The GOAT goat thread (Lizard blogs their farming adventure)

Starting Bonnie on learning flank (herding) commands. I started doing research to try and figure out how long my stock stick should be and I stumbled down this delightful rabbit hole of custom made canes, sticks and crooks. It also has some useful info on what each type is used for, materials it should be made from, how tall it should be for comfort depending on the job you want it to do etc. Thought I'd tag in @jacktrash and @Mercury and I'm not sure who else uses canes but y'all. Look at how PRETTY. I know I'm going to end up going with come cheap plastic thing to start, but I'm sure also going to sit here and pine for my perfect shepherd's crook some day.

 

This popped up. It's at the very top of our budget and we'd have to go traditional financing because he wants 50% down on seller financing. But hoooo boy it's tempting.

 

I've tripped and fallen down off grid solar system setup plans yet again.

 

i seriously considered setting up solar for our apartment, ngl

it's a great rabbit hole :D

 

I'm trying to find out the watt usage of a lamppa kuuma wood gasification furnace so I can figure out what kind of power I'm going to need in winter since this is how I would like to primarily heat our home. I can find it for their sauna furnace but not the wood stove so I'm gonna email 'em.

 

*takes notes*

 

I really love the idea of a wood furnace because worse case scenario it still works as a woodstove and heats passively if, say, we were get days of blizard and no charge coming into the system, or some sort of short happened that caused a downline component failure.

 

https://www.lamppakuuma.com/furnaces/

The wood gasification process means next to zero emissions, no creosote build up so no risk of chimney fires, and it consumes the whole log.

Also high key considering a refurbished wood cook stove for food cooking (2ndardy heat source, consumes no power from our system).

 

O.O

 

Oooo used Tesla batteries are cheap!



This is actually very heartening, I didn't want to do lead acid batteries for when we were boondocking on the property while building the house. Flooded lead acid off gasses hydrogen gas and batteries also won't work if it gets too cold (ever had a hard winter kill your car battery? Yeah.) which would mean keeping them inside to keep them running. I don't wanna because see previous entry re: off gassing. That and they can only be discharged down to 50%. If you go deeper you shorten the life of the battery. Go under 50% charge too often you can easily kill your battery bank in only a couple years which is big no bueno. LiFePo4 also won't run if it gets too cold, but it doesn't off gas, doesn't take up nearly as much space, is lighter, and can discharge lower (I've read down to 10% but I don't ever want to go that low). The only draw back is how expensive just one 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 battery is! Looks like either DIY or this used Tesla bank out of a model S might be my solution.

 

I've been holding off posting anything because it's still not technically ours until the 18th but.
We have purchased about 20 acres south of Cheney WA and the Turnbull National Wildlife refuge, just a couple miles down the road from Williams lake.
It's got a little dry camping cabin and 2.5k gallon water tank and little shop that we're going to add a room and electricity to.
Y'all, we're getting our homestead :D

 

CONGRATS!!!!!!

 

First day getting to go into the cabin and check out the inside!! I have such plans....

I'm aiming to post a video every other week, and since Youtube's analytics is shit, I'm asking everyone to spread it around so I can actually build the channel along with our new home :D

 

Oh man. You had actually turned up in my YouTube recommendations

 

Oh shit that's cool!

 

Okay, I'm considering setting up a patreon for my channel, but I have no idea what all kind of bonus content I should put under the tiers. Anyone have suggestions of what they would like to see???

 

some things nature/animal lovers like me might be pretty stoked to get:

• blown eggs
• a couple cool seeds
• pressed flowers/leaves
• animal prints
• vids that go into detail on a specific part of the farm
• maybe get to vote on an animal name?

 

Blown eggs would be suuuper hard to ship (unless we get emu.... which spouse very much wants).
Seeds would be great BUT I'd have to a) develop my own varieties and B) have enough surplus seed to be able to give some away while still keeping enough to plant for myself. Again, something for the future, for sure.
weee din;t really have any trees on the property yet.
Animal prints could be neat? Like bookmarks and shit with ink prints from specific animals.
I was thinking stuff like blooper reels and bonus videos might be fun
Voting on names for new animals would be absolutely wonderful, actually!

 

Hell, just getting a sneak peek preview both of new animals and posting videos there first before they go live could work now that i'm thinking on it. also voting for new merch designs once I start that?

 

with the seeds, I don't necessarily think you'd have to develop your own varieties (though the personal varieties would make it cooler, it's true) - personally I would find it cool just to get Some Seeds. especially if you also posted a video of you harvesting the seeds. it would be neat!