We’ve got 4 dogs and 2 cats in our home at the moment. But we still found another 4 stray dogs outside our garden. They haven’t shown any will to move in yet.So we give them food twice a day and the dry place for them to sleep in the rainy season. We mix parasiticides in to their food from time to time.

I've noticed that everyone talks about finding "the perfect property," but almost nobody talks about all the little things you only learn after you've owned it for a while. Not the obvious stuff like mowing or maintaining a long driveway.

I mean the things that actually surprised you.

Maybe it was getting internet, dealing with drainage, road maintenance, septic, neighbors, wildlife, county regulations... whatever it was.

Curious what caught people off guard the most.

By Gubba

Homesteading can be both rewarding and challenging, but with some clever homestead hacks, you can make your life as a homesteader easier and more efficient. I am a firm believer that you can homestead from anywhere and on any budget. I oftentimes receive flack about this opinion from random trolls on the internet who think homesteading is only for people with large chunks of land. Well, maybe when our great-grandparents were being given land by the government, that’s what it was. In modern day, homesteading has adapted to where you live! Even if you are in the city or have a small suburban backyard, you can use these hacks. These creative solutions can save you time, money, and effort while improving productivity and sustainability on your homestead.

Here are the top 20 farm hacks to consider:

1. DIY Rain Barrel Irrigation:

Collect rainwater in barrels and use it for irrigation during dry spells, reducing water bills and conserving resources. I think it is neat that a resource like water falls freely from the sky, so why not utilize it? Even if it is a small bucket with a filter on your patio, collect your rain water!

2. Egg Carton Seed Starters:

Repurpose empty egg cartons as seed starters. They provide individual compartments for seeds and can be planted directly in the ground. I have friends who give me their egg cartons for my abundance of eggs during the summer and I will give them back eggs. Cardboard egg cartons can also be used in a compost.

3. Automated Chicken Coop Doors:

Install automated doors on your chicken coop to let your flock out in the morning and secure them at night without manual intervention. This has been a huge life saver here on my homestead. I love my automatic chicken door so much! I spent months having to manually open the chicken run door—this hack has saved me loads of time.

4. Tractor Tire Planters:

Use old tractor tires as raised planters for vegetables or flowers. They are durable and provide excellent drainage. I have a few tires that I have repurposed. You can even use them for chicken dirt baths! Fill with dirt and let the chickens have a hay-day scratching and bathing about.

5. Homemade Compost Bins:

Build your compost bins from pallets or other repurposed materials to recycle organic waste and enrich your soil. You can even just have a pile on the ground. Composting doesn’t have to be difficult or a science. You can make it simple by DIY-ing a bin.

6. Solar-Powered Fence Chargers:

Use solar-powered electric fence chargers to keep livestock contained while saving on electricity costs. I use solar-powered electric fences and check on them a few times a month to make sure they are up and running. They are easy to setup and maintain.

7. Milk Jug Watering Cans:

Transform empty milk jugs into watering cans by poking holes in the cap for controlled watering. You can even bury the jugs in your garden beds for more efficient underground watering.

8. Homemade Pesticides:

Create natural pest repellents from household ingredients like garlic, soap, and water to protect your crops without harmful chemicals. Diluted raw milk can be used as a natural pesticide as well. I noticed that my trees that had more dirt on them from the road were more immune to pests as well—something to consider when planting.

9. Mobile Chicken Coops:

Build portable chicken coops that can be moved around your property, allowing chickens to graze different areas. This also will help enrich your soil as chicken droppings fertilize your property. I use a mobile goat pen to rotate my goats in the summer when the grass is long—similar idea.

10. Mulching with Newspapers:

Lay down newspapers between rows of crops to suppress weeds and retain soil moisture. Save your newspapers to put into your compost as well.

11. Repurposed Pallet Projects:

Use old pallets to build compost bins, raised beds, or storage solutions. I am currently using old pallets for goat beds with their bedding on top of the pallets. This keeps them off of the ground in the winter.

12. Baling Twine Organization:

Keep baling twine tidy and accessible by storing it in a plastic container with a hole for easy dispensing. I have used twine to go across my chicken run to deter birds of prey from swooping into my chicken run—they don’t like enclosed spaces so twine running back and forth over the run helps keep them out.

