I really enjoyed the recent interview with Frank Aragona on the Diet Soap podcast.

Frank goes into some detail about a new project he's working on with a group in New Mexico that wants to expand a program that teaches gardening skills to school children.

It's a concept that is long overdue and I can't help but to feel like a couple of hours working in the dirt might actually help to calm down some of the more energetic students that can never seem to stay in their seats.

I would take it a step further and teach the kids some basic janitorial skills and put them to work cleaning the school like students do in Japan.

As you've probably surmised, I'm intrigued by traditional methods of gardening and farming.  In previous lunchtime series, I've explored Central American farming, Chinese farming, and tropical forest gardens from around the world.  This week I want to look at a gardening technique that is much less exotic --- British cottage gardening.

The Cottage Garden by Christopher Lloyd is a pretty and chatty book, perfect for flipping through when you're yearning for spring.  It's nearly a picture book, and doesn't have any in depth information, but the book is a helpful look at the tradition that helped give rise to Robert Hart's forest gardening.  Cottage gardening also has something to teach anyone who strives to be self-sufficient.

 

There's a really good wiki-how that sums up what you need to know about sharpening your chainsaw with a hand file.

It seems the experts suggest a machine grinding at a shop after every 5 hand sharpening episodes.

You can buy small attachments for a Dremel to make the job easier, but these little hand files are a lot cheaper.

Microhydro: Clean Power From Water by Scott Davis is written at a sixth grade reading level...and that's a good thing.  I'm far from ready for an installation guide; instead, I just wanted to know if microhydro is feasible on our farm.

Although most people with an interest in alternative energy go straight to solar cells, microhydro can be a much more economical option if your terrain is right.  I've read estimates suggesting that consumer-level microhydro systems are between 5 and 40 times as cost effective as photovoltaic systems, in large part because water is much less intermittent than the sun so you don't need as many batteries.

Scott Davis divides microhydro systems into five levels, only two of which are of interest to me.  The bare essentials level will run lights and small appliances (like a microwave, radio, telephone, blender, stereo, and laptop) while the modern conveniences level adds in efficient refrigerators, freezers, and well pumps.  A microhydro system running the bare essentials can be put together for as low as $2,000 (or possibly even less if you scrounge some parts) while the modern conveniences level can cost two to three times that much.  Finally, an alternative energy source that wouldn't put us into debt!

 

If you enjoyed yesterday's documentary on Arctic homesteading then you will most likely appreciate how Robert Long and his family get by homesteading in the New Zealand bush.

It's a nice short video which takes time to interview the 13 and 16 year old kids and show how they feel about growing up in such a remote and beautiful setting.

 

Heimo Korth grew up in the suburbs of Wisconsin and when he was 18 wrote a letter to a random trapper in Alaska looking for work. He got a job as a packer, learned to love the wilderness of Alaska, and has been there ever since homesteading with his Eskimo wife Edna.

A small 3 man film crew spent 10 days with Heimo and Edna to get a feel for what it's like to be one of the last full time homesteaders in the 19 million acres of prime boreal forest that is now known as the Arctic National Wilderness Refuge.

It's an excellent documentary you can watch for free here that provides a glimpse into this lifestyle and climate. The producers don't hold much back and you learn first hand how to snare and skin a rabbit without using a knife. I really liked Heimo and Edna and felt like I was visiting them with this film. Makes our recent bout with a colder than normal winter look like a day in the park compared to the struggles they've got to go through to get by.

The last forest garden tidbit that caught my fancy was Robert Hart's Bouche-Thomas hedges.  He planted apple trees diagonally so that they grew into each other and created a rigid fence like the one shown in the drawing here.  Since I'm currently in the research stage of including hedges on our property, these looked intriguing.

Overall, I found Robert Hart's Forest Gardening to be a bit disappointing since it was low on how to information and on plants suitable for North American climates.  His book isn't a reference work so much as it is a dreamer's manifesto.  But it often takes a dreamer to bring an idea like forest gardening to a temperate climate.  The next generation of forest gardeners are still working to make his dream a reality.

Although Edible Forest Gardens is truly the book to read for North American forest gardening information, I'm always intrigued to go back to the primary sources.  So I checked out Forest Gardening: Creating an Edible Landscape by Robert Hart, the father of temperate forest gardening.

I have to admit that I was sorely disappointed by about two thirds of the book.  Robert Hart was clearly a dreamer, a poet, and a philosopher, not a scientist.  His book jumps around through a discussion of how important it is to eat your vegetables, how ley lines can impact your garden, and through several similar topics.  But in the midst of all that, he also documents his journey toward creating the first temperate forest garden.  As I suspected, there were some fascinating ideas waiting for me in the book --- we all have something to learn from this forest gardening pioneer.

Stay tuned for more information in this week's lunchtime series.  Meanwhile, if you haven't already, check out our series about the roots of permaculture and our how to series about planning a forest garden.

Joe Dominguez, one of the authors of Your Money or Your Life, retired at age 31 using the formula he outlines in the book.  After figuring out the true value of his time and minimizing his spending, he invested his savings in long term U.S. treasury bonds and lived off the proceeds.  Unfortunately, I don't know that his success is replicable any longer --- treasury bonds are currently only paying half of what they paid at that time, and I haven't stumbled across any other types of investments that are as safe and stable while paying such a high rate of return.  I feel like it would take a very determined person to save up a quarter to a half a million dollars of investment capital and then manage to disentangle their souls from the rat race.

While discussing the book's anticlimactic ending with Mark, he pointed out that we've really reached the same point using our chicken waterer microbusiness.  With just a few hours of work per week, we make enough money to pay all of our bills and get to spend the rest of our time pursuing our dreams.  Basically, we're retired.

If you're still working a full time job and dreaming that some day you can retire and live your dream, now's the time to rethink your priorities.  You only live once, so you might as well enjoy your hours here on earth!  Here are a few more resources to speed you on your way:

• Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin --- a bit out of date now, twenty years after being published, but most of the book is still right on track.  (There's also a new edition that might be a bit more up-to-date.)
  
• Financial Integrity website --- the up-to-date and free version of the above.
• The Ultimate Cheapskate's Roadmap to True Riches by Jeff Yeager --- if you need some more help learning to save money, this book should be on your reading list.
• The Four-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss --- this is the book that jump-started us on our own quest to leaving the rat race.
• Microbusiness Independence by Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton --- This is our own personal story of how we created a small business that pays all of our bills in just a few hours a week, along with lots of tips to replicate our success.

Did you know that before the Industrial Revolution, the average person worked for about two or three hours a day?  Studies from a wide range of pre-industrial civilizations show similar data --- it takes only about fifteen hours a week to provide for all of our basic human needs.  And that's using hand tools.

So why is the average American working a dreary forty hours a week?  I've heard from at least half a dozen readers who say that they'd love to live like Mark and I do, but only once they save up some large sum of money or bring their microbusiness up to a level where it can pay them some other large sum of money per year.  So, even though it's a bit off topic, I want to spend this week's lunchtime series talking about money --- how much do we really need and how can we make it without selling our souls?

