Today I made / bought / learnt (for a post oil world) 4

[rangerone314]

Got our first egg from our 4 1/2 old chickens...

[PrestonSturges]

I cut my air layered fig pots away from the mother plants, all look like they'll make it, most did not seem to notice their stems had been cut.

[Revi]

I am building a bulletproof wall to cover where we sleep. A 4'x4' plywood wall with metal studs filled with 1/2" gravel should do the trick.

Someone shot holes in our maple sugarhouse last year and the bullets went right through 4 walls. One even went through the 1/4" cast iron door of the evaporator. That's when I realized how vulnerable we are in a wood framed house. I built a bulletproof planter, put lexan on the windows and got two camera systems for the sugarhouse. Now I am thinking of ways to protect our house. It was attacked last year as well (not by bullets, but you never know).

We're also getting a security system for $35 a month.

It's a drag, but it's a reality if we want to keep living here.

[steam_cannon]

Gravel will work. Though I think sandbags might be easier to work with. Sandbags have well studied resistance to bullets and excellent ability to absorb bullet fragments. Plus earthbag construction is a legitimate construction technique and fairly easy. So if you were selling the house at some point, you might be able to remove the construction with ease or pass off the thicker wall as an earth friendly addition to add thermal mass to the bedroom to keep it warmer at night. Also regarding your sugar house, you might be able to pack non-structural spaces of your first floor walls with sandbags, since sandbags are fairly self contained.

Gravel or sand, either way your protective wall should work.

Bullet Resistance of Sandbag and Earthbag Construction

They started out with a .22 LR from a .22 revolver. It penetrated about 5 inches into the sand.
They continued the test using 9mm Ball, .45 ACP, 5.56mm XM-193 Ball out of a 20″ AR15, 7.62 X 51 from a FAL, a 12 gauge slug, and finally .223 and .308 rifle rounds.
None of the rounds penetrated more than 6”!

[Revi]

The one at the sugarhouse is sand with some dirt on top. It's a great place to grow flowers. It's about 2 feet thick and 4 feet tall. It will stop anything. The one I'm building for the house is thinner, but gravel is supposed to work with less thickness.

I want it to be portable, so I figure I can always dump the gravel out and use it somewhere else.

[steam_cannon]

I want it to be portable, so I figure I can always dump the gravel out and use it somewhere else.

Oh, so it will be like a removable partition/safety wall. I can imagine that.

[oowolf]

Update on my water garden: Arrow arum (Peltranda virginica, Virginia tuckahoe) is outgrowing all others. This is good as this plant produces lateral rhizomes that weigh up to 6 pounds. This is a plant that could save your life. However, all parts are acridly toxic unless cooked or dried. (Not to worry as you could never swallow any due to the stinging caused by raphides of calcium oxalate.) The natives pit-roasted the rhizomes for 1/2 a day or sliced them to dry-which can take up to 3 months.
I have a hard time differentiating between arrow arum and pickerel weed (Pontederia cordata) leaves before the plants flower. Pickerel weed leaves are edible raw. Wait till the plants flower before harvesting. Pickerel weed has lavender flower spikes, arrow arum has inconspicuous white flowers.
Wapato (Sagittaria latifolia; cuneata, Duck potato) is doing well also. This one is easily identified by its arrowhead-shaped leaves.
Water mint (Mentha aquatica) is colonizing. The leaves have a much stronger mint flavor than the dryland species-highly recommended.

The best thing about these water perennials is: they grow themselves. They require only planting, harvesting and preparing. This is why I consider my water garden my primary food home-grown food source.

[Ludi]

100% behind you on the water garden, oowolf! I would do the same if I had appropriate conditions.


I planted a bit of the Fall garden this morning: turnips, greens, a few flowers.

Here's some pics of things that are presently growing:

Jay's sweet potatoes in a hugel bed:



Mayo Blusher winter squash in a hugel bed:



The part of the garden that I haven't hugelkultured yet mostly couldn't take the heat and drought, even though it got irrigated as much as the hugel beds:



I'm sold on the hugelkultur even though it is a ton of work initially.

[Ludi]

Thinking about dinners of the future:



They are skinny from the drought.

[vtsnowedin]

Thinking about dinners of the future:



They are skinny from the drought.

