Mouse Trap

bucket mouse trap with rampEver heard the phrase “build a better mouse trap?” Well that’s phrase is now obsolete because there is no better mouse trap than this!

The bucket mouse trap catches many mice in a single trap and does not need to be reset between mice. It’s also so simple to make that you probably already have all the parts needed lying around your garage.

Never purchase commercial mouse traps or poison again!

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Buying 5 Gallon Buckets

stacks of 5 gallon bucketsFive gallon buckets can often be found for free, but not always. We’ve had a few requests for information about where to buy 5 gallon buckets, especially metal buckets like the one featured in the rocket stove article.

In this article I’m going to cover the best options I’ve found for buying 5 gallon buckets.

If you would rather hunt for free buckets, we encourage you to look into our sourcing buckets article instead. Continue reading

1 Minute Bread Machine Recipe

The moment we got our first bread machine was the moment my life changed forever.

Bread machines perform 21st century alchemy. Just stick about 50 cents worth of ingredients into it, go away for a few hours, and BOOM! A 5 dollar loaf of hot fresh bread is waiting for you. Thanks Taran from Dollar Eater for finding the per-loaf cost for us.

1-minute-bread-machine-recipe

However! Bread machines have one major flaw – few people know how to use them to make adequate bread. Getting our first bread machine to make good bread was an exercise in frustration and dismay. For months we tried recipe after recipe, always ending up with the same thing – a burnt brick of rock-hard particle board.

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Chicken Egg Washer


Update:
If you are a serious egg producer, please also check out our hands-on review of The Little Egg Scrubber egg washing machine.


Back yard chickens are phenomenal – feed them waste from their kitchen and they in turn feed you fresh eggs daily. But when you catch the “chicken bug” in a big way, you’ll end up with so many eggs that just washing them turns into an hour long chore.

A bucket based egg washer is ideal for someone who washes several dozen at a time. The egg washer we built for this article will fit 70 of the golden-centered orbs at a time.

The basic premise is simple – air is blown through holes in a submerged pipe resting at the bottom of a standard bucket. The air flows upward through the bucket in the form of bubbles, which agitate the dirt off the eggs.
bucket-egg-washer The commercial version of this egg washer pictured above sells for a burly $135 on Amazon. The DIY version we built below cost us about 30$ in parts.

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1 Minute Wine Recipe

Most wine making guides really over-think the wine making process. They tell you to buy all kinds of equipment and additives that you don’t really need.

This tutorial is about stripping wine making down to the absolute bare minimum. It’s so simple that you can get going with just 5$ in equipment, and start a batch of wine in under a minute.

See Also: The 1:30 video version. (link opens in a new tab)

wine-glass-peach

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