Can we actually live in "harmony" with nature?

[Fansy]

if you leave everything up to nature you'd be dead and rotting by now. so fuck some harmony with nature. i live on some acreage out in the SIPP, and you have to manage and control nature if you want any structure or equipment to last. our land is largely cleared now except for the pines. sometimes i miss the thicket, but there are neighboring tracts i can go trudge through and obtain endless ticks and 8 cases of lyme disease if the heart ever yearns. your 20 acres is enough to hunt on i assume, at least down here, but i don't hunt for my food either so i dont know shit about that. i do know some shit about managing water/rain run off because thats all i fucking do every day because we get a foot of rain every fuckin day this winter. and my trailer's pads are sinking into the soggy clay. and my field line is backed the fuck up as is my grey water line. rural living is great as long as you hate seeing humans enough to make it worth it.

[Alphabet]

I really wish you hadn't stated his age. I was much more entertained imagining a couple of toddlers running around schooling you on these topics and getting shit done. By the way, did she say anything about placement of the bat boxes (for example, placing them so they get morning sun)? It may not be as important down there, but I think up here in VA they should get morning sun (or is it afternoon sun? Shit.). Unfortunately, I don't get any direct morning sun on my property.

It has been a weird winter in NW Florida. We've seen temps from the 20s to the 80s to the 60s all in a week. High winds and a shit ton of rain one day, to dead calm and high humidity the next. Hell, I was South of Tampa when the big freeze hit, and it was in the 40s during the day. Old ladies dressing like Eskimos.

So we've set up bat boxes, feeders..etc..etc..etc..in a bunch of different positions and tracking all the data to see which is best, without trying to be too intrusive and upsetting the balance. Which to be honest it pretty fucking fun, even though when the kids start talking maths, I do the Homer Simpson head back drooling.

We've basically reached the synergy where you two figure out the numbers, I'm the money. We're all seeking the same outcome. I'll kill the hogs, you help me figure out natural air support to keep snakes and mosquitoes away, and all will be tits.

I'm tracking the pond idea for Fleet support, I just deploy too much for work right now to give the attention one would need to be healthy.

I'm going to have to read up on bat boxes again...maybe I can put some up here. In my last neighborhood which was more somewhere between urban and suburban, there were tone of bats flying around every evening. In this neighborhood, which is in the City of Richmond (VA) but near the river and much more mature greenery, I haven't seen any. Maybe in the spring I'll see more (we just moved here in July and were so busy working on the house, we didn't get out much), or maybe I don't see them is much because of all the trees and hunting skies that make them harder to spot.

I hope to have more time this year to check out the local (like on my street) wildlife. We have lots of deer, foxes, some coyotes, owls, hawks, a shitload of tree frogs and toads, some snakes (I've found two Dekay's Brown Snakes and one of my neighbors got bitten by a copperhead in his yard a few months ago, but haven't seen any rat snakes), raccoons, crows (which I love), lots of other birds, squirrels, and fucking yellow jackets. At our last house we had a ton of rabbits, but I haven't seen any here. Haven't seen any opossums yet either, which sucks because they eat a lot of ticks.

I HATE yellow jackets. I just learned today that one trick to get the ground nests taken care of is to put a big scoop of peanut butter outside the entrance. Raccoons and skunks love them, so they'll be attracted to it and dig up the demon spawn themselves and dine like royalty, which is pretty badass. It will take them much longer to find them on their own, so the peanut butter marks the spot. If I can avoid any chemicals I will, but I did engage in a lot of recon and chemical warfare last summer after running a mower over a ground nest. There's also a bird that eats them, but I have to learn more about them (don't remember the name).

We have Swallow tailed Kites down here who love them some wasps, snakes and fire ants. Not sure if they get up to Virginia though.

I'm doing my best to support Tier 1 CAS to keep the stingy and slithery shit away from me as much as possible. I really won't fuck with anything bird, except for Canadian Geese. They are asshole cunts, and as much as it pains me to pay the King to do so, I will get every single fucking permit and stamp to shoot as many out of the sky as I can.

[gnaruki]

It's really about making a truce with nature. Work on attracting what you want and repelling undesirable aspects.

One thing I've encountered with all older people living a semi-subsistence fat-of-the-land lifestyle is they regret not planting enough fruit and nut trees. Often they started homesteading in their 20/30s and didnt anticipate growing old and reaping the reward of nurturing a seedling to substantial fruit bearing age.

Housing wise I'd build a shop with sufficient utilities to live-in then get to work DIY building a stone house with a metal roof. You're in a humid climate without earthquakes - so rocks and metal will last without much maintenance input.

[Kurt]

I planted bamboo in my back yard a few years ago and it is awesome.

I was stupid though, i did not contain it and now it "escapes" but whenever a shoot pops up I put a bucket on it and 2 days later i have a fresh bamboo shoot to stir fry.

Right now I am making a compost bin out of the stuff I cut down.

Also if you have access to mulberry trees the bark is better for tying garden stuff together than twine. Easier to work with too because it does not unspool and roll away.
Gonna make a pepper cage with bamboo and mulberry bark.

[Chimborazo]

I planted bamboo in my back yard a few years ago and it is awesome.

I was stupid though, i did not contain it and now it "escapes" but whenever a shoot pops up I put a bucket on it and 2 days later i have a fresh bamboo shoot to stir fry.

