How To Do it yourself

Published at Journey to Forever, this article shows us how to build a simple, but effective varmint trap for rats. Made with steel wire and chicken wire fencing, this clever live trap never fails to catch and securely hold its prey. Clearly illustrated with detailed step-by-step photos, you can probably put this together in a few hours.

While you are visiting the Journey To Forever site be sure to check out the other sustainable technology articles and ideas.

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For about twenty dollars worth of ordinary red clay bricks you can build an efficient temporary backyard stove that burns charcoal, small sticks of wood, or tightly rolled pieces of junk mail to cook up a nice big pot of bean soup, or grasshopper stew. In a real emergency you might even borrow some bricks from your garden walkway or from the edging around your flower beds. Since no cement or mortar is used in the construction of the pyramid, once the power is restored you can replace the bricks until the next time they are needed. The stove requires 63 bricks to build.

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"When crops are produced from soil, it is imperative that the organic residues resulting from those crops, including animal excrements, are returned to the soil from which the crops originated. This recycling of all organic residues for agricultural purposes should be axiomatic to sustainable agriculture. Yet, spokespersons for sustainable agriculture movements remain silent about using humanure for agricultural purposes. Why?

Perhaps because there is currently a profound lack of knowledge and understanding about what is referred to as the "human nutrient cycle" and the need to keep the cycle intact. The human nutrient cycle goes like this: a) grow food, b) eat it, c) collect and process the organic residues (feces, urine, food scraps, and agricultural materials), and d) return the processed organic material back to the soil, thereby enriching the soil and enabling more food to be grown. The cycle is repeated, endlessly. This is a sustainable process that mimics the natural cycles of nature and enhances our ability to survive on this planet. When our food refuse is instead discarded as waste, the natural human nutrient cycle is broken, creating problems such as pollution, loss of soil fertility, and abuse of our water resources."

This web page, from chapter 8 of The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins, shows us step-by-step how to construct a clean, odor free composting toilet that can be built in a few hours for pocket change, but will return huge dividends in garden soil fertitlity.

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The author describes how he built this self-watering container garden inspired by the commercial EarthBox(TM) garden container. Here are the step-by-step instructions along with a few later improvements that Mr. Mandel discovered after putting his design to work for a season or so.

Easy to follow instructions and plenty of photos will help you enjoy building this nifty gardening container.

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Fresh bread from your very own earth oven? The author shows us how he built this great little oven from ordinary mud. He writes: "It started with cob. I have always been interested in natural, alternative, inexpensive, and do-it-yourself building techniques. ... Well, a house might be a bit much to start with, maybe try something smaller, just to get a feel for it. What could I build that was small and useful? - An OVEN!"

This great article takes you step by step through the process, with lots of pictures, and a section on how to use your new oven.

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While not a project per se, this is an important free source of animal care information.

"The Merck Veterinary Manual is the single most comprehensive electronic reference for animal care information. It is brought to you as a service of Merck & Co., Inc., providing quality medical information on a not-for-profit basis for more than 100 years...

NEW IN THIS EDITION! -- • Thirty new chapters, including West Nile encephalitis, pain management, ophthalmic emergencies, veterinary dosage forms and delivery systems, biosecurity, and many more • Expanded coverage in most sections, including exotic and laboratory animals, toxicology, and zoonoses • An additional 300 images, illustrations, and multimedia elements • Updated advanced search, featuring search by topic, species, specialty, disease, and keyword"

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Photo: Rainer Zenz
via Creative Commons Wikimedia Prepared by the College of Agriculture, Food Systems and Natural Resources of North Dakota State University, this is a good place to start when you decide to try making your own sausage. Be sure to pay special attention to the proper handling and curing of the meat as you read through this article. Before the advent of modern processing methods, the potentially fatal form of food poisoning, now known as botulism, was originally called "sausage disease" for good reason. But if the proper modern procedures are followed, homemade sausage can be perfectly safe. Like any food canning or preserving method, it's very important to do it right, and this guide will teach you how make sausage the safe and healthy way.

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We found a lot of web sites that talked about hoop houses, but not many that gave you the necessary details for designing and building your own. The two web pages we've selected are at two ends of the size spectrum, and give you loads of information on what you can do with a small bundle of inexpensive PVC pipe and a roll of clear plastic.

A hoop house greenhouse can be as big or as small as you want it to be. There's a hoop house not far from the How-2 Review headquarters in Oregon that must cover at least an acre, but if all you need is to protect a few tomato plants, your hoop house could be as small as a walk-in closet and be plenty big enough.

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