By any chance, have you, like me, wanted to be able to make truly useful things for years? Intended to convert to cleaning in a cheap, responsible way? But just kept finding books of recipes and tips that didn't deliver, were overly complicated, called for such a wide variety of ingredients, many obscure and expensive, that you started to doubt it'd save any money at all, even if you didn't botch a single thing? I mean, what's the point of trading out my very long domestic shopping list of items I can find at Target with an equally long list of items that have to be gathered from the far-flung corners of the globe?
This is not one of those books. This is brilliant in its simplicity. The recipes and ingredients are so elemental, the authors might be the Prometheus of Home Ec. I've had the book for five days. Not only do I not need to buy half that domestic list anymore (and I imagine that will only grow as I work my way through more projects), but I don't know what I'm going to do with the stuff -the shaving cream, the detangler, the toilet cleaner, the windex- that's already in the house because this homemade stuff is BETTER than the store bought junk. What I like best about this book might be how it's changed the feel of my whole place. There's life and processes everywhere: soap is curing, the hair rinse is steeping, seedlings are sprouting, herbs are growing. I look at things around my home and see new uses for them. I see something I typically buy and think "I could make that." There's something peacefully reassuring about this but more so it's a loud humming of anticipation, excitement, and almost manic creativity. After about 8 projects, I started thinking "There needs to be a recipe for solid perfume! I'd really love a recipe for throat lozenges! With honey! Oh, and ginger! And something to freshen the front loading washing machine so I don't have to buy those Tide packets!" Before this book, it wouldn't have even occurred to me to think that it was possible. So thank you.
A few more thoughts:
If you are an apartment dweller, and tired of being completely overlooked by other DIY books that assume everyone can compost and keep a few chickens, then you will especially appreciate projects 49 (Free Fertilizer from Weeds) and 61 (Worm Farming), neither of which require composting or manure. Worms will break down your apartment's kitchen prep scraps -your coffee grounds, spent tea, egg shells, carrot peels, the lettuce you forgot about in the produce drawer; they are an especially elegant solution if you happen to have a garbage disposal that regurges ground up food into your dishwasher during the rinse cycle (your landlord may insist it's because you don't clean off your plates well enough, but s/he's wrong). For apartment livestock, you might borrow from their other book
The Urban Homestead (Expanded & Revised Edition): Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (Process Self-reliance Series) and consider pets with benefits, such as a rabbit or a few quail. Like chickens, rabbit manure is wonderful for plants. Unlike chickens, theirs doesn't have to be composted first but can be used as is or passed through the worms first (it's like they were designed with renters in mind; some people even attach a worm bin underneath the rabbit's hutch so the waste transfers itself). A few quail will keep you supplied in adorable eggs for your Bento box lunches. But back to this book: You may also get good use out of Project 56 (making your own seedling flats); they make a compelling case for seeds ("cheap", "disease-free", and "better variety") and I appreciate that the flats are wood (I'm squeamish about growing food in plastic). There isn't anything I've found on container planting in here; they do discuss pots and self-watering containers in The Urban Homestead. At the moment, after gleaning a few tidbits from the book Apartment Gardening but otherwise not getting much out of it, I am using
Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces to keep my newly acquired herbs alive and I love it; it covers companion planting, mulching, various DIY fertilizers, and more. If that is an aspect of Making It that turns out to really get you going, I so far enthusiastically recommend it (and will post an update if some disastrously bad advice emerges one day). Essentially, the book FOR apartment farmers still has yet to be written, but Making It does more than the other homesteading books presently on my shelf and adds a few more pieces to my collection of apartment solutions. Martha Stewart has a simple system for watering your plants when you're out of town involving just a bucket of water and one piece of rope per pot; the Windowfarms Project, which I only just saw today (May 28, 2011) in Urban Farm magazine, is jaw-dropping. An expanded section of more of these kinds of innovative no-yard ideas would be wonderful in a second edition of this book.
For the home brewing and mead making sections, I handed the book off to my husband. He said it was as thorough as something this brief can be -the technicals are all there. To give you a specific example of what he means, Step 18 ends with "Keep the end of the hose at the bottom of the carboy to minimize splashing the beer around." That's perfectly true, but it might be helpful to know that they're not just talking about minimizing mess; splashing and sloshing will make the beer taste (in my husband's words) "like cardboard." So, if you are good about reading through a project before you begin and diligently following the instructions (like my husband), you'll have no trouble. If (like me) you usually have to be told "No, really, this is important and here's why", you may need a book or mentor that allows for that kind of expanded information.
For the chicken sections, I sent a copy of the book to my father-in-law, who already keeps chickens and built his own coop. He said the guidelines are solid and the diagram on pages 264-265 is very much like his chicken coop. It is worth noting that Project 65 Build A Chicken Coop is just guidelines by which to build a chicken coop, not step by step instructions of the Tab A Slot 1 nature; for floor plans, we would suggest BackyardChickens dot com. June 20, 2011 Update: Now that we are looking at building a chicken coop ourselves, I'm finding their guidelines extremely helpful. I can use their "what we like about ours, what we'd design differently if we had to do it over again" insightful as I look at the many 'floor plans' available online. I can weed out duds easily instead of having to learn about their flaws the hard way. July 7, 2011: A Tuff Shed fell into our laps recently, which we will be modifying into a hen house, making me further realize the wisdom behind Project 65 being advice rather than a single one-size-fits-no-one floor plan.
Only 1 suggestion for the next edition:
Multiple Indexes. I like the way the book is organized; arranging projects from easiest to hardest really does let you try several things the moment you get the book and they are every bit the "gateway projects that may addict you to a more homegrown lifestyle." But after that initial introduction, an index that organizes projects by utility (Medicine & Comfort, Cleaning & Laundry, Kitchen & Entertaining, Grow It) and an index of materials and ingredients (I bought, say, coconut oil for laundry soap and it would be nice to see at a glance that I can also use coconut oil for lip balm, creams, and the shampoo bar) would be very helpful. This would also show potential book buyers exactly where these projects will save them money, direct them to the projects that might be of greatest interest to them, and show them that if they were thinking about buying, say, some beeswax for a lip balm it will have many other uses to justify the purchase.
Consider getting a notebook in which to record prices (I suggest a notebook because as of July 25, 2011 the few pages I'd started with no longer keep up with the homesteading renaissance going on over here). Take soap for example. I can write down what price per ounce my body wash or bar currently costs in one column and then record the price per ounce of each ingredient (then divide by the number of ingredients to get the per ounce cost of the finished soap) in the soap recipe I'd like to try. Instantly, I can see how much money I'm saving or, if I don't quite like the margin, I can, say, look for a cheaper lye before I begin.
If you want a head start on gathering supplies for projects 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 24, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 and 42 (for projects 6 and 35, add fresh herbs; for project 25, add Borax; additionally, Borax is optional with some of the 16 recipes contained in project 24 ) while you wait for your copy to arrive in the mail, I would suggest the following (much of which you may already have):
INGREDIENTS
liquid castile soap (a little will last you a while)
baking soda (the biggest, cheapest per ounce box you can find)
white distilled vinegar (biggest, cheapest per ounce you can find)
beeswax (5 oz should cover deodorant, salves, creams, lip balm, and furniture polish at least, as well as a solid perfume if you're interested. Provided it isn't more expense, get it in bead form rather than 1 oz or 1 lb bricks -it'll be easier to measure and melt.
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