James Bridger

Whenever I get a crack in one of my many 5 gallon buckets, I cut the bottom out to make a short tube, and I put those over my baby plants to keep the chickens out. But that's only when I intentionally fence them in somewhere with plants I don't want them to eat. The little buzzards ate my baby nanking when I let them out to wander the yard while I changed their litter.

I  planted 3 of those same brand of nankings, from the local tractor supply store, about 2 weeks ago.  The chickens ate the leaves off of one of them, but it's already got a couple baby leaves growing back, so I think it'll be okay.

A lot of times, what people describe as "gamey" in wild meat is just the taste of that critter, and they're not used to it. Deer tastes like deer, it doesn't taste like beef/pork/chicken. That being said, if you want to make that flavor less noticeable, use it in a recipe that uses a lot of other stuff...chili is always a good place to start. Lots of spices and other flavors. To make it softer (I assume you mean more tender), grind it up or chunk it up, and use wet cooking methods (another reason why chili is a good place to start with wild meat).

I deal with similar stuff all the time at work. There's not much that fire and violence can't fix. Heat it glowing-red hot with a torch, vibrate the living bejeezus out of it with a hammer or air-hammer (if available) right next to the threads and it'll likely back right out as long as the threads aren't boogered up. Sometimes heating it will loosen it to the point that it'll just be finger-tight and can be backed out with a pick, while it's still glowing. Same with the air-hammer method. Sometimes vibrating the crap out of it will cause it to back out on it's own. A combination of the two will work though, as long as the threads aren't trashed.

I very, very rarely have good luck with the drill-it-out method. The surface has to be flat to get a straight hole started. and if you're off center you're likely to mess up the threads in the hole and have to drill for bigger threads and use a helicoil kit (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just more work and parts).

I went for it. Today I planted a packet of carrots, some lettuce, celery, sugar snap peas, broccoli, turnips, and bok choy. I'll report back with how it all does.

Our house started out as a carriage house for a mansion down the block, that burned down a long time ago. In the 1890s, the guy that owned it donated it to his nephew, who converted in into a house. It's two stories plus an attic and  a basement. Apparently, it originally sat one lot to the north, and a basement was dug in the current location and then the house was moved on top of the basement. The original pine floors upstairs have lots of places where there are four parallel scratches running together, from pitchforking hay, and there are three layers of wood floor on the first floor, presumably because the original ones got destroyed by horse carriages.  It looks like a regular old house now, but you can see the old polebarn-style contruction in the attic.

Is there some magic or secret to growing lettuce that I don't know about? Every year my lettuce seedlings topple over like they aren't getting enough light. My other seedlings (peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, etc) do fine. If I direct sow lettuce outside it does fine.

I got some babies today so figured I'd show my brooder. It's two Rubbermaids, taped together. Pretty fancy, right?😜 It cost exactly $0, though. I've had up to 18 Cornish cross chickies in here before with no issues. Currently holding 3 chickens and 3 rouen ducks. I'm not sure what I'm going through or do with the ducks, whether keep them for meat or eggs, but I've got a few weeks to figure that out. The girls desperately wanted ducks, so we got ducks.

I keep this brooder inside. When the kids aren't petting/talking to/reading the o the chicks, I put an old aluminum window screen under the light, just in case it were to fall, to prevent fire.

Letting tap water sit overnight will allow any chlorine to out-gas. BUT.....most water departments use chloramine now (the nasty stuff you get when you mix chlorine and ammonia), specifically because of the fact that chloramine doesn't outgas like chlorine does, so they can use less of it. Since chloramine doesn't outgas by just letting it sit overnight, it has to be removed by filtration, reverse osmosis, or distillation.
All that being said, I use chloramine-filled water from the hose on my garden.

According to my limited knowledge, it's way too early to plant anything outside. It's still 8 weeks until average last frost here. But.....I've already got stuff growing in the garden. I've got little carrots coming up that are leftovers from ones I missed picking last year, plus I've got garlic coming up from last fall. So would it be safe to plant at least carrots and alliums already? For reference, I can shove a stick several inches into the soil, so it's not frozen.