Country Life

How close am I to owning my own land? 🚜

How close am I to owning my own land? 🚜

It’s an interesting question and I’m not sure if I fully know the answer. A lot depends on the markets, how things go with work and life more generally. While I’m making good money now and could go out and buy a house with a mortgage, I’m still okay with where I am living now.

The thing about it is that to live the life I truly want to live I will probably have to give my good paying job up, and settle for a job with a lot less money. So it’s important to save and invest the money I’m making now for a better tomorrow.

Invasive species

If I get an unsolicited seed packet from China, I am going to find a new suburban subdivision under construction and plant it there.

Most invasive species like disturbed soils and got to make Edward Abbey proud. 🌿

This would be more fun than dropping cuttings of Japanese Knotweed next to recently poured foundations of suburbanites houses, as you have no idea what would happen with the mystery plants.

I sometimes click through the posts on Facebook regarding homeownership versus renting

I sometimes click through the posts on Facebook regarding homeownership versus renting 🏑

I do want to eventually own my own land but I can’t make the math work comparing my small rundown apartment on the bus line – near parks and the library compared to buying a house and having to pay a lot more to heat it, maintain it and have to be reliant on an automobile to get everywhere.

Maybe buying a house makes a lot more sense if you are already renting a full house, or a high end apartment and are reliant on a car to get to work. But if you aren’t looking for the suburbanite experience and are currently happy with your existing living place it doesn’t make sense to tie up so much money in a hard to liquidate, non diversified asset which certainly can loose money.

For now, I’d much rather invest in the market and save for the time when I can buy my own land out in the country, in a freer state where I can have not only livestock but also the guns I want and the ability to have fires and do the self reliant things I want to do with my land.

Manure Isn’t What it Used to Be

Manure Isn’t What it Used to Be

Why do we care about manure? Manure is an organic fertilizer that contains essential plant nutrients. However, it can be a variable product, making it a challenge to match plant nutrient needs to the amount of nutrients in the manure. Like commercial fertilizers, we also need to be aware of the risk of losing nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) and affecting water quality.

What are manure nutrient “book values”? These nutrient averages are used for developing manure management plans, designing manure storages, creating best management practices for manure land application, and agricultural modeling. They show a range of nutrient values that can be expected from typical manure storages and encourage farmers to test their manure often. However, current book values are several decades old and may not reflect current production practices. Different animal diets, genetics, housing, and manure storage and handling practices can impact these manure nutrient values.

We are working with the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute to develop a manure nutrient database called ManureDB to create more accurate manure nutrient book values. In preparation for this project, we partnered with three Midwest U.S. laboratories to share data from approximately the last ten years. We compared those manure sample results to the estimated manure nutrient book values in Manure Characteristics published in 2004 by Midwest Plan Service (MWPS). We wanted to see if there were any nutrient trends and identify ways to make ManureDB useful and user-friendly.

Whitespoted Pine Sawyers look a lot like the Asian Longhorned Beetle

Whitespoted Pine Sawyers look a lot like the Asian Longhorned Beetle. Fortunately the ALB isn’t common yet Upstate. That said, the presence of Pine Sawyers suggest that the pines aren’t exactly thriving either.

Everywhere you look there are threats to forest health but then again that’s not surprising as ecology is an always evolving process with species coming and going. Some changes good, some bad, at least from the human perspective.