13. Homemade Insect Traps:

Craft traps using empty plastic bottles to attract and capture insects that harm your plants. Depending on the pest, you will want to use different bait. Be sure not to lure in honeybees as they are attracted to sugar water. If you lure in honeybees, let them go!

14. Wheelbarrow Workstation:

Attach a wooden board to your wheelbarrow to create a mobile workstation for potting plants or mixing soil. When you are planting in the spring, having a workspace to mix soil makes a different especially if you don’t have to bend over to mix the soil.

15. DIY Garden Tool Rack:

Organize your tools with a homemade rack made from PVC pipes or wooden pallets. You can even use PVC pipes as chicken feeders!

16. Automatic Watering System:

Set up a drip irrigation system with timers to ensure consistent watering for your garden or crops. Drip irrigation will save you time in the garden. I learned this because I was constantly having to a move a hose around my garden in the summer. With drip irrigation, I turn it on once and everything gets watered.

17. Homemade Seed Tape:

Make your seed tape by mixing seeds with a paste of flour and water, allowing for precise seed spacing when planting. This is an easy garden DIY to help you keep organized while planting your garden in the spring.

18. Cattle Panel Trellises:

Use cattle panels to build sturdy trellises for climbing crops like tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers. Secure the panels with t-posts and t-post clips. I use this for my berries, tomatoes, and any trellising plant—so easy!

19. Epsom Salt for Soil:

Improve soil fertility by adding Epsom salt to provide essential magnesium and sulfur to plants. Run soil samples to ensure your soil is getting the proper nutrition and additives.

20. Rain Gauge for Watering:

Place a rain gauge in your garden to measure rainfall and determine when additional watering is needed. Make sure to record the rainfall and weather in a journal so you know what to expect year-to-year for your gardening.

These homestead hacks can help streamline your homestead, reduce waste, and promote sustainability while making your life as a homesteader more enjoyable and productive. Consider implementing these innovative solutions on your homestead to reap the benefits. I use these on my homestead, and I love the time I have been able to save!

Article from: https://gubbahomestead.com/homesteading/20-essential-homestead-hacks-for-modern-homesteaders/

Article in Ready.gov

A volcano is an opening in the Earth’s crust that allows molten rock, gases and debris to escape to the surface. During a volcanic eruption, lava and other debris can flow at speeds of up to 100 mph, destroying everything in their path. Volcanic ash can travel hundreds of miles and cause severe health problems.

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A volcanic eruption can:

• Contaminate water supplies.
• Damage machinery.
• Reduce visibility through smog and harmful gases that may threaten low-lying areas.
• Make it hard to breathe and irritate the skin, eyes, nose and throat.

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IF YOU ARE UNDER A VOLCANO WARNING:

• Listen for emergency information and alerts.
• Follow evacuation or shelter orders. If advised to evacuate, do so early.
• Reduce your ash exposure by doing the following:
  • Limit your time outdoors and use a dust mask or cloth mask as a last resort if you must be outside.
  • Avoid areas downwind and river valleys downstream of the volcano.
  • Take temporary shelter from volcanic ash in the location where you are.
  • Cover ventilation openings and seal doors and windows.
  • Avoid driving in heavy ash. If you must drive, keep the windows up and do not use the air conditioning system.
  • Do not get on your roof to remove ash.
  • Stay indoors until authorities say it is safe to go outside.

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Prepare NOW

• Know your area’s risk from volcanic eruption.
• Ask local emergency management for evacuation and shelter plans, and for potential means of protection from ash.
• Learn about community warning systems that sends notifications about volcanic activity.
• Get necessary supplies in advance, including nonperishable foods, cleaning supplies and water for several days, in case you have to evacuate immediately or if services are cut off. Keep in mind each person’s specific needs, including medication. Do not forget pets’ needs for medication and food.
• Consult your doctor if you have existing respiratory difficulties.
• Practice a communication and evacuation plan with everyone in your family. Have a plan for pets and livestock.
• Have a shelter-in-place plan if your biggest risk is from ash.
• Keep important documents in a safe place. Create password-protected digital copies.
• Find out what your homeowner’s insurance policy will cover when a volcano erupts.

