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Title: Gulching - Any Experience Here?
Source:
Lonsome Self
URL Source: http://None
Published: Apr 23, 2006
Author: ...
Post Date: 2006-04-23 00:31:48 by ...
Keywords: None
Views: 2516
Comments: 67
I am playing with the idea of surviving with very little money. The way my dad did back in the great depression. We've put in 100 tomato plants and are planning to can spaghetti sauce and a form of vedgitarian chili for the winter. I've also got a buch of peppers going in and several varieties of squash. The squash will keep through the winter. A woman down the road raises chickens and she was giving me tips on setting this up. It seems like an amazing amount of work. Buried fences faced with sheet metal to keep out foxes and coyotes. She said she lost 20 of her 50 free range hens to foxes last year in broad daylight. I was going to start with ten chickens just to get the feel of it, but I might shine this one. Still thinking it over. One problem is that is sometimes gets to 50 below here in the winter and this makes even more problems for livestock. She was telling me how a thick paste of chicken shit and sawdust on the floor helps keep the coop warm - bleeech. Last year I tried out some fish traps in the rivers and they worked great. Illegal as hell, but really effective. Anybody got any other ideas on crops? I am looking for things that grow and produce all summer and, hopefully, could be sold at a produce stand. Corn and wheat take too much land. Truck farming stuff seems best.
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#12. To: ... (#0)
You might want to look around here.
I've been toying with the idea of getting a chicken coop to raise eggs for myself. There are a few people around here who do it, even though it can get to 30 below and we get a lot of snow in the winter. I have been buying them fresh from local people, but a lot of them have been having problems with their chickens not laying lately. It doesn't sound easy!
wow, I knew there were folks like me. Dak you have no idea, in this instance she is the grand master of understatment. Think of a Princess that can shoot straight.
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes...known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few…No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” – James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
That's an amazing output.
No chicken will lay every day, all year. If I recall correctly, an egg a day for about a third of the year is a reasonable goal. Different breeds vary. The conventional wisdom is to keep your brood such that some are on one cycle and some on another. You have to determine this empirically, though I think you can just go by when they were hatched. Then, keep a rooster in a seperate but close run, because his presence will stimulate the hens to lay. But don't let him in the same run(or even against the same stretch of fence), because fertilized eggs will stop them from laying. The idea is that, at any given time, about a third to a half of your chickens are laying, and you will have a fairly stable supply of eggs year-round. If you just go buy some biddies and put 'em in a coop, you will usually wind up with them all on the same cycle. Disclaimer: that was all pulled from my childhood memories, so there could be errors there.
Think of a Princess that can shoot straight. bruce knows. :P
"Of the corporate elites, by the corporate elites, for the corporate elites" - it's what America is all about. Now send your kids off to fight and die in Iraq so that corporate pigs get everything and we get nothing. What else have we ever fought for?~~Elliott J
Excellent idea that I highly recommend. I live in the city myself, but I've been growing herbs and am looking to do container gardening (gardening in pots), to grow tomatoes, peppers, etc. I'm sure it won't be enough to keep me going completely but it can supplement a diet. I'm trying to focus on anything that can be canned or pickled. I think it's wise to re-learn how to grow our own food, take care of livestock if we can, and learn how to do extended first aid and use old fashioned home remedies for many ailments. We've become too dependent on a broken system.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Is this common, Dee? It makes me wonder how they live in the wild or whatever, without domestication. They wouldn't have humans around to wipe their butts. Would a lot of chicks die because of this? Man, that would truly be a sad...end. Sorry, couldn't help it :) Also, makes me think of what dogs and cats did before canned food. They say now that cats will go blind without regular commercial cat food because it's got some ingredient in it they need - taurine? So how they hell did they manage not to go blind before that point?
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
This is one of my favorite topics. 50 below zero? Do you have a greenhouse, or are you in a position to add a small sunroom to your home? If so, you can use an earth box to help extend your growing season. I use these in short-season New England, and these things produce AMAZING amounts of vegetables...click on the link and read up. They run about $30 a piece, so many 'thrifty' types build their own out of those 18-gallon Rubbermaid tubs you see at China...er, I mean Wal-Mart. I have a relative making some more for me, and I just might buy another dozen just for the hell of it. We use them for tomatoes and hot peppers, because my wife makes a bitchin' hot salsa. To extend the season, we put them on our enclosed porch in October, and kept picking fresh veggies for another month or so, until the plants just 'wore out'. Make sure you are using non-hybrid seeds, so you can save them for the following garden season. Two GREAT sources are heirloom seeds and seed savers . Geri Guidetti's Ark Institute has a smaller seed selection, but her site is packed with lots of info on gardening, along with info on water and bird flu. Personally; I don't buy into a lot of this 'bird flu' stuff, but I don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bath water, either. I've used her seeds in the past, and they 'save' very well. Hope this helps.
