Google "hedge laying techniques" or similar to see how the English do it. They actually cut part-way through tree trunks (leaving enough bark/cambium for the tree to survive) and then bend it down horizontal. They then use pruned branches and weaving techniques to peg/anchor the trunk in place while it grows back. The end result is a pretty solid wall of trunks and branches.

Glad to see the comments about cattails. They are a great way to clean up water and when mature you can make alcohol to run you vehicles and make heat in the winter. You can get a permit from ATF for free and stop paying the oil company for what you can grow. Go to http://www.permaculture.com/welcome for more info. Isn't the internet amazing, also it helps to have worked in the waste water field for many years. Cattails are even used by a few municipalities for their primary waste treatment. Granted it's a MUCH bigger system than you would ever need for your farm.

No worries --- you confused me, but that's pretty easy on these stunning days when I spend all day in the garden and come inside worn out.

I'd rather use a natural predator than thuricide --- I've gotten more and more leery of even "organic" products like that. I'm still using it on my summer squash for vine borers, but only very sparingly and would love to kick the habit. It seems to be a bit more broad spectrum than I had originally thought, killing a lot of good insects as well as the bad ones.

One variety of Thuricide will prevent mosquito larvae from surviving, at an amazingly small amount. Something like one drop for one thousand gallons of water.

The hedge book I've ordered on interlibrary loan still hasn't come in, so I'm hungry for bits of info like this --- thanks! It probably would make sense to do some weaving during the first few years to make the hedge grow up impenetrable.

I appreciate your concern, but we've pulled quite a lot of weight with the golf cart without any problems. Mark's modifications just expand the capacity we can carry on the cart itself, since hauling the trailer behind it often bogs down in the mud. I did some quick calculations and I don't think what he's hauling would weigh more than two beefy golfers.

I've been reading up on duckweed since they're a good protein source for chickens and have read that they can filter water as well. You're right about mosquitoes being a potential problem. I'd solve it in one of two ways. If I had a lot of water, I'd turn it into a real ecosystem so that fish and other organisms in the water dealt with the mosquito larvae. But, on my scale, I think it'd be better to make a wetland without any standing water. Cattails grow just fine in marshy areas, so if you planted them in sand and ran the water through the sand around their roots, you should get filtration.

Mycoremediation is a very new field. Paul Stamets is the only person I've heard about who's studying it (or at least writing about it in the popular press.) I highly recommend Mycelium Running, which has a long section outlining his studies with using mushrooms to remove everything from coliform bacteria to heavy metals from soil and water. They seem to be very effective!

In one program in a series on the BBC about three people living for a year on a victorian farm using period tools en techniques, I saw them actually weaving a hedge. The plants (not sure what they were; engineer, not botanist ) were laid flat and woven through each other to create a very dense hedge that sheep couldn't get through.

If I understand correctly, almost any kind of reed will do the trick. Floating waterplants also seem to do as well. With some effort if might even look pretty nice.

For treating sewage, it seems that an extra layer of sand under the plants is necessary. The water is is supposed to flow through the roots of the plants, and then through the sand. After that it can be run off or collected for use. Here this kind of water is reckoned to be suitable for everything but drinking.

What I wonder about is what to do about mosquitos? Kitchen run-off and even sewage for a single house wouldn't be much of a stream, would it? You'd get almost stagnant water, a fine breeding ground for mozzies. Covering it up with wood chips to grow mushroom seems a much better option in that regard. Do those mushrooms also purify the water? I'd never heard of it. Quite interesting.

Sorry Anna. I thought that I had posted that comment to your posting on mycoremediation.

Dennis

For traction often series-wound DC motors are used. These have the advantage of creating a huge torque when they are powered but not turning yet. The disadvantage is an extremely large current (only limited by the resistance of the windings) running through the motor at that time. This current generates a lot of heat in the windings, typically much more than the motor is capable of withstanding in sustained operation. As soon as the motor begins turning, back-emf will limit the current and therefore heat generation. This kind of motor is also frequently used as a starter motor for internal combustion engines because of its high start-up torque.

If such a motor gets stuck under power for some time, the large current will eventually overheat the engine and destroy the windings. A large sustained current also might damage the batteries. Normally I'd expect there to be a fuse in the circuit to protect the engine and batteries. But it wouldn't be the first time that some inventive person replaced a fuse by a piece of metal becaue the fuses blow up so often...

I've read about systems like that over here too, though they're usually set up as water treatment below parking lots. If our mycoremediation fails, I'll have to give some kind of wetland treatment a shot. (Probably cattails, not Phragmites, since the latter is an invasive species in the U.S.)

Oops, thought both of those comments were on the same post. Going over to answer Roland on the post he actually commented on.

Roland --- I've read about systems like that over here too, though they're usually set up as water treatment below parking lots. If our mycoremediation fails, I'll have to give some kind of wetland treatment a shot.