Most of the information I'll present is drawn from Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin's Your Money or Your Life and the loosely affiliated Financial Integrity website.  You can find the same nine step program, complete with worksheets and examples, in both the book and the website.  (Download the worksheets and examples from the website for free here.)  Both are highly recommended!  I'm going to gloss over some aspects of the program that seem old hat to me, so if you like what you read here and want to learn more, I highly recommend you go straight to the source.

Are you looking for some more blogs to follow?  I read over fifty, ranging from personal odysseys to nonprofit newsletters, but only a few are so rivetting I want to share them.  These top three blogs are my personal picks based on: posting frequently enough to keep me hooked, mixing personal and informational in a fun proportion, and either being beautiful or well written (or both.)

Causabon's Book is probably the blog I discuss the most at the dinner table.  Sharon Astyk is a Jewish homesteader and peak oil writer who sucks you in with her tales of family life and simple living but adds plenty of meat about how to store your food and prepare for the end of civilization.  Her posts are thought provoking and mirror my own world while also veering off in other directions.  (She used to write over on her personal blog, but is mostly writing at the link above.)

Sugar Mountain Farm is "stories from a small farm in Vermont's mountains raising pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, dogs and kids naturally on pasture."  I started reading because we're contemplating running pigs on pasture some day, but I kept reading because Walter's photos were astounding --- really the best I've seen on any blog.  It's also fun to read about someone running a successful small farm.

Not Exactly Rocket Science is a new favorite, interpreting new scientific discoveries into layman's terms.  This isn't precisely homesteading, but you need to know the science to make it all work!

What are your top three blogs and why?

 

A perfect complement to yesterday's solar powered automatic chicken coop opener would be this portable hyrdogen generator.

Kristie Lu Stout has an interesting post about this exciting new product that will allow everybody to generate their own hydrogen from water and store it in a safe, low pressure battery-like container. No word yet on how much it might cost, but plans are to have a tabletop model available by the end of 2010.

Getting off the grid with solar or wind has always come back to battery storage. If this technology improves, it could replace most of those expensive and toxic chemical batteries and bring alternative energy within the reach of the common homesteader.

What do you do if you want to install an automatic chicken coop door but you don't have electricity running to your coop?

Chicken coop door.com has recently come out with a new solar powered option that will save you the chore of letting your girls out in the morning and remembering to lock them back up at night.

The price is 324 dollars and maybe worth it if you don't have the skill and time to build an automatic chicken coop door yourself.

Masanobu Fukuoka's The One-Straw Revolution is a hodepodge of advice for farming and living.  To be completely honest, I adored the first third of the book, but was annoyed by the philosophical bent of the rest.  Sure, I agree that we should garden organically, eat locally, minimize our meat consumption, eat in season, turn away from commercial farms and back to the small family farm, reject growth economics, live simply, and work to live rather than live to work.  But those concepts are all old hat now.  Since I wasn't alive while he was writing the book, I don't really know whether Fukuoka's ramblings were insightful and innovative at the time or simply derivative.

That said, the first third of the book was rivetting.  His farming method (which I'll describe tomorrow) clearly paved the way for the entire permaculture movement.  Fukuoka dubbed his technique "natural farming", and it went far beyond simple organic gardening.  He advocated working with nature and mimicking natural processes, positing that many parts of modern agriculture systems are only necessary because the farms are out of balance and we're working against nature.  As a result, he also used the inspiring phrase "do-nothing farming", referring to the aspects of modern agriculture that he did without.

Although there was still a lot of work involved in Fukuoka's farm, his do-nothing farming was unique.  He promoted no-till techniques, green manure, and mulching.  You don't hear much about Fukuoka nowadays, but I wonder whether he wasn't as influential in the birth of the permaculture movement as its self-styled father, Bill Mollison.

 

Cosmic Cookout is a project that's been in the back of my head for years now, and thanks to Anna's help as webmaster it's finally ready to see the light of day.

It's a place to help me distill down some of the more interesting and fantastic information that has been gushing out of the physics of consciousness field the past few years with some attention paid to the disclosure movement.

The intention is to stimulate debate and conversation through a process of observation and questions and hopefully increase awareness and understanding and perhaps move to a higher level of consciousness.

Credit goes to Neuronarrative for the fine images above.

Carolyn Roberts from house of straw.com has made a fun and informative 8 minute video that takes you through all the hoops she had to jump through to make her straw bale dream a reality. What sets this collection of information apart from others I've come across is the level of detail she shares when it comes to building codes and materials.

We considered the straw bale approach briefly, but decided against it for multiple reasons, mainly the fact that we get a lot of moisture around here, and it's not really as cheap as you might think.  Carolyn spent 50 thousand dollars and a good chunk of her precious time to finish the above home, which was way out of our price range and would have delayed our garden infrastructure building considerably. Her Walden castle is hands down more beautiful and efficient than our recycled trailer, but we would have had to go in debt to attain that level of comfort, an option that shouldn't even be on the table for anyone who prefers time over money, which goes to the very core essence of what the Walden Effect is all about.

As the next step in my pursuit of easy to grow grains, I decided to take everyone's advice and read Small-Scale Grain Raising by Gene Logsdon.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book, although (as usual) I felt it glossed over some very important aspects of bringing grain growing to the backyard.  Still, the book made me feel that growing grain was within my reach.

I have to admit that before reading Small-Scale Grain Raising, I fell into the category of folks who don't really think about where their grain comes from.  The only grain commonly grown in my area is corn, and I grew up thinking that flour came from the store.  I assumed that grain-growing was an esoteric undertaking requiring vast amounts of land, equipment, and know-how.  And could you really grow it around here?

But some rough and dirty math suggests that I could create the three cups of flour I use in my favorite pizza crust recipe from 22 square feet of soil --- about the size of one of my raised beds.  As I'll explain later, Logsdon has had success threshing and winnowing grain on the backyard scale.

Many of you are probably thinking --- why grow grain when you can buy flour so cheaply in the store?  My primary motivation is a bit geeky --- I just like knowing how to do things myself.  But growing your own grain has other perks.  When I read Farmers of 40 Centuries, I was a bit jealous of the endless rice straw these farmers seemed to have on hand for mulching.  Straw is a major byproduct of all kinds of grain-growing, and I am always on the lookout for more sources of mulch.

Growing your own grain is also the key to independence from store-bought chicken feed.  And if you grow your own grains, you can make true whole grain flours, without the healthy germ removed.  All in all, it looks like an endeavor worth experimenting with.

In doing some research for the home made storage building I discovered the term garden office which is how they describe some sheds in parts of Europe.

Shedworking.co is a great place to browse pictures of other garden offices to spark your imagination and learn new techniques.

I'm partial to this thatch roof design, but don't think it would work for us here.

We got the Chopper 1 axe up and running thanks to a couple of replacement springs and clips from the Chopper 1 website.

I've only just started using it, but I can already say I like it a lot.

It feels like I'm getting more splitting action for less energy input, which is a very good thing. What I like most so far is the feeling of increased safety. When there's not enough power to split the log the Chopper 1 just sort of bounces as opposed to grazing off out of control like the Super Splitter has been known to do if your aim is a little off.

Credit goes to Anna for capturing the exact moment when the Chopper 1 is completing a split.

