P Colvin

THIS.   is what I've been searching for!  I knew that cattail had potential to be spun!  I have scads of it broken down into material I can make cottage with, but my ultimate goal was to spin it and make clothing.  All I did was split it, dry it, rewet it, and then make cordage.  Then I used it for weaving or basket making.  But I would love to make a nice linen fabric. I'm keeping an eye on this thread so I can learn more.  We have cattail in abundance, but it's a cleaner of water sources.  We also have invasive blackberry bushes everywhere.  The fiber from the blackberries makes great footage and rope, but it's real rough.  Maybe I can find a way to soften it.

Link to my first attempt at weaving something with catrail:  https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP86VV4bd/

I have made a watchband, and plenty of baskets.  Cattail gets brittle.  I even ran the stuff green over my wool carders and shredded it up close to what flax would look like for spinning, but it won't stay together for spinning on a spinning wheel.  It slides apart and won't stay a string.  I guess with flax you use water to help it stay glued together.  

I am learning, but by bit, as I find little nuggets like this hidden away on the Internet, of the  beaten path. So I will try boiling the cattail.  Maybe something like that will work in the fibrous blackberry vines, too.  BlackBerry is a lot more work to harvest, though.

I think technology, on a tightly controlled, very limited basis...can be a good thing.  Our current situation, however, with social media websites, money based flow.of.information, censorship....is a doggone mess.  I'm old enough to remember (like the movie "War Games") where a computer dialed another computer through the phone line, and you played a video game with another person on a DOS OS.  Pong, was my first game.  Remember Juno free email, "e-zines", and "You've Got Mail".  That was my twenties.  I'm turning 50 in a few months, and have gone full circle from building desktops and graphic design, to farming on a small scale.  

That being  said, I'm currently attempting to exploit said technology to make the feed bill.  I see a lot of modern "small homesteads" employing a lot of different income streams and I'm attempting to do so as well.  So I'm attempting to profit from people's narcissistic addiction to technology (I'm guilty, too).  I have a YT channel, Fakebook, Instagram, and TikTok, as well as a home base website that so far doesn't get cancelled if I say the wrong thing.  On those, I post affiliate links along with my articles and videos of how to do self sufficiency skills and so on.

It's really hard to keep our kids away from it,.and it causes social ineptness and social anxiety, inability to connect with other people or look them in the eye.  Electromagnetic energy pulsed into the body   Brain over stimulation from the lignt.
Short attention span and horrible communication skills.  HORRIBLE spelling. In addition to exposing us all to some just really awful material,.and is a doorway for pedos and financial scammers. When my 6 yr old grandson comes to visit,.all gadgets are put away.  His.purpose.for being   here is to experience farm life.  And you know what?  His "ADD" just magically disappears!  And he falls into bed happily exhausted after we read a story from.an actual book with pages,  and doesn't have bad dreams when he's here. At his own house, they put in cartoons for him to go to sleep by. Although we do watch Tom.n Jerry cartoons in bed in the mornings for a bit while I suck down my coffee, attempting to rally the energy to keep up with this child. Lol. Grama needs coffee!

I work very hard to limit my social media time to "work" and during my morning coffee time.  And I work very hard to avoid negativity on it,.politics, arguments, and the like.  I post on forums rarely.  Mostly it's work.  Part of my daily routine.  I compose a video, and/or blog article for both my farm and hub's handyman business, share to all my social medias and then get OFF the phone.   And go outside to do things with the animals.  Movement is what my fat body needs, not setting on my butt in front of a screen getting hungry and angry.from.commercials.and.negative posts.

I'm seeing mostly plant growing on these forums...a few chickens.  Is the idea.of permaculture.a non-animal setup? Just curious.  And I'm thinking back to historically the millions of.bison.in the U.S. continent and the Natives using controlled.burns to "herd" them.  Just.my brain rolling thoughts around.

As a small acreage (13 acres).setup with a couple horses, a couple pigs and good grief, will the predators STOP picking off my chickens!!!  I'm looking at pet insurance.  Here in the States we have a thing called Care Credit that my vet accepted that I'm NOT happy with.  Loan sharks.  Between the cats getting initial checkup, shots, and fixed, dog jumped out a second story window, and horse checkups and one emergency visit for choke/pneumonia ...I used the $2,000 limit pretty darn quick, and the interest rate is abysmal, with a $45 late fee. There's.lots.of.issues with these guys, so I started looking around.

https://www.tbo5trk.com/MF3W3H/2GMH37/       #ad

So far I've checked out the first one on the list.and.it seems to be for cats and dogs.only, but they give you $20k a year to work with and pay out 90%?

