Self-sufficiency – Page 9 – John's Random Thoughts and Discussions

Building Larder Shelving

Creating a place to store your canned goods is an essential part of making self-sufficiency work. In Fun is Where You Find It! (Part 3) you see one view of the larder shelving we use to store our canned goods in the basement. The shelving has to be built to withstand the weight of the canned goods without sagging. In addition, you want to be able to support part of someone’s weight when they need to regain their footing. If you are looking for supplies to help with your building project, you may want to visit a trade supplier website similar to Tradefix Direct, where you may be able to find the supplies you need for your building needs.

In order to create our shelving, I played with some wood and actually weighted it down to see when it would sag. I then used those assumptions to start designing the shelving and to feed the numbers into the Sagulator. The maximum amount of sag you should be willing to tolerate is 0.01 inch per foot. You need an engineering margin to ensure the shelves will hold up.

Of course, the problem is getting the numbers the Sagulator requires. A typical quart jar of canned goods filled with a liquid weighs 3 pounds. If you make the shelves 24 inches deep using three 1 × 8 boards and create spans of 25 inches, you can store 42 jars per span for a total weight of 126 pounds. Using #2 Douglas fir, you get a sag of 0.01 inch. You must consider the kind of wood that you’re using as part of your calculation and keep refining the measurements until you obtain a setup that works.

You also need to consider the shelf spacing. It’s important to allow finger spacing between the shelves so that someone can reach all the way into the back to retrieve a jar without problem. After a lot of experimentation, I came up with the following shelf spacing:

8 inches for quart jars stacked one high
10 inches for pint jars stacked two high
16 ¾ inches for 5 gallon buckets and canning equipment

To create our new larder shelving, I started with four 2 × 4 supports tied into the ceiling joists. You absolutely don’t want the shelves falling on you, so make sure you use sturdy screws. I relied on 5-inch heavy decking screws that went completely through both the 2 × 4 support and the joist as shown here.

Make sure you use at least two sturdy screws to hold each framing member for the shelves for each shelf you create. My shelving ended up being 75 inches long, 24 inches deep, and 84 inches high. The shelving arrangement includes one shelf for five gallon buckets, two shelves for quart jars, and three shelves for pint jars as shown here.

Make absolutely certain you keep everything square and level as you build because any deviation will lower the amount of weight the shelving can carry. Each shelf should be tied into every framing member with at least two screws. In this case, that means eight screws per board or 24 screws for each shelf (because there are three 1 × 8 boards used for each shelf).

Because of the shelf heights, you’ll find that you have to insert the screws at an angle. Actually, this is a good way to add the shelving anyway because the screws gain greater purchase in the wood. However, make sure you alternate the direction you screw the screws so that you don’t end up racking the shelving (making it out of square or level). Of course, you may be able to insert the screws at a better angle if you had access to the best crossover ladder that you can find. My friend was telling me about them once, as he is required to use them whilst he is working in a warehouse. They can help you to reach things at a certain height, as well as keeping you safe at the same time, as otherwise, you could face some serious injuries. Even though the ladder is a good idea in this scenario, I think they are primarily used for things at a greater height. So, adjusting is key. Here is how your screw pattern should look.

In this case, the first and third shelves have screws coming in from the right, while the second (center) shelf has them coming in from the left. In the next section, I reversed the direction so that the first and second shelves came in from the left, while the second shelf came in from the right. Alternating directions like this helps make the shelves stronger.

Every shelf should also have a backer board to keep the canned goods from simply falling out the back of the shelf. In this case, I used 1 × 6 boards secured with two screws in each section. The backer boards also provide added strength to the entire unit.

Finally, to keep things from sliding out of either side and to also provide places to put hooks for items we wish to hang, I added end pieces. These end pieces are made from two 1 × 10 and one 1 × 8 boards. Here is how the shelving looked after I finished it (with some items already in place).

When building shelving, make sure you take time to ensure that the shelving will actually hold the items you want to put on it. The essential issue is to control sag so that the shelving doesn’t fail in the long term. Let me know your thoughts about larder shelving at [email protected].

