Plugging away; and, Guinea fowl...

Hi, folks.

Hopefully, I'll be writing more regularly again. We just had a big pile of "stuff" all at the same time, over the past weeks; leaving me with very little energy.

I come back here though, because of you guys. Some of the "stuff" was hard and depressing (of course- it's life) but it cheers me up to check back here and see that my readers stick- and in fact even slowly increase, even when I'm not writing actively. It's nice to be listened to.

One of the things slowing down my return to regular writing is the huge number of things that need writing about. Way too many. Too many of which are downer type things that I don't just want to dump on you. (Like, for example, the really great news from Japan this week; that they will be starting to actually try to tap deep ocean methane clathrates, opening up an entirely new, and huge, can of fossil fuel worms for the world.) Not going there, at the moment, you'll have to fret on your own.

I've got brain overload; and I've been reluctant to just pass it casually on. Not helpful. But then, in comments on my last post, Tickmeister asked for "useful guinea fowl information" - and that triggered my avalanche.

First of all, Ticky, do search the blog here for "guinea"; there will be quite a few posts, with a bunch of information. Start there. What I wrote is still valid. (Well, except for the part where I said "we've solved all these problems..." oooh, embarrassing, that one.)

But; I did leave the entire enterprise hanging; promising "more soon", and failing to deliver. The problem was the "more". There's too much "more"; and most of it is murky. I hate putting out non-information, it's a pet peeve of mine when I have to sift through other people's crap: "We just got guineas last week, and they're the greatest! You need to get some now!" Yeah? How'd that look at 2 years? Silence.

Quick summary on guinea fowl: We've had them since 2008. I think 4 of the original birds are still alive and well, and I value them highly. We've got a total of around 30 now. We're intending to try to hatch a lot more this year. But then; we tried to hatch a lot more last year- and failed completely.

They're a good animal to have. They are, however, not chickens; something people insist on and persist in forgetting, constantly. If you want to keep guineas, and benefit from their company- you have to pay attention. Every day- just like all other livestock.

There are a lot of ways in which they are less trouble than chickens- when they are out free range, they find about 90% of their own food. They're good at surviving predators; both mammals and hawks. We still think they're promising.

But...

Ok, see; way too many "buts". Not for the guineas; for me. If you're thinking about keeping guineas- I'd encourage you to try them. They can be worth it. But. A great amount of the information on exactly how/when/what etc. that's available - is iffy. At best. "Guineas behave thusly..." is likely only half true. My own version of the various aphorisms regarding half-truths: "A half-truth is the most durable of lies."

And. Do I have time to write the monograph on keeping guineas? Not today. Besides; at this point in my relationship with them- I'm mostly aware of how much I don't know.

Which at the moment is my feeling in regard to the entire Universe.

So, cheer up. You're not alone.

:-)

explanation and new ACTION!-

 Since around 20% of all Boswash now knows I have an icky tummy, I figured I'd best just go ahead and tell all you guys.  And it's Crunchy Chicken's fault, of course, that I haven't already.

  Some days ago I sent this comment in to Mark Bitten's "Minimalist" column on the NYT.  I really didn't think he'd post it- but he did.  (The column it was in response to is worth reading if you're a burger fan- he's a heck of a writer.)

  My tummy has been giving me a bad time since September.  Whatever it is acts like "stomach flu", but at this point, I'm pretty sure it isn't.  At kind of random intervals, I'll throw up thoroughly; for no apparent reason; which is followed by about 2 days of 23 hours of sleep, a couple wobbly days, then a week or so of slight nausea, low energy, and an IQ of 78.

  That's the real reason I'm so quiet here.  I keep thinking it has to go away, but it doesn't.  Next step is the doctor, I guess, which I'm dreading; having spent months in doctors' offices and labs being tested for weird symptoms; almost never with any resolution.

  And the "it's Crunchy's fault" part- it's incredibly embarrassing for me to mumble about tummy aches, when she is dealing; literally heroically, with real illness.  I feel like an ass even mentioning my piddly stuff.  So, I've been quiet about it.
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  Meanwhile.  I spend a fair number of hours perusing the web, and I sometimes have enough functioning brain cells that I can respond well, when appropriately stimulated.

  Here is the ACTION part.

  Anybody out there pissed at BP?  Like to do something about it besides t-shirts?

  I made this comment over on TAE yesterday:  (Incidentally, the opening essay is really worth reading, though it will not cheer you up.)
 

Greenpa said...

Carpe- you know what would be VASTLY more effective and valuable than a simple "boycott"?

A community response. The owners of BP gas stations are already loudly explaining that the boycott doesn't hurt BP - but it really hurts the small-guy owner.

This is likely very true. So-

Get all the potential boycotters together- sign them up- then send a good committee of 3 very friendly and diplomatic community people to meet with each and every BP station owner.

I guarantee they ain't happy with BP neither.

Tell them- "If you dump your BP franchise- we'll bring the local TV crews, and help you tear down your BP signs. And everybody on this list will promise on TV to buy their gas from YOU, from now on- and ask their neighbors, friends, and family to do the same.

"We want BP OUT of our community- but we really want you to stay part of it."

