Michael Bradford

Dionysius Delamare wrote:Hello,

I ended up on the Virginia coast, where I worked in a shipyard for my late teenage years. Eventually I threw the towel in and decided to sail the broad and endless seas for to seek my fortune on the waves. I traveled to India and Ceylon, to Zanzibar and South Africa; I traveled up the Amazon, and down through the Southern Ocean to glimpses of the southern ice. One time, in beauteous fair Ireland, our ship was sailing along and the rich captain spotted a fair maid on the shore. “I’ll die, I will die”, our captain did cry, “if I don’t have that maid on the shore!”
Now the captain had silver, and the captain had gold, and costly wares, these he had; all these he would give to his jolly ship’s crew if we’d bring him that maid on the shore. Slowly, with persuading, she came on board; the captain he gave her a cheer, “O! Come with me to the cabin below. Bid adieu to all sorrow and care!

There are more stories. One time, again, in Maine, another interesting thing occurred. Our ship was crashed upon the rocks by a gale, and I swam to shore along with the rest of the crew. Though we had gathered up many costly wares, they were dashed against the rock by our collective careless negligence and over-eagerness to arrive in Camden-port ‘ere the falling of night. We were stranded on the barren rock with nothing but seaweed to eat until a passing ship the next day spotted us and carried us along. I decided right then and there that I would persist in sailing until I was dashed to bits on the stormy seas or I had made my fortune and could rest.

Soon enough I fell asleep in an open pasture, with ripe blackberries all around, and therein I dreamt that I saw a fair beauteous maid, and her face was very kind and I knew I could trust her (though not why). She was walking out of the greenwood growing, flowers were at her feet; she took my hand and lead me inward, and showed me out to sea, where we saw a storm that was bigger than any I had ever seen. There were waves as high as mountains, and they swallowed the ships, the port towns, and everything that I had wanted was gone, washed by the water and destroyed. “You will die within a year if you continue on your present course”, she said.

“I am your own true love; I love you and you love me”, she said, “and I am of the greenwood. You shall find me here among the trees, especially the oaks and the hickories. You will find me where greener grows the wood by the years that are passing.”


Perhaps I shall say more another time, but for now I ask that my own true love should seek me out, and if I have failed to see her more closely, then shame on me; for many a fair young lass have I seen in my time, but never so excellent as she.

Part of this story reminds me of a period for me once upon a time ago in my youth.  A time of love lost, the loneliness, and love found again. I'm not a sailor of any sort really, but was inspired by the vast yet seemingly emptyness of the sea. So I wrote a few lines of those memories.
I call it "The Lonely Sea"


I was tossed upon a sea of strife and lost the comfort of a lady's arm.
Now the sea has calmed to a simpler life and I've drifted from any harm.

I've floated upon this lonely sea so long, but had never really lost my way.
I whiled away hours contemplating moon and stars while waiting for the day.

I've hauled up sails and see the rising glow and nearing of morning light.
A fresh wind is blowing in across the waves, I was running from the night.

Dancing now atop the gentle swells of a falling and rising sea
THERE! an island, beyond the waves she suddenly appeared to me.

Her beacon bright eyes becon me and her smile shows me the way.
Perhaps once more, coming near her shore, l'll be longing there to stay.



Thanks for your story... Never lose heart. For sometimes, dreams do come true.

Jen Anderson wrote:I know this thread is kinda old....but I've gotta add to it.

I have two hens, I've named them Ellen DeHenneres, and Dinah (something that sounds like Shore).   They are a lesbian couple!!  They have hen sex all day long.  My rooster, RooPaul, runs over all upset and ready to fight when he sees someone mounting one of "his" girls.  When Ellen hops off, RooPaul checks her up and down and realizes she is a hen not a rooster!  He gets all confused but waddles off instead of cockfighting.

You may ask "gee, how can hens have lesbian chicken sex?"  Apparently cocks don't have a cock, so all chicken sex is kinda the same...

And so now even chickens get XX and XY mixed up? Things sure are crazy these days! As for me, the only sex change I would want would be from maybe not so much to a whole lot more... but I digress.

So I've got a bit of a chicken joke for you in the form of a riddle... So, here goes...

If it takes a hen and a half a day and a half to lay an egg and a half... Tell me, what do roosters lay?
Wait for it....















Silly chickin! anyone who raises chickens know that hens get laid by roosters... So there it is, roosters lay hens !!! Ba Da Boomp !!!  ( plus a cymbal crash)

A couple years ago my brother purchased some cheap 1/2 inch mesh plastic netting advertised as something to
prevent deer from breaching an area or to stop predators such as coyotes or to prevent birds from getting at the
fruit in trees. It did none of that but last year did manage to catch and strangle a cedar waxwing bird and this year
trapped in a tangle of the mesh 3 big black snakes, size about 4 to 5 feet long in some of that netting that had fallen
to the ground. The snakes were found to be alive, but just barely. They were freed and crawled away on their own
to continue their duty as rat catchers.

