Beth Mouse

I am also hoping to use Siberian elm as tree fodder and wonder if it can be coppiced.  Let me know how it goes Aaron.  Maybe we should only cut the shoots off every 2 or 3 years???

I was thinking about converting my small front lawn into alfalfa to help feed my 2 goats alfalfa over winter.  My brother says it's impossible to get rid of alfalfa especially since I don't have a plow but I was thinking it could all be covered with cardboard and bark if I ever wanted something different.

I would like to raise 3 or 4 hens for meat as I don't want roosters.  I plan to butcher one at a time maybe each week.  Like what my Great Grandma talked about doing.  I have 3 laying hens in a coop that I would like to let out in the evening to forage for a bit and think I would like to keep these birds separate from the hens.  I bought electric poultry netting and also bought an A frame poultry chicken tractor that I raised some roosters in this Spring (they started crowing and I can't do it again).  It was great when they were old enough to stay out there in it but when they got older, they never went into it at night and roosted on top of it so I need to have something bigger they will roost in at night.  It's around 3 1/2 feet tall and 3  feet wide and 10 feet long.  Not sure how big I need but I want them to go inside because we have owls.  Surprisingly none of my roosters got taken though.  I guess I will raise hens as meat birds and wonder if anyone can share what I could keep them in out on my pasture with a poultry fence around it?  Thinking about Sagitta breed.  If I got Freedom Rangers not sure if they're sexed.  

I am messing around with new scythe and haven't mowed my 1/3 acre pasture all year.  The grass is long and there are seed heads at tips.  If I mow it with scythe and make hay, will my goats eat it?  On one goat forum, she said goats don't like hay with seed heads and it has far less nutrition but someone else said their goats will.  It's also really long and not sure if that is okay for hay.  

This video from 123HomeFree talks about utilizing Vit D made naturally in sheep wool.  He doesn't wash the wool and says he wears it and gets Vitamin D from the wool.    

I read that sheep shearers had to be careful about Vitamin D toxicity from shearing alot of sheep and handling their wool.  I am wondering if I saved wool from my sheep (I only have 2 each year for meat), how long the vitamin D stays in the wool and maybe just working with a bit of wool several times a week would provide adequate vitamin D?  

We have a large 3-story house and it is very energy-inefficient and expensive to heat and cool.  We have a bit over an acre and worked so hard over the past 17 years with the outside and planting that we don't want to move.  We are not exactly handy and would not be able to build a rocket stove and I wonder how we could install one in our conventional home with codes and such.  Is there anyone in the Boise area that could come take a look or talk to us that anyone knows of?  Thanks so much for any help.

This inspiring sheepherder says he doesn't wash his wool because he wants to retain the Vitamin D from the lanolin in the wool.  He felts it and wears it next to his skin.  He mentions washing it in cold water only at some point.  I wonder how long the vitamin D is retained in the wool he is wearing and if this is something you could do in winter rather than take supplements?  

I made the mistake of building a large home almost 20 years ago but have worked so hard on the land, I don't want to move.  We have a FP insert in the living room that is fine.  But we added on a large room in front of original house with a almost 20 foot high ceiling.  That area and the rooms above on the second floor require a separate furnace so we have 2 furnaces and A/Cs.  Can I even think about putting a rocket stove in that room and would it heat the upstairs bedrooms at all?

The article you kindly attached says:  
"Iodine-131, however, is usually found in water as a dissolved gas, rendering reverse osmosis (which cannot capture gases) an ineffective treatment mode. It can be removed using a combination of relatively simple technologies, though, and personal radiation water filters are available, utilising filtration methods and medias frequently used in the nuclear power industry. The EPA recommends the general public adopt a process combining activated carbon, reverse osmosis and ion exchange – effectively covering all bases."

Not sure if there is a gizmo that utilizes all three processes it mentioned...

Thank you for the input.  I have RO installed in my kitchen but this is more for a grid down situation after a nuclear event and I would not have running water.  I would use my RO water first that I have stored but would run out probaby after a week or so...