Regular readers will remember how Mycelium Running sent me on a quest to propagate our edible mushrooms cheaply.  Paul Stamets' enthusiasm was so contagious that I've spent the last nine months experimenting (with semi-success, which I'll discuss later.)  I reached a point where I needed to know more, so I requested another one of his books on interlibrary loan.

The 574 page Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms arrived at my library a few weeks ago, and I've been reading it ever since.   This book is more technical than Mycelium Running, since the purpose is to provide the information new commerical growers need to start their operation.  The result is a book that is slightly more tedious than Mycelium Running, so I can't recommend it to the general reader quite as whole-heartedly.

Nevertheless, Stamets' enthusiasm shines through...along with so much information that I'm struggling to pare it down to fit into two lunchtime series!  After reading the book from cover to cover, I seem to have come up with twice as many questions as I started with, but at least my original questions got answered.

 

The team at KMS woodworks has made some interesting progress in bringing together a compact solar charger that can be used for several low end power needs like a lap top. They are still in the testing stage, but it looks like they might make them available for sale in the 300 to 350 dollar range in the not too distant future.

It would be worth that much to me if it could power our modem and both lap tops for a few hours per day, especially during a power outage.

I really like the idea of having a portable off the grid option, especially one that can be taken on a back pack to provide the power for blog posts in some random ancient megalith site or more Mayan ruins.

 

A new layer of snow and some frigid temperatures kept us working inside today. Brrrrr.

The movie Avatar was a fantastic initiation into the new realm of 3D cinema. Science fiction is the perfect genre for this new technology and Avatar was a non stop ride that remains with you long after the house lights come on. A great way to celebrate the beginning of my 41st year.

A few quick book-keeping notes for the new year....

First of all, thank you to everyone who posted comments this month to enter our daffodil giveaway!  I've really enjoyed hearing all of your feedback and getting to know you better.  The grand prize winner is my father --- I swear it was random! :-)  We had a really good month selling automatic chicken waterers, so there were only about 20 daffodil bulbs left to give away.  I'm tossing in some poppy seeds to round his flower bed out.  Stay tuned for another giveaway soon!

On another vaguely chicken-related topic, I'm posting a long series about chicken tractors on our chicken blog this month.  Some of the posts you've already seen over here while others are totally new.  My goal is to really think through all of the chicken tractor designs we've used in the past so that our next tractor will be awesome.  I hope my musings will also help other folks design a cheap and effective tractor and get those hens out of the mud.  You can subscribe to the RSS feed of that blog just like this one --- I look forward to seeing some of you over there!

Finally, I was going to post a review of the best non-fiction books I'd read in 2009 over here, but instead decided to finally set myself up a Goodreads account.  If I stick to it, I plan to post all of my fiction and non-fiction book ratings over there (although I'll keep posting lunchtime series over here.)  Feel free to friend me and share your own books!

And have a great 2010!

This hand saw might look a little on the cheap side with its plastic handle and small size...but it cuts like the Dickens.

You will be impressed at how fast this thing can cut through a tree limb.

The Ford Festiva stalling issue came back when the gas tank hit the 1/4 level point. Something the chainsaw repair guy said after he tuned up our Stihl recently got me to thinking. His comment was that he had to use his special carburetor bath 4 separate times to get all the gunk cleaned out. This prompted me to give the Festiva another Seafoam treatment, and it took over half the tank before the problem finally went away, but it's running like it should now and it's all thanks to Seafoam.

Old timey apples are one of my oldest loves.  The first June apples, translucent against the sun, are far too tender to sell in the grocery store.  We used to gather them from abandoned roadside trees, then Mom turned them into the world's best applesauce and pies.

In the winter, Daddy would buy us Stayman Winesaps by the bushel.  We kept them in the basement with a bowl of sweet, tangy fruit always at hand in the house.  Since I was raised without sugared treats, that crunchy fruit was like nectar.

When I grew up and left the nest, I realized that most folks don't eat real apples.  They subsist on tasteless Red Delicious, insipidly sweet Golden Delicious, or blandly sour Granny Smith.

Which is all to say that I could see myself --- in another life --- running an organic apple orchard full of unique varieties, just like the one Michael Phillips documents in The Apple Grower.  I've critiqued his apple orchard microbusiness over on our microbusiness blog, but over here I'm going to pull out the gems that we small-time growers can learn from a master.

I was sucked into Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis this weekend.  Teaming with Microbes took the information from my Living Soil lunchtime series and turned it into what felt like a fast-paced action novel, complete with stunning photos of the characters.

As you probably remember, a healthy soil food web equates to a healthy organic garden.  If you have the right critters in your soil, you'll have better nutrient retention, better soil structure, and better defense against diseases.

But Lowenfels and Lewis took the story one step further, explaining that not every soil food web is created equally.  Nor will one type of food web make all plants happy.  The key is to come up with the right fungi to bacteria ratio for each garden.

If you enjoyed my series on traditional Central American farming practices, you'll love Farmers of Forty Centuries by F.H. King.  Precisely 100 years ago, the American author visited the eastern sections of China (along with Korea and Japan).  He documented his journey with anecdotes, photos, and vivid prose like the following description of a Cantonese house boat:

I'm excerpting the portions of the book which appeal to my organic gardening and permaculture leanings, but I highly recommend that you read the whole thing as an ultra-cheap Asian vacation.  Although Farmers of Forty Centuries is currently back in print, you can still read the full text (minus the photos) for free on Project Gutenberg.

The palomino grain cow hide work gloves are still my preferred glove for handling heavy jobs. I estimate that the work load here at Wetknee seems to chew through them somewhere between 9 and 12 months, which is a good value when you consider the wear and tear you're saving on each hand.

 

Lawrence Weingarten was kind enough to share his oyster mushroom cultivation secrets in an easy to understand web page with plenty of pictures. He starts by shredding up a bale of wheat straw and then cooking it in water at 160 degrees for about an hour. You've now made your own pasteurized substrate. Drain it and carefully mix in the proper amount of spawn, which is mycelium growing on grain or cardboard. Stuff it all in a tall plastic bag and hang it up somewhere safe. Follow his instructions on humidity and temperature levels and you'll have a serious harvest of fruit to enjoy in less than a week.

If you raked back the leaves and carefully weighed out all of the life in a forest's soil, the sheer quantity would astound you.  The soil invertebrates would add up to the equivalent mass of four to thirteen sheep per acre.  In a coniferous forest, where fungi are king, the threads of fungi in a single teaspoon of soil would unspool to stretch forty miles.  Tickle out the tiny bacteria and they'd add up to a few tons per acre as well.

That said, the volume of soil microorganisms doesn't hold a candle to their essential functions.  This week's lunchtime series is based on Dave Jacke's Edible Forest Gardens volume 1.  I didn't have room to present all of the rivetting information there, so if you're intrigued by this teaser, I highly recommend checking his book out and flipping straight to chapter 5.

 

In doing some research for an upgrade to the home made cat door I stumbled upon this fascinating project by Quantumpicture.com.

This home made cat door uses a low budget and clever way of taking a picture just before the cat reaches the door to enter. If the picture shows anything in your cats mouth like a mouse the computer tells the door not to let him in. Same thing is true if a skunk or other animal tries to get in. If he's all by himself the computer grants permission and unlocks the door. You can also use this system to keep track of how many times your cat goes in and out, complete with a fancy program that will send a picture to your cell phone every time an event happens.

