> Maybe drain it, replace it with different animals that are friendly, and then refill it. I’m only sort of joking.
It's not a zoo. Jungle Island might be more your speed. Staff have chastised me for rubbing the kangaroos' bellies, saying they really don't like that, but in my defense he rolled over for me to do it. YMMV.
What lead me to appreciating the Everglades was randomly deciding to go to Shark Valley / Bobcat Boardwalk Trail on some cold day in February. The annoying bugs were mostly gone to wherever they go when it's cold, the 'gators were lounging around trying to catch some warmth, and the anhingas and other water birds were quite active. I caught a guided walking tour somewhere and what really stuck with me was how every tiny rise in elevation up to a few feet completely changes the ecosystem. I'd lived in Florida practically my whole life until then and never really "seen" that but from then on I could never not see it. I left 15 years ago and whenever I drive home for a visit, crossing that threshold into southern Florida where I start seeing it again brings me comfort.
> People are getting chickens because they think it'll be cheaper than store bought eggs. Spoiler: it is not.
The joke is that the first egg costs $X,000. But these have been weird times.
On low-end feed it costs about $0.55/week to keep a Golden Comet alive and I can buy them at 18 weeks old for $20. If one is extremely frugal in sheltering and containing them, doesn't experience any losses to predators, illness, or wandering off, and retail eggs hold above $0.20/ea, a small flock can conceivably break-even during its second year.
That pile of assumptions is unlikely to hold up but everything I've spent on chickens the whole time we've had them is less than the carrying costs of our two dogs over that time. And the dogs have never provided us food.
> The local farm store has changed their policy to not sell less than 4 chickens
The first year we raised chicks the minimums were 6. Best advice to anyone starting out is to buy 18 week pullets or mature hens cycling out from a pastured egg producer at 18-24 months. Raising chicks is much more challenging and attention-demanding than keeping mature chickens and if you manage to keep them all alive you'll still be $20+ into them before they start laying.
They are great layers until their molt after a year at which point they just stop for a few months. Then, even after they resume, it's never quite as productive.
Add to that the fact they don't live long(3 years is good), it's definitely not something to look at with a ROI eye.
My experience with GCs is that they'll live as long as can be expected of any chicken and their drop-off in productivity still puts them amongst the very best.
But I'm about due for some layer replenishment. What do you think is a better choice?
There's like 3 things basically the same (ISA brown, Golden Comet, Cinnamon Queen), all red sex links, and they are the best all rounder you can ask for. Best layers, not broody, docile. I've had just about everything, but this year just raising random mixes I got as eggs to let the kid incubate.
So I think you already found the best. I didn't mean to refute anything you wrote, just adding some context for passer-bys.
I love my smart plugs and power strips! Mostly not for lighting or other high-touch purposes, but I do use a few Lutron Caseta plug-in dimmers for lamps that aren't on switched outlets as the remotes can go in a standard Decora-style wall plate and they work regardless of the hub being online.
I've got Zigbee and Wi-Fi/Tasmota outlets running the heating and lighting for my chicken brooders[0], my partner's plant lights, fish tank lights, probably more that I'm forgetting. At our cabin the mountains, an outlet + temperature sensor combined with Home Assistant's Thermostat helper gives us temperature control over an extremely basic window A/C unit and we cast an HA dashboard to a nearby Google Home screen. A smart power strip controls all of our "cabin intra" -- router, cable modem, LTE backup, etc. HA automations monitor them all and restart anything that stops working, and a Tasmota rule ensures that nothing can gets stuck in the Off state due to automation failure or operator error.
There are more modern versions of such things that can do ATSC / QAM for full HD. I picked one up that takes multiple HDMI inputs with the idea of transmitting a couple outdoor cameras to our TVs but got sidetracked with the realization that none of the coax in my home is convenient to any of our TVs.
What's the argument against using one's own actual domain? In these modern times where every device and software wants to force HTTPS, being able to get rid of all the browser warnings is nice.
I think this is ideal. You make a great point that even if you were to use .internal TLD that is reserved for internal use, you wouldn't be able to use letsencrypt to get a SSL certificate for it. Not sure if there are other ssl options for .internal. But, self-signed is a PITA.
I guess the lesson is to deploy a self-signed root ca in your infra early.
Check out Smallstep’s step-ca server [0]. It still requires some work, but it allows you to run your own CA and ACME server. I have nothing against just hosting records off of a subdomain and using LE as mentioned, but I personally find it satisfying to host everything myself.
But how will I know that I'm just 500 miles from South of the Border? Or 250 miles from the next Buc-ee's? Or be reminded not to diddle my daughter[1]?
It's not a zoo. Jungle Island might be more your speed. Staff have chastised me for rubbing the kangaroos' bellies, saying they really don't like that, but in my defense he rolled over for me to do it. YMMV.
What lead me to appreciating the Everglades was randomly deciding to go to Shark Valley / Bobcat Boardwalk Trail on some cold day in February. The annoying bugs were mostly gone to wherever they go when it's cold, the 'gators were lounging around trying to catch some warmth, and the anhingas and other water birds were quite active. I caught a guided walking tour somewhere and what really stuck with me was how every tiny rise in elevation up to a few feet completely changes the ecosystem. I'd lived in Florida practically my whole life until then and never really "seen" that but from then on I could never not see it. I left 15 years ago and whenever I drive home for a visit, crossing that threshold into southern Florida where I start seeing it again brings me comfort.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everglades#Ecosystems