Hi - My Name is Elizabeth And I am Addicted to Books

I should never go to a bookstore without a chaperone to make sure things don't get out of hand.  I adore books and magazines are nearly impossible for me to walk away from if they are about paper arts.  They are my guilty pleasure.  

This Wordpress book was particularly appealing since it was 8 in 1 and about 750 pages.   I have been working on moving this blog over to Wordpress and actually have quite a bit of it done.   If you get a minute go to atinyhomestead.com  and let me know what you think.   I was sure I wanted to move the blog but I'm finding I've become attached to Blogger and am not so sure anymore.   It's just so easy compared to Wordpress. 

I know it's been confusing to some people because they are trying to get here and they forget to add blogspot to the url and end up there which is atinyhomestead but not quite.   

It was a wonderful afternoon in a bookstore with a cinnamon hazelnut coffee and arms full of books to browse through.   I can't remember the last time I did this but it was an indulgence thoroughly enjoyed.

Elizabeth

It's a Homestead Hop!

Your Invited!


I'm having a homestead hop and I'm cordially inviting you to join in!  

To join all you need do is enter your best homestead related blog post of the past 2 weeks below.  It can be any thing to do with your homestead; animals, recipes, gardening, tips, crafts, whatever.   Just as long as it's on topic for homesteading rural or urban.   Entries will be open for 2  weeks.  

It's always fun to find new blogs to go visit and what a great way to get your blog more exposure and visitors and maybe make some new friends along the way.

Hope you'll join in!

Elizabeth

Ps.....there is also another Barn hop going on  Here

It looks to be a good one too!

Cattle Panel Structures and Snow Loads

Of all the posts I've done, the one that gets the most hits daily is the cattle panel greenhouse I built.  The next most popular post is about the cattle panel barn.   The other day I was on a forum and there was a discussion in progress about my cattle panel greenhouse and the question being debated was how much snow load could it stand.   Its a excellent question.

Over the years of homesteading I've built a number of structures with cattle panels.  They are easy up and easy down, wallet friendly and they serve the purpose of sheltering whatever it is your needing sheltered.   I've used them open ended for hay and for summer animal shelter.   I've used them for year round shelters with the ends closed up to house goats, pigs and chickens.  I've built the greenhouse which is meant to be a permanent  structure.  I love them and can't say enough good about cattle panel structures.  For animals worm loads in the ground around barns is a given but you can move these barns.  Maybe not yearly but every few years you can relocate them to fresh ground and leave the ground around where it was previously located.  In a few years you can again use that land to relocate your animals to after mother nature has had time to get the parasite load back down.  And with goats these parasites can literally be a killer.  

Still cattle panel structures have their share of problems.   Snow load being the biggest one unless you build it with that in mind.   You can see in the picture above what the weight of this little buckling is 

doing to this shelter.   Just the slightest build up of wet snow would do it in.    This one is very weak because it wasn't built like so many are with t-posts on the sides.   I used 4 x 4's for the base and attached the cattle panels on the bottom to it.   This makes for a very weak structure because it's only stable at the very bottom.  

This one here was my first one.  It was built with t-posts on the outside and I later added the ties to the front to hold in the bedding since we use deep bedding in winter.   It also had a cattle panel across the back which added more stability.   Even so one winter it started to collapse.   I normally go out every hour or so all night and day in a snow storm to brush them off.    This time it was either wetter snow or  I let it go a little longer.  It was 1/2 way down with about 6" of snow.  Maybe 4".   It wasn't tons to be sure.   The one the buckling is on above wouldn't have even been able to bear that.   

We got through it with a few 2 x 4's.   One along the roof and the others vertically to hold it up.  I worried of course the goats would hit them and knock them down but they didn't and we made it through the storm.

      

  

In these two pictures of the greenhouse you can see on the left it's leaning without even a tarp on it because it's only attached at the wood base.  I needed to add a board to hold it upright until I could add a crossboard.    And if they bend as the one in the brown covered one did it's going to be tough to fix.  These obviously aren't going to hold much snow.

On the other hand, once I added this support to the greenhouse I've gone through many storms, a few that really dropped a lot without having to do anything at all.  Of course this is Virginia.  If I were in Minnesota I would probably add 2 more boards going the length of it were the 3 cross boards are now.    And as it stands now the 3 boards going across the width of it hit the panels so its solid.  I don't worry about having to stay up all night to go shake or sweep this off.   