Our cats have always kept their hunting prizes outside, and Lucy does a great job of keeping other small animals out of the yard, so we won't be going to this extreme. Quantumpictures is working on a self contained unit that will be available from their website in the near future.

With an armload of new permaculture books waiting on my attention, I figured it was high time to finish up my series on traditional Central American farming practices.  The first half of Gene Wilken's Good Farmers has already tempted me to to embark on a huge leaf-raking project.  Where will the second half lead?

To start with, the book noted that Central American farmers have been forest gardening since long before the term was invented.  Large scale farms were usually all annual vegetables, but most farmers had a kitchen garden that modern permaculturalists would approve of.  Coconuts arched over papayas and mangos which in turn shaded cacoa, bananas, peaches, avocados, pomegranates, ad oranges.  Enough light filtered down to the ground to feed maize and beans, and chickens ran free under everything.

Farmers noted that their kitchen gardens required more work than their less diverse fields of vegetables, and that crop quality was often lower in the crowded forest gardens.  On the other hand, the farmers seldom saw weeds or pests, didn't have to worry about erosion, and enjoyed having a diversity of food at their finger tips.  Clearly, forest gardening was worth their while.

 

The Spud Buddy is a device that gets mounted to the side of an old broken freezer or refrigerator and uses a fan and a steady supply of water to keep the inside temperature and humidity where it needs to be in order to function as a root cellar.
 
I've never seen one of these in action, but the concept seems solid enough to work. Expect to spend about 160 bucks on the unit, and maybe some extra pennies per day for the additional electricity.

A clever solution for someone with limited time and space who wants to turn their old broken refrigerator into a functional root cellar.

I was experiencing some power trouble with the Ford Festiva last week. It stalled out three separate times during a short trip to town. My first thought was that the repair last year with a dab of silicone to the ignition coil was giving out, but then I decided to try a 10 dollar can of Seafoam. You put this stuff right in your tank and top it off with whatever fuel you usually use and presto...I noticed an immediate improvement. I could now get up hills with only dropping down to 4th gear instead of 3rd or 2nd. Technically speaking something happens that cleans some internal stuff to make things run smoother. No more stalling! I'm now a believer in Seafoam.

We've been using these light duty water hoses for about 3 years now and the only disadvantage I can see is the ease at which they tend to kink up.

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.

It's been almost a week now since we upgraded the rear tires on the golf cart and the only regret I have is that we didn't do this as soon as we liberated her from the nice and clean campground that she came from. I would guess that our ground grippage has doubled in comparison to the traction cables we had rigged on her before.

Every year, I let myself splurge a bit on new perennials for the garden.  Last year, my splurge rounded out our traditional fruits --- a cultivated black raspberry, blueberries, a plum --- and started exploring the world of nut trees (a butternut.)  From previous years, we have young apples, pears, peaches, a nectarine, a cherry, cultivated blackberries, ever-bearing red raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, asparagus, and hardy kiwis.  We've started grapes, a persimmon, wineberries, and a Chinese chestnut ourselves.

This year, Dave Jack's Edible Forest Gardens volume 1 came in on interlibrary loan just as I was starting to get my cold weather craving for new perennials.  I flipped to the back of the book, to the list of the top 100 forest gardening species for the eastern U.S., and my mouth watered.  So many delicious species, some of which I'd never considered!  This week's lunchtime series highlights the four species I chose to splurge on this fall to fill in gaps in our forest garden.

 

The collapsible lawn and leaf bag is a product that works and works well. I imagine most folks would use it to support a big trash bag so that your lawn and leaf material can be bagged up and hauled off to a land fill. We use it in the raw to increase our mulch material, and it makes the job a bit smoother than trying to use a large tarp.

The best book I read while on our cruise was Brad Kessler's Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, a Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese.  The book traces the first year in the author's life with Nubian milk goats, and I warn you that after you finish it you will want milk goats too.  I had to remind myself repeatedly that I wouldn't have been able to leave the farm if I got milk goats and thus wouldn't have been on the cruise.

The book was almost blog-like in parts, a format that I obviously enjoy.  One chapter ran through the highlights of a season of milking, day by day, and another chapter was a blow by blow account of cheese-making.  He mixed in some monks, a visit to artisanal cheese-makers in France, and the effects that herding has had on our language and culture.  When I closed the cover, I could almost smell new hay, meadow flowers, and goat cheese lingering in our cabin.

A week from today, Mark and I will be climbing the Uxmal pyramid on the Yucatan Peninsula.  So this week's lunchtime series is actually a two week series, spanning the days we'll be away on our honeymoon.

Luckily, I found just the book to fuel two weeks of permaculture musings: Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally by Robert Kourik.  This book was written about the time I entered third grade, but the facts are nowhere near out of date.  Actually, I can see where the fascinating forest garden book I read a few months ago grew organically out of the rich compost of Robert Kourik's guide.

Robert Kourik's flawlessly researched and referenced book is also based on his years as a landscape architect, tempting clients to include edible plants in their ornamental gardens.  This week's first half of the series sums up his wisdom about the foundation of permaculture plantings --- soil.

Secrets of shed building.com is jam packed with information on building a wide variety of sheds. You can tell the people who put it together really have a passion for everything shed related.

There's a place you can ask questions about your shed project with someone to give qualified answers for free.

If building it yourself doesn't sound like fun then maybe you could get something out of their review section of available shed kits and shed building companies.

I think I might incorporate a few tips I've learned from this site into our next firewood shed, but that won't happen until we fill the first one up with split logs.

 

If you've ever wanted to have a table that eats food scraps and entertains you with visions of worms crawling about, then Amy Young has an interesting design you can build if you've got the stomach for it.

It's basically a fancy worm bin with a low light security camera wired up to an LCD screen embedded into the table for your viewing pleasure. I like the idea, but wonder about the smell level and the possibility of a fruit fly problem?

Anna and I finally got a chance to watch a film my cousin was in a couple of years back and I couldn't resist the urge to swipe the scene under the fair use doctrine. He's the one sleeping on a bench. I slowed down the video to half speed so you won't miss him.

The film was directed by Fred Durst and it's a period piece set in the early 1970's titled "The Education of Charlie Banks". It was a good coming of age story that unfolded nicely and captured our attention.

Great job Ben, can't wait to see what you star in next.

Having 2 medium ratchet straps made it possible to hold the freezer in place while I used the other strap to finalize the mount.

Speaking of freezers, We saw a fresh independent film last month by the name of Freezer Burn. The hero is a quirky scientist who sells his house in order to raise enough money to modify a freezer so that he can be frozen for 15 years in an effort to capture the attention of a girl he has a thing for. It's that good kind of whacky that makes you feel just a little bit more alive after viewing it. I give it 2 thumbs up for its charm and wit.

I've had a few of those small ratchet straps for a couple of years now and they really come in handy...but they also have a problem getting hung up and stuck in some pretty nasty tangles if the load shifts.

We got a set of the medium sized ones a few weeks ago and I'm still kicking myself for wasting so much time on the small version. No more pinched fingers and frayed straps with the bigger more substantial mechanism.

