October 2023 - Page 2 of 7

Cleaning The Coop Gives Chickens A Healthy Home

Cleaning is the one thing we all dislike doing. As flock owners, we don’t just need to clean our houses. We also have to clean our chickens’ “house” too. The good news? Cleaning the coop for our chickens doesn’t have to be a drag or require much time. Just as you wash the dishes or dust the living room regularly, routinely cleaning the coop will help prevent common health concerns in your flock.

Knowing some cleaning tips can save you time cleaning your coop. So, grab a pitchfork, a bottle brush and a broom, and let’s start cleaning!

Essential Cleaning Tools

Cleaning the coop for our chickens starts with having the proper tools to do the job quickly and efficiently. To do that, you will need the following:

Pitchfork to fork out soiled bedding
Trash can or wheelbarrow for hauling away old straw, wood shavings, etc.
Broom and dustpan for sweeping out dust and removing cobwebs
Trowel to scoop out nesting box material
Ice scraper to scrape dried manure off the coop floor
Bottle brush to scrub waterers and feeders
Facemask to protect against dust and other particles that can irritate your respiratory tract

Say Goodbye to Deep Litter

The deep litter method has been practiced in backyard flocks for centuries. This method of cleaning the coop consists of removing the bedding soiled by chickens once or twice a year. Instead of removing the manure, chicken keepers place more straw or wood shavings on top.

The manure will break down throughout the year and become a perfect fertilizer, ready for the garden. The old bedding is often placed in the garden to overwinter and break down to provide nutrient-rich soil for next year’s vegetables.

Yes, this may sound ideal for the gardener and flock owner. But the deep litter method can also cause some health issues for the flock.

Chicken manure breaks down into particles of dust. These particles can irritate the respiratory tract, so experts advise wearing a mask over your nose and mouth when handling chicken manure. Not only is this dust harmful to you, but it is also harmful to your chickens. And the dust from manure breakdown can cause respiratory issues in the flock as they scratch through the bedding, causing illness and even death in chickens.

The deep litter method is also known for harboring bacteria, fungi and diseases such as coccidiosis, as well as external and internal parasites. Never use the deep litter method housing hens five years or older, as these aging ladies’ immune systems may no longer be able to handle the bacteria often found in deep litter.

So what should you do instead? Remove all the bedding from the coop floor and nesting boxes weekly to keep your coop clean and chickens healthy. Depending on the size of your enclosure, this will only take a couple of minutes. Trust me, the rewards of a clean coop are worth the time it takes to clean…

EPIC Testifies in Support of Massachusetts Data Privacy and Protection Act

EPIC Deputy Director Caitriona Fitzgerald testified before the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Economic Development & Emerging Technologies and Joint Committee on Advanced IT, the Internet, and Cybersecurity in support of H. 83/S. 25, An Act Establishing the Massachusetts Data Privacy and Protection Act. The bill is modeled on the American Data Privacy and Privacy Act (“ADPPA”).

“For more than two decades, powerful tech companies have been allowed to set the terms of our online interactions,” Fitzgerald told the Committee in written testimony. “Without any meaningful restrictions on their business practices, they have built systems that invade our private lives, spy on our families, and gather the most intimate details about us for profit. But it does not have to be this way – we can have a strong technology sector while protecting personal privacy.”

Unfortunately, Congress failed to enact ADPPA last session, but state legislators can now take advantage of the outcome of those negotiations by modeling a state bill on the bipartisan consensus language in ADPPA. EPIC crafted the State Data Privacy and Protection Act to provide that opportunity. Massachusetts is one of a number of states considering legislation based on ADPPA.

At the hearing, Fitzgerald said, “This is about so much more than avoiding creepy ads — commercial surveillance systems fuel algorithms that dictate the content we see, shaping our entire information ecosystem, they determine the interest rates on mortgages and credit cards, or decide who gets a job, often perpetuating structural inequalities.” (video here.)

Snohomish Lavender Farm Is About Connecting With Community

“I feel very fortunate to have grown up in the Pacific Northwest,” says Allison Lamb, who runs the Snohomish Lavender Farm and photography venue in Washington. “In the ’80s and ’90s it was natural to be outside all the time. And to this day I prefer to spend my time outdoors. Yes, it sure does rain a lot here, but it’s worth it when you get to soak in the beauty of the Puget Sound. All the different textures and colors of summer through fall bring me great joy.”

Lamb’s outdoors-based upbringing officially transformed in Snohomish Lavender Farm in 2020, when she and her family secured an old farm set on 5 acres of property. A humble vision to establish a vegetable garden and a greenhouse has now grown into a full-on hobby farm, which supplants lavender with dahlias and sunflowers.

Taking a moment from caring for her flowers, we spoke to Lamb about her favorite types of lavender seedlings and how family is a key part of hobby farming. We also got into lavender’s culinary potential.