Cleaning Substitute

I’ve received a number of positive comments about the Using a Bleach Substitute post I provided a little over a month ago. The bleach substitute is somewhat potent and there are some negative issues with paracetic acid (although, far fewer than when using bleach). The main reason to use the bleach substitute is as an antibacterial. You use it on surfaces that you must keep bacteria free and are subject to contamination from various sources. The actual amount of paracetic acid in the bleach substitute I provided is quite small, but still, any amount does present hazards, so one of the most commonly asked questions is whether there is an alternative.

You can create a simple relatively non-toxic cleaner using 2 cups of water, 2 tsp of borax, and 2 tsp of white vinegar. However, enough borax (a naturally occurring mineral) will still cause some level of respiratory problems. Theoretically, you could eat enough of it to cause a number of negative symptoms or even cause death, but you’d have to eat quite a lot of it. In fact, borax is used as a food preservative in many countries (albeit, not in the United States). Borax is relatively benign as far as cleaning agents are concerned, but you must still treat it with respect.

This cleaning agent can be kept in a spray bottle beneath the sink because the amount of problematic agents is so small. You’ll find that it does an admirable job of cleaning surfaces and won’t cause any damage to metal surfaces. However, you’ll have to deal with the after effects of the vinegar smell, which does go away relatively fast. Some people recommend using essential oils to control the smell. However, if you add 6 or 7 drops of essential oil to the mixture, it may smell better, but now you have to consider the toxicity of the essential oil. If you choose to add an essential oil, make sure that you obtain a pure oil from a non-toxic source such as peppermint or orange.

Never mix the bleach substitute that I told you about with this cleaning substitute. In fact, mixing cleaners of any sort can cause all sorts of woe (up to and including death). Just as you would never mix bleach with ammonia (the resulting gas will kill you), you shouldn’t mix anything else unless you have a recipe for doing so. Let me know if you have any other questions regarding cleaning substitutes at [email protected].

Get Ready…Get Set…Garden! 2013

This year’s trip to Baraboo for Get Ready…Get Set…Garden! is part of our continuing education. I talked about this particular educational opportunity in last year’s Get Ready…Get Set…Garden! post. The sessions are hosted by the Sauk County UW Extension, which actually puts on a substantial number of events during the year. Our itinerary for this year consisted of container bag gardening techniques, growing small fruits (strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries), and gardening with aches and pains (essentially a session on dealing with accessibility needs for gardeners).

The first session discussed container bag gardening and the advantages it offers over using buckets or over-sized pots to hold your garden on the patio. Every year Rebecca puts together a wonderful salad garden for me. Of special interest are the cherry and salad tomatoes. If I need a snack, I simply go outside, enjoy the flower garden she has put together for me, and munch a few tomatoes-nothing could be better than that. However, we had always wondered whether there might be something more that we could do. This year’s sessions shows that we can. However, instead of using the really expensive gardening bags that the instructor promoted as part of her business, we plan to use feed sacks. They’ll perform the same function and only cost a fraction of the amount (a bag large enough to grow tomatoes costs $22.00 if you go the garden bag route, the same size feed bag is free since we get them as part of buying feed for our animals). I’ll post again sometime later this year to let you know how the garden bags work.

We have also had a lot of problems growing blueberries, despite ensuring the ground is acid enough for them. It turns out that we have been doing a few things wrong-the most important of which is that we haven’t been watering our blueberries enough. It seems that they require almost boggy conditions to grow acceptably. Equipped with our new knowledge, we’re going to give blueberries another try this summer. One of the problems with gardening is that you aren’t likely to get the technique right on the first try, or the second, or the third. There are some people who think gardening is science. Well, that’s partially correct, but it’s also part art. Sometimes you just need to feel your way through a growing experience. The garden is looking great at the minute and I’m currently looking at storage buildings in PA as I need somewhere to store my tools and to put my feet up at the end of a rough day! I’m thinking of putting the building next to my allotment so that it’s looking out onto a nice view. I’m not 100% sure yet though!

