Preserving the Skills and Wisdom of those that came before us and got things done
Author: Nick-LaDieu
Webmaster of SaveOurSkills.com. Budding skill enthusiast and modern survivalist.
When nick isn't plotting his next project he is probably running with his dogs, riding his mountain bike, or fiddling with his home theater.
Today’s podcast is a quick homestead update. I tell you about my plans for chickens and ask for a bit of help, we talk about some consideration when using maple for growing shiitake and finally I ask you very nicely to rate me in itunes.
I also remind you that I’m busy making plans for SOS 2.0 and thesurvivalchannel.com (so forgive the slow down in posts)
After that I have included a copy of Craig Cole’s podcast. He interviewed me about my climb up mt. Rainier.
If you are into fishing, hunting, kayaking, biking, climbing, etc then consider listening to the theoutdoorpodcast.com
I had a few minor things I wanted to let you guys know about and figured one post would be best.
Chickens!!
After talking to some trusted friends in the homesteading community they all seemed to think that I could keep bees, quadruple the size of my garden, run a podcast, hold down a job, stay married, have my first son and also start a new chicken coup. That sounds like something a sane person would do right?
I’m just nuts enough to give it a go. I’ve decided after much deliberation to build a chicken tractor and research more into making a paddock system later. Now it is GO time so I need to bust some serious but to get this coup built. I think I have more than enough scrap wood. Stay tuned for my mis-adventures!!!
Shiitake Mushrooms
If you are planning to grow your own shiitake mushrooms please do yourself a favor and give Joe and Mary Ellen from fieldforest.net a call first. I called them to discuss my maple tree and found out that the type of spore I get will be dependent on the specific maple variety. In fact in the podcast I mentioned that you would want a wide range spore, however for red maple you would want a heat loving variety and use the wide range for a sugar maple. Joel also recommended to me the specific strains he would use for my situation and gave me advice in regards to placing the logs on my property.
The time to order your spore is now as they said they get backed up in april when most people (myself included) will be inoculating. You can keep your spore ready once you get it by putting it into the refrigerator.
The Outdoor Podcast
I love the outdoors, and I think most people reading this blog share that sentiment. I’m going to be recording a podcast tonight with Craig from http://www.theoutdoorpodcast.com.
The biggest challenge, at least for me, with gardening is preserving the harvest. It makes me sick to think of the amount of food I have let go to waste through not having these skills. Root cellaring is something I am looking at hard as it is a no impact way to store food. It uses the earth to maintain the freshness of the crops stored within.
Idea #1
Bury a 5 gallon bucket and cover it with a straw bale.
I’m going into promo mode here, to support a really great guy putting out an awesome product. Since I am a Food Security Knowledge Pack subscriber I’ve already gotten my copy of Jason’s new ebook and I want to share with you how you can get yours!
Jason Akers over at the self sufficient gardener has just released a new eBook entitled “The Process Oriented Gardener” which is an 8MB 80+ page book which cuts to the chase and gives you the straight story on getting things done in the garden. No hype or hoopla just essential gardening knowledge such as
For those of you who don’t know the food security knowledge pack is a crazy cheap package of information that Jason has put together. You get a novel of homesteading information about hunting, fishing, gardening, permaculture and more along with years worth of audio content that Jason has produced.
After 3/16/2011 the process oriented gardener will only be sold separately for $7.99
Click Here and purchase a copy of the Food Security Knowledge Pack and Jason will personally email you an exclusive download link to get your copy of “The Process Oriented Gardener”
First off, I realize this post isn’t for everyone. This is for a few people who have emailed me recently to ask how to setup a podcast. I keep getting this question over and over again so I figured I would write a blog post about it and the next time someone asks I’ll send them to this link.
I’ll recommend 2 solutions here. Please feel free to chime in with your own solutions. There are so many ways you can set this up, don’t think these are the only 2 ways.
Assuming your already blogging with WordPress there are a variety of plug-ins you can use to setup your podcast. For the Save Our Skills Podcast I use PodPress. I learned about this from Jack over at TSP
If you want to know how to get WordPress up and running on your website please check out this link and video.
Setting this up is a fairly simple process. First just go into wordpress admin area and go to plug-ins. Search for podpress and install the plugin.
Next watch this video for a tutorial on how to use PodPress. Please note he uses FTP to install the plugin which will work but is not necessary. You can install the plugin right in wordpress
In PodPress it lists your RSS feed. This step is VERY important. If you want to see stats on your feed and know how many subscribers you have you need to “burn” your feed using feedburner. So just go here and login with your gmail account or go and setup a new account. Once you log in just paste in the feed from podpress and select “burn”. Then you use your feedburner feed to give out on your website and also to submit to itunes. Then anyone that subscribes to your podcast will be counted in your feedburner stats. Don’t skip this step or you will regret it!
If you have been following me on Facebook you’ll know that I just recently completed 90% of my top bar hive construction. I was going to wait to post this until I had made the lid and attached the IPM screen (integrated pest management), however I have been getting tons of emails on where I got my plans and asking for dimensions etc.
First of all you can get the plans as a free PDF download.
I had hoped to keep this project under $20 so I could beat Jason Akers price on his $20 top bar bee hive. It was about 9:30pm last night when I remembered that I needed some 3″ bolts for the legs and tractor supply was already closed so I had to pay a premium for bolts or wait until the next day. Being a true american I wanted my bolts and wanted them now. So that combined with the cost of 2 pressure treated 2x4s for the legs pushed me to $21, and I had a nice dissertation on frivolous spending to post on the self sufficient gardener facebook page.
I’ve got a few notes on construction
I used some old shelves that were very hard and very old and about 1.3″ thick. If I had to use new lumber I would glue and screw 2 3/4″ pine panels together. I do see a lot of people are using 3/4″ wood for the sides of their top bar hives, however I have read a lot of posts saying that the thicker walls are much better for the bees. Having 2 together would give you 1.5″ walls and that would be a lot better for the bees in my well researched but inexperienced opinion.
I am using 2 different sizes for brood and honey bars. The brood bars are 1 1/4″ and the honey bars are 1 1/2″.
In the video I ripped a 1/8 strip off a board for use on the top bars… the simpler way to accomplish this is to purchase Popsicle sticks at a craft store
I followed Phil’s angles for attaching the legs, HOWEVER he used a different sized piece of wood for the legs, this forced me to have to notch the end of one of my 2x4s in order to make it fit at the angle I had committed to since the 2x4s I was using are wider than the boards he used in the plans. (I had already drilled the holes when I realized it)… if you want to use 2x4s then I would suggest making the angle a bit less steep. Maybe measure in 4″… do a dry fit first to ensure that it is correct. However it was easy enough to notch it and it will work just fine, although not looking as nice as it could it is no less structurally sound.
If you want the skinny on Tob bar hives (TBH, in this case it is a KTBH… K being Kenya) you have to join the forums over at BioBess.com
If you end up over there my username is SaveOurSkills (oddly enough)
So I used Phils plans in combination with an excellent How to series from a gentlman named Dave on youtube. Here is a link to his channel and you should subscribe to it.
I also filmed my experiences building the top bar hive and decided that the internet had room for one more “how to build a top bar hive” video. I like to think that I approached a few of the construction elements a bit simpler than Dave, or at the very least in a way that made sense to me and maybe it will make sense to someone else out there. Without further ado…
