Flooded (t)in
We're flooded in and our
roofing
tin is partially
submerged halfway back through the floodplain. But talking about
that isn't nearly as much fun as pondering ebook ideas.
I told you two weeks ago
that working
hard to make Weekend Homesteader a text worthy of print publication had
worn me out...but
that I expected to be gungho about writing again by the end of the
month. Sure enough, last week I started dreaming up ebook ideas
as I weeded the beds to prepare for planting spring greens. Here
are the top contenders so far:
- Garden Ecology ---
Several books cover the identification of beneficial and pest insects,
but I would delve deeper, walking you through identifying large and
small critters, fungi, and plants that live in your garden but don't
cause enough problems to end up on the list of garden bandits.
With chapters on producers, decomposers, predators, and pollinators,
you'd learn about food webs and nutrient cycles and figure out how to
manage your garden to keep a healthy ecosystem in place.
Estimated length: 4 ebooks with 30 to 40 pages each.
- The Permaculture Chicken
--- This intermediate guide to chickens starts where most books leave
off and helps you turn your flock into a more self-sufficient and
integrated part of the homestead. Learn the pros and cons of
housing your chickens in tractors, pastures, or free range; choose
chicken varieties good at rustling up their own grub; and manage a
small-scale pasture of annuals and perennials that keeps your flock
healthy. A chapter on incubation will make raising your own
chicks less traumatic for newbies, while tips on cooking with heirloom
chickens will help you make the transition from supermarket chicken
breasts to more wholesome fowl. Finally, I'll give you ideas for
using chickens as more than mere producers of eggs and meat --- their
pastures can keep out deer, their manure can feed the garden, and the
chickens themselves can scratch cover crops into the ground.
Estimated length: 6 ebooks with 30 to 40 pages each.
- No-till Cover Crops ---
This short guide reveals the pros and cons of the three main types of
cover crops --- small grains, legumes, and everything else --- and
helps you choose varieties that match your gardening style. Learn
the easiest ways to plant and kill cover crops without tilling the soil,
then time your planting to fit into fallow periods you didn't even know
existed in your garden year. Estimated length: 1 ebook with 30 to
40 pages.
You did such a good job
of choosing a
winner
last year that I'm going to let you weigh in on this year's project as
well. Which of these ideas sounds like something you'd like to
hear me
write about at length? Is there another topic you wish I'd write
about instead? Thanks in advance for your feedback!
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Jayne --- Good idea about tying the shorter cover crops book into the garden ecology series!
Dusty and Debbi --- Sounds like you're in the majority so far.
Heath --- It's been too wet for work, but they showed up this morning despite flood conditions! So, Mark might have something to report tonight....
Ikwig --- Cover crops would be the easiest to write because it's short. I suspect I can slip it in even if it doesn't top the wish list.
J --- Chickens are awfully trendy right now, and permaculture is a hot topic. I'm actually surprised no one has come out with a book yet that combines the two words in the title. I thought Harvey Ussery's book leaned that way and I might have been tempted to use that title if I'd been his publisher. Good thing they left it for me!
Thanks for sending folks to our blogs!
Bob --- It definitely wasn't the highest flood we've seen, and we've only been here 5.5 years. It could be that you're right --- that the hole just isn't clogged up right now.
I tend to enjoy these flood days --- a mandatory stay at home day.
Maybe it's not on the table yet and maybe it's not ebook material at all, but I think a lot of people might want to see you get more personal and away from the technical some day. What makes you tick? Why go sustainable or homestead? How does it change or feed: outlook, mentality, emotions, personality? What will be the impact of a homestead resurgence in America? How do we create people permaculture?
] j [
Justus --- Ha ha! I'll take that as a vote for Permaculture Chicken ebooks too.
Eliza --- I know what you mean! I didn't even go to Organic Growers School this year, and I still felt the need to make class selections --- how weird is that?
Jeremiah --- That's an excellent suggestion, but I doubt I'll write about it anytime soon. I'm not so sure I have anything to add to the philosophy of homesteading/permaculture that hasn't been said more ably by many other people. (Actually, I have no clue what they say --- for some reason, philosophy tends to put me to sleep....
)
John --- Chickens are one of my favorite topics too, as I'm sure you've figured out. Your vote brings us back even, I believe!
I'm a bit late, but I would definitely like to see more information on raising chickens without the need for commercial input. I don't want to be cruel by simply not feeding my chickens and letting them fend for themselves, but I know this can be done humanely if it's done right. I mean, chicken is an integral part of other diets around the world, and I doubt that everyone has access to commercial chicken feed!
~ Mitsy
For the record --- one vote for Garden Ecology from my Mom and one vote for Permaculture Chickens from Sara on facebook.
Megan --- It sounds like you've got it figured out --- maybe I need to read your ebook! We've yet to delete all the feed, but I suspect we could if we only kept a couple of hens. If you're getting an egg a day, it sounds like you're not starving them. Do you do anything special, or do they just have a lot of good woods to forage in?
Krisann and Emily --- Looks like you two cancel each other out.
Mitsy --- I'm only cutting back commercial feed, not deleting it, but hopefully some day.... I think part of the trick to completely no-feed chickens is to keep your number of birds small so that they can subsist mainly on kitchen scraps. That, plus a diversified homestead so they can get a lot of food from waste --- rotting apples, dropped corn from other livestock, etc.
Well, if you could add the no-till cover crops section to the garden ecology book, then you could definitely put my vote on that one!
Now I just need to figure out how to get the Kindle app I have (since I don't actually have a Kindle) to work nicely with the Amazon e-book purchasing process, heh.
Megan --- That makes sense. Food scraps alone will feed a chicken or two, especially if you have a family that doesn't eat much processed food. (Living further south helps too, plus two acres per bird!!)
Ikwig --- I'll count that as a vote for each --- good thing because cover crops were feeling lonely.
Feel free to email me if you ever want the books without figuring out the app....