Fowlvisions.com has an interesting picture of an automatic chicken waterer one can build from scrap material in 5 minutes or less.

This might be fine for small chicks who aren't strong enough yet to knock it over, but once those little chickens start growing up they're curiosity increases and eventually the clown of the group will get out of hand one day and spill everybody's water all over the pretty wood chips.

For just 15 bucks(shipping included) they could have ordered a do it yourself kit from us and installed an Avian Aqua Miser in about the same amount of time it took to throw a 2 liter plastic bottle into a mixed nut container.

 

Today was the day our windshield wiper blades decided to give up the ghost, and after stopping by 3 different auto part stores on our way home we discovered that our Toyota Previa is rudely excluded from the computer list of replacement wipers.

4 dollars worth of Rain-X solved the problem nicely. This stuff really works. You just apply the transparent polymer to a clean and dry surface, let it dry, and buff it in for a coat of near magical protection.

If you have ever wanted to know more about the mechanics of the mind and how consciousness works then you might find a new website I discovered a few months ago of great value.

It's a husband and wife team that have struck out on their own with what they call the Conscious Media Network. They interview authors of books in the growing field of consciousness and awareness and varying degrees of finding the truth. They have hours and hours of interviews going back to 2005 and it's all free at this time. You need to become a member to view the interviews the same month they come out, but the archives are generously offered as a gift to the public. I've heard enough really good free interviews that I'll probably get around to sending them a donation as a show of gratitude for a job well done.

Each interview is like a juicy sample snack of what new and or old concept the author is exploring in their book or documentary. It's a great way to taste a book and its essence before dedicating your valuable time and resources to actually obtaining the book and finding the time to read it. I dare anyone out there to listen to the Bob Dean or Jim Marrs interviews of the most far out and fantastic material out there and try to dismiss what they're saying as "fantasy" or "crackpottery". If anything it's going to really make you think...Question Everything is the Conscious Media Networks motto and it's a simple way to sum up this kind of search for truth at its most fundamental level.

We tried incubating some eggs with an incubator a couple of winters back and didn't have any to make it because the outside temperature was fluctuating too much.

Chickenschickens.com has a nice set of free plans to make your own brood box for the typical Styrofoam incubator.

If I didn't have the Cochin hen to do most of the mothering work I'd be building one of these to get ready for operation brood.

I've had this 18 volt Black and Decker Firestorm drill for over 4 years now and it's still as strong and dependable as the first day I got it.

Its taken some serious drops and bangs over the years ...proving itself in the heavy duty tool league at a price well below the heavier brands. I've worn out one battery so far...but still have 2 more that provide more than a day's worth of work at an impressive charge time.

1491's summary of American Indian agricultural practices reveals societies full of people a lot like current farmers.  Neither Indians nor farmers aren Noble Savages who live in totally harmony with the land, but we are constantly striving to achieve a more sustainable system.  I hope that recent forays into permaculture show that we are on the cusp of reaching a new relationship with the natural world.

Although I'm a bit sad to see my childhood image of Indians dashed, in a way the reality is much cooler.  I wonder what other ancient, permaculture-like techniques scientists will turn up in the years to come?

Books:

Mycelium Running - This is still one of the most fascinating books I've read this year.  Although my morel cultivation didn't work out, I'm going to keep experimenting.

Edible Forest Gardens, volume 2 - I'm still incorporating this book's information into our gardening lives and I rank it right up there with Mycelium Running.  That reminds, I wanted to order the first volume in the set from interlibrary loan....

The Backyard Beekeeper - I pored over this book for weeks when we started out with our bees, and I still dip back into it.  A keeper.

The 4-Hour Work Week - Some books you love at the time, then forget about.  This book was the opposite.  At first, I wasn't so sure that I liked it, but I kept coming back to its advice as we developed our microbusiness.  Now I'm about due to re-read it.

The Good Life - Bits of this book keep popping back into my head, though it's not one I'd feel the need to own.

Letters from the Hive - A fun book, but I passed it on and didn't miss it.

Full Moon Feast - Falls into the Letters from the Hive category.  A good book to check out of the library.

The Ultimate Cheapskate - I enjoyed this book at the time, but I honestly can't say I remember much about it.

  

A heavy duty tarp has a million uses on a farm. Don't waste your time or money on the lower grade tarps that barely last a few months before they start showing signs of wear.

We put ours to use today on the roof over a trouble spot that insists on leaking in the middle of our kitchen. With any luck it will stay dry long enough to finish up the repair tomorrow.

Garden and water tools:

TC1840H Garden Cart - I would recommend this cart to anyone.  We've ridden it hard and put it to bed wet, and still it keeps right on hauling all of our household and garden supplies.

Ridgid 1 HP Sump Pump - This is our well pump, and it keeps right on pumping like a dream!

Thousand gallon tank - Still plugging right along, making our life easier.

Trake - I'd like to give this tool six stars, but it would mess up my rating system.  The trake makes weeding a joy!

Heavy hauler - The heavy hauler continues to hold up under serious abuse.  The only downside is that it's hard to maneuver by hand --- keep it hitched up to the golf cart or your lawn tractor and you'll be in good shape.

Mintcraft garden sprayer - A competent gadget for the price.  For under $20, what would you expect?

Kink-free flex hose adapter - still keeping our well hose kink-free many months later.

Everett sent us a Redi-Set Go Indoor Grill to test out last week.  While the recipes included were aimed at the culinary illiterate, the grill itself worked like a charm.  I tested it out on fish patties and banana muffins and was very impressed by the quick and easy cooking.  Both came out pleasantly browned with a crusty exterior and a moist interior.  I did have to use some oil despite the pans being non-stick.  (This may be par for the course --- I know very little about non-stick surfaces.)

I think the grill may fill a nice niche in our cooking lives, fixing small dishes which only Mark likes (such as the fish patties) or which I want to whip together quickly in the morning (like the banana muffins.)  What I like the best is that the grill stores on its end, so it only takes up about three or four inches of counter space.

My biggest warning --- don't open the enclosed recipe book and get excited by the picture of lava cake muffins.  That recipe is not included.  I guess I'll be looking for a good lava cake recipe now --- anyone?

Home and shop tools:

Fuji Finepix S100fd - We both still adore this camera.  We've yet to use all of its features, or to reach many limits in its abilities.  The only thing it doesn't seem to do well is extremely low light conditions without a flash, but I suspect we just haven't found the proper setting for that yet.

Liquid nails - I think that if Mark had to choose between me and a lifetime supply of liquid nails, it might be a hard choice....

Palomino grain cowhide gloves - Still Mark's all-time favorite gloves.

Skil saw - This electric saw keeps right on going.  We often bring it with us when we need to do home repairs away from the farm.

Ultimate sink strainer - a piece broke off the bottom of one strainer under light wear, but the lost piece didn't seem to affect the strainer's performance.  A great replacement to the dishrag mashed in the drain with a pint canning jar.

pStyle - I thought the pStyle was a great idea, but I forgot about it after a week.  Must have been the return of warm weather.

Champion 3000 watt generator - It's sitting in the barn looking pretty.  We've yet to have a serious power outage, so haven't revved it up.  We probably should give it a spin, though, just to see how it works.

