The straw, fall leaves and some cardboard and newspapers were in the pile. But at least 80% was straw. I used "Espoma" bioexcelerator. That would be the single, main difference. I should have just added fish emulsion, if that was the culprit. But how can I get an anaerobic pile if it is wet? There is an atom of oxygen in the molecule! I mean... H2O has oxygen in it...Do I make sense? And besides, even when the top of the pile was dry, it remained slimy. The particles stuck together too much. In my raised bed for sweet potatoes I had to mix in some peat moss to reduce the slime clumps... You know, now that you mention it, I think that compost starter is not for piles mostly brown... Wanda

We started out with a small flock (hand raised chicks). DH wasn't into it ... especially the poultry smell in the dining room and then giving up the Sacred garage as they got bigger before they went out. Having two dd and a determined wife, he was out numbered in body and will power >:) One thing dh stated about chickens was that they were so stupid (never having had chickens growing up, I can understand his ignorance). I had a pair of banties from my grandma and loved them dearly (until the visiting step sibs dog massacred them). You can train a chicken to come just as any animal buy relying on their stomach (husbands included). I feed the chicken grain and leftovers in the avairy late afternoon (they are up all morning, mid afternoon they roam the garden and put up at evening) when I feed I call in a soothing voice "shoo-shoo, gooooo home" and they make a mad dash for the feed. I did this when they were chicks and on up. Now I can call "shoo-shoo, go home" a couple of times while doing other things in the yard and they basically will put themselves up! LOL! But some times I don't have leftovers or have forgotten the cracked grains, being slow to close up the avairy, they will come running back to hunt me down and cluck and cock their heads like 'whats up?!' Maybe you can start the training process (for the chickens) and get them working with you instead of against. The hard boiled egg thing: I agree, you need lot older eggs and an ice shock to get an easy peel.

Dave - I don't cook often but when I do - I do it well!!! My sauce is very simple. And everyone that has ever tasted it says it is the best they had. I am not bragging here. The trick was passed down to me by my great grandmother. In the past, I used Tutta Rose Crushed Tomatoes with Basil. And did nothing more than add some salt, pepper, basil and meat. And still made a better sauce than anyone. Now, with using my own tomatoes, I used the same princeples. But since I couldn't can the tomatoes with basil, I added alot of basil. Some salt and Pepper. And added meat. I took a meatball recipe from the "Soprano's Cookbook" but used half ground beef and half pork for the meatballs. I swear by this. The meatballs are so much better. My mom does all beef. And her meatballs are so heavy. The ground pork lightens them up a bit and gives the sauce a better flavor. I also added a few links of browned italian sausage. So on that note - yes, I did cook for an army but I froze several quarts. And with fresh tomatoes, I don't think I could have made a better sauce. I am not sure how I can do this with less tomatoes, cook it for a few hours and still get the same flavor, but I am going to experiment this winter. I'll keep you posted!!!

Here's my basic recipe, which you can vary as to the amount of spiciness desired: Guinness Beef Jerky Marinade (This amount of marinade is sufficient for about 5 to 6 pounds of beef, which I find fill my Nesco dehydrator's eight trays fairly full) 5 to 6 lbs lean beef, sliced thinly--see Note 1 2 bottles (12-14 oz each) Guinness Stout 2 tablespoons kosher salt OR 3 to 4 tablespoons soy sauce--see Note 2 2 tablespoons garlic powder 2-4 tablespoons hot stuff --see Note 3 optional: liquid smoke, 1 to 2 tbsp In a large bowl pour stout and add salt, whisking to dissolve salt and decarbonate the stout. Add the garlic powder and hot stuff and mix well. Put the beef strips in the marinade by handfuls, swirling around to make sure all surfaces have come in contact with the marinade. Place the beef in a nonreactive container (a stainless stockpot works fine), pour the remaining marinade over the beef, mix well and refrigerate for at least an hour (more is better--overnight is fine). If you have time, mix up the beef strips every so often in the marinade. Place the strips flat on the trays and dry to your desired amount of dryness. I prefer crisp to leathery, but do it however you want. Note 1: Before slicing the beef, trim all extra fat off the surface of the meat. I like to use round roast because it's very lean; whenever possible, slice the strips across the grain. Slicing it with the grain results in a stringy final product. Eye of round costs a little more, but is very lean and also is very easy to slice across the grain, and that yields a less stringy product. Don't use a fatty cut of meat because it won't dry as thoroughly and won't have the storage properties of a leaner cut. (The fat can turn rancid.) Note 2: I have found mushroom flavored soy sauce at an Asian market. It works great in this recipe. Note 3: For the hot stuff, cayenne works well; you have to judge for yourself how hot your particular cayenne pepper is. (Mass market cayenne from brands like McCormick is relatively mild; powdered chili peppers from a Mexican or Indian market will be much hotter.) If you’re unsure, go easy with the hot stuff. You can always sprinkle a little more hot stuff on the finished product if you wish. I have used chipotle powder with good results; 4 tablespoons in this recipe makes a quite hot product, and 2 tbsp makes a pleasantly zingy one. If you want something quite mild, use sweet Hungarian paprika which would make a product not at all hot but would still have a good flavor. You can also use smoked Spanish paprika (‘pimenton’) which comes in three degrees of hotness (sweet, bittersweet & hot). If you use that, though, or chipotle powder, don’t use any additional smoke flavor. --Don't use a hot sauce that's vinegar based (like Tabasco or Sriracha)--the vinegar taste will be concentrated in the finished product. The finished product can be stored in plastic ziplock bags in the freezer, and can be moved to the fridge when you open one. I find that a quart ziplock bag holds one Nesco tray's worth of dried jerky. Note that this recipe does not contain any curing agents like nitrates or nitrites, so I can't vouch for what would happen if you left this jerky at room temperature for several days. Storing it this way, though, I've never had any of it go bad. That's partly because it tastes so good, a bag never lasts that long once I open one.