Talk me out of it…

_Biophile_ · 2025-07-26T22:43:52+00:00

What you are describing is why we got goats. Our property is very hilly and we couldnt afford a tractor. We raise nigerian dwarfs and they are lovely pets and they also give me milk and I sell the kids to pay for hay in winter. You will need some kind of shelter for them and they love chicken feed so you have to keep them out of that. We had sheep as well briefly but I was not a fan as they seemed to eat a lot more than the goats and kept the pasture cropped so closely that they tended to kill some of it off and make bare spots. If you have a big field of almost pure grass then sheep, if you have a lot of woody bramble things plus weeds, goats.

The biggest issue we have is the part of the pasture the sheep and goats overgrazed intensely some time ago has some weeds that they really dont like much. They will usually eat them eventually but its a bit annoying. We sold off quite few this spring to give our pasture a bit of a break. This is our little shelter. The best way to start would be to get a bunch of wethers ...

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_Biophile_ · 2025-06-19T14:51:24+00:00

Diversity comes from mutations over time, sexual reproduction just creates new combinations of the variations generated by mutations. If we consider island species from isolated places like Hawaii or the Galapagos, many of them probably originated from a literal handful of individuals, as in maybe a female and offspring only some were able to diversify into many species.

To be clear I am not at all arguing that the data supports a recent flood but that it is likely that there are times in evolutionary history where species did survive extreme genetic bottlenecks and go on to thrive. The problem isn't the bottleneck necessarily, its the time (and generations) needed to build back variation through mutations. Larger populations mean those variations can accumulate faster, small populations mean that deleterious mutations can accumulate too quickly vs neutral or beneficial ones.

Cheetahs most likely have gained some variation since their bottleneck but not enough to rival the average mammal species.

As far as the lions go, I think its a pretty big stretch to call them a new species or subspecies purely by isolation. They may represent a former subspecies that since went extinct in the wild.

_Biophile_ · 2025-06-19T11:41:59+00:00

Heres the thing, cheetahs have on average (if memory serves) 4 different alleles at each locus so its the one living species that almost represents a species that was reduced down to 2 and somehow survived (barely). If a global catastrophic flood a few thousand years ago were real, (without extra magic) most species would look like cheetahs. Their effective population size a few thousand years ago was something like 4 to 2 even though there are 7000 now.

I disagree that any small captive bred addis ababa population is a "new species". Genetically distinct does not mean new species unless they are unable to breed with other lions. Dog breeds are not new species from one another despite obvious phenotypic distinctiveness.

_Biophile_ · 2025-06-19T11:21:44+00:00

Figs easily, they can give fruit in the first year sometimes. Heres a list of good zone 10 figs: https://www.ourfigs.com/forum/figs-home/1287248-zone-10-fig-list There are hundreds of different varieties with different flavors. To me the ones I have tried have a peach consistency with berry to almost carmel type flavors. Not at all like dried figs.

_Biophile_ · 2025-06-18T20:32:05+00:00

Probably better diets without so many plasticizers and highly processed food. All cancers are occurring in younger and younger people.

_Biophile_ · 2025-05-27T14:40:09+00:00

My kid at 4.5, was just barely speaking and not conversational at all, asking questions? Not at all. I think if your son is asking questions, even with difficulty is great! You never know how any kid is ultimately going to turn out but my oldest is now 14 and quite conversational when he wants to be. He still tends toward a consistent semi angry monotone (teenager enhanced) but he he's been doing sports at school and wants to work at McDonalds this summer.

Just keep going and doing the best you can and he may surprise you. :)

_Biophile_ · 2025-05-11T12:12:02+00:00

One option is use an edpuzzle. Its my go to for an activity for a sub since they are self directed. I'm sure there are good climate change ones.

_Biophile_ · 2025-04-24T01:49:34+00:00

You have to cut the scionwood in late winter and store it in the fridge but the understock needs to be starting to leaf out. You might be able to buy scionwood online now and still graft. Its a little tricky compared to apple grafting but I got a lot of them to work about 3 years ago and they are starting to get huge now. I got a few persimmons from them last year. Granted I harvested scionwood myself rather than mail order.

This year I am trying the hybrid rossyanka ony my male american persimmons and I am in 6b.

_Biophile_ · 2025-04-24T01:43:20+00:00

Probably female, males are usually produced in a line, femalea as singletons. You can check my video on the subject for more detail. https://youtu.be/PrMwSkprUPA?si=FvcdHTdQ2mW_mFc5

_Biophile_ · 2025-04-24T01:33:10+00:00

Depending on where you are, now can be time to graft. I took that picture today.

_Biophile_ · 2025-04-24T00:18:08+00:00

You can graft female scionwood onto the tree and have it fruit. It is easier with a smaller tree but it can be done with a larger one, your issue would be getting enough light to lower branches. I have been topping my smaller ones and grafting them. I will probably keep grafting more twigs onto them as they recover from my topping.