  

I like Chris and Keri's automatic chicken door solution for several reasons. The design is simple, solid, and cheap to do for under 20 bucks, and they have detailed pictures with videos, and a wiring schematic to make the process easy for someone who might want to follow in this direction.

I've been looking at several different versions of these automatic doors on the internet and this is one of the first to use limit switches, which might come in handy for future experiments.

This is a plan I would favor because of the low cost and easy to follow directions. Thanks for sharing Chris and Keri.

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

Podcasts, games, magazines, movies, and websites:

Agroinnovations podcast - Mark's still listening regularly and enjoys their high quality archives.

Carcassone: The Discovery - I still adore this game, probably because I've only gotten to play it a half dozen times when Joey and I get together.

Star Trek - still one of the best movies we've seen all year.  I suspect we'll watch it again a time or two once it comes out on DVD.

C-realm podcast - Mark still listens to it every week when it comes out.

The Field Lab - He gets four stars just for showing up every day.  The information can be a bit repetitive, but Mark keeps going back for more, watching the day by day unfolding of an American dream.

Yoga videos - the winter retreated and yoga fled with it.  I may go back to these videos when the cold weather returns, but we'll have to wait and see.

Countryside Magazine - seemed like a good magazine, but I only have room for so many magazines in my life, so I stopped reading.

Royalty free music - Mark thought this was cool, until he realized that it was far from free.  The music was vastly overpriced, and he won't be going back.

Mark and I enjoy reviewing interesting products, books, and other things which pass through our lives.  A lot of them seem really cool at the time, then fade into obscurity.  Others become integral parts of our lives.

Like a love affair, what counts isn't the first flush of lust, but the lasting joy of togetherness.  This week's lunchtime series revisits some of the top products we've reviewed over the last ten months to see which ones have sticking power.

ChickenCoopDoor.com takes the guess work out of building your own automatic chicken coop door opener with its complete kit for 150 dollars.

Could you build something cheaper that does the same thing? Maybe...
depending on your skill level and access to tools and supplies...and then there's the time issue. I think we all can imagine a project like this taking more hours than anticipated to get it just right.

Chances are if you are in need of such a device you want it right away before some hungry raccoon decides to make a midnight snack out of your best laying hen.

It seems like it would be worth the money, time, and emotional anguish to splurge for the door if you prevent even one attack from happening. Of course another solution is to abandon the coop concept and make your birds a chicken tractor, but I know that's just not possible for some folks.

While you're simplifying your chicken care lives, you might check out our homemade chicken waterer.

I forget the name for these flip pliers. I bought them during a stage of my life when I was doing industrial fencing...that's chain link fence...not fancy sword fighting for some corporate pirate outfit.

Some days I would spend hour after hour securing long lines of chain link fence to its respective post. These pliers were good for that, but not optimal. They mainly functioned as a back up to my heavier duty set.

I thought this particular tool was gone forever in that vast vacuum of nothingness that tools disappear to. It showed up earlier this week when we were helping my mom with some home repair jobs. Somehow it got mixed in with her tools and she was happy to match it back up with its previous owner. Thanks Mom!

What I really like it for is the help it provides while I put together the hanger portion of what I think is the best chicken waterer money can buy. I used to use needle nose pliers, and then channel locks to finish each hanger. Now I just give these flip pliers a West Side Story switchblade twist and I'm switching tools without setting one down.

I think this tool is on par with the Trake...yes, it's that good.

We upgraded to a second packaging tape dispenser recently to speed things along in the Avian Aqua Miser building process.

This one is made by Scotch, and it's considered heavy duty. It was about 10 bucks, which includes a small roll of tape.

It works better than the cheaper model we bought back in the winter, and it has a nice feature that hides the cutting blades until one puts pressure on the top guard.

  

I learned today not to leave even a little amount of water in the sprayer after using it. It doesn't take long to get some algae buildup, which will clog the end of the sprayer that reaches the bottom of the container.

It's pretty easy to clear the clog, which is another selling point for the MintCraft garden sprayer I reviewed last month.

I just found out about a fun new website last night. (Thanks Maggie) It allows you to build a short animation complete with your own custom dialog.

That's right. Just type in whatever you can think of and the actors do their job. You then have some choices to spice it up.

A basic account is free. Anna and I played with it for about 20 minutes last night and came up with the episode above. A premium account is only 5 dollars a month.

I've been waiting a long time for technology to make computer animation easier and more fun. It seems like that day is almost here if places like xtranormal.com keep up the good work of bringing esoteric image manipulations down to a cookie cutter level.

Check out this one by rcg if you want a good laugh.

  

The Boing Boing crew pointed me towards the amazing results achieved by Mike Turner and the new aero modification of his 1992 Honda Civic.

He's spent around 400 dollars and 250 hours of his time making the car more aerodynamic. The inspiration came from some of the older designs from the past that help to streamline air flow while decreasing fuel intake.

This bit of tinkering has changed his drag coefficient from .34 to .17, which can equal 90 MPG on a good day!

He claims that hitting a deer with a car like this scoops them up and over with minimal damage to car and deer. That would make it worth the 400 bucks right there. Watch this 8 second video if you have any doubts.

  

These small turnbuckles pack a lot of punch for just 2 dollars.

It's just the thing for getting a grape trellis post nice and taut.

  

Sometimes a cedar post is just a smidgen too big for even the longest drill bit we've got. A well placed notch can sometimes solve any problem. That's what it took today to finish up a trellis for the new grapes.

I struggled with keeping the drill level in the past when boring through a post. The new Skil drill has a nifty bubble installed on top to allow for a perfectly straight angle when drilling horizontally.

The new Skil drill got a workout the other day when I needed to make a hole through some cedar posts.

I was surprised to see just how much more leverage the side handle gives you.

The 1/2 inch chuck allows for the bigger size bits and the extra 7.0 amp motor provides more than enough power. There's a nice rubber holder near the handle to hold the chuck key and the speed is adjustable depending on how hard you squeeze the trigger.

This should make mushroom log plugging a lot easier when it's not doing duty as our main motorized mechanical smasher.

I finished the latest Lee Child novel over 3 weeks ago now and its vivid imagery is still lingering in the background of my subconscious.

All his books revolve around the Jack Reacher character. A guy who embraces the drifter lifestyle in such a clever and believable manner that after you finish one of his adventures you're left with the feeling of what it might be like to live day to day with only a tooth brush, an expired passport, and an ATM card.

Gone Tomorrow takes place in modern day, post patriot act New York City, which is also the current home of the author. You can feel Child's affection for the city in his style and pacing throughout the story. I felt like I needed to be debriefed by Homeland Security after finishing the book. Its an intense, modern, narrative that will come close to knocking your socks off with the way its action filled mystery unfolds.

I made our motorized mechanical smasher to streamline a step in the Avian Aqua Miser building where the wire hanger needs to be squeezed. This way is over twice as fast compared to using channel locks and saves a ton of wear on my wrists.

The Skil 7.0 amp drill is a perfect match for this application due to its adjustable trigger speed and easy to reach reverse switch. Its 1/2 inch heavy duty chuck locks down on the Wilton drill press vice handle with the right amount of clearance. Watch out! I'm sure it will smash fingers if given the chance. This is not a toy.

