Kate Medland

Very good questions! I'm interested in this topic. I've been considering sheep as well, but I like the idea of hair sheep myself, and getting wool from my neighbouring farms so I don't have the personal pressure of the sheering. Angora rabbit always sounded interesting until I realized how much grooming they need. 😀  noooope.
I'll be watching here to see what you decide.

We ferment our garlic for 3 months in raw honey! It's spectacular. Favourite treat!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/405838670370319/?ref=share

This is an amazing channel. Care and detail and very easy to follow.

Jeanne Wallace wrote:

Kate Medland wrote:

We planted out 45 black locust yesterday.  (Ya, we planted them too close, I know , I know, live and learn).

They don't look too closely planted to my eye.
Rather, looks like you plan to harvest every other one for fence poles, garden stakes, or fuel for your rocket stove...  (others might call this "thinning"). 😄

Thanks! That's kinda what we were thinking.  We need some posts! 😉

Catherine Carney wrote:Youtube has a bunch of videos about laying hedge. I've linked to one that was created in England during WW2, but there are plenty of others:  

Hope it helps.

Thank you! That was the best, full example of that  process! I'd watched recent videos, but this one was very complete. We still hope to find some on the 'tack down and weave ' methods too, but now I understand this method, and see it's advantages.

This is a great thread! Very helpful right now as we are establishing some living hedges.

I'm curious if there is a video, or more info on the great photos at the start of this. The one with the bending of the first growth, the weaving of the second, and the lovely cow by the 3rd photo!

We planted out 45 black locust yesterday.  (Ya, we planted them too close, I know , I know, live and learn).

We would like to see this project through, have this as a perimeter fence, with another living fence inside. We will run sheep or goats between occasionally as mowers, and have them in the main areas most of the time.

Hi! I can't believe I missed this post!

We get rid of the leftover from ghee. We figure if we are filtering it out, we likely don't want to eat it.

That being said, we ONLY use ghee. We'll, mostly.

Everything we fry, bake or spread generally has ghee on it or in it.

It is shelf stable for a long time as long as the water is out, and nothing contaminates it. I have it on the shelf for well over a year at times.

I make mine in a crock pot these days. Simple and requires no supervision.

Mmmmm ghee!

Tom Worley wrote:Hey folks,

My family property in the eastern Ozarks was one of those wrecked by the tornadoes a month or so ago- no major structural damage, but lots of shattered trees- blasted and broken 15-20 feet off the ground.

The site is 40 acres, half upland, half bottomland, and it's been high-graded in the past.  Upland is dominated by shingle oak and bitternut hickory, bottomland canopy has some nice black walnut and cherry, and a lot of sycamore and river birch.   I'd like to use some of these "trash trees" as shelter trees while establishing more marketable hardwood species in the understory.  

I was reading online about folks in other parts of the country tapping birch and sycamore for syrup.  Has anyone tried it in the Ozarks?  I've read sap production takes off in spring when daytime temperatures are above freezing but nighttime temperatures are still below freezing.  I was figuring late February-early March, but I'm interested in hearing from anyone who's tried it.

We've done birch. It's done a bit later than Maple, here it's when the spring peeper frogs start waking up, or just a few days earlier. The nice thing is you don't have snow to deal with. The not so nice is the mud and the ratio is more like 100:1, so you'll be better off with a reverse osmosis machine to take off most of the water, then finishing with wood.

We really like the birch, and will expand into Maple and Black Walnut soon.

Samantha Lewis wrote:Make a pine needle basket.  
Traditionally they are stitched with raffia (the leaf on a palm tree).   We could stitch ours with home spun linen or wool.

I make my stitches with sinew,  and dye the needles with beets and other natural (and sometimes not natural) dyes. Handles and embellishments can be made from antlers, seeds, cones etc.