Category: Self-Sufficiency

Dealing with Stress

I want to start this post by saying I’m not a psychiatrist or a physician-if you have a medical condition, you really need to consult these professionals and not rely on Internet posts to meet your needs. If you find some of what I’ve written down helpful then great. Similarly, if you wish to try alternative methods, such as CBD or Cannabis gummies that’s good too, in the end, discover what is right for you. That said, a number of people have contacted me in the past about how I deal with stress and depression on a daily basis. I thought about the issue for a long time-several months, in fact.

Most people have sources of stress in their environment. Mine comes from trying to juggle book schedules, outside work, and family needs all at the same time. Planting and harvest seasons often conflict with book needs and vice-versa. Not meeting all of my requirements can lead to depression. Every person faces these sorts of issues and I’m not any different.

Under normal circumstances, someone can turn to friends or find other ways to deal with their problems. I use these same techniques myself. A good friend is the best balm to heal a crushed spirit. They can even give you some invaluable advice along the way and they may even have ideas that you’ve never thought of before, like deciding to buy CBD oil in your area to help relieve any stressful emotions that you’re experiencing. There are so many ideas that are available for you to try, and leaning on your friends for moral support is one of the best things that you can do. However, I also rely on other techniques that you could find helpful, which is the emphasis of my post today. In order to deal with these issues I use my MIND:

  • Meditation and Yoga: I’ll spend time talking with God or focusing on the beauty around me. Sometimes it helps to count the wonderful things in my life or to see that a single bad thing isn’t nearly problematic when viewed from the perspective of twenty good things. To meditate in this way means turning one’s thoughts outward and seeing the world outside the gloom of the current turmoil. I also like to do yoga whenever I get the chance. It helps me relax and it’s a great form of exercise too. I’ve found an online yoga teacher training 2020 course that looks interesting and I would love to be able to teach yoga for my full-time job. If you haven’t tried either meditation or yoga as a way to deal with stress, I highly recommend you do so.

  • Immersion: Focusing all my attention on some positive activity often helps me forget about the problems I’m having for a while. Often, my subconscious mind will continue to work on the problem and by the time I’ve finished the positive activity, I have an answer for the issue that’s causing stress. Immersing myself in something and then seeing a successful result helps create a positive environment in which to work on the issue that is causing stress. Often, I find that a creative activity works best because I can get so fully immersed in it that I don’t even think about anything outside of that activity.

  • Negation: You have a stressful event that’s causing depression. Negating that feeling-the feeling of helplessness, is essential. I often fight these feelings by doing something good for someone else. It doesn’t have to be much. Sometimes something as simple as a kind word is more than enough. Again, it’s a matter of turning my thoughts outward. Seeing the pleasure that the positive act brings to the other person makes me happy too.

  • Distraction: Sometimes you need to forget about your problems for a while. A positive activity can distract you long enough to help you break the grip of the depression that holds you in its grip. The positive activity need
    not be work-related. In fact, for me it often involves doing something with my
    lovely wife (seeing a movie, taking a walk, playing a game, or going
    fishing). Freeing your mind of activity helps relax you and can bring a sense of relief in a stressful situation.

When you have a problem, you can use your MIND to reduce your stress about it. You don’t have to do anything that costs money, involves lots of time, and is essentially inconvenient. Look for obvious avenues of turning your mind outward, doing something good for someone else, and generally focusing attention on something positive to free yourself. My techniques may or may not work for you, but they have been effective for a few others I’ve shared them with. If you have a serious problem with depression or stress though and you can’t resolve it on your own, I encourage you to seek the help you need. Life is too short to live it in pain.

Keeping Track of Maintenance Costs

It’s spring and that means doing all of the start-up work for the summer. It also means you need to get all your gardening equipment out and make sure they’re still working! This is why it’s always best to buy high-quality machinery because, after months of being left in a cold shed, you don’t want to spend ages trying to repair them for you to use. For example, a lawnmower like the greenworks 25012 would be a good option as it has an engine that offers solid, dependable power without being too bulky.

