Dear Aggie

Address all questions to Aggie@Homestead.org

Dear Aggie,

Having just signed the papers on our own 20 acres of land in the Missouri Ozarks, my husband and I are finally at the doorstep of our dream of living in the country. We have done quite a lot of research in our attempt
to do things as self sufficiently and (hopefully will follow) cost efficiently as possible. Obviously one of the big ticket items will be the digging of the well. The costs of hiring it done by a commercial well drilling service seem quite daunting, and so we have been looking at alternatives. We have run across the websites for a couple of different models of do-it-yourself well drilling systems (Hydra-Jett and HydraTek
2000), and are curious to know if you have any information on the success rate of this type of system. I'm sure we would be capable of using the equipment, and I'm sure it would easily do the job in a soft soil environment, but as you know, the soil in Southwest Missouri is not soil, it's rock. That is the real basis for our concern. We would hate to spend 50% of the cost of the commercial fee, only to have to turn around and hire it done! If you recommend against this course of action, or simply don't have enough information to say one way or the other, are there any other alternatives you can suggest? Thank you for your help, and may I say I just love this site!

Tania

Dear Tania:

I have no personal experience with either piece of equipment. I did look up both the units you mentioned on Hydra-Jett’s web site and Hydra-Tek 2000’s eBay pages and I have a comment or two.

To summarize, both companies offer a small mechanical unit powered by 5-6.5 HP air-cooled engines not unlike those used to power lawn mowers.

I also talked to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. The Ozarks Regions of Missouri and Arkansas have a very good water table in the form of solid limestone formations. This is good from the standpoint of water quality, but it is not so easy to drill into as would be rock-free soil, although the question of what would hold your well walls in place without casings arises.

In Missouri, it is recommended to case the first 80 feet of well against surface water contamination. The Hydra-Jett website states, “Most good water bearing formations are located at around 50 to 75 feet.” I believe that the Missouri DNR would take exception to this statement.

Also, Hydra-Jett claims that their equipment is capable of drilling up to (down to?) 300 feet deep. Most modern Ozark wells are between 250 and 500 feet deep.

I would be very cautious about this purchase. You are correct in saying that the self-drilling equipment is about half the cost of a modern well. Remember though, that that is not to say that the resulting wells are comparable. For roughly $5-6,000 you get a modern deep well drilled to state standards, pump included, and cased to the extent necessary versus the do-it-yourself kits which for about half that amount sell you some comparatively feather-weight equipment for which you will have little use after you drill your well, assuming that you are able to drill one at all. If there is a way to case these home-made wells, that will be an additional expense as will the pumping equipment. Hydra-Jett’s site says, “Once you hit water, just add the reamer bit to enlarge the hole, and install your casing and pump.” Well casing is not cheap and pumps are also expensive. Under the right conditions, you could spend about as much for the do-it-yourself job as for the commercial product.

If you have a commercial well driller drill your well, they’ll arrive on your site with at least three large trucks loaded with equipment and several men. In short order, probably the same day, you’ll have a plentiful supply of water flowing out of the ground. While I’m very supportive of self-reliance and frugality, comparing this to equipment that you can fit into the bed of a small pickup looks a little questionable.

versus

Dear Aggie,

It seems as though we started getting ticks after we had a delivery of mulch brought to our house. Prior to this we never found any ticks in our yard. Since the delivery of the mulch last spring we have found three. Could the ticks be living in the mulch? If so how can we get rid of them? Our yard has a large pond with various plants and the mulch is around the pond and plants. Please advise on what we can do so we can enjoy our yard without worrying about ticks.

Thanks

Ann

Dear Ann:

Well, yes ticks could be living in your mulch and they could have arrived in it, but I rather doubt it.

Compared to humans, ticks have few needs, but none of them are met by mulch, so there is little reason for them to want to be there in the first place. Look to warm-blooded animals as the source of your ticks.

Getting rid of them is the age-old question. In order to completely eradicate ticks from your lawn, you would have to engage more chemicals than seems healthy. Rather, I’d suggest three things:

Keep the grass mowed regularly. The higher the grass is the more trouble you’ll have with ticks.

Keep your livestock at a distance from the house. (You could exclude chickens and certain other poultry from this advice, because birds will eat ticks, however they are not especially through about it, and keeping them close to the house presents larger problems, particularly with manure, than do the ticks.)

Don’t sit or lie down in the grass, or if you do, wear an insect repellant.