When I first started with cattle panel structures I thought I wouldn't mind when we got the occasional storm having to be up all night doing that but trust me....it gets old fast.    Still, if your in a pinch you can get by without support structure but only if you keep brushing it off.   All night long.  Sigh. 

I know some of you out there are using these.  Please if you have a better way share it with us.   I would love to have someone do a guest post on their way.  Or just add it to comments. I promise, it will get seen here.   This subject generates  1/2 the hits to this site.  We only get better by sharing.

Next I want to talk about weatherizing them for the animals so if you are already doing this share that too.

Elizabeth

Posts on building with cattle panels:

Building a Cattle Panel Barn
Building a Permanent Greenhouse with Cattle Panels

Cool Treats

Chia Tea Slushies

2 Chia Teabags

1 1/2 cups of hot water

4 heaping tablespoons of sugar

2 large trays of ice or 3 smaller ones

Put teabags in water.  Steep 3 -5 minutes.  Add sugar. Stir until dissolved.  Put in freezer for 15 minutes.   Add all the ice and cold tea to blender and blend until smooth.  Stir as often as needed.

Enjoy!

This is also great with green tea.  Have a different flavor tea that's your favorite?  Try it instead. We also make Chia and green tea ice creams.  We just adjust the number of tea bags and sugar to compensate for the lack of dilution from the ice cubes.  Yum! 

Elizabeth

Frugal Friday's Gone to the Dogs

This week I devoted my attention to my dogs.  Last week was my tenant and next week will be goats. 

 I buy Coolero beds every year and they never last.  They are suppose to be reusable so if your dog eats the cloth covering you can just replace the cover but my experience is that the screws lock up with rust from being outside and they have to be tossed when the cover is no longer any good.  

A few months ago while trying to find an alternative for the Coolero beds I came across a video on You Tube made by the Columbus Dog Club showing how to make pvc dog beds.   It looked so easy I decided to make some.   I had some old shade material I hadn't used in a while and decided to use that for my cover so all I had to buy was the pvc,  fittings and screws.   I had dreaded sewing the covers and this appealed because it had no sewing involved.  I don't mind sewing but the material the indoor outdoor beds are covered in is difficult for me.

This was so easy.  Cut 1" pvc with hacksaw.  2 sides were cut at 35.5 and 2 sides were 25.5.  The legs were 6".  Put it all together and hammer it a bit to make sure the fittings are snug.

Lay it upside down on the cover material.

Screw it on.   It did take two of us to screw it on.  To keep it tight one screwed  while the other one held it tight.  The screws were the kind that had a washer like head to hold the material.  I will probably double the shade cloth on the rest because dogs nails will go through it fairly quickly but they did with the Coolero too.   I got a few done but want to make a few more.

The ones I bought cost about $35 each and these were about $12.   And if you wanted to buy Coolero covers and make your own frames you could and it would still save about $12 ea.   I buy about 10 cooleros a year....we have a lot of dogs, so this is worth it to me, and the pvc is reusable.  The dogs really do use them, especially in spring and fall when the ground gets cooler.  They are house dogs but in nice weather they stay out a lot more and when they are out they really do appreciate their beds.

I also made them a bunch of dog toys.   Malia had an old Dora blanket she wasn't using and we started using it for the dogs as bedding.  Being dogs, it eventually got chewed up and pretty much full of holes.   I took it and cut all the shredded parts off.   Put the pieces that were still good on a sheet I had gotten at Goodwill for a couple of dollars.  I pinned them together and then cut out the sheet with the blanket,  and sewed them together.  I zigzag stitched it all over for added strength and double zigzagged the seams.   I put in 2 squeakers, added some poly fill and finished stitching them up.

Just need to turn it inside out, add the squeakers, fill and finish sewing up which sounds like a lot but it's about 10 min. maybe.

Normally I spend at least $100 on stuffed dog toys every summer.  They tear them apart within hours leaving me with a mess of polyfill to pick up.   The ones I made are still going strong and I mostly used repurposed things.    The squeakers weren't expensive and the polyfill was about $5. and I have some left over.  I didn't care what they looked like although they weren't bad looking.   I could make the dogs do without to be really frugal but I think there's a happy medium.  They love the toys and I feel good reusing things rather than spending money and buying more poorly made items that end up like badly made childrens things....in the yard broken for you to clean up.  The quality is better and the cost is nominal.  Win/Win.

Somebody help me remember the saying..... Use it up, wear it out or do without???  Is that it?   I love it.

Elizabeth