The key is to learn what is needed. As bikinis are probably not everyday wear in Alaska for a reason, so would raising chickens. However, just as with bikini wearers who have learned the 'hows and whens' of wearing them make the necessary adaptations, so too would chicken growers--or any other livestock. There are rewards--I enjoyed raising the critters a lot--though when it was time to kill, clean, and freeze before EATING was not 'fun'. I raised a large breed of chicken--they were hearty, and when the laying days were over, they were great in a pot for chicken soup. There are breeds specifically for egg laying, but their lives are short-lived; and they're generally scrawny looking critters. I raised Buff Orphingtons which have a rather gentle demeanor whereas some of the egg specifics are flighty nervous wrecks. Chickens go through a moult period when they lose feathers and generally don't lay eggs in that period. This was not very noticeable with the Buffs. If you're just wanting eggs, you don't need a rooster to fertilize them. I would imagine in Alaska, a coop or house would require a heat lamp to burn in the cold months. We planned to run electric to the chicken house, but ran out of time that first winter, and after seeing how well they did, we decided we didn't need to take electricity to there.
Ma'am...your situation is tailor-made for an Earth Box or three...check the link in #20. These would be GREAT to use where you are located.
Thanks, that's a really great idea!
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Disclaimer: I do NOT work for Earth Box...they are just the best thing I have ever seen for 'container gardening'...bar none. The pictures at their site do NOT exaggerate...my pepper plants were SIX FEET TALL!
Do you make a 'tea' out of the sheep shit? I used to have people come to the ranch with 5 gallon buckets to scoop up sheep shit. They would take it home and soak it in water.........and then put the 'tea' on their garden and flowers....they swore by it. I never tried it myself. I do know that because of the pellets rather than piles their manure is spread naturally over pastures and with rain or irrigation, you get excellent pasture growth. :)
Alas I have no practical experience, but I used to read "Mother Earth News" in hopes that one day I would. It's still around. Good luck!
“I don't think we have to worry about Rumsfeld, he's a ruthless little bastard isn't he ?" Try putting the chicken in a vice and tightening it. Not too much though or you will break the egg.
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how do you think asparagus would do in one of these?
"Of the corporate elites, by the corporate elites, for the corporate elites" - it's what America is all about. Now send your kids off to fight and die in Iraq so that corporate pigs get everything and we get nothing. What else have we ever fought for?~~Elliott J
shoot..i don't see asparagus on either of those sites.
"Of the corporate elites, by the corporate elites, for the corporate elites" - it's what America is all about. Now send your kids off to fight and die in Iraq so that corporate pigs get everything and we get nothing. What else have we ever fought for?~~Elliott J
Yes, it was fantastic. Went against most of what I read in the raising poultry books/booklets. I believe much of what happens with our critters is based on how they're treated, i.e., nutritionally, and habitat-wise. My girls were wellfed; raised from day old chicks; were allowed to run free in the daytime so long as they didn't come to my yard area. I know that when I was trying to cut back, i.e., not get more/raise more, I was selling 8 year old hens as stewing hens! And they were dressing out at 8 to 10 lbs. I raised Buff Orphingtons, and they had a mellow temprament, not flighty. In fact my youngest daughter started Rooster Cogburn out when he was a chick sitting in her hand--like a falcon. He musta weighed around 20 lbs when he was mature--we refused to let him sit on our hands by then. But it wasn't just the chickens where we tried for the best, most practical, safest production. Our cattle and our sheep did well, as did the Angora Goats. Oh yeah........even our kitties!
They appear to be re-designing their website, as their 'planting schematic' is not on there at the moment, nor are all the pictures of the giant plants these things produce. But I did find one of my schematics from a few years back, and asparagus is NOT one of the plants listed. I imagine that is because that particular veggie requires an established bed, and that is not what the box is designed for. That doesn't mean you can't...drop them an e-mail, and ask. (Shame, because my wife makes a 'Roasted Asparagus' that I could eat seven days a week. Simple, but tasty.)
I want to build a hot house for the seedlings. This would save a lot of money. The shoots are costing me over a dollar apiece. The big, semi-mature ones are five dollars. I am going to build it low using a box of 4 x 4's covered with glass from old sliding doors I can scrounge. We are at a high altitude and the wind routinely gusts to 80 mph so a wood frame covered with clear plastic is a joke. The wind ripped the shingles off one side of the house last week. We do have a short growing season. We still have to carry all the plants into the shed at night as it still freezes. Can't take them out of the pots and put them in the ground for three more weeks or so.
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Enough about Earth Boxes for a minute...'Lodwick' got me turned on to RBN several months ago, and I heard a show promoting sonic bloom a few weeks back. Wonder what kind of 'man-eaters' I could produce if I combined this system with a few Earth Boxes? Anybody have any experience with Sonic Bloom?
