30 November, 2014 Venison, House Fires and Snowbirding

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy as we prepare to head south for the winter.  It was tight but we headed out on schedule.  Of course a few things went wrong on the road (as they usually do) but we're now in Nevada.

Susan has been canning things to take with us.  Here she is canning up Cheddar cheese.  When things go on sale we often buy in bulk then can it for later use,  It saves money several of ways.  First, we got the food originally at a lower price.  Second, once it's canned or dehydrated we don't need to refrigerate it to store it,  Third, if we have it on hand at the motor home we are less likely to make a trip into town for food (either prepared at a restaurant or from the grocery store) which saves money on gas and the extra price of the food itself.

We were given this squash several months ago and finally got around to canning it.  Obviusly it had to be cut up for cooking.

Susan has cubed it and is preparing it for the canner.

I shot a whitetail spike buck to fill my deer tag with.  He is one of the best tasting deer I've ever shot.

I shoot it and cut it up and Susan cans and cooks it!

I put the sides on the trailer so we could use it to transport things to Nevada.  We had some tongue-and-groove boards on hand so I used them for the sides.

The dog knew we were heading south and couldn't wait!  When Susan got the dog carrier in the back of the car the dog jumped in and refused to leave.  Scott arranged a little "nest" of blankets to curl up in and pass the time.

The trailer packed and ready to go.

The home of some neighbors caught on fire just before the Thanksgiving holiday.  I seldom do things like this on my blog but they could use some help.  The home was completely destroyed along with it's contents.  To compound the problem, the husband was recently diagnosed with cancer in his pancreas and liver.  It's going to be a tough time for them during this holiday season.  I've included a link with more of their story and a way to donate to them if you should desire.  http://missoulian.com/news/article_0aa3a442-e444-5b71-867b-ac90cdc5be30.html

Departure time!  On our way out we made the first tracks in our new-fallen snow.

We tried unsuccessfully to get ahead of a snowstorm.  After a couple of hours of driving 30 mph on the icy interstate we called a halt and spent the night in a Deer Lodge motel, 250 miles from home.  It dropped about 6 inches of fresh snow after we forted up.  The funny thing was that the power went off for about thirty minutes the next morning.  Scott wanted to watch television and couldn't understand the concept of the electricity not working.  We live entirely off-grid and he had never experienced a power outage before then.

We took I-15 south the next morning.  Otherwise we'd have followed the snowstorm for the next 300 miles.  It was still a couple of hours of 30 mph driving until we began to hit dry pavement.  This is what it looked like as we entered Idaho.  Once we were on dry pavement we stopped to switch drivers.  I did a quick inspection of the trailer and found out that two of the four lug nuts were missing on one wheel.  One of the studs was loose too. I took  one lug nut off the other wheel so we had three on each wheel then.  We tried getting another stud and two lug nuts at the next town we hit but ours are an odd size and they didn't have any that would fit.  So we took it the rest of the way on three lug nuts per wheel.

We hit headwinds in Idaho.  We were going about 70 mph into a 25 mph headwind with gusts above 45 mph at times.  One of the gust must have been a little harder though because it ripped the kayak and the luggage rack off the Expedition.  We were fortunate that the vehicles following avoided the flying kayak and a section of the luggage rack.  The kayak skidded safely to a stop in the ditch. It sustained only minor damage and is still usable.

One of the cross pieces to the roof rack was still attached to the kayak.

I anchored it to the top of the trailer and we were once again on the road.

Things were looking better as we entered Utah.

This is 26 hours after the photo was taken of the snow-covered Expedition in Deer Lodge.  Palm trees and no snow! 

Our motor home is the one next to the fifth-wheel.  The battery was dead in it and we couldn't get enough power in it to jump start the motor home.  It was Thanksgiving day and everything was closed.  We didn't want to drive into Mesquite or Henderson to buy another battery so we just drove to our camping spot and set up the tent for the night.  That night it got down to 35 degrees.  We were thankful for warm sleeping bags!

