Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch

lurkingdirk said:

Burying the ends does indeed make it work better/faster. But if you have big-assed tree trunks that you can move with your tractor that will work, too. If you're looking for solarization you need to use clear plastic. If you use black plastic it's called Occultation, and it takes longer. Even in the colder weather it should work within 2 months. You want to monitor it though. If you do it for too long you kill all the worms etc. in the soil, and it will take time to create a new, healthy biosphere in that area.

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Rolls are 12x100 which is what makes it annoying to seal - it’s not just sealing one giant tarp if that makes sense, it’s sealing 5 rolls laid along each other.

I ordered sandbags to use for more weight and I’ll throw more logs on it. It won’t be airtight. I guess I’ll stick with the clear and see how it goes.. The good news is that this area is in direct sun and Florida rain is low this time of year. Thanks

lurkingdirk said:

Easy way to seal the rolls is to get an electric caulk gun and run a bead of adhesive down one before you overlap the other. Seems like a pain, but it will actually make it airtight. And airtight and sunlight are what it's all about,

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Wow. Didn’t think of that.. thanks. Will try to run to HD tonight to grab one.

lurkingdirk said:

Easy way to seal the rolls is to get an electric caulk gun and run a bead of adhesive down one before you overlap the other. Seems like a pain, but it will actually make it airtight. And airtight and sunlight are what it's all about,

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Also what caulk would you use? Something like this work?

This is the plastic sheeting I’m using

Kiroy said:

Man thats gonna be a lot of work and make it a lot hard to reroll save and store. I always just overlapped and weighted with rebar and sandbags and it worked fine

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Yeah.. I do have a TON of logs. I feel like I’ve moved them a thousand times. Maybe it’s just easier to make it 1001.

Kiroy said:

Man thats gonna be a lot of work and make it a lot hard to reroll save and store. I always just overlapped and weighted with rebar and sandbags and it worked fine

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Laying rebar doesn’t sound too bad. May get pricey with how much I’d need. Maybe I’ll start with logs.

Kiroy said:

Ya I saw people using rebar on YouTube so I used what I had and did sandbags and rocks for the rest. Use watch ya got

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I think I actually have some rebar laying around.

Our local JD fan club (party of one BrutulTM )

I did the Kiroy approach. My property is littered with invasive camphor trees.. I’ve been trying to slowly remove them. I cut down a bunch yesterday and got fresh logs to put on tarps. Good stuff!

However, my land pride grapple seems to be leaking hydraulic fluid at fitting… It’s hard to tell since I can’t manipulate third function and look directly at fittings but I think it’s only the male fitting on the grapple. Ok so I tighten the fitting, it seemed loose.

This helped it a good bit. Still seemed to be leaking a little fluid but after a few articulations in grapple it starts spraying a tiny stream of fluid when I open grapple. I think from same area (hard to tell as I said before).

My jimmies are kinda rustled. Would have expected land pride to have this shit tightened to spec from factory but maybe that was the dealer’s responsibility. The dealer I bought from sucks hard. I only purchased from them because the dealer I liked didn’t have a L3902 in inventory and had no ETA..

Bears have already made tears in my tarps. I should have known better but was trying to be hopeful. They also decided to maul a dwarf namwah and veinte cohol for no reason. Wasn’t even bananas on them. I went all summer with no incidents, due to motion sprinklers and now they get me. Shit is so tiresome. Just ordered 35 t posts to pick up tomorrow and run 500 ft of electric fence around the whole thing.

I’m interested in getting one or two cows for milk. I thought they mainly ate grass but it seems the lactating varieties need at least 50% grains.

My property has what was an old horse field on it. I’d still call it field but it’s got a decent tree density. How much pasture area would I need per cow and then how much of it grass? I’m wondering if I can get away with less grass due to trees shading out and supplement their diet with grains.

Flobee said:

In my experience you're only going to get away with 100% grass on a cow bred for it and she'll likely be on the smaller production side (A2-A2 generally).

Acreage depends on your area, I'd ask someone doing cattle or your local extension office. Dairy cow is a lot of work but having all that milk/butter/cheese on hand is awesome if your willing to process it. Our cow only gave a little over a gallon per day and we were swimming in milk. Most will produce more.

One last note, its likely going to be difficult finding a dairy cow with the right temperament to make milking worth it. Don't skimp and try to be cheap if the docile, hand milk trained cow is twice the price, its worth it.

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Thanks. Yet again this is looking like another animal that may be more work than I can handle at the moment. Maybe I’ll just stick to being a chicken farmer