Searching for Room to Get Creative

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When looking at properties in 2020, Lamb says the goal was to find a place “that gave us the room to be creative.” Lamb adds that the idea to establish a hobby farm developed over time and came about organically.

“One moment I can say for sure that helped solidify my dream for a hobby farm was when I was pregnant with my second child and we were looking for a safe private place to take maternity photos,” explains Lamb. “I couldn’t find a flower farm that offered the vibe I was looking for. I love photography and if I can offer to share my garden with families to safely bring their families to capture those special moments, then why not?”

Putting Trust in Lavender

“I love lavender because of its wide range of uses and it’s a hardy herb that is easy to maintain and grow in my region,” says Lamb, recalling why the aromatic shrub became the focus of her hobby farm. “In the spring of 2021, we planted over 200 lavender seedlings. Folgate, Royal Velvet and Grosso are the three varieties we grow here on the farm. We hope to expand over the years.”

Bringing Lavender into The Kitchen

Lavender wreaths and sachets are the biggest requested items at Snohomish Lavender Farm. But Lamb says embracing the shrub’s culinary potential is fascinating.

“Folgate and Royal Velvet are perfect for in the kitchen,” she says. “You can enjoy lavender lemonade, tea and baked goods. Beyond the kitchen, this aromatic herb is highly sought after for its health benefits and cosmetics.”

A World Beyond Lavender

After Snohomish Lavender Farm’s titular crop, Lamb says they also grow over 300 cultivars of dahlia flowers and frequently receive requests for sunflowers.

“Most farms grow sunflowers late in the season for a fall attraction. Our customers here…

EPIC Letter to White House Emphasizes Need for More Staff, Resources for AI Oversight

EPIC sent a letter to the White House ahead of the forthcoming Executive Order on AI urging the Biden-Harris Administration to prioritize building agency workforce and resources for AI oversight and accountability.

EPIC specifically recommended directing increased resources to agencies to ensure compliance with existing and future AI transparency requirements, using the National AI Research Resource to model responsible AI governance, and supporting efforts by the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy to make information about government use of AI more accessible and user-friendly. EPIC also called on the Office of Management and Budget to update its E-Government Act guidance on agencies’ mandated privacy impact assessments to include AI impact requirements. These recommendations will help ensure that there is as much focus put on AI transparency and accountability as there is on development and procurement—oversight that is essential for ensuring responsible government use of AI.

EPIC regularly advocates for commonsense AI regulations, including requirements for increased transparency and accountability.

Assessing the Assessments: Maximizing the Effectiveness of CCPA Risk Assessments

The unchecked spread of commercial surveillance over the past few decades has led to a data privacy crisis for consumers in the U.S. and has allowed abusive data practices to flourish. The ability to monitor, profile, and target consumers on a mass scale has created a persistent power imbalance that robs individuals of their autonomy and privacy, stifles competition, and undermines democratic systems. And now more than ever, emerging generative and non-generative AI systems are also causing harm.

With the support of the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, EPIC is launching our latest project in this field: Assessing the Assessments: Maximizing the Effectiveness of Algorithmic & Privacy Risk Assessments. Through this project, EPIC will develop model privacy and algorithmic risk assessments and other materials to educate consumers and promote best practices for entities processing personal data.

California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) creates legal rights and obligations that can address many of these harms, including a requirement to perform assessments when personal information is being sold, when automated decision-making systems are being used in sensitive contexts, or when personal information is being used to train AI systems. EPIC’s work to disrupt these data abuses and ensure that entities can no longer extract value from personal data in ways that undermine the public good is more important than ever. It is crucial that the regulations implementing the CCPA provide for risk assessments that enable transparency and accountability of AI and other automated systems. Risk assessments are going to be required in California, and although regulations are not written in stone, they should provide instruments for accountability.

As a leading organization for consumer privacy rights, EPIC has spent nearly three decades creating educational resources to inform Americans about their privacy rights and advocating for strong privacy protections. Some recent highlights of this work include:

In 2020, we published a resource to help California residents understand how to exercise their rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
EPIC also supported the California Privacy Protection Agency’s (CPPA) efforts to establish robust data privacy protections for Californians and, with a coalition of partner organizations, submitted comments to the agency on the development of further CCPA regulations.
We also submitted comments to the Colorado Department of Law in support of the efforts of the Department to establish robust, pathbreaking privacy protections for Coloradans in reference to the Colorado Privacy Act.
EPIC also recently presented testimony in Massachusetts in support of House Bill 64 and Senate Bill 33, (An Act establishing a commission on automated decision-making by government in the Commonwealth).

