Day 1. (TFC Moving And Setting Up The Initial Camp)
The moving of the majority of the homestead from one place to another took from early in the morning yesterday to five thirty this morning when we did the final unload and me and the dogs were here to stay.
The portable pvc dog yard worked fantastic but the over-sized tent did not quite fit within it's dimensions so it wasn't setup correctly and leaks everywhere and oh yeah it started raining late last night when we did the second moving truck load and hasn't let up since then.
I have two box springs and a mattress in the tent so at least since I have it blocked off the ground (and leveled) me and the dogs are high and dry.
Anyway I'm stoked but I am also in zombie mode functioning on caffeine and sheer will power so I am going to attempt to see if I can access a hot shower here and then curl up with the dogs and sleep.
I am absolutely stoked to be here (biting noseeums and all) but whoa I never want to move an entire homestead again. I am so appreciative of the folks that helped and they did a wonderful job of doing things efficiently and as diligently as possible and were incredibly patient.
Anyway that's all for the moment. I need a shower or sleep and if I can't get a shower I am going to plunge into the large fast moving creek here and call it good enough.
Day 2. (TFC Site Preparation, Trail Clearing and General Setup)
I have been up since long before the sun today and did a lot of getting my camping situation dialed in. Everything has been a wet mess (since it was pouring rain during the actual move) but at least it eventually got sunny today and dried things out some. One of the folks here got me several bales of straw this afternoon so I can at least keep the ground in front of the tent and the dog yard from becoming a mucky mess which they definitely were becoming from all the foot traffic.
I changed the trail-head some that leads to the camping area and now it is not such a pain to traverse and the trail itself has a more gradual change of elevation than several abrupt ones that made getting the stuff I needed back in the woods a bear of a time when it was pouring rain the other day.
Along that same trail I pulled up a few hundred yards of downed barbwire fencing so at least in that section I won't have to worry about the dogs getting tangled or injured by it. There is definitely more of it to remove but it is in pretty good shape and coils up rather well because it is a light gauge wire.
The gate to the yard here at the homestead was lacking a good post and thus made using it pretty tricky and after something like the dozenth time of struggling with it the last few days I finally just fixed it by stiffening up one of it's post with some pieces of black locust that I brought with me.
I am still in setup mode and all my batteries are mostly dead so I have not really been taking many pictures or anything. My stuff is packed away in so many boxes in a small space that finding what I am looking for has been challenging but over all I have been keeping the camp all just low tech and camping mostly in the rough. It has been a really nice change of pace and I have been really enjoying my time here. The dogs are acclimating well and drove off the first coyote pack last night.
Anyway this netbook battery is almost dead and I am running on fumes myself so tat ta for now.
Day 3. (TFC Setting Up Temporary Electricity Solutions & Building A Solar Shack)
The last few days have been a blur to me as I continue setting up my temporary camp but at least it has been anything but stressful. Aside from a lot of sore muscles and general weariness left over from four months of packing down the previous homestead and then the final push to get everything moved which was quite the endeavor itself...then the setup involved here which is a bit physically demanding because I have to hike uphill from my storage in the camper to my actual camp...aside from all of that I feel pretty damn good.
Once I actually get to a good stopping point with my initial setup here I think that I am just going to lay in a hammock for a few days read a book, listen to some music and basically just nap as much as possible and give my body some recovery time because it definitely needs it.
On a different note besides that first night of continual rain the weather has been really nice (except it is chilly at night) and rather sunny. So after watching for a sunny spot near the camp for the last two days I finally setup one of my big solar panels then ran the eighty odd feet of wire to a place near my tent and built a small shack with pallets near my dog yard entrance.
The shack was super simple and I just weatherproofed it with plastic and a plywood roof and called it good enough. Inside the shack is a shelf that has a charge controller and a single twelve volt utility port so that I can charge my phone, my LED lights and my lithium ion five volt battery packs. I am only using one battery in the shack and it is my big marine grade one that was the first battery that I got on my last journey.
After wiring the shack for solar I also ran two hundred feet of extension cord from the the small shop here and installed my digital usage meter at the end of it and put it in the shack as well just so that I would have grid power if I need it. The only thing that I have used grid power for so far has been to charge my cordless drill battery so that I could install the solar panel and build the 'solar shack'. There is also plenty of room in the shack to put some of the tools and fasteners that I need available to start working on stuff around the camp and not have to hike back and forth to the camper which is awesome in and of itself.
