Rain, rain, and more rain

If you live in the Midwest, you know that we're in the midst of perhaps the wettest spring in a long long time.  I speak to farmer after farmer who exclaims: "I've never seen anything like this."  

I suspect that, in the great scheme of things, and if we dig back in to the annals  of history, that we'd find that this year hasn't been all that unusual.  Regardless, it has farmers squirming.  

That being said, it seems to reinforce something I've been reading a lot about over the last year, and it has to do with the notion of rotational grazing and permaculture.  

To put it simply, wet years like this don't mesh we'll with modern agriculture, which emphasizes tillage and annual crops.  Even with the advent if no-till practices, which require lots of chemicals, wet years like this make large scale farming difficult and stressful when the business model for such farming assumes that Mother Nature will afford optimal weather and a lengthy growing season.

I suspect that in years like this, those that  farm with rotational grazing are least affected.  I think the same can be said of last year, which was extraordinarily dry.  Whether these extreme weather patterns are simply natural anomalies or evidence of climate change, it seems like the solution in either situation is to return to agriculture focused on permaculture and grazing.  One of the leading experts on this subject is Joel Salatin at Polyface Farms.  http://www.polyfacefarms.com/

I'd also encourage you to watch this video that deals with grazing as the solution, not the cause, to desertification.  

http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html?source=facebook#.UbdhQV24lah.facebook

Here at the homestead, we're still learning as we go.  Maybe the biggest bright spot in this wet stretch has been that the plums and cherries we planted, plus the strawberries and blackberries we transplanted, are doing great.  

You may also recall that last year we set up some of our garden beds with black plastic for our melons and pumpkins/squash.  One benefit this year is that we simply rotated everything, leaving the plastic undisturbed.  There's been no weeding or tilling and we simply planted back into the hills we formed last year with composted manure.

I'll try to be better about posting, but here are some pics from the last month.

Life without plumbing

While our homestead project and cabin is unconventional in many ways, undoubtedly the one that gets the most attention from people is the fact that we don't have running water.  (As a side note, my wife was willing to forego electricity too if necessary, but quite frankly that's too extreme for me.  I find it much easier to get along without running water than electricity.)

Whether we like it or not, water is simply a necessity of life, and we use it for everything: drinking, bathing, washing clothes, washing dishes, cooking, irrigation, pets/livestock, etc. In this country we've come to assume that we have unlimited quantities of potable water.  And even if we do, it's no reason to waste it.

Having running water and indoor sewer is a significant expense.  From the cost of a well, to the cost of plumbing, to the sewer system, to the property taxes and homeowner's insurance, there are tremendous expenses associated with the luxury...yes, I refer to it as a luxury...of being able to turn on a faucet for water, and the ability to flush all our waste down a drain.

Anyway, for a variety of reasons, we ended up without running water or sewer.  Hence, I had to come up with a way to make water and waste disposal as feasible and affordable as possible.

TOILET

We do not have an indoor toilet.  I have an outhouse permit, but the outhouse is not yet installed.  Instead, we rotate 5 gallon buckets with special toilet seats that sit on top.  It may not be the most appealing sight, but it beats going out to the outhouse every time you need to use the toilet.  When full, the bucket is dumped in a special compost pile.  In the spring, we used the bucket with the "yellow" water to drip around the strawberry and raspberry plants, which were being ravaged by the deer until other green things started growing in the fields for them to eat.  You can also install a composting toilet, and there are also designs for worm composting boxes for indoors in which you defecate and add your table scraps for compost.

Bucket toilet with plastic seat.

 

HOUSEHOLD WATER

Our water currently comes in the house in 7 gallon containers.  I built a special stand to set the jugs on over the sink we have in the bathroom.  Waste water drains through the slop slink and in to a bucket below, which I dump outside.  NOTE: it's a good idea to have a catch tub in which you set the bucket underneath the sink.  Today I failed to check to see if the bucket was full and dumped in the morning dish water, which promptly flowed all over the floor.

