Garden thread.

[fourx]

Hey, Tanya, chickens are a magnet for snakes, and as a country boy living in the land with the most dangerous snakes on Earth who only wears shoes when there's frost on the ground or at work ( me, not the snakes) and who lives 50 K's - thirty miles- from the nearest hospital with kangaroos hopping past the back door and dingos howling from the mountain tops , they are something we are very aware of here. All the folk around who have chickens have had big snake problems, and cats are a good solution...not only will they remove the mice and rats that bring the snakes, and kill the small ones, but last summer I was sitting in the shade reading the paper near our water tank which Mrs Fourx had wrapped in wire netting and grown honeysuckle over when one of our three cats which was lying at my feet started to growl- I turned around and about a foot from the back of my head was a 5 foot long black snake wending it's way through the loops in the chicken wire and I hadn't heard a thing.

[peg_688]

Hey, Tanya, chickens are a magnet for snakes, and as a country boy living in the land with the most dangerous snakes on Earth who only wears shoes when there's frost on the ground or at work ( me, not the snakes) and who lives 50 K's - thirty miles- from the nearest hospital with kangaroos hopping past the back door and dingos howling from the mountain tops , they are something we are very aware of here. All the folk around who have chickens have had big snake problems, and cats are a good solution...not only will they remove the mice and rats that bring the snakes, and kill the small ones, but last summer I was sitting in the shade reading the paper near our water tank which Mrs Fourx had wrapped in wire netting and grown honeysuckle over when one of our three cats which was lying at my feet started to growl- I turned around and about a foot from the back of my head was a 5 foot long black snake wending it's way through the loops in the chicken wire and I hadn't heard a thing.

Stange counrty Oz that is , more stuff ta killya than ya can shake a stick at  Ya gotta be a criminal to live there still  

Good thing you wheren't all wrapped up in wire and honeysuckle as well   I'd think you'd need really good hearing to hear a snake crawling , well unless it's a rattler and it wants you to hear it

[fourx]

Well, we still have politicians and taxes, so it's not all that different really, PEG

[tanya]

Ya, I am really concerned about the snakes I am hoping to build and enclosed courtyard with a strawbale fence and tight fitting gates to keep them out along withthe cats and dogs and spray the bugs and all that.  If it doesn't work though I am moving back to the mountains.

[fourx]

My sister has every type of fowl known to mankind, including peacocks and guinea fowl, and has snakes galore- she sprays phenol around the base of their house- which is built on a slab, a snake welome mat- to keep them out. She has dogs, but no cats, so you know what they say about making your bed ....

[Sassy]

YIKES! fourx    That was a close call  :-/  I like cats - they're independent, most are good mousers, they're friendly when they want to be.  

Tanya, I had several cats when I met Glenn.  In fact, his daughter-in-law called me about Persian kittens I had for sale. We got to talking for quite awhile & for some reason I had mentioned I'd like to go on a medical missionary trip or something like it.  She told me her father-in-law (Glenn) flew doctors & nurses down to Mexico to work in a clinic every month with Liga International - Flying Doctors of Mercy.

She gave me his phone #, my 1st trip was on his plane & the rest is history!  We just celebrated our 10th anniversary    

So cats can be a good thing, although he always tells me he hates cats - they LOVE him!    He takes in strays & they always like to sit in his lap.  

[tanya]

Well I sure am glad I decided to keep the cats.  I thought about giving them away but they are so cute I decided to keep them all.  They stick to thmeselves pretty much and since there is soft dirt pretty far away from the house but close to the shed where I feed them the poop isn't in my flowers or up near the house.  It is interesting that you guys met over some cats.  I guess the world is a strange place.  I really don't like cats much either but htey do like me one of the little kittens runs up every time I go outside now to get pets and he is adorable.  I have to park my car far away from the house now though because they like to get up int he engine area and I have had to redo my wiring several times due to cats and before that it was the mice it costs a lot of money.  I looked a thte plans for the drought areas and I love them all so I am very happy with the choices.  I Still need some climbers though.  The area I am moving to is grape country and I want to do some arbors for shade so any suggestions for grapes (the eating kind) would also be appreciated.  I know they need a lot of water though and I am willing to haul water for a few grapes.  Does anyone know how many plants it will take to cover an arbor about 3x6 ft.  

[glenn-k]

Without her help on that trip out of Mexico, I don't know how I would ever have made it back. :-/  

Engine starter trouble -- I had to send the others on ahead.

[glenn-k]

tanya, grapes grow vines 10 or so feet long each year with enough water and fertilizer.  Each one can grow multiple vines so one or two should do it.  Drip irrigation works great for grapes if you can do that.

[MountainDon]

- someone else told me I should learn to shoot & carry a gun with me - but ya can't very well shoot at the ground on top of the roof  

A number of ranchers in the west will carry a sidearm loaded with shotshell cartridges. They wouldn't go thru the depth of dirt, etc. on the underground abode.
#9 shot.
I have one of these just because it's cool... shoots my favorite .45 Colt cartridge as well as 410 shotgun shells, interchangably... just has a longer cylinder to accommodate the shotgun shells.A little over 2 pounds loaded. Many more pellets to a shell and a wide choice. Bye-bye rattler.   My mountains don't have snakes, but the desert sure does.  

