Ra Kenworth

Anthony Powell wrote:

Growing downwards is reckoned to encourage flowering, and 1.5 years after the work, one of the plants flowered and fruited .

Awesome! Many thanks for this tip!!

I will try this on the largest trees which are 5-7 feet now, before I attempt a backhoe coming in and digging down and attempting to move them off the mound of trees trunks and smaller rocks and dirt that I seeded them on top of boulders and meagre top soil on glacial deposits.  (I hope to locate a buried point well and a neighbor is renting one.)

jeff Swart wrote:

I agree with Carla - seems you might want to add a Poll option for "Both"

IMHO there are good uses for showers, baths, AND 'sponge baths'

Totally: with a significant number of this poll having no running water at times, a sponge bath is quicker to heat and less hauling than a bath bath

A shower becomes a luxury worth detouring for, especially before appointments with others

A bath may be a preferred luxury add-on
Soaking requiring a method to maintain temperature

The whole question becomes complicated

Then there's the shower then hot tub option

Plus those who really want a sauna included as part of the clean up ritual

All of the above then merits as an option

I grow mine from seed and it didn't ask how many already fruiting and there's a big discrepancy

Edit:
I only have 2 acres so everything must be small.

Over a dozen apple trees from seed but none are bearing fruit yet and it has been 8 years. I might get a backhoe in next year and if so, relocate them. The spot has grown over and now I have a better spot for them

The 2 Hawthorne which I thought were apples for years are beginning to fruit!
I don't think I can count the climbing roses, which are growing a living fence, or the 8' high bush cranberry.

The wild cherry from a sucker is a bush but in 3 years is producing

The wild elderberries don't produce much, so I started some cultivated ones from seed.

I harvest some of my ornamental plums from an ancient tree that was pruned of dead wood

I grow massive quantities of fruiting bushes, indigenous.

I bought Ann Ralph's fruit tree pruning book, recently recommended indirectly through this site -- to better manage the plum, and perhaps with that backhoe, buy a few cultivated dwarf trees and practice significant pruning.

I heard that women prefer baths more than men but anyway;
I can use a lot less water showering and even less showering at the gym which is what I've done when in a no water - minimal water situation (and Laundromat)

So showering first, then taking an opportunity to soak in a tub of non fluoridated - clorinated bathwater with pure Epsom salts for 20 minutes assures I am absorbing enough magnesium then the next 20 minutes detoxing (topping up hot water every few minutes) while listening to an audio book or music is pretty heavenly.
I would add sauna if available.

Soaking does get rid of dead skin.

When I have no choice but municipal water, I bath because apparently one inhales chlorine -fluoride at much higher rates from breathing in a shower, although at the gym there is no choice.

I transplant a lot of less undesirable weeds onto all my slopes, in the initial attempt to retain soil. Annuals are better of course from a phase 1-2-3 approach.

Rather than shaking out soil and trying to kill the weeds, if they don't produce burs, they get planted onto slopes with all the top soil in place, so the soil on the slope is effectively top dressed.

I also use the root vegetables I have thinned, and likewise transplant them.

In addition, I sprinkle desirable seeds, and I try to do this kind of weeding just before a light sprinkling of rain is expected, which fortunately is often

A favorite seed is carrots, which retain soil nicely, although wild carrots will suffice just fine. Then I take a picture so I can email it to myself, so I have the date, and add notes like what seeds are in it

I make sure I have absolutely no parsnips or wild parsnips, and eat the greens while leaving the roots to do their job. Often in three years, I get decent edible carrots.

I also stick the butts from all my onions and green onions on my slopes: I usually poke them into sections I have just dressed, but try to find the flatter sections or they only survive in small quantities with no irrigation.

Todd Parr wrote:

There is a standing joke among my family and friends that they look at my land and see chaos.  I see biodiversity

Yep: where are the straight plow lines and bare soil 😂

Shookeli Riggs wrote:What if the piano tells you "but im not dead yet!" !

It might be risky: revenge of the undead piano 😂

Just to be clear, I'm not sure if it's possible to make money raising pigeons for meat. In the Toronto Ontario Canada farming region, there was a scam where farmers set up operations for utility king pigeons -- and went bankrupt. I do not raise my pigeons for meat -- I breed meat pigeons for soil building, with a sideline of meat security for the dog. The payback is in fertile soil, plus I feed whole grains I want to sprout as volunteers. The designer rodents hide field peas that sprout in little clumps all over the forest as well.

Sure! I use one of my compostable bamboo q-tips to dip in a pot of gorilla super glue, and yes, the membrane is intact. Usually it's just a minor crack but even if a tiny bit of shell is actually missing, I've gotten it to work by crushing chicken egg shell into a small enough piece to make a patch. I've had a few succeed, about 1:2 success:failure

I hope that makes sense

The better plan is to be more careful and not crack them in the first place!

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Wow, Ra, you have repaired an egg mid incubation?  That’s impressive.
.

Thanks:-) not my idea: the farmer who recommended if I want to breed birds for meat, Lebanese chickens are the best for feed investment and speed.

My first chick born to a super glued egg of course, I named her Super Glue!