Can You Be Too Thrifty?

Big Ideas, DIY

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Friday my son said, “Can we please get rid of this rag? I think it’s done.” It was a rhetorical question. He just asked for a laugh because the kids love to poke fun at my really weird sense of economy. I cut up old Henley shirts as “floor rags” but I spent a very “not thrifty” amount setting up our chickens. It looks crazy to the family to spend so much money and time on chickens when you can get a dozen eggs at Dollar General for about a dollar or organically feed ‘free range’ (free range my foot) eggs for about $6. My husband and kids see these things through an economic lens and sense of time scarcity.

I see these decisions through a wastefulness and supply chain lens. A 2003 Fast Company article claimed that the US spends more on buying trash bags than many countries spend in a year. Even though that claim is under scrutiny, I still resist buying trash bags (my husband will sneak them into the house because he despises how reusing grocery bags often leads to leaks on the floor). I returned the diaper genie from my first child’s baby shower and stuffed empty tissue boxes with Wal-Mart bags. I felt somehow more virtuous for tying up each full disposable diaper in a plastic shopping bag. Ah, baby-steps. It wasn’t until my last child was having difficulty potty training that I considered escaping disposable diapers. An English friend loaned me her supply of cloth diapers and walked me through the process of how to deal with them. That was when I began considering going past the ‘recycle’ trap, past the ‘reuse’ virtue and into the ‘reduce’ freedom. [By the way, no judgment here if you are using disposable diapers…surviving those years is hard.] Using cloth diapers for my last child in his last months of potty training was too late to make a huge difference in the diaper years, but I can tell you this: It certainly sped-up potty training!

As a side-note, if you are struggling to get your little one to get serious about the potty, having a wet, heavy cloth diaper makes a world of difference. I also can’t recommend enough the top potty chair used in England. It is so hard for a child to kick over, there are no little crevices for stuff to get stuck in and it lacks any interesting elements that would make it fun to play with. In England you can get one for a British Pound, roughly how we think of a dollar. They are harder to find in America, but there is this one.

Full disclosure: I gave birth to my last child in England and suddenly found myself with three children age 3 and under. All this recycling, with real glass glasses for kids, standing in front of the trash area separating out all the elements, while one child is frantic to nurse and another child trying desperately to hold it so you can walk him into the ladies room….oh, that was hard. I thought I would loose my mind trying to survive among all this enlightenment! However, now I can see I was dealing with too many learning curves at once.

Living in England for a few years gave me the opportunity to watch how historic castles and large manors are managed by families who take their legacy seriously. Though you will see recycle bins there, you won’t see them over-flowing. If you dine on the grounds you will be served on stoneware and you will drink from an actual glass. By not creating the trash in the first place, they head the problem off at the pass. You will also see bins that break recycling apart from composting. Many properties will quickly put organics (paper or food scraps for example) into their own compost system so it can be broken down to serve their immense gardens. In other words, instead of paying people to haul all the garbage away and then paying someone else to haul in fresh soils and fertilizers they have their customers separate everything for them and use what they can on-site. I also saw this type of sorting system in a Denver, Colorado chain restaurant in 2016, so it is spreading to the U.S.

So, how does England tie into these pitiful floor rags? I can’t place my hand at the moment on which book it was, but one of the gardening books I read decades ago showed a British man standing atop his 6′ tall compost bin at his Manor home. The caption noted that this Aristocrat made sure to compost everything on his property, even cutting the buttons off his old shirts before throwing them into the pile. I thought, ‘Surely you could find something to do with the Lord of the Manor’s dress shirt before it ends up compost?’ His point was taken though…everything is a resource. You paid for it. Get every bit of good out of it you can.

So, what makes it easier to close the loop? How do the British make it look posh instead of poverty-ridden? After reading several books such as this and this and lots of experimenting I have come to the conclusion that:

#1 – Buy quality clothing that actually fits even after it’s been washed. It’s taken me hitting mid-40 to plunk down the extra money to get ‘Tall’ sizes from a brand I trust instead of only hitting the clearance rack. Not buying cheaply constructed clothing (known as ‘Fast Fashion’) saves time and money in the long run considering how many more times you can/will wear it and that you don’t have to waste time shopping/searching for clothes that fit.

#2 – Try to use each resource for it’s highest and most valuable purpose. It makes more sense to donate clothing that someone would actually want. You can only use so many floor-rags.

There is actually a market for natural fiber cloth scraps that the charity shops sell/donate to. It’s called Textile Recycling. Do the volunteers a favor and bundle that all together and label the bag to save them time.

#3 – Only cotton or blends with very little poly in them actually work as cleaning rags. Every type of old shirt and sweat pants have been experimented with. Even if you have the patience to deal with a non-absorbent rag it’s not worth frustrating your kids and spouse if you want them to do their chores without complaining (I should say…’even more complaining’).

#4 – I will feel smugly virtuous if I can take a shirt from years of wearing through floor rag and into compost bin. It’s a vanity, but these days I will take whatever prideful indulgence I can find.

