Several people have asked me, "Do I have to pull up my Egyptian onions and replant them every year?"  I'm not surprised that they ask --- even though Egyptian onions are perennials, the tops die back for about a month at the peak of summer and the plants look a bit dead.  But as August draws to a close, new green shoots poke up from the bulbs, proving that the onions are still very much alive.

In the past, I've yanked out the bottom bulbs during the dormant month and replanted top bulbs in new beds.  But the bottom bulbs don't rot in the compost pile, so I ended up with a lot of onions.  This year, I'm letting the Egyptian onion beds alone to see if I can treat them like true perennials.  The only problem I foresee is overcrowding --- each bottom bulb has now split into several new bulbs.  Since I yank whole plants now and then to make Butternut Squash and Egyptian Onion Soup, hopefully this overcrowding won't be an issue.

As a final note, we sold all but about a hundred of our onions, and I saved the last ones for a quick giveaway.  Just leave a comment on this post before August 29 and I'll choose one lucky winner at random to receive the last of our onion top bulbs.

We took the morning off to be interviewed by fellow bloggers Travis and Kacy from the Portrait of a Farm blog.

They're on a cross country adventure that will evenutally end up in Ashland, Oregon.

I liked the questions they focused on and was refreshed by their enthusiasm for this project, which is to interview farmers and homesteaders along their way back to the upper west coast with a twist towards  permaculture techniques.

Was that a Snap On magnetic, ratcheting, screwdriver I saw in yesterday's picture of the plastic hose repair kit?

Kevin, Carlsbad, CA.

You've got a keen eye for quality.

Yes, It's one of the few tools I still have from my copier repair days of the 1990s.

The handle is hollow and can be used to store spare bits, but what I like most is the magnetic tip and long reach. The additional leverage combined with the ratcheting feature make this screwdriver in my opinion the best money can buy.

It's got a steep price of 67 bucks, but somehow I justified it by using it 5 days a week as the main tool that began each copier operation. Could I have gotten by with a cheaper one? Sure, but one stripped screw in a hard to reach place can really ruin your day and once I started applying the added leverage the days of stripped screws were long gone.

How dare you talk about extreme wheelbarrows without mentioning the Honda HP450 power carrier!

Norman, Phoenix Arizona

I stand corrected.

Norman is right, this Honda HP450 is one tough cookie.

I wonder if you could modify it to accept some sort of seat where you could sit and steer the thing to your jobsite, get out and put the seat aside till the work gets done, and then drive it back to the truck?

Photo credit goes to the good folks at IMBA for this great shot of the HP450 in action during a trail building day.

How are the deer deterrents working for you this year, have you done any adjusting to your technique?

Earl from Baton Rouge, LA

Thanks for asking Earl. Its been a nibble free year so far. The deer deterrent tinkering sort of took on a life of its own and required a separate website which we now call BackYard Deer.com.

The goal is to give away the data we have so far in an effort to stimulate some widespread experimentation to see how well this works in other environments.

We've had some good feedback so far, and Anna posted an interesting piece on a study done by the Canadian government concerning what they learned about keeping deer out of airports.

Image credit goes to Mr Granito for his cave painting of a deer hunt in action.

You keep talking about permaculture, and it does sound cool.  But it's so complicated!  What are a few simple permaculture steps I can take around my own home or farm?

--- Various people over the last few months

Introducing permaculture into your life starts with changing the way you think rather than with changing a specific action.  Like the natural ecosystems that permaculture is based on, our man-made environments are so variable that no single answer works for everyone.  Instead, we need to take the central permaculture principles and apply them to our own mini-ecosystems on our farms or in our yards.  Here are my top three favorite permaculture concepts:

There's no such thing as waste.  Despite the 14 billion tons of used materials that Americans deposit in landfills every year, waste is more of a state of mind than a reality.  Most of you probably have a worm bin and/or compost pile to turn your food "waste" into productive soil.  Hopefully, you've also done away with paper towels, swiffers, and anything else that is billed as a disposable.  Permaculture admonishes us to think beyond these basic steps and eliminate all types of waste from our lives.  Mark and I have a long way to go, but we've started buying some of our staples in bulk, seriously cutting down on packaging.  We're experimenting with growing mushrooms on our junk mail and cardboard, and are also using these "wastes" as decomposable weed barriers under mulch in the garden.  Our most recent step is harnessing graywater from the kitchen sink to grow King Stropharia mushrooms.  I'd love to hear what your waste-free household looks like.

