Hello Everyone!
A brief introduction: Hi I am Jacob.
TL;DR: There is no tl;dr because you should have more patience and attention span than a gnat on a high wind.
Apocalyptic Homesteading Day 131-139!
A Late Frost, Making Vinyl Windows, Chicken Coop Construction, Cabin Site Prep, Worm Boxes & A Big Wooden Mallet
The weather here has been mostly nice even though there was another cold snap a few days ago where it frosted for two nights and the temperatures hovered around freezing but thankfully it did not last all that long and the days were still quite nice. I am still unaccustomed to springtime outside the mountains where it often remains cold until the end of April and into early May. I have absolutely enjoyed the milder climate and not only being able to work through the winter but also being able to get an early start on spring activities outdoors.
Anyway, since my last entry I have done a bunch of stuff and been rather busy from sun up to sundown each day doing all kinds of jazz around the shelter site trying to get the place dialed in for the warmer months and for the cabin building project. I swear it is always 'one thing leads to another' or 'one thing not done is in the way of something else being able to get done' which I guess is just the way of things... but ugh can it get easy to lose sight of the actual goal when sometimes dozens of side quests have to be finished first.
A good example of all that is the cabin project because I needed lumber storage (and shade) so I built the little solar shack, with that done I could look at doing the footer work for the cabin and well... the chicken area was in the way. So, I had to finally build a real coop for the chickens (which they needed anyway) and although it only took me a few days to build it I realized that I would also need to make them a new chicken run and finally retire using the temporary PVC dog yard fence that I have been using for them the last many months. It is really not all that big of a deal to build a small chicken run but it will also need a gate and the coop itself needs a small over-roof added so that it sheds water... and the bottom of the coop needs to be enclosed for worm farming... and the list goes on!
Meanwhile the primary objective was actually accomplished and once the fencing and temporary coop setup gets moved out of the way and the site is thoroughly raked I can start on the process of removing roots and digging holes for the cabin's foundation. The cabin will have a total of nine piers for the foundation and given the elevation changes I will probably have to pull a lot of strings to get everything squared up, plumb and level. I am not really looking forward to hauling all the cinder blocks for the project either so perhaps some of my 'side questing' is some mild avoidance! Seriously though, there has been a bunch of prep work done in preparation of the cabin build and now I am kind of down to the wire on wrapping all the necessary 'side quests' up because the first building material delivery (for the cabin) is scheduled to arrive tomorrow.
Before I got started on the new chicken coop I finished off the wall located on the uphill side of the solar shack by installing two big clear pieces of vinyl as windows and using a bunch of rough-cut pine to do the siding and what amounts to the trim work. It came out really cool looking and although the untreated pine is not great for longevity it sure looks 'rustic' and I think it was a good use for those materials. I have just enough of it left to do the downhill wall also. I have already framed that wall in and once I get some more scrap zip-board I can do the exterior sheathing (of the two foot knee wall) and install more of the vinyl (as two more windows) and then add the pine siding to finish it off. In the end I am thinking to make the solar shack have those big vinyl windows in all four walls and fabricating some stout shutters to go over them in case of severe weather or if all the sunlight makes it too hot inside of it during the warmer months and I want to keep it cooler inside.
Alright, I did not finish writing this yesterday so here I am before sunrise, sipping my morning espresso and kind of just brooding over everything in regards to where I am at, what I am up to and what all lays ahead as far as projects go. I discarded my idea of building a new chicken run and spent a bunch of time yesterday moving the PVC dog yard so that it encircles the new chicken coop (and is out of the way) and cleaning up the old temporary coop area which honestly was a frigging mess.
When I was moving here last fall I had used a piece of foil backed bubble insulation for the bottom of that small cage that I transported the chickens in and later kept one of the roosters in at night. Over the last many months that piece of insulation has taken a bunch of abuse and had made quite the mess of little pieces of it being littered all over the area where the cage was... so I cleaned it all up which required lots of raking because of course the little pieces of litter were very numerous and were mixed in with a bunch of leaves, soil and chicken waste. Not wanting to waste the potential fertilizer and also not wanting to pick out hundreds of small pieces of plastic... I opted to shovel the stuff into several plastic totes (that conveniently already had holes in them) and make them into worm bins that I later positioned along one edge of my dog poop compost mound. What I am thinking to do with the worm bins is to fashion some lids for them and then bury them in compost (up to the lid) as I add material to the mound. I am hoping that the heat from the rest of the mound will help break down the stuff in the bins faster and perhaps accelerate it all becoming worm food. It is assuredly an experiment so I will have to dutifully record the results and see what happens over time with the worm farming.
On a different note, I realize that I have been going rather full tilt for the better part of a year now and during the last six months (while camping) I have stepped it up a notch and been even more engaged in working than I usually am. In other words I have been going at it all somewhere 'beyond full tilt' and no matter how much I pace myself I know that it just is not sustainable and that at some point I will need to get some real downtime in. Initially I was thinking that I would take some downtime in the spring but at this point it is looking more like that will not happen until the summer which is fine by me because as long as I have the downtime as a goal I can keep enduring the workload that I have put myself under.
