Eric Hanson

My grapple has sat over at my neighbors house long enough, we finally got it installed and the hydraulics plumbed.

We ended up covering many sections with additional heater hose to protect the hydraulic lines and to help corral them into place.

Now I need some action shots!


Eric

Scrubs sound like a great idea.  I have never worn them but my wife does all the time and she loves it.



Eric

It’s pretty hard for me to find a time not to use wood chips.  But here goes:

Maybe not right by the house.  Termites will love it and then try your house for the main meal.

In the garden, maybe wait to apply until after the plants germinate and get growing a bit.  This is especially true for those finer seeds.  A pumpkin seed probably doesn’t care, but a radish seed might have difficulty getting through the chip layer.  But after they get a few inches tall, you can start pulling the chips back in gently.


Don’t mix the chips with the soil.  Leave them on top.  Let the nor fungi and soil biota do their thing.  Some of the fungi from the soil will want to infect and break down the wood.  The soil and wood layers will merge.



Aside from these qualifications, I can’t really see a reason to not use untreated, totally natural chips that you preferably chipped up yourself or at least can verify that they have no nasty chem’s in them (dyes—Yuck!).



Eric

D Nikolls

The reason I ask is about what the ideal power plant would be.  Also what the form factor looks like.  Is it fair to say that whatever you go with, it essentially looks like a UTV of some type?  I am especially thinking about the little “pickup truck” bed in the back.

You like the idea of a battery powered vehicle, and for these circumstances I kinda like it. Considering that you are not really going all that far, I can see you running out and back, plugging in for a top off and running out again.  

You have roads—not perfect roads—but still roads.  In your opinion, does a golf cart work?  Personally I can’t see a golf cart working on a poor quality road.  Small tires, low ground clearance and big ruts and potholes seems like it’s asking too get stuck.

But I don’t know your situation and maybe it works for you.

Can you buy/find/modify some existing UTV and make it electric?  Sounds like an amazing project, but it be an investment to be certain.

Anyways, these ideas just popped into my head.



Eric

D Nickols

Just to put in perspective, how far do you go in a day?  A mile? 10 miles?  Could you give us some perspective?

Is this going to be more an off-road vehicle?  Something meant for roads only?  Poor roads?

And how much towing do you see yourself doing?


Eric

I am going to be the slight heterodox here.  Assuming that we are talking about summer, I probably need long pants and a shirt.  The climate in my region gives us hot summers (90+degrees high).  But by far the worst is the stifling humidity.  It’s really awful and while I love the region I live in, I love it in spite of summer temperatures.  To boot, the nights don’t cool off much and summer is the least wind we get all year.  

You get the picture.

My favorite pants (long, slightly baggy) are a sort of nylon canvas that has a texture like cotton, but doesn’t absorb any water like cotton and stays dry all day which means I stay comfortable.  It’s a very thin but surprisingly sturdy, rugged fabric.  I have not babied it in the slightest and it’s still perfectly good.  No holes or tears.  It won’t stain. I use them all the time for the last 15? 20? Years and they have been great.

To be clear, they don’t at all feel “plasticy.”  They feel like a cotton canvas.  The surface must be brushed.  And whatever sweat I emit just goes through and I feel as cool as I can given the humidity.

I also wear a t-shirt, but those being made of cotton are the parts that get hot, damp and uncomfortable.  Occasionally I have found a shirt that is somewhat like the pants, but they are not as durable so they don’t get worn as often.

Another, even more technical point:  I live in tick territory.  We have all nasties, including the lone star tick.  And since I have tall grass and tress, ticks are going to find me.

My tick-abatement approach has been to wear a pair of compression shorts under the pants.  These do have most of the downsides associated with nylon-spandex, but they stop tick migration.  If a tick starts down by my leg and crawls up, it hits the cuff and they just stop,  And if one starts up and travels down, they stop at the waistband.
That might be too much for some, but a defense against ticks works for me.

This system works for me.  If helps you, great!  If it the worst thing in the world for you, that’s fine too.


Eric

I see nothing wrong with adding compost.  But do it after letting the water sit.  The reason: compost will shade the water—especially the lower part—and the chlorine might not get fully irradiated by the sun.  But after 2 days, go for it!

And regarding the logs—frustrating trying to isolate the logs from everything that might try to compete.  But then these did exist in the wild far earlier than any human tried to make the process work for himself.  So it can deal with some pressure.

Alternatively, maybe you could lay some wet newspaper on top of the logs and then make little tents of plastic to improve humidity underneath.  But maybe make the little tents peak in the walkway.  Two reasons:

1). Any condensation will trickle down and drip on the logs and not the ground.

2). If you can poke some holes in the valley (little holes—just enough for a drop of water.), any dew or rain (if you ever get any) will once again drop on the logs.

Just a couple of thoughts,


Eric

Hi John,

Leaving a 5 gallon bucket outside in the sun for about 2 days should get rid of any chlorine—chlorine doesn’t stick around very long.

Cloramine is a different story.  I honestly don’t know what it takes to get rid of chloramine, but that’s because I never looked into it.

If it helps, tap water doesn’t have tons of either.  It’s not like a public swimming pool.  I have always wetted my mushrooms down with tap water and I don’t think I have seen any problems.

All that said, maybe just leaving the 5-gallon bucket outside for a couple days might do some good.  And if there is chloramine, remember that while chloramine is not good for mushrooms, having no moisture at all is much worse.

Could you use some newspaper to cover your logs?

Eric

I actually woke up this morning—2:30 am as usual—and got my coffee thinking “Summer Solstice is right around the corner.”  

Well I guess my internal calendar was a little bit late!

Thanks Thomas for resetting my internal calendar!



Eric

There are so many good answers that it’s hard to think of anything to add.

The general consensus seems to be that the definition of enough isn’t so much about survival as it is just growing a substantial quantity and then storing what was possible.  My thoughts are:

Blueberries or other bush fruits could make an awesome, beautiful and productive hedge to put around the border of a backyard,  That alone might make more fruit than you could eat based on the size of the backyard and it would be ornamental as well.

My parents once grew strawberries.  After their second year (we did not eat the first year crop.  We picked off the flowers to force them to grow deeper roots), we got a very healthy crop.  By the third year we we had such an abundance that the whole family had to go out to pick strawberries before they rotted or got eaten by critters.  We had to get an extra freezer (kept in the basement, looked just like a typical fridge) to keep all the extras,  It was packed bottom to top in gallon size ziplock bags.

But there was still excess!  We ate them every day.  We gave them to neighbors.  My mother cooked them into whatever she could.  We still couldn’t keep up!  But that only lasted about 2 years.

Strawberries are amazing but they require re-planting every 3 years to keep them constantly producing,  That might mean dividing the plot into thirds.  Definitely worth a shot.

With those two covered, consider other options:

Raspberries are wonderful!  They might make a decent hedge.

Can you grow blackberries?  Blackberries are my absolute favorite.  Your climate might not be suitable, but why not at least investigate?

Then think ornamental fruit trees that are at home in a suburban yard.

Apples

Peaches

Pears

Plums

Cherries?  (I have picked huge quantities of cherries from a single ornamental tree).

The list goes on!


Eric