Jackson Bradley

E Nordlie wrote: It is actually a bit difficult to crack them (for frying, for example) without just squashing the whole egg.  

Quail egg scissors are only a few bucks and they solve this issue completely. They cleanly cut the top off of the eggshell and you turn the egg over and it comes right out without any shell mess.

One of the silver linings of raising chickens and quail for meat and eggs is the ability to combine some of the fresh, less used parts for a really good treat.

When I butcher quail, I save the heart and liver and fry them up with quail eggs. 1 quail egg per heart and liver, slice the heart and liver and fry in a skillet with butter and olive oil with salt and pepper. It is quite a treat.

With chickens, I do the same but with 2 eggs per heart and liver if it is a larger bird or 1 egg to 1 heart and 1 liver if smaller. Cooked the same.

I prefer the taste of the quail eggs over chicken eggs but we eat a lot of both.

We save a 5 gallon bucket or two filled with wood ash and use it to displace fire ants during the growing season. It does not kill the ants but will cause them to move.

If plants are established, it will not hurt them as we've found out when a mound pops up in one of our raised beds and we applied the wood ash to get the ants to move.

Kim Goodwin wrote:One thing that people often think of as a scrap - but is SO GOOD and worth trying if you haven't already... chicken foot broth.  The feet make the best broth by far.  I don't even bother with making any other type now because the chicken foot broth doesn't smell as strong as chicken broth made from other bones.  Foot broth is the only one my husband can stand now.   The broth is makes is so rich in gelatin!

For sure! When I butcher chickens, I make sure to scald and peel the feet then set them aside. They end up in the chicken broth, with the chicken carcass after we roast and eat the chicken. Adding even 2 feet, from that bird we ate, makes a night and day difference in the amount of collagen in the broth.

For this size cabin, if you are sure about the location, the concrete piers would work as suggested. If you are not sure about location and will have a tractor, you could build it on skids.

You can ask the internet what the frost depth is in your area and dig your piers in to that depth. If it were me, I would have the lower joist system at least 18" from the ground to the lowest part of the joist system.

You could use sonotubes and have them extend out of the ground to that elevation and set your floor system on top. No matter what you decide, I would make sure there is a transition from the piers to the floor system that can be accessed/unbolted/unfastened.

The reason I mention the transition and the 18" is because if there ever is an issue, you can get under the house, with a small bottle jack, and relevel the house.

If you decide to not leave the space under the floor system, you can use a hi-lift jack from the outside to accomplish the same thing. I have used both methods to relevel conventional houses.

Both methods are very easy to do. Knowing you can fix any potential issues that happen over time will give you some peace of mind. This way, you don't need to feel the need to come up with a "perfect" solution.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough. Meaning that the endless pursuit of flawlessness can often hold us up from taking action.

Ra Kenworth wrote:I try not to waste any shells at all, but I boil a lot of eggs and unless they are promptly dunked into cold water and peeled right away, the egg sticks then it needs to go in the compost.

I like to use the oldest eggs we have (from our chickens) for boiled eggs. They peel easier.

Also, I do not do an ice bath. I boil them and then put the in the fridge for 24-48 hours before I try to peel them. It works just as well as an ice bath if you can plan ahead. maybe the ones that you feel didn't get dunked fast enough, put in the fridge and try them a day or two later and see if that worked.

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Jackson;
The location does not matter at all.
The entire cabin, including all the many additions, is evenly toasty warm!
They absolutely were not with the old metal wood burner.
So far this year, we have burned less than a third of a full cord.
We constantly have windows cracked to let in fresh cold air.

Thank you for the info. That is great!

Thomas, how does this do in the corner location? I see that the old metal stove was there originally.

I have seen some in the middle of a large open area, like Glenn's https://permies.com/t/238503/Batch-Rocket-Build

Judith, we've found there are some factors other than wood chip depth that will determine if the grass will come up through the chips.

Wood chip make up/size, the amount of rain we get and if the grass is dormant.

If we apply a 8" layer of finer chips (less than 1" in length/diameter) over dormant grass in late fall or winter, with no cardboard underneath, there may be a little grass pop up here and there but nothing a little weeding can't manage. The amount of rain we get seems to also have an impact. The more rain, the more likely to have to do some weeding of grass that will pop through. That same 8" would not work, without cardboard, when the grass is growing unless it was tarped first to slow the growth of the grass.

If the chips are larger, 12" seems to work about the same as the 8" of finer chips over dormant grass.

6" seems to be adequate on bare soil.