#5 – It’s not my job to save the world. Thinking that way stresses me out and puts me at the mercy of needing to please other people. I won’t be bullied into someone else’s concept of ‘green’ when my core value is to ‘not be wasteful’. I just want to be like those heirs of the manor who take care of their own backyard. And you have every right to pursue what resonates with your core value; it is likely different than mine.

This last one means I just need a plan for my stuff. The sheer volume of our ‘stuff’ overwhelms me pretty fast, so to give myself some breathing room I have a place to keep things for every stage. Britain has influenced me here by making all those stages behind closed doors or somehow hidden so my thrift doesn’t become an embarrassment. I used to take off all the bands, seams and square up the rags so the kids couldn’t tell it came from a shirt. After 3 washes the rag has no shape anyway. The teens just want the tags removed and no ‘tighty whities’ because that would be too embarrassing. We also struggle with socks because they work great, but it never stops looking like a sock…..too embarrassing for kids!

I’ve got several hiding places and even got the saw out and made a real mess of our old first generation ‘Pull Out’ trash can system that didn’t have a recycle compartment. I’ve just left my recycling under the sink and now I have a composting compartment! I even put hubby’s collected coffee grounds in there so I can put them directly into the garden soil instead of cycling them through the compost bin. This has required a bit of work to set up, but day-to-day it is oddly satisfying to swipe juice off the floor with a soft floor rag from my college pull-over or put a tissue into the composting can. Probably something a little wrong with me.

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The Best Backyard Chicken Book

Chickens, Featured Favorites, Worth The Money

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This is the best ‘chicken fancier’ book I’ve ever read. Harvey has written a book that reads like a life’s work. He hasn’t held anything back for a sequel, he hasn’t added fluff to stretch the content. Decades of experience come pouring out as he offers his experiments, failures and lucky discoveries. Even though Harvey gives detailed step-by-step instructions and photos on how to properly cull a chicken, he has a deep appreciation of his ‘choks’ and relays stories like a proud pet owner.

One of my favorite stories is when he talks about “Hope, Supermama Extraordinaire” p.267. I had never heard that hens were willing to be a ‘foster parent’. Harvey shows a kind-hearted practicality when he points out that broody hens may be just as valuable if not more if they are excellent mothers. By holding onto these matriarchs of the yard, we greatly reduce the amount of work involved in bringing home a box of baby chicks from the store. Having an actual mother there with them also increases their chances of survival…there is a reason ‘Mama Hen’ is a cliche. It is not advised to take store-bought baby chicks outside for even short playtimes until weeks down the road when they have some feathers, but chicks with a mom will be outside on the first or second day. A mother hen has a body temperature of over 100 degrees, so baby chicks can run out and explore and then back to mom to warm up. Besides keeping them alive, a mama hen is also teaching them valuable adult chicken skills like foraging on the expert level…not just OCD scratching at the ground.

My other favorite quip from the book concerns the unusual devotion of Old English Game cocks (roosters) p.275. They display ‘Family Man’ tendencies more likely to show up in geese. His affection for the Old English Game breed is a recurring theme, but he is a practical man who realizes that most of us start our flocks at the local farm store. You can’t even get Old English Game fowl from most hatcheries, besides the expense of rare and exotic breeds. It is a delight to see all the different breeds in his book, but the big value he brings that area is his perspective of why you might want one breed over another. He explains what you should consider based on your needs, he doesn’t just tell you what to do.

Harvey’s property sports many different types of coops as he experiments and rotates his choks around to nourish the soil. I find myself drawn to his “Chicken Hilton” which is the rich benefactor of careful design, attention to detail and restrained use of color to show a splash ofstyle. The other structures in the book are not as much a delight to the eye, but he does include several photos of other options complete with building instructions. If you pull one of these out you will appreciate his practicality again because he has reduced the number of cuts and waste while standardizing the proportions to make it as easy as possible to build a innovative structure.

Harvey doesn’t just keep chickens. He includes information about turkeys, ducks and geese for the more advanced “Flockster” who wants to branch out. Having raised geese as a child, I don’t have any intention of dealing with water fowl again. It is a small portion of the book, mostly there to show how you can intermingle your flock…which is against the grain of most chicken keeping books. If we were to move to a homestead with numerous low-quality ponds I might change my mind and pull the book out to figure out how to make it work. Probably won’t find that content (intermingling) in any other book.

Saved the best for last! Harvey spends a great amount of time talking about how to raise your flock self-sufficiently. Can I take a break here and recommend that if you get the book to get a paper version, not a Kindle? If you are unable to get an Internet connection or your phone’s battery is dead and you need to harvest a rooster are you going to just guess? It doesn’t have to be this book, but this book is excellent in every regard.

