Rick English

Yesterday, a hawk flew low over our yard and our ducks were out. The ducks did notice the hawk, and were hollering and waddling as fast as their webbed feet could go, but they would have been too slow...

My wife was concerned until she saw the songbirds, nesting in our yard, burst into the air and ganged up on the hawk, chasing it away. We imagine they were more worried about protecting their own nests, but our ducks are safer with the little birds to protect them.

We always found it strange that the ducks shared their food with the little birds, but now we don't. I guess ducks know more about some things than people.

One idea might be to establish a wildflower meadow. I have done that a few times and loved the results. My current meadow is now 7 years old and still going strong, with only a single trim a year.

If you like that kinda thing, this thread has lots good stuff on solarization, which preps a lawn for meadow planting in a few weeks: https://permies.com/t/43714/info-Soil-solarization

So sorry to hear about your situation. We once lost our drake to a red-tailed hawk.

We live in a raptor haven, but we did something that has worked so far...

We put string, spaced about a foot apart, over the duck run. We used uv resistant nylon string, but have heard fishing line will work too. Imagine something that looks like a clothesline a person can walk under. My frame is roughly the same frame used for this diy trellis:
https://dengarden.com/gardening/How-to-Build-a-Simple-Trellis-for-a-Tomato-and-Vegetable-Garden

Apparently raptors think it is a net or trap they won't be able to get out of, so they won't fly in.

Hope that helps and knocking on wood it keeps working for me too 😉

I haven't been in your exact situation, but I do have a drake that did at one time pick on one of my five ducks. After some research, this is common drake behavior, especially in spring/mating season. It is hard to break, but sometimes the drake just stops, and finally accepts the member of the flock he was previously bullying.

Our drake was still bullying one duck after two weeks, so we removed the drake from the ducks and put him in with our pigs for a few hours, until he escaped to try to return to his flock. We let him back in with the ducks, and he did a lot less bullying. He completely stopped bullying within a  few days. Today, knock on wood, he isn't bullying any of the ducks.

In hindsight, the duck that was bullied was our youngest duck, and we think she was denying his advances, because she wasn't ready for romance yet. She no longer rejects his affections.

Might be you have a drake problem and not a goose problem 😉

Here is a helpful article and tool for finding/fixing mixed content:
https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/audits/mixed-content

Google is really looking to lock down HTTPS in July:
https://security.googleblog.com/2018/02/a-secure-web-is-here-to-stay.html

Fiber, Farm & Fun
Triple F
FiberFarmFun
FiberFingers
FingerFarm

Tendril has both a fiber and plant/farm feel to it...


Could you please post some samples photos that you really like? We might be able to help reverse engineer them...

For better color on the photos, building something that resembles a studio light box might help to control the light. Photography is mostly about light. Better light is cheaper than a better camera that takes good pictures in bad light. Here is a decent video about this type of thing:



Hope that gives you some ideas...

Any chance we could post the products on Amazon? I just read this week that half the households in the U.S. have active Amazon Prime subscriptions. Let Amazon deal with payment/fraud, and then they pay you. Their commission is steep, but I suspect it will produce incremental orders and at least pay for itself. I consider Amazon to be the second most important search engine if you are trying to sell stuff, nearly as important as Google, and it is possible that they pass them in the not so distant future. This might also be an an alternative landing page for affiliates - one that could be less work/time  than optimizing the landing pages...

Looks like this one used to be on Amazon:
http://a.co/h9bhgED

There were 66 reviews, so it must have sold a few hundred units that way...

Bonus idea - if we re-enabled that old listing, we could add links to it in the description to new DVDs to give the new ones a bonus bump to get them started...

There is also an easier way if you are not as handy with a needle:
https://www.wikihow.com/Turn-a-Blanket-Into-a-Coat

A domain name is separate from the website, which is separate from the hosting.

Think of a website like a house:
- Domain name, i.e. permies.com is the address
- Website is the house
- Hosting is the land the house sits on

You can buy all three separate or bundled together.

Buy a Domain name here: https://www.godaddy.com/domains/cheap-domain-names

Just start typing ideas until you find one that is available.  One that ends in .com is the most desirable. Ideally you want something reasonably short and easy to tell someone. Most good domain names are taken, so you will likely spend some time finding one you like. In today's age, you want the domain name and business/organization name to match if at all possible.

Just like a house, you can build your own website, but your results may vary the first few times. I think there are a few people here floating around who build nice websites for fair prices.

Something reasonably easy to DIY you own site would be something like: https://www.squarespace.com/

Adagio Teas has Yerba Mate:
Yerba Mate search results on Adagio Teas

I have bought dozens of teas from them over the years. Great tea, great company.