An added note about predator security regarding chicks or other small critters being kept confined. Trying to go cheap
sometimes ends up being more costly than intended. The black snakes have managed to get into the coops to steal
chicken eggs on a couple occasions. And recently, one got into a brooder with a bunch of quail chicks. It killed 17 of  
them apparently because they were too big to swallow and spit them back out. But it ate 14 others completely. The rest
of the chicks were unharmed. The snake was long and lumpy looking having had its fill of quail chicks. He was set free
because it is easier to recoup quail chicks than it is to be rid of one or more rats that a black snake can dispatch much
more proficiently than my brother and myself.

The thing about doing short-cuts is that you often end up being the one with cuts. Do it right or expect a higher rate of
failures. Really make sure things are secure... not just a covering and hope for the best because hope doesn't stop
predators.

dale farrow wrote:could water bladder maybe a water bed with insulating laid on pipes then bladder on top cover bladder then enclose in frame have water to adjust with valves in shut off to open circulate through pipes to solar collector and water heater.

The concern I would have is if the plastic bladder would be able to hold up to high temperatures.  The oly info
I could find suggests temperatures less than 100° (F) = 37.77° (C). Admittedly, this is likely for sleeping comfort
and safety. I didn't find info on the actual capability of the water bed bladder material itself. However;  GOOGLE says this:

WATER STORAGE bladders are generally capable of storing hot water in the range of 35° to 90° (C) = 95° to 194° (F) with
optimal, safe storage typically set around 60° (C) = 140° (F) to prevent bacterial growth. Specialized, high-temperature
industrial systems can operate with water approaching boiling, around 90° (C) to 95° (C) = 194° (F) to 203° (F)

And then there is the weight to consider. A king size waterbed can hold around 235 gallons of water which weighs around
1960 pounds. That is almost one ton of water you wouldn't want crushing anything beneath it or leaking all over.

An off topic aside:
I once upon a time got too tired of the maintenance of a water bed. Water beds were a fad that ended... nobody would buy
it, nobody wanted it, even for free. So I drained it, took it outside and filled it with air from a compressor. The neighborhood
kids had an absolute blast with that super sized beach ball thing all day long... until it got a hole too big to patch one last time
to keep it from deflating too fast. It was a hoot... and they got more bounce out of it than I ever did

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that pressure relief valves would only be a
neccessary thing if you are heating water to the boiling point or higher in a closed
system.

For trying to store heat higher than 212° (F) = 100° (C), it may be worth considering
a different type of mass for the storage of that heat other than plain water; (rocks,
sand, cob, soap stone or soil maybe ?)

There are other things  that may be considered, but some reach into more exotic
things like brine, glycol, oils and maybe other things I've not mentioned... some
are caustic, costly and/or are a fire or explosion risk.

It may take more of a thing (other than water... or even the "exotics") to get and
hold heat at temperatures above the boiling point of water because of its lower
heat holding capability and efficiency. But generally speaking, I think they are less
expensive, less risk and easier to be managed by the average DIY builder. On the
downside, there is the cost of sweat equity and the space taken by the volume of
material needed to do the job.

To keep water at same level across all barrels, each one would need to be connected to the next barrel, one after the other and
be located at the bottom. You could fill the whole system by just putting water into one barrel and it would flow from one barrel
to the next. And the water would rise mostly evenly and level out across all of them. (as long as flow is not too restricted between
any one of them)  

Same principle across the top (on the lid venting the head space of each barrel from one to the other) Any one of those barrels
could have a vent on it to release any over pressure to outside of the sytem but they all must be connected together otherwise.
You could just vent it outside to prevent excess humidity, or inside to increase humidity... whichever you may need at the time.

Having the barrels all conected together at the bottom allows for self leveling of your liquid mass. And being all connected together
at the top headspace allows for equalized venting pressure across the system with the a single vent for pressure exhaust.

Also, all of the barrels need to/should be at the same level at the top. Your liquid mass will overflow the top of the barrel whos top
is lower than the others. So if the top is same on all, then all can only fill that high before overflowing.

Lastly, for the sake of uniformity, it would be easiest for all those containers to be the same size. That is not an absolute neccessity.
BUT! the important thing is that the top level of each container be at the same level as all of the rest. Tall and shorter barrels still
need to be connected at the bottom to make use of the whole volume of each container. This all assumes the whole system is
being heated at the bottoms of all containers. (with some uniformity perhaps) For thermosyphon to work, there would also need to
be another set of connections like the fill and vent lines near the top but below the full level of your containers. This will allow the
heated liquid to flow across the top layer from barrel to barrel. (better stratification that way) And of course a line from the bottom
of the lowest reaching container for the cooler liquid to flow to the heating part of the system.

I have made many small batches at a time using basically soup cans filled and jammed together. Then they were put into the
woodstove after most of the heating fire had burned down. 1 can has the open end fluted with a HVAC like crimp tool and the
other paired can with a nail hole poked in the bottom for escaping gases. Some were filled with humanure. (poo, TP and fine
wood chip bedding and sometimes with added sprinkles of wood ash to help reduce smell) Some would get filled with bits of
wood sticks and some with cardboard shredded with a heavy duty paper shredder. I did that a couple years ago (garbage bag
full) but didn't get around to it this last heating season.