So, what is a risk assessment? A risk assessment is an analysis of how personal data will be collected, processed, stored, and transferred by an entity. The term “risk assessment” is context-dependent, and in the particular context of California’s privacy bill, they are made effective by being robust, publicly accessible requirements. When implemented properly, risk assessments force businesses to carefully evaluate and…

Do You Know These 25 Native American Survival Skills?

Learn from these Native American survival skills from the past and learn more survival hacks you can use in the future!

Native American Survival Skills We Can All Learn From

Learning from the Native American

Native American survival skills included crafting survival tools and building shelters. They foraged for their food and hunted their prey, all by hand.

It is astounding to think of how well they survived and thrived based on necessity alone. Would someone like you or me be able to do the same if put into such a hostile environment?

Probably not, and that is why it is good to be aware of old-school Native Indian survival techniques.

How did the Native Americans survive? How were they so deftly able to sustain themselves in the unforgiving wilderness?

It is very easy to forget, in this digital age that people use to live a much simpler and much harder life before the advents of these modern comforts.

The Native Americans are the prime example of how people use to live off the land. They also survived the threats of nature with basic and cultivated survival tactics.

Though the methods and practices of Native Americans varied from tribe to tribe, the innovation for the sake of survival was universal. They borrowed methods from each other and created ones unique to their tribe.

They even borrowed from foreign settlers and visitors. The Native Americans were a group of humans who had to learn how to adapt and we are all the richer and wiser for their survival efforts.

Native American Survival Skills You Should Know

This list will highlight 25 of some of the more interesting Native American survival skills commonly used by the tribes of North America. Let this list be an insight into the lives of these fascinating people.

May this also be an educational tool for our modern culture–a means of appreciating a society so rare and thin today. Let this remind us too that the human spirit and will are much stronger than what we give them credit for.

The tribal mindset and lifestyle of the Native Americans of yesteryear play a huge role in their survival tactics. As you probably are already aware, Native Americans distinguished themselves by tribes.

You have probably already heard of the more common and prominent tribes like the Apache, Navajo, and Mohican. Their sense of community, sharing of resources, and wisdom matters in each tribe.

Their collective protection between tribesmen cannot be understated when considering how Native Americans were able to survive.

If you have ever worked a day in your life wearing the improper pair of shoes then you know how important footwear is to comfort and bodily health. Footwear is just as important to the Native Americans.

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10 Practical Tips To Keep Dogs Out Of Your Garden

Dogs love fresh, aerated garden soil. While you work so hard to create a perfect environment for plants to live, canines can destroy it all in one fell swoop. Below, we provide some steps, strategies and recipes to protect your hard work, and keep your garden and puppy happy.

Install a Fence

For vegetable gardens especially, a garden fence will serve you well to protect your garden from your pets, neighbor pets, rodents and predators.

Create Prickly Borders

If you are looking to protect your pooch from invading your flower beds and a fence is not feasible, plant prickly shrubs and hedges at entry points. Also plant along the edges to create a border, often enough that animals can’t find large spaces to dig and lay.

Roses and holly bushes are great choices to help redirect your pet.

Sprinkle Powders

Dogs don’t like to taste mustard powder or red pepper flakes. Sprinkling some of either (or both) won’t harm your garden but will deter animals from digging.

Sprinkle Coffee Grounds

Dogs don’t like the smell of coffee grounds, and using them throughout garden beds has a dual purpose. Both used and fresh coffee grounds contain nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and tons of micronutrients.

Grounds can be used in your garden as mulch or as a slow-release fertilizer. Adding coffee grounds to soil improves drainage, water retention and aeration in addition to keeping dogs out.

Make a Dog Repellant Spray

In a clean spray bottle, mix two tablespoons of distilled white vinegar and 20 drops of any citrus-scented essential oil into 1 1/2 cups of cold water. Mix well and spray in the places around your home that you want the dog to stay away from.

Dogs dislike citrus scents. Grapefruit, lemon, bergamot and even oranges deter them.

Plant Marigolds Throughout the Bed

Marigolds emit a pungent smell pets don’t like. Planting in drifts, next to other plants or as a border to your beds will do a lot to ward off pets from entering.

Marigolds benefit your garden by attracting pollinators and deterring harmful insects.

Use an Ultrasonic Animal Deterrent

This approach is gaining popularity for repelling dogs, raccoons, rabbits, mice, rats and other rodents. In most box stores, you can find solar, waterproof stakes that emit a high frequency sound that manufacturers claim will deter nuisance animals. There’s a lot of debate about the effectiveness of these products, but you may decide to give one a try.

Dog Poop

If you are not growing vegetables in your garden beds and if your dog has a recurring area he likes to dig up, bury some of his/her own poop in the spot. Once they dig it up, they will no longer be interested in revisiting that area.

Redirect Them to Another Area

Create a sandbox for your dog to play in with bare soil, sand, dog toys and other items your pooch enjoys. Give positive praise and affirmation when they start to use that area instead of your garden.

