What did you do in the garden today?

[TJAnonymous]

thank you for idea. there is a place with a few horses near my new place. I already wanted to take their manure for my garden, especially for strawberries. but horse manure for heating is a great idea.

If you make the burn blocks, the key is to use plain white paper or newspaper. Don't use colored or glossy paper from magazines, advertisements, etc. Those colored inks contain toxic chemicals.

 

[Ascholten]

Not anymore.

Using dehumidifiers for residential water production is not even remotely economically viable. Even forgetting the cost of the equipment, a good rule of thumb for the energy requirement for a consumer-level dehumidifier to extract/condense water from the air in a relatively dry desert climate is about 1 kWh / liter, which translates to about 3.785 kWh / gallon of water produced. Even here in TX where our average residential electricity rates are below the national average they're currently running at around $0.145 / kWh, which means that JUST the electricity to run the dehumidifiers would cost ~$0.55 / gallon of water produced. That's a very, very expensive way to get water, especially when you add in all of the equipment purchase, maintenance and other costs.

Even if you used a solar installation to run things the electricity is still not free. The best estimates I've seen for a high sunshine area is something like $0.08 / kWh produced by the system. While better, that's still a hair over $0.30 / gallon. It would be FAR cheaper to just bury a tank in the ground and have potable water trucked in.

DParker, the dehumidifyer for water is only if you got tons of electric. Right now, this time of year, I am totally off grid, I pretty much met my max that i can sell back to the power company for the year, so rather than waste / not use the electric i just use it to make water / with the dehumidifiers with.

also, with that, I was also more and I should have been clearer about it, your AC puts out water, USE that water, you already 'paid for it' so use it

I did not comment on having water trucked in because I have no clue what that would cost, but in that case if it is eco, then absolutely do it, but I believe the OP said they are going to collect rainwater too.

If you really must, run two systems. Pure Pot, and NonPot but clean. You drink the absolutely pure water, the rain water, etc, cook with it if you are heating /hence purifying, and do laundry with.

one other thing I do, which I don't give a rats ass how stingy people say I am. Laundry I rinse it twice in the machine. One rinse is NEVER enough, go look at what comes out of your 'rinse' cycle and you'll never just rinse once again. Anyways, I collect the rinse water from the machine and if it's first rinse, it is used to flush the toilets with, and water stuff. if it's second rinse, if I got another load to do, it fills the machine up for the second load, if no second load, is used as well for flushing / floor cleaning / watering etc.

My geek - nerd boy - laundrymat.

I have a fancy schmancy washer, I wanted the agitator less ones so I can do bet covers and HUGE loads, I have a heat pump dryer, and I have a heat pump hot water heater.

Do laundry, throw laundry in dryer, while it dries, it DOES produce external heat, it has to, it can't help itself, so instead of wasting that heat, or in the summer, having it all go into the house and make the AC work harder etc. When I turn the dryer on, I also turn on the heat pump water heater, so the heat that comes out of the dryer, goes right back into the hot water, its reused and keeps it out of the house. BTW the water that comes out of it can be used for laundry too. I am also looking into a reuse system so I can reheat laundry reuse water. I have a tilapia pond which will need someheat input in the winter months, so this hot water heater via a heat exchanger will also be used to heat that water somewhat too. and ass tons cheaper than burning thru a heating element.

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

A cat can be caught in a stay alive trap fairly easy. put a stinky can of cat food in there. catch it and be rid of it. If only the cat would leave the chickens alone and just go after rats and stuff, some farms DO have cats and chickens on them and they get along. maybe something good will work out for you so yours wold do the same?

aaron

 

[Elyrian1]

Our cats and chickens get along fairly well the few times I've let the chickens out, but our cats are also fairly well-fed. They have taken out a few mice and pigeons (aka flying rats).

The property we're buying gets on average 14" of rain a year, same as where we are now. We are planning on using the entire roof for water capture into a multi-thousand gallon storage system. That way even if the well-water isn't drinkable without treatment, we're fine. Roof caught water wouldn't need nearly as much filtration, certainly not RO. We are also building in such a way that if we need to go back in and, say... add mini splits to be comfortable when it's 110F out... we have the space and ability to do just that. We also plan on putting in a wood stove, not just for heating in the winter, but also in any sort of instance where we would want to cook with it. Should have close to a lifetime supply of mesquite, lol.

