u/therey73

We finally pulled the trigger on our first batch of meat birds this spring after years of just keeping layers. Got 25 Cornish Cross chicks about six weeks ago and honestly nothing could have fully prepared me for how different this experience is from raising egg birds.

The growth rate alone has been wild to watch. These things eat constantly and the feed costs have run higher than I budgeted for. I also underestimated how much work goes into keeping their bedding dry and managing the smell. Our layers basically take care of themselves by comparison.

On the plus side, watching the whole process from chick to finished bird has been genuinely rewarding in a way I did not expect. There is something grounding about knowing exactly where your food came from and how it was raised.

Processing day is next weekend and I am equal parts ready and nervous. We have done a couple of roosters before but never a full batch like this.

For those who have been through it, any advice for keeping processing day manageable with a small crew of two or three people? Also curious whether anyone has switched to a different breed after doing Cornish Cross and preferred it. I am thinking about trying Freedom Rangers next round but want honest opinions from people who have actually raised both.

When I first got into pressure washing, I assumed almost everything dirty could eventually be cleaned if you had enough pressure, the right chemical, and enough patience. The longer I've been around it, the more I've realized that's just not true.
Some surfaces come back looking almost brand new after years of neglect, while others barely improve because the damage isn't dirt anymore - it's oxidation, etching, UV damage, or permanent staining. I'm curious if anyone has had a job that permanently reset their expectations. Maybe you expected a miracle and barely made a difference.
Or maybe you almost turned a job down because it looked hopeless, only to end up with one of the most satisfying before-and-after results you've ever seen. Those jobs seem to teach more than the easy ones.
I'd love to hear the stories that changed how you evaluate projects.

I cut out weed about four months ago. Before that, I was a daily smoker for a couple of years. I wouldn't say I had a severe dependency, but it was just a habit that slowed me down. I wanted to see if clearing my head would change things. Honestly, physical benefits are great. No more morning grogginess, way more focus at my job, and I'm saving a ton of money. I feel sharp and I don't want to go back to being a couch potato.

But my social circle is taking a massive hit. Most of my friends are heavy stoners. Every weekend plan is just sitting around, playing video games, and passing joints. I used to love it. Now? It’s incredibly boring. Sitting there sober while everyone else is spaced out and laughing at stupid things just feels awkward. I'm always the odd one out.

I tried staying social while sober, but as an awkward guy, it feels impossible. Without being high, I realize how repetitive the conversations are. I just sit there overthinking everything. So I started staying home instead. Now I'm barely talking to my friends and the FOMO is hitting hard.

My girlfriend still smokes and hangs out with them, so she goes out while I stay behind. It makes me want to just buy a pen and give up on this sober thing. I hate feeling left out, but I know smoking ruins my motivation.

People always say "get new hobbies" or "find sober friends." Easier said than done. I'm working full time, making friends as an adult sucks, and it feels like everyone my age is into smoking or drinking anyway. I don't want to live like a hermit, but staying sober is turning me into one.

I've been engaged for about eight months now and honestly, dress shopping was stressful but kind of fun. The shoes though? Total nightmare. I did not expect it to be this hard.

I went in thinking I'd just grab something comfortable and cute, then I started going down the rabbit hole of heel height, block vs stiletto, ivory vs white vs nude, and whether I even want to match the dress or do something fun with color. Now I'm completely overwhelmed and second guessing every option I try on.

A few things are making it harder. Our venue has a mix of indoor and outdoor space with some gravel paths, so sky high heels are probably out. But I also don't want something so flat that I feel underdressed. I'm 5'4 and my partner is 5'10, so height isn't a huge concern for me.

I tried on a pair of block heeled sandals last weekend and loved how they felt, but I'm worried they look too casual with my ballgown style dress. Has anyone mixed a more relaxed shoe with a formal dress and actually pulled it off?

Would love to hear how others made their final call on shoes, especially with a venue that has tricky terrain. What did you end up choosing, and do you have any regrets?

