Tools: Get The Best, Even Used

Having posted with pride about our new honest-to-hillbilly deck, I thought this might be a good time to talk a bit more about the many tools a homesteader needs in order to keep the place in order, do the gardening and landscaping, renovate and repair home and outbuildings. I can do this because during the deck project we had a total of 4 hammers on hand, and two of them ended up without handles before we were done. Frustrating.

The very best thing you can do, of course, is to purchase the absolute, best quality, longest-lasting tools – any tool – you can possibly afford. Yet in today’s economy, getting the best quality tools is often beyond the means of those of us trying hard just to make things work. Here at my homestead we’ve got a shed chock full of old chain saws, string trimmers, handle-less shovels, pitchforks, axes, mauls, sledgehammers, pruners, etc., not to mention a whole collection of broken hammers, screwdrivers, various saws and power tools bought cheap over the years and which didn’t last long enough to get to the second job.

Worse, I’ve an energetic daughter and some grandchildren who work hard on occasion, but can’t ever manage to put the tools back where they belong. Which means I find rusted things all over the place, often with wooden handles that long since rotted into compost. It’s extremely frustrating, and having to replace the tools every time you start a project is a regular pain in the ass. Not to mention expensive.

Continue reading »

Filed under Building, Future Planning, Home-Products, Homestead, Maintenance, Renovating, Repair, Tools | Comment (1)

Ready, Willing and Able: Part II

What Kind of Emergencies Are We Preparing For?

In Part I of this series on being prepared for the storms of nature and humanity that may require us to take care of ourselves and our families for days or weeks at a time, we looked at the idea of “Survival Kits” and where those should be kept so that we’re never far from them if ever we need them.

On a scale of likely types of emergencies or disasters homesteaders (and the rest of society) might face, it’s best to be prepared for the ones that would present the most significant survival challenges when planning on what to put into our survival kits. That way the lesser emergencies will seem positively trivial in comparison, and the whole family will become ‘expert’ at getting through tough times. Some examples on that scale -

Continue reading »

Filed under Emergency Preparedness, Family, Future Planning, Homestead, Independence, Tools | Comment (1)

The Homestead Tool Kit – Part II

25 necessary items for basic repair and maintenance – Part II

In the last post we established the wisdom of keeping a well-stocked general tool kit which is adequate for most any routine homestead repair and maintenance jobs, to be kept in a convenient location. I listed the hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, chisels and leveling square, about half of the necessary tools, numbered 1-12.

This post lists the rest of the tools that should be in your toolbox or bucket as well as those larger tools that will be kept in the shed or garage for bigger projects.

Continue reading »

Filed under Homestead, Maintenance, Repair, Tools | Comments (7)

The Homestead Tool Kit – Part I

25 necessary Items for basic repair and maintenance – Part I

Are you forever missing ‘The’ necessary tool for what should have been a simple repair job on the cabinet doors that won’t shut, or the screen door that won’t close properly, or the bathroom fixtures that leak? Or are your tools scattered in so many different places across the homestead that you just can’t find the right one when you need it?

We used to have both those problems on a constant basis around my place, until a thoughtful friend gifted us one Christmas with the most useful tool accessory I’d ever seen, which has since become so indispensable that I got another one just for the outdoor and gardening tasks. It’s your basic 5-gallon white plastic bucket such as for wallboard mud, roofing tar or paint, plus a leather “tool-belt” with pockets and loops that fits onto the bucket like a collar. Both of these items can be purchased at hardware and home supplies stores, or you could create your own from old, emptied buckets and well worn tool-belts.

We have all 25 of the items on the “must have” list, plus several others we’ve found ourselves often needing for various and sundry repair and maintenance tasks. Not all of them fit in or on the bucket, so we keep the rest hanging just inside the door of the shed. If you need to dig holes or split wood, you know to get the bigger tools before you start, just as you know to get the lawn mower when you’re planning to mow the lawn.

Continue reading »

Filed under Homestead, Maintenance, Repair, Tools | Comments (2)