Plant Herbs…

Black Enterprise: Detroit Police Sued — Again — for Reckless Use of Facial Recognition Technology

The use of artificial intelligence in policing has become a civil liberties issue. In September, Wired reported that the nonprofit civil liberties group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sent a letter to United States Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to investigate whether or not cities using ShotSpotter are violating the Civil Rights Act. ShotSpotter, a technology that is supposed to be able to detect gunshots, is being placed in areas where Black people are abundant. Still, its compliance with the Civil Rights Act has never been seriously assessed.

According to EPIC’s letter, “State and local police departments around the country have used federal financial assistance to facilitate the purchase of a slew of surveillance and automated decision-making technologies, including ShotSpotter.” Ron Wyden, a U.S. senator concerned with privacy issues, told Wired that he would push Garland to accept EPIC’s recommendations, saying, “There is more than enough evidence at this point to conclude that technologies like ShotSpotter do essentially nothing to stop crime, but instead have a well-documented discriminatory impact on marginalized and vulnerable communities.”

How To Raise Quail For Eggs And Meat

Whether for physical or financial survival, learning how to raise quail is a must when you’re homesteading or preparing for SHTF!

Useful Tips on How to Raise Quail for Eggs and Meat

The Homesteader’s Guide to Raising Quail

Want to learn how to raise quail? You’re not just one of the few because more and more people across the United States are raising their own food.

From cattle and goats to pigs, rabbits, and chickens, people are able to put fresh meat on the table all on their own. In this day and age, raising and growing your own food is becoming more of a necessity.

When SHTF, it’s comforting to know you can provide for your family. So take the next step in your homegrown protein-raising and adopt some quail.

As a matter of fact, raising quail is becoming more popular. Homesteaders and farmers (rural and urban) across the nation are having great success in raising this pint-sized fowl.

They are smaller than your average chicken, which means they take up less room, and they are easy to care for, too.

The Benefits of Raising Quail

Let’s talk about the benefits of raising quail for meat and eggs in more detail. Why have they become so popular?

This unassuming bird only happens to be one of the best options around for fresh eggs and meat. Here’s what quail can do for you.

1. Quail Lay Eggs Every Day, Just Like Chickens

If you decide on raising quail for your farm, you can look forward to their eggs. Coturnix quail lay daily just like chickens, and their eggs are spotted and speckled.

They are eaten just like chicken eggs and you’ll also find plenty of recipes for their eggs and meat.

In many parts of the world, quail eggs are considered a delicacy. Their eggs are smaller, so you will have to use more of them.

About 3-4 quail eggs are as good as one chicken egg. But, their quality is comparable to chicken eggs.

2. Quail Are Perfect for the Urban Farmer Who Cannot Raise Chickens

Where cities and towns do not permit chickens, raising quail is your best option.

Another great plus is quail do not crow. Instead, their calls are quiet chirps and coos giving little indication of their presence.

So they’re much less likely to annoy your neighbors than a 4:30 a.m. rooster wake-up call. It is important to note you cannot let Coturnix quail free-range (like chickens), as they fly very well.

3. Quail Take Up Less Room

As a general rule, quail needs one square foot of space per bird. Raising quail this way means they’ll be less prone to behavioral issues and lead happier lives.

A 2′ x 8′ hutch…

Video: Building A New Farm Garden Shed (Pt. 6)

In my last video installment of building a new garden shed on my farm, I wrapped my new outbuilding in sheeting material. The new siding really pulled together the progress this project has undergone. Now it’s time to get to work on the rafters so I can get a roof on this building.

First, when I grab a board for a rafter, I’m going to look down the edge of it for the natural crown, which I want to put up or to the outside. Then I’ll take the board inside my farm garden shed and lay it on the top plates. This first rafter board is especially important, because it will serve as the template I’ll use to determine the cut length for all the others. So I need to make sure I get this cut right!

If you, like me, are no seasoned carpenter, plan on taking your time with these cuts. Also, I should note, I’m choosing to make cuts in my frame for the rafters to sit in rather than use hurricane straps, simply because I think it’ll make for stronger joints.

In the video you’ll see how I determine and mark my cuts on the rafter boards.

Determining Roof Pitch

Because I’m not building my farm garden shed using plans, I need to take a few minutes to determine the pitch of the roof. This requires some simple math. First I measure the height of the front wall, followed by getting the height of the back wall.

Then I’ll use the Pythagorean theory to determine the roof’s pitch or, if I want to keep things simple, find an online calculator to get that number.

Making the Cuts

As I don’t cut wood all day for a living, I need to take some extra steps to ensure I get my cuts right. For that, I created a simple “cheater board” to help me repeat accurate cuts.

Check out the video to see how I created this template board and the rest of the steps for cutting and installing rafters on my new farm garden shed.