I am about half way through Back to Basics, by Abigial R Gehring,
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I've enjoyed what I've read so far. Like Mini-Farming, this book provides an introduction to a number of skills, but does not cover everything you need to know to practice the skill. Back to Basics provides a whole lot more information on each topic than mini-farming did. It also has a good resources list at the end of most of the skills where you can get the detailed information you'd want to actually practice the skill. I've been surprised every few pages to discover that I am still interested--though I anticipate this will not continue when I get to the section on outdoor recreation (camping...).
For this review, I'll list the topics that are discussed and my reactions to them.
- Buying country property: Gehring points out many characteristics to look for when purchasing land that I hadn't previously thought of. The first that surprised me was the importance of having a wood lot on your land. Other things that I had previously considered including, soil quality and access to water, are also discussed, and techniques are provided for determining these things. For example, there are plants that, if present, indicate the relative location of a source of water. She also discusses surveying the land.
- Living there: The sections encompassed in my description of "living there" include preparing the site, designing a home, converting wood into lumber, and three different home construction techniques--log homes, adobe homes, and stone homes. I was fascinated with the different construction techniques (less so with adobe than the other two). I was surprised by the thought that people would actually convert their own trees into lumber. I discovered that someone I work with actually does this--he has a portable lumber mill that he takes to the trees he cuts down and saws them into boards so he can easily take them to his wood shed to dry. I investigated the mills and found that they start around $7,000 and go up. I also was surprised to learn that you can buy log home kits. Companies will deliver all the logs, precut, for you to assemble a home. These are not just little log cabins, but can be as large as 6,000 sq ft homes. I was concerned about insulating a log home and learned that the thermal mass the logs provide actually works pretty well at keeping good indoor temperatures---though they don't seem to be as good as if you had a passive house. I also enjoyed reading about the different methods used in log home construction. For stone homes, I was surprised to learn that the basic idea of the slipform method is to take a couple of frames, fill them with rocks and then pour concrete over the rocks. Once the concrete has setup within the first frame, but not fully cured, you pull the frame off, move it up higher on the wall (above the second frame) and repeat. By doing this, you can build a solid "rock" wall by leap froging frames every day or say until your wall is as tall as you need it to be.
- Other living stuff: She then goes on to talk about raising a barn (using old techniques), developing a water supply, hot tubs and saunas (I thought this was a little odd), and waste disposal (like toilets and outhouses). These were interesting, but didn't stimulate a whole lot of thought for me. The water supply had a few "drilling" techniques that I had not heard of, and the idea of creating a pond is pretty neat to me.
- Heating your home: I was very interested in fireplace construction and wood burning stoves. The two sections are separate in the book and I've been pretty well convinced that I'd rather use wood burning stoves and a fireplace. I researched them, and it looks you can expect to spend $1000 for a stove and maybe a little more depending on what you'd need to do to get the exhaust pipe through the roof. One of the points they make is that the radiant heat from a stove and fireplace is more pleasant than forced air furnaces. I had never thought of that before, but it seems like I agree with it. I like to stand in front of a fireplace to get warm much more than I like to stand in front of an air vent.
- Fences: I didn't know there was such a variety of fences, and that there is such a variety because they all are used for different types of things.
The whole next section was on Energy from wood, water, wind, and sun.
- She discusses a few techniques for better insulating a home as well as some information in home planning for lower energy usage. She also discusses underground homes.
- Waterpower: I didn't know that you could build single family hydroelectric power "plants". With as small as a few feet of vertical drop across your land, and a small stream, you can produce a lot of the power needs of your home. There are lots of options, but, it appears, the hardest part of the process is dealing with the local government who might prohibit you from using the water--because of how it affects people downstream or the environment. She talks about the different options, the basics of how you would damn up your water, and how a small plant would be layed out.
- Windpower: This section surprised me at how little power it seems you can really get from wind. A chart that she provides shows that with an average wind speed of 8 mph, a 10,000 W generator, using 12 foot blades (24 feet in diameter for the turbine), you would only get 370 kilowatt-hours per month. Not only is the output small, but to get a good windspeed, you need to have a high tower.
- Solarpower: I was reminded that there are a lot of ways to make use of solar power--water heaters, green houses, photovoltaic (electrical production), solar ovens, and passive home heating. She provides a fairly detailed description of the construction of a solar water heating system.
- Other energy sources: Finally, she talks a little about people power--using pedals to power things, methane producing bacteria, and alcohol production (she doesn't go into detail on this, apparently because it's extremely regulated by the federal government and because it takes a lot of effort to do well).
Her next section is on gardening. I don't remember anything really jumping out at me in this section. A lot of what she discusses is stuff I've read elsewhere. She includes a discussion on soil quality and improvement, composting, seed starting, seed sprouting for food, green houses, and a brief description of both common and uncommon vegetables that people in the US grow. She also discusses watering, growing gardens in containers, herb gardens, and fruit and nut trees. She has a few descriptions of non-chemical methods for combating pests including some traps that look interesting. I haven't read much about raising grain, straw and hay, so her sections on that were valuable for me.
Perhaps my favorite portion of this section was the few pages on bee keeping. For some reason, raising bees is very appealing to me. I will add some of the books in her resources list my list of books to read. Did you know a single hive can produce 30-60lbs of honey per year? That's so cool! And, they don't require a lot of care--simply ensure they don't get to hot or too cold and that they have enough food during the winter and enough space all the time. At least, that's what I remember. I'll learn more later.
The funnies thing to me was the idea of raising your own fish--in a tank or pond in the back yard. She went so far as to say that you could raise fish for food in your children's wading pool. Does that seem funny to anyone else? Apparently, fish produce the best protein for the amount of food they consume of any animal. Too bad they are gross.
I also enjoyed the section on raising livestock. She covered chickens, geese, ducks, rabbits, pigs, sheep, goats, cows, and horses. I keep wondering how people could really slaughter a 1,000 lb pig. I mean, how do you move it once it's dead? I'm sure you have some sort of system with chains, hooks, and pulleys to get it off the ground. One of my books lists the tools you need for slaughtering, so perhaps it will go into more detail.
And, that's where I stopped. I'll discuss the rest of the book once I've finished it. My overall recommendation is that if this stuff is interesting to you, this is a good book to read. After I'm done the with books I have now, I'll use this book to generate a list of other topics I'd like to research. If you've read this whole post, you might as well read the book...
