u/Impossible_Ad9324

My office is freezing. There’s one huge vent in a tiny box of an office that blows directly on me and keeps the temp in the low 60s.

I don’t have a thermostat, but share one with an office next door that has a large window and is always warmer, meaning my office is always over-cooled.

The office bathrooms are even colder. Frigid.

I count the minutes every day until lunch when I can go to my car and thaw my aching joints.

I work in a salary job at a manufacturing plant and I’m well aware there are people working in risky and more uncomfortable situations than me, but I’d argue that their comfort should be considered too.

As I sit here in August, dressed in pants, sweater, and jacket with cold air blowing on the back of my neck and my nail beds turning purple, knowing I can do 100% of my job at home, I just can’t help but ask WHY.

Why is it worth basically refrigerating a huge building so I can freeze while attending teams meetings from my desk. It almost feels like punishment, but I actually think it’s just because it would be too expensive to install or upgrade to a system that worked better.

I don’t require a luxurious amount of comfort. I’m just tired of being freezing cold.

I have a basic waterer (gravity fed plastic receptacle that connects to round, red trough). It’s been fine until recently, when my chickens, in their infinite wisdom, have begun knocking it over.

I live in Ohio and need to consider what would work best in the cold, at times freezing weather.

TIA!

Today I was doing my normal Sunday grocery shopping and had a brief, pleasant exchange with a man shopping with his young daughter. Later he was in line in front of me and I saw that he had an unholstered gun in the pocket of his shorts, the handle sticking out and it was just hanging there.

Just why? We (him and I) live in a very low crime area and I’m not aware of any reports of any crime at the store we were shopping at and definitely no reports of crime that would be made to have a better outcome by introducing a gun.

Maybe he felt safer with it, but from what I’m at a loss. I felt much, much less safe.

I hate that this is legal and that people think it’s normal.

What do you do, if anything, when you see someone open carrying during normal, daily, unthreatening situations?

Just curious about an idea.

I garden as well as keep chickens (surprises never cease).

I’ve been interested in renting a community garden plot both to expand my gardening space and get more involved with other gardeners in my community.

My city allows up to 6 hens, no roosters within city limits, with a few requirements on enclosure placement and security.

Has anyone ever explored the idea of community chickens? It could be a great opportunity to teach people about how to keep a small flock of chickens as well as provide eggs for the community participants or for donation.

I’m not so naive not to consider that there could be risks to the chickens from people who may not have the community’s best interest at heart or from criminals or vandals. But late least to some degree, that’s a risk anywhere.

Has anyone proposed this or seen this done before?

I’m in what I’ve described as my “do it my damn self” era. Over the past couple of years I’ve built deck stairs, painted my deck, assembled new deck furniture, built and expanded a terraced garden on a hillside, ripped out an old toilet, built a chicken coop, predator-proofed it, made upgraded waterer and feeders, purchased and raised the chicks (they are about three months old now), completed new landscaping including a paver walkway and areas of pea-gravel with a border. I have plans for many more projects.

My husband participated minimally in some of these projects—in most of them, not at all. My 15yo son participated more (he agreed to be my chicken partner 🙂).

I grew up in a family where my dad did most (basically all) home maintenance and beautification projects. I’ve been guilty in the past of waiting for my husband to do the sort of things my dad used to do, but he’s just not very handy and doesn’t care about the same stuff I do. To be more specific, he is interested in the garden and chickens now that the hard work of building the infrastructure for them is completed, but he wasn’t interested enough to take any steps to make that happen. I did it my damn self.

I’ve found it’s like a high for me to just go ahead and do the stuff I want to do and figure it out as I go. The more I do it, the more I want to do it. I realize I’ve been a little brainwashed about my ability to do these things—I’m MORE capable than my husband.

I’ve been frustrated while I look for content related to these projects by how few women are sharing DIY projects and instead share the projects their partners complete for them. They introduce the concept, describe the plan, show the finished product…but the do-it part is just “my husband built it” without the details about how it actually came together. While I probably wouldn’t mind if my husband were more hands-on, I’m also not entirely sure I want him involved unless he is willing to help me but not take over the project. I like the ownership I have over the things I’ve accomplished. I don’t begrudge these women their partners who do these projects for them, I would just like to see more content from women who show their projects from concept to finished product with them doing the building and showing their whole process.