Every aspect of your permaculture system should have multiple functions.  The earth is full of non-human life, so we are ethically bound to make our homesteads compact, leaving as much natural space as possible to house salamanders and wildflowers.  The trick to keeping your homestead small is requiring each facet to serve multiple functions.  For example, chicken tractors allow you to raise a useful food in the aisles of your garden or even in your city lawn, while at the same time keeping your poultry healthier than they would be in a coop situation and providing fertilizer for the garden.  Even if your neighborhood association restricts you to only growing ornamentals in your front yard, why not intersperse edibles (colored swiss chards and cabbages make elegant show-plants) and focus on nectary species to increase the local population of beneficial insects?  If you've got a multiple acre farm, how about turning a few acres of woodland into a multi-purpose forest garden which will provide your firewood, some fruits and nuts, and wildlife habitat all at once?

Focus on perennials.  While I don't see any permaculturalists getting rid of their cucumber and tomato plants, they do advocate using perennials instead of annuals wherever possible.  Perennial edibles generally require much less input of organic matter, don't tempt you to till up the soil, and need less maintenance.  Perennials also tend to encourage wildlife and discourage soil erosion, another example of multiple uses in a single system.

I could go on and on for hours, but I'd rather hear about your own experiences.  Which permaculture concepts have you applied to your life?

This permaculture post has multiple functions.  It tells you about permaculture (duh), sneaks in a photo of our chicks so that I don't have to bore you with another chick post, and now reminds you to check out our chicken waterer.

Hey you two...what's your secret to a smooth working team?
George W-Texas
 

Thanks for the question George. It's really hard to pin down just one thing that makes two people work well together. We try to figure out which task is best suited for our skill set. For example. Anna is really good with math, so she is in charge of measuring for this project. I've got a little more upper body strength so I usually do most of the heavy lifting.

Last but not least you should both agree on a time to stop working. A sure way to create extra friction is to have one person thinking it's 10 minutes till the end of the day and the other wanting to push through till sunset. Anna and I usually wind down around 4pm and shift into an evening chore routine.

Thanks for the question.

It didn't take me long to come up with an answer to this one. The Stihl chainsaw would be my choice. You can get an attachment these days that can turn any chainsaw into a heavy duty hedge trimmer, which would be handy for clearing a new place. Firewood production would be my main motivation.

If you've got the time and talent a good chainsaw can also be used to make some impressive wood sculptures.

What makes the Highpoint 40 caliber carbine rifle a good choice for the modern day homesteader? It's affordable...a bit over 200 bucks, it's easy to use with minimal kick back, and it serves two roles on the farm as a weapon for home defense and a tool for hunting.

We could have gotten by with hunting our garden raiding deer with the trusty Winchester shot gun, but that thing has a hard kick to it and you only get one shot before you need to stop and reload.

We have too much clay, not too much sand, but the solution to the both is the same --- more organic matter.  If you live close to a grocery store, you might consider talking to the folks in the produce department and asking them to hang onto old fruits and vegetables for you to put in your compost pile, ramping up your volume.  Starting a worm colony would be an option to make your composting process move along more quickly too.

While you're working on your compost, you should still be able to come up with mulch...

How do you make an air conditioner fit into a window that's just too small?

Samuel: Beckley, WV.

Delete the old window, put it away for safe keeping. Build up the empty space layer by layer. Most folks will mount their unit in the middle in an attempt to be symmetrical. I did this last year and missed out on not having a window I could open.