Dennis --- I'll definitely keep you posted! I suspect the meat scraps won't be a problem --- we scrape our dishes quite well since all food scraps go to the chickens. Mostly, the food that runs out the pipe is in liquid form, which I suspect the fungi will deal well with. But only time will tell...

Over here, people are experimenting with creating pools lined with special plants to break down contaminants in the water. This is called a helophyte filter. Plants used are e.g. Typha latifolia (cattails) or Phragmites australis (the common reed). Apparently these plants both use their hollow cores to transport oxygen to their roots, allowing aerobic bacteria to break down waste (e.g. nitrates and phophates).

I'll be interested to see how your experiment works out. We plan on having a gray water system for the washing machine and perhaps the shower. I'm not sure that we'll do the kitchen sink because of the bits and pieces of meat, particularly, and food, in general, that may be mixed in with the water. We'll probably allow that to go to the septic tank. But, if your system works well, it seems that small amounts of protein from food products would not be a problem. Keep us posted.

Dennis

Boy, I'm glad I'm not up there. I was more than ready for spring a few weeks ago --- I'm not sure how much longer I could wait...

I think the Grinches are those of us looking to be coated in ice for a month. We get a nice early spring all day, enough to get a good melt-on, then winter comes back at night (-20C) and we have to spend the next first half day treading carefully on the ice. If the pictures I took look good, I will do a post and share.

I loved the poetic revision though!

I'd never heard of milk floats, but now I wish they had them here!

Good point on maxing out the golf cart. Mark actually added on another five buckets or so to what he showed in the picture, and realized that it was making the back wheels rub on the wheel wells. Looks like there are definite limits there.

Were milk floats ever used in the US? If so, you should look into acquiring one. They were built to be stacked full of crates of filled glass milk bottles. That's quite a lot of carrying capacity.

BTW, be careful about not overloading your golf cart. Doing so might damage the engine and/or batteries. (depends on the type of motor and electronics used)

We never have leftover biomass on our farm --- I pour it all into the garden and then beg for more. I'm always intrigued by operations like that, but we'd have to have a much larger supply of wood chips for me to consider it.

That would be an awesome birthday present!

Naw, that's my brother's. Plus, it's not four wheel drive, so it can't get all the way back to the trailer. Our golf cart is our primary farm vehicle, so more hauling capacity is a definite plus!

Don't you already have a pickup truck?

A pickup would be a good choice to convert to run on wood gas.

It's not for the faint of heart, though.

I seem to remember that one year all my mom wanted for her birthday was mulch...and boy, did she get excited when she got it!

I love it! Who knew something made out of plastic spoons could be so elegant.

Ah, well, yes...that is my drug of choice.

Micro-micro hydro power... http://www.re-energy.ca/pdf/hydroelectric-generator.pdf

:P

Chocolate

What would you suggest? You find me a drug that matches up to the appeal of mulch and I might stop being a teetotaler.

I am not sure wine is the right drug to compare to anyway..

I must confess....I made up that vintage and have only once had a bottle of wine that cost more than a haircut.

I've seen chickens cross the road. In fact, one of my early driving lessons consisted of my father telling me the ethical thing to do if you accidentally run over someone's chicken on a country road. (Stop and offer to pay for it, in case you were curious.)

Yes.....road crossing chickens has always been a good source of farm fodder when it comes to joke time....although I have yet to see a real chicken cross a road in real life....maybe a few times in the movies.

I did something similar once by accident. A pet goldfish died and I "buried" it under a rock which just happened to be near an ant colony. When I lifted the rock up a week or two later, all that was left was a perfect skeleton. I tried to repeat the trick but couldn't get those ants to come back.

As a kid, we used to take mice and rats from household traps (and any interesting road kill!) and leave them on anthills in the bush. We'd check back on them regularly, and before too long we'd have perfectly cleaned skulls. Awesome!

I've had really good luck just making Mark do the things that hurt my wrists, but now and then I forget... I did dig out my braces last night, and they miraculously healed them right up. Woo-hoo! Thanks for your kind thoughts.

Yep--I put up with it for about 20 years, it never gets better, only worse. My doctor told me if I didn't have it done I would end up with permanent nerve damage. I had it done about a year ago and every thing turned out very good. If you don't already you should try wearing the wrist braces at night, they do help. The doctor I had did a good job on the incision, hardly any scar. He made a curved incision on a wrinkle in my hand just above the wrist thus making it nearly invisible. Good luck

Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that your carpal tunnel is acting up. That can be really nasty. I hope you can rest up a bit and are feeling better soon.

My brain is fried this weekend, but I'll bet you're right.

Oh good --- I was pretty sure. From the key, anything with a big gap between the incisors and the back teeth is a rodent or rabbit, which makes sense to me. All they need is the cutting teeth and the grinding teeth. No tearing teeth for vegetarians.

I missed the tooth shape, you are correct.

I believe this is a opossum skull.