Lawren Richards

Are either of the original posters still around? I would love to hear what you ended up building, and how it worked. I’m planning a greenhouse attachment for my strawbale house.

I live in the BC Interior and have kept it simple for the last 20 years: my greywater pipes drain into a small shallow mulch basin year-round, and many years ago when I found that the 2’ diameter was prone to overflow I changed it to a 2’x3’ oval mulch basin. No special plants but the local plants were Carboniferous-Age huge. The pipes that might freeze were kept unglued so I just popped them apart, knocked the ice out, and put them back together.

Anne Miller wrote:Once the yellow jackets, hornets or wasp nest is removed, if you continue to hear bussing then maybe there is a problem.

I suspect that one the outside nests are removed then there will be no problem.

There are no exterior nests, just a bunch of hornets grouped around what I assume are entrances to their nest. Goodness knows how I’d get them out, and I’m kind of wondering if perhaps the queen is gone and the hive is breaking up. I don’t know what time of year that typically happens.

Just discovered a couple of small masses of hornets (~20 hornets/mass) seething at the edge of the roof, so I assume I have them in my roof trusses. My ceiling is well sealed and I’ve seen no evidence of them inside and I’m wondering if there’s any issue with just leaving them alone.

Just as a later fyi: I had a huge bald-faced hornet nest next to my horse corral (not where the horse would hit it) and for 20 years they kept the area free of flies. They’d sit horseback then jump on any flies, and were not aggressive at all, even when I discovered the nest at a 5ft distance the first time. They liked to investigate shirt buttons, though, which was a bit unnerving for visitors.

I use cedar woodchips.  All other woodchips are used to mulch my composting toilet, and it's the only thing I could think do do with the cedar chips:  brush too small to use as firewood, too flammable to leave in piles.  And it helps keep the weeds down.

I have a similar problem but with invasives rather than grass. Large animals are not an option for a variety of reasons. My first major invasive was knapweed; I tackled as much by hand (pulling it up) as I could for 5 years; in the last 2 years it’s been superseded by chicory. More than an acre of the stuff. I’ve been pulling it up by hand, but lately just clipping it to try to get ahead of it going to seed.  Property is a steep 2.5 acres. I’m intrigued by the rabbit idea, but would they eat knapweed & chicory?

Oh my goodness, weeds are often just maintenance-free crops! I eat lambsquarters, wild daisies, chickweed, dandelion…..

This is slightly off topic but I’d love to use some of these trellis ideas on my deck to block the summer view of my neighbor with something green & growing. My deck is on the 2nd storey, though, so would have to be potted plants. Will beans grow well in pots? Any other ideas for bushy vines that are edible or attract pollinators? I’m in the BC Interior with pretty hot summers.

Why not just call it a masonry heater? When I talk to people unfamiliar with the technology, I explain mass heating in general, show them a masonry stove, then tell them a rocket mass heater is the diy version of a masonry stove.

In the multiple names for this tech, you see 3 variables: the core descriptor which is usually “mass” or “masonry”, the thing (usually “heater” or “stove”), and then an extraneous word to describe the style “Scandinavian” or “Russian “ or “rocket.”  For code inspectors you don’t want or need a new style to confuse them, you want it to blend in. Like instead of saying “straw bale” calling it “fiber insulation.”

If super-nice masonry stoves became more popular, then lots more people would want the less expensive diy version. RMHs aren’t popular because no one has heard of mass heating technology.