And this is one of the issues that you need to address as part of being self-sufficient – maintenance. Every piece of equipment requires some sort of maintenance. Whether it’s your garden strimmer, zero turn mower, greenhouse or shed. Even the common spade requires maintenance in the form of sharpening (you do sharpen your spade, don’t you?). When you calculate how much you’re earning from your self-sufficiency efforts, you must consider maintenance costs. These costs come in several forms:

  • Parts
  • Consumables (such as oil and rags)
  • Personal Time
  • Third Party Support (such as when you take your equipment to the shop)
  • Down Time (when the equipment is unavailable for use)


Trying to assign a dollar figure to many of these areas is difficult. In some cases, you must make a guess. For example, you buy a box of shop grade paper towels to use as rags. Some of them are used for painting, some when you change the oil in your lawn mower, and some for spills. It’s incredibly hard to come up with a precise dollar amount for each use, so you must make an estimate and go from there. Of course, the total of your estimates should equal the actual cost of the rags. To make things harder, you may use old clothes for rags, which means that you have no basis on which to make a guess. Obviously, your worn, frayed pants turned into rags have little value, but they do have some value.

The problem becomes even more complex when you consider that some equipment is multipurpose. In order to account for maintenance costs, you need to assign them to a specific area of your self-sufficient lifestyle. For example, you may know that your hourly wage for growing green beans is $8.00 based on my Calculating an Hourly Wage post. Just how much is this wage reduced by the maintenance performed on a tiller used to till the soil in the spring? The tiller is also used to till the remainder of the garden, so at some point, you have to make an estimate of the maintenance costs for green beans in particular if you want to provide a precise accounting.

By now, some of you are probably wondering whether I’m a bit insane. After all, what do these costs matter? One of the motivators for being self-sufficient is knowing that, on some level, you’re saving money-that you truly are earning some amount each hour. People have ended up spending everything they earn, and even exceeding their earnings, by performing maintenance in the wrong way. For example, it’ll cost you in excess of $40 in most cases to have someone maintain your lawn mower. By following the simple instruction in the lawn mower’s manual, you can usually accomplish the task for around $10. The $30 difference in maintenance costs can mean the difference between earning something for your efforts and losing money. So sometimes it just makes more sense for you to purchase your own lawn mower, and look after your lawn by yourself. You can easily check out something like the best rated cordless lawn mower by YardMasterz here to give you a better idea of how easy it is to look after your lawn properly, without hiring someone to help you.

There is another good reason to calculate the maintenance costs (at least, within reason). When it comes time to get a new tool (motorized or not), knowing the maintenance costs and understanding how often a tool breaks down can help you make smarter buying decisions. A tool that sees use once a year is probably not a good candidate for an expensive upgrade. On the other hand, when you find that a tool breaks down a little too often because it’s not designed to take the level of use you need, an upgrade may make sense.

Maintenance costs can tell you something else. You’ll find that certain brands of machinery are quite expensive to maintain, even if you buy the parts yourself. Knowing how much it costs to maintain certain brands of machinery can help you decide between tool vendors. A vendor may charge a little more at the outset, but if you save a considerable amount on maintenance costs, the additional purchase price is worth it. You could source certain items like transmission clutch parts for heavy machinery from K&L if you find them to provide the parts you need at competitive prices.

Keeping track of maintenance costs is an essential element of self-sufficiency. You don’t have to become absurdly accurate, but well-informed estimates are essential. Create and maintain a log of your maintenance costs so you have a better idea of precisely how much you’re spending for each of the items you grow. These maintenance costs may actually change the items you grow because some items are prone to high maintenance costs. Let me know your thoughts on maintenance costs at [email protected].

Enjoying My Own Personal Flower Garden

My wife and I have always worked very hard on our garden. Every little addition we make, we think it through to ensure it will benefit the aesthetic of the space. We spent 6 whole months planning before we got Stamped Concrete MA Patios Walkways Contractors in to add a walkway and patio! That being said, I am so happy with the results and it was well worth the wait. You see, thanks to our lovely bifold patio doors, I can see all the way into our garden from the comfort of our living room. Honestly, investing in bifold doors has totally changed how bright and airy our living room feels. It is so nice to bring a little bit of the outdoors inside, and our patio always looks so pretty, particular since we decided to treat ourselves in some new patio paving (you can see some examples here if you are thinking about doing the same thing, and trust us it makes a huge difference to your patio). We actually only decided to get bifold doors after they were recommended to us by our neighbors. Nowadays, you can build your own bifold doors quite easily, but we decided to get some help from a team of home improvement experts as installing doors is not our strong suit! Anyway, as for our patio, there’s one tradition we have that I don’t have any say in – and I like it that way. Every year Rebecca works out a new arrangement and adds plants to her gift to me, a personal flower garden. Every morning I wake to the scene below our bedroom window of Rebecca’s hard work. I know it’s an effort because getting into that rock garden is hard. It’s on a slope that’s taxing even for me; I can’t even imagine how hard Rebecca must have to work to maintain it for me. I talked about my garden a little last year in the Making Self-Sufficiency Relationships Work post.