The picture shows an alternate method of tucking it into the corner, which provides more stability and just enough room for a small window/door on the side. Building up the space in layers allows you to use up pieces of scrap material, which keeps the price of this project under the cost of a cup of coffee.

How can I make a cheaper chicken door opener with parts I can find around my neighborhood?

Tom: Ashland, OH.

A car lock actuator is what Rob from Nifty-stuff.com uses. He found two electric car lock actuators on ebay for 11 dollars shipped, which is a lot cheaper than the drapery motor controller.

A junk yard might be a good place to find cheap actuators.

While we're on the topic of automatic chicken care, check out our homemade chicken waterer which gives your birds clean water for days.

Why did you choose a half gallon size for the Avian Aqua Miser?

Abe, New Mexico

I was trying to solve the freezing issue without running an extension cord to each chicken tractor.

The half gallon size is easy to carry and hang up once you've carried it inside for the night. Let it hang next to your coat and it'll be ready to go first thing in the morning. A full gallon would be bulky, especially if you're carrying more than one at a time.

A half gallon in the Avian Aqua Miser can give up to 5 hens all the water they need for the day. We make do it yourself kits for those with bigger flocks. Coming soon is a version for 5 gallon buckets that can service up to 50 birds in a day!

In what ways has the "Walden Effect" life differed from what you originally had envisioned?

--Everett

My original vision of living off the land was always based on an experimental foundation. I was already moving towards a more minimal way of living in the big city environment when I met Anna. She helped me to see how smooth minimalism can be when mixed with nature.

I'm still surprised at how delicious and fulfilling it is to be so closely involved in the personal food production we do here and can't imagine going back to my old ways of fast food and frozen dinners.

In what ways has the "Walden Effect" life differed from what you originally had envisioned? What was romanticized that turned out to be totally different or more difficult? What unexpected pleasures did you find?

--Everett
The concept of "Time Ownership" is one of the unexpected pleasures that first pops to mind when I think of that question.

It has taken some considerable distance from my previous corporate life to fully realize just how little of my time I was able to save for myself and how much of it was traded away for a paycheck and a parking spot. I fixed copier machines full time...the words "full time" being the operative point I'm trying to illustrate here. My time was full of an endless list of chores that always served the greater good of the company. My time off always seemed to have an edge to it because deep in my mind I knew Monday morning was only a day or two away. Before long you adapt to the less than healthy pace and forget what it was like to own 100 percent of your day. You eventually convince yourself that 48 hours on the weekend and a couple of weeks a year is all you need to survive.

I think I'm in the last stages of my corporate de-programming and sometimes it's a struggle to decide which hours go where for which goal, but it's a beautiful struggle that fully belongs to me and at the end of the day a by-product of that struggle can be felt in the form of a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of my stomach as I reflect back on a noise-free day of getting things done on the farm.

The future looks brighter when you fully own your present, and I believe you fully own the present by seizing all 24 hours of each day. Maybe that's what those Latin folks were talking about a thousand years ago when they were yammering about Carpe Diem?

I took a look at a little essay I wrote in 2004 while dreaming of (and saving for) land.  Here's the short version of what I envisioned --- eating strawberries and homegrown tomatoes, rescuing minnows out of buckets of creek water before using it to irrigate the garden, hunting down fencebreaking cows, and visiting outhouses with a view.  As you can tell, most of the specifics of my dream were limited to buying the land and moving there.  Still, I can definitely say there were some surprises after arrival.

When I dreamed of moving back to the land, I always imagined living here alone.  Then Mark fell into my life, and now I can't imagine doing it without him.  As I've said before, it's amazing to be part of team working toward a common goal.  Good surprise!

My dream timeline of self sufficiency was way off.  Read more....

