Learn practical yet extraordinary information on how to create your own independent farmstead from husband and wife farmers and authors, Shawn and Beth Dougherty. They offer in depth information on their 30 years of experience growing soil, biodiversity and nutrient dense food with grass-fed animals and intensive pasture management. They share their inspiring journey to help new homesteaders make better decisions and fulfill their farming dreams while enjoying a happy family life. For complete details, read their in depth book, “The Independent Farmstead.”
VIDEO: Reviving the Independent Farmstead Part 2
Learn practical yet extraordinary information on how to create your own independent farmstead from husband and wife farmers and authors, Shawn and Beth Dougherty. They offer in depth information on their 30 years of experience growing soil, biodiversity and nutrient dense food with grass-fed animals and intensive pasture management. They share their inspiring journey to help new homesteaders make better decisions and fulfill their farming dreams while enjoying a happy family life. For complete details, read their in depth book, “The Independent Farmstead.”
Yay finally! Been waiting for this!
Thanks for posting part 2.
Just 1 minute in for a great formulation: "All food energy is solar energy."
Huge kudos to Beth for her delivery of info at the beginning of this video–a spirited & persuasive testimony to the power of mindful forage agronomy. 6:55 "Stuff you never planted that has been waiting in the soil seed bank is now coming in because you've let sunlight get down to that level."
What's a French drain?
Pure awesomeness!
What a bunch of drivel.
RE: Ground rods for electric fence, which they don't seem to know a lot about even though they use it every day. (???)
Electricity seeks the easiest path to ground or earth. Your fence wire/ribbon/rope/twine is getting supplied with electricity. it's looking for somewhere to go. If the soil/grass is wet, the animal touches the fence and become the easiest path to ground/earth. SHOCK
Now I don't know if they just run hot wires but I think they do because they don't understand the above.
In July/August here in the U.S., we might not get rain for weeks and the soil/grass is dry and does not conduct electricity very well. The animal might not get enough of a shock to bother them so they might go through, over or under the fence. If you have enough strands of wire/ribbon/twine etc, you can alternate hot wires and ground wires. Those ground wires get connected to ground rods that are driven into the earth, 6-8 feet, reaching down to where it's pretty much always moist, very little organic material, plenty of minerals and so, it really conducts electricity well. Now when your animal tries to stick it's head between two wires, one is power and one is ground so the electricity goes through the animal as it seeks ground/earth. In this case, rather than going from it's head to it's toes. it's just going through it's head, same effect if not better.
They recommend three ground rods spaced 10 foot apart each, for a total of 20 foot span. I really don't know why as your house electric only has one ground rod, however, it's pretty well guaranteed to be deep enough while the one's we drive by hand, might not make it so deep. The ground rods you buy online will likely be in sections that screw together but each threaded connection is going to add electrical resistance. The only reason they sell them in sections is for shipping costs. Go to your local hardware/home improvement store and buy 8 foot, copper coated steel rods to drive them yourself. Also use sections of small pipe or conduit to slide over the rod and you can pound them in with a T-Post driver. Without pipe over the rods, they bend or bow when you try to drive them. You cab start with a 6 foot piece of pipe or conduit over the rod and work your way down by a foot. Depending on your soil, you might even get away with an 8 foot pipe, cut into a 5 foot and a 3 foot piece. You'll know by how solid it feels(or not) when driving the rod in.
I'm setting up for goats, and preferably Kiko goats as they are low maintenance but they were bred by mixing dairy goats with the feral(wild) goats of New Zealand so I bought a 30 acre charger for 10-12 acres. I put our LGDs in an 80×80 foot square pen with 4 foot tall high tensile electric fence and put that charger on it. They got zapped once and that was enough. When I get the goats next Spring, they will go into that same pen and get the shit shocked out of them and most likely won't ever mess with it again. Now I can let them out on the full 10-12 acres and hook the charger to it. It won't be as hot but they won't know that. (I'll be doing paddocks later when I have more animals) When I bring in new animals, I disconnect power to the perimeter fence and put it solely to the pen so the new animals will be trained to electric. It only takes a day or two and I won't be too worried about the perimeter fence being down for that that short of a time. When things get more crowded, I'll probably get another charger so I have one for the pen and one for the rest.