Have you ever idealized the dream of a flock being somewhat self-sufficient in feeding? Harvey’s grandmother allowed her layers to roam her entire 100-acre farm and they foraged for nearly all their own food. I won’t be doing that, but that idea of ‘closing the loop’ is a big motivator for wanting chickens. My in-sink food disposal never gets used anymore. I grab every carrot peel, apple core, crushed egg shell and leftover glob of oatmeal. They all go to the coop as ‘chicken snacks’. My feed bill is less than $6/month but Harvey could take it to $0. I’m inspired.

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Protecting Hens From Hawks With (Some) Style

Build, Chickens, DIY, Featured Favorites, Worth The Money

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This is the system we now use to keep the hens safe. I hope to find something even more pleasing to the eye, but this is a big upgrade. I bought the most attractive budget greenhouse that I believe could hold up to the Northern snows we get, set up just the FRAME, and spread bird netting over it. As the winter really sets in and the wind gets brutal the plan is to put the green house cover on and provide our hens a nice sunny play area…but best laid plans sometimes collapse. We’ll see what happens.

I’ve been obsessed with greenhouses for decades and own several portable versions in my basement that have never been out of the box (don’t tell my long-suffering hubby). I finally came across some designs that are scalable, portable and can stand up to the harsh winds and heavy snows we get here. I bought the building tools to make my own, but with a broken leg and approaching winter I had to compromise quickly for something that was a full kit complete with plastic cover and light enough I could move by myself. I was lucky to find a smaller and lighter version that kept the basic design that I have fallen in love with.

I made a change to the kit that was an important element of the more robust design I hope to build in the future….putting the “Ridge Board” (the long bar that goes along the roof peak) on TOP of the sidewall/rafters instead of under them. The idea is to give that extra little lift to the plastic so the snow will slide off. Again, I’ll let you know how that pans out this winter. This also gives an instant boost to the look of the frame. Instead of the ‘fast food sunroom’ look, it nudges the appearance a tiny bit closer to ‘Victorian Arch’.

This isn’t the first incarnation of this idea though. I had no idea I would even have to worry about this. When we moved the chickens from the garage to back yard they were fully feathered but still rather small and skittish. They were afraid of their own shadow the first day and wouldn’t come out of the coop to enjoy the yard unless a human stood out there with them. It was quite endearing. After two days of the young chickens being in the backyard we started hearing a hawk nearby. Even without a mother hen to teach them, the chickens instinctively went silent and scampered inside the coop. I quickly ordered some hawk netting and just spread it over the coop and tacked down the edges.

Just throwing the net over everything worked, but it was really hard to navigate. The kids found it to be a huge hassle to wrestle when they wanted to get eggs or hang out with the chickens. Then I built this ugly thing in my backyard. It’s an eyesore, but I’m not ashamed because I was just desperately trying to find something to keep them safe. You can see how much excess netting I have gathered at the edges of the play area. I wanted to figure out what would work for us and then make/get a good looking version later.

We like to be able to move the structure around so the scratching hens don’t kill hubby’s grass…but I really don’t know if that’s avoidable. With the little chunnel (chicken tunnel) made of chicken wire we are able to get the chicken yard away from the coop so netting isn’t catching on everything. That was a pain in the neck before, and didn’t allow me to move the chicken yard very far from the coop so that chickens could get fresh grass.

The chunnel was crazy easy too…just chicken wire stapled to the coop door and the greenhouse stakes that came with my greenhouse kit holding the edges down. I’m going to test all this out this winter. I’ll let you know how it turns out. I think there could be an even more attractive option out there. But if I have to choose between something looking good and something working right, I will always choose what works right and spray paint it black!

Just a note if you want to get some netting….I found choosing very confusing. There is a wide range of quality out there. You can pick up some ultra cheap ‘garden netting’ that might get you through a year depending on what kind of weather and predators you face, by the time you get just two of these small nets, you could have purchased much larger and more robust’ hawk netting‘. The ‘hawk netting’ I originally purchased is much heavier than the ‘bird netting’ I’m now using in the subdivision. It was much more expensive than the ‘bird netting’ or ‘garden netting’ and should last many, many years. The bird netting I’m using already has several holes torn in it but mostly disappears from sight to create a more pleasing view. I like both and will continue to use the hawk netting out at the farm and the bird netting here in the suburbs. For the farm Hawk netting, each opening is knotted…it’s kind of impressively heavy because it is 50’x 50′. Way bigger than what I really need here in the Suburbs, but should be perfect at the farm. At 10M x 10M (about 30 feet by 30 feet) it is still a little more than I need, but maybe I’ll be glad for the extra bit later on. It calls itself heavyweight which is hilarious compared to the Hawk net which shows huge knots tied at each connection point. Holes have formed where the net caught on the greenhouse frame or where it was kicked by a snow boot at below freezing temperatures. By the way, neither of these will stop a racoon or opossum, this is just for discouraging a hawk.

Brass Egg™ participates in affiliate marketing programs. As An Amazon Associate I Earn From Qualifying Purchases At No Extra Cost To You Learn more. Brass Egg™ of Russell Holdings Group, LLC 2021. All content ©2021 Russell Illinois Holdings, LLC. All Rights Reserved.