E Sager

Wood undergoes a chemical reaction when it is burned. Potassium in the wood combines with oxygen and carbon during the burn to produce potassium carbonate, which is left in the ashes along with other minerals, predominantly calcium. Wood ash can be up to 30% calcium. Carbonates neutralize acids, raising ph. When ash is added to the soil, the carbonates will neutralize acids in the soil, but also the calcium in the ash raises ph as well. Sandy acid soils like ours here in New Hampshire always have a calcium deficiency and wood ash is a valuable resource for mitigating this.

When burning, minerals in the wood do not get hot enough to melt and remain in the ash. Because of this it is a valuable plant food kind of like a San Pellegrino for plants. You can apply ash directly to the soil with results, but it goes a lot further when used as a liquid plant food.  We use liquid ash as a foliar feed. To make liquid ash, use 1 part ash to 5 parts water and then dilute that 1:10 in a watering can and douse. Brassicas particularly love it.

We have a workshop spot with radiant floor heating. Our ferments go on a seed starting matt set on a pallet. That is enough to keep ferments above 70ºF, with the thermostat set at 58ºF. A good trick, if you don't have radiant floors, is to make a plywood box and line it with rope light.

This is an interesting idea. Thought dump:

If growing apples for lumber in a type of forest system, I'm not sure you will run into the same disease problems as you would apples in an orchard setting if you are maximizing diversity.

Red Gravenstein and Rambo are the two fastest growing commercial varieties we have on our property

Coppicing can create more quality lumber. I discovered how great apples coppice when nature coppiced one of our Medaille d'Ors on its own after a Tamarack fell on it.

Applewood blanks can be value added proposition at a farmers' market. Blanks can be used for turning, or small lumber for smaller projects. Gun stocks, bowls, spoons, cutting boards, spurdles, shrink pots, etc.

I would try probably plant lumber apples from the seeds of our Red Gravenstein. Rather than using rootstocks.

It would be a trick to get them to grow straight with minimal knots

It would be interesting to compare full size apples with crabapple trees

It's true, you could never have enough comfrey, but you may struggle in the future if you plan on planting something else to replace a 5 year mature comfrey patch. One option would be to take a leaf from the school of famed English Gardner 'Monty Don' and create 'rooms' in your garden. Comfrey makes a great hedge. You can use hedges to surround annual plots (making rooms) and then grow cover crops in those plots until you are ready to plant something else in them. A plot of Sudan Grass and tillage radish can create even more biomass than Comfrey in the same area. With good cover cropping strategy, you may not even need as much compost as you think.

I recommend getting all your flour from Maine Grains. They have the best unadulterated grain products in the game.

Maine Grains All Purpose Flour

Thanks for sharing the news your words. 93 is a real good run! Master Cho's legacy will live on in our farm and many others across the world.

I'm going to put a word in on this thread for dogs because there are too many posts encouraging death as a solution to the livestock dog problem. Even though it is true dogs are the greatest threat to livestock, they also offer one of the best, secure farm experiences. Dogs are a very advanced farm animal to have and need close monitoring and training. A farm or homestead is a different world altogether than a city dwelling with an entirely different set of realities. Different breeds come with various levels of challenges, but still all canines have prey drives. In fact, it is this prey drive that enables us to train them to do work. This is true even for LGDs. Dogs need strong leadership. If they don't have a pack leader and they are left to their own devices, they will act on instinct for the benefit of their pack in that moment.

The situation we have here with the original poster is a very difficult one. If a dog's reality is life without livestock and then is suddenly put in a situation where they have to cope with livestock. This is one of the more difficult situations to handle. It's easier if you bring a dog into a world where there is already livestock.

With dogs, the best tip I can give is to do what you can to avoid setting them up for failure. It's never the dog thats fails, it's the owner. Consider fencing, normalization time with leashes, and livestock time after walks or other types of exercise. It can take multiple years worth of this kind of effort before you can trust your dog unsupervised with livestock. I'll second what a previous poster said about normalizing homestead livestock with dogs by socializing them with young livestock. It's a sound strategy we've used with success. If they consider a livestock animal as part of the pack, you are most of the way there.

In my opinion, there's no better asset on a farm than a properly trained, working dog, but if you aren't willing to put in the effort that will prevent opportunities for them to fail, it's probably better to choose livestock or dogs; one over the other.

It's scary news indeed. You can spend your life working your land, making it the most resilient permaculture property in the world. But even if you had the most insular way of life with your permaculture landscape providing for your every need, even to the point you no longer need to venture into the outside world; you still aren't safe when the outside world ventures into your property with bird flu. At some point, something is going to get you. If you aren't safe with permaculture, what are your other options? Underground bunker? Hole under a rock? Plastic bubble? Locked, padded rooms? Are any of these worse than bird flu? Not sure.

I'm going keep gardening with my chickens and ducks. I'll feed them loads of greens and some occasional yoghurt. Maybe toss them some cider vinegar and garlic in their water. I'll deep mulch with wood chips and maybe even spray the area with JMS. But most importantly, I'll say nice things to them and tell them how much I appreciate them.

You can try chewing on a high-quality clove. You just want to make sure the clove has its bulb intact.