There is one creator I follow on YouTube who has a farm and does her own maintenance, building etc. what I’d really like to see is a a woman in a more suburban/urban setting doing a range of projects from hobbies to home maintenance. Bonus points if she’s figuring out as she goes along and extra bonus points if she is overcoming entrenched thinking about her own abilities. Super niche, right? Lol

Anyone else on a similar path? I’m in my late 40s and it’s honestly a little embarrassing it’s taken me so long to figure this out.

If you follow any similar content I’d love to hear about it!

They do love black soldier fly larvae, but when it comes to greens or really any scraps, they are significantly more enthusiastic about dandelions than anything else. I pick them by the handful and throw them in the run.

I’ve thrown them cucumbers leaves, kale, tomato leaves (before I found out that’s not great for them), lemon balm, mint, watermelon, blueberries and raspberries.

It’s the dandelion they really go after.

What are your chickens favorite greens?

I’m in Ohio. We had late frosts, heavy rain in early spring, heat dome and high humidity, now beautiful, almost fall-like weather for humans but I think my tomatoes would prefer a nice, steady summer heat.

My eggplants have aphids. My pole beans are yellowing, full of holes and not producing. My peppers are very low volume. My kale is ate up. My tomatillos aren’t pollinating.

My tomatoes and cucumbers do seem to be thriving.

I’m applying organic fertilizer on an every 2 week schedule and switching up NKP accordingly (gardentone, plant tone, bone meal, fish fertilizer) and for pests BT, neem oil and de.

Is it just the inconsistent weather and late start?

Fellow 6a-ers, what’s your experience this year?

I'll try to explain this as briefly as possible.

I have an account with five lines and all phones paid off (goldmine, am I right).

My daughter's phone screen took a crap. We looked into repairing it, but ATT was offering a great deal on a trade in - $1100 for a trade in on an iphone 17 pro max.

We chose to take advantage of the offer. My daughter and I went to the ATT store and set everything up with the caveat that she would have to have her phone screen fixed, turn it in by the end of the month to receive the trade-in credit. Cool.

When we got home, I discovered that my phone, we'll call it Phone A (previously connected to Line A) was inactive. My daughter's new phone, we'll call it Phone B (previously connected to line B) was now connected to Line A. Line B was nowhere to be found.

I spent over two hours on the phone with ATT escalated help line doing things repeatedly with eSims and secondary lines and IMEI2s, but they were not able to resolve the issue (they did however try to sell me insurance VERY aggressively).

We had to get through the next day down a phone and the next afternoon went back to the ATT store. We spent 4 hours at the store, including a long time in the back of the store on a line with ATT security to verify our identities over and over, and now Line A is connected to Phone A and Line B is connected to Phone B.

BUT, all of the billing, credits, insurance and financial activity related to Phone B (the new iphone 17 pro max) is now showing up on Line A on our bill. Line A is connected to Phone A (my paid off older iphone).

We were told this was the best they could do and it should not be an issue until I want to upgrade my phone sometime in the future, at which point I assume it will be a huge mess.

I don't want to spend any more hours of my life fixing this mistake ATT made and I'm considering changing to some other phone service.

Has this happened to anyone else? Were you able to get it resolved? If so, how??

…and if you don’t, do you supplement your flock’s diet to include additional greens or bugs?

I’m new at this and have six hens (at least I believe they are all hens—they are still teenagers).

It seems to me, as I consume constant information about raising my birds, that free ranging and loss due to predators just go hand in hand.

Thinking of this as a risk scenario, it seems like the benefits of free ranging are better suited for larger flocks that can be less impacted by predator loss (especially flocks that are being bred).

For my 6-hen, rooster-free suburban flock free-ranging just doesn’t seem worth the risk—at least for my area. I see raccoons, coyote, hawks, stray cats regularly.

When they are bigger, I may try a fully enclosed tractor option, but that would be just occasionally.