All around everything here has been really awesome and although I might gripe about the hiking uphill the hill is actually quite small and the hike is only three hundred odd feet. I have thoroughly been enjoying the simplicity of just camping at the moment with the added bonus of having all the gear I need for not just camping to build my own little homestead area within the larger homestead of Fantastica which is the name of the place which is quite appropriate.
Early in the day I went hiking with a few of the folks that live here and was able to show them some of the potential springs that I had noticed. I even got to show them the signs to watch for when trying to find a spring so that was pretty cool because finding springs is not something a lot of folks know how to do nor show interest in learning.
Overall I hit the ground running upon my arrival here and have been completely 'in the zone' with getting things setup but now that I can easily charge my phone I will be able to take more pictures and spend more time writing and generally just have my shit together enough to get back into my daily routines.
Anyway I have a lot more thoughts but daylight is slipping away and I need to get stuff put up from today's activities and get ready for the evening to come which will invariably involve me sitting by the fire and just chilling out before calling it a night and getting some much needed rest.
Day 4. (TFC Harvesting Poplar, Building A Music Bar, Setting Up A Writing Desk & Bush Hogging With A Push Mower To Create A Yard)
Today is the first day that I am not feeling absolutely exhausted since the big moving day. I am still feeling a good bit of weariness and am far from physically recovered from all my recent exertions but overall I am gradually recuperating and doing my best to just pace myself with getting everything setup here.
After falling asleep early last night I slept in until almost seven thirty and decided before my espresso was even finished brewing that I would just do light duty work today and do my best to avoid doing any heavy lifting or hauling heavy items from where I have my stuff stored to where I am camping. Amazingly I even stuck to it all day and feel better because of it.
Early this morning I decided to try my smallest cellular signal booster just to see if I could improve my cellular signal at the camp and was quite surprised to see that it actually worked to give me one bar of signal instead of the zero bars that I had without it. Considering that my larger signal boosters are much more powerful I shouldn't have any problem maintaining a good connection once I set one of them up.
I did a bunch of work with a swing blade to clear out more of a 'yard' here and it is slowly coming along and getting a little more manicured looking and larger each day. At some point in the past some folks had cleared much of the underbrush in the woods here so I have mainly just been cutting small stuff that has grown back since then and also hauling away the sticks left over from when the underbrush was originally removed. There are also a lot of short sapling stumps so I have been tediously cutting the smaller ones out with some loppers and leaving the larger to be removed later with an axe.
Once I got all the sticks picked up and the thick wisteria vines drug to the fire for burning I got my self-propelled self-mulching lawnmower, raised the mower deck as high as possible and gave the 'yard' (or what will become the yard) a good mowing and turned everything into mulch which will hopefully help smother out the rampant poison ivy.
At some point I decided to go ahead and remove a few unwanted small poplar trees here that one of the folks pointed out to me and after removing all the limbs I stored them up off the ground so they will start drying out so that I can eventually use them as rafters.
During the afternoon I started longing for some music to work to so I went ahead and got my amplifier and speakers setup which ultimately lead me to building a bar (counter) to accommodate all the music gear including my mixer. I later covered the bar with a canopy tent that I also placed a light inside of so that I can have some bright outdoor lighting if the need for it arises.
I also setup that second tent that I have as a temporary outhouse to store my composting toilet bucket in and have a nice dry place to use the bathroom if it is raining and/or chilly outside.
The last thing that I did today was get a writing table setup in my big tent so that I will no longer have to trudge to the camper each evening to write and make my posts. It is a small comfort but it is nice having somewhere convenient to write and do research if the need arises.
Anyway I am rapidly getting more drowsy by the moment so I am going to wrap this up, do the editing/posting and fall fast asleep so that I can get more much needed rest and do it all over again tomorrow.
Day 5. (TFC Transplanting Black Raspberries, More Pseudo Bush Hogging, Giving Myself A Haircut, Building A WiFi Antenna & Playing In The Creek)
As the title suggests it was a very full day of various activities that were not extremely taxing on my body. I am gradually recovering from the moving process and the tax it put on me but today was definitely an improvement in that regard so perhaps in another day or two I will be all healed up and won't have so many aches and pains slowing me down.