It takes several years to get an asparagus bed going. I guess the root system has to really develope. Recall that full grown asparagus is more like a tree than the shoots you eat. I think you allow the tree like root structure to develop first. This gives it the energy to push up shoots once a week or so.
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You aren't growing from seed, are you?
yum! can you post the recipe? i steam mine, then saute in a little butter, then sprinkle liberally with shredded imported romano cheese. delicious.
"Of the corporate elites, by the corporate elites, for the corporate elites" - it's what America is all about. Now send your kids off to fight and die in Iraq so that corporate pigs get everything and we get nothing. What else have we ever fought for?~~Elliott J
Zip's got asparagus in her yard.
"Of the corporate elites, by the corporate elites, for the corporate elites" - it's what America is all about. Now send your kids off to fight and die in Iraq so that corporate pigs get everything and we get nothing. What else have we ever fought for?~~Elliott J
Must be nice.
Very similar to what you are doing...1.5 pounds of asparagus, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese. Preheat over to 450. Wash asparagus and cut off ends (opposite end from tips). Coat baking dish with cooking spray. Place asparagus in baking dish, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Bake 15 minutes. Simple, but tasty as hell.
thanks!
"Of the corporate elites, by the corporate elites, for the corporate elites" - it's what America is all about. Now send your kids off to fight and die in Iraq so that corporate pigs get everything and we get nothing. What else have we ever fought for?~~Elliott J
No, no time. I didn't get back until a couple of weeks ago. I am buying six inch high shoots. A few two footers.
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I was thinking the same thing :)
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
my mother used to make me asparagus on toast when I was a kid. she used the canned kind because as we all knew then....vegetables grow in cans. it was still delicious though. she also served dropped eggs on toast a lot too. we ate a lot of toast.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
OMG...that almost made me puke. I remember 'asparagus in cans'...that's why I HATED the stuff when I was a kid. Fresh, however...to die for. Mmmm-good! (Especially prepared as above.) If my long-dead mother could see me eating asparagus now; she'd swear I was a duplicate from one of those pods from outer space.
LMAO!!!! Well, I can't say my mother, sweet as she is, was ever much of a cook. I used to feed her pork chops to the cat as I didn't want to break my own teeth on them.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Recall that in the wild, it is survival of the fittest. Not every creature survives birth. I only raised the first set of day old chicks. We bought 50 mixed sex day old chicks--planning to slaughter and freeze most. They throw in an extra chick in case one dies in the process of shipping. Baby chicks are sensitive for a bit--they need need supply, food available 24/7 and water. You get one that acts 'dumpy' you get rid of it because it could have something that could affect the rest of the babies. I only had about 5 or 6 dirty butts, and that was like in the first week. Fortunately, an elderly neighbor stopped on and was asking how we liked ranch life. She could hear my baby chicks in the mud room and so we looked at them. She's the one who brought it to my attention. And they were somewhat standoffish from the others, or not just being a normal healthy baby chick. We got a cup of warm water and plumped their little butts down in it for a few seconds, the started trying to get the crap off. Some it literally took taking a fingernail and picking at it. Once they were dried off and put back, in nothing flat, they were normal baby chicks--pooping, eating, drinking, running behind the curtain to get where the heat was. Domestication has negatives, it seems, though clearly we believe the positives far outweigh them. Nature has its rules, cycles, systems, etc. When we go against them, try to change them, it isn't always a benefit. For instance, polled (hornless) cattle. Great for man to work with because you don't get gored, you need less feedbunk space per animal, etc. Bad if you are a cow trying to protect a baby from an animal attacking it that she could kill with her horns--if she had them. That's her major weapon....she doesn't have upper and lower teeth to bite an attacker, although the upper dental pad is pretty strong.
I've had those, too. Reminiscent of those inserts found in most sneakers...
Actually her pork chops were more reminescent of those bones Dr. Leakey used to find in the Ethiopian desert.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
With asparagus.. you won't get a crop the first year. The second you will.. you plant it in a mound with the plants not closely planted and you keep mounding up the dirt.. preferably compost ... rich soil. The roots need a lot of room to spread. And you need quite a few plants.. and need to harvest often it comes in pretty quickly before youi know it's gotten ferny.. then it's too late to cut.
"The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion." Frederick Douglass
No I'm sorry this is the first I heard of it..
