Marc Dube

I actually studied where and why snow collected this winter and yes your raspberry patch would collect snow. To sum it up I found that it took short plants a width of 2 to 3 feet wide hedge to collect snow and it collected it up to a hight of itself minus 4 inches. So if your raspberries were 4 feet high there should be a snow bank over 3.5 feet.

I use just a plain whet stone that is a medium grit on one side and fine grit on the other. 99% of the time all I use is the medium side.

While there has been a lot of talk about methods and products, one thing worth mentioning is that it is far easier to keep a sharp knife sharp than it is to sharpen a dull knife.

I let the kitchen knives go far to long without a sharpening and sadly most of them were as dull as a butter knife. I spent hours sharpening knives most to 30 minutes some took longer. Now I like to run the knife quick on the stone for a couple passes every other time I use it and they all stay sharp. So hopefully I will never have to spend half a day sharpening knives again. Unless you know I want to.

Every spring I make one goal that is unusual and normally over looked and never gets done, this year I chose to make a pile of bird houses to attract beneficial bird species that will hopefully lay havoc on the insect population. All of the wood used was reclaimed from either pallets or shipping crates so my only cost was a tub of screws used. They are all going up in locations on my property that suit each of the species. Do you think with this many additional birds there will be any noticeable difference made? What are your thoughts on putting this many houses on one 10 acre property?
(The purple martin barn is still in the process of having white trim installed)

There are houses for:
26 x blue birds/ tree swallows
17 x wrens/ chickadee
16 cavity purple martin house
50 shelves for barn swallows
1, 4 cavity bat box.

Joe Grand wrote:Never used pallet collars, I would think the wood would rot away in a few years.

In my case they are free anyways so it doesn't matter if they do rot away, and I'm sure it depends A lot on climate as I have had some with ground contact for 6 years now and only the very bottom is soft.  

I have quite a few good ones.

I pulled up to a hunting spot one morning overlooking a beautiful valley. There were two guys there and when I unrolled the window they looked in and saw the guns and went 'oh good your not the popo' and preceded to pull a couple beer from under their coats. This was at 7:30 AM. So we got out and started talking to them, (they were extremely intoxicated at this point) they just got off a night job and were winding down for the day. After a couple minutes of talking one turned around and said oh there's one. After the shot they helped to find it, but were far to gone to help lol.  Not much of a hunt but does come with a story.


I went deer hunting right behind my house and not a couple hundred yards out I see a nice 8 point eating in the field, as I was sneaking in closer a small 6 point walked right up to me and stopped about 20 feet away then looked at me. It continued on right to my yard. As I was watching the 8 point he walked towards a small clump of trees but as he got  closer a bigger buck chased him away. At this point I wanted the bigger one hiding in the trees. I kept trying to stealthy to scare any of them. Finally the 8 point walked past me to follow the small 6 point.

I snuck up to the trees and couldn't see anything but as it was a good vantage point I found a place to sit against the trees with the wind in my face blowing directly into the trees. After about an hour and half I decided to go back home, as I stood up the was a small spike 30 yards behind me. I watched him for a minute in amazement as the wind was blowing directly at him. After he ran off i kept going and when I got to where he was a doe and the bigger 10 point stood up and stared at me not 20 yards away.

This happened about a 1/4 of a mile from my house.

No I don't believe we have katydids here, and yes I looks a lot like the spinx moths that the search brought up. Thank you.

I found this pupa in a dried out compost pile about 2 or 3 inches from the surface. This is in Saskatchewan where we don't have to many large bugs so I'm interested to see if anyone has any ideas.

I had to resist the urge to squish it but I reburied it in a similar location.

My neighbors stick to themselves which I'm alright with so they don't really see much of what I do. Growing the majority of my meat is seen as strange. Which I find is really strange being in a rural setting where it is easy to do so.

I have also been seen running down the road with a rifle at 1 am dressed only in underwear and rubber boots while it was close to freezing. I was chasing a coyote which was in the front yard, that vehicle sped up fast and left. (They were probably booze cruising anyway because there is no other reason to be on my road at that time of the day.

It is also seen as strange to be planting so many trees (in a Prairie where their needed most).

I bbq with wood I harvest myself.
I dont go to the city.
I cut cattails for pig bedding.

I'm just different but I like it like that.

I also live in Sask. And out of those varieties that I have experience with is the Pembina which does extremely well and very hardy. I know of one tree that is many decades old and is now sending up thousands of runners in an abandoned orchard. My inlaws have one in their yard that grows like a shrub with many branches about 7 feet high, but that tree is bent to the ground every year with the tremendous amount of fruit on it.

I planted one at my previous house but moved away within 2 years but looking at it now it has grown well.

Currently I have 1 Pembina and 2 brook gold plums that I planted 4 years ago and should have a respectful harvest this year. Along with 2 trees that must be pushing 100 years old (no idea what variety) which my 95 year old neighbor remembers eating from as a wee boy.

I use burdock and dock quite a bit because that is what grows naturally on my property, I will be using caragana in a couple years once they get big enough. The nice thing about caragana besides being a nitrogen fixer is that the twigs are small and lay down nice compared to some shrubs.