Becky Keith

Hey Kristy,
Sorry to hear about your fly problem. A few years ago a large commercial poultry operation move onto the property behind us. We suddenly were swarming with flies every where. What we did was set up stink barrels. You take an old barrel ,cut a small hole in the side large enough to put a small pvc pipe in. Glue a t on each end of the pipe. Next drill several holes in the lid and cover the top of barrel with fine mesh screen and put lid back on. Fill barrel about 1/3 way up with water. just enough to keep it from blowing over in a wind. I put vegetable oil on the water and place a large piece of rotten meat inside floating in the oil and water. The flies are attracted to the rotten meat get in through the t-piece , They try to fly out the top and get trapped by the screen. It works great. Word of warning though. Place barrels downwind of you and wear a mask when you clean them out once a month. They do stink but are very effective.

I love the note to self post. I had several of those moments last week. I let my ducks and geese out of their safe nursery area to graze and get a good run. My little boys and I were out with them working on clearing an area for our next Hugel bed. I have to keep an eye on them because the month old chicks will bully them. I set up a little pool nearby and all was well until they went missing. We found them sitting happily on my other bed giving a hair cut to all my freshly planted corn seedlings. So we rounded them back up and put them back in the nursery area. Meanwhile the Krackens , I mean chickens, managed to get into my seed beds and busily scratched up all the new seeds my boys and I had just planted. It's a good thing they are so small or they might have ended up as chicken nuggets by that evening.They had so far stayed out of that area. So the boys and I had to get busy putting up the fencing that I had put off installing to keep my little tiny critters locked up. I hate penning up any animal. So I had a lot of fencing because I planned to fence a large area for them. Note to self included , next time buy smaller rolls of fencing, wait for husband and bigger boys to help put up fencing, when sitting in the mud from the very recent downpour make sure that cell phone, camera ,and house phone that you left hanging in the bag on your chair are not getting soaked in the down pour, also make sure that while you struggle pulling the wire tight to hook it onto those dang green poles that you are not sitting in a lovely patch of poison oak. Note to self also included that if you are going to throw an impressive hissy fit and throw tools, swear and kick something good and hard , make sure you don't kick something with the foot that has the two recently broken toes. I had previously broken them tripping over the small table I had the fan sitting on during the night . I forgot it was there when I got up to use the bathroom in the dark. That note to self included never place an object in your usual path to the bathroom during the night. I am glad someone else is also having "Note to self " moments in life. I don't feel so alone in my smack yourself in the head moments. Lol.

Thanks Dan , I appreciate how helpful you have been. I think I am gonna try several different ways and see what works best for this climate. I saw when watching a film on the hugelkulture beds that there was a lot of mushroom growth. I imagine that was because of the heat and humidity coming off the bed itself.
Becky Keith

Hey Miles. Thanks for posting the video. What a fantastic speaker. I really enjoyed it. It has inspired me to work even harder setting up the permaculture gardens. Right now i have a bank slate of 8 acres that has been sitting basically 30 years. A few of the acres was cleared around the house with 2 traditional gardens and the rest is overgrown pine and live oak. Trees growing so close together that they choke each other out. Right now i am having it selectively cut and cleared removing most of the pine and scrub. I will also thin out some of the live oak. Then I plan to plant lots of fruit and nut trees as well as fruit bearing bushes.It will be an ongoing process over the next few years. This is all wonderful information I can use as I plan what and where I will plant.

Hey,

Thanks Ernie for the links. They were helpful. I see that it is illegal to import them. Oh well I guess it's an epi pen.

We have very mild winters here where I am located. It only gets below freezing a few days a year. We are warmer near the coast because of the gulf stream off our coast. So I don't think that would be an issue. I am more concerned about legality I know that bringing in non-native species of anything gets the powers to be in an uproar. Are they legal to have here?

The timber guys approached us. I wouldn't have any idea. I would check BBB to see who is operating in your area and see if people are happy with them. This may be a question for a lumber guy here. Maybe forestry services would know some reputable harvesters. I was a beast about how they harvested because I didn't want them to come in and clear cut. That's a disaster. What a mess they leave behind. We have a paper company down the road and the countryside is leveled all around us with big scars of cleared land covered in debris from all the little trees they knocked down but didn't harvest.

That is so awesome. I guess I thought the kernels may have been heated or treated in some way since they don't resemble regular corn. Silly I know. I usually buy my popcorn at Sam's club in the 5 gallon pail. So I have a ton of seed. All six of my kids play sports ,so we go through a bunch of popcorn because I bring a big bag to share.

Hi,
How old is the pine? Is it big? If so you could sell it. We have a timber company here now thinning out our land. We are so overgrown. They are paying us around 5 000 to harvest the trees. They are just taking the really big pines. leaving everything else.

Hey all.

I didn't see any mention, or I missed it in the scan, about mini-cows for dairy and beef. They eat about a 3rd less than regular cows. The interesting things is the meat to feed ratio is higher with the mini's. For the dairy cows I am not sure how they would be for milk to feed ratio. I have had a harder time finding that info. They are about the same size as a large goat and easy to handle. Unless you plan to sell it a large cow that produces gobs of milk would be a waste any how unless you feed it to your pigs or made cheese. I would think that they would get along well with a goat. In the pics I saw they all were in the same pasture with multiple animals. I am still undecided yet about goat versus cow.