Some homesteaders have gotten their lives simplified to the point where they barely buy anything from the store.  We're in a sort of halfway house --- we do buy flour, cocoa, sugar, dairy, tea, and some meat; keep two cars running; and pay for high speed internet and electricity.  On the other hand, we're extremelly minimal in most respects and can live well on the poverty line income for two people.  If you're obsessed with clothes, sports cars, or all of the latest electronic gadgets, you're obviously going to have to make a lot more money.  Read more....

Dog or goat...which is more useful on a farm?
Lee Johnson, Topeka, Kansas

That's a tough question. If you want a loyal friend that will almost always be there watching your back and ready to lend a helping paw, then a dog might be your best choice.

A goat can come in handy when you want to clear some land, or if you need someone to drink a beer with, but they can be a real handful when they get hungry and bored.

On the small scale, organic gardening is actually pretty easy.  Here are a few tips to get you started:

Pick easy plants to start with.  Some plants are notoriously difficult to grow without chemicals, so skip the eggplant until you're more experienced.  You're bound to have good luck with greens (spinach, swiss chard, collards, kale, and mustard) no matter what you do and can't go far wrong with leaf lettuce either as long as you grow it in the cool season.  Try a summer squash (we like the hybrid straightneck yellow bush squashes which don't take over the garden) and a winter squash (butternut is our favorite for flavor and disease resistance.)  Throw in a few tomatoes and that's probably enough for your first garden.  Read more....

I never seem to have enough time these days, how do I create more of it?

Zemke, Pittsburgh PA.

Good news Zemke, we will all be getting an extra full second added to the official clock starting just before midnight on New Years Eve of this year.

According to NASA, time is slowing down, and 900 million years ago a day would only last 18 hours.

I would say the best way to create more time would be to delete most of your distractions and try to live more in the moment.

"I thought you guys had two chicken tractors? How can you make one Ice and Easy serve both tractors?"

Jack, Houston TX

I have not figured out a way to do that, but an alternative to the Ice and Easy might be a simple Crock Pot.

I tried it last night in the other tractor and it worked fine. It seems that if you keep the cover off and the setting on low the water stays close to luke warm. Be sure to switch it off during the day if it gets hotter than 40. Our hens even seemed to enjoy the warm water in the morning, but that could be just my imagination.

Does it matter how you put a log that has been split in half into the stove - round side up or down?

--- Shelia, WV

I guess that would depend on what kind of fire you need. I have found that barkside down seems to burn slower, maybe due to moisture in the bark. This can be a good thing if you're ready to turn in for the night.

The intriguing photo was taken by Brian Jones on his trip to Uganda. The woman's name is Napeyok and I've always been fascinated by how much weight can be carried on one's head.

It seems like only women have this skill, and some can carry up to 70 percent of their body mass without burning too many extra calories. This article suggests that the secret is in the pendulum motion of one's head and body.

David in Louisianna writes:

As a budding seed-saver, I don't find that question silly at all!  Most seeds will last much longer than you might think --- check out this story about a 2,000 year old seed sprouting, for example.

Of course, I'm not advocating that you use thousand year old seeds in your garden, but your seeds will probably last longer than you think.  Take a look at the table to the right and consider using those old seed packets to plant your garden next year rather than buying a new set!

"Could you post a picture of your chicken tractor?"
Jackie

Here is the smallest of our two tractors. I added the carpet towards the bottom to keep the small chicks from escaping through the holes.

The skeletal frame is made of a material called remesh. It comes in a medium sized roll and is usually used to reinforce concrete structures and floors. We used an old metal milk crate turned on its side to function as a nest box. Most of the wooden frame is made from small trees and pieces of scrap.

The total weight is a big factor in making it easy to move. I recommend practice movements during construction.  Check back in the near future for a more detailed post on chicken tractors with construction tips, pictures, and short video clips.

We invented our homemade chicken waterer specifically for tractors.  Check it out to prevent spilling of water on uneven terrain.

Am I the only one who is still wondering why George Bush Jr. and the United States Congress decided in their infinite wisdom to increase daylight saving time by 4 weeks back in 2005? They claimed we would save more energy by starting it 3 weeks earlier and extending it by a week. Like usual, this piece of legislation was buried in a wide ranging bill that got attention for giving oil and gas companies nice fat tax breaks.

