than for the red or silver (25-30 years) or the Manitoba Maple (15-20 Years)
I grow a few sugar maples, but it's more for the fall foliage than the syrup. I figure, some day, I'll be able to tap a few, just for our own. (Another interesting yield for all maples is leaves, in case you want to make leaf mold)

Norway maple and Autumn Blaze maple yield good, usable syrup, while Japanese maple produces very little volume and can have an unusual, savory flavor.
You can make delicious syrup from several non-maple trees. Popular options include walnut, birch, sycamore, hickory, and even elm or linden trees, each yielding sap with a unique flavor profile.

Beyond this, you need to figure out if the trees you are considering can grow *well* in your zone and your soil.
You will also need lots of fuel to evaporate all that sap!

P Oscar wrote:For smaller livestock, I use old trampolines that I’ve picked up for free on Gumtree. People are always getting rid of them once their kids have outgrown them.

They make great shelters for sheep, goats, pigs, guinea pigs and poultry. I anchor each trampoline with a star picket, which keeps it stable even in the high winds we get here.

The goats shelter underneath when it’s hot and sit on top when they want to sunbathe. Trampolines are light enough for a child to drag around, but sturdy enough to flip over a fence when moving to a new paddock.

I hear that Facebook Marketplace also does this in the US. (But I'm not in the market. Great idea, though!)

How closely 2 species are related comes down to whether they can successfully breed offsprings. With this in mind, I looked up that aspect:
"Can they mate? Yes, closely related species within the family can sometimes interbreed, especially in captivity.
Are offspring possible?
Hybridization is rare and usually happens only with human intervention.
Fertility: If a hybrid is successfully produced, it is almost always sterile (unable to have babies).
Safety risk: Housing them together can be dangerous. Pigeons are significantly larger and can severely or fatally injure a smaller dove during aggressive or mating behaviors.

Additionally:
"There is no scientific or taxonomic difference between pigeons and doves. Both terms refer to birds in the single biological family Columbidae (order Columbiformes), which contains over 300 species. The distinction is entirely linguistic and informal rather than genetic or evolutionary".
So the distinction is mostly linguistic, not scientific.
Yet, they do not interbreed naturally and when they do, the offspring is sterile.
Well, that didn't light my lantern.
Another thing they have in common, which is rare: They both produce a crop "milk" to rear their young to almost adult size. That's why pigeons, that are a bit larger that doves can be raised as "squabs", (a normal size pigeon that has never flown) for meat.

Ann Torrence wrote:It's the hottest, driest month for us, and our trees need to grow and make shade for the animals! Until then, I need more ideas for portable shade that won't blow away in our unpredictable but predictably fierce winds. Most of our animals go into temporary day paddocks but return to pens at night, so the shade system needs to be something one person can move.
What's working for you guys?

I'm not sure why you would want *portable* shade. Healthy trees and bushes, and lots of them should solve your problem nicely. Your animals will love to use the shade, but if you have a couple of places in the sun, they will love that too. In the name of stacking functions, though, the orchards as paddocks is a winner I think.
I recently acquired a huge net from a University, and I'm not sure what it was used for. it is at least 50 ft. long and maybe half that wide. I'm considering extending it over my little pond to shade it.
It is an extremely strong woven or knit plastic, each strand being at least 1/16th of an inch. That stuff lets the wind through but is totally indestructible. It's a bit heavy but I'm still working on the idea. The frame would have to be quite solid though. It will let the rain through into the pond
I just need to make a strong frame...

Rico Loma wrote:Ian, could you write more about your efforts? Color me intrigued,  this sounds like a stellar idea

Indeed it is! and if you have access to a lot of dead fish, (like from a lake where all the fishermen can clean their fish) you have it made. I found the process at this site, which gives you the recipe and proportions fish/ sugar/ lactobacillus:
https://www.ridgedalepermaculture.com/blog/making-fish-hydrolysate
It sounds relatively simple, if somewhat stinky.

