Dacjohns--Changes

[Quail_Antwerp]

WOOT! Congrats on getting your chickens back!!!

 

[dacjohns]

Cut a couple of bucket loads of firewood today. More of that hard dry locust.

We got an egg today




Revising the list again.

Forget about prioritizing. Too many things happen simultaneously and are weather and mood dependent.

Go bow hunting
Take cat to vet? Get blu-kote to put on cat's paws. Scratch the blue-kote. Don't use on cats according to the label.
New house built.
More firewood cut. This is one of those continuing projects. When this winter is over it will be time to keep cutting for next winter.
Clean around sewer drain
Get some chickens back from niece.
Fix garage light.
Seal floor by toilet.
Dam cleaned off.
5 years of neglect cleaned up--firebreak, driveway, autumn olive, back 20, dam
2 winters of storm damage cleaned up--includes some firewood and firebreak. This is a do in conjunction with other things.Going to remove this one. Taking care of other projects will accomplish what I want to do with storm cleanup
Fire break prepared for prescribed burn--includes some firewood
Trail to back 20
Clear "backyard", get some firewood out of it too.
Fruit trees pruned.
Cut fence posts and continue with timber stand improvement in cedar area.
Fencing around the orchard.
Fencing around the garden--mostly done, have to close gap at bottom of fence.
Eradicate non native and invasive species--autumn olive, phragmites, Nepalese browntop, honeysuckle (yeah right)
Burn piles
Timber stand improvement--more firewood and NNIS eradication.
AC installed.
Family history.
Write articles for SS.
Go through stuff and get rid of accumulated stuff that isn't needed. Yard sale?
Garden taken better care of.
Rabbits.
More chickens for the freezer.
Clean up and fence around cemetery
Make front porch
Make shed for firewood. Put tarp on frame and put it over the firewood until the shed gets built.
Make deer jerky added and completed
Deer stand repaired.
Finish trim work around doors, windows, and baseboards. Buy wood for trim work
Get opossum
Clean chicken coop and put old litter in garden and around blueberry bushes. Put new litter in coop.
Do something about old brick house
Gravel for driveway
Hydraulic leak on tractor
Battery for truck
Purchase emergency power supply as in generator. Added and completed.

 

[dacjohns]

I've been reading quite a bit on some of the threads but not commenting because some of my thoughts would have derailed the threads.

A thought:
Technology has a hidden cost. What is that hidden cost? I haven't bothered to research any of the costs, just have thought about them.

I am a member and instructor of Leave No Trace (LNT) http://www.lnt.org/ (I know there is a way to make a hyperlink but I can't remember how). One of the principles of LNT is to leave what you find. In the strict sense this means when hiking you don't get a hiking stick from the woods, you bring one with you. Many hikers use high tech hiking or trekking poles. The overall impact on the environment of using a high trek pole rather than a stick you find in the woods is probably much greater when you take into account the mining of the materials, the manufacturing, and the transportation to the store.

What does this have to do with self reliance? What are the hidden costs of alternative energy sources? What are the costs of mining the materials used in wind turbines, solar panels, etc? What are the manufacturing costs on the environment? Solar panels must have a pretty high impact manufacturing process when you consider the materials they are made of.

Biofuels. What are the hidden costs there? More fuel used to farm the crops. More fertilizer. Are they any less polluting? E85 is less efficient so what is the gain?

One of the main gains is less dependence on foreign fuel and less use of fossil fuels but is there really a net gain? If there is a net gain what is it?

 

[FarmerChick]

I have thought hard about issues like this....my conclusion, you go crazy without ever getting true hard facts and accurate answers to any of them.

I kinda gave up...

 

[dacjohns]

I don't dwell on it much either. I just shake my head when people start getting passionate about it without thinking about all the costs.

Maybe I should a thread. Maybe not. It will get shutdown within three pages.

 

[MorelCabin]

I hear you loud and clear Dacs...I am a cinic towards most of it too. No matter what you do, you are going to leave a footprint of somekind...that's why God gave us feet.
Take recycling for instance...they are coming up with all these "recyclable" materials that are in fact killing us, and I am so disgusted with the thought of recycling right now that I refuse to recycle UNTIL THEY GIVE ME MY GLASS back! Forget plastic peanut butter containers...mayonaise, juice...ugh...just give me back my GLASS and I will rinse it and put it in the bluebox so it can be reused. But I will NOT go along with the sheep and allow them to keep giving us the plastic lie! That's just one of my rants.
There are alot more where that came from...

 

[dacjohns]

Glass is so easy to recycle but it's hard to do anymore. Grr. I guess plastic helps keep transportation costs down because it weighs less than glass.

 

[MorelCabin]

Have you seen all the plastic at the garbage dumps??? Have you read the actual stats on recycling? Most of that plastic gets buried anyway. At least buried glass doesn't poison the earth...or maybe these days it does..who knows anymore huh?

 

[Wolf-Kim]

I find it hard to throw out glass anyway, as long as it's not broken.

Mayo jars, pickle jars, olive jars; if it is a glass jar, it is washed and put in the cabinet to be used for a cup for the remainder of it's days.

I save all the old wine bottles too, especially if they are colored glass. Not sure what I'll use them for, but they are starting to add up.

I am trying to avoid plastics. Just today I bought a stainless steel waterbottle, so I can stop using all those plastic water bottles that have been making me cringe. LOL

 

[FarmerChick]

I don't dwell on it much either. I just shake my head when people start getting passionate about it without thinking about all the costs.

Maybe I should a thread. Maybe not. It will get shutdown within three pages.

yea about 3 pages --good guess.

but somehow buried in all those questions are the answers I think. How to go about that, I am not sure, but without experimentation on improved ways of technology, how else can we hit on the best?

see, I am thinking again...bad FC!