On Friday we purchased a battery from NAPA for $112.00.  I put it in and it would crank over now  but wouldn't fire.  I gave it a shot of starting fluid and the motor fired up so I switched tanks.  The auxiliary tank has some issues with dirt (sabotage from a squatter the previous owner evicted) so it isn't reliable.  It got us the mile to the camping area though.  On the way the brake light came on and the pedal went to the floor.  I suspect that there's some fluid leakage somewhere but I haven't checked it out yet.

We'd been having problems with the air suspension on our Expedition as well but the warmer weather seems to have fixed that.  I suspect there's an o-ring seal that needs replaced on the left rear air bag.

Scott found some sand (it's all sand!) in the camping area to play in and got out his construction equipment and began moving dirt! 

Our first evening campfire!

I didn't have time to make the stove for the motor home before we left Montana so I brought the parts and did it here.  We made a trip into the Henderson Harbor Freight Tools store and bought a welder and grinder.  The welder was on sale for $85.00.  I'd planned on buying a 120 volt stick welder but the wire welder was only $5.00 more and is more convenient so I bought it.  For a cheap welder it works very well.  It only uses flux core wire and has only two heat settings but welds nice and functions smoothly.  It weighs only half of what my Lincoln welder at home weighs so I'll use this one for jobs away from home.

I'm taking photos so later I'll be publishing a small booklet on how to make one of these.  You need two propane bottles and some other items to make a dandy little stove.

In the upper photo I've cut the hole in the bottle I'll use for the stove and the door from the other bottle.

Here, I'm welding the hinges to the door (under Scott's supervision).

As soon as I stop he grabs the welder, hammer, or whatever I've been using and pretends to work.  He's making hissing/welder sounds as he runs a bead here!

This is what the finished stove looks like after being installed in the Motor Home.  The cement boards are heat shields.  It works very well in the small spaces of the camper.  We have to watch to ensure that it doesn't get too hot.

You might wonder why we have a photo of the milk and lemons.  One of the things we missed in MT was the lemons they sell here.  Ours are small and expensive.  These are so much better than any we can get up north.

This is at the camping area right outside of town.  We'll probably be moving to our more remote location soon.

I made a separate post for this book but will include it here as well.  This is my most recent book.  It evaluates muzzle loading firearms (modern, traditional, and handguns), crossbows (and crossbow pistols), air rifles and pistols, and bows-n-arrows from a prepper's perspective.

18 October, 2014 - Trailer Kits, Broken Refrigerators, Child's Play and more ...

A typical week in October for us would be ...?   I don't have a clue what typical is!  We do more cooking over the wood heating stove simply because it's in use more hours of the day and we run it hotter since the evenings and mornings are colder.  There's also an urgency on getting the wood in and putting the garden to bed.   But there is more to life as well.  We still take walks in the woods and do things for fun in addition to trying out new things on the homestead.  We also took a day "off" and drove down to the hot springs next to the Flathead Indian Reservation to soak in the pools there.  It's a natural hot spring that's been developed over the years and is now privately owned. They have three pools. The upper one is hottest.  You can't stay in it too long or you'll get overheated.  The second pool right under the first one is like a hot bath.  It's very comfortable even though it's on the hot side temperature wise.  Both of those pools have a strong sulfur smell.  The lower pool is a regular swimming pool with warm water.  That's the one Scott likes best.  He doesn't like the upper pools and says they're too hot and he doesn't want to get "cooked."  We finished the day with a meal at IHOP then headed for home.  It's nice to see gasoline prices edging back down a bit.

This week Susan tried out some baking rings.  These are supposed to be used for rolls, buns, biscuits, etc. to make them nice and round with smooth sides.  Our first experiment was with biscuits.

Fresh out of the oven now and it's too bad you can't transmit smells over the internet because these smell wonderful!  The rings worked okay but will probably be used more when Susan makes home made hamburger buns and English Muffins.

Scott needed a bath and like most three-year-old boys he likes playing in the water.  We combined the two for him one chilly morning.  This is an early photo.  As time passed there was more water being splashed out and more toys in the tub.  It sometimes takes little boys over an hour to take a bath in this manner.