Unfortunately, our instructor didn’t arrive for the third session. Someone with the UW Extension did fill in, but I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed because I was really looking forward to getting quite a lot out of this third class. As Rebecca and I get older, it would be nice to know about a few of the things we could do to make our gardening experience better. Even so, I must applaud the UW Extension instructor for getting up and giving an impromptu discussion on a topic that she hadn’t prepared for without any preparation time. To simply get up and start talking would be one thing-to do it exceptionally well given the circumstances is nothing short of amazing. I also plan to post again on some thoughts I garnered on meeting accessibility requirements for gardening.

There are some benighted people who think that education ends when you leave high school or college. Education is a lifelong endeavor. Gaining new knowledge and then turning it into wisdom adds spice and keeps our minds fit. Whether your intellectual love is technical, natural, or in some other realm, take time to embrace it by furthering your education. Let me know your thoughts on continuing education at [email protected].

Using a Bleach Substitute

I have become a label commando in recent years. People actually become quite disturbed waiting for me to finish my latest epic reading of a cleaning product or food label. I read everything, including the list of ingredients when I can find one. More importantly, I look for what’s missing on the label. For example, I’m surprised at how many margarine labels refuse to tell me that they don’t contain any cholesterol. Lest you think this is one of those odd fetish requirements-some fish oil tablets actually contain cholesterol. We pay the extra to buy a product that’s labeled cholesterol free (and yes, it does make a difference when the doctor tests your cholesterol).

So I was taken by surprise recently when I read a bleach label. The stuff should be labeled toxic waste and left go at that. The label told me about the dire consequences of using the product, such as permanent damage to my esophagus. Bleach is also a terrible product to use in a house with a septic system because it kills off all of the helpful bacteria in the septic tank and causes the waste to just sit there (possibly flooding your house with a really smelly mess). However, the part about not putting the empty container in the trash or in the recycle bin is what got me most. Just where was I supposed to dispose of the container? It turns out that you’re supposed to take it to a hazardous waste disposal site, at least that is according to the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulation. A product labeled hazardous waste has no place in my house. (Just consider the fact that many of the foods you buy in the store have been soaked in bleach and you don’t have to think very long about why your food is making you sick.) It made me think about what other hazardous materials around my house needed special disposal procedures and the COSHH meaning regarding these materials.

Of course, country homes require some means of keeping things clean and getting rid of bacteria, just like anyone else does. It turns out that there is a really good solution and it actually works better than bleach. Most importantly, this solution is pretty much harmless to everyone and everything. You fill up two bottles: one with vinegar and another with hydrogen peroxide. Spray a surface first with the vinegar and second with the hydrogen peroxide and you create a really effective cleaning agent called peracetic acid. The point is to keep the two components separate until you actually need to use them in order to gain a highly effective cleaner that’s a whole lot less harmful than bleach.

What impressed me most is that the combination actually works well on carpets as a stain remover. It’s also much more effective than bleach at getting bathroom grout clean and it works especially well on surfaces with small crevices. Some people do mix the two and add water for use in laundry, but keeping the two chemicals separate is the best way to avoid the potentially toxic qualities of the peracetic acid. As with any cleaner, you do want to use this one with care, but it’s frankly a lot better than using bleach. Let me know your thoughts about this interesting cleaning aid at [email protected].

Keeping Things Clean

Not a lot of time is spent in discussing cleanliness in many self-sufficiency texts except to say that it’s important to maintain the cleanliness of the animal enclosures to improve overall animal health and to reap the monetary benefits of doing so. It’s true, keeping the animal enclosures clean does provide these benefits. No matter what sort of animal is in your care, dog, cat, chicken, or rabbit, cleanliness is a requirement if you want to maintain their health. Unhealthy animals are a lot more expensive to keep and you won’t obtain much financial benefit from them.

A few texts will stress that animal cleanliness also produces happier animals. Animals tend not to express happiness or unhappiness in the same way that humans do. However, each of our animals does express happiness or displeasure in specific ways. Anyone can see these emotional conditions if they care to look. Animals do feel things and the need to be clean (after a certain manner) is a characteristic that they have in common with us.