Something that is not in the title that I did today was doing a bit of computer repair on a laptop that a friend gave me recently. They actually gave me two laptops and one had a bad screen and the other a bad hard drive so I took the working hard drive from the one with the broken screen and installed it in the one with the bad hard drive which worked pretty well because I was able to quickly install Linux Mint on it and it now runs fine other than having a dodgy power port that disconnects all too easily. It always seems weird working on computers in the woods but hopefully I can turn that laptop into a wireless hotspot and make the WiFi signal here more usable.
I also setup my biggest cellular repeater to see if I could improve my cellular connection but unfortunately it only helped the phone to work better and did not improve my data connection enough to make it usable.
Having any kind of internet connectivity here has been really difficult unless I hike down out of the woods. I moved the WiFi router and got the signal to my camp but it is not strong enough to actually do anything more than create a connection. I was so disappointed to find that out last night when I tried to make my post from my tent and had to unplug everything and hike downhill to use the WiFi and finish my posting.
Anyway after those things failed to solve my internet problem I decided to build a big WiFi antenna with a street light hood (that I have used extensively for various things including an antenna in the past) and a small usb WiFi card that I placed in the center of it. So far the only place that I could get it to get a useful signal is at my music bar so I installed it there and put an outdoor table and chair beside it so that I can use it to make my posts with.
I finally got all those black raspberry plants that I brought with me planted and was happy to see that I had inadvertently brought a bunch of earth worms with me as well. Thankfully the black raspberries were in the shade the last several days and look like they will recover from all the rough treatment they got during the moving process.
I did a bunch more stick removal and pseudo bush hogging with my lawnmower and nearly doubled the size of my yard. With all the underbrush out of the way I am also getting to see what the terrain actually looks like which will help me to determine where to build various things at here.
Late in the day I decided to take my first dip in the creek here so I built up the fire (in case the water was super cold) and hiked down to the creek with the dogs and got in for a nice soak. All the dogs had fun playing in and near the creek but my big dog did the most swimming and seemed really happy to get a break from the heat.
Anyway I need to get this edited/posted and hopefully my new antenna will do the trick and I can make this post from my camp. I forgot to mention the haircut I gave myself but suffice it to say my head and face feel much cooler now.
Day 6. (TFC Gate Repair, More Brush Clearing, Carrying Pallets & A Much Needed Afternoon Nap)
Well I would like to say that I have everything setup and things are going wonderful but even though things are good in many ways I can't quite feel comfortable living in a tent. Camping is neat and all but I sure miss having four walls around me and an actual roof over my head. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if all my stuff wasn't at the bottom of the hill and things were more conveniently located for me to use them and/or to be able to get myself setup better.
None of my plans involved all my building materials being at the bottom of the hill but upon my arrival with everything the path uphill hadn't been cleared, it was raining and the slope was slippery and we just didn't have enough people to carry everything to where it needed to go which is just the way things worked out and isn't really anyone's fault or anything.
The biggest aggravation is my lack of usable cellular service or usable WiFi (unless I hike close to the WiFi) and that combined with not having a real writing desk/area (with some sort of internet access) has been making things really frustrating for me especially since I find the writing to be rather therapeutic. For some reason today my big WiFi antenna hasn't been working all that well and I keep losing connectivity even with it so I dunno how making my post tonight will work out. I am starting to think that having a writing desk and functional internet is a cornerstone to my sanity.
I must admit that this whole new endeavor has thrown me for quite a loop especially since I just spent nearly three years being extremely self-sufficient with my water, electricity and internet needs. The place gets very little sun for solar. I have to hike downhill for the water and get it from a well. Internet connectivity is extremely frustrating as I previously stated. Basically I am back to square one but minus good terrain for sunlight, minus even marginal cellular data service and minus any springs that aren't part of the creek and thus prone to contamination and surface water.
Ultimately I feel anything but self-sufficient at this point and have a lot of messy feelings about taking a massive step backwards from the lifestyle I want to be living. It is downright fucking self-empowering to be extremely self-sufficient and I miss it dearly.