Dear Aggie,

I hope you can help us - this is a difficult situation. Both my wife of 8 years and I (we are just turning 30) were born and raised in the country. We moved to a big city (population in the millions) after we married so that I could find work. I worked for a year and then decided to start an at-home job so we could move back to the country (we got sick of the city). I built an at-home business and we had our first kid (a boy) after being married for 5 years. He's 3 now and we're longing to go back to the country and raise him there. But here's the problem... we're now in a predicament where we need to be 15 minutes from a good hospital. My son was born with problems, he had many surgeries early on and is currently tube fed. I have a heart problem now, my wife developed a seizure disorder and we all see doctors at least twice a month.. that's 6 doctor visits per month. We're dependant on big city doctors and fast EMT response times. OK I question my sanity for even pondering about moving us back to a remote and secluded country farm. Isn't it ironic that we have an at-home income but we're dependant on living in the city. What can we do? The price of land is sky-high if you live near a good hospital because that means living near a big city. We're only 29 years of age and we're falling apart in the city. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Richard

Dear Richard:

I DO have some ideas, but you'll have to decide for yourself whether they would be practical to your situation. I don't know your medical conditions, nor would I want to contradict your physician if I did.

Having said that, country folk, as you surely know, have been getting by without being fifteen minutes from a hospital since time began. Where I live, fifteen minutes means fifteen miles, so even though I'm rather remote by most people's standards, there are two hospitals just within fifteen minutes' (fast) drive from my home. Additionally, folks in this neighborhood who have extreme medical conditions generally subscribe to what is referred to locally as "Air-Evac" which provides helicopter service to these and larger regional hospitals.

I'm sure that there are plenty of times when fifteen minutes won't take you very far at all in the city.

It doesn't sound to me as if you're in a position to move right away, but you're both young. When your son is a little older, or in the meanwhile, you should compare the actual service you can get from a rural community hospital with those that you need. I think you may be pleasantly surprised.

Dear Aggie,

My family and I are living in upstate New York and would like to move back to my home state of Arkansas within the next couple of years. This is our first house, and once it is sold how is the equity taken care of? In other words the 6 years of money that was put into the house and fencing etc. would that money be ours again plus whatever extra it sold for? We want to sell this house and be able to use that money to buy land and small home and not have a mortgage. Is this feasible?

thanks,
Homesteadingoats

Dear Goats:

Your equity is the difference between what you owe against your property and what your property sells for. This will not include the money you spent on interest, only the principal. Expenses made for fencing or other improvements do not pertain except to the extent that they increase the sale price.

Whether this will be enough to finance your future plans depends of course, on how much you can expect to receive from the sale and what sort of deal you can find in an Arkansas property. If you don't know the balance of your loan, call your lender. You should be able to get a fair idea of what your New York home is worth, and what you can buy an Arkansas property for, buy searching these state's multi-list sites.

Try these links:

http://www.ar-realestate.net/

http://multiple-listing-search.net/new-york-real-estate/?source=goog&keyword=new%2Byork%2Bmls

Dear Aggie:

We have and enjoy our two families of peacocks, but they eat our garden's valuable plants down to the roots. With four dogs and lots of song birds to not poison, what repellent would you suggest targeted specifically for the peacocks?

Edward

Edward:

As far as I can tell, there are four different technologies for controlling birds. These are:

Roost inhibitors: Spikes, pastes and gels to keep birds from roosting on a particular location

Visual Scare Devices: Like scarecrows and rubber snakes

Sonic Repellers: These feature distress calls from other peacocks in big trouble - no kidding. This would probably work, but your peacocks might leave home for good.

Ultra-Sonic Repellers: Which might work well if you can get electricity to your garden (and want to do so),

There's a fifth technology which works better than any of these, however. It's fencing. You can put a fence around either the garden or the peacocks, preferably one with bird netting overhead. Since EVERYTHING out there, not just your peacocks, would dearly love to wander through your garden, sampling at will, my recommendation is to fence your garden.

Dear Aggie,

Do chiggers live in shoes? I was in Tennessee 2 weeks ago and did not get any bites.( my friends did, I used repellent), but today I wore the shoes I was wearing when I was there, (Tennis shoes) and I have bites all over my ankles.

I know you'll probably tell me to wash my shoes, which I will do, but is it possible the chiggers lived this long in my shoes, AND survived the pressurization on the airplane?