I figure the humanure type and wood stick types make chunks of char appropriate in size for use to be bio-charged and used
that way for gardening. But I'm not so sure how well the shredded cardboard will work for that because the cardboard char is
rather small, thin and light. But I'll tell you what!!! That cardboard char sure works great for sprinkling a coffee can full in the
chicken coops to knock down any stink.  I've not checked yet to see the results though using the cardboard char from the coop
cleanouts in the compost pile. I'm guessing it may just break apart too finely to be of lasting biochar utility. I'm still going to use
the shredded cardboard char in the coops anyway, regardless of composting results. Even some of the shredded cardboard not
put through pyrolysis may get used as nest bedding. That stuff should compost easily.

I don't know what may cause a rooster to attack like that, but it seems there must be something that triggers that kind of aggression.  
If one could come up with some plausible reasons for the why of it then they might also be able to come up with reasonable solutions
to address it.

We have a rooster here that will stalk my brother before attacking... He sometimes catches my brother unaware. My brother will chase
him and punt him like a soccer ball when he finally catches up to him. The rooster will make an approach to me, but never in a threatening
way and usually with a group of 2 or more hens in tow... more of a looking for a handout of some scratch or sunflower seeds kind of thing.

I am gentlemanly with his hens that he protects, not ever teasing or chasing them and often (but not always) I will squat down and try to
keep myself positioned sideways to him when he comes near to me. I try not to present directly frontally which I presume may be regarded
as confrontational. It may just be my imagining that is why he doesn't attack me, but it seems to be what works. I think chickens are smarter
than some may give them credit for. At least I know from observation that they remember behaviors and react/respond (or not) accordingly.
Just my 2  cents

Any April Fools Day jokes, stories or any other April Fools Day sillyness to share?

OOH! OOH! OOH!   I've got one!
Here is an April Fools Day Limerick for you that I wrote a long time ago and I dust it off and bring it out every year.

Gorillas at monkey tech schools
Make their gas with monkey wrench tools
But the octane they make
for their cars is so fake
All they do is just "Ape real Fuels"

Like the OP, I was wondering if anyone had made char out of humanure. But I did it myself first anyway  (just did so today, Dec. 24, 2024) and then
went looking to see if any one else had.  So I found what I was looking for and found it here to add my experience.

My compost toilet buckets stack up a while (6 or 7 months usually) before they get dumped into the humanure specific compost pile. I dont use it
for gardening so the pile is basically unused so far. (just my brother and I here going on 4 years) so the pile is still nowhere near being full. Smell
was an occasional problem only if it managed to get wet from rain. (leaky tarp I guess)

I saw a YT video where a guy used soup cans to make char in his woodstove over the winter heating season; so that is the method I am using for
pyrolization. For the compost toilet, fine flaked pine used for horse bedding gets sprinkled over the poo. No effort is made to divert urine. When
full, the lid is closed tight on top and gets put outside. I mostly try to keep it in the shade. Any time of the year. None have busted when frozen yet.  
And remarkably so far, the smell was not nearly as bad as I expected for bucket contents that had been sitting for several months. This might be
different for "fresher" bucket loads, but I haven't gotten to them yet.

The finished product is light and finely flaked and the occasinal clump of more compacted char crumbles very easily. No crushing is needed. It will
be great for sprinkling as is into the deep bedding in the chicken coops to absorb smell of amonia and chicken poo or to mix into garden soil (after
it gets innoculated with compost tea or with it already mixed in with the coop bedding that gets composted) or to put some in an open jar or dish
as a deoderizer to absorb odors in the kitchen and in the bathroom.

BTW, the fine pine flakes surprized me when I first started using the composting toilet. (5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat on top... quite simple but
adequate and effective )

Some smell was noted, but not nearly as noxious when at first when trying to use straw. (big, big mistake) So I used a spray bottle mixed with some
freerange, purebred unicorn fart juice that was certified !00% organic, non GMO, unsulphered, no PFAS or glyphosates, herbacide free, fungicide
free, insecticide free, petrochemical free, no antibiotics, non-allergenic and mixed with osmosis filtered well water. The poo pile would get covered
with a judicious coating of pine flakes and spritzed with a few squirts of the unicorn fart juice concoction. Now I never had smelled unicorn fart juice
before, but to me it smelled suspiciously like several drops of vanilla extract had been mixed in with the osmosis filtered well water. Apparently the
spray can also be had in peppermint or lavender versions and maybe others as well but I didn't try any of those. Anyway, I later discontinued use of
the spray since generally unicorns are as hard to come by as unobtainium and their fart juice even moreso.  That, and I just became accustomed to  
the slight vestigial waft of poo.  (and that could probably be cured with a dish of the humanure char nearby to absorb those odors.)