Eventually I hope to set up a larger water container inside the cabin.  I have a 100 gallon tank with spigot that I think will work better.  For now, because I don't have a good source of on-site water, it works best to carry the water from town in the 7 gallon containers.  I soon hope to have gutters catching our rainwater and supplement with the old well we have on our property, after I set up a proper filtration system.

Water stand with storage space for 2 extra bottles underneath

Deep sinks makes it easier to fill large pots with water.  Eventually I'll probably add a separate container with a spigot in which to hold some hot warm water for washing hands throughout the day and getting wash cloths wet for changing the baby's diapers.

 

Water drains through the sink and in to the bucket below.  NOTE: I'm going to add a plastic tray under the bucket to catch water if you accidentally overflow the bucket.

 

Before building, I studied the building regulations carefully and had numerous conversation with my building inspector and the local authorities regarding what I could and could not do with respect to plumbing and waste disposal.  Basically, if you haul your water in, and dump in in a sink that drains in to a bucket, you're fine.  You can then dump your water out the back door.  But the minute you put in any kind of indoor plumbing, you have to have a sanitation system.  In other words, no gray water lines. 

Because of this, there's no real practical way to heat water other than to pour it in a pot and heat it on the stove.  In the winter, we use our wood cookstove to heat water, which has a water jacket that connects to the back of the stove.  Because we heat our water the old fashion way, I strongly suggest that you use a gas range, preferably one with a large burner, as it will make water heating go much quicker.  You'd actually be surprised at how quickly you can heat up a pot of water on a good gas range.  Then you just pour or scoop it out for doing dishes and taking showers, which will be described below.

Our water heater.  The lower right burner is a dual fuel burner and the center of the stove has a large volume burner which will also work great for canning.

SHOWER:

Believe it or not we have a shower--kind of.  Showering is a much more efficient way to bathe than a bath tub.  We have a camp shower bag that we full with warm water and hang inside the shower stall from the ceiling.  When we shower, we quickly rinse off, then stop the water flow.  After we lather up with soap and shampoo, we turn the water back on and  rinse off.  

The shower is built on a base of 2x8's with plywood on top.  One side is open, and through the opening, I slide a narrow tray (something less than 7 inches tall and hopefully 4 gallons or bigger.)  Water drains through the shower drain and in to the catch basin.  After each shower, I simply slide the pan out and dump the water outside.  It's important to make sure the amount of water on the shower bag is not more than the capacity of your catch pan or it will obviously overflow.  I actually use an oil changing pan, which is nice because it has a handle and spout for easy transportation and dumping. 

This shower method is not going to replace the "hotel" shower, but you'd be surprised at how good of a job it does.  We've gotten a method in place where I get up in the morning and I heat up a large pot of water.  I use this to do the morning dishes and fill the water bag for my shower and my wife's shower.  (we can get two showers out of a full bag).  For the kids, we shower them a few times per week in the evening and can usually do the 4 oldest kids on one bag if we stay and monitor the showering.

Off the grid bathroom

Self-standing shower

 

Shower bag hangs from ceiling

Water catch pan slides under shower platform

LAUNDRY

Right now, we do laundry in town at a house my parents own.  Since my wife is already in town every day to take the kids to school, it's not really a big problem.  We have a nice front loading washing machine at the house that we use and then hang up the clothes on drying racks at the cabin.  I hope to have the new clothes line installed soon.

We do have a wringer washing machine that we had to use for a few months last year when we moved in to the house at town.  But, it uses a lot of water, so as long as we're hauling water, it's not a very economical option.  Once I get the rainwater catch system up and running, it might become more feasible.

Another option that I'm researching is whether our front loading washer will work if I simply install a basin of water on top of the washing machine and hook up the water hoses to the bottom of the basin.  This will only work if the washing machine doesn't require a certain amount of water pressure on the hoses, but rather will simply allow gravity feeding.  The front loader does not take much water, so if I can make this work, I believe I can just fill the basis when I want to do a load of laundry and then have the hose drain the waste water in to a bucket next to the washing machine.  If I can make this work, this will make life on the land much, much easier, and hopefully keep the local authorities happy, as I don't think this will constitute plumbing such that I have to install the septic.  I'll keep you posted.

