carla murphy

Just looked and I only have 11 copies of it left though and I want to keep a few for personal use.  She self published and had something like 4000 copies sold.  But she published it just as all the fat will kill you, butter bad, etc craze hit so it never went really big and it was a niche market anyway.

Now I do have the legal right to the book and the camera ready pages for it so if there was enough interest it might be worth uploading to some book on demand printer??  

I'm interested in this book.  How can I purchase?

Not a diy, but we love our chofu.
https://islandhottub.com/wood-fired-heater/
Thought of diy-ing copper tubing around a firepit, but the location is too close to the house for me to be comfortable.

Chofu is a wood fired hot water heater.  We use the prunings from the yard to heat the water to soak in the tub and make charcoal to throw in the chicken and goat pens to become inoculated as biochar to use in the garden.  I have difficulty breathing any time I get into a chlorinated pool of water and it gives me itchy skin.  So I was glad when Frazer Mann of Island Hot Tub educated us about Hydrogen Peroxide.  With the Chofu, there is no motor noise (works by thermosiphon) or bubbles.  Just a nice warm quiet peaceful soak under the stars.  Our tub is just a deep bath tub I got off craigslist….Frazer was super helpful when educating us just where to cut the out and intake holes in the side of our tub.  Very promptly responsive to any questions I sent by email.  When we empty the tub, it runs into the swale that waters the front garden.  Peroxide is safe for the yard (what is left of it by the time it leaves the tub).

Thekla McDaniels wrote:
You can make a lizard and snake catching stick.

Thanks Thekla.  Yes, this is exactly how I caught the lizards we imported into our yard.  The friend who taught me this said she learned it when she assisted with a lizard  survey and they used grass.  She said it works because lizards walk through grass all the time so being touched by it doesn't startle them.  So that is how I started.  Every day before we walked, I would get a new piece of grass.  Finding just the right piece, long enough, pliable enough on the end to make the loop, and strong enough on the other end to be able to hold the lasso out and steady was the challenge.  Then I went to a dowel and a bit of fishing string.  My husband called me the lizard wrangler with my lizard lasso.  I stopped collecting when we got to 14 lizards, hoping that was a good population.  Apparently it is since that was easily 3 years ago and we saw baby lizards in the yard again this year.

Hadn't thought of using it to catch a snake... So now I need to get out and about to some wildlands and remember to bring my lasso and mesh bag.  So hard to want to be away from our Oasis, but now I have a mission.  Altho in all the times we have been hiking, I've only seen a snake twice and once was a baby rattler.  Not bringing that one home!  I visited a friend last week and they had a dead baby gopher snake in their front yard.  Missed that opportunity by hours I think.  She said she would have gladly let me adopt that snake.

Helen Siddall-Butchers wrote:We have snakes here and there seems to be a good balance of wildlife.  Sometimes more of one thing, but then more predators arrive and redress the balance.  Carla, I wonder what would happen if you left the rats instead of removing them?  In my experience, what needs to come will come if I let nature do its thing!  The snakes will be observing, I'm sure, to see if the rodent supply is secure before moving in permanently.  

I'd agree with this sentiment if we had wildlands around us, but we are in a suburban development.  All green lawns, sidewalks, and blacktop.  There were no lizards here before we brought them in from the undeveloped property about 2 miles away.  Now we find them in neighbor's yards too!

Thought of getting a cat, but fear a cat would take out the lizards we've cultivated here.  And there are plenty of neighborhood cats that come through our yard so I think having a cat of my own wouldn't change much in the way of rodent population.  Thought of getting a rat terrier but can't have a dog barking all night chasing rats and annoying the neighbors.  And then there is the issue of cat and dog poop disposal.  Although... now that I have the soldier fly bin... I think I can feed cat/dog poop to the larvae.

I have several rat traps out.  Have to rotate bait since the rats get smart about it.  Got desperate last month and bought sticky traps...caught a lizard... DANG!  Was able to unstick him (took 20 mins) and he went on his way.  Pitched the sticky traps immediately.  Won't put poisons out since the chickens run the yard.  All traps have to be under a milk crate to keep the chickens safe and yet I still had one chicken get under the lid of the compost pile and knocked over the milk crate and got her toe snapped in a rat trap.  Fortunately I was in the yard at the time and was able to get the trap off her.  No lasting damage done.  Baking soda and cornmeal does nothing for my rodents.  They seem to eat it up and yet I don't find (or smell) any dead rats.  Tried floating sunflower seeds in a bucket, no luck.  Tried peanut butter on rotating can above bucket of water, no luck.  Snap traps with peanut butter or cheese works best... for a while.  Did have the chickens take out a nest of rodents once.  Was turning compost pile and baby rodents were in there.  Chickens came in and gulped them down whole.  I love my birds!  We even have an owl that has lived in our neighborhood for years.  We hear him every night.  We hope he is doing something to keep the population down, but we still have rats eating our food forest.