However, I’ve never encountered a text that stresses that animals have a preference for being clean or that they even have the intellectual resources to determine the difference between clean and dirty. Over the years, we’ve worked hard to keep the environment our animals live in as clean as possible. During that time we’ve also noticed that the animals definitely have a desire to be clean and that they do, in fact, have the intelligence to tell the difference.

For example, one rabbit purposely chewed a hole in the side of it’s enclosure to gain access to the middle enclosure of a three rabbit hutch. It was only after I discovered an air leak in the side of the rabbit’s current enclosure and fixed the leak that the rabbit was happy to stay in the enclosure I chose for it. The rabbit was uncomfortable and determined a method for overcoming that discomfort. It’s method of addressing the problem showed a certain level of intelligence.

As another example, in cleaning the chicken’s nest box enclosure, some of the bedding gets tromped down, but is still dry and clean. We fluffed up the bedding and added a bit more to ensure the chickens comfort and to keep the eggs from breaking. Other bedding was soiled, and so we put it into the compost heap to decompose. New bedding was put in the nest boxes that had soiled bedding in them. The chickens unerringly chose the nest boxes with new bedding in which to lay their eggs. Since the chickens were outside in their run and didn’t see which nest boxes received the new bedding, we can only assume that they can smell or somehow see the difference between the new and old bedding. However, it’s important to note that they knew the difference and made a choice to use the new bedding, rather than the old, even though the old bedding is still clean and usable.

We had three cats at one point. One of the cats had become enfeebled due to old age and was sick. The other two cats would refuse to use the potty pan after the sick cat until we cleaned the potty pan up. The odor left behind by the sick cat signaled disease and the other two didn’t want to pick up. Even if the potty pan had just been cleaned, the other two would refuse to go into after the sick cat. The cats made a choice. Keeping your animal’s environment clean is, therefore, more than simply a matter of health or monetary gain. Animals are happier when you keep their environment clean and they do have the intelligence to make choices about their environment, given the chance to do so. That’s why it’s important that a pet carpet cleaner is always on hand for those pets who live inside. If they are sick or have an accident, it’s easy to use a carpet cleaner to just ensure that any stains or odors are removed from the area. This can benefit both owners and animals alike. Animals know when their environment isn’t up to par and you should too. Providing your animals with a clean environment is a responsibility that you should take seriously.

However, it’s also important to remember that animals don’t use human standards of cleanliness. The essentials are to keep the environment clean and comfortable. A rabbit or chicken is unlikely to want, need, or even accept room deodorizer or other human niceties in their environment. In fact, some human niceties (such as scents) are actually detrimental to animal health in some cases. Make sure you take an animal eye view of environment when you setup, maintain, and clean their equipment. Let me know your thoughts on animal environments at [email protected].

Winter Cactus Color

One of the issues that we face living where we do is the bleakness of winter. Yes, it’s just lovely sitting in front of the wood stove soaking in the heat, but the short days and gray skies do take a toll after a while. Even the heartiest of us feels a certain yearning for summer months of long days and warmer climes. However, I personally wouldn’t be without winter because there is too much to see and overall, it’s a pleasant season despite the occasional bout of depression.

Fortunately, there are many ways to combat the fatigue that comes with extended cold and short days. One of the ways in which we do this is to have lots of plants in our home. My office has more than a few. I personally like cactus. They’re easy to care for, have interesting foliage, and the cats definitely don’t like to eat them. A favorite cactus of mine is the Mistletoe Cactus. The foliage really is interesting and it just looks fun. Imagine my surprise when it bloomed for the first time after I owned it for 16 years. It has bloomed again this year, much to my delight.

The interesting thing about my mistletoe cactus is that the blooms are bright yellow, not white like many pictures you see of them. According to the source I read, there are actually 35 varieties of this delightful plant that produce blossoms in white, red, pink, and yes, even yellow. The flowers look almost like they’re made of plastic and it was quite tough to get the picture you see in my post today.

House plants of any sort can help lift your mood. If you find that you have a terrible case of the winter blahs, try getting a flowering plant to care for. A truly interesting plant can take your mind off the weather and can prove to be quite fun. I’ve had this particular plant for over 20 years now and I’ve heard of people who have had theirs for 40 or more years, so I imagine I’ll see it bloom a few more times. What are your favorite winter plants? Let me know at [email protected].