One of Rebecca’s goals is to make sure that something is always blooming in my rock garden. It’s a little difficult to accomplish, but I know that people in the past performed the same task to ensure that there would always be something pretty to see. I really respect her efforts to make the garden as pretty as possible and to keep it that way all summer. So, the pictures you see in this post are a mere snapshot of my rock garden. Later in the summer, the scene will change and then it will change again for fall.

A favorite new plant is a pincushion flower. The exquisite blue flowers are really hard to capture, but I managed to get a passable picture of them. The real world flower is even more beautiful than the one shown here.

RockGarden01

One of the flowers that came back from last year is the blanket flower. It’s a favorite of mine because the colors change slightly over time and I love the fact that the flowers are bi-colored. This year the blanket flower is paired up with fiber-optic grass. As you can see from the following picture, the combination is really nice.

RockGarden02

A few of the rock garden elements are edible. For example, the chives have some beautiful flowers that are also edible (as are the chives). I’ve always found chives to be a nice addition because they combine color and texture so well.

RockGarden03

Some of the flowers are quite bright. One of the flowers in this category is the coreopsis. Rebecca has them placed where their profusion of bright flowers will show up best. This is another holdover from last year. Immediately below the coreopsis in this picture is bugleweed ‘metallica crispa’, which has already bloomed for the year, but will continue to add its deeply colored foliage to the garden.

RockGarden04

Most of the pictures that I’ve found of wild strawberries online show white flowers. I’ve been assured that the plants in the rock garden are wild strawberries, but they have these dramatic pink flowers. As with many other plants, they’ve come up from last year.

RockGarden05

Another bright pink flower in the garden is seathrift (armeria). This year the seathrift is nestled in with some ferns and a happy looking frog.

RockGarden06

As I said last year, the view from our bedroom is for me alone. When I go out my back door though, I see some amazing beauty-the rock garden, our herb garden, the woods, and bushes surrounding our patio, we’ve been thinking about getting a fence to frame our garden, we want to choose the right fence to pull this beauty together and make it our own. Most importantly, I see the love my wife has for me in producing something so quiet and peaceful for me to enjoy.

RockGarden07

Enjoying the Flowered Woods

I always find the springtime woods inviting. All of the flowers are amazing! Unfortunately, I don’t know the names of every flower out there, even though I’m sure that someone has named them at some point. Every spring does bring back a few friends, such as the cranesbill geranium:

WoodlandFlowers01

The berry brambles produce a riot of flowers too. The gooseberries, black caps (black raspberries), and red raspberries have already bloomed and set fruit. However, the blackberries are only now putting out blossoms and the initial burst of flowers portends a wonderful summer of berry picking.

WoodlandFlowers02

I can taste the berries now. Our entire woods is packed with berry brambles. There are times when I can pick two or three gallons of berries in a single day. In fact, the limiting factor is usually the amount of time I have to pick, rather than the number of available berries. Everyone eats the berries during the summer months, including both birds and squirrels (oddly enough). There is no doubt in my mind that other forest creatures benefit from the berries too.

Sometimes the woods offers up something special. In times past, I’ve encountered bloodwort (bloodroot) and mayapples. Both plants were used for medicinal purposes in the past. The mayapple fruit is edible in small quantities as long as you know when to pick it. The fruit must ripen on the plant and must be completely yellow. The leaves can be used to make an effective insecticide when boiled, allowed to cool, and then sprayed.

