***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[banjoejoe4783]

trying to teach my batam blue cochin hen to get on the BYC

 

[tgperg]

Quote:
20 or more years ago M.E.N. had plans for a small workshop/greenhouse that was heated by compost and fresh animal manure stored under the benches. I haven't been able to find the plans for it since then. That along with a solar collecter would make a nice winter coop for the birds.

That would freaking rock.

Traci

 

[nnbreeder]

Robert Rodale of OG was a true pioneer of a lot of the methods used today.

This winter I think that I am going to try to build a solar collecter out of an Aluminum frame for a sliding glass door. Might just use a wafer switch form an incubator as the switch for it. My steel supplier has told me that Al. hasn't taken the same price jumps like steel has. Will be a good excuse to learn how to weld it up, I do have access to a Mig welder but we have it set up for steel.

 

[michaeldaugherty]

HI every one read the post OLd cowboy NN breader now it look's like ...
Barnswallow's D.H an kid's came by an pickd up a pr of Turkey's an a nesting box's an told me of all the work they had done on the house this weekin
An thin i seen the pic's it look's great ...
Look's like alot of you have ben bissy with stuff in the garden.. not much for sale at all around hear this yr .TO DRY i ges..An we didnt plant anything ..

 

[tgperg]

My house is solid concrete. The walls are a foot thick, and the roof is also a foot thick, steel reinforced T beam construction. No gophers are going to be eating through it. Last year when we had all the flooding in that really wet spring I had to run the AC to keep the humidity down, but it wasn't bad. Nobody got sick. Ours is really well constructed. It was built in 1981. Weird but true freaky fact: I have wanted to live in an underground house ever since high school when I saw an article in the newspaper about one being built. When we closed on this house, the owner / builder gave us a folder with their original plans, site evaluation, architect's drawings, etc. I nearly died when I opened the folder and the original article I'd read in high school fell into my hands. Yep. I now own THE HOUSE that I fell in love with thirty years ago. Could have knocked me over with a feather.

Traci

 

[michaeldaugherty]

Quote:
They have a few around hear but not manny . The school in Verden is undergrown . It look's like you would save alot on eltric bill ..I watchd a show about thim on the Trav. Chan

 

[nnbreeder]

That is cool Traci, things like that doesn't happen very often.

There are several underground houses out East of Cashion, it looks funny just to have a door above ground level.

I did the dirt work on a house built into a hillside just East of Kingfisher and about a year later I saw the owner and asked him how they liked it. He said that the only thing they should have done was to point it S.E. instead of straight South, he said it got way too hot in the summertime.

Someone needs to invent color change shingles, ones that turn white in summer to reflect heat and black in winter to absorb heat.

 

[tgperg]

A green roof helps a lot with that. The only thing I want to change about ours is that I'd like to take the carpet out. The people who built it were retired, so I think they decided they were too old to have cold feet in the winter and the living room, hallway, dining room and bedrooms are carpeted. Well, covering up the concrete floor takes away a LOT of the benefit of the passive solar design. It should heat up in the winter, and release that heat all night long, then in the summer the cool of the earth should keep the temps down. It still is very efficient. Even with the carpeting, our house is total electric, and we spend a bit over a hundred a month average on our electric bill, but it irks me knowing that it could be a lot lower. One of these years we'll do stained, polished concrete floors.

Traci

 

[tgperg]

Oh, and I should say, the whole southern side of my house is open. The west, east, north and roof are all underground, but the south is exposed like a walk out basement. Gives us lots and lots of light all the time.

Traci

 

[Kassaundra]

Quote:
It has taken 12+ hrs. The first ones were finished at about 12 hrs, but others are still dehydrating. I set up the dehydrator in the garage so it doesn't heat up the house. As for favorite books, no not really since this is my first year, but the books I've been using are "Preserving food w/o freezing or canning" (I hate canning) and "Preserving summer's bounty" and "Make it easy canning, pickeling, and preserving"

One thing I've learned is most veggies loose alot of nutrition from dehydration (not tomatoes) and most fruits either don't lose nutrition or it is enhanced through dehydration. I'm still learning quite a bit.

Do you think you could do blueberries? And would they turn out like those raspberries? That would rock!

Traci

Yes you can dehydrate blueberries, the instruction say you need to boil for a minute or so to split the skin, I don't know if they would dry like raspberries or cherries.