Site Discussions

I would like to get milkweed plants and plant around my farm to help the Monarch butterfly. Does anyone know where I can get plants?

It is May 9th and all the trees here look like January. What is going on? Chemsprays (geoengineering) killing trees? Never ever has it been this late. They look dead.

Hell yeah !!!! I’m gonna start makin’ me some honey money !!!

Dave,

I enjoyed the article, and would point readers to a sister product called “biochar”; essentially the same thing as charcoal but used in a different capacity.  Harnessing the power of pyrolysis you can take woody agricultural waste to be used as an energy source (heat or pyro gases can be captured and distilled into biodiesel) with a biochar (charcoal) byproduct that can be used as a soil amendment or charcoal for clean cooking.  If used as a soil amendment, then you have taken steps to sequester carbon for thousands of years; good thing for global climate change.

Further info for you and other readers can be found from the international biochar initiative.

Tom

I once visited the Kingford charcoal factory in Missouri. They still use one of the retorts from the early 1900s back when it was in Iron City, MI -  when Henry Ford owned the place. The Ford Model T was made with a lot of wood and the sawmill (also owned by Ford) had a lot of scrap they used to turn into charcoal. At one time, you could get a free bag of charcoal with your Model T to encourage you to take a drive into the country and have a roadside cookout.

Charlie Becker at Virginia Tech extension published a great adaptation on the original 1958 New Hampshire Charcoal Kiln built with a small metal chicken feeder turned upside down. I recommend anyone to check it out here.

Was nice to read your remembrances of the “good “ol days”.  I just picked up my license and hope to hit some of my past secret brooks for some native brookies.  I did just see a guy fly fishing in a beaver pond over in the Wolfeboro area this past weekend.  So the blood and desire are there, question is—is the time?  The best, Dave Coulter.

Love Fenwick!

Charcoal…interesting.  But my first project will be char-cloth so I can learn to make fire with flint and steel.

Re: senescence, it can’t hold a candle to “post-mature”, which I first heard applied to big old dying maple trees.  And which stage of life I fear is at my doorstep; perhaps it will be better than it sounds.

KJ

Dave, Why were kilns seemingly always located with a river above them if not to put out the coke fires quickly? Did the water cause the charcoal to break down so it could be shoveled out of the kiln?  Hiya

Hi Dave:

Nice segment on charcoal.  I was talking about this subject today with my mechanic.  I had previously seen some video on the subject, parts 1 and 2, at the links below.  With the price of charcoal briquettes on the rise, this may be a hot (ha) subject.

Peter

Part 1
Part 2

Hi,

Just a comment to suggest that people don’t use any honey for feeding bees - there is a risk that honey can contain American Foul Brood spores, and an infected colonies usually have to be destroyed in many parts of the world.

I have located a swarm of bees been there couple years they have honey and alot of hive how to I retrieve them and not loose all.

I have about 4 growing in my yard. The saplings are somewhat difficult to keep alive due to deer and what I think are saw flys. But two are bigger and a bit healthier.

I have only begun, at the age of 40, to start splitting wood.  Before this article, I would have said “chopping”.  Anyway, I get the wood delivered, but some of the logs are quite large.  I actually had a maul in my hand at 2 different stores, but my thrifty (ok, cheap) side kicked in and I couldn’t do it.  I only have a 15 year old axe, so I had to split with that.  Let me tell you, that it worked just fine.  There were about 4-5 log pieces that I couldn’t splt, but they were not as dry and were pretty knotty. If I get into more splitting, I may even get an electric log splitter.

I saw a catamount (mountain lion) yesterday, April 23, 2013 at about 3:15pm when I was going southbound on Interstate 91 and was halfway between Lyndonville and St. Johnsbury, Vermont. This beautiful, very large animal, tawny in color with a long, rope-like tail, was crossing the highway from east to west and as I got closer, I saw it run up a meadow. Upon looking at a picture of a catamount later on, this majestic cat that I saw was definitely a catamount. I noted the mileage marker number and will look at this area again when I am on the highway today to get the exact spot. I have reported my siting to the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department.

I find the concept of transgenic chestnuts facinating. I hope this same technology will be applied to help the Ozark chinkapin (Castanea ozarkensis). A close chestnut relative that was also damaged by the same blight. In addition I hope it will be used to help the butternut & black walnut in their new fight against the thousand cankers disease,the elms against the Dutch elm disease, ashes against the emerald ash borer and the hemlock against its insect pest.

Thank you for the excellent explanation.  So just to confirm what I have thought, if you have a 5 acre plot with a slope that starts at sea level on one side and rises 200 foot at the other side your property line would not be based on a tape measure following the slope.  It would measured as if you projected the sea level end up 200 feet and measured between a 200 foot elevated starting point and the 200 foot back property actual height, correct?

Thank you.

This perfectly describes what we’ve experienced with grouse in our yard and surrounds.

The plumber cut roots out of my sewer last summer, i have placed root killer, copper sulfate in the line a couple of times that i would be out or the home for a few days.  will root killer, kill the roots in my sewer line?

thanks.

Garland

Thanks so much for the article.  I have searched on the net for years for this material and could not find anything, or could I find anyone who knew how to do it.  My father and I used to line bees in the 40’s and I was bored with it as a young child.  I remember it was a Sunday morning venture with that box and chasing bees at his commands.  One day I came home from school and here were several wash tubs on the front lawn full of honey comb.  We were very popular in the neighborhood for a while.  He found the hive quite close to our home in a old maple tree which I never did see.  I would like to start this with my grandchildren some day as I remember the honey and how it tasted.  I also remember that he did not know how to extract it from the comb so we ate it comb and all.