 

Susan taking a break from writing.  The cold mornings give us a good excuse to get some morning writing time in.

We came home from town last week to find out that our refrigerator had quit.  So ... we had some things to get done in a hurry to save the contents.  Fortunately, in this instance, the cold nights helped.

You can get the full story on the broken fridge by going to my Grit Magazine blog at Steven Gregersen, Grit Blog or to Susan's Poverty Prepping Blog at Poverty Prepping (go to the post for October 13).

We try to get out for some decent exercise and woods roaming is good exercise!  This is on timber company land southwest of our cabin.  They logged it a couple of years ago.  We were planning on going up to where I was cutting firewood on state land but decided to postpone that since it was beginning to get dark.  We took a different (longer) route home.  We had the dog with us so we didn't see much in the way of wildlife.

 

This is the time of year for Shaggy Mane and Bolete mushrooms.  The woods are filled with Boletes but the Shaggy Manes (above) are a little less common.

We purchased a small trailer (kit?) from Harbor Freight Tools.  There are a lot of pieces in one of these!

The first step is assembling the frame for the front half. 

Next you put the tongue together and install it.  This is a tilt bed trailer.  I'll disable the "tilt" feature.  They weaken the trailer and rattle too much going down the road.

Both halves put together and the axle installed.

I had the trailer folded in half here.  Scott loved being a part of this.

He made the rounds ensuring that I had tightened all of the bolts and nuts!

Now he's getting ready to do some welding!  (Well, watch me do it anyway!)

I welded junctions where cross members were bolted to the frame.  It will make the frame a little stiffer and hopefully make it stronger and last longer.

After I finished it Scott was pretending to weld also.  Too bad a photo can't capture the welding sounds he was making.

 

This trailer is the folding model rated at 1195 pounds cargo weight. We would have preferred the trailer rated at 1720 pounds but they didn't have a complete one in stock.  We called the store and they said they had one but when we got there they couldn't find all of the parts.  We purchased this one then when we got home found out it was missing one box containing all of the bolts and stake pockets.  The store manager went above and beyond the call by Fed-Ex-ing the box to us at our home so we wouldn't have to make the trip back to the store (in Missoula - 180 miles each way). 

 

Susan is in the process of painting it black.  When she's finished I'll put the wheels and lights on it then we'll finish the bed portion.  This year it will just be a basic, open-topped, box.  We'll have to cover it's contents with a tarp.  While we're in Nevada this winter we'll put a top on it so that we can do away with the tarp and keep the contents more secure.

As always, Odie is keeping track of everyone and everything. 

Scott and grandma playing with trucks in the sand (around the tetherball).  This is Scott's favorite place to play.  He has a sand box but for some reason prefers it here.

More wood ready for splitting.  This was cut on our property so I didn't worry to much about stacking it tightly.  At the time of this writing I have most of this load split and stacked.

 

Susan is uploading another food preservation book.  This one covers vegetables, grains and beans.  It will join the other food preservation books she has published.  She will probably combine all three into one volume sometime in the near future.  There'll be more information on her Poverty Prepping Blog.  Her new book should be live on Kindle in the next 48 hours.  The print version takes a little longer to clear all the hurdles but should be available by the end of the week.

 

 

 

16 May, 2014 Home again ...

We're back home, for awhile at least.  We have another summer trip coming up so we've been working on getting the motorhome ready for the trip.  We have a third motorhome now.  This one was purchased just for this trip.  We may keep it or sell it afterwards depending upon  how we like it.   It's kind of a cross between our big motorhome in Nevada and the smaller one we made out of a U-Haul truck.  The major issues will be reliability and gas mileage.  But not everything we've been doing is related to the motorhome.  There've been some other things to take care of as well.

We're still attempting to get some writing time in here.  I finally have everything I need for a vehicle recovery book I'm working on so I can get more done on it.  I'm also working on a couple of other books:  one on simple solar power systems and the other on alternative weapons for self-sufficiency.

I've needed some of the things at home here to finish the books. 