This year we were treated to something special, a jack-in-the-pulpit. It showed up right above the rock garden at the very edge of the woods, so Rebecca was the first to spot it. I must admit that it’s a bit hard to see. We’re fortunate that this one came up so close that we can enjoy it each year. In fact, Rebecca plans to extend the rock garden to include our new addition.

WoodlandFlowers03

Of course, there is a lot more to see in the woods and I hope to be able to take time to enjoy it all. Do you have a woods near to you? If so, do you ever get to enjoy all of the beauty it contains? Let me know at [email protected].

 

Adding Chickens to the Coop

The coop is essentially finished. You saw the finishing touches in the Covering and Completing the Chicken Coop post. However, there are still some things to do. For one thing, I need to level out the ground on the side of the coop to make it easier to get inside on winter days. The inside still needs to be wired and I have to paint the outside. Still, the coop is ready for occupancy.

I also need to provide some sort of shelter for the chicken food, so that it doesn’t get wet. The food is currently in a 32 gallon trash can (which performs remarkably well). We’ve found that we need to use the brute strength trash cans to keep animals at bay. The domed lid works best in this case because it sheds the water really well. It’s a mistake to get a trash can with wheels because dumping the 100 pound bags of feed into them is nearly impossible without dumping at least some of it on the ground. (Even though our chickens will feast on grass, bugs, and other sources of food outside, we still need to provide a certain amount of feed consisting of oyster shell, grains, and grass hay.)

As I previously mentioned, we’ll get chicks for the coop on June 25th. Until then, it would still be nice to get something for our efforts, so we bought two laying hens from a friend of ours. Both produce nice brown eggs. The first is a Rhode Island Red (Rose) and the second is a Black Australorp (Violet). A rooster had picked at the two birds a bit before we got them, but except for missing a few feathers, they’re really nice birds.

ChickenCoop0901

Our chickens started laying eggs almost immediately. In fact, we received our first egg from Violet the first evening we had her.

ChickenCoop0902

Both of our ladies have been raised in the free-range manner, so we’re already receiving the benefits of free-range eggs. There is some discussion on precisely what these benefits are, but most of the places I’ve researched agree that you get these benefits over eggs raised using production methods (chickens in a cage):

 

  • 1/3 less cholesterol
  • 1/4 less saturated fat
  • 2/3 more vitamin A
  • Two times more omega-3 fatty acids
  • Three times more vitamin E
  • Seven times more beta carotene


Some sites also say there is a potential calcium and vitamin D benefit. Whether all of these benefits are real or not remains to be seen. However, the egg yolks are significantly more orange than the eggs we’ve purchased from the store and the eggs taste better, so there is some difference.

In addition to these two chickens, we’ll get a mix of chickens that we’ll raise from chicks. Our brood will include:

 

  • Four Buff Orpington (great meat birds, cold hearty, and produce copious large eggs)
  • Four Delaware (even better meat birds, cold hearty, lay well during the winter, and produce jumbo eggs)
  • Two Americana (smaller food requirement, extremely cold hearty, produce copious colorful medium size eggs)

We used a number of sources to make our decision on which chicken breeds to get, including Henderson’s Chicken Breed Chart. We also asked people who are actually raising these breeds of chickens whenever possible about how they fared.

You might wonder why we didn’t get any Leghorns. After all, the production places use this sort of chicken. The problem with the Leghorn is that its comb will freeze during the winter months and the small weight size makes it necessary to heat the coop. We were warned away from this particular breed by more than a few people who raise chickens in the same way that we intend to raise chickens. Sometimes too much help from technology isn’t a good thing.

You may also wonder why we didn’t get just one breed. There are several reasons. First, having multiple breeds makes the chickens more fun. We want a colorful coop. Second, each of the chicken breeds has different qualities to recommend it. For example, we don’t want all jumbo eggs, but we do want a few for eating purposes. In addition, we don’t like a mono-culture of anything, including animals. Mono-culture environments invite disease and other problems. So, we have a colorful coop that should serve us well. I’ll post updates as time permits to tell you how our new coop is doing. Please let me know if you have any questions at [email protected].

 

Alarming New Obesity Statistics

I monitor statistics related to the overall health of Americans because I’m concerned about how my fellow Americans are faring. It’s one of the reasons I include self-sufficiency posts in my blog—to help others gain insights into making their health better and to get paid for doing it. One article I read recently tells me outright that there is a long way to go. According to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42 percent of Americans will become obese by 2030. There is a price tag associated with this statistic—an increase in health care costs of $550 billion dollars—that’s billion, with a B.

