There’s always some drawbacks to having farm cats.
I was going to take some of my charcoal dust that I left in a pile into my compost. Found a gold mine of cat turds. Covered it back up, I’m putting the dust in a bin from now on. Yuck. At least they keep the mice from getting into the house.
Pretty easy to find out what cat did this in your char dust. Check for the black paws.
Bob
I was looking though my old bookmarks and came across this site I had forgotten. Some interesting stuff. https://practicalsurvivalist.com/
Already inoculated! Can’t get it better than that. 
I don’t think I’d want cattilizer in my corn 
Tom,
A lot of interesting project ideas there. Thanks for sharing.
Here’s an interesting project. Some homesteaders I know want a way to make a dYI hay baler. I’ve seen all the wooden ones and didn’t really get all warm and fuzzy over them. I am thinking since we all love those 55 gallon barrels so much why not use them for this? Basically use a barrel with a clamped on lid. Cut the bottom off it and add another open ended barrel section with a portion cut away to feed hay into and then ram the main barrel with a hydraulic cylinder until it’s full. Tie it off and push it out the end of the barrel. I have the details worked out in my head but the ram is the issue. A 48 inch long hydraulic cylinder is available at Surplus center for $150. the same size Pneumatic cylinder is also there for $250 but is only good to 350 pounds of force. I have no experience with these things. Does that sound like enough force to make a solid bale or can a hydraulic cylinder be operated with compressed air at say 100 PSI? It needs to operate off compressed air.
Probably all the minerals from the spring water most breweries use.
But in all fairness, chickens are like pigs they’ll eat anything.
My dad had a basset hound that you dare not set your beer on the ground when she was around. Wait till your not looking tip it over and lap it all up. She was fond of sam Adams Boston lager and knew when it came out of the fridge by the glass clinking sounds and would patiently wait, but would take anything she could get
Here’s my take on it Tom. Why not find an old baler and figure out a new tying system (the part that usually messes up). The packing system is already figured out. It’s not the length of the stroke it’s the psi that determines the the bale. To get the same compactness of the bale it would require many multiples of the same air pressure to get the same compactness as hydraulics. But most balers use mechanical advantage which I use for my wood chunking. And I love it
Y’all be praying for a boy named Othneil. He is two years old I believe. He fell/ jumped off the table this evening. He fractured his upper right arm at the elbow.
He is tough. He was sitting there not crying but that had to hurt. He is going into surgery this morning early.
Praying for Othneil, and the medical staff doing the surgery.
Bob
I don’t think it will work that well. The layers of the compression have to be held together so you are trying to keep a string on from the top of the barrel to the bottom of the barrel on a curved surface. and the bales will be fairly heavy when they are done. I would look at the 1920s hand tie balers or the mini round balers for DIY. Depending on how much and what type of material and end use.
I just realized I stumbled onto the next generation charcoal crusher (in 20+ years since I think these cost like 60k new unless you have a need for baled hay silage.
Surgery was a success. He has two pins in his arm now. They are on there way home from the hospital now.
Thank God. Praying for a fast recovery!
Jan, we too dug out potatoes the other day. Yours looking good!
Thod l share something with you guys. On the same topic.
Althugh not completely fair, l like to judge my potato growing sucsess by the seed vs yeald ratio. So one part seed vs what l get out.
1/5 is considered minimum and 1/10 a reasonable yeald here, from what l managed to find online.
This year, we had terible drought. Potatoes were not watered once.
I had 2 beds.
One was early potatoes, a tiny patch, right next to the Kursk. Its where we had a huge bonfire 2 years back, burning the twigs left over from making charcoal. And there was a lot of unburnt wood in the ground also. We harvested this patch early, most potatoes underripe. They are best that way anyways 
Rototilled. Fertilised with aged manure. Hilled once. No mulch.
Yeald ratio 1/17, but counting in that a lot was imature bushes.
Second feald was bigger. For winter potatoes. Planted later too. Fertilised with aged manure, rototilled. Hilled once. No mulch. But much dryer soil, less organic matter.
Yeald ratio 1/5.
Now, just for fun, l perswaded my friend to a test and he had half his potatoes mulched and half not mulched, he forgot to weight the two separately but in the end, his together yeald ratio was 1/13. He did say mulched ones were much better thugh.
Now, today, we got some winter crops in with the kids. My 4 year old daughter planted a single seed potato in her part of the garden (they each have a small, 1m2 plot) and, althugh it was still growing, she wanted to digg it out.
This garden was never tilled. Never fertilised other thain ash and mulch. This is how it looked like prior to the operation.
Let your 4 year old daughter know I say congraulations on growing those beauful potatoes.
I am going to have to try this method for growing them. Mine never get that big.
Dana gave me the okay to try this method next year after seeing the potatoes.
Bob