Now THAT would make headlines. And communities.

  The reader response has been good; and after thinking it over, I still think it's good.  Somebody should, like- do it.

  And I thought of something to add to the scenario- the communities could help the ExBP stations- form a new chain; recognizable as Ex BP.  Should get them even more customers.  Finding a new supplier for gasoline is not a problem; it just has to be done.

  And a positive outcome, instead of many many unhappy people, and ruined small businesses.

  Ok, now.  My readers here have a higher propensity for ACTION than many.  Make my tummy happy- and somebody do this.

  :-)

The Parable of The Shed: Why 30 years is not forever.

One useful aspect to all of us forcibly attending Camp TEOTWAWKI now, is that many people truly are starting to be more mindful of their choices.   Think before you invest.  Look before you leap off your burning bridges.  That sort of thing.

Guidance in making long term decisions though, is hard to come by, and harder to judge.  Does this expert advisor actually have a clue, or ...  have I wound up with Alfred E. Neuman,  yet again?

Not long after Spouse and I built the Little House, and actually started living here, it became quite clear that we needed more space.  15' x 20'; including a wood stove, piano, and kitchen sink, and dining room table, just does not leave a lot of room for projects, like building a set of shelves.  No place left to walk, while that is under way.

Virtually all farm type operations include outbuildings; a barn, a shed- a workshop.  So it wasn't too difficult to decide that we did, indeed, need a multipurpose shed, not too far from the house.  We figured it should serve as a: work shop, bad-weather wood shed, seasonal storage space (eg. storm windows and skis in summer), materials storage (eg. boards, plywood), tool storage, empty mason jar storage.  You know.  A shed.

So quickly, you get to "where, exactly"; "how big", and "how".  "Where" was pretty limited; by the need to be close; "how big", it turns out, was partly determined by "how".

Standard construction around here would be a "pole barn" - treated wood poles, gravel or concrete floor, pre-fab roof trusses, and sheet metal sides and roof.  You just go the lumber yard, and order the stuff.  And there are loads of experienced construction teams who can zip it up for you in a couple days.

It was very easy to decide not to go that route- we had no money whatsoever.  Which meant- materials out of our 40 acres of oak/maple woods, and/or scrounged materials, and a "barn-raising" party for labor.

Then, you have to work out the details.

Something you pretty quickly find out, when you're living this kind of do-it-yourself life; the details are NOT "important".  The details are EVERYTHING.

Oddly, we teach our children the opposite, these days.  "Sure, teacher, I got the answer to the question wrong, but you can tell I understood it!" - will often get you a pity-pass in schools, even in universities.  But not in real life.  My father pounded this one in when he was an engineering prof, and I was in High School; and I got to listen to him gripe about his students.

  "But Professor, yes, I got the math wrong, but it's just a decimal point!  You can tell I totally understood the problem!"  "I don't give a good goddam if you 'understood' the problem!  Your goddam building FELL DOWN; and 370 people died!!  The only thing that matters is the right answer.  The F stands. "  And he would shake his head in amazement at their incomprehension.

So, I was well trained to do my homework regarding construction, and I'd adsorbed quite a bit of information via osmosis- and from helping my father re-build most of the houses we'd lived in (many).  Looking around at the old homesteads here, I found quite a few old chicken coops and corn cribs that were made with just white oak posts for their basic support; planted in the ground; and easily 50 years old.  Obviously, white oak can last a long time in our soils; the stated lifespan for chemically treated poles in direct soil contact is usually 30-40 years.

Doing more homework- the expected lifespan for white oak fenceposts around here is less; 20-30 years.  The difference is attributed mostly to the roof- poles under a roof should spend more of their life dry.

Most of my available poles are not exactly "white oak" - Quercus alba; but burr oak; Q. macrocarpa.  The textbooks say, though, that in this case, they're pretty much the same in regard to rot resistance.

So, using my own oak poles, we should be able to put up a shed that will last 30 years; no sweat.  We had a good supply of 12"-8" diameter red pine poles for rafters and plates; pine boards and 2/4's for other structure- and we helped a friend tear down a local railroad station for windows and siding.  We did buy metal for the roof.

When you're 30 years old- 30 years into the future looks indistinguishable from "forever", or "until we die."  And, guess what?  It isn't.  Here I am- 30 odd years later-

And sure as heck; the time has run out on some of my burr oak poles.

This is the SW corner pole.  And, as you can see- it's entirely rotted off- the bottom of the pole is now a good 6" above the ground.  Hm.

We just discovered it, absurdly enough.  The shed had gone through a phase where it got increasingly cluttered and useless, to the point where I only referred to it as "The Dread Shed"; and it got to the point where Middle Child and his wife decided to totally overhaul it, bless them.  Unburying the corner- where we already knew a woodchuck had chewed through the outer wall (and wrought havoc inside for months); we discovered the rotted off pole.  Oh, so that's why the windows have been breaking.

The shed is not falling down.  One of the advantages of using big logs for plates and rafters- they're enormously strong, and well secured on the other poles- most of which are not rotted off.  This corner is the wettest one.  But- the building is sagging, putting stress on everything.  

