r john

Travis

I am also into forestry and what you describe I have come to exactly the same conclusions. Only problem being a lone worker in a dangerous environment you do need to think of safety which is why I use what3words to pinpoint my woodland location in case of emergency.

Abe Coley wrote:I take oxymoron to mean a contradiction in terms. Permaculture is the best way to farm, so it can't be an oxymoron.  Permaculture oil refinery - now that's an oxymoron.

I struggle with this as I look at part of my farm as being an oil refinery. So far down the refinery  route I produce gas as part of my torrefication of wood. I produce oil from oil seed rape. I combine the torrefied wood and OSR oil with water to produce an alternative to diesel. The ongoing project is an alternative to aviation fuel (kerosene) from Jerusalem Artichokes.

I classify my farm as permaculture even though I use a tractor. What is this hang up over fuel so long as your fuel is renewable and can be grown on your own farm than I cannot see a problem. My tractor is "diesel" but powered by my own fuel produced of wood, oil seed rape and water.

We have crows that steal eggs even out of the chicken coop. We have overcome the problem by not letting the chickens out until the afternoon as they lay eggs normally in the morning and have replaced the nest boxes with plastic auto roll trays so that as soon as the chicken stands up the egg rolls under cover and can be collected from the outside by lifting a lid.

Mike Haych wrote:

Marty Mitchell wrote:Here is a link to the FLOW forum. Michael Bush actually popping into the conversation to help someone. Seems like he might be on board with the FLOW... or is at least taking a look at it. This thread for not using an excluder.
http://forum.honeyflow.com/t/my-experience-of-using-flow-frames-without-an-excluder/2956/7

As Milkwood Permaculture says:

The other concern we have with this device is that it encourages + celebrates beekeeper-centric beekeeping, and infers that bee stewardship is totally easy. It’s all about the punchline.

I really detest this milkwood statement. As far as I am concerned bee stewardship IS totally easy. Its humans that make it difficult. In UK we have a collapse in bee population with many experienced bee keepers struggling to keep hives alive. I like many traditional bee keepers have followed the mantra of intervention on a regular basis to spot pests and diseases and prevention of swarms. Quite frankly as a policy it has failed miserably. When I lost my last colony I decided to restock with a new buckfast queen and a minimalist approach ie less than 5 interventions per year and the encouragement of swarms. The change has been dramatic instead of failing colonies and the total lack of swarms we now have healthy colonies and swarms which are all captured and used to expand the number of colonies.

As for the freeflow I look forward to actual results rather than hearsay. Certainly as a commercial producer it could be an additional tool in the minimal intervention tool chest if it works in the field.

Your making life far more complicated then it needs to be. All you need is a low head stream engine providing 12V and then a shurflo extreme 12V pump which will lift over 40mtrs so will easily do 100ft. If your worried about flooding then the stream engine and pump could all be mounted in a steel rope tethered canoe with the water pipe cable tied to the steel rope.