Do not get me wrong here about the workload because I fucking love it and lacking much in the way of a stressful environment I often find the work itself enjoyable. There is also the element of not 'working with junk' which makes things much less aggravating so go figure. When I was building the new chicken coop I used up some scrap material from around the site and some of it was assuredly 'junk' and whoa did I get quite the reminder of why that is so frustrating because of course the wood was some combination of partially rotted, twisted, hooked, curved, severely crowned... and generally a pain in the butt to work with. What I noticed is that I was much less 'Zen' about the building process than say when I was working on the solar shack and utilizing all new materials. There was also other factors like working in the sun, getting scratched up continually by the ends of the chicken wire, having to crawl in and out of the coop's doors to work on stuff and of course the entire time I had to keep walking up and downhill hauling tools and materials so let's just say that it was quite taxing and leave it at that.
My point there though, is that by the end of the coop building I was totally over it and had come to the realization that when it comes down to it I just like building stuff and that when I am 'working with junk' I just need to take extra time (and care) with the overall process and be more accepting that things might not come out exactly how I want them to. I guess that it comes down to standards and although I often choose function over form... I also do not want the things that I build looking like utter rubbish or even worse both failing to be adequate for their job and looking like rubbish! With this particular scenario (at this shelter site) I am also keeping in mind that I will eventually move on from it to another site on the property (or mayhaps several) and whoever inhabits this site will not be surrounded by unsightly (or ill-functioning) objects.
Generally I drop my standards when it comes to building things for myself and in this case (since I am not exactly doing that) I have noticed just how differently I approach (and do) projects related to the site. I guess that the big difference is that my focus is on the quality of the work and not so much on 'just getting it done so that I can move on to the next project' which is often my habit with setting up my own homesteading area. Honestly I want to see where this kind of activity takes me and what kinds of shelter sites that I can develop (like this one) around the property. To some degree I have been treating it all as if I were creating a template for the other sites and taking mental notes along the way as to how to make doing the next one if not easier at least more straight forward.
Although much of the work for my current setup was site clearing and preparation, laying basic infrastructure like water and electricity, getting the dog yard built and all the other random tasks there is also a big element of what I think of as 'unseen work' in the form of planning, observation, material calculations, design work and so forth and so on. That kind of stuff thankfully comes second nature to me at this point in life and coupled with years of self-discipline I can turn all that cerebral stuff into actionable tasks that I set about doing in a methodical fashion. There is something to it all that brings deep satisfaction to me when (after a few days of focused work) I can step back from a finished project and feel good about what was accomplished. One thing is for sure and that is I do not mind giving myself a big pat on the back for a job well done... right before moving on to the next project and being dissatisfied that it is not yet done!
Alright, it is now a little after dark and I just got out of the outdoor tub and can finally settle down for the evening and try to get this entry wrapped up to one degree or another. I am a bit jazzed up after drinking some espresso this evening which is something that I quit doing at night several weeks (perhaps months) ago just because for some odd reason it felt like the right thing to do. It might have something to do with transitioning to longer work days now that spring is here and combined with how wiped out I am at the end of the day (most days) the last thing that I want to do is fight off sleep and stay awake longer than I absolutely need to. Not writing (or doing much else besides zoning out online) each night assuredly is playing its part as well because I do not need the extra 'pep in my mental step' to counter the fatigue so that I can more adeptly do tedious tasks.
Today was an interesting day and although the building supply company was supposed to make a delivery they blew it off for the second time in a week which again is probably because some of the stuff that we ordered is out of stock. The last time we got materials delivered by them we got the same kind of run around but eventually got our stuff delivered, plus some discounts, plus some extra materials that they erroneously delivered to us... so with that in mind I do not mind the run around if that is the kind of outcome that might occur. I think of it as having the possibility of getting a sort of 'loot crate' when ordering from that company and with the price of lumber I could put some 'loot crates' to good use like I did with the solar shack. Hell, I could put actual wooden crates to good use at this point given how valuable any sort of lumber is to me at this stage of things.
On that note, I finally tested my idea of using a regular table saw to mill some of the oak that was left over when I initially cleared the shelter site. I started with a nearly five inch round (very straight) pole and in the end I wound up with an inch and a half by an inch and a half piece of rather nice lumber. I later ripped the stick of oak lumber down into three evenly sized pieces that were roughly a quarter inch thick by one and a half inches tall that I used on the chicken coop door to cover the edges of the chicken wire. In other words after creating a mountain of saw dust with the table saw and binding the saw up several times whilst figuring out the best method for the milling... I had made roughly five meters worth of trim. That same stick of lumber from a building supply store would have probably cost me around twenty or thirty bucks so given the original time invested in harvesting the tree, the hauling of the waste debris, dedicating the space to the storage of the pole as it cured and the actual thirty minutes of milling I guess that it was worth it. I will have to do more such tests with a better saw blade because I think that a better blade would make the milling process much smoother.
