Month: January 2010

My First Book is Alive and Well

Last year, in a fit of self-indulgence, I reprinted my first book, Through Dungeons Deep: A Fantasy Gamers’ Handbook, which I wrote in college and was published by Reston Publishing in 1982.

Rather to my surprise, it has been selling briskly, and in spite of being a straight reprint, without a single word having been changed in 28 years, I’m getting testimonials like this one:

Robert,

Just a note to wish you and yours a happy holiday, and to tell you how much I enjoy “Through Dungeons Deep” (the reprinted edition). Although I’m a DM with many years of experience, I still find new and insightful ideas in every chapter. The bits about your personal gaming group and characters are especially fun to read as well. I look forward to recommending it to my friends, who will undoubtedly enjoy it every bit as much as I have.

Best wishes,

Todd Rooks
Barberton, OH

I’m grateful to be living in the Internet age, where self-publishing allows works that have long been out of print to find new audiences. I hope to bring many more books to light, delighting people with both their nostalgia value and their timelessness.

Easy Way To Improve Rural Cell Phone Reception

The only cell phone tower near my farm is slowly getting masked by trees as the forest next door grows up, and the cell phone reception in my house is dreadful.

I just bought a Verizon Network Extender and couldn’t be happier. This is a device that looks like a wireless access point but acts like a miniature cell phone tower, using your DSL or cable modem to reach the cellular network. Our phones went from zero bars to four! Woo-hoo!

This is a zero-config device: I plugged it in and it self-configured within about 20 minutes. I didn’t have to set a single parameter.

And it not only covers the whole house, but extends quite a way beyond it, even to the mailbox on the other side of the road. Generally speaking, reception in the house is worse than anywhere else, so it completely covers the problem area.

The retail price of this technological wonder (called a “femtocell” in the biz) is a wince-inducing $250, but I found a “$50 off All Accessories” coupon online, and, much to my surprise, found a $50 rebate form inside the box that’s good through most of January, so it really cost me only $150. There is no monthly fee.

It doesn’t handle 3G traffic (though your 3G devices will fall back to the “1X” standard, which it does handle, though slowly). and I don’t know if non-Verizon subscribers can roam through it or not. But sure solved my problem!

There are similar devices out there that work with other carriers, plus a wide variety of cellular signal boosters that use an outdoor antenna to talk to the cell phone tower, and an amplifier and an indoor antenna to talk to your cell phones. The main difference is that boosters don’t work in areas where you have no signal at all, while network extenders that use your cable or DSL links do.

These devices will probably turn out to be a must-have for rural residents everywhere.

[Update, March 24, 2010: After more than two months of use, I’m still very pleased. The higher signal quality means that our cell phone batteries last for many days rather than just one, and I no longer have to hunt around the house and farm for Karen if I need to talk to her: I can always reach her by phone. That wasn’t true before. The only downside is that the extender adds a noticeable time lag when both ends of the conversation are going through it! This only happens when both parties are on the farm, of course.]

Brooding Baby Chicks in Winter

Brooding baby chicks in cold weather — how low can you go?

As it turns out, cold-weather brooding can go very low indeed. Back in the Fifties, when the electric companies were promoting electric brooding as safer, more reliable, and more convenient that the coal and kerosene brooders that folks used to use, one group did a demonstration:

They suspended four heat lamps in a walk-in freezer at a constant -20 F, and brooded a dozen or so chicks there. It was so cold that ice formed on the waterers on the sides away from the heat lamps, but within the circle of light the chicks were snug and comfy and did just fine.

The rule of thumb for overhead heat-lamp brooders is that one 250-watt heat lamp can handle 75 chicks at 50 F. If temperatures are lower than that, subtract one chick for every degree below 50 F. For example, -20 F is 70 degrees lower than 50 F, so you would be able to brood five chicks (75-70=5) per heat lamp. With four lamps, the freezer demonstration could handle 20 chicks!

Stop for a second and realize how much more confidence you have in all-weather chick brooding, now that you’ve grasped this little-known fact. And that’s just a tiny fraction of the chick-raising lore I’ve collected in my book, Success With Baby Chicks. Don’t forget that we all brood chicks in the late winter or early spring, when it’s still cold! Baby chick season is upon us, so you need to buy the book now, before the chicks arrive.

The “Youngest-First” Trick

I always check my youngest chickens first, then work my way up to the oldest ones.

One reason is that baby chicks are more fragile than older birds, so they need to be watched and cared for without fail. As the chickens get older, they need less and less attention, since they’re sturdier and know the ropes. By checking the youngest chickens first, you ensure that they’ll be taken care of before you discover any crises or distractions with the more rugged birds. This helps make sure the youngest chickens don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Then there’s the issue of disease. If you buy only from reputable hatcheries (which I recommend), then the odds of your youngest chickens arriving on the farm with any new diseases are small. This means that it’s not a disaster if you carry material from the brooder house into the henhouse on your boots or gloves. But your older chickens have had the chance to be exposed to various diseases and parasites from wild birds, to the reverse isn’t true. Baby chicks start out with a weak immune system, which gets stronger day by day, so keeping them separated from the older birds really helps. For a while, anyway.

So remember: always take care of your youngest chickens first, and then move on up in reverse order of age.