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Double R said:
@phideaux Did ya have ribs for me?

Staying fairly busy today. Got tallow separated from the bone broth. Bone broth is in the freezer till I get the freeze drier situation worked out. Tallow is in the little crockpot melting down so I can package it. This will be for soap. Have plenty jarred in the freezer for cooking.
Suet (thanks @ClemKadiddlehopper) is still slowly rendering in the roaster. Looking forward to trying this for cooking/frying. If we like it better it will be something we will be sure to do with every butcher. Our regular tallow we use will be for soap and as a backup.
Nice outside today. Greenhouse is opened up. Mint plants are starting to come back after being neglected in the barn all "winter". Still no seeds popping their heads out yet. No matter how many times I look. 😆

I want to take a minute to thank all who have offered so much help and support through our financing/Move "drama". All the advice has come in so handy. We are now working with a mortgage company and have found the previous experience was because of circumstances not in our control at all. Had nothing to do with us. Taking it as a learning lesson. Stinks it hit our credit but all in all a learning lesson and makes us appreciate our new experience so much more.

Just finished my daily browse of properties. Prices are still changing. Still a lot asking higher prices than the places are "worth". If they get the prices they are asking I'm happy for them. Some listings we've had interest in are dropping their prices after being listed pretty high for a year or more. Our realtor sent us a place yesterday that was WOW. With some paint (Its darker blue outside) it was VERY nice. Dare I say to nice inside? Its funny how I always drooled over super fancy nice places yet I'm not seeing them as our happy place. Maybe because they are country sheik ( I think thats what its called?) which to me isn't "country"? While the price on the place wasn't abnormal for this current time it's hard to pay $100,000 more than before the spike from Covid/mass exodus. I'm hopeful there's a "right" place for us out there.
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Take your time. You'll know when it's the one.

Any doubts...move on.

Jim
 
@viking - Yup! That's where Dad got his seed! We pretty much exclusively order from Territorial. I'm not much into greens but that's pretty impressive about the Siberian Kale. We grow Swiss Chard because we get more cuttings from it than spinach and tastes pretty much nearly the same. I noticed very little difference between the two. I'm not sure if we've ever really tried kale. Next year I want to try bok choy again. Last year we got hot weather too fast and it bolted v.v



@Amish Heart - Sorry about needing some filings. I've got more filings than I'd like to admit. I always get anxious over the dentist, thinking worse-can scenario that I'll need a root canal one of these days. I MADE my dentist give me x-rays this time around because I was sure I had one. And yup! I did. In a spot he couldn't see. He would have completely overlooked it until it got bad enough to need a root canal. He's not the best dentist in town, but certainly not the worst. I just have to make sure I demand x-rays about once a year. He prefers every two but, yeah, no. I also go in every 4 months instead of every 6.

Also, I need to know more about your mammoth beets. Where did you get the seeds?
 
With The Princess at a fun raiser.

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Ben
 
Today has been a good day, the corned beef and cabbage has been consumed and the wife is fretting over tomorrow's Dr.'s appointment. Her toe looks a little better and she wants to back out of going, but it is still puffy and looks like a stringy radish, so we are going....

After doing some soul searching I decided I need to change some of my growing methods and that I need some more supplies, so I ordered some more heavy duty 10X20 starter trays and the heavy 3.5" square starter cups. I also ordered some replacement wheelbarrow handles, I got the wheelbarrow for free but someone cut off about a foot of the handles and I just can't handle that....
 
Today when I came home for lunch, my daughter was wearing elf ears and has ear cuffs on them, gold earrings on her ears. Cracked me up. She said she took the pipe apart earlier. Why? She had dropped her ear cuff down the drain. I just asked her what tool she used, thinking she rummaged around for a pipe wrench. She said her hands; says she's a leprechaun. 🍀🍀🍀
 
Someone earlier was talking about growing buckwheat. I do that pretty regular in the summer, actually start the first cycle in May. Around here it will bloom and go to seed in around 8 weeks if you want to harvest. I suggest if you do that harvest very thuroghly. If not you'll have buckwheat coming back for years. I usually cut mine at around 6 weeks, just after bloom starts. It produces a boat load of green material. I'll then plow it under and either give it a few weeks and sow a crop, or resow with buckwheat again and repeat. I've done 3 cycles over summer/fall and the dirt is so much richer the following year. Best green manure I've tried, you just gotta stay after it when bloom starts.
It also makes great flour for pancakes. They are so yummy.
 
