As we continue to develop a sustainable lifestyle out in the woods, miles from any kind of town, having some chickens around has been sounding more and more appealing. Chickens could help us with many things; eggs and meat to feed us and our dog, and to sell; feathers for tying fishing flies for sale; manure for the garden, orchard, and pasture; garden bed tilling; fly population control; and understanding of and appreciation for life. In return we can give them protection from predators (except for the humane kind); sustainable population control; well balanced, natural diet; warm, dry, draft-free, super-spacious coop; varies, interesting, fenced outdoor landscape to explore; about 3/4 of an acre of pasture to forage, with possible excursions to other parts of the land; care for illness; and lots of love.

The basic idea is to give the chickens a mobile coop which can be moved between the garden and the chicken yard, depending on the season and how worn out the ground in the yard is. The coop and the yard will be in a corner of a 3/4 acre, fenced-in pasture, eventually being protected by dogs and accompanying sheep or goats. During the daylight hours, the birds will spend most of their time in the general pasture. Read the rest of this entry »

Updated: August 20, 2009

As internet security issues continue to be brought to the surface, people who want user accounts on many web sites are being asked to come up with passwords that are more secure. They’re asked to do things like include both letters and numbers, as well as punctuation, to break up some of the logic behind figuring out people’s passwords through systematic guessing and brute force methods. This is great advice, but to me it sounds kind of difficult for the user to follow through with. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m running Unbuntu 9.10, and I ran into a problem recently when I installed the adobe-flashplugin package that I downloaded off of the Adobe web site. The package didn’t install correctly, and because of that, Synaptic Package Manager wouldn’t even open, and simply removing the package via the terminal didn’t work either. No matter what I did, I would always end up with the following error:

E: The package adobe-flashplugin needs to be reinstalled, but I can’t find an archive for it.

It turns out that a lot of people have been having this problem, and it seems to be an issue with the package itself. The package that Adobe provides does not work for many people on Linux, not only that, but it stops up Synaptic until you can manage to remove the corrupt package. After a bit of searching, I found a solution that worked for me: Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I made a worm bin and have begun to raise some worms in it. Specifically, I’m raising red wiggler worms (eisenia fetida). I’m planning on feeding the worms to the chickens (a project that will start in spring of 2010, keep an eye out for the future chicken-blog), compost our kitchen scraps (vermicomposting), fortifying our garden soil with the resulting vermicompost material (worm castings or vermicompost), selling them to the local fishers, and perhaps selling them for vermiculture and vermicomposting purposes.

I made the bin by digging a square hole in the ground, about 18 inches deep (down to the clay where the moles don’t burrow), and about four and a half feet square. The walls of the hole were then lined with plastic bread trays that used to be in a bread delivery truck. The trays were tied together with plastic zip-ties. Next, I built a wooden frame on the ground surrounding the hole, and attached a piece of plywood on top of it with a few hinges. Finally, I added some 2″x4″ framing to the top side of the plywood to support some corrugated metal roofing at a slant so that it sheds rainwater quickly. 2 1/2″ and 3″ star-drive outdoor wood screws were used to fasten everything together. The roof-door is so heavy that there will be no problem keeping out rodents looking for food scraps. I will post some pictures soon so you can see exactly what I did. Read the rest of this entry »

There is no such thing as the definitive whole wheat bread recipe, but here is an interpretation that is easy to make.

1. Mix together 1 tbsp. of dry active baking yeast, 1 1/2 tbsp. sugar, and 2 1/3 cups water into a large bowl. Allow the bowl to set in a warm place for about fifteen minutes, or until the liquid appears bubbly or foamy.
2. Mix in 4 cups of flour (about 100 strokes or so will do). Allow the bowl to set in a warm place for about half an hour, or until the dough sponge has expanded a bit. Put a moist towel over the bowl when setting it in a warm place, that way the contents of the bowl will lose less moisture.
3. Mix in 2 cups of flour, and knead until consistent, adding up to another half cup of flour to make the dough smooth and stretch. Lightly coat both top and bottom of the dough with flour. Allow the bowl to set in a warm place for about 45 minutes to an hour, or until the dough has doubled in size. Thoroughly grease a bread pan while you’re waiting.
4. Punch down dough, place it into a greased bread pan. Set pan in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size.
5. Bake the dough at 375°F for 45 to 55 minutes. Remove the bread to a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy!

Kombucha tea is a sweet tea infusion that is fermented with a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY). This beverage has a wide range of reported health benefits, and has been used to aid digestion, reduce or stop acid reflux, eliminate “morning breath”, improve quality of bowel movements, reduce or eliminate sick feelings from drinking alcohol. Best of all, though, it’s delicious and can be prepared in many ways. Many people, including myself, find that when it is made with black tea, its flavour and texsture are similar to sparkling apple cider. You will need to get a kombucha SCOBY to make your own kombucha tea. If you ask around, you’ll probably find someone who would just love to pass one on to you with a little kombucha tea to inoculate your first batch. Otherwise, check craigslist, do a google search, etc. So, here is how to make your first batch, and continue brewing more… Read the rest of this entry »