"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..

[holwellcourtfarm]

It's a fine line, very easy to get the hair/fur to slip off if you get the tan on the wrong side of the hide.

We used caustic "paint" to slip the wool off sheepskins and it was sprayed on the other side on a sort of a spray-tan crossed with a table made of rollers, quite a knack involved with throwing them softly enough to spread out the skin but hard enough to get them across the table. The next day you could just wipe off the wool (which was washed and dried and pressed into bales) and the hide went to the skin place in town.

That's where I learnt to pressure-wash any flesh off, because it forces water in and displaces the fatty stuff that prevents the tan from getting in, failure to do so would be like painting a dirty truck

Would a steam cleaner make a better job?

 

[Rob Garrett]

I think this depends to a fair degree how your soil "is". Bacterial soils definitely get hungrier than more fungal soils (like ours) do unless substantially abused

Probably the key if you are in this hole, is to stop digging - not as easy as it sounds if there's a million quids worth of overheads on a hundred acres - but shift away doing the things that decrease landscape function... shift towards doing things that increase landscape function View attachment 937524
I like this little graphic and pull it out quite a lot, it can help make sense of the chaos that is "land management" if you want it to.
The common issue today is that degrading land is sexy (even high density grazing can do this) but rest/fallowing and other tools like fire are really not as sexy

High density grazing 3 times in 12 months has a much different effect to HD grazing every month on wet soil, or low density grazing on a continual basis.
Ploughing every 40 years has a much different outcome to direct-drilling every other year

And now you can see why that is

What's "Cryplogam Cover"?

 

[Fenwick]

we are neighbours to two organic farms they are continually ploughing/working ground, the tractor hour records, show a massive difference to ours, and another 2 neighbouring farms, and all 3 of us, are pretty intensive, recording a 1200 hr average, they are 1600 +

Surely thats because of weed pressure, rather than fertility ?

I appreciate however that current standard practice for growing high output crops organically means more passes un order to weed mechanically. Organic no till is difficult, but progress is being made. We shall bé giving it a go this year.

Growing grass doesn't really require much gear at all. In fact thé tractor is really only used for making and distributing Hay. And i'm trying to work out how to no longer do that too.

I think thé important thing with organic ag. is to use thé biology to do thé work. We Sow and harvest and do nothing inbetween. thérè are no tyre tracks in my wheat fields. I'm out building a Fortress in thé Woods with my kids whole thé neighbours are out driving round in circles.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Would a steam cleaner make a better job?

Possibly. But it may do too good a job I've never tried it out. I wouldn't use detergent though unless I tried it on something I didn't care about for a start!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

What's "Cryplogam Cover"?

Cryptogam - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

.

 

[Crofter64]

View attachment 937534

I’ve sent lamb skins to a tannery in Ontario and given them out as Christmas presents. Like you I spent hours on a cow hide, scraping and rubbing salt in . Left it to dry beautifully but then what? Even if I had it tanned properly I wouldn’t know what to do with the hide- hang it on the wall or use it as a carpet? I certainly wouldn’t be making shoes or belts.The effective uselessness of our valuable animal by products- wool, hides, even manure in some cases- is discouraging in its wastefulness. My neighbour is a hunting guide and trapper. He kindly deals with everyone’s raccoon and coyote overpopulation problems and keeps the hides. He dries the hides but then can’t sell them because there is no demand. He does it anyway - he can’t help himself. He can’t bear to waste these resources even if they bring him nothing.

 

[Bury the Trash]

View attachment 937534

Is that what Trump uses

 

[Blaithin]

I’ve sent lamb skins to a tannery in Ontario and given them out as Christmas presents. Like you I spent hours on a cow hide, scraping and rubbing salt in . Left it to dry beautifully but then what? Even if I had it tanned properly I wouldn’t know what to do with the hide- hang it on the wall or use it as a carpet? I certainly wouldn’t be making shoes or belts.The effective uselessness of our valuable animal by products- wool, hides, even manure in some cases- is discouraging in its wastefulness. My neighbour is a hunting guide and trapper. He kindly deals with everyone’s raccoon and coyote overpopulation problems and keeps the hides. He dries the hides but then can’t sell them because there is no demand. He does it anyway - he can’t help himself. He can’t bear to waste these resources even if they bring him nothing.