I finally committed to meal prepping this week after years of wasting money on takeout during my lunch breaks. I set myself a hard limit of $25 and honestly I was not sure it was going to work out.

I ended up making a big batch of chicken fried rice using two chicken breasts, frozen mixed veggies, eggs, soy sauce, garlic, and a large bag of rice. Total came out to around $22 at my local grocery store. Got five solid portions out of it, each one pretty filling.

A few things I learned going through this for the first time. Buying frozen vegetables instead of fresh made a huge difference on cost without sacrificing much nutrition. Cooking the rice the night before and letting it dry out in the fridge made the fried rice way better texture wise. Also portioning everything out right away into containers stopped me from just eating half of it in one sitting.

For anyone else just starting out, what proteins or base ingredients do you find give you the best value for money? I want to keep the budget under $30 next week but add a bit more variety. Open to any suggestions from people who have been doing this longer than me.

I'll be honest, when I first started getting into lawn care earlier this year, I thought mowing height was one of those things enthusiasts overthought. Just cut it short so you mow less often, right? Wrong.

I started at a scalping 2 inches because I liked that tight, clean look. My lawn was patchy, stressed out every time temps climbed, and I was constantly fighting weeds filling in the bare spots. A few folks here pointed me toward raising my deck, so I bumped up to 3.5 inches on my tall fescue and just kind of waited.

The difference over the past two months has been honestly hard to believe. Thicker turf, fewer weeds, and the grass held up way better during the hot dry stretch we had last month. It still looks sharp after a fresh cut, just healthier sharp instead of scalped sharp.

I know this is probably basic stuff for most of you, but for anyone else who is newer and on the fence about mowing height, the community here was right. It made a bigger difference than any fertilizer application I've done so far.

What height are you all running right now heading into the hotter months, and does your target height change seasonally or do you lock it in year round?

I've been spending more time lately trying to tighten up my daily workflow on Linux and it got me thinking about how much the terminal can shift once you find the right tools at the right time. Some utilities seem obvious in hindsight but took me years to actually start using consistently.

For example, I only recently started leaning on fzf for fuzzy finding across command history and file paths, and it genuinely changed how fast I move around a system. Using tmux properly with a decent config instead of just opening multiple terminal tabs felt like a small but meaningful upgrade too.

What I find interesting is that these aren't new tools. They've been around for a long time, but nobody really sits you down and explains why they matter until you stumble onto them yourself or watch someone else work.

So I'm curious what the community here considers genuinely workflowchanging discoveries. Not just clever oneliners, but tools, aliases, shell configurations, or habits that permanently changed how you interact with your system. Things you'd now find it uncomfortable to work without.

Bonus points if it's something that doesn't get mentioned constantly, since I'm less interested in hearing about awk for the hundredth time and more curious about the quieter gems people actually rely on day to day.

I've been planning my first serious homestead setup for a while now and the more I read, the more I realize how much I simply don't know yet. Every experienced homesteader I talk to has some story about a hard first year that turned out to be the most valuable education they ever got.

Curious what mistakes hit you the hardest when you were just starting out. Maybe you planted too much and couldn't keep up with harvest. Maybe you underestimated how much feed your animals would go through over winter. Maybe you built something that just flat out didn't hold up.

Not looking for the sanitized version either. The real stuff, the moments where you thought you might have made a serious mistake getting into this lifestyle, those are the stories that actually help newcomers prepare mentally and practically.

Did your first year break you down or build you up? What's the one thing you wish someone had told you before you got started? For those of you who pushed through a rough start, what finally clicked and made it feel worth it?

Would love to hear from people at all stages, whether you're one year in or twenty years deep.

I was cleaning out a storage box recently and stumbled across an old portable DVD player, a stack of burned CDs, and a flip phone that still had contacts saved on it. It's wild how fast technology moves and how things that felt genuinely impressive and futuristic at the time can become total relics within just a decade or two.

It's kind of wild to think that kids today have probably never used a physical map, a phone book, or a dialup internet connection. Things that entire generations relied on daily are now basically museum pieces.

