Trace Oswald

I use old freezers for storing chicken, dog, and cat food to protect it from rodents.  None of mine have the glass windows though, they are just old, non-working freezers.  

Very cool stuff you are doing.

I'm curious, did they turn to charcoal as easily as wood or bone?  I've found that bone turns to charcoal much more readily than wood does, for whatever reason.  I'm curious how well the shells charred?  As an aside to that, with no actual evidence, I think using them either in their natural form or as charcoal is a great idea.  I'm pretty much from the school of thought that all organic matter added to the soil is probably beneficial.

I personally believe there is "the truth".  I also strongly believe that it is very hard to know what the truth is.  Many times in my life I thought I knew something as an absolute fact, only to later find out there was a lot to it I didn't understand or I was just wrong.  The older I get, the less things are black and white to me and the more things are shades of gray.  Any time I think I'm sure I'm right, and the other person is wrong, I try to think back to all the times I thought that before.  It doesn't always work, but it works more often than not.

Mart Hale wrote:

Bryan Elliott wrote:Mart,
You mentioned the contents of the barrel are staying at 80 degrees.  What part of the world is this experiment taking place at?

This is in Florida..

Do note....

1)   this is the hottest part of the year  temps reach around 95 +   this time of year so this temp is not bad.

2)   for me to have the thermometer in the barrel there is a small gap with the lid so it is not properly sealed.

3)  there is only 3 inches of sand on top of this.        I am planning to go 1 foot deeper with this,   which means I will need to do more planning on how I will get my food out of the barrel ;-)

If I were doing this, I would dig the hole as deep as possible, hopefully at least 3 feet deeper than the top of the barrel.  After I put the lid on the barrel and a trash bag over it, rather than covering with sand or soil, I would put a trash bag, or bags, full of leaves or something like that for insulation.  If you had small loops of rope tied around your bags of food, you could reach in and pull them out with a broom handle or the like that had a metal hook screwed into the end.

If digging that deep is too hard, you could build some sort of enclosure around the barrel above the surface and fill that with the leaf bags.

Almond Thompson wrote:Unpopular opinion (maybe) but I feel children's books are a hugely understated artist's resource. Much talent goes overlooked because they're not "classically known". I have learned SO much studying illustrations in picture books, usually vintage ones.
William Joyce; Adam Rex; Mark Teague; Trina Schart Hyman; Gennady Spirin; Jim Arnosky; K. V. Craft; Mary Cicely Barker; Gordon Laite; Wende Devlin; Adrienne Adams; Tasha Tudor; Richard Scarry; Glo Fujikawa (I can keep going haha)

The original illustrations from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz evoke emotions in me that I can't describe.  I find them every bit as moving as any painting I have seen.  I could stare at them for hours.  They are so simple and so profound.

Salvador Dali

I'm very glad to see they are back.  I may have missed it, but I didn't see that they are microchipped?  I would do that first thing.  At least if someone does take them and you happen across them, or one of your neighbors does, you can prove they are yours to get them back.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Pretty high praise for these headlamps!

Just what I'm looking for.

Unfortunately they don't seem to ship outside the USA.

I found them on the Canadian Amazon site for you and then I saw, sadly, that they show not currently available.  Shitty.

I used the Jenkins bucket method for a couple years and had no issues.  It just smelled like sawdust.  I only used one bucket with no separation.  As R Scott mentioned though gets pretty heavy if you wait until it is nearly full.  If you just get in the habit of emptying it more often, it's fine.

I really like them.  They are quiet, peaceful, basically fearless animals and I do all I can to avoid hurting them.  That said, I've been to the emergency room twice with my dogs to get quills removed, and two other times I was able to remove the quills myself.  I can't risk my dogs no matter how much I like the porcupines.  I feel for you.