  

If you've got a low impact, repetitive turning task that needs to be motorized then the new Black and Decker 6 volt drill/driver might be just the tool for the job.

I've had mine for a couple of weeks now and it's really helped to streamline our Avian Aqua Miser building process.

It takes 4 AA batteries and transforms the combined 6 volts of DC power into a surprising amount of torque. We found this one at a big box store for just over 10 bucks. Don't expect it to do any medium or heavy drilling chores and you won't be disappointed.

If I was stranded on an island and had to choose just one power saw, it would have to be one of these reciprocating tools.

They start at just under 50 bucks and can be used in a wide variety of situations where you need to cut through some wood, metal, plastic or whatever.

Of course if I was stranded on an isolated island there would most likely be no electricity...in which case a good hand saw would be the wiser choice, but if you want a heavy duty cutting tool that can fill in for almost every saw job imaginable, then one of these should be on the top of your tool wish list.

In the early days of spraying Bt I used an old Windex bottle to apply the fine bacterial mist.

That was a mistake I repeated way too many times before I wised up and invested in the MintCraft garden sprayer.

It's a well designed unit that holds a decent amount of pressure.

I give it about 5 or 10 good pumps which will last through a half gallon of spraying. The extended wand allows you to easily target any area of the plant while providing a convenient control knob for mist level adjustments. It gets a bit heavy to carry if you fill it all the way up, especially if you're using the shoulder strap. You might want to upgrade the strap with some padding if you do the maximum capacity.

I'm trying a new method of support for the tomatos this year that involves the 4 foot high green plastic fence material that comes in 50 foot rolls for 27 bucks at Lowes.

It's a 3 sided enclosure that provides easy access for weeding and pruning.

We invested in the next size up fence post, which cost nearly 5 dollars each. It really seems like the best option if you expect to repeat this procedure year after year in a different spot.

  

I've washed a lot of dishes in my time...and read each and every  soapy adventure in the compelling story of Dishwasher Pete's cross country journey.

I'm sure he would back me up here when I say the Lok-Spin sink strainer is the ultimate in water trapping sink technology.

I just installed two in our sink last week and couldn't be happier with the look and functionality of this practical and affordable kitchen innovation.

The strainer has a small dial that threads to the bottom section creating an unstoppable barrier. No matter how rough you are with the suds this stopper will never be accidentally dislodged.

Our micro business is off to a good start thanks to Anna's experiments with internet marketing.

If you're looking for some good free advice in this department I recommend checking out the micro-niche maverick website.

It just got started in March of this year, but what's there is some valuable and up to date gems on this ever changing field.

Dawn Rivers Baker has an excellent blog on microbusinesses that pointed me towards a post on bootstrapping that I thought would be worth sharing.

Tim Berry sat down with his wife recently and came up with 10 lessons they've learned over the last 22 years of running their business.

At the top of the list was learning from your mistakes. It got me to thinking how much we learned a couple of years ago from a failed attempt to video tape and sell footage of local parades. We lost money on the deal, and spent a lot of time producing each product, but those lessons gave us some confidence and we were able to translate what we learned about marketing to our next business idea. The contacts we made along the way also helped to introduce us to the area and the people.

Looking back now I can clearly see how those early failures were necessary steps in the quest for a microbusiness that fits our lifestyle.

Mark: "The more I use this Trake the more I like it."

Anna: "Yeah....I know what you mean, the solid-cast aluminum design and molded grip make it a tool you really miss when it's not there." -long and dramatic sigh followed by a furrowed brow.

Mark: "Uhhhhh...maybe we should get a second Trake?"

Anna: "I think that's a great idea!"

A stellar storyline combined with an amazing level of chemistry between the crew equals one of the most enjoyable movie experiences I can remember.

Watching this adventure on the big screen really allowed me to fully lose myself in this new and exciting frontier which boldly goes where no film has gone before.

The C-realm podcast is an evolving expression of a dynamic guy by the name of KMO. The C stands for consciousness, and he has a way of choosing words and guests that really take you down roads mainstream media could never even dream of.

I'm still going through his archive of shows and have really been drawn in to the story that's unfolding. He seems to be open to new ways of thinking when it comes to such subjects as the re-location of community and agriculture. I think people who read the waldeneffect might enjoy his show and I encourage everyone to give him a listen. His new shows, which come out every week on Wednesdays are something I now look forward to.

Paul Stamets is an interesting guy with a genuine desire and belief that he can help heal some of the damage humans have done to the Earth with the help of mushrooms.

If you don't have time to read one of his 6 books, then I suggest a recent interview by Frank Aragona as an excellent introduction to the wonderful world of mushrooms.

This is an exceptional 2 part interview from Frank's podcast archive at agroinnovations.com, which is totally free of charge. You'll learn how Paul got started with mushrooms, his work with the government and petro-chemical industry, and a great breakdown of the history and evolution of mushrooms and how important they are for survival.

I've heard several podcasts lately and this one really charged me up like no other. Frank posed some great questions and Paul took the ball and ran a few enthusiastic miles with it.

If you want something to last a million years, then carve it into stone.

Words have a mysterious power once they make the transfer from thought to reality, and if you want to harness the full potential of this power you might want to consider having it written in stone.

We've had our new garden stone for about a week now and I've noticed a slight change in the way I feel about the Waldeneffect as a concept. The handsome rock represents another level of commitment to this life style and provides a non physical anchor to the idea of a path that continues to increase in sustainability as we solve each puzzle that pops up. I was pleasantly surprised by the positive effect this little rock ritual has had and feel like I've created a literal milestone for our permaculture life back here in the woods.

Jeremy and Tavia at engravedstone.net can make you a customized stone like the one pictured next to our dwarf apple tree. They have fair prices, and a quick turn around time of only about a week.

One of the biggest problems with the basic wheel barrow is the wheel.

When an inflated tire sits for a few months or longer you can expect it to loose some of its air pressure.

The solid tire version can only handle so much weight before it gets too hard to push.

The NuBarro from Germany seems to be a new level in single wheeled hand trucks.

That big wheel never needs air and is extremely tough. I've never seen this in real life, but it's easy to imagine how much more traction a person can expect when you look at the impressive design. The maximum weight is 750 pounds, and the price is in the 150 dollar range. A bit more than your average wheel barrow, but it might be worth it if you're pushing through ground heavy in sand or snow.

I made a discovery recently in my search for some accurate and free pedal power details.

Pedalpowergenerator.com is a one stop shopping spot for everything pedal power. The prices seem fair, and the pictures and diagrams are easy to follow and understand.

We acquired an old exercise bike recently and I'm sure we can modify it to produce small amounts of electricity. Thanks to pedalpowergenerator.com I'm a few steps closer to understanding why a charge controller is important and where the 15 amp blocking diode is wired. The guy who runs the site is Brad, and he only requests a few pictures of your project if you use his plans, and to be safe and take normal precautions.

If you want to pump water in a place with no electricity you might want to consider building a hydraulic ram pump.

It's a clever design that uses the momentum of flowing water for pumping.