Pros and Cons of Weight Loss

I’ve created two previous posts about my experiences with self-sufficiency as they apply to health benefits: Health Benefits of Self-Sufficiency and Health Benefits of Self-Sufficiency (Part 2). A number of people have read those posts and come away with some ideas that might not reflect the reality of my weight loss or weight loss in general. The five biggest concepts in my weight loss program are:

I never specifically set out to lose weight.
There wasn’t any dieting involved, the weight came off naturally as a result of the techniques I used.
The motivation was to become self-sufficient, which means eating food we grow ourselves.
Growing your own food involves a lot of exercise, but it isn’t the sort of exercise one gets from a gym.
Part of the solution involves getting proper rest and following the cycles of sun availability throughout the year (for example, we get up 2 ½ hours later in the winter than we do in the summer).

It’s important to step back at times and review how a specific set of actions has affected you, which is something I have done as part of this weight loss adventure. The person who crafted the statement, “There is no free lunch.” hit the nail on the head when it comes to weight loss at least in my case. Every weight loss journey is different, especially when people go about different ways of shedding the pounds, but as long as you’re willing to stay committed and motivated throughout this journey, then that’s where it all begins. Whether someone chooses to watch workout videos, visit the gyms three times a week or even stick to programs like the 14 day rapid fat loss plan, finding a suitable routine is what will hopefully make this weight loss journey easier.

Those previous posts stated a lot of benefits for losing weight. Getting rid of my medications, gaining stamina, lowering my blood pressure, controlling my diabetes through diet alone, and increasing my flexibility are all incredibly positive reasons for losing weight. Even though I have no way of proving it, I have probably increased my lifespan and I’ll be able to enjoy more of that lifespan. Just the decrease of pressure on my joints would be worth the loss of weight.

I keep getting asked whether I feel better. People seem disappointed when I tell them no. I actually don’t feel better-I feel different, but not better. When I weighed as much as I did, I was no less happy than I am today. I didn’t walk around constantly sad and I didn’t feel fat. Sure, going through a Houston weight loss regimen would be good for me – it is why people get a phentermine alternative to help their loss, after all – but it wouldn’t change how I feel about myself. A better word would be that I felt robust. The fact of the matter is that I was still quite active, even with all that weight in place. So, I would consider the whole issue of feeling better as a neutral element of weight loss for me.

There are negatives to my weight loss and there are people who seem surprised that I would have any negatives to express. The obvious negative is that I’m not able to eat all of the foods I used to enjoy. I’ve replaced those foods with healthier alternatives. To say that I don’t occasionally eye something that would absolutely trash my body and still feel a desire for it would be absolutely incorrect. I sometimes indulge, just a little, in those old habits, but they’re no longer part of my daily life. The reason is simple-I don’t want to spend my hard earned cash on those products (an answer that many find surprising). I do greatly enjoy my new food choices, but anyone who is honest about the matter of diet will tell you that the old food choices really do retain some level of appeal. I resist those options because they simply cost too much to attract my attention and I’ve grown used to the taste of better alternatives.

An interesting negative, at least for me, is that I can’t stay out in the cold as long as I once did. My body, sans the blubber that used to insulate it, simply doesn’t deal with the cold as well as it did in the past. The fact that I can work faster and that I’ve gained flexibility tends to overcome some of this limitation, but there are times when I would like to stay out longer, but simply can’t because my body won’t allow it. Observing nature is one situation in which I find the lack of durability in the cold to be an issue. I’m also having to be more concerned about the potential for frostbite when I work outside.

My work strategy has had to change. I replaced muscle and weight with flexibility and stamina. A log that I would have easily moved when I weighed more is no longer easy to move. I now have to apply other techniques to move the log and those techniques have to rely on my new fortes. A number of people have wondered why the muscle hasn’t been replaced since my weight stabilized. I don’t have an answer to that question, but I do know I have less muscle now than I once did, despite working hard to increase my muscle mass. I do have the muscle required to perform common tasks. For example, lifting 100 pound sacks of feed doesn’t present any sort of problem.

