Sean, lm just joking. For a small homestead like ours investing in hevy machinery makes no sence, but people gift old machinery just to get rid of it, and you wuldnt belive what you can get. Thats just perfect for our cause.
Yes we did exactly that on one of our fealds, it tore out most stumps but it completely destroyed the soil. Its just too agresive for our thin topsoil. Nothing wuld grow there for 2 years, only last year, after intensively adding organic matter via manure, leaves and mulch crops the soil started to improve. Im trying to avoid this mistake.
Well, its a bit different here. Separating the sows with piglets wuld defeat the purpose. I generaly only raise 2 pigs to adault age per year, the rest get slaughtered trugh the year, young. So 90 % of our flock is sows with their young.
This breed are incredible mothers. I only got problems with the boar before, he wuld kill the piglets. He was a true vietnamese and althugh he gave great piglets, the cross between the Minnesota and Vietnam proved excelent. He was just too testosterone loaded.
Even after castration he was mean. Did become a nice wallpeace thugh…
Al, lm still trying to implement any kind of tractors here. So far no sucsess… the thing is, our terrain is hilly. I just measured it on google earth, it says our terrain has about a 25% incline. Moving any kind of a structure is a pain. In adition, its scattered. A litle feald here, a litle one there, grass in between…
I love this idea, but this land is not mine. It is part of the East Wenatchee district and Washington State lands. We can gather on these lands and remove noxious weeds this barly wheat is taking over and choaking out native plants which is not good. So by law we can help remove the noxious plants. What most people do not know is these plants are eatable and are good for you and organic. Better than some plants you buy at the store to eat.
Just around where we live we have found over 25 wild eatable organic plants to eat. This is in easy walking 1/4 of a mile from where we live. When times get tough we will still be able to eat.
Foraging was a way of life just less then 50 years ago for alot of people in the USA. Still is for some people who know how.
Bob
Wayne, I hear you mentioning your driveway needs some work can the truck pull the leveler beam you use or do that work or do you use the tractor? Maybe with all the rain you have lately you will have to wait. Any ways just driving back and forth on your long driveway would take care of my wood driving for the day.
Oh Yes I have done just that start up the wood burn truck and let it run on wood gas. Cost $00.00 and listen to the engine run, I love it. I have never mention this because I thought you all might think I was crazy. I know you are not crazy Wayne, so yes I do the same thing.
Are there others that do this too. Come on fess up to it. Wayne and I will not think you are crazy. Lol.
Bob
I have a couple of blades for my tractor but it’s too muddy to mess with it now. It has rained all day today and should have rain for another day or so .
I did have the opportunity to put some miles down this afternoon.
I wish you would send some of that rain up here in michigan, it seems we have been dodging all the rain cloulds,since last spring. been an extended dought up here, though we have got about 6" last night and about 4" the other night of snow anyway,it will help for spring time anyway,
I heard you say you let your truck set and idle without a hard run down the road, thats a well built gasifier, I have a questain about wood dryness, how do you know what moisture content your wood is. Or do you weigh 5 gallon bucket worth or use a meter,I got too hook up a hopper cooler and drain tank on this dakota build, i got room for the tubes and a tank.MY other two gasifiers i never did the hopper cooler drain tank / CHEERS HWWT.
Remember Euell Gibbons, Bob? "Stalking the wild asparagus? I’ve done it. They don’t hardly spook at all when you sneak up on them. Pretty tasty with a mess of snipe.
I think my wood will be about 20% moisture content .
I have a moisture meter but it has been a long time since I’ve used it. I put my chunks on a flat bed trailer and park under an open shed . I can use the wood in about a week but most of the time it will be longer before I need the wood.
THANKS WAYNE K I heard a few guys up here say there wood was dry after two weeks/ probley not that fast up here in the snow belt, Are you talking green chunks soft wood or green chunked hard wood, or all the same,I got too build me a open shed roof close too the ground,maybe clear sheets roofing pannels. WHAT is the highest you would recomend piling wood on the drying platform mesh.
I chunk a big pile of green chunks and they are left in the weather until I can get to them which might be a couple months.
I only chunk green hardwood because dry wood is too rough for the chunker.
When I need more wood drying I will load the front portion of a couple flat bed trailers and from that I will spread a layer out on the remaining floor 4-6 inches .
I like a flat surface because it is easy to handle with a flat shovel .
