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Post by synergy on Oct 7, 2019 9:09:34 GMT -5
This year I cut up aluminum cans and impressed plant names on them for labels which worked better than any marker I have tried previously. Yesterday I got a free nearly new wood pig shelter 4' x8' which I intend to modify a bit and use to house my muscovey ducks which have been cramped in with chickens . We located this new little shelter so the ducks will be able to access our orchard that has a drainage swale and a wee pond by walking themselves through a little sloping vineyard. I tried keeping the ducks last winter in the orchard but the hillside proved a chore to hike up and down the hill in snow and ice carrying food and water and shut the ducks in when they took to a shelter at night then I would be traversing down the snowy hill in the dark. So this change is to cut steps and risk as I am aging and have more difficulty so I have to think smarter and let the ducks do the walking . At my previous home I enclosed the fruit trees in pallets, cut a few access holes in the bottom and sprinkled grain in one tree enclosure each day. I placed a small plastic pool and filled it each morning for the beside and uphill of the tree and each evening tipped the water to deep water one tree each day in rotation . The ducks trample the weeds and fertilize the tree while retrieving the grain . At night the coyote had access to hunt the voles that previously were destroying my young fruit trees . At night my ducks will be secured in their shelter for their safety . This system worked brilliantly at my old farm but now I am starting over at a property I moved to 4 years ago and I have not been posting for that duration .
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Post by philagardener on Oct 7, 2019 20:21:54 GMT -5
Welcome back, synergy ! Great to have you posting again! |
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Post by steev on Oct 7, 2019 22:08:19 GMT -5
Long time no see, synergy; glad to hear you're well and making progress.
Years ago, I scored a syntho-stone kitchen-island top, so now that I have a kitchen again, I was looking to find some cabinets/drawers to put it on; my local big-box store had some nice ones; it'd take two to work, $600; they also had a stainless wood-topped mechanics cart, $600 (wouldn't take the stone); serendipity brought a three drawer, stainless-fronted cabinet that just needs a plywood back and that stone top to fill the bill. Freeconomics rule!
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Post by synergy on Oct 15, 2019 1:06:10 GMT -5
Thank you for the welcome back . At my new abode , it is closer to wilderness and more rural . We haul our garbage to a very small transfer centre one day a week which has a 'free store' shipping container where we can drop off goods for others to use and take anything we can use rather than let good things go in the waste stream . Last trip I dropped off toys and picked up a Rubbermaid outdoor storage trunk I will scrub up tomorrow and put to use. In our climate storage out of the elements is always useful on a little homestead. Other frugal living things daily is using every stone I come across to fill in around the chicken yard and in the next two weeks I will be raking and hauling carts of big leaf maple leaves to dress the veggie garden in.
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Post by steev on Nov 4, 2019 20:40:45 GMT -5
Scored four feet of vinyl, 90% classical, 10% eighties rock; prolly ups my collection 40%; guess I should get my turn-table re-furbished; haven't used it in a decade.
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Post by steev on Nov 8, 2019 23:12:14 GMT -5
Scored a four-shelf cabinet that will hold most of my vinyl collection and a recliner/rocker, in very nice condition; my house is nearly furnished; I'll buy a bed and a sleeper-couch, for the occasional guest (you're all welcome, of course), but that's about all I need. Is everything harmonized and in good taste? Do I care? Not so much, I assure you. My interest is the farm, not where I crash.
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Post by steev on Nov 11, 2019 21:35:24 GMT -5
My sweetheart gave me a queen-sized sleeper-couch that had been in a therapy office she'd sold, so I'm only short a bed, which I'll buy (she'd not sleep in a bed of unknown provenance); all my other furnishings are street-finds, craigslist-free, or salvage; my motto is "Live Free or Borrow".
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Post by steev on Jan 23, 2020 20:44:02 GMT -5
Saw a posting for free burlap coffee sacks, so I went to see (don't know quite what I'll use them for, but I'll dope it out eventually); there was a huge stack; I took ~20; the supervisor gave me two 12oz bags of their upscale coffee and let me have six big bags of coffee chaff, which will be good mulch and soil amendment; he was eager for me to come by regularly; oh, you betcha; hope he keeps dropping the free coffee on me; no way in hell do I pop for gourmet coffee; I just buy cheap caffeine, to clear my "mind".
I'm concerned what effect moving to the farm will have on my urban foraging lifestyle; I'm so used to being a hunter-gatherer.
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Post by flowerbug on Jan 24, 2020 9:09:09 GMT -5
if he production line is getting rather constipated from having things not moving along, well you are providing a service to him by moving things along.  for me the problem with all available organics at other places is the transportation time and energy. every moment i'm not here working in the gardens or on projects has an impact on productivity. i can't spend a lot of time away (nor do i want to). the best is when people will bring me things and i will gift them with goodies. like the coffee supervisor. |
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Post by steev on Jan 24, 2020 15:29:48 GMT -5
...to amplify the metaphor.
I don't really want to totally transition to the agrarian lifestyle; it's 135 miles to the city from the farm, a bit spendy time and gas-wise; it would be a five-hour round-trip having no crash-pad for over-nighting, not very sensible, compared to now, when I live in the city and go to the farm every week, hauling what I've scrounged. Oh, well, one must adjust to changing conditions; it's not the only resource I've lost as I've moved on; been some lovely ladies, but I won't go there. I make no claims of good judgement. I've had fun, though, off and on.
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Post by flowerbug on Jan 26, 2020 12:01:55 GMT -5
that is quite a long trip for sure! we're not too far from our nearby small towns (2mi, 4mi, 8mi...) and about a half hour to 45 minutes from the larger cities in the area, but i usually only do those trips once a month. Mom runs into town to visit friends and play cards. i just like to be here and garden or putter around and in the winter it is reading and messing around on the computer when i'm not sorting beans or doing other things.
once every other week or so i feed the food scraps to the worm farm here in my room. that helps keep my hands in the dirt once in a while. i have a nice ecosystem going in some of the buckets now with the pill bugs, some small spiders and plenty of other soil community creatures (spring tails, crickets, millipedes, etc.). the small spiders are my latest addition as of last summer because at times i can have fungus gnats that hatch out and it is good to have some spiders that will catch those before they can get a population explosion going. and by population explosion i mean just that as they can go from a few to hundreds of thousands within a month and a half or so. which makes it hard to feed the worms if i have to take the buckets outside (before i open up the fabric mesh i use to keep the worms/bugs in/out).
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Post by steev on Apr 3, 2020 1:16:03 GMT -5
Critters can get out of hand, but it's lovely that they're so eager to live.
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Post by steev on Apr 3, 2020 1:26:09 GMT -5
Scoped the coffee roastery for chaff; five bags plus a box of roasted beans; sweet; will I keep going there? Does a bear shit in the woods?
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Post by flowerbug on Apr 3, 2020 9:33:07 GMT -5
nice! i'm on such a tight budget here that i make pennies bleed before i spend 'em... |
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Post by synergy on Apr 24, 2020 11:12:27 GMT -5
I managed to move a clapped out , cheap light weight barbeque to my 'new' property 5 years back and finally put it to use as a potting bench with the potting soil kept under the hood, seeding trays stacked underneath and two shelves on either side perfect height for filling pots and trays all very neat looking . I always knew this is how I could put it to use but it took 5 years to DO something that simple !
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for me the problem with all available organics at other places is the transportation time and energy. every moment i'm not here working in the gardens or on projects has an impact on productivity. i can't spend a lot of time away (nor do i want to). the best is when people will bring me things and i will gift them with goodies.