Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[Haumana]

I have spent the last couple of days trying my hand at recycling pallets to make a potting bench. Now that is some minimal rewarding shit work. I don't foresee myself doing that again anytime soon. At the very least, my pickiness has pegged at oak pallets only. The word "Upcycle" makes me want to vomit.

[Haumana]

Awesome.
Keep them in Fresh Water, feed them Oyster Shells when they start laying, and all table scraps are great for them, including meat.

Roger that. Not our first go-round with chickens. We hadn't bought eggs for almost 10 years prior to moving. I giggled every time we saw eggs marketed as all vegetarian diets. Those suckers will voraciously eat chicken if you let em. Forget snails, reptiles and whatever else they can get their beaks around.

[C-Mag]

Texas has its own power grid.

Got my water report in the mail yesterday. Found out where our water comes from.

Thanks for the 'minder. I started to listening to this episode of Levin and got pulled away.

I think the big advantage to the Texas power grid is that if they need to do catastrophic repairs it's a lot easier for them to get it up and running becase it's a single decision head.

WATER
Whats the story on your water supply?

So, water is an area I've been a little weak on. I've enjoyed pretty rich resources generally, that I haven't paid as much attention to it. But the recent flood has gotten me going . I improved my water storage container capacity quite a bit. Started looking hard at my filtration system(which needs replaced) and started looking at ways to pump water from my wells without power, filter it and get it to the house.
I made some small progress on getting my old hand pump well going. That's going to happen by Fall. Once I have a hand pump well, I'm going to feel pretty solid.

[C-Mag]

Awesome.
Keep them in Fresh Water, feed them Oyster Shells when they start laying, and all table scraps are great for them, including meat.

Roger that. Not our first go-round with chickens. We hadn't bought eggs for almost 10 years prior to moving. I giggled every time we saw eggs marketed as all vegetarian diets. Those suckers will voraciously eat chicken if you let em. Forget snails, reptiles and whatever else they can get their beaks around.

Nice
What I always had trouble with is the periods when they would stop laying, they kind of suck when they aren't producing. Is there a way to kick them back into laying quicker?

[Haumana]

Nice
What I always had trouble with is the periods when they would stop laying, they kind of suck when they aren't producing. Is there a way to kick them back into laying quicker?

I would always turn on the fryer and make em watch me toss in frozen chicken strips. Boo to broody chickens.

What kind do you have? We went with the Rhode Island Reds. 300+ eggs a year at their peak. We did try a Barred Rock last time because they were supposed to be more inquisitive and friendly but that chick was a freak. Least friendly chicken ever.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Damn. I might actually have to buy one of these.

[C-Mag]

Nice
What I always had trouble with is the periods when they would stop laying, they kind of suck when they aren't producing. Is there a way to kick them back into laying quicker?

I would always turn on the fryer and make em watch me toss in frozen chicken strips. Boo to broody chickens.

What kind do you have? We went with the Rhode Island Reds. 300+ eggs a year at their peak. We did try a Barred Rock last time because they were supposed to be more inquisitive and friendly but that chick was a freak. Least friendly chicken ever.

I'm out of chickens, have been for a few years. Kids are out of the house, just don't use that many eggs anymore.
We raised Plymouths and Leghorns. My peak was 24 chickens, man when their laying, you can't give away eggs fast enough. We had 18 dozen eggs in the fridge at one time.

I'm into beef and pork now. Slaughtering the beef in a couple weeks.

[Haumana]

I'm out of chickens, have been for a few years. Kids are out of the house, just don't use that many eggs anymore.
We raised Plymouths and Leghorns. My peak was 24 chickens, man when their laying, you can't give away eggs fast enough. We had 18 dozen eggs in the fridge at one time.

I'm into beef and pork now. Slaughtering the beef in a couple weeks.

Holy shit! 24 chickens??? We were keeping 1 - 1/2 dozen on hand every week for a house of 3 with just 2 high yield layers. 18 dozen eggs is downright ridiculous. HAHA

Post some pics of the beef harvest. I want to find someone who will sell me 1/2 a cow and stock my freezer full!

[Okeefenokee]

I have spent the last couple of days trying my hand at recycling pallets to make a potting bench. Now that is some minimal rewarding shit work. I don't foresee myself doing that again anytime soon. At the very least, my pickiness has pegged at oak pallets only. The word "Upcycle" makes me want to vomit.

Did you see the video I posted on using a sawzall to break them down? It works a lot better than how I used to do it.

After that I sand them all down with a power sander, but a planer would would make it a lot easier. Got to get one of those one day.

Yeah, it's a lot of work, but the lumber you get from it can be really really nice looking stuff.

[Okeefenokee]

Texas has its own power grid.

Got my water report in the mail yesterday. Found out where our water comes from.

Thanks for the 'minder. I started to listening to this episode of Levin and got pulled away.

I think the big advantage to the Texas power grid is that if they need to do catastrophic repairs it's a lot easier for them to get it up and running becase it's a single decision head.

WATER
Whats the story on your water supply?

So, water is an area I've been a little weak on. I've enjoyed pretty rich resources generally, that I haven't paid as much attention to it. But the recent flood has gotten me going . I improved my water storage container capacity quite a bit. Started looking hard at my filtration system(which needs replaced) and started looking at ways to pump water from my wells without power, filter it and get it to the house.
I made some small progress on getting my old hand pump well going. That's going to happen by Fall. Once I have a hand pump well, I'm going to feel pretty solid.

The report says we get our water from the two reservoirs in the area, and that the two systems are not connected. One is county, and the other regionally run. I don't yet know which system we're hooked into.

Check out this ram pump and see if it could fit in anywhere on your place.