According to the Washington Post, candy manufacturers have lobbied for years to stretch daylight saving time to encompass Halloween. Now parents can rest easier knowing that kids will have more daylight to navigate the neighborhood streets on that frightful night, and an extra hour to consume even more candy.

I was surprised to learn that recent research from Carnegie Mellon University has found that you are 3 times more likely to be hit and killed by a car just after the time switch. They speculate that drivers go through a week of adjusting to the new schedule. It might be a good idea to use extra caution this week if you find yourself crossing the street even once.

Katrina Van Tassel sends us a question from Sleepy Hollow, Connecticut:

Is it possible for chickens to "turn bad" and possibly cause harm to the farmer?

Good question, Katrina. Most people don't know this, but chickens can be especially hazardous during the Halloween season.  The danger is caused by a freak astronomical event that somehow temporarily increases the intelligence factor of every 7th hen. This alone is nothing to worry about, but if that super hen is allowed to cackle out commands to her sisters, then you're in trouble....as can be seen in the picture provided. Please keep all cutting tools well away from the chicken coop for at least the next few days. Expert opinions vary on exactly how long this effect will last.

Jim from Michigan wrote in to ask "Do you hunt?"

I have recently come to the conclusion that hunting around here makes good economic sense if you're a meat eater in this region and you have a freezer. We are in the process of shopping for a more suitable gun and have come to a bit of a fork in the road. 40 caliber or 9 mm? Any feedback from our readers would be appreciated.

The main factor in choosing to hunt is wanting to take an active part in the deer management problem in these parts. Another big reason is the self sufficient element of not relying on the grocery store for all your protein needs and having a desire for a more pure meat experience. I guess one more reason would be to someday enjoy a wild turkey dinner since all the hunters I talk to keep going on and on about how juicy and tasty a wild turkey is compared to the farm raised ones you get at the store.

I know everybody has heard this before, but I'm going to say it again. Keep all firearms well out of reach from any cats you may have hanging around your place. A cat cannot be trusted with a gun of any type. It's a well known fact that a dog would never even think of shooting its master...but a cat...well let's just say that a cat's loyalty is sometimes shaky at best.

Our property is rich in water, but none of it is safe to drink.  We have two creeks which work great for irrigating the garden and a hand-dug well which people presumably drank from decades ago.  Unfortunately, the well tested positive for coliform bacteria.

Coliform bacteria, while not necessarily dangerous by themselves, are a sign that the water has come in contact with the fecal matter of a mammal at some point, and thus mean the water isn't safe to drink.  Many people who drink from shallow wells or springs build up an immunity to the problematic bacteria, but we didn't want to risk it, especially since it would mean that guests might get sick drinking our water.  So, for the first year and a half, we carried our drinking water into the property a gallon at a time from a friend's house a mile down the road.

Then came the economic stimilus checks this spring.  We decided to see if we could get our drinking water system up and running for a couple of hundred bucks, and sure enough we did! 

After researching all of the options, I quickly decided that a UV light is the best treatment system for home drinking water --- actually, a lot of municipal water treatment plants are moving toward UV treatment and away from chlorine since UV is completely safe and leaves no nasty aftertaste.  The cheapest UV system I came across was the Omnipure Pacific from FreshWaterSystems.com.  We opted for the 1 gpm 6 watts sytem with ballast, and bought an extra light since the light has to be changed about once a year.

The one thing you have to be aware of when installing a UV treatment system is that the water needs to be very clear for the system to be effective.  Any tiny grains of dirt suspended in the water will act as a shield, protecting bacteria from the light and making the "treated" water unsafe.  The bare minimum is to install a 5 micron sediment filter upstream of the UV light system so that the water runs through the sediment filter and is cleaned before running through the UV system.  You can get sediment filters just about anywhere, but we got ours from the same place to save on shipping.  In the end, our treatment system cost under $200.