The motorhome was purchased just before we left for the winter in Nevada.  We had assurances that everything but the furnace worked which we've found to be true so far.  Surprisingly it had a full tank of propane.  The auxiliary battery was dead as a doornail but a few hours on the fast charger got it functional again.  It passed a load test anyway.  I'm going to install another back-up battery before we leave on the trip.  We aren't going to put solar panels on this one because we plan on being on the road a lot and the vehicle's alternator can keep the batteries charged.  We do not plan on using a generator either. 

The furnace is not a big deal at this time.  If we keep the rig we'll do a lot more modifications and get everything up to snuff.  It has a three-way refrigerator.  It does not work on 120 volts but does work with propane.  I have not tried it on 12 volts yet.  It draws 240 watts which is a lot of power for operation on batteries.  If it goes bad we'll replace it with an energy efficient unit that runs on 120 volts.

I'm still getting to know it and will have updates later.

I still have to fix some marker lights but that shouldn't be a big issue.

 

We took our time coming home and visited a few national Park and Recreation Areas on the way back.  We camped out twice and had a few nights in motels also.  One of the things we forgot to pack were cooking utensils for the motels.  We pack food along but it often needs cooked before eating.  When camping we just made a fire or used the backpacking stove.  However, our steel cups wouldn't work in a microwave so I bought this at Wal Mart for about $4.00.  We had to take turns cooking with it but it got us by okay.

 

Scott likes to look out the window and he likes to climb.  Here he got to do both.

 

 

We we're all glad to be home.  One of the first things Scott did was stack the cups.  It's fun to see them growing up and improving their physical and communication skills.

 

I got out our 65 watt solar panel out to top off the battery in the motorhome.  It was low but would still crank the motor over.  The carburetor was dry though and I ran the battery down pumping gas into the float bowl and had to put the fast charger on to start the motor.  I ran it a few minutes then shut it off.  I put the solar panel on it for a few hours to top off the battery.

 

This is an old panel and the wiring is connected manually inside the "black box." 

 

We use this one as a portable unit.  I have battery clips to attach it to whatever battery we're charging.  The chain is to secure it to something so that it doesn't grow legs and walk off without a fight.  It's often in use in the far corners of our property (way out of our sight).

 

Here the panel is leaning against the front of the motorhome.

 

Battery clips attached to the battery ...

 

and security chain in place!

 

It was also time to change the solar array from the winter to the summer position.  That's pretty easy.

 

Unbolt the arm at the bottom on both sides ...

 

then reposition it at the summer setting.

 

When I  added the extra panels a couple last year it made the array top heavy.  I put a safety chain on to keep it from falling over backwards when changing it from the summer to winter positions.

 

It's now facing the sun more directly.

 

We purchased a couple of Harbor Freight Tool solar chargers.  One is a small unit for keeping cell phones, etc. functioning.  The other is a 13 watt, portable battery "maintainer."  It's basically a solar powered "trickle" charger putting out about one amp.  It won't really charge a dead battery but it will keep one topped off if it sits for weeks or months at a time between uses. It comes with cigarette lighter attachments in both male and female configurations and with battery clips.  It also has a clip for charging batteries for cordless drills, etc.  It's very portable, folding up like a suitcase, and seems to do it's intended job well.  It was purchased to evaluate for the book on simple solar power that I'm writing.

 

I have it attached to a deep cycle battery here.  I've also installed a small charge controller.  A lot of comments on the unit said it needed a charge controller.  I'm not so sure that is the case.  At less than one amp it would be very difficult to damage a battery using it without a controller.  At any rate, I actually purchased the charge controller for the 65 watt panel.

 

The 65 watt panel installed on the deep cycle battery.  I was doing some comparisons of the two.  Obviously the larger panel had more output.  You can actually recharge a battery with it.

 

Here the HF unit is hooked to the motorhome battery.

 

I was greeted with a summons to jury duty upon arriving home so we made the 90 mile trip to the county seat  (Libby) for that.  They had a huge pool of jurors and since my name was near the end of the list I was not chosen.  It sounded like an interesting (civil) case.

 

It's a beautiful drive along Lake Koocanusa.