Tobias Joseph

answering the header...

when 3d printers become a more readily available, affordable, viable source for creating customized parts... allowing the general public to re-imagine greater uses for recycling their junk. (albeit, we would also have to contend with the greater portion of that crowd still junking it with the desire for the printers to fill the void of all their wants... the culture of which is still difficult to escape.)

But it remains a more viable solution than dealing with the wider assortment of skills and abilities that are sometimes required to actually make it work..

there's so many factors here... the most obvious lending the problems of space, then we move onto the conflicts with laws and regulations (from measly hoa's to the federal government), to the conflicts in education which has reduced and eliminated such programs as woodshop and home economics.. to such an extent, in some regions, even internet access doesn't bring people any closer to locating affordable 'custom' shops.. as well as classes, workshops, in both new techniques and old... putting them further and further outside of the basic consumers reach..

it's ever a narrowing field -socially, culturally, professionally- especially as more educational and degree programs are leaving the public system for overpriced tech programs and specialty private schools.

Really, does anyone remember the days when the boys (& Girls) club offered more than proverbial daycare?

Or when such skills weren't associated with the "bad kids"... downtrodden and poor, those that have no other choice but to work in such fields, learn such skills... (or those unusual, pseudo-hipsters, from those homesteaders partying like it's 1825 to those cool cats that keep telling you it's just a jump to the left... And then a step to the right)

Tracy Kuykendall wrote:There are quite a few devices and methods available you just have to look and research to see what is effective for your situation. Flashing lights, high frequency noise devices, motion activated noise and/or movement etc. Google is your friend.

They've worked for us.. to a large extent.

Most of them solar powered... some kits might allow you to extend that grid further away, but many of them don't. And you certainly can't get away with just using one in many cases. Cost wise.. you might be better off with trying to create your own or creating mirror boxes, working out a system of reflection to expand its use. Albeit, again, many of the solar models designed for this sort of thing.. just don't produce enough light to adequately reflect.. so, keep that in mind, too. (some of the security models do, though.)


We're experimenting with creating an outlier of "bad wood" with the hugelkultur method... a spacer between an attempt with growing brambles lining the forest's edge surrounding our property.. worse comes to worse, we're not opposed to exaggerated beds of mint and other herbs. (maybe an extreme, a little less problematic than fantasizing about encouraging the local pyromaniacs to set it all ablaze. There's been several initiatives to take out the bulk of the wild growth and replant it... but it always falls through in the last inning.)

We're also casually playing with an interior with cold hardy bamboo, both runners and clumpers... exploring different methods of control and growth with the hopes (if it works well enough where we are) to create a natural hedge wall for the whole of the property... as well as potentially farming it. Or just one more quirk, distraction to play with.

Personally, I've been seriously considering catering to most of these yahoos... or even opening up to the trophy (hunting) market. (which, for the most part, are just as deplorable.)

It seems as if I might make a better living breeding for them than getting caught up in the sociopolitical pissing matches between backyard and other small farmers.

or say, the logical gymnastics of dealing with people with barely a fourth of an acre calling their game 'free range' vs those with an acre or more fenced in... that after a while, all the 'terms' tend to lose their meaning. And don't get me wrong here, just as much is coming from the haughty small farm side (be it the hippy dippy crowds, the hipster conservatives or the children of legacy farmers that failed to escape or just couldn't make it in the big city, and stuck with running their great grandpappy's farm into the ground) as it does from the suburban cul-de-sac. Let alone, dealing with the various customers or markets of both...

So, much so, I'm left wondering why I'm working my duff off trying to get my mum's land up to code and to market... when I still seem to be screwed on either side of the aisle for wearing the wrong brand of jeans.