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.

 

 

 

30 December, 2012 - 5 January 2013 - Chimney Cleaning, Icy Roads

Another day another ... train?

Susan went through some of the toys we have stored from "yesteryear" and found this train set. It was missing a few pieces but there were enough left to make the loop.  Scott spent hours playing with it.

This is another of his favorite toys.  His big interests in life right now are planes, trains and automobiles.  Here he's making a crash landing on the snow.

Okay, on to the next adventure...

We bought him a kid's computer for Christmas.  He loves it and isn't as interested in "helping" us when we're using ours.

His mom and dad got him a Cars blanket.  Cars is one of his favorite movies.

I was sorting some brass so Scott decided to help a bit.  I gave him a can of 270 and 25/06 brass to mess around with.  I don't have any firearms in those calibers.  (Although if I found some at a good price ...!)

Chimney cleaning time again.  This time we need some repairs on the top pipe.  The bottom and top have both corroded to the point that they need replaced.

I took it off then ran the brush through the pipe a few times to knock the ash out.  There wasn't any creosote build up.  We only burn seasoned wood and I run the stove hot for awhile every morning which keeps creosote deposits at a minimum.  As long as I was already there and had the brush it only takes a few more minutes to scrub out the chimney.

I didn't feel like going to town for a new cap and and we keep a couple new sections of pipe on hand so I just attached the old cap to the new pipe.  It should work okay for several years before it needs to be replaced.

The snow was piling up on the U-Haul so Susan shovelled it off.  I think I hear the camper whispering "let's go south until the snow is gone."

We got a call at 5:30 am from our SIL.  He ran off the road dodging a deer and needed help getting on to work.  The battery was dead in his truck so I drove him to work then we got him out after he got off work.

A neighbor brought his tractor over to lend a hand.  It worked great because he could lift the back of the truck out of the ditch using the loader.  (The bumper is rusted through and was already bent before he hit the ditch.)  I'd have had to chain up all four wheels to get him out with the Cherokee.

I thanked another neighbor who stopped traffic on the curve while we were extracting the truck.  It's pretty icy and we were worried that anyone coming around the turn would ignore the flares I set out and either hit someone or wind up in the ditch themselves.

 

When Scott's parents came up Saturday there was a wreck blocking the road about two miles closer to the highway than where this photo was taken.  They had to make a ten mile detour (one way) to get to the next road to make it to our place.

 

We bought some bacon and fried it up for breakfast.  It was a nice treat. It's a lot better cooking it on the wood stove.  Eventually the grease splatters will burn off.

Getting water for the animals is always a chore during the winter.  We don't like using our drinking water if we can avoid it so I set a bucket of snow behind the wood stove.  It warms up during the day so we have water on hand for the animals.  All we have this winter is the cat, dog and seven chickens.  The chickens don't drink a lot but they need fresh water at least a couple times a day.

 

 

17-29 December, 2012 - More Snow, Christmas, Car Problems

Ever have one of those busy times yet you could summarize it very quickly because so much was repetitive? That's been what most of our winter has been like so far.

Susan is still dehydrating the frozen, shredded potatoes our SOL brought back from work plus she's been cutting and dehydrating onions from our garden. We can't seem to store them for long unless we dehydrate them so once they're harvested we spend the next several weeks drying them for long term storage. We have the daily routine of writing, household chores such as washing dishes, clothes, cooking, bringing in firewood, and caring for Scott.

Last week we had a new project when the Cherokee wouldn't start. I did some investigating and it was in severe need of a tune-up. I thought I'd done it last fall but by the looks of the plugs I didn't. We ended up taking the truck into Eureka a couple of times. I don't like driving it because it uses so much gasoline. My oldest son was here for Christmas so he and I fiddled with the car a bit and got it running again. We drove it into Eureka Friday and bought the parts we needed for it and a blower motor for the U-Haul. I want to get it replaced before we head south this winter.  We have a truck that belongs to one of the kids that we have to get back to the property.  It took a couple of session on the charger to get the battery up again.  They'd left the key on and ran it down to zero volts.  It takes a long time to charge one when they're that dead.  I ran a load test on it after charging and it seems to have survived okay.

 I've been bringing reloading supplies up from the shack this week. I'm going to build a reloading bench in the cabin. It's too cold in the shack during the winter and when I use the stove I get condensation on all the steel and aluminum equipment plus I worry about condensation in the loaded cartridges. I need them all in a warmer environment.

Our book sales have fallen a bit but we've put some new ones up and they're picking up the slack. The reduced sales are widespread according to other authors we've talked to so are probably season related.

The snow is still coming down nearly every day.  It's mostly very light snow and doesn't accumulate quickly but over time it adds up.  The worst part is that we get very little solar power on the cloudy days so we've had to run the generator about three hours every couple of days.  It's still a lot cheaper than being on the grid though.

 

As usual, Scott's day wouldn't be complete if he and grandma didn't get some trampoline time in.

Sometimes it's kind of nice to just relax and watch TV at night.  Of course it's more fun if you can get away with commandeering grandpa's chair.

 

Ah, Christmas!  We had almost all the kids here for Christmas this year. 

Of course there was lots of food, conversation and presents.  We played Pictionary after eating then they began to filter back to their own homes in the early evening.

Of course we all had the most fun watching Scott open his presents.  He's two now and understands more of what's going on.  The only other grandchild here was Tommy.  The two families who didn't make it have the other seven grand kids.

Dad is helping Scott with the final steps of opening one of his gifts.  If they built the toys as well as they packaged them they'd never break or wear out.

Susan is waiting to open one of her packages.

...more gifts...

...more gifts...

Tommy playing with some spatulas.

Susan found some things online for Scott to watch. He did very well holding her notebook computer while it was showing.  He loves videos of airplanes, trains, and cars and YouTube has some good ones on it.

I'm writing a book on reloading for beginners and these are some of the illustrations and photos that will be in it. 

 

My Kindle book (The Gun Guide for People Who Know Nothing About Firearms) is now available in print form from me or on Amazon's site.  The easiest way to find it is to type in my name on a search.  The print version has a slightly different title but it's the same content as the Kindle version.  We did that for marketing purposes.  If they have the same ISBN Amazon buries the Kindle book (which costs less) making it harder to find.  By making a slight title change they both come up on a search.  The Kindle version is selling very well.  The print version hasn't been up long and hasn't sold many copies yet.

I'll be covering things like head space and rim construction so I made some illustrations to go with the text.  The one above is on the head space section.

This one is in the chapter on "Case Preparation."

 

My goal in writing the book is to take someone who has no experience reloading to the point where they understand how to reload ammunition and what needs to be done in each stage.  I'll have a special section on equipment for the apartment dweller so that they can still reload ammunition even if space is limited. 

 

The book should be available on Kindle in a two or three weeks and the print version will be along a few days later.  (Setting up the print version is a little more involved.)

 

I'd also like to mention Susans blog at http://povertyprepping.blogspot.com/.

It's loaded with information and she does a better job keeping it up than I do on mine.