Eric Thompson

wayne fajkus wrote:The cow in your picture looked small. Is it young or a miniature breed?

Our herd is Angus and Wagyu and this was half-and-half with hanging weight around 680 lbs.  Maybe the crew around it just look big :)

Most of our slaughter is done in the field with mobile truck.  The crew was very helpful getting the blood saved...

Marco Banks wrote:
My concern is that all of your careful patching and scratching will only last a short time before new cracks will form or those repairs fail.  You've patched a LOT of cracks.  That should tell you something about the fundamental structural integrity of the entire pour.   I would appear that either they didn't use enough steel in the structure, the prep-work for the base below the pour wasn't properly completed, or the PSI strength of the concrete wasn't up to snuff, or perhaps all three.

I should add a little context for this pond being a rather elaborate garden pond that handles the property water runoff from the gutters and driveway.  It was poured 95 years ago so structural standards were a little lower than what you might expect now.  But still, for a 95 year old pond on a hillside with slow slide movement, it seems to have held up pretty well.  The main thing that could have been improved was not letting roots grow through the many cracks for the past 50 years.

I agree that the patching will just be a temporary seal and not really help the structural integrity - but that's the level of the project now -- sealing a decorative pond in the center of a walking garden.

Oh Geez!  This has potential to turn into the "What I really want to be buried in!" thread...  Hmmm, I hope i have a lot of time to think that through...

"Oregon manroot" is a wild cucumber with a perennial vine. The shocker is that it has a giant underground tuber that can be bigger than a basketball!

It has a lot of saponins in the root making it not so edible, but Native Americans used to grate it up and throw it in the water to temporarily stop fish from breathing for more convenient harvest at the surface.

I think you can harvest the seeds, but I haven't tried..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marah_oreganus#Seeds_and_germination

Looks like  plum to me!

I would keep it up!  My normal policy is to not spend time removing something unless I know what I want instead of that.

Ideas:
Hawk perch
Bat house
Gravity feed water tank

Dave Burton wrote:
I could also order the posters from Scalable Press in the size of 24 inches by 204 inches for the cost of $36. Again, to make an incentive to do this, these posters would probably be like $60 a pop.

I think it's very hard to hang and read a vertical poster of 204 inches!

Bottle feeding is a pretty big chore!  Also both the human and bovine tend to get fairly attached like mom and baby - it's harder to slaughter an animal that you've raised that comes to greet you for a head scratch..
I would agree getting two weaned calves and raising them - you can raise a heifer calf for meat also.
Keep in mind that winter feeding in our area can be expensive, so planning ahead to buy hay from the field in the Summer will help on costs.

As for breed and  taste, we settled with the Wagyu (Kobe beef) genetics for getting a nice marbling in grassfed beef -- I highly recommend that!

James Landreth wrote:Yes Eric! That would be great! I'd love to get more American chestnut planted around here. I was told by a horticulturist that chestnut blight doesn't proliferate here because of our dry summers. So this is one of the only places we can still grow pure Americans

Good -- I will try to collect some seed this year and also mark any small sprouted seedlings for transplant.  There are 3 trees here that were planted in the 20's, and several seedlings in the surrounding area which is mostly forested hillside.  There are some small seedlings, but I can only identify them with leaves, so marking for winter transplant is necessary..

You should not need any special scarifying tricks to get germination - I would keep them in the ground, out in the rain and cold with a wire cover on top to keep out rodents out.

If you want American Chestnut I have some 50-100 year old trees to harvest from -- the deer and squirrels don't leave them around for long.
Mine are close to you in Longview, WA -- anybody from the area can message me if interested .