After talking with my doctor for a while, we decided that I do need to keep a little extra weight on for times when I get sick. I was finding that I would get incredibly weak quite fast when ill after losing weight. When I weighed more, I’d hardly notice any effect from being ill, except the actual illness (such as stuffy nose). The weakness afterward is a new wrinkle that I’m having to deal with. That said, I don’t get sick very often and the amount of extra weight is quite small (about ten pounds). Given the amount of weight that I have lost and the level of activity that I experience, the doctor and I both felt the trade-offs were acceptable.

The point is that any sort of major body change is going to involve choices and consequences. To gain the things that I have through weight loss, I’ve had to accept the consequences. Before you embark on a journey that involves a major body change, make sure you talk with your doctor and do some research. Be aware of the consequences of your actions and make sure you are willing to live with those consequences. Let me know your thoughts on weight loss at [email protected].

Emergency Repairs

A less thrilling part of being self-sufficient is dealing with emergency repairs. They seem to happen far too often, and it depends on what is in need of maintenance. There are some things you can repair yourself, but for others, you may need the help of an expert. For instance, if you want to repair your furnace and you’ve never repaired one before, you may want to search for a service that was ranked for top furnace repair in your local area since there is so much that can go wrong if you don’t repair it properly. However, for this emergency repair story, I’m not talking about a big repair issue, I’m talking about a small one. We use our snow blower to remove snow from our long driveway, as well as create paths to the various animal enclosures. It’s in this second capacity that I encountered problems the other day. The snow blower moved in an unexpected manner while working around the chicken coop and the side of the wheel hit the coop stairs. A small pop sounded, but I didn’t really notice. I did notice a few minutes later when the tire deflated and the snow blower was no longer usable . Emergency repairs are just an unfortunate part of adult life that can affect us in the most random ways. It may be something like your garage door that suddenly becomes faulty, which is not ideal but must be dealt with quickly and efficiently. If this sort of thing happens you’ll want to consult with local garage door technicians in Whitestone, New York. so that your garage can return to full working order as quickly as possible. Nobody wants to keep needing emergency repairs, but you’ll be grateful when you receive them.

Trying to blow the tire up with a hand pump didn’t work because the bead had popped. So, that meant putting the snow blower away and continuing snow removal by hand. Four hours later, I finally completed the task with Rebecca’s help. Nothing provides quite as much exercise as four hours worth of snow shoveling in freezing winds, but we also needed to get to town to fix the flat (as well as perform other tasks).

The snow blower is too large and heavy to get into the Explorer. So the obvious course of action was to get the wheel off and take it to our local repair shop. The only problem was getting the wheel off. The bolt holding the wheel in place is designed to provide a tight fit and proved quite resistant to any effort at removal. Blocking the tire would normally provide enough friction to allow removal of the bolt, but that technique didn’t work in this case because the wheel simply turned within the tire. I finally improvised by attaching a large deep reach c-clamp to the wheel, which blocked the wheel and made it possible to gain purchase on the bolt.

At this point, the bolt wouldn’t move at all and penetrating oil (WD-40) wasn’t helping much. I brought out my persuader-which is a length of pipe that I slip over the end of my socket wrench handle to increase the torque I can apply to the bolt. Actually, it isn’t a pipe in the conventional sense. I saved the torsion bar from our old garage door and have cut it into several pieces that I use for a number of tasks, including persuading bolts. Extending the handle of the socket wrench gives you a physical advantage and makes it easier to remove stubborn bolts, but you have to be careful not to break the sockets as a result of using the pipe. Moreover, fortunately, I have a few torque wrenches similar to these tekton torque wrenches in my automotive tool kit so I was able to carry out this task relatively easily.

Bolt removed, the wheel still wouldn’t come off. The snow blower shaft is keyed and the wheel fits quite tightly. Unfortunately, working with the front of the wheel wouldn’t accomplish anything because the wheel goes on in that direction. The back of the wheel isn’t easily accessed because the snow blower transmission is in the way. In order to gain access to the back of the wheel, I angled a 2 × 2 over the top of the engine and hit it with a mallet. After a few pounds with the mallet on the end of the 2 × 2, I turned the wheel 90 degrees. Each 360 degrees of movement saw me applying a little more WD-40 to the front and back of the wheel shaft. Eventually, the wheel came off.

