sgt.barney

Just leave it at home. It's like The Magic Feather. Ya don't need it to fly. You can fly without it ... Fly! Easy Peasy

If you take a "holiday", it will be a Smoking holiday. You know it. I know it. Everybody here knows it. Why would you do that? Aren't you about done with all this bullsh*t yet? Easy Peasy

Today was "Orchard Expansion Day, Fall 2014". A whole mess o' Black Walnut in somebody's future (Not Sarge's - He'll be about a-hundred-and-four years old before these are in peak production years). 16 Black Walnuts planted in 8 holes ... hoping to net 1 or 2 Black Walnut seedlings in Spring/Summer 2015. The ones that don't pop on their own and appear dead will be filled in with White Walnut (English Walnut) saplings purchased from the nursery next spring. Nutty Buddy

Space. Square footage. Pumpkins eat space for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. With most stuff, you can go vertical on a trellis if space is short, but watermelon and pumpkin really don't work on a trellis. Also timing. Where Sarge lives, it's too late to start pumpkins this year (middle of June at the latest here in Ohio) ... but you can work on pulling sod, tilling/hoeing/weeding, and improving the soil for next year. 6 to 8 hours of sunlight a day, about 100 square feet per plant (10 x 10-ish, depending on variety) If space is tight, you can prune it to run between other rows in the garden, or around trees and shrubs, etc. They're pretty carefree here, but powdery mildew runs rampant. Baking soda and water sprayed will lower pH to where it gets under control. Can't get rid of it here, but can be managed well. Easy Peaey

Pics ... (or it didn't happen ;) ) Easy Peasy

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Your first 3 posts: (1) This post here (Socializing) I happened to do this 6 days workshop 3 months back. Guess what i am smoke free now. And also I am happier these days because of better health. I able to go for jogs also. They teach very simple practical techniques. I was surprised to the core. So thought i should share it with people. Apparently they have a film about the workshop... Chk it out...and check their website too !! (2) again in another forum (Quit Smoking Discussions) http://www.quittrain.com/topic/2328-just-6-days-to-quit-smoking/?do=findComment&comment=54018 I happened to do this 6 days workshop 3 months back. Guess what i am smoke free now. And also I am happier these days because of better health. I able to go for jogs also. They teach very simple practical techniques. I was surprised to the core. So thought i should share it with people. Apparently they have a film about the workshop... Chk it out...and check their website too !! (3) yet again ... in yet another post in the same forum http://www.quittrain.com/topic/2327-just-6-days-to-quit-smoking/?do=findComment&comment=54016 I happened to do this 6 days workshop 3 months back. Guess what i am smoke free now. And also I am happier these days because of better health. I able to go for jogs also. They teach very simple practical techniques. I was surprised to the core. So thought i should share it with people. Apparently they have a film about the workshop... Chk it out...and check their website too !! *** From a brand new, unknown, never-before-posted user? Riiiiiiiight. It's f*cking spamity-spam. Nice try... but The Sarge sees you. Sleezy Sleezy

Sure they do! Look - down there - here's one now ... keeping Sarge away from smoking his last cigarette: Easy Peasy

Easy Peasy

Followed shortly by: " I can't believe I ate the whole thing ..." Easy Peasy

"Domingo". Sarge's first "roommate" (if you can call 'em that) in The Army after Basic Training was his little Cubano Buddy from Miami: Domingo Hernandez. Best buds as newly minted Privates in The Army ... but always wondered who would name their kid "Sunday". [1] :D Easy Peasy FOOTNOTES: [1] "Domingo" is Spanish for "Sunday"

Cheezy SqueezeMe

You smoked because you wanted to smoke. Blaming other, unrelated events will not help you. Responsibility for your actions will. BTW: The "just don't smoke" is the only thing that ever worked for anyone, and the only thing that can possibly work. Everyone who's ever quit successfully has used it, and everyone who has failed a quit has ignored it. Everyone. Ignore it at you peril. Embrace it and you win. Easy Peasy Easy Peasy

We are addicts. We are Nicotine Junkies. As such, we will never be "not at risk". BTW: Where, exactly, is this "big smoke free world" you seek to venture to? (HINT: It doesn't exist ... and you are already where you want to be.) Easy Peasy

Don't know about "best", but certainly funniest. Climbing up the face of Devil's Tower in Wyoming last year (700 ft vertical climb) and some random drunk tourist pointed to Sarge and said "He's got more balls than me to do that ..." Well ... No. Actually he doesn't. For those that don't get it: Look at Sarge's current profile pic and think about it real hard ... Ballsy Wallsy