Thanks, Traci

Traci:

While it is technically possible for chiggers to live two weeks in one's sneakers, one has to ask oneself why they would choose to do so. Even chiggers have to get out and make a living.

Dear Aggie,

I have two HUGE OLD pet pigs that I need to move to a different location. The problem is HOW TO MOVE THEM!?!

They have been at the same location since they were days old.

They have trouble walking and are nervous around strangers. They have never been loaded onto a trailer or truck.

I wont allow shockers or the pigs being hit because they won't move.

What in the world am i going to do???????? PLEASE HELP MEEEEEEE!!!!!

Thank You For Your Time.
Barb,

Barb:

Find someone who has a low stock trailer of adequate size and a lot of patience.

Back the trailer up to the hog pen. Put the hog feed in the trailer.

Stand back.

Dear Aggie,

My mother died last year and my son and I moved to her land. She has a septic lagoon that is always full of cattails. She has a lagoon because the soil is clay and the county would not let her have any
other disposal system.

How can we contain this problem? We don't have any heavy equipment to clean it out, but can manage to hire it done, but I would like to have something to keep it under control so this problem does not occur.

Thank you.

Barbara

Barbara:

I wish you'd told me more. I'm assuming that your lagoon is reasonably small, less than 20 feet in diameter, and that when you say this is problem, you mean that if left too long, your plumbing backs up. If there are no such dire consequences, then I would leave the cattails in place.

If you don't want to use herbicides, or have someone dig the roots out, try stretching one or two layers of tarpaulin across the lagoon so that it blocks out the sun. Stake it down and leave it there for a month. Remove and repeat as necessary.

Dear Aggie:

I live in a mobile home on a small piece of land that I have been trying to purchase from a lady for twelve years now. I had a contract with her and thought I had paid off the mobile home this July, but now she is telling me that I owe her another $15,000 on the house. She has not come down here in 12 years to check on the property or anything. She just collects my money each month and I think she is trying to scam me for more. Can I fill out any kind of paper to homestead this land and take it over since I have paid all the payments on it and the taxes for the last 12 years. Help, please.

Melanie

Dear Melanie,

What made you think that the trailer was paid off in July? Do you have a copy of a contract that says that? The only ownership you can have in this property is what you are given in a contract.

If you made a contract when you first started paying for the property, buy you've lost it, you can demand a copy from the seller. If no contract ever existed, you are in a bad position trying to prove anything - you'll either have to pay whatever she says, or hire an attorney.

If you do have a contract, however, it will tell you how much and how long your are obligated to pay.

Hello,

I am trying to find out what is growing on my cedar trees. I have a cabin at Mark Twain Lake, Perry Missouri. This year some of the trees have a big knot growing on the limbs, and out of these knots come little long flower petals that are orange colored. Could you help?

Thanks Leo

Leo:

I surmise that your cedars have become infested with cedar-apple rust. If so, the "knots" you describe will look like this:

(As you are probably aware, the tree Eastern Red Cedar is in fact, a Juniper.)

Cedar apple rust is caused by a fungus which completes it's life cycle on cedars/junipers and apples or crabapples.

There are at least three ways to get rid yourself of this disease. The first is the use of fungicides including Mancozeb (Fore, Dithane, Mancozeb); Chlorothalonil (Daconil*); Triadimefon (Bayleton, Strike) and propiconazole (Banner)

The second method is to remove all the host trees in the vicinity. Typically, that means eliminating all the cedar trees near an orchard. In your case, you may not wish to eliminate the orchard to keep your cedars healthy.

Finally, you can buy rust-resistant strains of some plants, mostly apples, but I don't suppose you want to replace any of your cedars.

I have another suggestion. The reason why there are control measures for cedar-apple rust is mostly because the disease can severely limit apple production. Since the rust is not particularly harmful to your cedars, why bother to do anything?

Dear Aggie:

We are a couple living in Puerto Rico with 2 boys 8 and 5. We have been thinking a move to the country and leading a life out of the rat race. We are looking for a "finca" (farm) and have several options but here is the catch. The country region topography in Puerto Rico is mountainious and-we are trying to decide either to buy a 5 acre semi-flat with nothing on it for $60K to put a hydroponic-based greenhouse business or to buy a more slopey farm of 20 acres for $50K that 12 of the acres are already planted with coffee, oranges and plantains. Puerto Rico is 100 miles by 35 Miles so the cities are near in both situations. What would you suggest???

