Marc Dube

This game might be to easy lol. My one neighbor keeps his property over stocked with cattle, my other neighbor is a conventional grain farmer. So both have land that is treated vastly different than how my side of the fence is treated.

I use paper to go style coffee cups that you can get sleeves of for cheap and I made wooden trays to hold them and move them around in. I like them better than solo cups as they are easier to dispose of when deteriorated beyond use yet still hold up well and could easily do more than 1 season.

There is a study done about caragana shrubs and the availability of the nitrogen it releases to surrounding plants.

Under 2 meters had a negative effect, 2 - 12 meters had noticeable benefits and 12-20 meters had minor benefits.

Those figures are for established shrubs 2-3 meters tall not copiced or cut in any way.

I'm sure every type of plant and tree is different.

Yesterday I just put In 48 partridge chantecler and chantecler x leghorn eggs. I'm slowly building my partridge chantecler flock up and hoping to get to around 24 hens by fall. I have 6 right now.

All Galvanized wire contains zinc and some galvanize solutions contain lead as well. Most people don't worry about it as it should stay on the wire with only adding minute amounts to the soil over the years. If this is still something that you want to avoid stainless steel wire would be solution.

When you see the gravel of your driveway for the first time since November.

Happened to me just yesterday.

I don't have any advice but I have a story that is dear to me. My grandfather built a house in the early 1940's scrounging many building materials as there was a building material shortage due to the war. He built the house by hand with a very poor concrete foundation and years later he hand dug a basement underneath the house. He started digging outside of the house and dug a ramp going underneath. He dug the whole basement by hand with the help of a team of horses and a stone boat. Apparently it didn't take long before the horses were trained and at the word go they would go straight to the dumping area. The house held up fine for 60 years and then moisture became an issue to the floor joists, which could have been dealt with.

When one starts a homestead it's easy to get sucked into the idea of needing all the animals, chickens, ducks, cows, sheep, goats etc. It is hard to dial in what works best I  your specific situation.

Take me for example at first glance I live in cow country and have enough pasture for a couple cows so it should make sense that cows would be a good fit. The issue is the 6 months of the year where hay is fed to cows around here and unless you own enough land and equipment to put up your own hay it is very hard to get a source of reliable hay.

A lot of grain is grown in this area as well but the difference between hay and grain is that farmers grow hay for themselves and grain farmers grow grain to sell (there are no dedicated hay farmers here)
That makes it much easier to source grain  as a feed source for animals in my area than hay. So on my homestead I am leaning more on chickens and pigs as I am finding it easier to find local feed for them.

Every local area is different look to see what farmers are selling rather than producing and if you can use that feed stream vs a feed mill or importing feed from afar. Dial into the animal system that works best for you specific location that works for you.

Of course I'm still trying different ways of raising pigs and chickens to find the best system for me.

Does anybody use a wooden bread bowl these days? If so can you share pictures of yours?

I'm thinking of investing the time in creating one and just want to hear other people's opinions of if they are any better than a regular metal mixing bowl.

That is also how I make bread dough absolutely no measuring of ingredients. I use bulk dry yeast and adjust the amount I use for the quantity and speed I want the dough to rise.

I do weight the dough into 28 ounce loaves though when I put it into the bread pans. I always make sure there is enough dough to make bread sticks as well as they go quick in my house.