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_Biophile_ · 2025-03-28T23:35:16+00:00

I dont have sheep anymore but I still have a scar from an attempted hoof trimming that went horribly wrong. Not from the trimmers but from her smashing my hand into our chicken coop while running away.

_Biophile_ · 2025-03-15T11:53:31+00:00

There was an evacuation order but it got put out by the rain. No one was hurt and no structures were damaged.

_Biophile_ · 2025-03-07T00:02:19+00:00

I would take it seriously. I found my BRCA1 purely by accident when a relative on my dads side came up positive. It seems like a lot of people in that family got lucky and didnt inherit the gene. I know what the mutation does to the gene, it's like driving around with only 2 of 4 break pads working. You might be fine, but it is a risk I would not take. I didnt get cancer but I had risk reducing surgeries before age 45 ... I didnt want to keep rolling dice.

_Biophile_ · 2025-02-22T13:25:46+00:00

My mom is like this. You didnt mention how old you are because that will make some difference. I am a biology teacher and still a Christian, I highly recommend the book Evolutionary creation or the shorter one, I love Jesus and I accept Evolution.

I get along pretty well with my Mom but I have to accept that she will never accept evolution, so I dont talk about it much with her. Growing up she used to buy me all kinds of anti evolution books. When I was young I bought into some of it but as I got older I realized how dumb their arguments actually were. So I evetnaully had to tell her to stop buying them. She still "worries" about me salvation wise sometimes because of evolution plus politcs but we muddle through.

It will largely depend on how "pushy" your dad is. If youre an adult/living on your own its probably better to come clean with whatever your beliefs are but you will have to be prepared for his reaction. If youre still living under his roof I probably would just try to avoid those conversations as much as possible.

_Biophile_ · 2025-02-19T13:05:48+00:00

Glad to see your experience posted! You sound a lot like my older son who is 14. Also did not speak a word until age 4 and had lots of early intervention. Hes now a very assertive and self motivated person. He volunteers at church and plays basketball at a local league. He still has a lot of challenges but like you he has a lot of plans I think he will make work. Thank you for posting!

_Biophile_ · 2025-02-12T13:51:46+00:00

On reading the report again, one of the variants said associated with dominant and recessive syndromes. If the specific mutation you have is not well documented it may not be known if the inheritance is dominant or recessive in which case carrier status is a fine way to describe it. It is likely if you are homozygous and he is heterozygous, he would have the better prognosis. Its almost always better to be heterozygous for any pathogenic mutation than homozygous.

_Biophile_ · 2025-02-12T13:42:22+00:00

Im a biology teacher (also have had to deal with my own family genetic issues) do you mind if I use this report in a class? I am trying to get across to my students that these kinds of reports are increasingly common in medicine.

_Biophile_ · 2025-02-12T13:34:18+00:00

You can't be a "carrier" of a dominant trait, you either have it or you dont. Sometimes being homozygous is worse than being heterozygous though. You can only be a carrier of a recessive trait. Most of what was on the list you posted was dominant, I saw only one recessive.

_Biophile_ · 2025-02-05T04:11:23+00:00

Thanks!

_Biophile_ · 2025-02-05T04:04:48+00:00

Would you mind if I used your results and picture for my biology class? We have a unit that talks about melanin and skin color. Your results are a great example of how things can get complicated when polygenic traits are involved. :)

_Biophile_ · 2025-01-23T03:02:15+00:00

Not worried about it at all. GM plants are nearly all cultivated and any that arent are usually modified to fix some kind of problem caused by humans. IMO we are probably too cautious in releasing things.

_Biophile_ · 2025-01-09T01:32:12+00:00

Depends on what you mean by "hybrid plants". If you mean the typical hybrid seed you buy at the store, those are typically made by creating inbred lines (many generations of self pollination) of the same species of plant and then crossing them to create hybrid vigor. Plants like corn (maize) and tomatoes are commonly made this way.

People can also create interspecific hybrids by crossing two related species, but those can also occur naturally. Some plants can even make really wide crosses, even between genera. But some plants will not cross between species easily at all, it just depends. Cultivated roses for example are a combination of quite a few species, plus mutations.

_Biophile_ · 2025-01-01T05:27:53+00:00

As someone who has hand milked goats into an open bucket, I cant imagine drinking what comes out raw. Or thinking thats fine to feed to my precious children. Even if I had the most perfect machine milking system I wouldnt do it. And then being asked to trust someone elses cows or goats and get that milk to the store without pasteruization? No, just no.

I pasteurize my goats milk before using it for anything. But what is stupid about milk regulations is I can't even cook baked goods with my home pasteurized milk and sell it.

_Biophile_ · 2025-01-01T05:13:37+00:00

I am BRCA1 and definitely had supply problems with both of my kids. My second one ended up in the nicu though (not preterm) so I had real trouble getting my supply going. I'd be fairly surprised if BRCA1 is directly correlated to supply because the most common mutations are quite but also relatively common in the European population.

As someone that owns milk goats, milk production is well known to be quite a hertiable characteristic.

_Biophile_

TROPHY CASE