Plenty of habitat for lizards and snakes (and rats).  Build piles, rock walls on our raised garden beds, logs as climbing structures for the goats.  Veggie beds are fenced off so the chickens don't get in, but lizards can come and go as they please as a refuge from the chickens, and snakes could too!  If I get a pet store snake (or two or three), will they hunt?  Would I be able to get a mating pair?  Would I just cut them loose in the yard?  Was hoping to find a wild snake and import it here.  Then I would know it is adapted to life outdoors.  Would need to alert the neighbors that there is a new resident at our Urban Oasis, in case the snake wanders across property lines.

Wondering how I can import a snake or two into our 1/4 acre suburban backyard.  Any suggestions?  We have a problem with rats and mice.  I keep trapping them, they keep coming.  Our compost pile is a perfect habitat for them.  We've stopped putting food waste in there (built a secured worm/black soldier fly habitat that takes the food waste) but the rats are already here.  They hang out in our orange tree, eating the green fruit.  They stare at me from our sweet potato vines.  They scurry out of our 'hay barn' (only holds 11 bales of hay) and poop in our goat shed.  We got no fruit from our fruit trees this year.  The trees produced, but the varmits got all the fruit before it was even ripe.  16 five year old fruit trees of different varieties.  We planted for successive harvest and the varmits just moved from one tree to the next.  Now the seedling starts in the greenhouse are being topped and the 3ft tree collard plant has been stripped to just its trunk.

We had good luck importing lizards.  Saw them on the sidewalk as we took our evening walk on the outskirts of town.  Captured a few and brought them home.  Turns out we probably saved the 14 we imported since that area is now developed.  We've seen baby lizards in the yard so we know that they are sticking around and breeding.  Would like to figure out how to import a snake or two to help keep the rodent population down.

Small easy project, yes, but became more than I would have imagined.  It started as a way to get kitchen waste out of the open compost bin to hopefully cut down on the rat population.  Plenty of yard debris to keep the compost going without adding rat food to it.  I was planning on building stacking worm bins.  Mesh bottom, sits on the ground so worms can come and go as they like since I am not a very diligent worm keeper and often forget to feed and water my above ground worm bin.   Idea is to continue stacking one on another as they fill.  Then, take the bottom one and put it on top when food waste had been converted to castings so that any worms remaining in the castings will move to the bins below with food.  Then I don't have to figure out how to save the worms before I use the castings.  Got the bins built.  Started filling with food waste.  The lid was getting mold on the underside so I decided to paint it.  Had to put a different lid on until I cleaned off the mold and got around to painting and paint dried.  This different lid did not fit tight, but tight enough to keep rodents out.  Apparently, delightfully, not tight enough to keep black soldier flies out.  About two weeks in to filling, I noticed the writhing mass of what I think are black soldier fly larvae or meal worms.  I have had black soldier fly in my yard so this is exiting.  The chickens think this is particularly exciting too!  Bonus...it seems as though there are fewer filth flies in the yard now.  I had read somewhere that if you have black soldier flies, you will have less filth flies.  Win, win, win all around!  

James Sims wrote:Theirs a type of mead called Bländ I've made a fee times that uses whey as a liquid base. And honey n does all these cool things when it gets fermented. It give a wide nutrient range and with whey as a base it's chock full of protein.  

James...please share details for making Bländ.  I've been making cheese and dabbling with fruit wines...but I have ALOT of whey (no pigs here to feed it to) to put to best use.  The only thing I found online for Bländ is whey and sugar.  But which whey.  I get whey in all forms, fresh from cheddar, less fresh from Chevre (as that drains a long time), cooked from ricotta.  Can I make Bländ with any and all of these wheys?  And what would happen if I used honey instead of sugar?  We've just harvested our first batch of honey from our hive.  Hoping to be able to move away from sugar.

r ranson...did you ever get to a pottery class to make cheese molds?  Wondering how they would hold up to the weight required for a cheddar make.  I'm in David Asher's online class right now and dreaming of being able to move away from the plastic molds I've been using.  I did attend a basket weaving class to make a cheese mold using juncus....so fun, great for chevre but that won't hold up to any weight.

Or you can eat your sunscreen.....

https://drhowardmurad.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Eat-Your-Sunscreen-How-the-food-we-consume-can-protect-our-skin-from-the-suns-harmful-rays.pdf

https://www.gaia.com/article/10-ways-eat-your-sunscreen

https://wellnessmama.com/4621/eat-my-sunscreen/

Don’t go eating a helping of pasta sauce and dark chocolate and think you are covered…its a whole diet and regimen…but a healthy one.  

We use this one all the time.  Courtesy of Karen at The Art of Doing Stuff.
https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/insanely-easy-ridiculously-delicious-homemade-mayonnaise/#recipe

Ingredients
1 egg room temperature
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup of light tasting oil vegetable oil
1 pinch of salt
Instructions
Add all ingredients to container of immersion blender (or wide mouth mason jar).
Place blender directly over the egg and hold in place touching the bottom of the container.
Keeping the blender touching the bottom of the container, turn it on and mix until the oil stops incorporating.
Slowly raise the blender from the bottom of the container, maintaining the vacuum, to incorporate the rest of the oil.
Once the vacuum seal is broken, mix up and down a couple of more times and you're done.