I'm still looking through the others, bc I have more than did and cats.  Thoughts? Ideas?

I found a book on the subject at Barnes and Noble.  

https://mavely.app.link/e/A85pVEdFUxb

#ad

What are you folks experiences with this Premier fencing?

https://amzn.to/407oaft

I got it for my chickens 4 years ago when I first moved here and had good experiences.  I hooked it into my stationary perimeter hot line and just.moved my square around the perimeter of my field to keep the goats out of the chicken's feed.  I see people using it for pigs, but my pigs utterly killed it. But then, my pigs weren't trained very well to hotline and figured out they could blow under it to go rob the chickens of their feed.  I see Polyface Farms using it, and another big pig farm using it, Justin Rhodes on YT.... I used it in a BIG space (small space they start getting into trouble) for non-horned goats just fine, and it kept the ground predators away from my chickens. And it was lightweight and handy.  I still kept the poles and still use them.  Pro tip though-. Put a zip tie at the bottom on the ends so the netting doesn't slip down onto the metal prongs and short out. I would only be comfortable using it inside a physical barrier, unlime some fks I've seen- simply bc I have had those "oh crap" moments.  Pigs running down the country road and stopping cars.  No bueno.

Btw, I'm an Amazon affiliate and that is my link.  But I bought this fence. So I just grabbed the link from my account to put there.  So if you click on it and get that fencing, the proceeds go to feed my freeloader horses. Lol

I keep.saying I'm gonna knit some out of my alpaca wool. My t shirts are all way beyond hokey by the time I throw them in the rag bin. Lol Maybe I can make patchwork quilt panties. Now wouldn't that be sexy!  Lol. I tried to make a bra out of yarn once.  Don't do that.  Itchy.    

Winter months after lean times for us financially and the lack of light really affects me so I turn into a crab that wants to hibernate all the time.  We keep the wood stove going often, make lots of soup, and I have finally drug out my happy light and have it on bc I was getting triggered going into town.  People are wearing masks a lot and the visual just really brings back bad memes for me of scary times.  So I force myself to go to safe social things, message sure I stay active in my church, run my happy light in the mornings.  Force myself to exercise on my horses when weather isn't dumping water on us. And I have learned to stay away from my oatmeal raisin cookies bc that and cold weather = hurting knuckles.  Ugh.  Winter seems to be just survived at times. Last year I was more Christmassy.  This year not so much. But I'm doing at least the bare minimum to try to take care of my body so I'm not going backwards health wise. And I'm doing my best to take care of my mind with a very limited budget.  It's only just the two of us now and we are in our late forties. We don't eat a lot, so that helps.  I do a lot of my crazy crafty projects bc that's one of the things that recharges my brain.  My happy place.is my ponies and my craft room..  Being oitside.js a must.  We only get a few hours of daylight so I make sure I'm out in them. Soon.  Soon, well be comparing about blooming cottonwood trees and allergies.

I think I may have done something very similar to this. I was attempting to make footwear, both to be self sufficient, and because almost all shoes hurt my feet and/or don't accommodate short, stubby feet.  Black barn boots are my favorite shoe.  Flat inside.    I have pictures of my ventures somewhere on Fakebook, but it will take a lot of looking to find it. I have a farm, so ... Please don't be mad. Gotta budget my precious coffee time.

So I had a similar issue and I was trying to make my own shoes out of existing materials on hand.  I had a lot of wool laying around.  I had an old rubber yoga mat and traced around my foot for the footprint.  I cut that out.  Then after carding my wool, I wrapped it all the way around the yoga mat foot shape and used a knee nylon stocking on top of that.  I wet felted through the stocking  with soapy water, adding more and more layers of wool and working the material until it shrunk so much it started to twist the shape of the yoga mat rubber.  I took off the stocking and let it dry, then cut a slit on one side of the wool "footprint" shape to make a hole to slide my foot into.  This is how I made a basic slipper. I left the rubber in for a bit while I needle felted on some flowers and vines on the toe.  Then I shaped the hole where the foot slides in into a rounded shape.

For some kind of sole on the bottom, I have used a variety of materials (I worked in leather and cloth, too.  So I did this a lot, trying to perfect my DIY shoe).  

1.  I cut the upper part off a pair of blown out rubber barn boots (a little slick outside, but works). I glued that on and sewed it on.