Getting the wheel fixed was quick and easy. The local repair shop has a compressor and the tire blew back up without problem after applying a sealant to the bead. The tire is back on the snow blower now and the snow blower is ready for use after today’s snowstorm. The point is that you have to think ahead about the potential for emergency repairs and have a strategy in place for dealing with them. Yes, the approach we used was a bit inconvenient and time consuming, but it did work. But, of course, while things like repairing a snow blower can be done by us, other things that may need doing after a snowstorm, like slab foundation repair, should always be done by experts.

What sorts of emergency repairs do you think about when thinking about self-sufficiency? Do you have contingency plans in place to handle your emergencies? Let me know at [email protected].

Unexpected Drought Consequences

I’ve written a number of posts about the effects of global warming from a personal perspective. It does make a difference in how I view the whole issue of global warming. Whether global warming is a matter of cyclic world changes, human interaction, natural sources, or some combination of thereof isn’t the point-the point is that the earth is getting warmer, which is causing changes of various sorts that affect me as a person. Your best way to deal with these changes is to make a list of how they affect you and come up with effective strategies for dealing with them.

This summer saw a drought come to our area. There is more than a little evidence to say that the drought is just another effect of global warming. People focus on droughts during the summer months because crops are affected, grass dies, and the heat becomes oppressive. The television, radio, and newspaper blare pronouncements of impending doom from dawn till dusk each day. However, the winter effects of drought can become even more devastating than those in summer.

Consider the fact that snow acts as an insulating blanket for the earth. It helps retain some of the heat in the deep layers. When there is a lack of snow, frost tends to go further into the ground and cause all sorts of nasty consequences, especially during a heavy freeze. My reason for writing about heavy freezes is that we’re experiencing one here in Wisconsin and I’m concerned about the potential of damage to either my well or septic system. Nothing is quite as exciting as living almost four miles from town and not being able to use any water because your septic system is frozen. Once frozen, you need to call a professional to thaw the system so you can use it again. If your professional is especially busy, you may be waiting for a few days.

The problems of deep frost aren’t limited to the well or septic system. A deeper frost creates more heaving-water freezes and the resulting ice displaces some of the earth underground. The most conspicuous result of heaving is that any pavement on your property buckles and doesn’t last nearly as long as it could. It’s possible to assign an actual dollar amount to the lost longevity of your sidewalks and driveway. The effects can also profoundly affect your house’s foundation.

Heaving also causes myriad other problems for the self-sufficient person. For example, those posts you put in for your grape vines will become misaligned-forcing you to spend time readjusting the cables and possibly damaging the vines. A deep frost can kill tree, vine, and permanent bed plant roots. You’ll also have the pleasure of picking more rocks from the garden come spring because heaving brings them to the surface (despite the perception that they grow there during the winter). I’m also wondering how a deep frost will affect our new chicken coop (despite having put the posts as deeply as we could in the ground, heaving will still have an effect on them).

There is also the direct heating costs to consider. A blanket of snow on your roof acts as additional insulation. When this blanket is removed completely, your house loses more heat. If you do find that you are losing a lot of heat from your roof, you might want to consider looking at some cedar park roofing companies to come and assess for any damage. Of course, there is also a problem when there is too much snow on your roof (causing damage from the weight) and the whole issue of ice dams. Winter is the worst time to be struck with a roofing emergency so if you suspect any signs of damage, you may wish to contact someone at trusted-roofing.com promptly. Although it can be nice to have that extra heat in your home, there are dangers of having a thick layer of snow on your roof. To prevent any future damage, you might want to ask a company (like this roofing austin service) to check that your roof hasn’t become vulnerable after having that layer of snow on it throughout winter.