Sean

Dear Sean,

I'm assuming that the soil is far superior on the smaller parcel, or the question would not even arise.

While this should be a compelling point to consider, soil fertility can be improved over time, and I suspect that the difference in price may involve other aspects unrelated to farm production.

I believe that I'd be more inclined to take that larger tract and put the greenhouse business on the remaining 8 acres with some of the $10,000 you've saved.

Aggie:

Are their still states we can get land to homestead, here in the United States?

Patsy

Dear Patsy,

No.

The last homestead land was granted in Alaska in 1978. Unless you are a major corporation, there are no land bargains available from the federal government

Aggie

Homesteading is my passion that really love to do. i work in a factory were i work for 15 years now and im so tired of depending on it to pay my bills i just turn 35 and i feel like my life is running out and getting scared of what will i do if something happens to my job i really want to do what i enjoy of life before it to late but i have not got a clue on were to even start. any suggestion. tony

Dear Tony,

What you must do is not going to be easy, because you don't have a lot of time to devote to it. You'll need land to homestead and the job you have now apparently isn't making enough money for that to ever happen.

You need to replace your salary before you can save money for land. You don't tell me what advantages you might have, but obviously you have a computer and access to the internet. This is big advantage. You also don't tell me if you are married or alone. If you have a partner, that's an asset, but if you're alone, you have more flexibility and less responsibility, so that's an asset too.

You either need another job - and unless you have some training you haven't mentioned there's no reason to think your next job would be any better - or you need to create your own income.

As I say, this isn't going to be easy, but you can do it after work and on weekends.

An old friend came to me about five years ago when he had just moved to this area. He was also greatly dissatisfied with his life. I suggested he pick something worthwhile that was a job he either enjoyed, or at least didn't mind doing, a lot, and that he put an ad in the local shopper paper.

He decided he liked painting things, and he already had one asset, a truck, so all he needed was paint, brushes and an advertisement. He's been painting houses ever since with just one weekly advertisement.

I knew another fellow who started up a business washing store-front windows, first in the little town where he lived then in the surrounding towns. He made a very nice living and got married a few years later.

These are just suggestions. If you pick a profession that a lot of people need, like a painter or a window washer, or a gardener or... what can you do? If you pick something you can enjoy, even if you have a lot of it to do, if you take pride in your work and if you get up every morning and go to work with that goal in mind, you'll see a way to quit your job sooner rather than later. When you get to that point, it's time to find yourself a place to homestead by using the rent money.

Hello Aggie, I’d prefer to use straight sugar, or brown sugar for alcohol since I haven’t the room to process much less grow any of the grains. Please advise on sugar as a base for making alcohol. The people need to do more for themselves, and alcohol and bio-diesel are good choices for fuel.

Kerry

Dear Kerry:

Sugar is the basis for all alcohol. If you aren't interested in the flavor of the finished product, plain sugar is ideal and will yield you a potent fuel much like vodka.

Dear Aggie, I am interested in getting a pair of peacocks. I have 20 chickens ( 19 hens 1 rooster). They have an enclosed pen that is 25 ft long 8 ft wide and 6 ft high. Can the peacocks live with the chickens or should they have their own quarters? If so, how large? My chickens are aloud to roam our property a few hours before dark. Will the peacocks return to their house as well?

Thank you, Jessie

Dear Jessie,

It's not a good idea to mix poultry of different species. Chickens pass diseases to peafowl.

Your peafowl can be left to run free or penned. If penned, they need enough room to move about and exercise through a healthy range of motion.

Aggie, How do you keep cats out of the flowerbeds? Please don't suggest moth balls. Those smell worse than the cats !
Thanks,
Ron

Dear Ron,

It is a rare pleasure to meet a gentleman with your refined sense of olfactory decorum.

If you have rejected out of hand, the idea of replacing the cat with a goldfish, or perhaps a Philodendron, then I have no sure-fire methods to offer you. However, there are a number of things you can do to make your flowerbeds unattractive to your cats.

First, space your plantings closely so that there are fewer little cubby-holes where a cat might like to curl up for a nap.

Next, stick upright twigs into the ground under the leaves of your plants to discourage traffic. The Citronella Geranium and Coleus canina are repulsive to some felines. Cats appear not to care for the scent of citrus, so orange or lemon peels may have the desired effect on your cats.

You might also try luring your kitties to another part of the garden with clean litter and plants such as catnip, valerian, catmint and germander

Address all questions to Aggie@Homestead.org

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