The increase in weight will cause problems with diabetes, a particularly nasty disease that isn’t given nearly enough respect. Imagine the sugar in your bloodstream becoming akin to ground glass. That’s the effect of diabetes on your system. Diabetes slowly, mercilessly, destroys your heart, kidneys, nervous system, eyes, and other organs. Of course, there are other behaviors that can affect your heart, but of all of the things that can go wrong, diabetes is possibly the worst. So, losing weight isn’t about fitting into nicer clothes or impressing your friends—it’s about living a happier, more productive, life.

More than a few people have asked me why I’m so concerned (other than the monetary amounts involved). At one point in time, I
looked at myself in the mirror and decided that there really was too
much of me to love. Not only that, but I was starting to suffer some of
the health problems associated with being overweight and decided I
really couldn’t live like that anymore—I was right, I really couldn’t
live like that. It’s not that I’m even sort of skinny today, but I have
lost 165 pounds since Rebecca and I started our drive to become
self-sufficient (all without dieting). That means I’ve gone from being morbidly obese to simply overweight. I feel better now, but I remember how I felt with the additional weight and I know that it wasn’t the nicest way to feel. For many people, it seems as if there is no way out, but the approach I’ve taken does help.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to say that someone should do something because it’s good for them. Doctors do it all the time (because we pay them to do it). It’s quite another thing to admit to yourself that your quality of life has diminished and you really need to do something about it. However, even after you decide to do something about it, succeeding is harder still because there are so many conflicting sources of information online. I’m not going to say that my method will work for you. In fact, I imagine that many people would find my approach outrageously difficult. However, I followed these principles to lose the weight that I have.

 

  • Exercise every day by growing my own food and cutting my own wood. Workouts at the gym are boring and non-productive. Growing my own food is interesting and nothing beats the heat from a wood stove.
  • Eat a higher quality of food. Growing my own food means that I can avoid pesticides and other contaminants more often. I can also pick my food at the right time, rather than when it’s best for marketing purposes. Plus, growing my own food pays me to spend time to grow the food, rather than buy it from the store where it costs quite a bit.
  • Eat a wide variety of food. Rebecca and I don’t eat just meat and potatoes. It seems as if we’re always trying something different. During a typical week we’ll eat broccoli, Brussels sprouts, green beans, corn, kohlrabi, cabbage, beets, spinach, tomatoes, okra, carrots, apples, pears, cherries, plums, and many other items—all grown in our garden and orchard. For meat, we eat rabbit and chicken we raise, deer that a friend shoots for us, and fish we catch at a local lake.
  • Reduce my stress level. Living as I do helps me deal with stress better. If I’m having a stressful day, I get rid of the stress by chopping wood. Believe me, after a few hours in the woods, there is no more stress.
  • Eat smaller meals more often. I replaced my plate with a smaller plate. The rule is that if it doesn’t fit on the plate, it doesn’t go in my mouth. There are no seconds and since I’ve been eating better, I seldom crave them.


Nowhere do I mention doing anything weird or uncomfortable in this list. I tried more than a few diets and none of them worked because none of them are lifestyle changes. They’re all cheats designed to lose a little weight, fast. The only way to effectively lose weight and keep it off is to make some sort of lifestyle change. You need to decide that you’re tired of your old self and that you want something better before any change you try will work. Let me know your thoughts about the plight of the American waistline at [email protected].

 

Covering and Completing the Chicken Coop

In the previous post, Bending Corrugated Roofing, you saw how to bend the corrugated roofing material. We’re actually using this material to cover every part of the chicken coop because its strong and, in this case, free. The material will eventually require painting, but for the moment, it provides a durable covering that should withstand just about anything. The covering process begins with the roof as shown here.

ChickenCoop0801

The roof sections overlap by one ridge and valley pair to provide continuous protection. You use special corrugated roofing screws to secure the corrugated roofing in place. Each screw is self-tapping. In addition, there is a rubber washer to seal the hole made by the screw. It’s important to put the screws into the ridges, not the valleys, of the corrugated roofing to allow unimpeded water flow. Notice that the roof part overhangs. This addition provides some protection for the window, just in case it’s left open during a storm.