2.   I did strips of hot glue - it doesn't wear well outside. Rubs off.

3.  I used a caulking gun with silicone.  This looked ridiculous, but was surprisingly sturdy.

4.  I glued on (hot glue again) hemp rope like those huaracha shoes. That was pretty sturdy in dry weather and didn't look too bad.

5.  I glued on all manner of flip flop bottoms, yoga mat...whatever was laying around.  This works well in dry weather for outside or as an indoor slipper. Or just felt on a lot more wool on the bottom of it's for indoors only. Wool is extremely insulating. Maybe a little too hot sometimes lol.

I'm in Western Washington State, so we have a lot of rain and mud. I have been looking for a long time in info on what the Natives wore here during the rainy months, which is 9 months out of the year, because none of the above options keep your feet dry.  My DIY leather moccasins were nice, but it was like wearing socks in the mud. Cooooooold! No bueno. So far I have found that they wore mukluks made from seal skin.  Since it is illegal to k I'll seals, that's not an option for me, so I'm back to square one.

I took a short hiatus on the shoe project for a few years bc we moved and expanded the size of our wannabe farm.  Now I'm back to it a little bit, but on a little different bent. Maybe it will be of use bc I have learned a few more things.

I now have 2 horses and my draft can't seem to wear metal horse shoes yet but needs shoes, so after pricing those rubber shoes at $124 a pop, I am working on a DIY option.  It may be useful I fo bc I researched the DIY "people" shoes how-to's and those made from tires as well, for this project.  Same concepts still apply, for my purposes anyways, that it has to protect from water and rocks, and be from salvaged materials if possible. I just have to make it super tough for a 2,000 lb animal with tender feet (facepalm....) .   I do have some pics of that, attached here.    Also, I've been doing a farm blog entry w pic updates on that, here:.

https://beggsnachin.webstarts.com/blog/post/horse-boots-diy

I got a free tire and cut it with an angle grinder after tracing  my draft's feet with a piece of pizza box.  In other countries I don't see the steel cable wires that we use here in the U.S. in the tire rubber.  Gosh, they make cutting those things look so easy....  It makes sparks everywhere and burned rubber smell and smoke, btw.  

I used the tops of barn boots again as a strip to go around the tire edges bc it has little steel cable wires sticking out that could hurt him. I used Shoe Goo, or E6000 glue under the strip and then little half inch (pointy wood screws?) w a little washer to hold the strip into the sides of the tire piece.  I dunno what these were called.  I dug around in hub's tools until I found a box of something.

**Definitely shoe glue E6000 is the way to go- there's no DIY or cheaper shortcuts on that one that I know of.  **

Then I used my Dremel and pre-drilled sewing holes into the top edge less than a half inch apart.  I went back and filled in any gaps between the rubber strip and tire tread with the shoe glue.  Then I sewed in strips of folded over denim from hub's work pants, lined on the inside with black fleece fabric so as not to rub my horse's legs badly.  I sewed on Velcro to fasten it with.  

Also, inside is a round layer of that same rubber boot uppers, glued down, and a squishy layer of blue yoga mat.  I believe it's memory foam.  A 2,000 lb animal will flatten that in no time, and the boot rubber is to protect against those steel cable wires again. Just in case.  Bc vet bills suck.

I used micro paracord to sew with using a leather sewing awl needle.  The micro paracord had the advantage, in addition to being very tough, added some structure to the denim to make it stand up by itself- easier to slip on the horse hoof, like the Cavallo brand horse boots that I can't afford. When I get the pattern figured out to look all nice, I'll do the ones for my mare in leather. I have cow hides from our beef everywhere, salted and waiting to be processed. Ugh...I keep making work for myself!  Not very smart, huh! Lol

Anyways, I hope that helps somebody. Over the years, I have looked at a LOT of videos and websites on DIY shoes, but few keep your feet dry. Unless you go full cobbler and make your own leather actual shoes with soles.  There's a person that used to sell moldable shoe sole material (kinda thin, but it works) called "shoeology".  I found them originally on Etsy.  It's a rubber material you put in the oven to soften it, then use foil and gloves and slap it on your foot and mold it onto your foot.  Then after it cools to that shape, you glue and/or sew it on.  

But my goal is mostly natural materials or salvaged materials for the purpose of self sufficiency.  

Because if you can do it yourself, you are not slave to jacked up prices and manufactured "shortages".  Just sayin'. Lol