When I talk to people about pasture raised pork, they don't understand the difference between confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), where hundreds of pigs are raised inside and enclosed building and our outdoor free range pasture setting.  

Having pigs on concrete slabs instead of rooting for acorns and eating pasture, the animals live in such filth that they are given antibiotics and vaxxines like crazy.

We did a video on some of the differences in how we raise our pigs and the difference is night and day.

https://youtu.be/0zrtSZMz7qA

I can't say this philosophy is wrong... there are the types of solar people who get 3 or 4 days of batteries and enough solar panels to fill the battery in one day of full sun. Then there are the people who have enough battery to get thru the night and so freaking many solar panels that they can't miss and make power even on the cloudiest day. Given that the solar panel is now the cheapest part of the whole system, I can't say these people are wrong.

Ways to save a lot of money?

I paid five dollars for this today.
. dehydrate and you will have onions all year

Today we gave up on waiting to take the poly cover back off the greenhouse and flipping it over. You may recall we installed it upside down so the UV protective coating was on the underside. The wind has not stopped blowing for 3 weeks. We didn't trim the poly so that we'd have enough extra material for the reversal... and it has flapped so much in the wind that the poly plastic has fatigued and started to split on the loose edges. The center is holding fine... just those flappy edges. So today I trimmed the edges within 3-6 inches.

Also, the greenhouse is located at the bottom of a long slow slope and the last time it rained water over flowed the concrete threshold. So today I put about 10 buckets of soil a few feet up the slope from the door to divert water to the left or right.

And finally, today we continued to install wooden posts (ie old telephone poles) to make H braces and hinge/striker posts for the new fence line. I've got to run a cattle fence from the end of our drive way entrance -> 6' gate -> 300' -> h brace ->100' -> 12' gate -> 500' to the back line of this field. Once all these wooden posts are installed, I can begin in earnest driving T posts in with my pneumatic fence post driver. We've converted an old boat trailer to a fencing trailer with a rack to hold posts and the gas powered air compressor mounted.

so not too much going on today.... if you wondered why I wasn't posting much lately.

I remembered an old story about my daughter from many years ago. She had drawn a picture that I thought was really good. I suggested we send it to gramma. She placed the picture in the flat bed scanner and I scanned it with her watching the light move from side to side. I emailed the picture to my mom and went on with life. about an hour later daughter came thru the computer room and picked up the lid on the scanner and said "oh look gramma sent it back already".

How to spot fake silver coins.

The Chicago Mercentile Exchange pulled a trick to suppress the price of silver a few weeks ago. They increased margin requirements and forced a lot of small fish who'd bought silver on margin to pay up. Since most players couldn't cover the margin call, they were forced to cash out. This sudden glut of silver on the market suppressed prices. But it was only temporary. The price is back up to $90.47/oz now. All they did was delay reality by pulling the rug from under a few players.

The next few posts will be about pistols.

If you want to mount a reflex (holographic) sight on your pistol, you need to get the slide machined to hold it. Ahhh but glock sells newer pistols in the MOS (Modular Optic System) with a recess already machined. The problem is that they created their own standard and you need an adapter plate to convert the Glock recess to fit your sight... so they sell an adapter plate for Docter, RMR and RMSc. To me this is ridiculous because it's just more parts to move around or vibrate loose.

For reference, here are the dimensions of the different mounts.

RMR seems to be the most prevalent and fits full sized handguns. The RMSc is slightly narrower for compact handguns like the G43x which has a 22mm wide slide. Keep in mind that if the sight is too wide, it may snag on clothing when you draw to fire.

I just purchased a dove tail RMR slide adapter and wasn't expecting much of it. as it turns out, the dovetail socket in the full size glock seems to be tapered in the center (should I say "bowed"). You remove the rear sight with a punch and a hammer and then drive this adapter plate in. I had expected it would slide in and then get locked in place by the set screws. Not so. it is really really snug and the set screws seem superfluous. I managed to get it within 0.010" centered as measured with my dial indicator.

Here's a guy creating the g-code file for his CNC that will machine AROUND the pins and leave the original slide material as the pins.