I recently ordered a lamb skin from the UK. Makes a lovely carpet and cost less than most are able to even tan it for here.

I’d like to be able to tan smaller hides just for decorations and rugs and linings. Things like that. I have no interest in sewing up a pair of moccasins, I’ll buy those, but hair on hides seem like something neat to add to my gift repertoire.

The steer hide I kept was because he was a memorable steer and I wanted to try some keepsakes. But it is ginormous and in no way will work in my little, tiny house. Which is why I haven’t rushed to rehydrate it and try breaking it more. Maybe, like lambs, hair on cattle hide would be more appealing as smaller throw rugs.

I recently joined a FB tanning group while dreaming of warmer days. People tan with all sorts of things from the orange bottle and brains to bark and eggs. It’s very interesting.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I recently ordered a lamb skin from the UK. Makes a lovely carpet and cost less than most are able to even tan it for here.

I’d like to be able to tan smaller hides just for decorations and rugs and linings. Things like that. I have no interest in sewing up a pair of moccasins, I’ll buy those, but hair on hides seem like something neat to add to my gift repertoire.

The steer hide I kept was because he was a memorable steer and I wanted to try some keepsakes. But it is ginormous and in no way will work in my little, tiny house. Which is why I haven’t rushed to rehydrate it and try breaking it more. Maybe, like lambs, hair on cattle hide would be more appealing as smaller throw rugs.

I recently joined a FB tanning group while dreaming of warmer days. People tan with all sorts of things from the orange bottle and brains to bark and eggs. It’s very interesting.

I have somethimes thought it would be great to have a leather farm work coat made from the hide of a past pet animal.....

 

[awkward]

I recently ordered a lamb skin from the UK. Makes a lovely carpet and cost less than most are able to even tan it for here.

I’d like to be able to tan smaller hides just for decorations and rugs and linings. Things like that. I have no interest in sewing up a pair of moccasins, I’ll buy those, but hair on hides seem like something neat to add to my gift repertoire.

The steer hide I kept was because he was a memorable steer and I wanted to try some keepsakes. But it is ginormous and in no way will work in my little, tiny house. Which is why I haven’t rushed to rehydrate it and try breaking it more. Maybe, like lambs, hair on cattle hide would be more appealing as smaller throw rugs.

I recently joined a FB tanning group while dreaming of warmer days. People tan with all sorts of things from the orange bottle and brains to bark and eggs. It’s very interesting.

Why brains,? whats in them to help with the tanning.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Why brains,? whats in them to help with the tanning.

They contain lecithin, basically you are trying to drive out some of the oils in the hide and then replace them with something that keeps it supple but doesn't make it go off.
The tannins in bark do a similar thing, as do tanning solutions.. the words kinda give it away

 

[awkward]

They contain lecithin, basically you are trying to drive out some of the oils in the hide and then replace them with something that keeps it supple but doesn't make it go off.
The tannins in bark do a similar thing, as do tanning solutions.. the words kinda give it away

Interesting would never have though that, not something I would normally come across so learned something new today

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It would be amazing if everyone on this thread wrote down everything that they knew a bit about.

 

[Karliboy]

It be like a new Wikipedia just a lot more interesting as it wouldn’t have all the crap in it

 

[Henarar]

It would be amazing if everyone on this thread wrote down everything that they knew a bit about.

 

[Henarar]

Come on the rest of you, done my bit

 

[Bury the Trash]

I know a bit about having a broken heart

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I know a bit about having a broken heart

I think we all know a bit about that

but isn't it a great wee group, with our ideas all thrown into the ring we are right up there in the 1%

 

[Bury the Trash]

I think we all know a bit about that

but isn't it a great wee group, with our ideas all thrown into the ring we are right up there in the 1%

Yes Pete it is, possibly nothing ever like it in history , well i mean the speed of communication / knowledge/ information transfer...particularly/



and better days come don't they, .....bit of rain has to fall in everyones life and all that.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Yes Pete it is, possibly nothing ever like it in history , well i mean the speed of communication / knowledge/ information transfer...particularly/



and better days come don't they, .....bit of rain has to fall in everyones life and all that.

It does. Maybe the more rain that falls the better you fluff up your feathers against it, and the stronger you learn to flap