The chunks will dry on the trailer until I need them which could be a week to a month.
As I need the chunks I will fill 5 gallon bucks and spread another layer to be drying .
Filling the gasifier from home I find 5 gallon buckets work better than sacks but if traveling further distances from home sacks work better .
Thanks for the wood chunk and drying methods. Thats about what i thougjt would work good. I got a lot of chunking to get going at, to catch up too your chunking pile, nice fuel piles.
Hi Wayne when I go a few days without IC engine running I get antsy too.
Down at Yacolt home it is daily running the wood splitter for a wheelbarrows worth. Fun. Then out of heating season down there it is grasses&weeds mowing (work) and annual choking brushhogging (really working), nearly daily.
Up at the north retirement house by the second day, I will crank up and exercise one of the IC engined inverter generators. Sacrificing a half gallon or so of gasoline. Not wine, beer or even spirts drinking anymore it is a cheaper motor-head “fix”. Not work at all. Fun-fun.
Regards
Steve unruh
I’ve been playing around with pedal powered equipment such as wheat threshing and grain cleaning for a few years and Kristijan’s grain thresher(really cool) got me thinking about it the past few days .
The thresher was made from an old re-thresher from a old combine a friend gave me and the frame was made from some old galvanized water pipe laying around from an old house and the bike was from goodwill. It has a shaker and another fan blowing up through the screen. We used a furnace squirrel cage for the fan but had to block the intake side off because it was hard as heck to pedal when moving that much air but it was a good learning experience to feel the power draw up close and personal.
This was back in 2015
The bike detaches and hooks up to the grain cleaner which rubs of any stubborn chaff and weed seeds and makes it ready for grinding into flour. I did up a gallon for bread today and it goes fast.
I grew 5 Gallons of red winter wheat this past year and would like to do more but did harvest 100 lbs of dry grain corn. I think grains are going to become harder to get and certainly more expensive.
The fan in the last pick was the original starting fan on my woodgas truck which I later replaced so when we needed a winnowing fan for pedal power a friend with a lathe took the motor apart and machined a small aluminum pulley that the serpentine belt winds around.
Hi WayneK,
About twice a winter the jet stream wiggle waggles and central Canada delivers us 3-7 days of frozen down ground.
I jump on these hard-made ground times to tractor and truck move stuff around the property. Fencing wire and posts out to the far corner today. Four days of frozen now. Going bye-bye, then back to soft ground and muds.
Hey All.
Here is a newly released youtube showing that in all endeavors and decisions it always has a huge amount of: “It Depends. It Depends. It Depends.”
Your specific circumstances. Your choices of where to expend your efforts. When, where, to endure the consequences of your choices and decisions. Pay the true bottom line prices.
Ha! Ha! I am not going to have two or more separate cans of mix strengths. So I go anymore, only with name brands non-synthetic mix-oils at 40:1 in non-ethanol gasoline.
Remember/realize any “Belief System” may be just fine for you, and your circumstances.
But completely wrong for someone else.
S.U.
As much as I hate cold weather a day or two of frozen ground would at least let me load up the sawmill with logs and not cut up the ground doing so. I could then wait until it warmed up to saw .
Amend too gardon food independence, its allready looking scarce on good deals on fresh veggis. i planted and watered some sallid or slittly sweet regular tomatos last spring, and man i never felt better eating home grown tomatos,no pestidides, just a little tiny bit of firtilizer at start up and one other time. Now i need too learn how too can some tomatos, i got the books , i just need few hundred buck worth of canning jars and some reading, To live in a climate that you could grow healthy food year round would be better yet even.NICE MACHINE YOU HAVE WORKING THERE.
Kevin, lucky for you Tomatoes are acidic so you can get away with a simple Water Bath canning method. You don’t have to use a pressure cooker. You can always practice by buying big cans of sauce and canning them in quart or pint jars to divvy it up.
Water bath that sounds like healthy canning, no salt needed,THANKS YA i need some practice runs likely to as you say, getting the jars steerol before loading will be the other battle, any bacteria in jar will grow i heard, never tryed canning yet.I bought some 1/2 gallon jars and then found out thet too beg for most canning , other than dry beans, Or what else would be safe too can in 1/2 gaoon jars,? THANKS
Being a prepper, saving seeds is a big deal for me. I vacuum seal them and put them in the freezer. Seen a lot of people say you can’t do that. I have never had any issue with it.
