Ideas from the Caribbean.
Water-saving tips1. Wash and rinse dishes in dishpans in sink so water can be carried out to water plants and presoak dirty clothes.
2. If local building codes allow, direct sink drain pipes out over planters or kitchen garden. Drill small holes in underside where water can drip into garden. Use dishpan for soapy water to keep soap away from these garden areas.
3. Set one to three buckets under shower to catch water as you wait for hot water to come. Kick buckets away during soapiest rinsing. Use water to flush toilet, wash diapers, or soak dirty clothes. As people sit on the "throne," they can give the soaking clothes a few pumps with the "for laundry only" plunger in the bucket.
4. Keep a shallow bowl in the kitchen sink to catch water when rinsing foods, hands, and utensils. Dump water into nearby pail to carry out to garden.
5. Use a diversion mechanism on guttering downspouts which might have leaves and excess roof dirt in it to flow one direction, but which flips to divert cleaner water into rain barrel or cistern. (I saw one many years ago, but didn't take careful note of its construction. It's something like a butterfly valve in a carburetor but with the axle off center, I think. Can anyone provide a diagram?)
Colored plastic tags
I use homemade colored and numbered tags in several ways around the homestead. I find lots of aluminum wire scraps under utility poles where linemen drop leftover ends when they service the lines. I shape four-inch lengths into "S" shaped hooks and six-inch lengths into long legged "P" shaped pieces. I cut up plastic into various sizes and shapes such as rectangles, squares, ovals, triangles, circles and semicircles. Bleach, shampoo, margarine and soap containers provide red, yellow, white, blue, green and clear tags. I punch holes with a paper punch. The different shapes and colors can be used like a code, or permanent marking pens can be used to add numbers, names, or letters to the tags. I find the sun fades the writing after several months and some plastic becomes brittle in a few years, but I still use some I made 10 years ago.
I stick the "P" tags in the pots or ground to mark newly seeded areas. I hang the "S" hook tags on rabbit and chicken cages to indicate such things as ready to mate, cull, needs oil in ears, needs toenails (or claws) clipped, needs debeaking, needs less feed, more feed. If I haven't tattooed the bunny ears before I remove the young from the doe, I hang tags with the same number on their cage as on hers until I have time to label the cage or tattoo ears to keep track of who is from whom.
Warning! Animals like to peck or nibble at new items on their cages. Use soft enough wire that you can crimp it with your fingers or hang tags out of reach of animals or you might find tags on the ground and wonder if they fell straight down or bounced to another location.
Another use is on plants, indicating attention needed such as pruning, composting, grafting, insect control, and transplanting. I hang a variety of colors and shapes in convenient places so I can reach them in a hurry when they are needed. I sometimes put two tags together, one for the indicated item and a red one meaning priority or urgent.
Too many rats and mice?
1. Using small mesh heavy gauge cage wire, I fashioned a live trap with sloped door loosely hinged with three wire circles at one end. The rodent can push in through the closed door, but I usually prop the door open about half an inch with a match stick that falls when the animal squeezes in. I use a jar lid with a little oatmeal or chicken feed in it for bait at the far end. A few pieces at the doorway might help to lead the animal to the door.
After the trap has an occupant, I push a stiff wire or stick through from side to side just above the bottom of the door to keep it closed and use a weight to keep the cage down in a tub or bucket of water for a few minutes. If that method doesn't suit, one might try to put the cage into a plastic bag and attach it to the exhaust pipe of a car for carbon monoxide treatment.
I originally made the cage just big enough so a piece of 4 x 4 fits in through the door and keeps the rat at the far end of the cage. In this way just a small amount of water in a bucket is needed. However, one time I caught a mouse which managed to squeeze out between the 4 x 4 and the cage.
2. In a tall five-gallon straight-sided pail or larger drum put some bait. To a board across the top tie a rope so it hangs down into the center for a short distance. The rodent jumps down into the bucket from the rope, but can't jump back up and out (so they say). Someone suggested putting a few inches of water in the pail and tying the bait onto a floating board. The rodents have a harder time jumping up out of the water than when they push off of the solid floor. One will have to figure out what to do with the critters found in the bottom of the pail the next morning.
3. A dry mixture of flour and cement can be located where pets and children cannot reach it. They say when the cement reaches moisture internally, the digestive system gets clogged up and the animal dies. The problem I have with this or other rodent death-producing agents, is that they don't always die in a convenient place for me to find them -- under frig, behind stove, in cupboard. I'd rather find them in a snap trap or live trap so I know where they are.
This reminds me of the man who blew out eggs, dried the shells, filled them with dry cement and glued over the holes to kill egg-eating snakes. He said a snake cannot regurgitate an unwanted object once it has swallowed it.
4. A couple of tips on snap traps. I use sewing thread to wap around bait. When the animal chews and tugs at the thread, there is a better chance for the trigger to be depressed.
I also put a little bait between the vertical part of the trigger and the spring. When the animal reaches in there it pushes the trigger in the proper direction. By flashlight, I've watched a mouse come up to a trap and steal the bait off the trigger without springing the trap. I tie a string or fishline to the staple holding the wire at one end of the snap trap and tie the other end to a chair leg, brick, or something heavy to prevent the trap from being pulled out of sight by a caught but not killed animal.
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| Title Annotation: | homesteading tips |
|---|---|
| Author: | Baumgardner, Gayle |
| Publication: | Countryside & Small Stock Journal |
| Date: | Jul 1, 1994 |
| Words: | 1199 |
| Previous Article: | The "heart" of homesteading. |
| Next Article: | Homesteading in the shadow of the Washington-Baltimore metropolis. |
| Topics: | |