Plastic mulch

In my past posts, you've seen me describe our use of black plastic on our gardens.  We continue to experiment with it.

Last year we used black plastic on our strawberry bed to try and deal with the main challenge with strawberries--keeping them weeded and keeping the runners from choking them out.  The plastic also helps increase the heat in the spring, so we've found the crop matures more quickly on plastic.

One trouble we has last year, though, was keeping the strawberries watered with the drought.  Because the plants tended to be higher than other parts of the plastic, and we try to cut only a hold big enough to get the plant stuck in the dirt, it was hard to focus our watering on the plants without the water running away from the plant to low spots on the plastic.

Accordingly, this year we've decided to try something a little different.  Before putting the plastic down, we tried to create shallow furrows the length of each row and then plant the plants right a long side the furrows.  We don't want the plants in the bottom of the furrow, lest they drown, but yet close enough so that they can soak up the moisture that settles to the furrow and drains through the holes we poke in the plastic with a fork.  We'll see if this becomes a problem if we have a very wet year.

To do this, I first go around the bed with my rotary plow to create a ditch and kick the dirt to the outside.  It works best if you mow the grass (if you have grass walkways, like us) nice and short, as it will make it easier raking the dirt back on to the plastic.  I then tilled the soil, then went back and forth with my rotary plow to create gradual furrows the length of the patch.  We then went with the rake to level things out a little.  You want a light furrow, but nothing too deep. 

We then laid the plastic out, setting it down first into one of the trenches on the outside of the bed, raked soil over the edge to fill in the trench, and then pulled the plastic sort of tight across the bed.  We then worked from the side that we had buried the first side of plastic and gradually put a small amount of sand in the trench, working across the patch.  This keeps the plastic tight as you work across.  Once done, you trim the edge of the plastic to fit and rake the soil back over all edges of the soil. 

Once done, you need to take a pitch fork or some other device and poke quite a few small holes around the plastic to allow moisture to soak in.  Finally, we cut small "x"s in the plastic parallel to each of the shallow furrows, transplanted the strawberries, and watered.

Using rotary plow to make a trench around the outside of the patch, throwing the soil to the outside.  If you don't have a rotary plow, you can use either a spade, or till deeply and use a hoe or shovel to pull out the soil.

The furrow completed around the outside of the patch.

I'm now tilling the inside of the bed

Using the rotary plow to create the furrows in the tilled soil.  Note: you can do this with a hoe as well--it will just take longer.  Also, I made the mistake of running in both directions, which created every other hill bigger than the others.  Next time, I'll run the rotary plow in one direction, and then turn around and start again from the other end.  To mark my rows, I used a spacer and stuck in stakes for me to follow.  My son walked ahead and pulled out the stakes for me.

Finished bed with the furrows.  I then leveled them slightly with a rake so the furrows were not so deep.

I'm sorry I didn't take pictures of installing the plastic.  We did it quickly one night and all hands were needed.  You san see the sand laid down each furrow and then I use a fork to poke holes in the plastic.  Water can soak in, but generally the weeds can't grow out through the holes.  The few that do you just have to pull out.

Finished bed after planting.  On the opposite end of the bed I'll probably put tomatoes or additional strawberries.  There are over 250 plants in this bed.

This is our nursery bed, where I let the plants send out runners.  I'll probably let them fill out again this year with runners and transplant or sell more next year.  But, you have to stay ahead of the weeds!

Where art though Spring?

Like most of the Midwest, we are anxiously waiting for Spring to arrive. It seems like we've been dealing with mud and snow and firewood forever. Finally, things really felt like spring this weekend.

Deer love strawberries. If there's one thing I've learned since starting homesteading is that deer love strawberries...the leaves, to be more exact. Last year it took me awhile to realize what was gobbling our strawberry plants--right down to the ground. Our crop really suffered until I got an electric fence up. Unfortunately, because I stopped running the fencer over winter, the deer got used to going over or through the fence. After adding another strand failed, I resorted to using some heavy chain link gates and corn crib panels, which seems to be doing the trick.