So what technology from that era stands out to you as something that felt revolutionary at the time but is now completely gone or laughably outdated? Bonus points if it was something you personally owned and were genuinely proud of back then. Curious what others remember as the biggest shift they witnessed firsthand.

I was looking at some printed materials in Arabic and Hebrew recently and got curious about why these languages are written and read from right to left, while most languages I've encountered go left to right. Is there a historical or practical reason behind this difference, or did it just develop randomly over time in different cultures?

Some ancient writing systems, like certain forms of early Greek, could even alternate directions line by line, which I found really interesting. I also read somewhere that writing direction might have had something to do with the tools early scribes used, like whether they were carving into stone or writing with ink on papyrus, and which hand was dominant.

I'm not totally sure how much of that is accurate versus just an interesting theory people repeat without solid evidence behind it.

Is there a generally agreed upon explanation among historians or linguists for why writing direction varies across languages and cultures? And are there any writing systems today that go top to bottom as their primary direction rather than horizontal? I'd love to get a clearer and more factual understanding of how this developed across different civilizations.

Location: Zone 7, Tall Fescue Lawn

I finally decided to do a proper fall overseed this year instead of just winging it like I've done in the past.

I aerated my lawn last weekend, bought a quality tall fescue blend, and got everything ready to go. Then life got busy and I kept putting the seeding off.

Now I'm seeing nighttime temperatures dipping into the mid-40s and I'm worried I may have waited too long. I've read the usual advice about soil temperatures needing to stay above 50°F for good germination, but I don't actually know what my soil temperature is right now. I downloaded a soil temperature app, but I'm not sure how reliable those estimates are.

The lawn is about 4,000 sq ft and I feel like the prep work went well. Aeration is done and I should have decent seed-to-soil contact once the seed goes down.

My questions:

• If you were in my shoes, would you still put the seed down now or wait until next season?
• How accurate have you found soil temperature apps to be?
• If I seed now, is a starter fertilizer still worth applying this late in the season?
• Has anyone gotten good tall fescue germination after waiting longer than they originally planned?

Would appreciate hearing from anyone who's been in a similar situation. I feel like I did all the hard work and then procrastinated at the finish line.

Hey everyone, long time lurker here finally posting. Picked up a 3200 PSI electric pressure washer last weekend on a whim after seeing some satisfying before and after videos online, and I genuinely did not expect to lose an entire Saturday to cleaning concrete.

Started with the driveway, which had about 10 years of oil stains, algae buildup, and general grime. Used a surface cleaner attachment and some concrete degreaser on the oil spots, and honestly the results blew my mind. There is something deeply satisfying about watching years of dirt just disappear in clean strips.

I made some rookie mistakes though. Held the nozzle too close in a couple spots and left some faint lines in the concrete. Also completely underestimated how long everything takes to dry before you can really appreciate the finished result.

Now I am eyeing the back patio, the fence, the gutters, and honestly everything else around the house. My neighbor already asked me to do his driveway too, which was a nice confidence boost.

For those of you who have been doing this a while, what was your first satisfying project that got you hooked? Any tips you wish someone had told you when you were just starting out? Would love to hear what mistakes to avoid before I get too adventurous with the new equipment.

I've been getting into pressure washing more seriously over the past few months and I keep noticing that certain surfaces just hit different when you see the before and after. For me it was an old wooden deck with about three years of grime, algae, and weathering on it. The moment I got the right chemical mix and the right nozzle angle, it was like watching the whole thing come back to life. Could not stop going over it even after it was clearly clean.

Curious what surfaces other people here find the most rewarding. Concrete driveways with deep oil stains? Brick with years of moss buildup? Something less common like stucco or a pool deck? And does the satisfaction come more from the visual result, the difficulty of the job, or just the process itself?If anyone has tips on what chemicals or techniques worked best for their favorite surface I'd love to hear it. Always trying to learn something new and this seems like a good place to pick up practical advice from people who actually do this work.