Annie Collins

What a beautiful, beautiful home! So soulful!

Tereza Okava wrote:

I haven't seen this video since I was a teen (!!) but it still had to be said, for people of a certain age....

And yet-- is there anything more important to plant?

Amen, Sister! It's how I start the day every morning... sitting a few minutes in quietude and putting this beautiful planet along with all its inhabitants, right down to the microscopic, in a bubble of love.

I realize that the OP was satirical, but now that you've got us on the subject of fire starting, as someone else mentioned, pine cones dipped in wax works beautifully (we only used plant-based wax because I didn't want to get the parafin in the air we breathed). Those work beautifully. My children and I made an afternoon project of it back in the day. We spent time throughout the year collecting pine cones on all of our walks and hikes. By the time it was heating season, we had quite the collection and the cones had ample time to dry.
I also found a newspaper printing shop within 30 minutes from where we used to live where I would go to pick up their end roles. Those were some serious leftovers and very heavy! Plus each roll was about 3 feet tall which made for easy and efficient loading in the car and storing once home. I'd load up the whole back of my minivan with those (with all seats out) and slowly made our way home with the poor minivan sitting low and huffing all the way back.  I used those unprinted papers for not only getting fires lit, but also for covering the flooring when raising some young animals. Made for wonderful non-toxic absorbent material that was easy to clean up as well as easy to roll out fresh paper. Those were the days.

Maureen Atsali wrote:The girls are eleven and twelve. ☺️ They aren’t all that thrilled to be gifted with a farm right now. I hope they’ll appreciate it more when they are older!

Amazing projects you have going on!

As far as your children not being too thrilled right now, it reminds me of when I was in grade school and high school. I wasn't all that happy having to go and study, learn, write essays,do projects, etc. As an adult I am so glad to know all the sciences, maths, language, etc. that I learned. I have been using that learning my whole life, in so many various applications. I don't doubt that your daughters will one day be so happy to have learned what they are now learning, as well as getting such an amazing gift such as a farm. What a wonderful thing you are doing for them!

I've heard from a nursery owner that propagating arborvitae is very easy. You can even do it in sand. He uses the branches of a sacrificial tree to propagate a heck of a lot. Sits at a table, cutting branch by branch, only keeps the tops few inches of leaves, and sticks the bottoms into moistened sand. From there he uses a mister, but said they will also root as long as they are kept watered. It does take some time, however, like 6 months or so without a mister, and about 4 months with.
I also wanted to say that if you want your current trees to get a bit wider and fuller, cut off the tops a bit. That will encourage them to put on more width as well as get fuller. Another nursery person showed me some beautiful full and wide arborvitaes that were fuller and wider than many of his other ones, and he said they were like that because the crows loved sitting on the tops of those particular ones, thereby breaking the tops. And that caused the trees to get nice and full and wide.

Hi John,
you may want to try to contact Alex Sumerall who seems to be deeply engrossed in the world of cob and has a cob house himself. He owns the website  https://www.thiscobhouse.com/.

Sounds like a great plan and project.

Here is a link to the website for those that just want to click (rather than fumble for a bit, as I did:-) :

https://regenerateland.co/

hans muster wrote:Do you mind writing here what kind of light you are using, with maybe a link to the product?

Hi Hans,

I'm not the original poster, but when I used to grow microgreens for our local health food store (quite successfully as far as starting all kind of seeds), I simply used the workshop type of fluorescent lights. I used a double ballister (I think that's what they're called - they hold 2 fluoresencts) and would put a warm and a cool fluorescent bulb in them, then hang them above the seed trays. I would also go to our local Habitat for Humanity restore, where they always had a lot of those types of bulbs for very inexpensive. It felt good to recycle while growing the seeds. I did that for more than 4 years using only those kind of "grow lights", and everything grew quite prolifically.

Hi Anne,

I clicked in the link which brought me to your landing page, but there is nowhere that I saw to actually sign up for the class.

Susan Boyce wrote:...I'm going to try to set mouse and rat traps under the leaves ...

Please don't; that would be cruel. After all, it's not the chickens' fault that they have such irresponsible owners. I think others' suggestions about catching them in a crate and re-homing them to responsible homes makes the most sense and would be the most humane for all involved.