[MountainDon]

We just celebrated our 10th anniversary    

Hey, Congrats!! and many more....  coming up on number 30 this fall here.   :-/

[MarkAndDebbie]

Noticed the snake thread. A rattler (middle the size of a baseball) killed my neighbors dog yesterday. It was hanging out with us on the jobsite. I need to get a shotgun.

[MountainDon]

WooHoo!!  This isn't exactly my garden, but it is right beside the road up to my mountain property. Wild Raspberries!!   We found them hidden in the tall grasses beside the last 300 feet up the drive. They appear to be just coming into their season. Have to check them out after the weekend when we head back up. Small, but tasty!

[Sassy]

Those raspberries look pretty yummy!  I used to pick them in Washington state, also wild blackberries.

[glenn-k]

Cool Raspberries, Don.  

They have whiskers just like my great aunt Avola -- we used to call her Vollie (long O).  Gone now, but I used to always become fearful when she wanted to give me a kiss. :-/

[benevolance]

Sassy

Glenn has a plane?

Glenn is there anything that I like that you do not already have? I have spent the last couple years talking the wife into (brow beating her actually) the need for us to get a plane of our own...

I have always wanted one.... I got into some trouble as a teen ager trying to build an ultralight... The need to fly has been with me always

[Sassy]

Peter, you're not old enough to fly yet     Glenn didn't start flying until he was 40   !  

Planes are a lot of fun, you can get places a lot faster.    But they are expensive.  In fact it's been about 5 yrs since our plane ended up in the hanger waiting to be fixed - some corrosion on the wing struts - hard to get used parts & very expensive to fix so our flying days may be over unless we strike it rich...  Glenn's been doing a lot of gold panning & exploring old mines lately  

[glenn-k]

I've done a lot of flying - then started the underground complex after the plane went in for repair - or about the same time -- and don't care to think about paying for it so am not pushing for it.  

I did many Indiana Jones stunts (but for real)  went to Mexico 15 times -- landed in the bottom of Copper Canyon (Barranca del Cobre) in Mexico- dove off into the canyon to get enough airspeed to fly --- landed on top of the Sierra Madre at San Juanito ---barely got over the chain link fence there--  Bahia Kino in a storm -- flew through the center of Mount Saint Helens -- over the Sierra Nevadas at night about 50 times -- iced up over the Siskiyous --Had p-static coming off the wings in an electrical type storm (St Elmo's fire - kinda like lightning -- been hammered by clear air turbulence and flipped 90 degrees on the back side of the Sierra Nevadas---- lots of cool stuff.

[MountainDon]

This reminds me of something I've thought of from time to time.... How has the two story aircraft hanger worked out? Pix?

...and your plane is a...?

[glenn-k]

I never did go back there - the company finished it themselves as I overextended their budget  - things took longer than they planned as things were pretty messed up on that one - design - fit - etc.

My plane is a Cessna 205 -- officially 210-5 -- the first fixed gear 210 size - predecessor to the 206.  1963 model -- six passenger.  It was a good fun old plane.

[glenn-k]

Deer got in the night before last and ate a bunch of the Armenian cucumbers and peppers and plants.  Damage was pretty light considering what a deer or group of them can do.

I think she stood up on the deer netting with her front feet to eat the cucumbers growing through and on the netting and accidently ripped a 4' hole in it.  I put chicken wire and a board over it.  No more problem - yet.

At least she's keeping the meat fresh. :-/

[tanya]

I live in right onthe edge of town but I still have plenty of deer here.  Five big bucks out in the yard the other day.  Pretty much they are out there every day I just don't see them every day.  When I sued to live on the river I had a bunch of deer that would come to my garden too.  My big dogs wouldn't chase them away much to my dismay but someone told me if I out the hair from the kids hair cuts out there in the garden paths they would stay away, it worked there but here in town nothing works, the deer even beat up the dogs, no kidding.   They have big town meetings because the deer eat all the yards and stuff but the tourists seem to like them.  So they (the deer) get to stay.  There is a new law not to feed them though.  The deer are pretty dangerous I actually saw one run after a child one time after her basket of apples, she dropped it but I don't feed them at all and if they come in the yard I make the dogs chase them.  

[MountainDon]

Yeah... and some of those tourists like the cuddly bears too !  

We have deer, elk, coyotes and bears. Most leave us alone (we haven't anything in the way of a garden (other than that raspberry patch... they better stay away from that!) but they don't mind walking through whenever and wherever they feel like it.  :-/

[glenn kangiser]

Another reason to garden.  The end of cheap food.

http://www.countercurrents.org/james040807.htm

A possible change in price from about 10% of your income to about 25% of your income.  

As more and more food is provided only by large corporations we become more and more susceptible to having to pay whatever they want to charge also.

[tanya]

Food costs are outrageous if everyone ate only rice and beans on sundays for awhile it would teach those major corporations a good economic lesson.  I can't even imagine how city folk who are living on fixed incomes survive.