It is going to be a learning experience, an experiment, and a hopefully a fun journey. Keep in mind we already live in an RV, so first step is setting up hookups for the RV and a covered place to park it in order to get out there. House build is not being rushed! But y'all raise good points and make me think and look stuff up and double check things, and I appreciate you all.

Naturally everyone we've talked to so far thinks we're totally nuts. First, because we want to live that far from town, and second, because of what we're planning to build. Most people out here plop a mobile home and call it good, but we do get these things called tornadoes... even in the desert... And straight winds in excess of 60mph are not uncommon tornadoes aside. A mobile home or unsheltered RV is just a sitting duck in my eyes.

(Aaron, I also regularly use an extra rinse on the washing machine, I find it keeps the machine from stinking. I also regularly set it to wash with nothing in it but a laundry pod on the highest heat setting.)

 

[Ascholten]

Cooking stoves, there are plenty of companies that sell full blown ovens / stoves for cooking and heating the house on that just burn wood. Ive looked into this and often times toyed with the idea of building a big room addition to the house, call it my 1800's house or something and it's just a big kitchen with the wood oven / stove, and old time back in the days stuff.. for cooking. I really do need a bigger kitchen as it is now, or at least storage for all my cooking toys. Some of these ovens have hearths, pot burners??? everything on them and are really nice! TBH an ole fashioned pot belly stove like you used to see in train stations with a burner plate on top would suit me fine too. If i went the 'wood oven' route, to be honest id probably build a big pizza oven outside. that of course would cook other stuff too but...

Roof water you would think would be clean but bird poop among other things can cause you BIG problems, hence the need to sterilize it, or if you are in a hurry a cap of bleach works too. If you did dig a well, even if was a slow pump well with a few gallons per hour, those hours add up. You can also build a cheap filtration with sand / charcoal etc to get the big bugaboos out and then just heat or uv/O3 to kill the critters and no seeums in the water.

Aaron

 

[TJAnonymous]

A cat can be caught in a stay alive trap fairly easy. put a stinky can of cat food in there. catch it and be rid of it. If only the cat would leave the chickens alone and just go after rats and stuff, some farms DO have cats and chickens on them and they get along. maybe something good will work out for you so yours wold do the same?

aaron

Yeah, I'd love to have barn cats but I worry about them attacking baby chicks.

Speaking of attacks, had a hawk attack this morning. I shot off bottle rockets to scare it away. Half expected cops to show up because we are in a fire hazard warning. I picked up the debris to ensure no fires. Anyway the hawk appears to have absconded with a baby chick as my mama hen is missing one. At least it was a rooster chick and not one of the very cute female chicks.

 

[Ascholten]

OMG, the one girl, for some reason her cluck changed ! Especially when she gets excited, like the egg song or a hawk or something. Its like the back end of it flipped upside down and when she clucks / cackles now it sounds like a giant hiccup. Its like buckbuck buck bugeekook it's hilarious. Unfortunately they tend to stop making a ruckus when I come out but man I gotta figure out a way to record this cluck. it's just too funny.

I just went out to water and one of the stupid tomatos, didn't do a thing all year but NOW its got fruit on it... we got time till frost but im not sure if it'll make it, Ill probably have to try to hide it from them and. well, in general from bugs and other stuff too.... stupid thing.

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

Sorry to hear of the hawk. Unfortunately now that it knows theres a lot of them there, I can almost bet it WILL be back. snares are successful... ill leave it at that.

Aaron

 

[TJAnonymous]

Sorry to hear of the hawk. Unfortunately now that it knows theres a lot of them there, I can almost bet it WILL be back. snares are successful... ill leave it at that.

Aaron

I'm leaving the dogs outside today... Hoping to dissuade any thoughts of it returning. Unfortunately the chickens are free ranging today though. No possibility of getting them back in the run until dusk so we'll just have to take our chances. Between the hawks, coons, foxes, snakes, and cats, it's AMAZING that I haven't lost more. This has been the worst year for predators

 

[Ascholten]

can you kind of throw some treats and lure them back into the pen that way? mine that works about 90 percent of the time.

Aaron