One Straw Farm

[Mennoniteman]

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Made several brush piles along treelines with the trash from the maple I cut. Hoping to help the rabbits out, we never have many at the farm.


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All of The evidence that I've seen during the past 40 years points to brushpiles as the number one thing that you can do to increase the rabbit population. Number two is to lower the predator numbers. Number three is to plant some forbs, especially legumes. I purchased a large property with zero rabbits on it, and during the course of my deer management activities I did all three of the above. Now because of those three improvements it's overrun with rabbits and I don't even hunt them much. A huge fact that rarely gets the bully pulpit that it should is that habitat improvements for deer directly benefit most species of game birds and animals.

 

[Hoosierhunting]

This year’s soybeans. Drilled into the thatch of last years diversity mix. Could really use some rain.


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[Hoosierhunting]

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[Hoosierhunting]

Been awhile since an update. I’m still tinkering with the boys treehouse. Made some windows out of simple Cypress frames and plexiglass. Then routed some decorative mullions for the four square look. Had a bit of a time getting the intersection to fit perfectly. The pic is of first try and you can see it wasn’t great. Eventually got the router height set right and they fit pretty darn good.


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[Hoosierhunting]

The sunflowers have been invaded by ivy leaved morning glories which provides some pretty contrast to the yellow.

 

[Hoosierhunting]

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[Hoosierhunting]

This is more for personal reference. Planted this mix late on August 27th due to a lack of rain all month of August.

Planted the triticale, forage oats and rye on the 28th



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[Hoosierhunting]

Fertilized with roughly 150lb/acre of triple 12 (availability issue) and 25lb/acre urea.


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[Hoosierhunting]

Forage oats at two weeks from planting



Triticale at two weeks



Weedy rye and brassica plot at 17 days. This area is going to be frost seeded into switchgrass so I didn’t take too great of care of it. Tried to keep the weeds at bay and used up some old rye seed.


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[Mennoniteman]

it looks like it's coming along well. The grain will help suppress weeds. Just curious, did you broadcast and disc lightly like the picture seems to show, or was it drilled in?

 

[Hoosierhunting]

it looks like it's coming along well. The grain will help suppress weeds. Just curious, did you broadcast and disc lightly like the picture seems to show, or was it drilled in?

We’re finally getting some rain so it’s coming along. This was broadcast and disc lightly.


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[Mennoniteman]

We’re finally getting some rain so it’s coming along. This was broadcast and disc lightly.


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I thought so, the rows weren't defined quite like a drill does. That is a very fine example of a successful broadcast and disc planting.

 

[Hoosierhunting]

Splitz here is a nice 8 and the most exciting thing I have going in what seems to be a slow year. I pulled this card on an evening hunt and he of course was there at 9am


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[Hoosierhunting]

Been awhile since I updated. With some of the posts in the regenerative plotting thread I thought I’d share a bit about one of my neighbors. This neighbor is generically called Ancilla. It was founded by The Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ. This group was founded in Germany by Catherine Kasper in 1848. After the Civil War, her and seven other nuns came to Ft. Wayne, Indiana to take care of German immigrants. They moved from there to near Donaldson, IN. There they now run a rural two year liberal arts college, manage around 750 acres of land, run an integrated row cropping and cattle operation, an organic vegetable and small animal farm called Earthworks, an artists studio and retreat called Moontree, an elderly care facility for nuns and the general public and a conference center.
Despite all that, the area remains quiet and rural.


That is a pic of what they refer to as the motherhouse. The tolling of the church bells across the rural countryside feels more like Europe than Northen Indiana


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[Hoosierhunting]

Earthworks is an organic vegetable and small animal operation used as a means of education and supplying their own food needs. They aren’t budget constrained and have some very cool stuff


This is an Exeter Biochar retort shipped from England. Both ends can be opened and the main tube loaded with wood, this is isolated from the combustion chamber underneath where a wood fire is built. Wood gas that is generated in the main tube then feeds back into the combustion chamber. Temps are monitored to optimize biochar production.


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[Hoosierhunting]

The retort is a new edition that replaces the TLUD seen here





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[Hoosierhunting]

Food waste from the cafeteria is used both to feed the chicken flock as well as to generate compost.




This is a composter they use. Essentially a well insulated tube that is loaded from one end, and that when rotated moves the compost along the chamber until finished product is dumped out the other end. Biochar then will be innoculated with the compost and used on fields and gardens.


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[MarkDarvin]

Whomever holds that checkbook has sat through an excellent presentation on biochar apparently.

Very cool man. I've been wanting to try to make my own with a metal trash can or a 55 gallon drum if I can find the right one. I've got lots of tag alder just begging to get roasted.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Food waste from the cafeteria is used both to feed the chicken flock as well as to generate compost.

View attachment 20908
View attachment 20909View attachment 20910

This is a composter they use. Essentially a well insulated tube that is loaded from one end, and that when rotated moves the compost along the chamber until finished product is dumped out the other end. Biochar then will be innoculated with the compost and used on fields and gardens.


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Great stuff. The only thing that I question is their advertising that biochar can last up to 1000 years in the soil. This is a bit misleading, those numbers as i understand them, are when it's buried in an oxygen depleted environment, it won't last nearly that long in topsoil where it's normally used.

 

[Hoosierhunting]

Whomever holds that checkbook has sat through an excellent presentation on biochar apparently.

Very cool man. I've been wanting to try to make my own with a metal trash can or a 55 gallon drum if I can find the right one. I've got lots of tag alder just begging to get roasted.

Yeah, as I said they’re well resourced. Couldn’t believe that it had come from England. When I asked about it they said there was one company in the US that was licensed by Exeter to build them but it went belly up. Personally, still confused about the “licensed” part. I can’t really imagine that there’s a design patent on it and if so I highly doubt it would stand up to scrutiny. We have a fabrication outfit in our town with scrap tube that size. They could’ve built it for the shipping cost I’d wager. There’s not really much to it if you’re a reasonable fabricator.

If you can find a 30 gallon drum in good shape and a 55 gallon drum plus a little stove pipe you can build a simple TLUD. They’re effective enough for our purposes.


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