The Clemson University cooperative extension website has a detailed explanation of the process, complete with a step by step process on how to build your own from plumbing parts and a bicycle inner tube for about 120 dollars.

It seems like the height your flowing water drops determines how much pressure you can expect. You'll need at least a 2 foot distance to get started.

Frank Aragona has an interesting company by the name of Agricultural Innovations. They are using technology to promote permaculture and sustainable practices throughout the United States and Latin America.

I was really impressed with the block press pictured to the right. Two people can make an average of 300 blocks in a day using this machine, which works on hand power. It requires a mix of 90% dirt and 10% cement, although the earth should have some clay and other minerals with agglutinating properties.

I just finished listening to episode 49 of his podcast, and if you like this subject it might be something worth checking out. He's got a good speaking voice and I like his style. I give his podcast two thumbs up.

The guys at Dragonpower.com have the cheapest automatic chicken coop door design I could find during my search.

It's use of a basic alarm clock keeps the cost low, but I've got some serious doubts on how solid of a solution this is going to be for the long haul.

The complete design is being given away at their website in what looks like an effort to promote their build your own wind generator plans, which are 10 dollars.

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

I ran across a new magazine a few weeks ago that many of you may be interested in --- Countryside & Small Stock Journal.  It's put together by the same folks who brought us Backyard Poultry, and it has the same in depth articles and lack of flashiness.  (Think Organic Gardening Magazine in the '70s before it turned into a mass of color photos and ads.)

Countryside is intriguing because of its large section by readers --- a full twenty pages of firsthand accounts from people who're living the homesteading dream on a big or small scale.  The one I read most recently also had an article by a couple who were homesteading in Canada, 100 air miles from the closest town.  Wow!

While Mother Earth News fills a similar niche, Mother is flashier and, after about a year, became very repetitive.  (I keep reading Mother only because every month or two it comes up with a really cool article like this one on biochar.)  I don't know yet whether Countryside will become equally repetitive, but from the breadth of topics covered in the three issues I've read, I suspect not.  If you're the magazine type, I recommend you check Countryside out.

While searching for a cheaper alternative to power an automatic door I found this linear actuator that sells for 30 bucks plus 14 for shipping.

It's rated to pull 450 pounds! Which is more than you need for the average chicken coop door, but with a little imagination this device could be used as a light duty gate opener and closer.

You'll need 120 volts of electricity to power it, unless you rig up some sort of solar cell and battery combination.

This could also be used to open and close a window for green house ventilation.

Mark Frauenfelder had an interesting post on his automatic chicken coop door he put together based on an informative page at buideazy.com.

The meat of such a contraption is a device known as a drapery motor controller, which takes the guess work out of when the door stops and starts and has some built in safety features.

Be prepared to spend around 100 bucks on the motor once you get it shipped, and maybe 20 to 50 more on the door and rail system. A remote control is available for an additional 20 dollars, just make sure you keep it out of reach from wiley coyotes and the random fox.

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

Gary Larson has given me more laughs and chuckles than all other comic artists combined.

His surreal sense of humor has really spoken to me in the past, and I was one of the many folks who were bummed out when he retired in 1995.

The reason he stopped even makes me admire him more. He felt like it was getting repetitive, and didn't want to be trapped in what he called the "Graveyard of mediocre cartoons".

His artwork and punch lines still hit me where it's funny, and I wished more comic strips would follow his lead by making such a graceful exit when they feel like all the good jokes are used up.

Okay, so I figure about 60% of you will be seriously squicked by this post.  Feel free to skip it.

Well, squick-free 40%, you will be glad you stayed on board.  Because two weeks ago I saw an ad in a magazine which broke through my internal ad-blocker software.  "Eliminates the need for toilet paper!" it exclaimed, and I perked right up.  I visited Krista's pStyle website, and before I knew it, I was hooked.

The pStyle is a little plastic cup/funnel which fits between your legs (women only, but guys obviously don't need one) and lets you pee standing up.  Our "outhouse" (such as it is) is a good little distance from the house, so I generally don't wander all the way over there to pee, especially if I'm hard at work in the garden.  Plus, if you pee in the yard, it attracts scads of butterflies.  I'm pretty good at squatting, but let me tell you, there's splattering now and then, and drips at the end.  And, in the winter, it's cold.  The pStyle solves all that.

Once you get over your gender normative reaction, you might come on board too.  Here are a couple of testimonials from other rural livers....

       
We had blizzard like conditions at the Wetknee farm that kept me working indoors most of today. I discovered a bounty of royalty free music on the internet that will work in nicely with the video project I'm editing. It's easy to download MP3 formats, and the introductory descriptions make searching for specific music speedy and efficient.

Finally someone has made a weatherproof time lapse digital camera. It can take a picture every hour for a few months before the batteries need to be replaced, or you can adjust the interval from 5 seconds to 24 hours.

It gives a whole new meaning to that favorite past time of watching the grass grow. Now you can watch the same grass grow over and over.

The hose I installed going to the well pump needed some help making it around the curve towards the water. The problem was a slight kinking in the hose as it angled downward, resulting in a decrease in water pressure.

The solution was a product called a kink-free flex hose adapter. It's basically a small section of hose with a heavy duty coil secured to the outside. I imagine a person could fabricate one by wrapping some heavy gauge trellis wire around the section of hose needing protection, but since I already had one of these I went for the easy fix.

Technique 1: Producing spawn from spores

The biology is a bit complicated, and I won't go into it here, but spores can be used to start new mushroom colonies a bit like seeds are used to start new veggie gardens.  The trick is to get the spores to grow, and Paul Stamets suggests two options.....

I've been on a quest over the last few months to find a way to produce my own edible mushrooms.  The obvious answer --- what we did --- is to buy commercially developed spawn to start cultures in our logs.  But once we have shiitake and oyster mushroom logs fruiting, it seems like we shouldn't need to keep buying the pricey spawn.  Can't we save our own "seeds" and start mushrooms from scratch?

The internet gives a pretty resounding "no."  Most discussions tell you that you need sterile laboratory conditions to produce your own spawn, at an estimated cost of at least $1,000 to get started.  Way out of our price range.

Then I stumbled across a reference to Paul Stamets' Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World.  Through the wonders of interlibrary loan, I now have this enticing book in my grubby little hands.  The book tells me "yes we can!" --- it's quite possible to reproduce your edible mushrooms on the cheap. 

I might try the ancient technique of cutting new logs for our shiitakes and placing them underneath our existing fruiting logs, hoping that spores will fall off the shiitake mushrooms and grow on the new logs.  For our oyster mushrooms (and the wild morels we find in the woods), though, there are some more exact options.  This week's lunchtime series will cover the most interesting techniques, the ones I hope to try this year.  Stay tuned!

Dmitry Orlov came out with a book last year titled "Reinventing  Collapse" where he compares the collapse of the Soviet Union with what's going on now in the United States.

His attitude towards this bleak version of our future has a surprising upbeat tone to it. He points out some simple things we can change now to be better prepared for what he envisions as a tough ride.

I got attracted to his way of thinking by watching this  very informative interview on Russian television. His blog has even deeper articles he's written on the subject, including a radical way of using sail boats to solve some of the problems he predicts are already unavoidable.