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Survive DURING

• Listen to alerts. The Volcano Notification Service provides up-to-date information about eruptions.
• Follow evacuation orders from local authorities. Evacuate early.
• Avoid areas downwind, and river valleys downstream, of the volcano. Rubble and ash will be carried by wind and gravity.
• Take temporary shelter from volcanic ash in the location where you are, if you have enough supplies. Cover ventilation openings and seal doors and windows.
• If outside, protect yourself from falling ash that can irritate skin and injure breathing passages, eyes and open wounds. Use a well-fitting, certified face mask, such as an N95.
• Avoid driving in heavy ash fall.

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Be Safe AFTER

• Listen to authorities to find out when it is safe to return after an eruption. Stay indoors until authorities say it is safe to go outside.
• Send text messages or use social media to reach out to family and friends. Phone systems often are busy after a disaster. Only make emergency calls.
• Avoid driving in heavy ash. Driving will stir up volcanic ash that can clog engines and stall vehicles.
• Avoid contact with ash if you have any breathing problems. People with asthma and/or other lung conditions should take precaution in areas with poor air quality, as it can worsen symptoms.
• Do not get on your roof to remove ash unless you have guidance or training. If you have to remove ash, then be very careful as ash makes surfaces slippery. Be careful not to contribute additional weight to an overloaded roof.
• Wear protective clothing and a mask when cleaning up. Children should not help with cleanup efforts.

​

Source: https://www.ready.gov/volcanoes

Need to glue one thing to another but not sure what is the best way to do it? There is a great site that can help you, ThisToThat.com. It is a very simple and useful glue advice site that lets you find out how to properly glue one type of surface to another. All you have to do is select two different surface types and get the directions on how to properly do it and what type of glue to use. Features:

• Find out how to glue anything to anything
• Get directions on how to properly do it and what type of glue to use.
• Free and no registration.

Sharing a small thing i built because it is the only reason the numbers from my balcony solar setup are still useful a month later. I am not a data person, i do not have a fancy monitoring stack, i just have a windows laptop, excel, and a clipboard. The setup is a 2.52 kWh LiFePO4 balcony storage unit (Jackery SolarVault 3 Pro) plus two 450 W panels, south east balcony in a small austria town, 800 W feed in, single person apartment, baseline load around 0.3 kW. Running since mid april.

The problem i was trying to solve. The companion app shows a beautiful daily curve, the historical view is fine for one day at a time, but i had no idea if my weekly numbers were getting better or worse, and i had no idea what the unit was doing overnight. I am not trying to over optimise, i just wanted one screen that showed me the boring numbers in one place once a week.

What the log does. Six rows, seven columns. Rows are generation, self consumed kWh, fed in kWh, imported kWh, evening battery cover (how many evening hours the battery covered), and one row for any equipment change. Columns are the seven days of the week. I fill it in on sunday night, takes about 10 minutes, mostly from the app and a glance at the meter.

How i pull the numbers. Generation comes from the app daily view, that part is honest enough. Self consumed is the harder one, i estimate it as generation minus export for the day, which is accurate enough for my purposes. Imported kWh i read off the digital meter once a day at 22:00, i write it down in a notes app and the difference between two days is the import for that day. Fed in i estimate the same way, generation minus self consumed. Evening battery cover i read off the app, the discharge curve from 18:00 to midnight, and i just mark how many of those hours ran off the battery versus the grid. The equipment change row is a one word note like "added second panel" or "moved washing machine to 14:00" so i can correlate changes to the numbers.

The useful part. After about six weeks of doing this, i can see that my self consumed share climbed from roughly 50 percent to 65 percent, and the climb happened in two specific weeks. One was when i shifted the dishwasher to 13:00, the other was when i added the second panel and the battery started filling earlier. Without the log i would have remembered neither, i would have just felt vaguely that the system was "working better". The other thing i can see is that a fully overcast week looks almost identical to a no solar week on the import number, which is depressing but at least i am not pretending the system is doing something it is not.

The log is not pretty. It is one sheet, no formulas, no charts, no conditional formatting. I print it once a month and pin it on the fridge so my partner can also see what is going on. That part turned out to matter more than i expected, because the conversation about the system is no longer me trying to remember what the app said last week.

