by Doug Coulter » Mon Sep 05, 2011 2:58 pm
I like big antennas too, but usually mine get so big I can forget being able to turn them. Big stacked rhombics (FM DX) and big real low frequency inductors (for listening to earth's field) and things similar. Most SW comes barreling in so hot my little Ten Tec 320 has no problem, it's like there's no blank places on any band (except the broadcast band!). EG nice to live on a mountain.
We garden here, and starting with the square foot garden, now have a 50' by 50' or so one that we've put perhaps 6-8 tons of organic material on every year since about 1982. Oil isn't the only black gold! Since a few of my neighbors are "hobby horse" farmers, we've kept them in the dark about the worth of the product they seem to want to get rid of really bad. Some even give us spoiled hay along with it! While I've done some time at composting, what we now do is a bit simpler -- use the raw materials as mulch, very thick. Yup we have weeds that way, but...no work and the stuff assimilates into the soil fine, just takes longer. I put an electric fence up around it, with one very low and one very high wire, charged with a 50 mile fence charger. The deer lose interest when they get *burned* by this, as do the groundhogs etc. It takes care of keeping that bottom wire clear with enough energy to just immolate the weeds that grow up to it. Only thing I've not overcome yet is the crows when we plant corn -- tried most of the stuff in the books and magazines. I even removed the screen off a window that faces the garden and keep a shotgun right there, but those guys are smart -- you can yell at them, they just caw at you. Point an unloaded gun at them, they just laugh. Raise a loaded one, and they are gone before you get it to eye level. So we don't do much corn here...but broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, herbs, beans, asparagus, potatoes, onions and the very finest hot peppers, yeah -- we usually can a lot and then have plenty to donate as well. There are times around here where you have to hide to avoid getting a truckload of someones spare zucchini and so on.
We have a lot of wildlife here too. Deer, ducks, foxes, raccoons, a few bears we don't see often, all kinds of little stuff like squirrels and rabbits and rodents. Mostly we just look at one another, it's just that kind of place, though my neighbors do hunt the place and we get some meat from that. Right now, a fat raccoon that's been stealing the cat food (dish and all!) to the amazement of the cats (they just watch them wash the food in the water dish) is on my short list of those who shall become head wear. I've always wanted a coonskin hat, but those guys are smart, and fast, so no luck yet on that. I have a lot of woods, and there's a place to get some super nice soil for flower gardening, which my wife does. That frass inside a rotting tree from the ants -- super for flowers that like acid and nitrogen. Or just skim a bit off the forest floor in a good spot. There's plenty to do that without harming anything out there, at least for our needs.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.