Bacpacker said:
Someone earlier was talking about growing buckwheat. I do that pretty regular in the summer, actually start the first cycle in May. Around here it will bloom and go to seed in around 8 weeks if you want to harvest. I suggest if you do that harvest very thuroghly. If not you'll have buckwheat coming back for years. I usually cut mine at around 6 weeks, just after bloom starts. It produces a boat load of green material. I'll then plow it under and either give it a few weeks and sow a crop, or resow with buckwheat again and repeat. I've done 3 cycles over summer/fall and the dirt is so much richer the following year. Best green manure I've tried, you just gotta stay after it when bloom starts.
It also makes great flour for pancakes. They are so yummy.
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I noticed that the buckwheat that Golden Organics has is grown in South Dakota. I have never seen it growing or if I did, didn't know what I was seeing.
Buckwheat information.png
 
Patchouli said:
so @Bacpacker you use buckwheat to enrich your soil? Don't hear about others doing that much. I watched a presentation on a closed Zoom meeting last week about Texas soils, he's a USDA guy and knew a lot. I think I'll run over to the gardening thread. He mentioned something hideous I'd never heard of.
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I use Annual Ryegrass over the winter, plant in early Nov here. It helps hold the soil in place over the winter and in spring produces a good deal of green material as well. Just don't plan to plant any early crops in the space the rye grows
I have a good deal of clay, so I'm constantly trying to enrich the soil, but it takes time.
 
Alexandra has been on me for years to build her a chicken coop. We have a little storage building behind the house that has a shed roof on the back of it. I thought that would be a good place for her coop. So I decided tonight after work I would start working on it for her, what I didn’t know the roof was rotten. So I rebuilt the roof framed up the coop added blocks under the framing put up the wire and all I have left to do is a wainscot of siding and build a door. This old man is wore out!

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Ben, I love the tie with all the books on it. Someone spent waaaaaay too much money on the livery for that van.

Amish, sorry to hear you've been having birds killed by the neighbor's dog. Bad neighbors. Dog is doing what comes naturally but I know how frustrating it is. A hunting dog that was let loose to run killed my favorite cat (who was trying to protect me from the dog because it tried to attack me in my own yard) when I was 11. My dad was angry but he understood the dog was trained to be aggressive and it was on the owners for setting it loose on purpose (which was, and still is, illegal-- but they do it anyway).

Listened to my brother blow a gasket about his internet not working. He had to reboot his computer to get it working. Landline is still out. Had to go to Samsclub and Mom's shopping list included stuff we could only get at Walmart so we went to both. Brother griped about it. Ate at Panda and took groceries home, unloaded, and dodged puppies. Had to feed kitties again bc puppies got their food. I got toys for them but forgot to bring them in because I'm exhausted and my back hurts. Mom was already back asleep. I got food for her before we left. Thunder and lightning outside. I'm about to take a nap.
 
Weedygarden said:
It looks like you are using chicken wire on your coop. I just read a comment in my area that someone said chicken wire is to keep the chickens in, but you need hardware cloth on the outside to keep the raccoons out.
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I thought about hardware cloth maybe I should do that on the inside now.
 
Amish Heart said:
… The bad dog was on our property again, after the birds. Not sure if there's any down this time, but she's up to 15 dead at last count. She is locked up in a cage in our garage. Don't care how long she sits in there. Don't care about that dog at all.
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:mad:
 
Weedygarden said:
I'm far from an expert. I'm sure there are many here who are more knowledgeable than me. I do know that chickens will bring in critters looking for something to eat.
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It will look much different by tomorrow evening if the rain hold off long enough for me to get a couple of hour in in the evening.
 
I over engineer everything so I will just keep quiet.
 
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