Anyway there is a rear gate here that makes for a bit easier access to the rear of the property (where I am camping) and it leads to a trail that provides a much gentler transition of the slope that leads to my camp so early this morning I set about repairing it because it had at some point in the past become dysfunctional and then blocked off (to keep the animals in) with some random stuff like windows, a cooler and even an old freezer. So I got all that stuff moved, then untangled a bunch of rope and wire someone had used to keep the gate shut and eventually got to the point where I could figure out what was wrong with it. Luckily the hinges still worked but the post they were attached to had rotted away so I flipped the gate around and attached it to a pre-existing four by four and added a new post to replace the bad one. The gate itself also needed new mesh wire so I found some around the yard and affixed it to the gate. I also fabricated a way to keep the gate shut by creating a vertical slider that utilizes two different sized pvc pipes. It is not all that pretty of a latching mechanism but it will work for now.
I have been trying to find a good spot near my camp to build a shed made from pallets and whatever else I can scrap together so that I can either start sleeping in it or if it doesn't seem all that weatherproof to just store some of my stuff in that is currently stored under or around the camper at the foot of the hill. I think that today I finally settled on a spot for it but first I am going to have to remove a leaning black locust tree that looks like at least the first six feet of it's trunk has heart rot but amazingly is still alive. Fortunately there is about forty feet of the tree that looks like it will make for some good building material so it definitely won't go to waste and the stump will assuredly shoot up new growth once the trees has been felled. So while I still had some energy early in the day I started hauling pallets up the hill one at a time but ran out of steam after bringing up four of the twelve that I need.
I did a bunch more hauling of sticks today so I could bush hog more with the lawn mower and now have quite the pile of kindling stacked up. I also gathered several maple tree saplings before I did the mowing and got them put in a bucket to transplant them somewhere else over the next few days. My 'yard' so far is hilly, rocky, lacks any grass (or ground-cover) whatsoever and needs a lot of tending but it is definitely getting a little larger each day.
At some point late in the afternoon I realized that I have been working twelve hour (or more) days for the better part of three weeks without any real break along the way and realizing that it was like it all caught up to me at once and I got super sleepy and took a much needed nap for a few hours. I felt much better afterwards and even took the dogs to the creek for another late in the day swim.
Anyway that is about it for now and I am going to wrap this up and get it edited and posted. I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
Day 7. (TFC Bringing Some Order To The Chaos Of My Storage Situation, Building A Smaller WiFi Antenna & Visiting The Local Hemp Cafe)
Today I mainly tried to take a bit of a break from doing a bunch of physically demanding stuff because honestly there has just been too much of that lately and I need to give my body a chance to heal a little. So I slept in until a little after eight this morning and stopped myself from diving into hauling sticks and prepping to do more brush clearing like I have done the previous mornings while my espresso is still brewing. It was really a sheer act of willpower to not dive into that stuff again today but somehow I managed to avoid it.
Late last night I got to thinking about how when I moved we just sort of crammed everything we could in the camper any way that we could fit it and that I could probably reorganize it all and have a bit of usable space inside which lead to me thinking about how if some severe weather hit here that I could if need be abandon my camp and hunker down in the camper with the dogs until the storm blew over.
So instead of taking the day completely off I got the camper mostly organized, cleaned some of the junk out of it from the previous occupant, made it where I can walk in and out of it without stuff being in the way and even got one of the two beds cleared off so that me and the dogs can sleep there if it came down to it.
None of my plans here really accounted for not getting all my building materials back into the woods upon my arrival and by now (if I had gotten the building materials staged in the woods) I would have at least four walls and a roof to stay within instead of still being in the tent. Thankfully the weather has remained rather nice except for my first day here when it poured rain during the move but one way or another I need to get some sort of building constructed as soon as possible. I can carry all of the building materials myself uphill except for the two pre-built decks that weigh several hundred pounds each but they are actually what I need first because they make the base of the building.
Anyway while I was cleaning and organizing the camper I found an old coffee percolator that I have used to focus my cellular repeater antenna in the past and decided to try it with my external WiFi card to see if I could make a smaller antenna with a more focused direction and mayhaps be able to get WiFi in my tent. It actually worked but I am going to hold off my excitement until after I make this post with it.
All in all it was a pretty good day and I am feeling much better physically because I finally took it easy and was able to give my body a bit of a break. There is a lot I have to do if I am ever going to stop living in a tent and all of it is going to be physically demanding so I need to remind myself now and then to just breathe, take a day to recover and pace myself the best that I can.