On a similar note, I finally fire-treated those three oak poles that I de-barked back during the beginning of the winter not long after I had harvested them. Instead of over-killing it with a big fire I made a small hot fire and rotated the last meter of each pole over the fire for about forty minutes which was probably much too short of a time but it gave me an idea of what I was in for with the process and how to position the poles so that they can be easily rotated over the fire. It is kind of like roasting marshmallows over a campfire and by that I mean that I was attempting to toast the wood without actually burning it. It was pretty cool to see the effects of the flames (and general heat) on the wood grain of the poles and it got me really wanting a garden torch to experiment with instead of an open fire in a pit.
Okay, I was talking about today being an odd day. I basically took everything off the table today as far as projects go because I was waiting for the delivery truck (or word of its cancellation) and in so doing I had a very open slate aside from my usual daily chores. I realized the other day just how hard I have been pushing my body and my mind the last many months (hell, the last year) and that I needed to just slow down and not have some crushing daily itinerary that 'has to be done' reverberating through my head all day whilst doing the tasks. Shit gets nutty at some point and I was like 'whoa just breathe a little and see what you notice' so that is pretty much all that I have done all day. It is kind of like taking a step back before I make the next several hundred steps forward with my tunnel vision thoroughly engaged on the cabin building project. I enjoyed going around the place in a detached manner and seeing what all I noticed and reminding myself how far the place has come since my arrival.
With all of that in mind, I was hiking around this morning when the realization hit me that a good wooden mallet would come in handy for pounding stakes and moving heavy things (like logs) around and that it had been a while since I had made one... all of which of course lead me to doing something creative and making one. All the mallets that I have previously made I used black locust to make the head but lacking any of that growing here (aside from my seedlings) I settled for using oak instead. I again used some of the oak material from when I initially cleared the shelter site and cut off a nice big piece of it that was about sixteen inches long and four and a half inches in diameter. I then de-barked it, drilled out the center hole with a paddle bit, installed a wood dowel rod for a roughly one meter handle, added some banding made from plumbing strap and boom I had a very nice mallet! Afterwards I even used a red construction crayon to wax both sides of the mallet's head (that I cut down to twelve inches wide) so that I could help prevent it from cracking as it continues to dry out. The head will of course crack regardless (which is just what they do on those kinds of mallets) but the banding generally holds the head together long enough for me to use the mallet for whatever I need it for and it is not like fashioning a new one takes a huge amount of time or anything.
All things considered it was a refreshing day and I found myself doing a bunch of minor tasks around the shelter site that had either got pushed way down on my mental 'to do' list or fallen off of it completely. I have been doing those kinds of things a bunch the last few days actually and it sure feels good to get to the point where I am like okay I made it this far but this detail is nagging me, and this one, and that one and oh gods damn there are a dozen more things kind of sandbagging my overall productivity that I had not even noticed and in the name of immediacy I better do them right now!
All of which is fine and dandy when I do not have a big project to work on and hence do not have to worry about getting mired in side quests because I love accomplishing stuff no matter how trivial or burly the task at hand. I guess that I should start setting some time aside each week for not just doing side quests but also just for doing creative stuff. The main thing that often prohibits me from doing creative stuff (like wood sculptures and such) is not so much the time involved but the resources involved. Honestly if for example I burn out the one good appropriately sized drill bit that I have, or use up all the good fasteners that I have on creative stuff then I will be kicking myself in the proverbial ass over it when it comes time that I need them for building functional stuff like the cabin or the solar shack. I guess now that my financial scenario has gotten more stable that I should quit thinking like that but like the old saying goes 'old habits are hard to break' which is not to say that they cannot be broken. We will see how it all works out but as of now I am cheerful to at least feel inspired to create stuff in the first place.
Well, it is now the following morning and I should get this entry wrapped up and do my best to get it edited and posted before the day drags on much further. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
More about me: I have been doing property caretaking (land stewardship) for many years (decades) and live a rather simple life with my dogs doing what most folks would consider to be an 'alternative minimalist lifestyle' but what I often just think of as a low-impact lifestyle where I get to homestead and spend the majority of my time alone with my dogs in the woods doing projects in the warmer months and taking some downtime during the colder months.
Nearly four years ago I began sharing the adventures (misadventures) of my life via writing, videos, pictures and the occasional podcasts and although my intention was to simply share my life with some friends it undoubtedly grew into much more than that over the years and now I find myself doing what equates to a full-time job just 'sharing my life' which is not even all that glamorous or anything but hey folks seem to enjoy it so I just keep doing it!
The way that I look at it is that I give it all my best each day and while some stuff I write is better than others I think that for the most part I do a pretty good job at doing what I am doing which is simply 'sharing my life' as candidly as I possibly can and whatever folks get (or do not get) from it there is always the satisfaction of me doing what I set out to do... which is to simply share my life.
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