The one on the right looks like an old dairy cow here. She is probably the mother of the two yearlings and I have to guess that she lost this years fawns to the drought in spite of putting everything she had to spare into them. Pass her by as she is tougher then a boiled boot and take the smallest of the yearlings. Good eating and leaves the stronger one to replace mama for the next generation.

[Ludi]

Thank you very much for that assessment!

We actually have some late babies which were born at the end of the drought, but probably to younger moms.

We also have some spike bucks and a couple with decent racks. Any suggestions about them?

The bucks are significantly more shy than the does.

[vtsnowedin]

Thank you very much for that assessment!

We actually have some late babies which were born at the end of the drought, but probably to younger moms.

We also have some spike bucks and a couple with decent racks. Any suggestions about them?

The bucks are significantly more shy than the does.

I'm not claiming to be a deer management expert by any means. There are volumes and web sites aplenty that claim to know it all ,but I haven't read them and certainly didn't write them.
I do like deer hunting though and have put a few through the freezer.
Herd management in Texas is a lot different then it is in VT. but I expect that you can thin your deer herd by about a third each fall and maintain constant numbers.The trick is in culling weaker or inferior members and leaving the strongest to carry on the line. You can't eat the horns so a spindly spike is a better choice for both you and the herd then the old rack buck.
Be careful to stay on the right side of the local game laws.

[Ludi]

Thank you for those thoughts.

[vtsnowedin]

Thank you for those thoughts.

Have you bought a deer rifle yet? I remember you were considering getting one a while back.

[davep]

I could recommend the Tikka T3 lite stainless in 270 Winchester. My hunting neighbour borrowed it and loved it.

It's also very good for longer range , um, two-legged vermin extermination, apparently.

[Ludi]

Have you bought a deer rifle yet? I remember you were considering getting one a while back.

My husband bought a Remington 870 shotgun. He'll be shooting at very close range with slugs. The neighbors are too nearby for a rifle to be appropriate.

I won't be using any guns, but I will be the one cutting up the critters.

[vtsnowedin]

Have you bought a deer rifle yet? I remember you were considering getting one a while back.

My husband bought a Remington 870 shotgun. He'll be shooting at very close range with slugs. The neighbors are too nearby for a rifle to be appropriate.

I won't be using any guns, but I will be the one cutting up the critters.

The Remington 870 is a solid choice.
I'd forgotten you had neighbors that close and the deer pics look like pretty open land. Knowing whats behind the target is important. We recently had a case here where someone set up a impromptu range and had a shooting session that managed to hit and kill a neighbor about a half mile away.
Have you done the meat cutting and packaging before or are you a first timer? There are several ways to go about it and it depends on what you have for tools such as a band-saw and meat grinder.

[Ludi]

He'll be shooting into a hillside to the right of the picture there, so ideally there wouldn't be danger of a stray bullet. But that field beyond the deer sometimes has cattle in it, and we have neighbor houses to the north and south of our place.

I have not butchered anything larger than a turkey, so I expect a deer to be quite a challenge. We have an A-frame and tackle to hang it with, and I've been looking at various "how-to" info on the internets.

[vtsnowedin]

He'll be shooting into a hillside to the right of the picture there, so ideally there wouldn't be danger of a stray bullet. But that field beyond the deer sometimes has cattle in it, and we have neighbor houses to the north and south of our place.

I have not butchered anything larger than a turkey, so I expect a deer to be quite a challenge. We have an A-frame and tackle to hang it with, and I've been looking at various "how-to" info on the internets.

You can do one in a couple of hours once you get the hang of it. The one tool other then a razor sharp knife I insist on having is a butchers bone saw. A hacksaw will do in a pinch. I debone almost all of the meat to avoid wasting space in the freezer. The one thing I leave the bone in is the neck roast or roasts. Everything else gets cut into steaks or stew-meat. I don't care for venison hamburger but if your making some venison/pork mix sausage you will need to have at least a hand grinder. Zip-lock freezer bags and an empty
Beer) eighteen pack box or two and your all set. I alternate steaks and stew-meat as I pack the zip-locks in the box then stand it on end on one side of the freezer. Whatever is on top of the box is what your eating today.

[Ludi]

Thanks for those suggestions!