How'd it go today?

[lxskllr]

I'm not really driven by money. As long as I have enough, I'm cool. Forming iron and building structures from natural materials is interesting and elegant. You can finish your job, and have something to show for it. I don't know how people in boxes manage. Just a never ending stack of paper(or pixels) that goes in and out, and at the end of the year you can't point to anything you accomplished.

 

[FireFighterZero]

Aw hell...I was just teasing you some.

Didn't think you were gonna go all wounded knee on me......

 

[treesmith]

I’m lost when it comes to smithing. He was telling me how Diogo ugly it is to read the steel as you’re heating/forging/forming it. Learning how the grain pulls. The scimitar was perfectly straight. And he was rightfully proud of it.

 

[cory]

Cool knife building. That is on my bucket list

Jimbo, I find all that soil science stuff quite fascinating just because it is and also cuz it is so important. Good stuff, thx for posting

 

[treesmith]

If any of you have seen The Hunted (Tommy Lee Jones/Benicio Del Toro), he has drawn up a pattern to build the knife that JT (Jones) drew and made in the movie. I am anxious to see it.

 

[Nutball]

A little more about the C4 crop..........


We have for years noticed good production following a grazing crop of German Millet and sorghum sudangrass.


So of these cover crops have poor following cash crops.


EVERYBODY in the ag business is talking about fixed nitrogen. No one really talks about the Carbon half of the Carbon/Nitrogen ratio.



We didnt know why we had such good production behind millet........well...know we know why.


Millet, Sorghum Sudangrass, and Corn are all capable of fixing more carbon than they use. Carbon being sugars basically.


For a few years I have been wondering if there was more to things than fixing Nitrogen.

So, do the plants get carbon and nitrogen from the soil? I always thought most of their carbon came from the air (co2) keeping the C and releasing the O2.

 

[FireFighterZero]

Nitrogen comes from the air.

Carbon, I believe, also comes from the air predominantly.


Some plants covert more CO2 into sugars than they use.....and feed the soil biology.

 

[Nutball]

Buy why do we put nitrogen fertilizer in the ground?

 

[Burnham]

I am wondering the same.

 

[pigwot]

How do plants get their nitrogen from the air?

Plants do not get their nitrogen directly from the air. Although nitrogen is the most abundant element in the air, every nitrogen atom in the air i...

wtamu.edu

Perhaps it is an issue of bio-availability... like the mycorrhizal/root symbiosis we all know about in trees, the root zone take-up of elemental nitrogen is a secondary pathway in addition to the atmospheric nitrogen?

 

[FireFighterZero]

Buy why do we put nitrogen fertilizer in the ground?

Quite a lot of acres of cropland do not utilize nitrogen fixing plants during the "fallow" years.


Plus, there is the problem of keeping the nitrogen "right there" after it has been fixed.

Nitrogen is volatile. Its always moving. I liken it to a balloon filled with air. You have to keep tapping it up to keep it aloft.

If you miss it.....it goes down and away.


For instance......we planted organic lentils this year. Hopefully they fixed some nitrogen.


To keep the nitrogen there for the next season, we are gonna plant winter wheat. The WW will take up the nitrogen, and keep it "sequestered" until I need it later.


Nitrogen fertilizer is relatively cheap....and really really easy. You apply it when you need it.

 

[FireFighterZero]

Anyway....regenerative AG is responsible for more gains than can be measured my your usual NPK analysis.


"Organic Matter" and sugar seem to play a bigger part than initially thought.

 

[FireFighterZero]

Little girl brought her brand new saddle over to have a stirrup leather repaired. It broke when it caught on something in the corral.

She is a friend of my daughter. Turned out pretty well. Glad I could fix it for her.

 

[lxskllr]

That turned out great. Nice clean stitching. I meant to ask how your leatherwork was going a couple weeks ago, but it slipped my mind.

 

[Burnham]

Real nice, Jim.

 

[Fiddler]

First frost here today...had to wait 3 hrs to start work on the driving range.

On the way home had to stop & do chores at my buddys' farm...he's gone bear hunting up North for the week & I'm taking care of the animals again this year while he's gone.

 

[cory]

Pro job, Jimbo

 

[FireFighterZero]

I gave her a pretty good deal on the repair.

Zero point zero.

Maybe someday lots of folks will bring me things to fix

If that ever happens I suspect I will have to charge them.

Maybe then they would quit.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

We took a smoke break. My lungs hurt. Kids and Katy same. They are getting a handle on our fire since we got a break in the weather and some rain. Monterey only 3 hours out. Taking an overnight.
Ocean air softer on lungs.

 

[FireFighterZero]

 

[pigwot]

Side-eye pros already!
Say, Is that LP Smartside siding behind you three, or cedar?

 

[treesmith]

Or Hardi-board? I like both, but the Smart-Side is SO much easier to work with! It’s what I’m using on my addition.

 

[pigwot]

I re-did the whole house with SmartSide.
You can manage16 footers by yourself easily. I used a couple of the PacTool clamps and installed 99% of it alone.
Can't handle 12 foot Hardi Board without it snapping...

Siding clamps

 

[FireFighterZero]

Geeze...I dont have the slightest idea fellas!

 

[treesmith]

Did you face nail or blind nail? I actually used screws on some of mine.