mulberry_lane's Journal

This is a good model for how I'd like a lot of this book to look: heavily and clearly illustrated, with simple instructions in plain, straightforward language that even people of a low educational level can understand. Actually, I think this site comes from an elementary school in England, so it's no surprise that it looks like you could cut it up and make a children's picture book out of it.

Don't click if you don't want to see lots and lots of images, but city folk particularly may be interested to see...
( How Silage Is Made )

This is what silos are for, by the way. Not everyone dumps a pile on the ground and covers it with plastic and "tyres." Silos, either the big towers we usually associate with the word, or horizontal ones (sort of like big swimming pools with or without a roof), allow more air to be excluded from the silage.

Just by chance, I happened to come upon this article on small holder ("homestead") silage making in Thailand. I didn't even know they grew corn in Thailand, let alone raised dairy cows. Anyway, they said the farmers there hadn't been making silage--cut forage crops chopped up and packed tightly to ferment for animal feed--because it was perceived as being too complicated. I share that perception, so I read on. It said they demonstrated a variety of techniques, and the second-most popular method was making it in plastic buckets. Wow. Is there any homestead chore that can not be resolved with plastic buckets? I seriously think they deserve their own chapter, if not their own book.

I've used plastic buckets for hauling water, hauling soil, gathering nuts, gleaning corn, and collecting rocks. I've mixed concrete and tile grout in them. I've used them as toolboxes, stools, and step ladders (I wouldn't advise others to try that last one, but if you do, keep your feet out toward the edges where it's stronger). They can be used as airtight, watertight, bug-free containers for storing feed, seeds, cement, or anything else you need to keep dry. I've tanned furs and deer hide in plastic buckets. I've used a plastic bucket to make a fermented bait out of apples and bannanas for catching raccoons...wait...no, that was a plastic container with a screw-on top, also an incredibly useful item. We buy big containers of pretzels in them and use the containers to store flour and sugar and such. But the buckets! I've grown plants in plastic buckets. I used buckets to make cubbies for 110 bodygrip traps. I tried using one as a nest box, but the girls preferred sitting on top of it. In a perfect world, they'd be fire proof and there'd be a way to seal up holes or cuts when you don't need them anymore and want to return the buckets to use as airtight/watertight vessels. A thousand years from now, some archaeologist is going to find a sunken barge on the bottom of a river loaded down with plastic buckets full of cargo.</p>

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