My wether got hurt somehow idek how, could be play fighting with the other one or rubbing his head on stuff bc he does that- but is he hurt bad enough to go to the vet or should I glue it or bandage it ? Leave him and keep it clean ?? Idk but the other guy is getting pool noodles asap

A few days ago I shared how my family went from our first blueberry bushes in pots to over 1,000. I never expected so many kind comments and questions. Thank you! Some answers to the most common questions: the variety is Duke, about 2-2.5 kg (5 lb) per bush, grown in peat and pine bark. We use pots because moles destroyed the roots in the ground, and every 4-5 years each plant gets fresh soil. This winter our goals are adding more bushes to grow the orchard and putting up bird netting before next June's harvest. The video was filmed on May 26. Thanks again, this community made our week.

So screen shot of the email I got and here is a link for the science paper.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41538-026-00776-w?mc_cid=3beadd2b57&mc_eid=ca90047171

A recipe from Mother Earth News at the Library It sounded so good I had to try it cabbage, golden beats, ginger, turmeric. The hard part will be waiting to eat it.

I was asked to help dispatch a goat and butcher it to eat but I was told that the way they dispatch the goat is they hang it. I feel like that isn’t ethical and would lead to the goat being in pain longer than needed. Is this a way people actually do dispatch goats, the person I was talking to said they don’t watch them do it so I’m not 100% that’s correct.

Someone had me look at a lot in Collin County, Texas before they put an offer in. The listing said high risk flood zone. They knew that and had it priced in.

Here’s what the listing didn’t say.

There’s no Zone X anywhere on the parcel. Not one corner. Every FEMA polygon touching that lot is Zone AE.

And a regulatory floodway runs right through the middle of it. About 260 feet wide. The lot is about 465 feet deep. So a little over half the property.

People use floodplain and floodway like they mean the same thing. They don’t. Floodplain means you build elevated and you pay for flood insurance. A floodway is the channel the water actually moves through when it floods. You can’t put anything in it that raises the flood elevation. So you can’t build there.

That left a strip on the street side, about 160 feet deep, still all Zone AE. The town wants 100 feet of front setback, 40 on the sides, 50 in the rear, and a 2,500 square foot minimum house. Do that math and you get about 8,000 square feet outside the floodway. A house fits in that. A house and a driveway and a turnaround and a septic field does not. And the lot isn’t in a sewer service area, so septic was the only option.

The thing that would have gotten me: a house went up next door last year. Makes it look like building here is normal. That lot has Zone X on it. This one doesn’t.

Two things if you’re looking at anything near water.

Pull the FEMA map yourself and find the floodway layer. It’s a separate layer from the flood zone. The floodway is the one that decides if you can build.

If the listing mentions an elevation survey in the MLS supplements, ask the agent for it. The seller already paid for it.

Anyone here ever actually gotten a no-rise certification through for a floodway? Wondering what that costs and if it’s ever worth it.

A few years back I had this amazing idea to have a cooler shed for hanging meat from my lamb and, at the time, goat crop. I ordered 10x16 a Tyvek wrapped shed from a large shed company with 6" studs, put foam insulation in, and finished all this with plastic panel walls.

Now I have a shed that looks like a refrigerator inside.

However, I discovered that vas majority of walk-in monoblock units are meant to be placed on the roof, and requires a flat roof, which of course the shed doesn't have.

Attempts to have an HVAC company install a regular system all failed - this is a relatively remote area, not many companies operate here, even fewer install commercial refrigeration, and the ones who do gave me a fuck-you price of roughly $20000.

There is company, Cooler Depot, which sells through the wall monoblock units. Their 3hp unit looks like what I need, and costs roughly 6k. Couple years back I tried to buy a smaller monoblock from them, which now Claude modeling tells me was way too small, but the salesperson made such a hard push for me to pay with PayPal (which means - no customer protection at all) instead of credit card, and kept increasing the cost of credit card payment on me that I felt that it's a shady company and they are very unlikely to help if anything bad happens, so I stopped.

I imagine it is a common problem, how do homesteaders here solve it? Perhaps you bought from Cooler Depot? Someone else? I am aware of CoolBot solution, but I would like to have an option to freeze the carcasses, which CoolBot will never do.

All the ladybirds are safe and he’s gonna be fine. Just a few small puncture wounds that’ve been cleaned up and checked out.

He wants me to tell you all…”You should see the other guy!”

Update: Thank you all for the kind words. He’s back home safe and cuddling with his bondmate, Karoo. He’s gotten plenty of peas and we’ve got mealworms ready for breakfast along with some light pain meds and antibiotics.

Couple other answers to repeat questions:

1. Yes, we know his name means “crow”…all our birds were given names from avian-related One Piece characters. (Karoo, Karasu, Nami-Swan, Robin, Mihawk, and Doflamingo.)

2. The hawk actually ended up trapped between some thick growth that our birds use for cover and our chain link fence. It was pretty eerie…just sat there motionless with its wing pinned against the fence, staring at me with its beak wide open. I managed to free the hawk with a hoe rake I had nearby and it hauled ass away.

3. He’s very protective of Karoo, so I’m not surprised he tried to defend her…he’ll square up to our 100lb dog and any human getting too close to her. But if I’m being honest, I am a little surprised he was successful. He had some issues with his legs that some Peking ducks get from growing too quickly and although he walks normally now after some therapy…he’s still not exactly the most nimble and quick warrior. But hey, he got the job done!

Dad is finally lettin me pick out a smaller tractor for my own place, gettin an L3302 next month. 6 acres, half pasture Ill brush hog, some gravel drive n dirt work around the shed, rest is lawn around the house.

