By all means population control through shooting or whatever is a good thing, I agree there. What gets me is the waste. That and the fact that we tend to go our own way when it comes to population control, I'm talking about following natural selection. We go in the opposite direction than what...
I would think that a good deal of the open space was created via slash-and-burn agriculture. Then room needed to be made for longhouses, wigwams, etc. I remember reading about the northeastern-ish natives and their lacrosse games, in hundreds of people would sometimes participate - that would...
...or a goose. I'd raise them but individual birds are expensive and the goose-hissing drives me crazy enough as it is.
Strangely enough we just had four Trumpeter Swans fly over this morning.
EDIT: I would imagine that the meat would be on the tough side to, with a lot of connective tissues.
I know that I made the mistake of resorting to name - calling, but why should you carry it on?
I acknowledge that there is nothing sustainable without adding. Doesn't mean that we have to be adding though, a well-functioning system should be able to balance everything out itself. Compost and...
Jewelweed is easy to identify and all over the place if you're in the right spot. The orange-flowered type is the most potent. You can make tinctures from the leaves and stems and turn that into lip balm, salves, shampoos, etc. They all turn out on the oily side, but do their jobs and are easy...
The author of that blog is yet another slave to the system - he is only one person. The question of industrial-Ag vs. sustainable is a question that could only be answered by society itself; not by a single, biased individual. It isn't that simple. Also people these days also seem to completely...
What are they scared of?
Loss of profit. Less money coming into contact with their greedy, filthy hands. They might try to cover their own back-ends, but that's pretty much it. I've got Big-Ag in mind when I say this, not smaller folks who choose to use chemicals and whatever else.
Bindweed makes a good cordage (Who would have figured with a name like Bindweed?). Plantains were originally used as an early spring salad green and the seeds were ground into flour. A lot of people here know how dandelions can be used.
I'm not even going to bother all of the ones that I can...
I guess that Mute Swans do a lot of damage to aquatic vegetation. To me it seems awfully stupid to keep a "pest" species like Mute Swans just because they look good, while you're trying to kill off other "pest" species.
I eat Russian Olive routinely, I like to dehydrate them. They have small...
I meant using invasive species for purposes such as food, medicine, crafting materials, etc and didn't have forestry in mind. Many of the invasive plants/weeds here were brought here for a reason other than ornamentation. Even the ones that were brought as ornamentals have potential.
Not in...
Not yet. :\ When did you send them out? Mail here seems to take a little longer than what might be expected. Hopefully you didn't write down the wrong address, that wouldn't be good.
LIKE, LIKE, LIKE the part about making lemonade from lemons. If we would actually put an effort into that there would be no need to clear-cut thousands of acres of forest to make way for huge industrial-ag fields.
Nothing sprouting here yet. there's still a half-melted layer of snow over everything, maybe in a few days. We've been having odd weather here, something with the humidity. It feels like 50* but I can see my breath and there's a thick layer of fog over everything in the morning.
Ducks are hardy and overwinter very well, as long as you have something with four walls and a roof for them to hide in occasionally you'll be just fine. They all lay out huddled up together in the snow and cold, kind of like a flock of penguins. We throw piles of dirty straw in the run during...
Snow's nearly gone! Still no grass to be seen yet though - mostly mud with a few snow islands here and there. The ducks and pig are having a fun time with the mud and are making more mud at the same time. Going to need to buy a ton of grass seed once things warm up a little more and dry out...