You have your garden and fish and poultry and can get venison or beef locally. Works well!
My Rhubarb does not like the heat and has suffered even with afternoon shade. No big heat this year and lots of rain so it has become enormous.
I have strawberries but they are a challenge this year with the rain. They are also pretty invasive and I do not have that much space.
I understand that a few bales of Barley straw help the clarity of a pond. Don’t know if its true I’ll pass it on.
Sounds like you are doing really well.
I was doing OK yesterday, then I decided to try mowing the overflow swale below the pond.
Buried the Kubota zero-turn in the mud. Had to drag it out with truck. lol
The first summer after renovation the water in my pond was very clear. Too clear, in fact. 5-6 foot clear. Had a mountain of filamenteous algae. I fought that nasty stuff all summer long. Then I got 100 Northern Crayfish from a buddy who lives near Sedalia. Those things made a bunch of baby crayfish and they cleaned up the algae in just a couple months. I only needed to do one algaecide treatment early in the spring last year, and I haven’t had to use any this year.