The back section pieces are all bent to provide coverage for the fascia. They provide a slight overhang as well because they need to cover the soffit pieces that are installed later. Here’s how the back looks. Notice the window that I mentioned earlier. It’s near the top of the coop to provide good ventilation during the summer months. The window seals tightly to keep the heat in during the winter months.

ChickenCoop0802

We worked on the sides next. When it came time to complete a corner, we made the piece a bit long and bent it around the corner. That way, the two pieces of corrugated roofing overlap and provide good protection as shown here.

ChickenCoop0803

We worked around the building, overlapping the roofing material on the sides and then we realized that all sides were also in need of corrugated roof sheets to prevent the water from getting inside the building. Besides general hardware stores, these roof sheets can also be purchased online from Foregale or other related e-shops. .

The bottom pieces came first, and then those above, so that water flowing down the sides won’t get under the roofing. The soffit pieces came last. Working around the windows was time consuming, but we eventually got the task done.

ChickenCoop0804

The next step was to install the nest box assembly. It’s the same nest box assembly used in the original coop. There are 15 nest boxes. Outside each nest box is a roost for the chickens to get in and out of the nest box easily.

ChickenCoop0805

On the other side of the coop are places to put the feeder, waterer, and oyster shell feeder, along with a small roost. Your chickens will need the oyster shells or some other source of calcium carbonate, especially if you plan to let them forage outside, as we will. Chickens don’t naturally eat layer mash; they naturally eat bugs, grass, and other odd assorted natural items that don’t contain the calcium carbonate they need. Because we want to let the chickens eat as many natural items as they’d like, we provided space for both layer mash and calcium carbonate, which gives the chickens choice of what they want to eat. The result should be better quality eggs (with dark orange yolks) with strong shells.

ChickenCoop0806

Notice the door at the side of the coop. This door leads to the chicken run outside. The last part of the building process is to fence in the chicken run. The chicken run has a ramp to make it easy for the chickens to get out of and into the coop as needed. There is also a large roost outside so that the chickens can rest off of the ground and still enjoy the sunshine. The ramp has little bars on it to provide a foothold for the chickens.

ChickenCoop0807

In order to make the chickens comfortable and ensure they have plenty of interesting things to eat, we allocated 20 square feet per chicken in the run. That may not prove large enough. I’ll track how the ground cover does after a month or two and may increase that to 30 square feet per chicken. The point is that the chickens will have plenty of space in which to run around. We’ll keep the run shoveled in the winter so that the chickens can come out unless the weather truly is horrible.

The coop is finally finished and ready for occupancy. We were originally going to raise all of our layers from chicks. However, I decided to surprise my wife with a couple of hens so we can start enjoying the fruits of our labors now. Next week we’ll talk about the inhabitants and the chicks that will arrive on June 25th to complete our coop. In the meantime, let me know if you have any questions at [email protected].

 

Considering the Costs of Rushing

I read a blog post entitled, “Could You Speed That Up a Little?” written by my friend, Bill Bridges yesterday with great interest. In this case, Bill is discussing a book entitled, “Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything.” I haven’t personally read the book, but I could readily identify with a number of Bill’s comments about the motive for writing such a book. We live in a sound bite society. Nothing goes fast enough-everything must be compressed and people multitask to satisfy an ever increasing need for speed. Bill focuses on the book for the most part, but the inspiration for this post comes near the end of his post where he says, ‘I was amazed to learn that some microwave users, told to zap something
for 90 seconds, have learned to fudge by hitting the “8” button twice,
thus saving the nanosecond involved in going from “9” to “0.”‘

Something in me disdains the saving of a nanosecond for the inaccuracy for cooking something for two less seconds. Of course, people take shortcuts all of the time. In many cases, these shortcuts don’t result in any serious negative effects. I don’t imagine that cooking something two seconds less in a microwave is going to cause a problem unless you’re performing some sort of exotic experiment or cooking something that’s especially sensitive. However, the inaccuracy remains.

The post caused me to think about the whole business of rushing everything. If our society is changing due to all of this rushing about, what sorts of side-effects might we expect? Where will our society go? How will everyone be affected? I wrote down a list of the things that we might see changed as a result of living in a sound bite world.

