Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch

Got 2 ibc water totes. One got cut up as a square bale feeder, One I'm going to use to pickup bulk cattle cubes I think and maybe some lime as I need to start dealing w/ my pasture quality. Pick up P&K tommorow.
Lime was an issue as their spreader is PTO and rear hydraulic driven and I only have PTO on my tractor. But only doing 4 acres. I do have a 200lb tow behind spreader for my mower. Giant waste of time but I might just accept spending a lot of time doing one strip at a time and refilling doing that.

Come spring bring on the nitrogen.


Also got a big steel feeder like this but just a little shorter for a single bale for the cows this winter. Need to get it painted first though.

900 lbs of P&k. Really didn't look like much at the bottom of this buggy and went quick. $330 really hoping to see a difference in the spring.

plan to get about 6 tons of lime soon if we can borrow a tractor with rear hydraulic as mine is just pto and the spreader needs it. Funny it's only $35/ ton but biggest expense is just trying to get it down. You can do bagged but then it's $7/50lb lol

Nitrogen in the spring, which i fear the cost of. But honestly then I'll have a pretty lush property that maintains for Good while lightly grazed. Just got to pray for continued dry winter before spring , because with spring rains my pasture turns to swamp and even mud tire trucks get stuck.

New mom fighting with my 6 month heifer. Also randomly trying to stare me down and do a lot of pawing the ground. Wifes like gonna kick her? Fuck no I ain't trying to defend a 800lb charge with a kick.

First snake all year.



A few pieces loose, not quite finished up but skinning out this cow shed tommorow in metal siding.




Dumb bitch thinks my boot tasty.

Edaw said:

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Has anyone used any of the tabletop hydroponics things? Thinking of getting one since the wife likes planting herbs and veggies but outdoors has too many critters and seasonality. I saw that Aerogarden or whatever is going out of business but there are pretty affordable generics on Amazon. I knew a guy who did microgreens as a side business and really loved that but he had more of a whole basement setup, but would want to try smaller setup first before going cart sized.

To grow real vegetables, no replacement for outside or a greenhouse. Inside, you can fuck around with small time herbs you don't need to use tons of all the time. Wife bought this stupid auto watering garden thing, but realistically it's the size of one small tomato plant that can fit on it. For the price its absurd.

My parents used to run these plastic racks that you'd load the veggy trays into and they have a T5 or similiar bulb system over them, and you could probably do lettuce and stuff to completion indoors with that. Just need space for like a 2feetx6feet stretch or larger depending how crazy you want to go.

Palum said:

Has anyone used any of the tabletop hydroponics things? Thinking of getting one since the wife likes planting herbs and veggies but outdoors has too many critters and seasonality. I saw that Aerogarden or whatever is going out of business but there are pretty affordable generics on Amazon. I knew a guy who did microgreens as a side business and really loved that but he had more of a whole basement setup, but would want to try smaller setup first before going cart sized.

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Some years back, I spent a bit of time looking into growing tomatoes indoors, since all store bought tomatoes are bland crap due to them using nitrogen to turn green tomatoes red. In passing, I remember seeing those small, counter-top systems, but don't think anyone was singing their praises. They may to be a product that rely on selling to uninformed buyers.

The best solution that I saw were grow tents for either hydroponics or regular soil. They come in various sizes and make it easier to control the atmosphere to bring it closer to what plants prefer. We don't have basements in Texas, so I would need to put something like that in the garage, which means it would also need a heating system.

I didn't actually give a it a try though, but it might be a place to start looking into it.

Here are a couple videos showing closet type tents. The first is hydro, the second is soil/hydro hybrid (I think):

Edaw said:

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They also VR them on the way to slaughter so they dont stress and tense up the meat- producing better steaks for the omnomnom.

But the green fields and milk is a better PR showing.