NOPE it hard. Easy Peasy

My "cash in" is at the dinner table and The Docs office (good numbers from healthy eating and exercise in The Garden) It is all the cash in I need. Easy Peasy (1st person Sarge)

Holy sh!t - The Sarge forgot some promotions. Here's your two-week stripe + rocker Easy Peasy

The Garden, proper, is about 50 feet x 100 ft (smallish for where we live in rural, agricultural Ohio).... but we fit in food crops everywhere we can and where most don't - for instance the "landscaping shrubs" around the front are Blueberry bushes, the flower pots have Peppers growing, the flower boxes have Herbs and Spices,the "ivy" growing up the fences is /are Runner Beans, the hedges in front are Hazelnuts the Shade trees are fruit trees, etc. Even the pretty flowers are edibles (Sunflowers and Sunchoke ( Jerusalem Artichokes)) When we plant trees in the woodlot (we heat with wood) every year (we try to do 10 to 12 new in the orchard, and 50 in the woodlot) we do mostly Sugar Maple (syrup, anyone? ) or edible nuts like Walnut, Chestnut, etc. But ... when you add in The Orchard, The Vinyard, and the Perennial Patch ... there's just under 3 acres of The Homestead dedicated to food production... so ... yeah - pretty big for a hobyist. There's still 6 more acres of yard, 4 of it "tillable" and available - Sarge will let you garden there for free if it means he no longer has to mow it every week. ;) Easy Peasy

After a few decades of adding a handful of items a year, one kinda runs out of traditional garden stuff. You've gotta search out the weird, unusual, rare stuff. Trust The Sarge - nobody on this side of The Pond grows those either and most haven't heard of 'em. Jeezus Beezus!.

Slow day in the garden today ... but even slow days produce something. 5 Cayenne Chillis and a mid-sized Canteloupe. Wonder what Canteloupe tastes like with Cayenne? :huh: Easy Peasy

Pest control? Grandpappy Sarge taught this to Wee Lad Sarge: Plant 5 times what you want to haul out of the garden. You will, many years, only get 20% of the harvest for yourself. 1 share goes to the bugs. 1 share goes to the disease. 1 share gets eaten by critters (rabbits, birds, squrrel, etc.) 1 share gets beaten down by the weather 1 share for you - what's left is all yours. This has served Sarge well over the years. Plant waaaaay more than you think you need and you will be fine. (like - 5 times more). Plant just exactly what you think you need and you will be sorely disappointed when everything else takes its share before you get yours. Easy Peasy

They overwintered at the recommended temperature and humidity in the Seed Refrig/Freezer for 5 months. Sarge is an amateur orchardist with 80-ish fruit trees of all sorts in the orchard and on the property. Easy Peasy

Start small. Expand next year. Rinse. Repeat as necessary. Move to a bigger place when the produce outgrows the front lawn. ;) Easy Peasy! Seriously? If you plan on living there a while, start with the perennials (things that come back year after year). A blueberry bush takes 4 or 5 years before it really starts producing, but it's good for a metric crap-ton of blueberries for 40 or 50 years after it's planted. Asparagus takes 3 years before your first harvest, but then it's no work (don't have to re-plant) for the next 15 to 20 years. Sarge started with all the things that are planted once, but keep on going and going and going, year after year after year. Aim for two or three new types of plants each year. This year Sarge planted Goji (wolfberry), 3 types of Honeberry (a fruiting holeysuckle-family perennial), and Paw-Paw trees. The Paw Paw seeds were a failure - failed to germinate seeds. Learn how to save seed and propagate your own. The Hazelnut Hedge (make your own Nutella (hazelnut and cocoa) on the Eastern fenceline of The Sarge Homestead would have cost over $600 to fully populate the first year if he bought all the plants. Instead, Sarge bought 3 individual 1-year twigs for, like, 18 bucks + shipping and over the last three years has been propagating himself. Now he's got a quarter mile fenceline that will produce a couple hundred pounds of nuts every year in ... maybe 3 more years. All for 18 bucks. Google is your friend here, so is youtube. It's a time-sink, too. Don't think you can "set it and forget it". It'll never work if you do. Disease. Bugs. Rabbits/squirrel/dear. Weather. Bad Luck. The neighbor's dog. The neighbors' kids. They're all conspiring to ruin your harvest and your job is to succeed. This doesn't happen passively. Easy Peasy

Pffft. The Sarge left because he was accused of being a bully and banned. Easy Peasy