 

  • Stress Related Health Problems will Increase: Rushing causes stress. Constant stress causes certain physiological changes. It’s not a matter of if you’ll be affected, but when you’ll be affected. In order to live a healthy lifestyle, you need to learn how to slow down and relax a little.

  • Small Inaccuracies Tend to Accumulate: Anyone involved in any sort of technical field needs to consider the effect of rushing, of taking shortcuts, on the accuracy of output. Every article I’ve read on the subject of improving accuracy focuses on the need to set aside additional time up front to reduce errors that cause delays in the end. However, the effects of shortcuts can affect anyone. Drivers often find out too late that a seemingly reasonable shortcut results in an accident. Moreover, there are no doubts about it, car accidents can have devastating consequences. Of course, no one likes to think too much about being injured on the road, but it is important to remember that if ever you are involved in a car accident and you suspect that another driver was responsible then you might want to seek legal advice from an attorney. Personal injury law can seem complex and therefore it is always best to get help from an expert. It is not just driving that rushing can have a negative impact on though. Even the environment is affected by bad decisions that come from rushing. The most prominent effect of rushing and the resultant inaccuracies is that you’ll spend more money to obtain less worthwhile results.

  • Reduction of Personal Pleasure: It doesn’t matter how you’re rushing or in what environment you rush-when you rush you reduce the pleasure derived from that activity. The sad fact is that rushing affects everything from eating a delicious meal to making working meaningful. Multitasking makes matters worse because now you’re not even paying full attention to the activity. When the world goes by in a blur, it’s hard to define what you’ve done, why you’ve done it, and what you’ve gotten out of it.


There are probably other negative side effects, but even considering these three side effects should make you think twice about the world we’re creating. When was the last time you were honestly able to say that you fully enjoyed an activity? When was the last time you finished a task (personal or business) and were able to take pride in the results? Whether you’re writing code, playing with your pets, or taking time with your sweetie, consider focusing on that single activity and spending the time required to participate in it fully. Yes, you’ll find that you get fewer things done, but you’ll also find that the tasks you do complete are more enjoyable and done better. Let me know your thoughts about our sound bite world at [email protected].

 

Bending Corrugated Roofing

This post continues the series on building a chicken coop. The previous post, Finishing the Chicken Coop Structure, shows how the coop looks with tar paper in place. The outside of the coop will be covered in corrugated tin roofing recycled from a friend’s house. We picked some of the better pieces (those without holes or serious bends) from the selection. There are a little rust and a few holes, but we reused holes whenever possible and cut out any major blemishes.

To work with corrugated tin roofing, you
need a circular saw blade designed to cut metal and also need a face shield. Make sure you wear long sleeves (the metal bits are quite hot and will burn you) and gloves are a good idea as well.
Unfortunately, all of this equipment won’t solve one problem, bending
the corrugated tin roofing over corners to provide better coverage. If it’s a particularly large piece of metal then safety concerns take precedent. Instead of a saw, you will need to use a lathe such as a CNC lathe which does the work for you.

We tried all sorts of methods to bend the corrugated tin. How anything
manages to accidentally bend the stuff (such as a hailstorm) is beyond me. The answer to the problem turns
out to be one of leverage and careful weakening of the area targeted for
bending. Start with the longest piece of corrugated tin roofing that you can.

To begin the bending process, we created a jig using two 8′ 4 X 4 posts that are
screwed together with a 2 X 8 support. A combination of a 2 X 6 top
piece two heavy C-clamps holds the corrugated tin in place as shown
here.

ChickenCoop0701

Once the corrugated tin roofing is secured, use a piece of wood with an
angled end and a hammer to create a flattened line across the bend. You
won’t be able to flatten the corrugated tin roofing completely. All you
really want is a weak spot in order to control the bend. The reason
you’re using a stake to perform this task is that metal tends to punch
holes in the corrugated tin roofing. If you’re not keen on doing the work yourself. You may want to go ahead and get a professional. There are plenty roofing austin texas firms about which are able to complete the work.

ChickenCoop0702

With the weak area in place, one person grabs the long end and gently starts toward the bend, while the other person stands on the 2 X 6 holding the corrugated tin roofing in place.