Another thing you should consider when installing a water treatment system is your water source.  The system I've outlined here (and also the systems used to treat most municipal drinking water) are designed to remove only sediment and microorganisms.  If you pump water from a creek which gets pesticide runoff, the pesticides will still be in the water after you treat it!  So you're far better off starting off with groundwater (from a well or spring) and preferably also using water from a watershed which is completely forested.

We made one change from the normal installation procedure.  While most people would install a pressure tank which automatically kicks on the well pump whenever it gets low and leave the UV light plugged in at all times, we opted for a cheaper and lower power system.  Mark rigged up a reservoir above the kitchen sink to hold our drinking water.  Once a day or so, we flip the switch on the power strip which turns on the UV light and well pump and lets the water rush through the sediment filter and UV system to fill up the reservoir.  Then we turn off the power strip until the next day.  Used this way, we suspect our UV light will last for several years instead of just the one promised by the manufacturer.  And now we have clean, running, drinking water piped to our kitchen sink!  No more carrying frozen jugs of water for half a mile to the house in the winter.

This week's question comes from Laura in Cincinnati Ohio.

I wanted to ask you if you have a generator for your deep freeze?  I got to thinking about this after the storm a few weeks ago.  A lot of people in the tri-state area here would have lost their harvest without one.

I have had the same concern since I started seriously freezing food last year. A couple of months ago I started doing some research on how much a generator would cost us and what type we should get.

We settled on a Champion 3000 watt generator from Home Depot.com. It sells for 349 dollars plus 40 bucks for shipping. I tried calling the local Home Depot store to see if I could order it and pick it up there. The woman informed me that they only carry Coleman generators in the store and online items had to be shipped to your house. We placed the order 10 days ago and if everything goes as scheduled it should show up sometime next week. Once it's here we will fully test it and post a review to let everyone know how it performed.

It is possible to make your own generator from an old lawn mower engine and a car or truck alternator. I found this site that provides some advanced tips on such a project. I considered giving it a try a few years back and decided it would cost just a bit more money to buy a new one.

I am very much interested in wanting to live this type of lifestyle. However I am a city boy. What advice would you give to someone like me?

My first suggestion for someone like yourself is the old phrase realtors throw around. Location. Location. Location. When I'm unsure of what part of the planet I should be near I cover my walls with maps of potential spots.

There are several factors to consider in your deduction process and it can get overwhelming very quickly. Choose your top three locations and begin to educate yourself with as much information from these places as you can handle. Give yourself at least a couple of weeks to marinate in all the possibilities your favorite three might hold. With any luck you may recieve some guidance from your subconscious in the form of a dream, a synchronistic event, or some kind of sign or omen that may help to steer you in the right direction. Plan some field trips to the places in question and start doing some good old fashioned exploring.

No matter how much money you have to spend on such a project, the goal should be to find the best deal you're most comfortable with. Most people in the United States don't realize just how much affordable land is still out there in this country and a lot of it is never advertised. Choose one of your three locations and commit to living there for a month or two. Find an affordable place to rent while you intensify your search for the perfect piece of property that will fit you like a well worn work glove.

A real estate agent can be very helpful and exhausting at the same time. Choose yours wisely and don't be afraid to dump them if you're not happy with the attention you're getting. Investigate the foreclosure properties in the area. Drive around with your imagination open and be on the look out for run down and abandoned properties. Once you find one that may fit your needs go to city hall and look it up in their tax records. Contact the owner and express your interest. Some folk may even offer you a "land contract" which basically means you bypass the bank and pay the owner payments.

The most important part of a journey like this is your intention. It helps to rate your desire for change on a scale of 1 to 10. I would say if you don't score at least a solid 9 on that scale then you should go back to the drawing board and find another top three places to live with for a while. Trust in your intuition and know that time is running out. You don't need to be an economist or a fortune teller to know that something is not right with the direction of this country.

Credit goes to David Dees for the photographic satire.