[dunewalker]

Shakes Umber's hand. What part of the world do you live in? What is the story behind your choice of screen name?

[vtsnowedin]

Welcome. watch out or we will have you raising free range chickens and day trading oil stocks before you know it.

[Umber]

Hi, Dunewalker...

Thanks for the handshake. That's always a good beginning.

I'm currently living just south of Birmingham, AL. Was born in this area but lived much of my adult life in Massachusetts. Came back to Alabama to take care of my aging father. He died back in '02 at the ripe old age of 89. I married a very good woman I met here and looks like I'm settled in for the immediate future, at least... although I feel like home is in New England.

Umber? I've played around with oil painting for the past twenty years or so and love the earth colors. Umber seems to fit my personality.

Hi, Sixstrings...

Good to meet you, too.

I agree that blacksmithing is going to be a handy skill to have in the future. I started smithing in '69 and made that my (mostly) full time profession. I'm retired now... or rather redirecting my energy to putting in some raised beds for a garden, expanding my wife's chicken yard, getting my new shop set up, and two dozen other things that need doing.

I've been running propane forges of my own design for the past few years but do have my old multi-fuel forges still. They'll do just fine with coal, coke, charcoal or even just wood as a fuel. In fact I taught my wife blade forging using charcoal after she'd mastered some of the elementary forging processes.

Umber

[Umber]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', ':')) Welcome. watch out or we will have you raising free range chickens and day trading oil stocks before you know it.

[kpeavey]

Welcome Aboard.

[Ferretlover]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Umber', 'H')owdy to all you Peak Oil folks. I’ve been hanging about here for awhile and thought I might as well make that first post. I’ve seen more intelligent discussion here of the mess we’ve gotten the world (and ourselves) into than on any other site I’ve found thus far. Nice to know there’s a fairly large group of thoughtful individuals out there who realize that there are going to be some very serious changes in the way we live our lives and that these changes are probably going to come sooner rather than later. Maybe we can be of some help to each other.

[HeckuvaJob]

Welcome Umber. Subtle, nuanced, insightful asshattery is always appreciated. Glad to have you aboard. I look forward to your posts.

[Umber]

Hi, KP and Ferretlover and Heckuvajob,

Thanks for the warm welcome one and all.

Ferretlover: I’ve been training apprentices since the early ‘70s and have organized and run seminars for blacksmiths and bladesmiths in a number of locations. So there’s always room for one more apprentice. If you ever get the itch to learn blacksmithing, just head on down this way. We have a spare bedroom and I’ve got plenty of hammers. Mrs. Umber claims I’m a patient teacher. Mrs. Umber is sometimes full of it, though… and might also ‘fess up to claiming that, when patience runs out, I can yell loudly enough to knock rust off an I-beam at 50 yards. One of her claims is true, at least.

Heckuva: If I ever once exhibited “Subtle, nuanced, insightful asshattery”, my friends would look at me agog until one of them managed to stab a finger in my direction and croak out, “Miracle!” Nevertheless, I try on a daily basis to mend my evil ways and so shall it be here.

Umber

[HeckuvaJob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Umber', 'I')f I ever once exhibited “Subtle, nuanced, insightful asshattery”, my friends would look at me agog until one of them managed to stab a finger in my direction and croak out, “Miracle!” Nevertheless, I try on a daily basis to mend my evil ways and so shall it be here.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Umber', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', ':')) Welcome. watch out or we will have you raising free range chickens and day trading oil stocks before you know it.

[Umber]

Hi, Vt...

A foot should do nicely, thank you! Just send it right on down in whatever fashion seems best. I sure do miss being out for a day on snowshoes.

For feather dusters we have Wyandottes; Cochins (like big feathered footballs); a banty or two; a barred rock; a few Polish (for their fun personalities); and several mixed breed hens and roosters. Not only do they provide eggs (the Cochins and Wyandottes are just now old enough to begin laying) and meat, but they’re wonderful personal counselors. After only a few minutes of conversation with the cluckers, I begin to feel more aware, more at peace. I even begin to feel more intelligent! Half hour in the hen yard will have me thinking I’m so blasted smart that I know more about Peak Oil than all the chickens combined! In fact, I begin to feel positively swollen with my own brilliance! That silliness doesn’t last long, though. It only takes one look from either of our cats to bring me back to reality.

The predatory dogs have been a real problem. Maggie (my wife and best friend) and I live about 20 minutes from the outskirts of a large population center. People who no longer want their dogs tend to drive out to “the country” and drop them off with the idea that the dogs will magically find a good home. That’s not the way life works, of course. The dogs end up after awhile as mangy and very hungry predators, singly or in packs.