ChickenCoop0703

It’s important that the person doing the bending maintain equal tension across the bend and not to move too quickly. Take your time and keep moving toward the other person. Eventually, the bender will meet up with the person standing on the bender and the person standing on the bender can step off.

ChickenCoop0704

At this point, you can cut the bent piece to length. Make sure to take the proper safety precautions when cutting the corrugated tin roofing. The saw will definitely buck a little, so use two hands. Bits of metal are going to hit you and they’ll be hot when they do. Wear a face mask and long sleeves. If you follow this procedure, you won’t have any problem getting the results you want from the corrugated tin roofing, despite a lack of roofer’s tools . Let me know if you have any questions at [email protected]. Next week we’ll look at how to attach the corrugated roofing material to the chicken coop.

Self-Sufficiency and the Store

I’ve written quite a few times about the health and monetary benefits of self-sufficiency at any level (see my Health Benefits of Self-Sufficiency and Health Benefits of Self-Sufficiency (Part 2) posts for details). It’s even possible to put a dollar amount on your self-sufficiency endeavors (see Calculating an Hourly Wage for details). Of course, not everyone can produce as much of their own food as we do, but I encourage you to produce as much as you can. I’ve been reading more and more articles online, like the one entitled “8 Food frauds on your shopping list” that tell me that your local store may be undermining your efforts to eat well. In this article, you discover that the milk you just bought could actually be causing problems like kidney stones because it contains melamine. In addition, there are all sorts of problems with food contamination. Reports such as “How safe is your grocery store?” give me pause when considering any sort of food purchase. Certainly, reading articles like this have significantly changed our buying habits for the small number of luxury items we purchase each year. They should affect your buying habits too.

At one time, most stores received the majority of their products from local sources. If you bought a steak, it probably came from a beef cow that was butchered and processed locally—perhaps from a neighbor who raised beef cattle. The same held true for all sorts of items—vegetables and fruits alike. The items you purchased from the store had a lower carbon footprint because they didn’t involve transportation over long distances. In addition, these items were fresher; many of them were never even frozen. During this time, it was actually possible to trace a source of problem food directly to the grower because the grocery knew the grower and what kinds of products the grower produced. Our food was considerably safer as a result.

Three things have happened to make the day of locally grown food pass into history. First, people have developed a taste for a wider variety of foods. This isn’t necessarily a bad idea because variety does tend to help create a better diet, but the cost has been felt on a global scale in the increase of everything from pesticide use to increased greenhouse gasses. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether breathing contaminated air and drinking poisoned water is really worth the health benefits of a diverse diet. Add to your calculations the chances that the food you’re eating is something other than advertised because your store may misrepresent the product to you in order to make a sale.

Second, people have placed price as their first (and sometimes only) criterion for making a food purchase. Locally grown food is sometimes more expensive than the food you can obtain from another location. Gone is the day where the grocery store owner knew precisely who grew what in the store. Today you can ask your butcher where a piece of meat comes from and you’ll receive a shrug (at best) for your efforts. The apple you’re eating could come from Washington, but it could just as easily come from some other country. There really isn’t a good way to know.

Third, governments have placed an emphasis on the global economy for various reasons. You get goods from overseas in many cases because the government has decided that you’ll get those goods for political reasons. A trade pact may require America to buy so many items from China in exchange for some other concession. I’ve written before about the global economy (see Considering the Inefficiency of a Global Economy for details). From my perspective, unless another country truly does own the market for a particular product, using locally grown or produced items makes far more sense and using these local items (even if they cost more) would significantly reduce our global pollution problems, not to mention making the local economy work better.

Whether you agree with me on these issues or not, it’s still a matter of choosing whether you’ll continue to buy products of dubious quality and origin. Besides becoming more self-sufficient, you can take control of your food sources by going to a local farmer’s market or choosing to spend more at smaller stores where the grocer actually does know the source of the food that the store sells. Yes, you’re going to pay more for the food you buy this way and it may not always be convenient to obtain the variety of food that you want, but the food you eat will be higher quality and less susceptible to contamination. When you do encounter a problem with your food, you can actually do something about it.

When is the last time you chose quality over price? Are you spending time thinking about what you eat and whether the food is actually good for you? Let me know at [email protected].