casey lem

Never mind, she's gone, just dug a hole. I guess I cook all the eggs from the past week well done scrambled as I'm worried about what killed her.

Found one of our quail unresponsive this morning. She's not dead yet, but can't move and eyes are barely blinking and she's cold. Moved her away from the flock incase of disease. How long should I leave her, or should I just cull? We've only had a flock for about 10 months and I'm slightly concerned about eating a bird that might be sick. Hadn't seen any problems with her until today.

We have used the reflective bubble wrap insulation in the summer with great results. I just safety pin in to our curtains w/ the reflective side facing outward. It keeps the living room w/ large windows cool while getting full sun for the hottest parts of the day. I was able to source it used from work, don't know what the retail price is.

Excellent again Dale! I'm gonna find a few for camping, or zombie invasions.

You'll have to check if it's permitted in your area, but kang kong (aka water spinach) would seem like an appropriate choice.I ordered some seeds through ebay to grow in a rain barrel w/ some fish & other critters this summer. I would check an asian market see if you could just buy some and root it( thought about that after spending $ on seeds & shipping). It would only be an option in the warmer months, being a tropical plant.

I did not use dried, it was fresh root, lightly washed, rough chopped, and covered w/ 80 proof vodka. The whiteish layer did resemble the picture above, but emerging from the bottom, from the pieces of root. I have checked it and all is clear now! Bubbles gone as well. I suppose since I had not been stirring it that the bubbles could have been the remnants of whatever microbes were left on the roots. From what I've been able to gather botulism cannot reproduce in alcohol 80 proof. If anyone knows otherwise, please let us know. I don't think I'm going as far as the construction of any stills, it's just a quart jar. Thanks for the replies! Perhaps the moderator should move these posts to a renamed topic so as not to derail the original thread.

This thread came to the dailyish email with perfect timing. I made my first echinacea tincture this fall, and was wondering what the hell I did wrong. It has white threadlike growth around the roots, almost resembling mycelllium. Also had a slight amount of bubbling, which concerns me. I would expect bubbles with any type of fermentation, but when submerged in vodka? I thought botulism would not be able to reproduce in that concentration of alcohol, but perhaps I was misinformed. I've been checking it and pondering tossing it, but thought Permies might be the place to get an answer. I'm sure there are more appropriate threads for this question, but here we are, who can help?

Both recipes listed above should work fine. Rather than follow an exact time from a recipe I go by taste at the approximate time, relative temperature is a big factor when making alcohol and can affect fermentation time. Instead of cheesecloth I use an old reusable coffee filter to avoid buying stuff. Lots of recipes call for fancy yeasts, but I've always used plain old bread yeast, wine snobs look at me cross-eyed.Good luck, and enjoy!

I personally relate to the second post in this thread, made by Mike Jay. I feel like "fictitious conversation #2" is the direction I'm personally having with people. It's the case of physical rewards that I can show people before I start to delve into teaching them things they would have thought insane without seeing the results first. When I can show people the food I've grown in plain sight in what they believe to be just a nice looking front yard flower garden it can open their minds to change. If I hadn't shown them the food first, my neighbors would simply tell me there's a law against gardening in front yards. I feel like that is the path some of us tread, others are on the pdc path, the website path, the permaculture community path, etc. I discovered permaculture because of paul's you tube hugelkulture videos, every time we show others the quantitative results we educate and change minds. So, here's to 200x more permaculture, whichever way we can.

I've started only using grocery store potatoes for planting. I get just as good results as seed potatoes. When they go on sale at Aldi a 10# bag of russets I believe was $1.49. 5# of red(my favorite and best producer for me) was also $1.49. That about covers the cost for the area I have available for potatoes. I just set them in the window for a couple days when they start to sprout, whatever doesn't want to sprout is lunch. The price for seed potatoes at the big box store just didn't come close, and buying in bulk isn't an option for a small property.