Gail Gardner

What I like about printed books and libraries is that those books can't be changed. I wonder how many are aware of the Kindle controversy where they removed books people had paid for - ironically, 1984 and other books by George Orwell. If they decide to change what is in books you've already bought, how would you know?

While I love libraries, their choice to saturate their environments with WiFi means they aren't somewhere I could spend much or any time in. They aren't alone as WiFi is ubiquitous as are smartphones and all kinds of wireless in today's vehicles. So if I want books now, I'll have to read them online or buy them and have them shipped.

I call this strategy "stop  buying junk". I continually have to defend my choice to only buy quality from small businesses to friends who support Wal-mart and Dollar stores. They seem to think it is cheaper to buy junk and keep replacing it. I buy the best I can get ONCE and it lasts for years to decades.

The same friend that gave me grief for buying quality brooms and a mop at Ace Hardware instead of toys from the dollar store buys brand name clothing from Goodwill. So what's up with that?

Some things you should only buy quality: shoes, boots, tools, clothing. Buy used in good condition whenever possible. it is ridiculous to buy cheap boots that last 4 months when you could have paid half as much total to buy a pair of excellent boots that last 2+ years.

Sometimes cheap tools are ok if you don't use them very often. But if they break the first time you use them, you're going in the hole for no good reason.

Maureen Atsali wrote: This thread and all the beautiful photos have been really inspiring... BUT...We trim our grass with a slasher (Long, sharp metal swing blade.)  Can't figure out how we would trim around all the rocks and keep things looking neat and tidy.  

One word: goats. When I had a place with outcroppings of big rocks, we got a pair of pygmy goats. They loved to bounce around on them and ate what grew between and near them. They lived in a pen made of chain-link gates wired together. We'd let them out while we were outside and they'd come back in for feed.

Laura Johnson wrote:I keep digging up small rocks in the garden. Put them to good use on the outside uprights of my recycled greenhouse. Also adds some thermo mass.

What is holding them to the building? I've been giving a lot of thought recently to how to turn the rocks into the walls of raised beds. Has anyone else build raised beds using rocks and mortar or maybe even rocks and native clay?

Kris schulenburg wrote:i found out by accident that if a horse eats hedge apples and you dump the manure in your garden, there are zillions of hedge-apple  sprouts in the spring. So if you dump it where you want a hedge, they will come up in a useful spot. It was working wonderfully this spring until the sheep got out. Horses and sheep love hedge apple leaves.

I suspect horses love hedge apples because there were some on the trees and then none on the trees - and they weren't on the ground.

Dan Boone wrote:I should hasten to clarify my own interest -- I live in the heart of former sorghum growing country, so much so that our local harvest festival is still called Sorghum Days, even though they can't get anybody to grow the stuff any more and have to import a bit for the demonstrations and to run through the donkey mill that a local heritage museum still maintains in the back yard.  I haven't bothered myself, due to no way to process the cane.  But I'm very definitely interested!

I don't know what a donkey mill looks like, but I have the horse-power if you want to build one. :-)

Found a video:

Trace Oswald wrote:I have signs that say "Do not spray.  Chemical trespassers will be prosecuted. " It's working so far, but i also keep the area under the power lines cleared.

I suspect keeping the area cleared is more effective than signs. :-)  The city sprayed my friends Cantaloupe plants that were growing on the INSIDE of her backyard fence. Since they were volunteers and she is elderly and unable to garden anymore, that was very sad.

But on a happier note, I always took her fresh produce from my garden and anytime I bought any for myself.

Dan Boone wrote:

James Landreth wrote:Old lore says that American persimmons can be more tolerant of wet soil too.

I can confirm this part from personal experience. My sister has a small grove of American persimmons growing in seasonally flooded lakeshore slime with Apios Americana at their feet and a beaver lodge on the lakeshore not a dozen feet from the most prolific tree — which, oddly, beaver have never touched.  They have at least three other small groves in their little swamp of beaver wetlands that get wet feet at least some years and are healthy.

The wild persimmon trees on the place I moved from recently grew where the water flowed into a wet weather creek. Young ones grew along the fence line where the most water ran. Old, very straight and tall persimmons grew right next to the deep spots where the water stood. At times, they probably were in standing water, too.

More were starting to spread where the water overflowed from a pond. So now I always look for them close to water and the wild pecans a little further away, but in the same area.

Trace Oswald wrote: Would you like to buy a few hundred pounds of comfrey?   😊

What would be the cost of that much comfrey? How hard is it to keep alive? What would you do with that much if you had it?  

I am not affected, but I wanted to make sure all Permies know that there are important groups on Facebook that provide emergency evacuations and places to send animals in emergencies like those. Some of them are well-organized with existing databases of resources, training, and connections to law enforcement and fire departments.

Because of those relationships, they can often get someone past roadblocks to feed, water, and sometimes evacuate horses and other animals that owners are unable to get back in to care for or move.