I had a ton of bamboo at my old house and it was a major pain in the ass. Before I bought the house I'm in now, I passed over two houses because of bamboo; one had it on the rear property line and the other had it about 30 feet away. I don't want it anywhere near my property.

[Kurt]

I planted bamboo in my back yard a few years ago and it is awesome.

I was stupid though, i did not contain it and now it "escapes" but whenever a shoot pops up I put a bucket on it and 2 days later i have a fresh bamboo shoot to stir fry.

I had a ton of bamboo at my old house and it was a major pain in the ass. Before I bought the house I'm in now, I passed over two houses because of bamboo; one had it on the rear property line and the other had it about 30 feet away. I don't want it anywhere near my property.

I like it because it is useful. But yah, it explodes.

A chinese friend of mine (always get gardening advice from Chinese, they can grow any vegetable in any soil) he said that you have to mix cement and form a mold that is about 2 ft down so it is like a bottomless and topless box, then it will be contained within the growing area. Last year the new shoots hit 25' and 3.5" diameter and they are supposed to hit 60' and 6 inches diameter at some point.
Plus when split and dried they make OK firewood for fast and hot fires...which is great when you like to cook stinky food in a wok like I do. Gotta do fermented tofu and cabbage outside if possible. Some fish too.

[gnaruki]

Gah! Bamboo. My past house had a patch of it. It took renting a mini excavator and a few hours churning up the roots three feet down to be rid of it.

Kurt, a subterranean concrete barrier to grade height like you described works - but it has to stay at grade. Loam accumulating over the concrete crown will allow some wily roots to spread laterally. Granted that takes years of neglect to occur. I love bamboo but will keep it in pots if I bring any onto my property.

Alphabet, besides trying to stay in harmony with all the typical Florida critters. How did your area fare Hurricane Michael?

[Chimborazo]

I planted bamboo in my back yard a few years ago and it is awesome.

I was stupid though, i did not contain it and now it "escapes" but whenever a shoot pops up I put a bucket on it and 2 days later i have a fresh bamboo shoot to stir fry.

I had a ton of bamboo at my old house and it was a major pain in the ass. Before I bought the house I'm in now, I passed over two houses because of bamboo; one had it on the rear property line and the other had it about 30 feet away. I don't want it anywhere near my property.

I like it because it is useful. But yah, it explodes.

A chinese friend of mine (always get gardening advice from Chinese, they can grow any vegetable in any soil) he said that you have to mix cement and form a mold that is about 2 ft down so it is like a bottomless and topless box, then it will be contained within the growing area. Last year the new shoots hit 25' and 3.5" diameter and they are supposed to hit 60' and 6 inches diameter at some point.
Plus when split and dried they make OK firewood for fast and hot fires...which is great when you like to cook stinky food in a wok like I do. Gotta do fermented tofu and cabbage outside if possible. Some fish too.

I measured one of the ones I cut once that was similar in length to many on the property, and it was about 76'. The bamboo area was about 150' x 30'. It was out of control.

[Kurt]

I measured one of the ones I cut once that was similar in length to many on the property, and it was about 76'. The bamboo area was about 150' x 30'. It was out of control.[/quote]

We got a 20' X 35' yard. We are getting our patio area "upgraded" (expanded slightly and with cement base rather than packed sand). The dudes doing the work are from Bangladesh and they said that the patio would not get ripped up by the bamboo. So thinking they know their shit...but when they took out the packed sand it was laced with bamboo roots Like 2 contractor bags worth of old roots.

But the cool thing is that Cardinals love it. Non Native to the area and we got a nesting pair of Cardinals in the bamboo. I noticed that grey squirrels and possums refuse to climb it as well. Never seen a squirrel refuse to climb anything so I suspect that might be why the cardinals choose it, but how would they know?

[Alphabet]

Short update. Bought 20 more adjacent acres.

Will update more soon.

[Kurt]

Short update. Bought 20 more adjacent acres.

Will update more soon.

Cool. Updates on Owl-Land will be awesome.

[el3so]

i do know some shit about managing water/rain run off because thats all i fucking do every day because we get a foot of rain every fuckin day this winter. and my trailer's pads are sinking into the soggy clay. and my field line is backed the fuck up as is my grey water line.

So you shit in a bucket or what? ;-)
I don't have feelings about nature, small enough town means I can see trees and non-extinct wildlife whenever I feel like it. Which tbt is pretty much never if I can help it.

[Alphabet]

So, maybe kind of a not so sexy update, but as mentioned, bought an additional 20 acres and now butt up to state forest on 2 sides.

I've decided that for the immediate future I'm not going to build. Maybe even for the next 15 or so years. I'm still in South Florida doing Ian recovery, and we're running into the next hurricane season, so not going anywhere soon. No sense in building when I'm gone all the time.

Mini female and mini male me are headed off, respectively, to Germany and Japan for the next 4 months, so my free labor is gone for now.

All that, being eternally deployed for now, and that I fucking hate how hot it is down here...Just going to sit on it and look for a place up in New Hampshire or Maine for a home when I decide to stop working. Leave the Florida property to the kids.

[Alphabet]

Oof...double post.

[Kurt]

If I did not have to work a job I would volunteer to be labor just to get some work on real land in and to enjoy some Florida wildlife.

I would also drink milk in front of you.