My purpose in keeping chickens is primarily to step out of the industrial food system to a degree, and produce healthier eggs than I can buy at the grocery store. (A nice benefit is that my chickens are super cute and I really enjoy their antics lol) I don’t want to forego the benefits of free ranging, but I could easily lose my whole flock with a small miscalculation of risk.

New chicken mom. My birds are about 9 weeks old.

I went out to close their coop and they are just a little agitated and worked up. They are noisier and more active than usual. I did go out slightly earlier than usual to close their coop door.

There is a storm rolling in, though I think it will pass south of us. We can hear thunder and the wind is picking up.

Do your chickens react to changing weather?

I looked all around their coop and run and inside there coop—no sign of a predator. I have a ring camera on the coop.

I live in a LCOL town in the Midwest.

Yesterday I went to a Gordon Foods (GFS) to pick up a few things for a cookout. They had a 6 pack of tri-color peppers on the shelf for $13.99.

Also yesterday, our local Kroger had the same 6 pack of tri-color peppers for $6.

The closest Costco, Sam’s or BJ’s is about a 20 minute drive, so we use GFS on occasion when we want something in bulk and usually find it worth the price per unit to buy larger quantities from them.

When I saw the $6 peppers at Kroger I thought “wow that’s a ridiculous price” only to find the price twice as high at a wholesale store.

It seems as though there are no market forces or competition or buying pressure controlling prices anymore and the price on the shelf is just a wild money grab.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but at what point will we have to pay a set subscription price for a set number of calories and bargain shopping and choice will be a thing of the past?

This may very well be anecdotal and just my observation of the women in my sphere, but I’m curious if anyone else notices this.

Lately I’ve noticed a resistance from women around me to taking prescribed medications. These range from blood pressure meds to SSRIs and even vitamins.

A middle aged woman I know got a recommendation from her dr to take vitamin D. Her response: “I’m not doing that. I’ll just spend more time outside.”

Another middle aged woman was recommended to start statins for high cholesterol. She refuses and is taking herbs instead.

Another, younger woman, is actually seeing a doctor about anti-anxiety meds, but explained to me that she doesn’t actually need the meds, it’s because the people around her won’t support her in the way she needs.

To my observation, this sort of resistance is getting way more common.

I do live in a red state, but man it feels like the crunchy natural anti-medical system vibes are getting much stronger.

Anyone else notice this??

I’ve recently poured a load of time, money, energy, planning, learning and physical effort into a couple of hobbies I enjoy.

One of them is gardening. I planned out and built multiple terraced 3’x6’ raised beds on a hillside, filled them, planted the plants and have been caring for them throughout our local planting season for the past couple of years—each year expanding the garden a little and trying out new plants and varieties. I love it.

Yesterday I happened to be scrolling through ring camera footage (yes I do garden surveillance to watch for deer) and I saw my husband applying fertilizer to the beds. On all the plants in all the beds.

I saw this hours after it happened. I already have a plan for fertilization and it varies for different plants. He applied nitrogen heavy fertilizer to plants that don’t require it and will use it to grow big leaves instead of to grow big vegetables. I know this because I’ve informed myself on what each plant in my garden needs. It was also commercial fertilizer instead of the organic fertilizer I prefer.

I absolutely tore into him and asked him why he wouldn’t ask me before making a decision about how to fertilize the garden. He’s clueless. He thinks I’m attacking him for “helping” but what I want is his recognition that I’m the expert in this scenario.

Apparently the options are to accept his help in the form of him doing anything he wants or to have no help from him at all. Obviously, I do not want his help (nor did I ask for it).

I know in the larger scheme of things this is not devastating and my opinion plants will be ok after one application (I think).

It’s the disrespect I’m just at my wits end over. I’ve noticed similar scenarios in my life
In other settings. I think patriarchy really resists seeing women as “owners” and “experts”.

I know this is just another husband complaint among many, but I felt the need to vent.

Please don’t tell me to get divorced or suggest that by being married I condone or accept any behavior by my husband.

Who else struggles to be seen as knowledgeable??