Before I met her, Maggie had lost a goat and literally dozens of chickens to the dogs. She had let the chickens free range and most of them were pretty easy targets for predators. But even after fencing in a new hen yard (fencing is 6 feet high) the chickens were still being killed. Dogs were either jumping or climbing over the fencing (the type of fence that has rectangular openings 2 X 4 inches, or thereabouts). I never did determine if the dogs were jumping or climbing, but I’ve caught 3 inside the fence. They didn’t dig under the wire. When I put up the fencing I added regular chicken wire over the lower part of the heavier wire fencing and turned the bottom of the wire outward to keep animals from digging under.

Anyway, I blasted the dogs inside the yard… two at once one time, a single dog another. I’ve tried discouraging the dogs with a pellet gun, but that just does not work. After a call to the local cops to make sure shooting animals that our messing with our cluckers wouldn‘t land me in the slammer, I’ve thinned the predator population considerably.

Ticks me off more than a little to have to shoot anything that I’m not going to eat, but that’s the way life is sometimes. I do know that when the choice is to shoot a predator or to have Maggie’s chickens killed willy-nilly, I open fire.

Anyway, fencing in the entire back yard will give the cluckers plenty of "range time" and as safe a place for them as I can provide.

Do you raise any chickens, Vt?

Umber

[vtsnowedin]

I haven't yet but plan to next summer. I raised dairy cattle with my father as a boy but got out of it for job reasons. Now that I'm early retired I'm doing more with the land ,regaining our food independance. Looks like we will need it soon. Did you ever try Rhode island reds? I'm thinking of trying to get about 15 laying hen chicks and 35 to 50 meat bird type but I am still reading up and talking with experienced people about which varietys to pick for starters.

[StormBringer]

Just saying HOWDY, and welcome

[Umber]

StormBringer,

Thanks for the welcome. Glad to be here on the forums.


Vt,

My only personal experience with Rhode Island Reds is from helping my grandmother take care of her chickens when I was a boy. Her hens were good providers of both eggs and meat and were fairly docile.

One rooster was another matter altogether. He was calm enough when my grandmother was in the hen yard but didn’t like me at all. I made a habit of taking a yard broom with me to fend off floggings when I was heading to the hen house to gather eggs. Another RIR rooster she had later was much less aggressive, so temperament seems to depend on the individual bird.

My wife (before we met) has had good luck with RIRs as layers. We’re planning on getting a dozen next spring as dual purpose birds. They are not the largest meat birds but they are heavy (and dependable) layers.


Umber

[stratocaster]

The instructions tell me to post first here.

I always wonder: why enforce chitchat online?

Anyway, I've read posts at the substantive forums here in the past, and I joined because I thought I might have something to say at some point. (Perhaps the directive to post here first upon joining is meant to prime the pump.)

My interests: history, economics and finance, geology, biology, politics, climate change, the momentous transition -- from living off past primary productivity to current productivity -- that I am living to see at least the beginnings of...

- I must say that the activity here makes me guardedly hopeful that people are taking notice of the energy transition we are starting to make.

(This chitchatty post does make be want to make a more substantive post sooner rather than later, rather than just lurk silently around, so perhaps the chitchat really does have a purpose.)

Hell, I'll go ahead and say it (gritting my teeth, but obediently doing what I think is expected of me): "Hello everbody!"


[the cursor blinks dumbly...deafening silence...cyberchitchat is even worse than regular chitchat....]

[RedStateGreen]

Hello

Not sure what your interest in being here is, but most people like to look at the Planning for the Future forum when they first arrive. It's certainly my favorite; I spent a week reading all the posts in there and learned a ton.

You might take a look at something I made up, back when I was a moderator: How to get around on this site without losing your mind.

If you have any other questions this is the place to ask! Hope you like it here.

[pedalling_faster]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stratocaster', 'T')he instructions tell me to post first here.

[Bytesmiths]

Hi Statocaster! (Ah, a Fender fan.)

You seem a bit cautious about "cyber chitchat." Feel free to PM me or contact me via the email or phone info at the link below if you'd rather arrange some "real" chat-chat.

Or not. Either way, welcome!

[obixman]

Welcome....
You'll find us a [s]wild, unrestrained, and elcectic...[/s]
warm and welcoming group.

If the first post here is a test, then I guess I failed.....

but then I took the Turing test and failed that one, too.

[threadbear]

I look forward to your ideas about transitioning to new sources of energy. The make works programs that Obama says he will institute, together with his choice for head of dept of energy (Chu, I believe), will provide the silver lining to the dark clouds of economic depression, and govt deflation fighting.