So now what?  Fix it?  Tear the shed down and rebuild?  I don't want to.

Dammit, I'm 60 years old now, busy, and I want the bloody shed to be in usable shape; I don't want to be building, or fixing.

Why didn't I build it to last in the first place?

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That turns out to be a complex, and highly significant question.  Lissen up; and maybe you can avoid my mistakes.

A)  I was young (30) and stupid.  I thought 30 years was forever.  It really really isn't.

B)  Everybody I asked thought 30 years was forever, too.  Or plenty long enough.

C)  The entire construction industry is built around the idea that structures should not last more than 50 years; even homes.  Then you should build a new one.  You want to benefit from the constant improvements in modern materials and design, don't you?  Well then.  They really like that- so if you read their text books, or go to them for advice- that's what they'll tell you.

and

D) Building structures with longer life-spans is quite a lot more expensive.  Like double.

E) Financial advice is always- that investments in durable structures are not sensible.  The reasoning there: if you put that money in the stock market instead, it would give you better returns (no laughing, now); and, they're quite sure you will move to a better, more expensive location later in life, as you become more successful; so you won't get the benefit of the more durable structure anyway; and whoever you sell your old place to will not pay you any premiums for the better buildings; people just don't.

F)  That's the way we build stuff in the States- always have.  Ever since Europeans arrived here- they've been sure they were going to move in the next 10-20 years, to someplace better. Why build for the long term?

See any holes in any of the logic here?

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I'm cogitating, pondering, and kneading all this stuff right now for a couple of specific reasons; I've got to figure out what to do about this shed; and- about future construction here.  We're in the process of building space for animals (guineas! ) - and you can check out a recent rhapsody on barns by Sharon, here.

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More in the next post.   Think about it!  And think about all the stone farmhouses in Europe... and how old they are...

life intrudes

Way back there, I promised a next post with deep meaningful philosophical delvings.

I lied.  Ok, didn't lie, I missthought myself.  (If you can misspeak, why can't you missthink?)  I thought I could, but my thinker didn't, and is going to stay there for awhile.

My reasons for temporarily abandoning the deep post- good questions and good speculations require full mentational power; right now mine are, perforce, focused elsewhere on two farm urgencies (on top of all the normal stuff.)

1)  We bought a new tractor.  It's due any minute; I'm writing this waiting for the freight trucker to call on his cell phone and say "I'm 5 minutes away".  

Stuff hardly gets more exciting than a new tractor, right?

Particularly this one, I think.  It's not a John Deere (already have one) - it's a Grillo.

Walking tractor.  With a 7.5 horse Yanmar diesel engine.  You can google them; I don't want to provide links here and have people wondering if I'm cahooting around.

There's a ton of Sussy (thank you Sara!) stuff to say about this walking tractor- a whole post's worth, at least.  We'll get there.  Major points- this is the machine we need.  Primary use will be mowing, with a sickle bar, for access to tree crops for harvest.  There are LOTS of other potentials; you can even get a serious hay baler for this thing.  And it's a diesel.  I can actually grow my own fuel for it- which is no longer trivial or ludicrous.

Very inciting, as Rudyard Kipling put it.

2) We've pretty much decided we're going to build a dugout sod chicken coop.  Quick.  We're still picking 6 ticks a day, per person, off each other, and 20 off Bruce.  Insane.  So we need the guineas.  They need lodgings.  We really need them to start chasing ticks in April- which means we've got to keep adults over winter.  It's cold here.  And, we're broke.  so...

Digging around on the net, the amount of hard info on soddy construction is slim- but not non existent.  Two things are obvious- it's a pretty forgiving technology; and if they're well made, and the roof maintained- they easily last 100 years.

So.  The tractor is shipped disassembled.  Gotta put it together, and not screw up.  And the chicken cellar needs to be designed.  Carefully, and thoughtfully.

Brain's busy.

This is how

My good friend Crunchy Chicken has got an absolutely spectacular example of how to "just do it" up on her website today.

This is SO wonderful, and impressive.  She saw a way.  She just did it.  She didn't write to her congressman- she just got the job done. 

(No, I'm not saying don't write your congressman.  Just that it's not always the fastest, most efficient way to get something DONE.)

Very, very, well done.

Resurfacing

If you'll allow me to continue the conceit- when you're pushing on icebergs like that- over 4' of open water- when something changes (like the iceberg moving a tad) you're quite likely to- lose your "grip" (if you can ever HAVE a "grip" on an iceberg) - and slip - and fall into the water.

Not necessarily a disaster, but it takes time to climb out.  What I was doing was some intensive people stuff for 2 days, and I do mean intensive.  When it was over, I slept, essentially straight, for 56 hours.  That's tired.

Climbing back out of the icewater now, but it's slow.  Scanning the headlines and trends, there's loads of bad news to crow about still, and that's getting depressing.  So I want to point you instead to a lovely example of how to do "it" right.  This is a well written article, too- Irish town - and points out beautifully what even mainstream people are slowly coming to realize: we're unbelievably wasteful- and if we can just cut out the waste, we quickly discover we don't NEED nearly the energy we're already consuming.