Neil Kleinschmit wrote:Resurrection of a thread here (thanks dailyish email!)

We used to get carp sandwiches from Joe Tess's place in Omaha when I was a kid. They were scored and fried with a cornmeal flour mix breading, and super crispy. Those were the days.

Is there a method for cleaning them? I always heard there was a mud vein to look out for

Scoring, battering them and deep frying is indeed a good method for preparing carp: The scoring exposes these smaller bones and they disappear in the cooking.
The "mud vein" isn't really a "vein" as in a blood vessel that brings the dirty blood back to the heart. It is actually a specialized layer of darker, fatty lateral-line meat containing blood vessels that can trap strong flavors from the water. When you buy a salmon filet in the store, you will see, running along the flank an area that is  brown, while the rest of the fish is pink to almost orange.

You can use a knife and filet out this area, (after cooking, it's easier) which indeed can trap the muddy taste On a large fish, well fed, it can be over an inch wide and about 1/4" deep at the thickest part.

If you can't beat them, eat them!
Carps do make good eating and they grow large. Just try to source them from a place that's not too polluted because they are bottom feeders and will survive in conditions that other fish won't.
If you have a holding pond where you can have clean water, harvest your carp in the spring and keep them in clean water during the season.
Come fall they won't have the muddy taste as their system will have cleansed. They are a bit hard to debone, but they have excellent videos to help you do that.
Also, when pickled in vinegar, these little bones disappear. They also pressure cook very well, and if you do that, the bones pretty much disappear.

Medieval and monastic fish farming in regions like the Vendée relied on interconnected systems of artificial ponds (viviers) designed to raise carp for food. Monks carefully managed water flow, segregated fish by size, and used kitchen scraps to maintain a steady, reliable food supply.
Vendée is a very low, marshy area in the west of France that is not suited for regular agriculture.
They also raised eels and pikes:
https://www.kloster-maulbronn.de/en/interesting-amusing/collections/fish-farming

Joao Winckler wrote:Garlic is the obvious one but fresh ginger roots easily too, just needs a bit of warmth. Got a decent patch going from a chunk I bought for cooking a couple years back.

Garlic is great! I'm working on ginger and turmeric, that are somewhat related and need the same climate: warm and humid.. I think my ginger needs a little more shade, but both, this year especially need more humidity than I can give them: We are in a serious drought.
Ginger, I found a bit tricky: I have to buy *fresh* ginger, and around here, when they put it on the shelf, they make sure it will not sprout by cutting every eye out of it! I told them I won't  buy if the eyes are gouged out. They keep on doing it. AARRGH
I need to find myself a new producer. there's an Asian market nearby, and I asked them to call me as soon as they have fresh ones, and to please NOT gouge the eyes out! My turmeric is growing pretty well, but It's a challenge right now.
I also need to figure out the proper container, as there is just no comparison between store bought and fresh new ginger.

I have a dozen black currants cuttings in a pail, and I've done it successfully with other plants in the ribes family. The cuttings are about a foot long now and the pail has a few holes 2" up the sides (To make sure there's always moist soil under the cuttings, even when I forget to water them).
Take cuttings from this year's growth, just as they are starting to get some  wood in them (they feel stiffer). Plunge them deep, water and don't disturb during the whole growing season. This fall, as it gets close to dormancy, I'll transplant in the ground.
Some folks say don't transplant until spring, but I'm in Wisconsin zone 4b, so frost-wise, they'll be safer in the ground. Also less crowded. It's also a good time to remove the 'duds', Most of them will have some roots, but if they don't have any come October, they probably won't be your star players. Soak abundantly before you try to get them out of the homer pail.
All the currants are good candidates for the softwood cutting treatment. I didn't put any rooting hormones this time.
The reason I didn't just plain "stick them in the ground" is that I don't want to give them a lot of real estate until I know that they are successful. I can monitor better in the pail pull weeds, add amendments etc.