Thursday, August 18, 2011

DIY

Being newbie homesteaders, we do a lot of DIY projects around here. House painting, building projects, landscaping, and this week: working DH's 1996 Honda. It just stopped running. When we were first married, he really didn't know much about cars, but he's learned so much over the years. Still, this was a frustrating process for him. He changed out several parts, each day trying to eliminate one more possibility, starting with fuel and ending with electricity. And I learned how to change spark plugs and wires! It turned out to be that the timing belt was bad. This morning we had it towed to our mechanic to assess any engine damage. Oh, the joys of having an old car.

That being said, we try to live by the adage,"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." We try to keep the cars going along. We do all our own work on the house, including some electrical work. (That always amazes me; I'm afraid of electricity.) We salvage materials to use in other projects. For instance, our original chicken house (the chicken condo) was built with 90% salvaged materials from a 1930's shed that was falling down.  He even put a very simple water collection system on the back for me.

Currently, we're working on a second chicken shed. We started a new flock of chickens this year, and I didn't want the hassle of trying to integrate my old ladies into the new flock. They deserve a nice peaceful old age. Plus, my old ladies have free range of the entire yard. I thought it might be a bit icky to have the entire flock traipsing around the yard. Too many "deposits." So, my dear is building a new shed, in the goat yard.
 
I guess my point is even if you don't have any experience with something, you can learn to do it just by, well, doing it. The worst that will happen is that you might have to start over. We learned quite a bit building this structure, but when you're working with scrap, you do the best you can. I love living on our little homestead!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for the comments!