Companion Planting Guide by World Permaculture Association
will be released to subscribers in:
soon!
Casie Becker wrote:I can't help you with cold weather tips. The whole country recently got a dramatic demonstration of how Texans handles real winter. (For a super generous definition of handles).
We will be repurposing the underside of the kids old trampoline as an additional run by wrapping the base with hardware cloth. If you can get your hands on any old frames that can be a good start. There's lots of other partial fabric outdoor structures that I have seen people toss when the fabric wears out. Possibly even old above ground pools. That pool rubber makes fantastic outdoor tarp material and I suspect could work well to help weather proof a coop roof.
If you can find a way to transport items, tons of usable building materials are often being given away on Craigslist. Just choosing a random city in Iowa and there was wire fencing, lots of pallets and several windows on offer. I would expect to see similar offerings across your state. If you can't drive this will be less useful as few people will be offering to deliver free items to you.
I am going watch with interest to see people suggest for winter proofing. That's an exotic topic for me.
Casie Becker wrote:A lot of the decisions you make will depend on how many chickens you are planning on and what kinds of predators you are fighting. Also important is where you will be putting the coop. Inside or outside other fences for instance. I will give you some of my reasoning as an example but for useful suggestions I think we'll need a little more information.
I don't have to consider bears where I live but we do have foxes, raccoons, snakes, rats, and birds of prey which all have slightly different defensive needs. Being a warm climate here and a small flock I spent most of my money on a secure run space which is large enough to entirely enclose a small coop that would not be secure on it's own. It's enclosed in chicken wire with extra wrapping and a ground barrier or hardware cloth. This keeps smaller predators from sliding through the holes and bored raccoons from fitting their paws inside.
A neighbor learned the hard way that this was a real danger when raccoons killed several of their rabbits. Inside a fenced suburban yard it's safe from larger predators that could just tear through the wire.
Pearl Sutton wrote:Stick frame construction, the basic type that is all over the US, made with 2x4s and plywood, is not the best type of housing out there. But, even those of us who know about better alternatives, due to circumstances, may end up living in one. What can we do to help make it more resistant to wind damage?
When learning to design against wind, it helps to learn what has already been figured out by others about why and how buildings come down. I read these looking at the physics of why some houses break more easily, and found them educational. They are all from the same site, if you need an account to see them, this place does not spam you, it's safe to make an account. It's a normal builder site, the Journal of Light Construction (JLC) They have a search bar on the site that will pull up more articles, these are 4 that I really learned from.
Engineer's Assessment of Tornado-Damaged Homes
Wind-Resilient Buildings
A Texas Tornado: Lessons Learned
Practical Engineering: Resisting Tornado Damage
The part I found most educational, not being a fan of that type of building practice, was how much of the problems were caused by sub-standard work, and corner cutting. Most of the solutions to the problems were easy, just not implemented, or done badly.
One thing I learned from it all was garages tend to be a problem, because they are part of the house, but badly built. When the garage goes, the rest of the house is exposed. I think if I had a house I was stuck with, I'd look at seeing if I could modify the wall that is between the garage and house, to make the garage more of a breakaway type thing, so if it goes, the house doesn't.
I'm currently stuck in a rental with amazingly bad construction. If I wanted to try to help this place, I'd start by reinforcing the room we use as a storm shelter (which I have, to a point) and making the garage less likely to start the process of disintegration. I have made removable shutters for winter, but they are insulative. Shutters that are structural would be a great investment, as the windows are easy to break, lots of branches come down.
Something I saw and would work with is hurricane shutters, they have some that are big rollers that come down, way out of my budget, but some were a heavy mesh. I have been experimenting with using metal lath (expanded metal) to make hail covers for glass. I think they'd not stop something really serious slamming into the house (an F5 tossing a whole tree is going to be unstoppable) but they might stop smaller impacts from starting the whole damage process. I think if I were putting them over my windows, if the mesh was thick, I'd paint the inward side of it sky blue to make it slightly less annoying to see. Outside I'd do to match the house. Not the cutest option, but if you are in high risk territory, it might be an affordable thought.
If you are not in a well built home, what can be done?
Too many of us are in cheap tract housing, whether we want to be or not.