"The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion." Frederick Douglass
For what it is worth I tried investing in one of those ultrasonic electronic flea collars for my dog quite a few years ago. I was not particularly fond of the idea of treating her conventionally (i.e. poison dips). After a few days, I saw no signs that it was working. I took one of the fleas (taken from the dog wearing the collar) and put it in a fairly large ziplock bag along with the electronic collar at one end. The flea was not only seemingly happy with it in there, but the next morning he was actually sitting on it. I ended up using a good old fashioned flea comb multiple times per day. It worked like a charm. Within a month I'd killed off the entire population, even though my vet at the time said I wouldn't be able to. Fleas have a 14 day life cycle. They just couldn't keep up with me. After a month I never needed to use the comb again. Years later my girlfriend brought a barking dog into my life, a Lhasa Apso. We bought the "Bark Free". It works for some dogs as long as they aren't too stubborn (he was way past stubborn, lol). My dog, for instance, learned on the first bark and would leave the room whenever it was going off. Too bad. She didn't bark much anyway. It too had an "ultrasonic" setting. Neither dog cared about that. I guess that explains why you had the option to have the shrill smoke detector type sound as well. Unfortunately, that sound is worse than the barking. However, if you don't have a stubborn dog, it is worth a try. Then again, if you don't have a stubborn dog, you probably don't have a barking problem. And then there are the ultrasonic pest repellers. As seen here, ultrasonic waves can't travel through solid surfaces. So even if the product works as advertised (which I highly doubt), I guess the rats will just have to live in your walls. Too bad. That's generally where they want to be anyway, lol. Needless to say, I'm skeptical of any "sonic" technologies now. I hear "sonic" and immediately think "scam". Electronic Pest Devices That's not to say I know anything about the "sonic boom" when it comes to plant growth, just offering other "sonic" experiences I have had.
Deflation: Making Sure "It" Doesn't Happen Here - Ben Bernanke, 2002
If you're serious about this, do check out Sonic Bloom which should multiply your harvest greatly...fascinating concept with proven results.
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#13. To: rowdee (#7)
Forget raising chickens for eggs and the freezer.....if the thought of 'poop' bothers you. Oftentimes raising baby chicks or any other fowl, for that matter, their little butts can get 'poop' smeared on where it dries.
#14. To: Dakmar, christine (#11)
gross. i'm a spoiled rotten suburbanite so i have no advice. :P
#15. To: rowdee (#7)
and of the 24 hens, I was getting 22 to 24 eggs a day thru that whole winter!
#16. To: Diana (#13)
having problems with their chickens not laying lately
#17. To: Hmmmmm, Dakmar (#14)
Dak you have no idea, in this instance she is the grand master of understatment.
#18. To: ... (#0)
#19. To: rowdee (#7)
IF it is not removed, i.e., wetting the rear end and then using your finger to pick it off, the chick dies because they become bound up.
#20. To: ... (#0)
#21. To: Diana (#13)
#22. To: mehitable (#18)
#23. To: who knows what evil (#22)
#24. To: mehitable, ... (#22)
#25. To: ... (#10)
#26. To: ... (#0)
- Richard Nixon excerpt white house tapes.
#27. To: Diana (#13)
I have been buying them fresh from local people, but a lot of them have been having problems with their chickens not laying lately.
#28. To: who knows what evil (#20)
#29. To: who knows what evil (#24)
#30. To: Rabble Rouser (#15)
#31. To: christine (#28)
#32. To: who knows what evil (#20)
Do you have a greenhouse, or are you in a position to add a small sunroom to your home?
#33. To: christine, mehitable, zipporah, ... (#29)
#34. To: who knows what evil (#31)
But I did find one of my schematics from a few years back, and asparagus is NOT one of the plants listed.
#35. To: ... (#32)
The shoots are costing me over a dollar apiece. The big, semi-mature ones are five dollars.
#36. To: who knows what evil (#31)
roasted asparagus
#37. To: ..., Zipporah (#34)
#38. To: christine (#37)
Zip's got asparagus in her yard.
#39. To: christine (#36)
yum! can you post the recipe? i steam mine, then saute in a little butter, then sprinkle liberally with shredded imported romano cheese. delicious.
#40. To: who knows what evil (#39)
#41. To: who knows what evil (#35)
You aren't growing from seed, are you?
#42. To: who knows what evil, christine (#39)
#43. To: christine (#36)
#44. To: mehitable (#43)
my mother used to make me asparagus on toast when I was a kid. she used the canned kind because as we all knew then....vegetables grow in cans.
#45. To: who knows what evil (#44)
#46. To: mehitable (#19)
#47. To: mehitable (#45)
I used to feed her pork chops to the cat as I didn't want to break my own teeth on them.
#48. To: who knows what evil (#47)
#49. To: ... (#34)
#50. To: who knows what evil (#33)
#51. To: who knows what evil (#33)
Anybody have any experience with Sonic Bloom?
I provide monthly mouse control services at a private house. The location is in the crawlspace. The owner has an ultrasonic pest repeller device in the crawlspace, pointed at the area where I have my snap traps maintained. The device is always on, and about 6 feet away from the 10 or so traps I use, baited with peanut butter. I always capture mice in this location. Obviously the device is not effective.
#52. To: ... (#0)
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