Microfiber sheets

Ah, I see, thanks.

We keep whatever medium we're using wrapped in damp cloth and spray it from time to time. Traditionally the rushes or other straw were thrown into a water source - pond, puddle, stream ... that was probably easier in wet Britain than in the desert :-)

That reminds me (coming back to sewing, loosely) that a friend who's regarded as The Authority on mediaeval fabrics including spinning and weving says that spinners of long ago developed a notch in their front teeth where they drew the spun linen through their spit. She doesn't do that, she keeps a tiny pot of water on her distaff but I like the image :-)

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher
Loading thread data ...

I have a pair of ears in th freezer, must remember to use them ...

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Here the organic movement is growing, not to produce better food - although it does - but because of environmental concerns and animal welfare.

That's interesting. There are parallels here. Keeping pigs in farrowing cages is banned in UK. Most of our bacon comes from Denmark and guess how they rear pigs there?

Or, worse, mayonnaise ...

We use our own banties' eggs for mayonnaise - raw! It's probably a capital offence :-) MUST NOT be served to infants, ill people or oldies. We're the latter.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

...

And bonny to boot :-) It's good to hear of somone thinking of draught animals - with rising oil prices (you have no concept of our prices!) it might be a sensible route.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Hmmm.....I still wet a thread to put it through the eye of a needle....though some wet the needle and not the thread....and none of us use tap water.

Reply to
Pogonip

Never heard of wetting the needle ... I usually use beeswax on the thread but if it's not to hand (of COURSE I'm neat and tidy and everything's in its place ... ). Tap water? Who'd use that? It's full of nasties :-)

Mary

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Reply to
Mary Fisher

"Mary Fisher" wrote in news:485a1bab$0$764$ snipped-for-privacy@master.news.zetnet.net:

draught cattle aren't as flashy as the horses, but they are a bit easier to fit into tight spaces, especially the smaller breeds like Devons. :) i was looking at Dexters as well, but i don't trust others to tell the truth where genetic abnormalities in their stock is concerned, & at least 25% of the Dexters in the US carry some nasty ones. there are people who claim their herds are free, but... better to stick with Devons, which i had to work with in college & got to appreciate as they all had lovely temperments. lee

Reply to
enigma

Such as?

I've never heard of undesirable traits in Dexters here - but I don't know many :-)

I only know of one pair, they're used as draught animals for a couple of re-enactors who go the whole hog in living their life as it would have been a millennium ago. Since they're used to being among lots of people, especially school children, they have to be very mild-mannered.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

I've heard it works, but I've been threading needles for 60 years, and by the time I think of that method, the needle is already threaded. It's getting harder, though, so I may have to try it. They're making the eyes of the needles smaller, you know. ;-)

Reply to
Pogonip

No - it's your arms which are growing shorter ...

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Threading needles ...

Reminds me that I now move the needle to the thread, I used to move the thread to the needle.

Any explanations?

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

How wonderful :) Like these handsome bovines?

I like cheese and milk from Jersey cows. Aren't Swiss Browns popular with cheese-makers too?

I'd love to have a few chickens and we do have plenty of room. But, alas (!), my husband thinks they are too dirty--- his remembrance of a farm he used to visit as a child. I was driving down a nearby highway one day and spotted this lovely brown hen just sitting up on a clover-covered embankment watching the cars goes by. What a beauty she was surrounded by all that flowering clover! And that made me wonder, how do you keep "free-range" hens from wandering? No doubt this is a really stupid question but enquiring minds want to know. :)

Phae

Reply to
Phaedrine Stonebridge

How awesome! That makes me yearn for the Farmer's Market up in Madison which I so dearly miss. Never pass thru Wisconsin without visiting it. It covers four entire blocks around the State capital. And they have just about anything you could imagine--- all local. They are very strict about what can be sold there. A good number of Madison FM vendors are Hmong farmers who settled in the area. That's where I bought my first pea greens, rattlesnake beans, and tender Russian kale just to name a few items. And now, I have no market that is even one tenth as good. :(

Phae

Reply to
Phaedrine Stonebridge

...

They have their own limits and always come back in the evening or to lay.

But if they're totally free ranging you have to prepare for predators. Here it's fox.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

After I last visited USA in 1993 I thought I've never go back - for all sorts of reasons but not because I didn't want to.

Now I'm wavering ...

Mary

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Reply to
Mary Fisher

Don't know how they keep free range from wandering away but I do know my youngest DD had chickens for awhile and got rid of them because every time she turned around there were very large rats in the chicken feed.They were very pretty little things and they laid colored eggs. They really did. They were called easter egg chickens. I don't know if that was their real name though. Juno

Reply to
Juno

What - the rats?

If you're not careful with the feed you can get rats coming - but the rats are about anyway. You're never more than 3 metres (yards) from a rat ... they just become evident if there's surface food. As with all animal husbandry you have to be careful about food storage and feeding. The old days of just scattering grain about are now thought to be undesirable. In the old days people didn't have time to see rats or just accepted them - they're part of our world.

Mature rats are more or less the same size by the way ... :-)

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

feed.They were

Chickens (or any birds) + Grains or Feeds = Rodents (both rats and mice, though rats will eat the mice if nothing else is on offer).

One reason chicken coops are most always raised off the ground, and why most farms had cats.

Despite all sort and manner of methods to keep vermin out of grain, they will simply most always find a way in or at least will be about the area if their favourite food (grain) is about.

Reminds me of news item a year or so ago about a woman going though a very bitter divorce. Her husband moved out of the family home (which she was going to keep), but they lived next door to the father in law, who kept chickens. You can guess the rest, both yards were infested with huge rats to the extent the woman couldn't let her children out to play. When you consider their grand-father knew very well why the rats were there and where they came from it was quite cruel. Poor woman lived in fear the damn things would start coming into her home.

When interviewed the FIL denied the rodents were there because of the chickens, and seemed as if he couldn't be bothered. It was very clear he wanted his DIL to vacate the home and surrender possession to his son or at least the family.

Candide

Reply to
Candide

Not everyone thinks it's economically impossible. First of all, people need to get their priorities straight. Do they want to spend a reasonable amount of money on decent food or drain their retirement savings on a bevy of prescription drugs and on all the health care they'll need as a result of such poor nutrition? Second, the American public will have to decide whether they want wholesome, nutritious food from *ethical* farmers who only expect reasonable profit or the genetically modified, pesticide and herbicide infested, overly processed, tasteless glop from the industrial "food" barons who are making a killing profit at the cost of American health.

I just wonder how long people will put up with the current state of affairs. I'd much rather have one tablespoon of delicious, real whipped cream than a potful of 'whipped food product'. Why do we tolerate our own government allowing the food industry to label products what they clearly are not? Is Cheese Wiz really cheese? I don't think so. What other cheese comes in a jar? Is Wonderbread really bread? And what about all that stuff they call "juice" that has no fruit in it? And so much more. It's just so aggravating.

Phae

Reply to
Phaedrine Stonebridge

I wouldn't need glasses for sewing or reading if I only had the arms of an orangutan.

Reply to
Kathleen

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