“Windows are very frequently a source of lost heat in your home. Older homes may suffer from only having single-paned windows, which lose a large amount of heat, and even newer double-paned insulated windows lack enough insulation against cold winter temperatures and wind. However, you can save home heating costs and easily bulk up the insulation around your windows by making your own inexpensive thermal curtains.
Thermal curtains are energy-efficient window shades* that insulate against the cold around your windows. They are a thick and heavy buffer and can significantly decrease the money you spend on energy to heat your house. If you are handy with a sewing machine or know someone who is, there’s not much more you need than some old blankets or comforters, fabric, and a fair amount of time.”
Instructions: https://blog.sustainablog.org/energy-saving-cheap-thermal-curtains/
A bunch of good books for people getting into food production, on whatever scale: https://www.goodearthpublications.com/
Regarding this book:’
“City Chicks describes in detail how chicken’s “skill sets’ can be employed in a ‘Hen-Have-More Plan’ for food production systems. Instead of using oil-based chemicals, chickens can help produce fertilizer and compost; they can turn yard waste into garden soil. Hens can also be used as mobile, clucking, (organic and non-toxic), pesticiders, herbiciders, and insecticides.
And chickens can be of civic service. One chicken eats about 7 pounds of food ‘waste’ a month. A few hundred households keeping micro-flocks of laying hens can divert tons of yard and food biomass ‘waste’ from trash collection saving municipalities millions, even billions of tax payer $$
‘What if a city had 2,000 households with three hens (or more) each? That could translate to 252 tons of food waste diverted from landfills each year … Add to that number the tons of yard waste (grass clippings and leaves) that can hens can help convert into compost and the amount is as enormous as the tax-savings of NOT having to handle, transport and store all that biomass waste’.”
Filmmaker Jason Sussbertg’s 6-min. movie of our homestead, called “Shelter,” is being screened this Sunday, March 20th (3:30 PM) at the 4th Annual Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. I’m going to go, as it will be followed by a Q and A. It’s at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 6780 Depot Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472.
It’s being shown the next week as part of the “How-to Homestead” group’s workshop on building solar ovens in San Francisco — Sunday, March 27th. The workshop starts at 3PM, there’s a potluck dinner at 6, and the film will be shown around 7 PM. It’s at the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center. 660 Lombard Street, San Francisco, CA 94133.
Rats will usually steal bait off the trigger without tripping the spring. I’ve been tying peanut butter wrapped in plastic to the trigger with Baggie wires, but it’s a hassle. Now I attach a half-inch copper pipe cap to the trigger with a sheet metal screw (grind down projecting end) and filling with peanut butter. Most of them are wood rats, not the awful Norwegian rats, but they need to be controlled, what with our wood piles and chic.
Pretty clever, huh? Well, I just went out and the fuckers had somehow got the bait out of 3 of the 5 traps I set yesterday. Hmmm…
I wrote an article for Mother Earth News a few years ago on coping with homestead critters, but now I don’t feel so clever.
Been back about a week now from road trip. Much as I love getting out there, it always takes a while to get back into the flow of work and homestead. We have about a half acre, and it’s pretty intense with structures and garden. I was showing someone around here the other day and he said it reminded him of Scott Nearing. (Scott and Helen Nearing were real rural homesteaders in Maine and wrote the by-now classic Living the Good Life)in the ’60s. All of us back-to-landers in the 60s and 70s read it.
Not really, I explained. We’re doing as much gardening, building, and food production as we can, but trying to balance it with the digital world, arts and crafts, having fun, staying in shape, and other aspects of the 21st century that don’t involve homesteading. It’s like a tightrope act.
I shot a few pics around here yesterday.
All this is oak from the side of the road. It’s a win-win: cleaning up roads, heating house, not using propane or coal/oil to generate electricity for heat. I’ve gotten good at avoiding the rangers, who don’t seem to get the concept. If they happen to nab me, I just came back under the cover of darkness and pick up the wood. In a few months I’ll rent my neighbor’s splitter and Marco and I will split it.
Another of Lesley’s raised beds under construction. Quarter-inch mesh placed on ground as gopher protection, blocks stacked on top. Bed filled with soil, blocks also filled & planted with strawberries.
Retail Price: $119.95
Dimensions: Stove: D-10 3/4 in H-11 1/2 in Door: W-4 1/2 in H-4 1/4 in
The StoveTec GreenFire-M MK2 features a refractory metal lining that protects the ceramic insulation, increases the life of your stove, and improves combustion efficiency.…This stove features a durable, reformulated 6-pronged cast iron stove top that improves heat transfer for all pots including round bottom pots and woks. The bottom of the combustion chamber is lined with a custom fit replaceable, abrasion-resistant, and kiln-fired tile to increase the life of your stove.…
More info: https://is.gd/stovetec
From: http://tinyhouseblog.com/
We lucked out, getting the slab poured before the storm hit. This time around, I’m getting Billy to build a rat-proof chicken coop, complete with concrete floor. The chickens will have a pretty big yard, so they’re only inside at night. It’s going to have a living roof, inspired by SunRay Kelley’s latest designs.
From l-r: Billy, driver from Rich Readimix, and Delfino
This is the chicken coop it’s replacing. I’ve probably built 5-6 chicken coops over the years. No plans, just grabbing what’s around. Soulful, but also hole-ful. The woodrats get in at will and consume the chicken mash, so this time we’re going to button it up. We’ve got a lovely little flock of mostly Silver Seabright bantams, getting 8-9 eggs a day now. Bantams make a lot of sense in a small area.
This little bamboo footstool had a ratty cover on it, so I cut out this new cover from an old threadbare Persian rug that someone was tossing out. The rug is nailed to the stool stand with brass plated upholstery nails and I put a thin piece of rubber foam underneath it. Got the idea from my friend Louis Frazier, who covered a homemade stool this way.
To get to my friend Louie’s house, you ride a cable 500 feet across a river. Here’s a short video of me walking down the road, climbing up to the 30′ high platform, attaching the bosun’s chair, and rolling across the river. On the other side there’s another platform and another cable to get back. It’s a thrill every time. Not for the faint hearted.
This guy looks better fed than our country possums. I’ve just never wanted to skin and gut a possum although I’m sure they are good eatin’ Actually I hear people trap them and feed them for a few weeks before offing. I’ve skinned squirrels, 2 foxes, 2 skunks, a weasel, a bobcat, several raccoons, many deer — all road-kill, no problem, and have the beautiful skins. One of these days I’ll do a possum, then roast him. Country people, you’ll understand this.
“Windows are very frequently a source of lost heat in your home. Older homes may suffer from only having single-paned windows, which lose a large amount of heat, and even newer double-paned insulated windows lack enough insulation against cold winter temperatures and wind. However, you can save home heating costs and easily bulk up the insulation around your windows by making your own inexpensive thermal curtains.
