This summer our daughter Rain decided to raise the tamest Easter Egger hens and sell them once they were close to laying age. She is selling them for the excellent price of $20.00 each. They are now large and feathered enough to be housed in outdoor coops but young enough they haven’t started laying yet. They will start laying sometime…
It’s here. The garden classes are in gardens, the cooking classes are in kitchens, the nature study is in forests, the raspberries taste like raspberries, and the snozzberries taste like snozzberries! I worked for weeks on the lesson plans for these hands-on classes, workshops, and tours and am so excited to finally roll them out. Click here for my entire…
When I founded the SC Upstate Permaculture Society I had no idea we’d be this popular, but we’re up to 644 members with multiple people joining each week. If you live in upstate South Carolina (or nearby) we welcome you to join us. Last October we broke ground on a huge new garden that is already stacking functions by being…
Consider this article “Sustainable Pest Control 101.” Once you’ve read this, you’ll be an expert at dealing with insects on the farm or in the garden. One of the classes I taught at Saturday’s SC Organic Growers Conference was Insect Garden Ecology. This is a topic that overwhelms growers everywhere… people often tell me they just aren’t good at remembering…
Today’s blog post was inspired by the karma-themed TV show My Name Is Earl. I know some people would rather pay their taxes twice than be nice to snakes, but I owe this mundanely-named brown snake family some good publicity on account of I killed their brother. Or sister. Or both. Specifically, a couple little specimens of Storeria dekayi. It…
GoBlueRidge.net and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission are reporting that bat White Nose Syndrome (WNS) was recently found in an old Avery County, NC mine as well as a cave in nearby Grandfather Mountain State Park.This marks the first sightings of the disease in NC and brings it even closer to my region of South Carolina. The bat population…
I briefly considered writing a “How to Get Started with Chickens” post, but I don’t like writing about something until I’ve actually done it. Once my chickens arrive this May I’ll talk about my personal experiences with it — until then I thought I’d write about some chicken products I’ve encountered while begging for advice from people who have personal…
If I had to guess which snake most commonly gets mistaken for water moccasins (also known as cottonmouths) or copperheads, I’d choose the northern water snake (Nerodia sipedon). They have many color variations as they darken with age, sometimes to a nearly black color. Between its swimming habits and its confusing markings it easily fools paranoid hikers and swimmers. Fortunately,…
*EDIT 1/15/2013* – This post was written when bees were far less expensive than they are now. Unless you are planning to catch a free swarm or have some other cheap bee source, it would be a good idea to learn all you can prior to obtaining bees. Yeah, that’s right. I did a Valentine’s post on undies followed by…
Rat snakes are certainly friends in the garden and they reside in every state of the Appalachias. If you find a smaller snake with a pale gray body, a pattern of dark gray blotches, and a checkered underbelly, it is likely the juvenile…