Self Help/ DIY

President Camacho · Mon Nov 10, 2008 11:42 pm

I was wondering if anyone has bought a book recently that has attempted to instruct them to do something and they have followed through on it. It doesn't matter how small.

For instance, I've recently bought a lawn care book from Scotts and honestly, it's very good. Because of it I will be planting a mixture of Kentucky Bluegrass and Fescue come spring time. I've also learned about correct watering methods - plenty and infrequent is best as opposed to plenty and frequently. Thatching is also discussed as well as types of weeds and treatments. I bought the book for a dollar on Amazon and it is well worth the money!

I've also ordered a book on bee-keeping. I hope that I'll be able to get that started soon as well.

These books can be on anything from the above mentioned to music, writing, self help, home repair, car maintenance, lawn care, fitness, ...etc!

Let me know what you've done with these instructional books!

Saffron · Tue Nov 11, 2008 4:03 pm

What an enigma you are!

President Camacho · Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:24 pm

I like these types of books. The best are books that teach things which many people don't do anymore like gardening, hawking, or raising livestock.

I've thought about raising a Nigerian dwarf goat - as suggested by "Barnyard Backyard" - a book about raising animals for consumption in your backyard. These goats are tiny little things (about 35-40 pounds) and produce about a 1/3 as much milk as a cow does. Can you believe that? That little goat can make some milk!!! The milk is supposedly sweeter and fattier than cow milk! To feed a little goat like that wouldn't take much and she would always have a nice warm glass of milk for you to drink - right from the tap!!!!

I've also thought about raising a single chicken - always fresh eggs. I haven't researched this enough though. I don't eat so many eggs and buying seed for it might be cost prohibitive considering that eggs cost close to nothing. I believe that a good egg-layer produces about 24 dozen or 288 eggs per year. So that would mean about an egg and a half every 2 days. Since I only really eat eggs on the weekend - I would have something like 5 or 6 eggs to eat depending on the week. That's more than enough for me.

So lets say 6 eggs per week for ease with figures.

6 eggs per week - now we're talking 2.00 per dozen. That's 1.00 worth of eggs laid per week. Is that fat little thing going to eat under a 1.00 of food per week? More than that... is the effort you expend to maintain that chicken worth it (only 1 dollar per week for your trouble)? I don't know as of yet. (chicken dinner is only 5 bucks - already prepared and ready to eat)

The milk is pretty clear cut. Milk is almost 4 dollars a gallon. I can drink a 1/2 gallon per day if I could.

The goat looks like a good investment to me. Besides, I can make cheese and even soap from the milk!

The bees are something else that, to me anyway, seems like a good investment. Fruit trees produce food for free but most of them need pollinators. Bees produce honey for free and also help the pollination process - but come at a cost which is money and human effort to maintain them. It's a fair trade to me. It's worth the investment.

Back to the chicken. If there were a constant source of food - would I eat more? I have 2 dozen eggs I bought from Sam's club in my fridge that need to see the trash very soon. So, no to that argument. I wish I could talk myself into the chicken idea but I just can't. Maybe one day I'll have one and I'll see if it can live off the land (so to speak). If it can - I'll eat the eggs until it doesn't produce too much and then I'll eat the chicken. All that will probably be more trouble than it's worth.

That's something I don't think I've ever done either - raise an animal for slaughter. These are skills that are going by the wayside and I think it's very dangerous for people not to be in touch with how things like this are done. I'm not saying there is a need - there isn't. That's why people don't care about stuff like this anymore and it's basic survival stuff. That's a lot of trust to be just giving away - and to who? A system? What system has lasted forever? It's kind of scary how people are content to live in smaller and smaller pieces of land. Most of these pieces of land can't sustain a family. That's scary to me and I don't consider myself a survivalist or doomsdayer or anything like that. I mean - if you buy insurance - shouldn't you also "buy" this kind of "life" insurance? A big enough plot of land to raise some food if ....? Who knows?

President Camacho · Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:43 pm

Alright on the chicken thing, I think I've figured it out.

Chickens will eat 2 pounds of feed the first 6 weeks of their lives. That's all the info I got out of the internet.

So, I figure that a full grown chicken will eat way more than that. Let's say a chicken will eat twice as much - that makes it 4 pounds every 6 weeks. Cheap feed costs about 30 cents on the pound. That's 1.20 every 6 weeks. so you get (roughly) 33 eggs for 1.20.

That's not a bad deal if you plan to have a chicken. I figure that it's a reasonable savings and that it's a good idea to have a chicken.

The only thing to figure out is where to put it. I think the best choice would be to stick it in a very tiny little cage - just enough room to turn around. Make sure that it's a wire cage all the way around for economy - then put the cage under an overhang or in a shed with a pan underneath the cage - and slip a garbage bag over the pan. The place where the chicken should be must be close enough to the house where maintaining the chicken would be very easy. Right outside the back door would be preferable. Then get as large a water container as possible - to limit how often you water the chicken.

I think if this is done - the chicken will be easy to maintain and economically sound. Still seems like a lot of work for such a small reward.

It might be worth it though. At least you know exactly how old your eggs are and that they come from a healthy chicken.

GentleReader9 · Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:32 pm

Camacho, Sweetie,

Your chicken is a living creature, which needs to figure in your calculations in a couple of ways you may not have considered.

First, if you want her to lay eggs and you don't plan to shoot her food full of chemicals, she needs to be happy and healthy. Hens like to live with a few other hens. I know several people who have two to six hens and they are pretty happy. They are free range hens, which means they get to go out and walk around the yard eating insects and worms and at night they get tucked back in their hen house so predators can't get them. They also eat every table scrap known to man, and woman, too. They don't cause too much trouble as long as you either have a good fence or your neighbors don't mind them. Their droppings are good for plants and not a big deal to keep clean if you have a large enough yard. They are only yucky if you put them in an artifically small space where they have no other choice than to just cover it with poop until you clean it up -- just like people in a prison cell or concentration camp when you don't give them a choice. They also need a rooster if you aren't going to give them hormones, which isn't too bad if you are a morning person and you live in an appropriately zoned area for this project. If you have a rooster though, your eggs will be fertile and you have to find them fast or they will have blood and other graphic features in them, which many people do not like. Fertile eggs are supposed to be better for you in terms of iron, protein and vitamin content, though. It should go without saying that it would be better for you to eat eggs raised naturally as well.

It's clear you would have more eggs than you personally need if you did this, but... if you have kids in your neighborhood, ages about 7-15 who would like to help with caring for the hens, gathering and marketing the eggs and so forth, you could give them a large cut of the profits in exchange for their work. Some kids really love animals and like doing things like this, and as you point out, it's an important thing for humans to continue to understand in ways we are losing touch with. Good luck!

DWill · Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:52 pm

The last DIY book I read was called Worms Eat My Garbage, by the Worm Lady. It's about vermicomposting, as if you hadn't guessed.

President Camacho · Wed Nov 12, 2008 4:33 pm

I heard about that D. Have you started your own worm compost pile yet?

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