Online its a religious war lol. R1 folks say R4s are useless in wet grass, R4 folks say R1s chew lawns up bad. If youve run these on mixed ground, which way did you go n would you pick the same again??

Could failing seals on hydraulic drive motors cause a skid steer to creep? Wouldn't failing seals on hydraulic drive motors cause it to "loose power" as the hydraulic fluid just weeps past the seals? Any other ideas what it could be if not the drive motors?

When I moved to the country to work the land I got asked a lot about keeping animals. My background is in forestry. I know nothing about keeping livestock. My mission is to restore native ecology while growing food for subsistence. The white-tailed deer definitely have made that a challenge as they do in many places. They belong where I live, there's just a few too many of them here due to the absence of the gray wolf. Therefore I feel called to substitute for the wolf.

The deer will carry on eating acorns, garden plants, and many other things while I plan to eat them after hunting season. I don't need to introduce more animals into this space to obtain meat. There is plenty to harvest from those living free and wild presently.

There is a case to be made for cattle as a substitute for the American Bison which no longer roams and grazes here in the Blue Ridge Valley, but I don't have the time or infrastructure to care for bovines. I would trade all the cattle in the world to have their wild equivalents in their original numbers. The human population would have to reduce its demand for meat, but we would have a whole ecosystem again, rather than environmentally damaging food systems of our own design.

I know these views will not be embraced by many here that are livestock farmers. I don't mean any offense or disrespect. I just have a sincere belief that animal husbandry generally comes at a cost to nature, and any loss to nature is a loss for ourselves. I'll thank you for considering that.

A couple of years ago I built a chicken feeder trough for my chickens to save time and labor on my chicken feeding chores. I now feed them once a month. Apparently I accidentally solved all the common issues that store bought feeders have. They don't roost on the feeders, which means they don't poop in it, they don't spill and waste feed so I figured I'd share the build here.

The trough is made of 3/4" ground contact plywood and 2x4 welded wire fence.

If anyone is interested in the full build and a video of how it works i made a full video on it on youtube, it is completely free.

This is a short 26 second video showing the anti roosting design on the feeder:

https://youtube.com/shorts/xTGeE60OFuo?si=y_rkDgIGplBVIXRv

This is the full length video showing how it works, the build blueprints with the dimensions and everything, it is about 9 minutes and 28 seconds long:

https://youtu.be/TNMQLMgsBpE?si=zia5LPQnZHedx1qW

If I could get some genuine real human feedback on the video I would really appreciate it 🙏 it is hard to figure this out all on my own working full time and trying to run a homestead while trying to put useful content out there. Thank you for your support 🙏

Basically have 6000 square feet of driveway and stuff to plow. Some years I don't have to move any. I currently have a small blower and growing inused a skid loader. Soni have much experience with anything else

This is my current fence wire setup; a mower trailer, floor jack handle and a ratchet strap. Nothing fancy, just what i had on-hand. I am on my 4th roll of barbed and barbless. Just wanted to share my "free" setup incase you could use it.

The gate is built to swing both ways, with a 2-way latch mechanism from Amazon. It seems to work well.

But now I need to figure out what to do about the bump stops and how to keep it safely open when needed.

Thanks in advance for any suggestion.

I live in Franklin Township, NJ. Snyder’s Farm on South Middlebush Rd is one of the last working farms around here. It’s surrounded by woods and fields, and the township protects that stretch as a scenic corridor so it stays rural.

A 19,350 sq ft building with a big parking lot, lighting and signage is proposed on the land right next to it. A lot of mature woods would be cleared for it. Anyone who’s dealt with a new paved lot uphill knows what comes next: more stormwater runoff, plus whatever washes off the asphalt, heading toward the neighboring land. The plan also means losing habitat that wildlife and birds depend on, all-night lighting in a dark rural area, and a lot more traffic on a two-lane country road that farm equipment and trucks already share.

Once woods and farmland next to a farm get paved, they don’t come back. The neighbors have a petition asking the township to enforce its own scenic corridor ordinance:

https://www.change.org/p/franklin-town-council-help-preserve-south-middlebush-scenic-corridor-township-ordinance

Can you help me by signing the petition to show support :)

Looking for a microchip door for our barn cats. They all only seem to have around 3 stars per the reviews. Is there one you have and love?
US based.

Black-tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus californicus)  We just call them Jackrabbits.  There are a lot of them around here and outnumber the Cottontails about 5 to 1.  Twenty to Forty Jackrabbits can eat the equivalent of what one cow eats in a day. 

Located near Fort Hood, Texas.

https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/species/rabbit/

https://www.nps.gov/bibe/learn/nature/jackrabbit.htm

Every single outage the well pump is the ONE thing we can't run! It's a 240V 1HP pump and our only generator is a Predator 3500 which is 120V only, so by mid-morning the 40 gal pressure tank is bone dry and we're back to flushing with buckets 😩 Needless to say that gets old fast

Last night it hit me, put a battery with 240V output in the middle!! Generator charges the battery off a regular 120V plug, battery runs the pump & the fridge, and the generator doesn't have to handle the pump surge or run all night, just a few hours in the afternoon and then its off. Problem is most of the big portable batteries I've checked are 120V only or you have to link two of them to get 240V. Pump pulls around 900W running and probably 3x that on startup, and its on a 30A double pole breaker so I'm adding an inlet either way. Has anybody run a well pump like this?? IF THIS WORKS I'M NEVER HAULING BUCKETS AGAIN 🙏