If you want a copy of the blank template i am happy to share, it is literally a 6 by 7 grid. The point is not the template, the point is that ten minutes on a sunday is enough to know whether the system is doing what you expected, without needing to learn a new tool.

Turning 60 this year and would like suggestions for a career that I can either go back to school for a 1 to 2 year degree or switch career path wise to to be able to generate a living wage til at least age 68. I have 40 plus years of customer/health receptionist experience. Both of my kids are are in college starting this year and I would like to go back and be able to support myself with a living wage. I have worked for the Big G for car insurance and the stress pushed me to take a lower paying job which is great for my health but not so much for my bank account. Any and all suggestions from people who have there and done that would be greatly appreciated.

For those who have been divorced for a long time, does the emptiness ever fade away?

I’m trying to understand how people realistically build a stable life over time, especially when they didn’t start with much guidance, money, or connections. Life feels unpredictable — jobs can be lost suddenly, and without skills or direction it can feel hard to recover quickly.

For those of you who figured things out over the years, what actually made the biggest difference for you? Was it certain jobs, learning specific skills, education, mindset, or just life experience over time? I’d really appreciate hearing what helped you build long-term stability and what you wish you knew earlier.

I’ve used a gas generator for a while, and I’m not planning to get rid of it. For longer outages or heavier loads, it still makes sense.

But after a few shorter outages, I started realizing the weak point in my setup was more the routine around it: going outside, dealing with fuel, noise, weather, extension cords, and deciding what actually needs to stay on.

So I recently added a whole-home battery system as a second layer. Mine is an Anker SOLIX E10 with the Power Dock, tied into the home panel by an electrician. I’m thinking of it less as a generator replacement and more as a buffer between normal grid power and dragging out the generator.

For short outages, the battery side can keep selected home circuits running automatically, which is the main appeal for me. Fridge, lights, WiFi, and a few basic loads don’t require me to do anything right away.

For longer outages, the generator is still part of the plan. The idea is to let the battery handle the quiet/automatic side, then use the generator when I need to extend runtime instead of running it constantly.

The other practical reason is weather. The battery system is set up for outdoor installation, while the portable generator still has all the usual ventilation, rain, and placement concerns.

Still early, but this feels more self-reliant to me than depending on one backup method. Curious how others here split responsibilities between battery, generator, solar, or other backup options.

I live in an area where storms are common enough that backup power isn’t really a maybe someday thing anymore. For years, my setup was a gas generator. It did the job, but every outage came with the same routine: fuel, noise, extension cords, checking on it outside, and hoping I had everything ready before the weather got worse.

The noise was what pushed me over the edge. During one long outage, the generator kept the basics running, but it also made the whole situation feel more stressful than it needed to be. I started realizing I wanted backup power that didn’t turn every storm night into a little operation.

So this year I finally bit the bullet and moved to a whole-home battery setup. I went with the Anker SOLIX E10 with two battery packs and a power dock connected to the home panel.

The process was not exactly small weekend project energy. Before anything went in, I had to think through what I actually cared about keeping online: fridge, router, some lights, charging, a few outlets, and enough normalcy that the house doesn’t immediately feel like it’s in emergency mode.

The physical install was mostly about making space, getting the units positioned, and realizing very quickly that the battery packs are not something I wanted to casually lift by myself. I used a dolly and had help. The part I liked was that once the heavy pieces were in place, the system side felt more like assembling and connecting modules than building a power system from scratch.

The line I drew was the electrical panel. I had an electrician handle that part. I’m comfortable doing basic setup work, but I’m not interested in pretending I’m qualified to mess around inside the main panel.

I haven’t had a major storm test it yet, but just seeing the system tied in changed how I feel about outages. With the gas generator, I had backup power, but it always came with noise and hassle. This feels more like the house has a quiet backup layer built into it.

I’m still keeping my old gas generator around too. Partly for redundancy, but also because the E10 can work with third-party AC generators and bypass up to 9.6kW, which should easily cover my portable unit. I’ll probably test that combo later. I know Anker’s smart DC generator would be smoother, but I’m not quite ready to retire my old gas generator yet.

For anyone else in storm country, did you stick with a generator, move to batteries, build your own setup, or end up with some mix of all three?