The Quack Shack

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Hey friends i need a good idea: As you may know, i am building a run as an extension of the duck-house, so that there will be enough room in the house for the whole flock of 40 in the winter.
I finished all the framing on Wednesday evening, except for the roof beams, but there is an achilles heel: The duck-house and the run are sitting on a hill-site and at the downhill side there is a gap, up to ¾ foot wide between the bottom beam and the actual ground that i need to secure somehow.

The problem is, that i cannot dig down into the ground to bury some fencing material because there are a lot of tree roots in the ground that i don't want to damage. Those roots belong to an already struggling spruce tree (lack of water), that is one of the shadow trees for the duck-house during the summer. Just nailing some 2x6 over the gap won't cut it as predators won't be so thoughtful about the tree roots when they want a duck dinner…
Needless to say i need a quick solution too, as the little duck-house is becoming too small for the Fall Ducklings and will only be able to house them for maybe 1-2 weeks.

 

[duluthralphie]

I just found this..

They do a much better explaining it than I did.. also note the common misconceptions.. I did not write that website..

https://arachnoid.com/braking_physics/index.html

However, Dux are still evil and trying to rule mankind.

 

[duluthralphie]

Hey friends i need a good idea: As you may know, i am building a run as an extension of the duck-house, so that there will be enough room in the house for the whole flock of 40 in the winter.
I finished all the framing on Wednesday evening, except for the roof beams, but there is an achilles heel: The duck-house and the run are sitting on a hill-site and at the downhill side there is a gap, up to ¾ foot wide between the bottom beam and the actual ground that i need to secure somehow.

The problem is, that i cannot dig down into the ground to bury some fencing material because there are a lot of tree roots in the ground that i don't want to damage. Those roots belong to an already struggling spruce tree (lack of water), that is one of the shadow trees for the duck-house during the summer. Just nailing some 2x6 over the gap won't cut it as predators won't be so thoughtful about the tree roots when they want a duck dinner…
Needless to say i need a quick solution too, as the little duck-house is becoming too small for the Fall Ducklings and will only be able to house them for maybe 1-2 weeks.

On this I can’t help you, with have been to WV. And you guys are amazing at being able to build on slopes that scare me amongst rocks, clay and water that is nearly vertical.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

That's just the part between Louisville and Frankfurt. I'm from west KY. Swamps and soybean fields down by the Mississippi river

Right! I forgot that Kentucky borders the Mississippi too. I had a project in Lexington and when driving around all i saw was horse stables and pastures. And horses! Lot's of horses. I am scared of horses, i was bitten by one as a kid…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

@duluthralphie Thank you very much for that awesome web-site and your explanations! You are correct! I remember now a day at school where the teacher took a square block of rubber and pulled it over the table using a force meter. Then he flipped it from the small to the wide side and the force was the same. It is not surface area! And not the stopping distance!

But where does that very common misconception that a heavy car needs a longer stopping distance come from? I could have sweared! And so do many people i know…

But when the stopping distance is longer than the distance necessary to stop, meaning there will be an impact, the force that a 4 ton vehicle will project to the obstacle is much lower that what a 40 ton vehicle will do. I assume that is the reason why accidents where semi trucks are involved are so much more devastating.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

On this I can’t help you, with have been to WV. And you guys are amazing at being able to build on slopes that scare me amongst rocks, clay and water that is nearly vertical.

As far as i can remember, Minnesota is almost as flat as a pancake, right?

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

We have a piece of farmland in KY, that we rent to a farmer who shares profits from his crops with us. He cares for and plants the land. This sounds a little more in depth. Prolly because there are livestock involved. That is a lot of work for two people. I hope you have help.

Yep.we don't rent, we are employees. The properties belong to a company (lucky to be Australian owned. Yes they have several properties with same sort of set up) and we get paid a wage. The housing is included as part of the salary. We have jackaroos (think of them as apprentices) that work out on all the properties aswell.

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

Not a minimum speed, but your vehicle must be capable of reaching a speed of 60Km/h (37mph) at least. That does not mean you have to drive at least 60 Km/h at all time, it was introduced to prevent people from using the Autobahn with their Mopeds or Tractors. (Nowadays there are Tractors that can drive faster though.)
More important for traffic safety is a general speed-limit of 80Km/h (50 mph) for every vehicle with gross weight of more than 7.5 tons (16534 lbs). I always feel somewhat uneasy when driving at 75mph on the interstate (speed-limit is 70!) and being overtaken by a huge, fully loaded semi-truck, driving over 80 mph. If that thing needs to be stopped…

Our semis here have an alarm go off when they go over 100 and for some frieght company trucks it sends an alert directly to their boss.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Good afternoon everyone! I have a sick Runner would sure appreciate some prayers for my girl. Her name is Dee.

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

Oh no! Hope she's okay