NurseWang

I helped a friend process some chickens this week. This kind of work is meaningful and builds community. Check it out. https://nursewangholistic.com/helping-a-friend-process-chickens/

The chicken Greenhouse/Hawk protection project is complete! #homestead #homesteading #tspc #gsd #grownostr #permaculture #chicken

Been getting a lot done lately, on top of full time nursing work, on-call just about every weekend, and driving Door Dash/Uber Eats on the way home... This week, I built a French drain to drain our driveway which catches all the rain runoff from our yard. Unfortunately, I done have a before photo. 5 hours after I finished, my 18yo son drove off the driveway over the grate. Thankfully he didn't break it, but I put a cinder block in the way so he doesn't do it again. Teens 🤦 Then, with the weather coming, and because of a Hawk that took out one of my free range hens, I built an enclosed run/greenhouse for them. I just need to connect the run to the mobile coop. In the spring, I hope to use it to start some plants. I also had to enclose a screened in porch with plastic to prevent my plumbing from freezing. This was an addition that one of the previous owners installed, but we've had issues with the pipes freezing in the ceiling of that room. So, as a temporary fix, until we're ready to hard scape the room, I put a double layer of plastic over the whole exterior. #grownostr #permaculture #homestead #proofofwork

Cool idea... https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1F5a2hvyKE/

Well, it's been a busy week. Earlier this week, my wife had her chemo port removed, so I had the day off. I don't often have the day off, so I took advantage and started one of these Jack Spirko Bioreactor Compost piles. It's made with mostly wood chips, and a small amount of rabbit manure (as a ratio). I tried to harvest the old wood chips from where I had the chickens for the last year, but while I was gone at work, my wife had a tree company who was working at my neighbors drop the chips on the only available space... Where I meant to harvest the old chips from the chicken run... That's ok though I was still able to get the outskirts, and now I have fresh chips for all sorts of fun this year. I started out with a 4x16 cattle panel. Jack recommends 3x16 goat fence, but that was $99 vs $37 for the cattle panel. I then lined the inside with weed blocker and used stainless steel S-clips to hold the cattle panels in a cylinder shape. I overlapped the last section, so close to 15' 4" in circumference. Then I took a 4in drain pipe and put dozens of holes in it for the center pipe, and 2- 3in x 10ft PVC pipes, cur them to 40" long, and, using a miter saw, cut lots of slits in it for air exchange. The 4 inch pipe I placed in the middle of the cylinder. I then took 6x 5ft rebar lengths and hammered them a few inches into the ground, spaced evenly around the center pipe, trying to get within a foot of the wall and of the center pipe, and the other additional pipes. The goal is for nowhere within the cylinder to be more then 1 foot from air exchange. Once they were done, I slid the 3in pipes over the rebar.i put paper cups over the ends of the pipes so they wouldn't fill up as I was filling the cylinder. I then took the remainder of a pile of wool chips we got a few weeks ago, and soaked them in a couple of concrete mixing trays. Once the chips (and leaves) were saturated, I shoveled them into the cylinder. Once I had about 6 inches of chips, I started adding a shovel of rabbit manure (mixed with biochar) into each mixing tray. This helped even the spread over the entire mix. Once that pile of wood chips was exhausted, I started harvesting from the old chicken run, around the edges of the new wood chips pile, repeating the same soak and then fill, each tray with a scoop of rabbit manure. Periodicly I would hose down the whole thing until water seeped out from the bottom. You wouldn't believe how much water something like this takes up. After this week, I will be adding 2 gallons of water daily until it's done. This is to keep the compost from drying out. The real goal would be to leave this compost for 1 year. The reality is, I will be using this up in the spring to full new beds and top up old ones. I will be starting another one in the spring, which will go for a full year to get the maximum benefit. This project took me about 8 hours of dedicated time to complete. The rebar, and airflow pipes will be removed and could be used to make a second pile while this one is still cooking, but I think I'm going to wait until the spring in order to have a new batch ready each spring as I'm getting ready to plant out my garden beds. Things I would do differently at this point... 1) I would have purchased another 3in x 10' PVC pipe and cut them all to 5 feet. This would have allowed me to fill the cattle panels to the top. 2) I started with 3 of the stainless S-clips, but I should have used 6 (they come in a 3 pack from Home Depot). On about day 3 I noticed the middle one of the 3 had snapped in half and was no longer holding its shape. I then added 3 more and it seems more stable, but should have done that from the start. 3) I would have liked to have used the chips that the chickens had been using in their run for the last year, as this likely would have added a lot more biology to the mix. I also got some stainless steel gutter guards in place on all my gutters in preparation for a rainwater harvesting project coming soon.

nostr:nprofile1qqs2rlzal4lleatrezg4tdrxw5d4srg3tcfkutuvjr5fzvu9h0kmrncpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuvrcvd5xzapwvdhk6qgdwaehxw309aukzcn49ekk2qghwaehxw309aex2mrp0yh8x6tpd4ehgu3wvdhk68uj6gq have you seen these composting bins? I've been reviewing your composting course, and was thinking this may work well. Wanted to hear your thoughts on the HDPE bins. Maybe need to ask your Vevor rep. https://m.vevor.com/compost-tumbler-c_11277/vevor-compost-bin-220-gallon-outdoor-expandable-composter-easy-to-setup-large-capacity-composting-bin-fast-creation-of-fertile-soil-p_010789547214