Looking for more trailersteaders
I'm excited to announce that I'll have two new paperbacks in bookstores in 2015! With The Naturally Bug-Free Garden spiffed up and turned in (due out this coming spring), I tentatively approached my publisher about the idea of printing Trailersteading
as well. I've been wanting to expand and update this best-selling
ebook, but I didn't have high hopes that a mainstream publisher would
be interested in a book teaching our permaculture redneck ethics.
However, I was pleasantly surprised --- Skyhorse once again was willing
to leave me the ebook rights and publish a full-color paperback edition
that will be hitting bookstores in fall 2015, despite the book being
about living in a trailer.
What does this mean for
you? I'm looking for more trailersteading tips from the field, so
if you homestead in a trailer on any level, now's your chance to see
your name in print. I'm especially interested in contributions in
the following areas:
- Interior design. I have a tendency to ignore anything that's purely pretty rather than functional, but several readers clearly wanted to learn more about making an old trailer into an aesthetically pleasing living space. If you've rehabbed your trailer on the cheap and have photos to showcase your artistry, please drop me an email.
Rehab suggestions. On a similar vein, I'm always looking for trailer-related rehab tips that can be turned into a sidebar.
For example, Harry recently emailed me photos and construction
information for his homemade window awnings, which he uses to keep out
the worst of the summer sun. Perhaps you have a similar simple but
functional trailersteading tip?
- Inspirational stories. The heart of Trailersteading is the idea that living in an old mobile home can be a stepping stone allowing you to achieve your goals. If you have a similar story to share, I definitely want to hear about it.
- Around the trailerstead. I plan to add a new chapter about how a trailer fits into the larger homestead. I've already got sections planned on adding gutters and rain barrels and piping greywater to a wetland for treatment. Do you have something to add in a similar vein?
I'm not going to
buckle down and really start working on the updated version until this
fall, but please do send your submissions now while they're on top of
your mind! (I'll try to remember to make another post when the
deadline is closer.) To sweeten the pot, if I decide to use your
submission in the paperback version of Trailersteading, I'll send you a paperback of your choice (The Weekend Homesteader, Watermelon Summer, Shiftless, or my color version of the first edition of Naturally Bug-Free) and a Walden Effect t-shirt (size L or 2XL). Please email anna@kitenet.net with high-resolution photos (anything except pictures from a camera phone will probably work)
and a written explanation of your innovation. Emails will bounce
if they're larger than about 5 MB, so be sure to send one picture per
email. Thanks in advance for your contribution!
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Instead of putting in flowers we used the space around the trailer as a garden. Put in egg plants, tomato plants, herbs, onions, watermelons, pumpkins, and so forth as space is limited, I even used the hill side for some of it.
Then instead of mulch we used a thick layer of hay with the chicken and duck pooh to not only fertilize it but to keep weeds down so almost no weeding needed. Now most of my veggies are coming and are double the size they have ever been.
Cynthia --- I'd love to see your trailer-side vegetable garden in action! If you've got some photos to share, drop me an email at anna@kitenet.net --- it might fit into the print edition of Trailersteading.
DeLaney --- I'm open to including travel trailers along with mobile homes --- we already have two profiles from folks who went that route. And I'd definitely love to include more interior design options since our readers specifically asked for more information in that direction. So, please do take photos as you work! If you can get me something by October or November, I can probably fit it in before my deadline. Thanks for sharing!