Drought causes serious problems during the winter as well as the summer. No matter where you live, you have to consider the effects of drought on your property and the structures it supports. What sorts of winter drought effects have you seen in the past? I’ve seen cases of areas with sustained droughts end with torrential rainfall, the issue in this particular case of a friend of mine… I was told their property was drenched by rainfall after searing heat for weeks, the problems they came to face was a pooling of water in places near their home where they’ve never experienced it before, and caused water damage to their basement and foundations. The issue being, their homes’ gutters hadn’t been used in weeks and therefore became clogged with all sorts, because of the heat they had completely forgotten about the gutters. Either way, once they got in touch with a company like this Clean Pro Gutter Cleaning Denver area (Of course it was Colorado!) they had their gutters cleaned out, the pooling of water drained and their properties structure checked over for repairable damage – so in this case, their extreme drought caused them some serious water damage in the coming weeks. This leads me to the question, do you think the increased number of droughts is due to a natural cycle in the earth’s weather pattern or from global warming (or possibly a combination of both)? Write me about your drought observations at [email protected].

Fun is Where You Find It (Part 6)

Part of being self-sufficient is finding ways to enjoy the holidays without spending a lot of money doing it. All of the Fun is Where You Find It posts have one thing in common—they all discuss methods of having a lot of fun during the holidays (even personal holidays) without incurring a lot of debt. The Christmas holidays are often associated with spending boatloads of cash in an effort to get enough glitter to make the day special. Christmas is special all by itself and truly doesn’t require any help from the bank.

Of course, there is the act of decorating both tree and house. Some people have turned what should be a joyful occasion into a chore of extreme drudgery. In fact, I sometimes hear people ask why they should even bother, which misses the point of decorating entirely. Turning the event into a family affair where everyone has a bit of fun with the decorating is the way to have fun without spending much at all. Afterward, you can bask in the glow of a home made cheery and special for the holiday. OK, you do need to buy the tree, unless you like the artificial variety that you can store away each year. Some people prefer artificial trees as they can make less mess than a real Christmas tree, and may last longer. One of our family friends was unsure about which sort of tree to get until she started reading online reviews (like the ones you can find at Buyers Impact) to see if they could help her decide. She eventually went with an artificial tree, but we prefer real ones. It’s a personal preference, some people prefer going out to choose a different tree most years and some prefer to reuse the same one.

One of the ways to have fun is to tell the story behind ornaments as you put them on the tree. We do that each year. Some of our ornaments come from when we were first married and we’ll talk about them in light of our youth and dreams. We have ornaments we bought with pet names on them and putting the ornament on the tree brings the pet to mind. We’ll talk about the pet’s odd behavior or the time he/she turned the tree over. The point is that putting the ornaments on becomes a time of remembrance—a time of telling stories about Christmas past.

Decorating comes with special music (as most of our special events do). For us, listening to Bing Crosby’s White Christmas is an absolute must. Peter, Paul, and Mary’s Holiday Celebration is another favorite. In fact, we have a nice stack of special Christmas music, including a few oddities, such a Jingle Cats, that some would consider more annoying than joyful. The point is that listening to music as you decorate and tell stories is low cost atmosphere that helps keep things jolly.

A celebration isn’t complete without special food and we have ours. After I get the tree set up, put on the lights, and add a few ornaments, it’s off to the kitchen to make oyster stew. I only make this particular kind of oyster stew for our one day of decorating of each year, which means we really look forward to it. The fact that the food is unique to that particular day makes it quite special. I have to admit that I do spend a little more than usual to make my oyster stew, but I checked this year and the items were well under $15.00—far less than we’d spend at the restaurant.

Our all day event costs well under $70.00 and we feel the effects of it during the entire Christmas season. Yes, this is the most expensive Fun is Where You Find It post to date, but even so, given that we keep the tree up until January 6th (Epiphany, the traditional end of the Christmas holiday), the cost per day is quite low (about $1.90 per day this year) and we have a lot of fun doing it. Christmas is a time of sharing, of love, and of renewal. Put the joy back in your Christmas by taking the money back out.

What are ways that you can think of to turn the Christmas holiday chores into fun events? Do you have special keepsake traditions that you share with your family? Let me know your thoughts at [email protected].