I also got the dead tops from the asparagus cut off, and a couple days later the new shoots came through. Here's some recent pics.

I Kant do this anymore!

The move to the homestead has gone relatively smoothly, but it seems to have been the most challenging for our 3 year old, who says "I can't do this anymore" to absolutely everything that bothers him, whether it's his new bed, or picking up his clothes, or eating his lunch, etc.  This is largely his age and temperament at work, but I'm sure the move has been hard for him because it's something new.

I studied philosophy in college, and it really wasn't until I was in lawschool and practicing as an attorney that I started to understand some of those things that made absolutely no sense to me in school. Oh if only I could go back and re-take some of those tests!

One of the philosophers I couldn't understand was Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher from the 1700s.  But one nugget I think I understood was his ethical concept of universability, which basically says for an action to be moral, it must be possible for every person to permissibly perform the action.

One of the ideas that has driven me in my adult life, particularly the journey toward homesteading, is to seek a live that can be attained by many, not just an exclusive few.  I've been blessed with a good education and the capacity to make lots of money.  If I was more devoted to my profession as an attorney, I could buy a large farm, build a very nice house, drive new cars, and have many things that most people cannot afford.  But that's not what interests me.  Instead, I'm profoundly interested in finding a way to live that others can follow, whether they're attorneys or doctors or teachers or janitors.  

While I can't say I've been perfect in applying this concept to our journey or our homestead, I think you'll find that most of what we do is fairly basic and straightforward.  Our cabin is built with utility and efficiency as the primary goal, not appearance.  We are a family of 7 (so far) in a small home by most standards, but a home that can easily be built by most anyone if they have the desire to work hard.

I hope that the things that we continue to do will prove helpful to others that feel the call to a homesteading way of life, irrespective of our respective vocational or financial situations.  My dream for the future would be to see the landscape dotted with 3-5 acre homesteads, with modest houses, a functional set of outbuildings, large gardens, a small orchard, chickens in the yard, clothes on the line, and children in the yard.

Of stoves and cold

Unlike last year, winter refuses to give up. This morning it was around zero, and well below zero with windchill. What a difference a year makes!

It's actually a blessing that it's cold though, because now that I've insulated the floor, it's a challenge to keep the house COOL with the wood stove running. We're still shopping for gas ranges, so have to cook on the wood stove or crockpot. Hopefully we'll get the gas stove soon.

We also finished (actually my builder finished) the kitchen "cabinets" and I think they turned out real nice. As you can see, we have standard base cabinets, but included a beefy pine breakfast bar and heavy timber shelves rather than traditional wall cabinets.

Living the good life

I know it's been almost a month since my last post, so to bring you up to speed, we've officially moved in. However, that continues to be a work in progress, as was to be expected. As a large family trying to make the leap to a smaller place, we knew we wanted to take our time, so we could figure out what we really need and what we can live without. This process will continue over time as we carefully and honestly evaluate every article of clothing and every kitchen utensil.

So far, the kids love their new home, especially their bedroom. The wood feels so natural and peaceful. Looking out the windows in the early morning light to see our homestead is hard to explain. Heating and cooking with the wood cook stove is such a joy, but we're keeping our eyes open for a good LP gas range to use for cooking during the warmer months.

One thing I learned about our cabin is that you can't leave the floor uninsulated in the winter. I wrongly assumed that I could simply increase the heat of the cook stove and deal with cold floors until summer when it would be much nicer to crawl under the cabin. What I learned is that any spot where a piece of clothing or box or piece of furniture sat, the moisture would condense because of the cold floors and we'd have a wet spot. Not wanting to ruin the new floors, I decided I'd have to insulate. I considered using spray foam, but the cost was going to be 3 times the cost of fiberglass for about the same r-value. Plus, if I ever put in a basement, it would be much easier to pull out fiberglass than the foam. It was a horrible process of crawling around in the mud, but I got the floor insulated with r-25 fiberglass and then put 3/8" plywood under that. The cost was around $700 and well worth it.

I'll try to post more pics in the coming weeks, but here's a picture I took this morning after a fresh snowfall.