Roughing it in place-prepping for lights out

Roughing It Weekend--How self sufficient are we becoming?

A few years ago I decided that I needed to develop enough skills to be able to take care of myself and my family in case of an emergency. I began this journey in earnest—starting with growing my own food (vegetables and fruits), acquiring the supplies to become off the grid, and now implementing the learnings to put it all together.

In one book, How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It, by James Wesley, Rawles, founder of Survivalblog.com, it suggested that a good way to find out your strengths and weaknesses in terms of emergency preparedness is to pick a weekend where you unplug from the grid: no electricity, no running water, no gas. Go through your weekend and see what you can do, where you've prepared well, and what you still need to learn. That was our task: Holding a Roughing It Weekend where we lived without the grid amenities.

We decided since the Friday before was 12-21-12 (End of the Mayan calendar) and we had festive activities to go to for that evening, we'd start our roughing it weekend Saturday after we had consultation to discuss the ground rules. Luckily for my son and I, my fiance, Dan, came to help me with another project so he is here to help us learn how to use the equipment. In consultation, we decided on the following:

• We would turn the heater down (60 degrees Fahrenheit) so the pipes under my house wouldn't freeze and create a problem. 
• We wouldn't actually turn OFF the electricity; we just wouldn't use it.
• We would allow one last errand running effort to gather the last supplies we needed before starting the weekend.
• We would conclude the weekend at sunset, Sunday evening, to allow for preparing for Monday's activities.
• We would fill our bathtubs with water to provide extra water for chores.

To prepare, I filled 5 gallon buckets with some water for the two bathrooms, adding 2.5 pH water as the disinfectant for washing hands. You can also add bleach to the water to purify it.

In the kitchen, I filled two 3.5 gallon buckets. One with dishwashing soap and 2.5 pH water, and one with only 2.5 pH water.

One was designated as the washing bucket (the one with the dish soap) and the other as the rinsing bucket. Each labeled to avoid confusion.

I also had stowed a dozen gallons of drinking/cooking water; for us, we use Kangen water.

I have a portable loo with a toilet seat on a 5 gallon bucket and a bucket of sawdust to cover anything, as needed. Toilet paper is nearby, and an old container is used to transfer sawdust to cover the contents.

I had purchased paper plates for the weekend to make the kitchen tasks easier. When Danny and I got back from our errands, it was past lunchtime so that was the first thing to get cracking on. I had some croissants defrosted, so we agreed to one cheese sandwich and two canned salmon salad sandwiches with mayonnaise, mustard, and fresh garden greens.

Sandwiches before the cheese and the salmon salad were added. Yum! That wasn't so bad. Glad I had bought the croissants the weekend before and had them stowed for this weekend.

Water

Water becomes very important immediately when learning to live off the grid or fend for yourself. Being able to take dirty water and make it drinkable is a good skill to have. Awhile back I watched a DIY (do it yourself) video on water filtration and had purchased a 5 gallon bucket, a galvanized metal bucket, rocks, sand, filtering charcoal, and mesh cloth. Dan drilled holes in the bottom of the galvanized bucket the day before to prepare. Then he placed 1 layer of mesh cloth in the very bottom, layered 2-3 inches of rock, 2-3 inches of sand, another mesh cloth, all the charcoal (one milk carton-sized container), and a top layer of mesh cloth. 

The galvanized filtration bucket was then placed into the 5 gallon bucket. In another 5 gallon bucket Danny gathered dirty water.

Taking that he poured it into the water filtration system in the galvanized bucket.

We let it filter through the system. Remembering when I used to have to prepare my Britta kitchen water filter, I remember having to soak it for 5 minutes and then rinse it 'til all the black charcoal residue washed away. After passing the water through the system a few times, we decided we have to rinse this charcoal through several times as well.

After about 5 passes through the filter, it still looked dirty enough that we didn't want to drink it, so Dan pulled out his PUR water filter.

You can put one plastic tube into the dirty water source and put the output device into/onto a container into which you want the purified water to flow.

The PUR water filter has a output device for not as large as a wide-mouth jar. I found this narrow mouth tomato sauce jar in my jar collection, which worked just fine. You can also use any other sized opening of a container with the other output device that hooks over the lip of it.

The 'hook' unit has two parts: a little part goes into the hook component.

Once you have your preferred distribution method selected, then place the other plastic tube into the water source and pump.

The output is astonishing...

Wow... look at that. It looks clean, but is it really? Who is brave enough to try it?

OK, OK, I did. Then we all did. We agreed that it tasted a bit plastic-y because the PUR unit hadn't been used in a long time. We determined that if it was boiled beforehand that would have cleaned out the plastic taste. Something to keep in mind when you are getting your first fire going, you can always clean the tubes and the output devices by plunking them into some boiling water. Other than the taste though, the water was clean.

Another option, if you are still unsure, is to add 8 drops of bleach to a gallon of water.

Water Summary

Here I've covered three ways to purify water:

• Homemade water filtration with a galvanized bucket inside a 5 gallon bucket with rocks, sand, charcoal and mesh fabric pieces to hold the elements in place.
• PUR water filtration. This tool can be used in streams, ponds, and any water source. Very good and reliable tool to have on hand.
• Beach to decontaminate the water. You could take dirty water, run it through even a bandana to get the grit out, and add only bleach (4 drops for a 1/2 gallon to sanitize the water and let it set for 20 minutes to offgas the chlorine and kill the bacteria) to prepare it for drinking.

DIY Clothes Washer

Thinking through the household tasks, I thought we should have a way to wash our clothes without an electric washing machine. We came up with the following necessary items to make one:

• 1 wood handled plunger
• 1 bathtub drain stopper
• 1 5 gallon bucket with lid
• 1 drill

With the supplies in hand, Dan talked Daniel through the steps of constructing a handmade clothes washer. Fortunately, Daniel had previously learned how to use a drill when he and Dan put the steel roof on my house, so no drill remediation was needed. (They did this outside, so somehow the use of electricity from the outside didn't come up for discussion. I'd recommend doing this before the electricity goes out.)

Dan had marked the plastic plunger base with dots where Danny was to drill. Somehow, Danny thought he was to drill between the dots, so this is what we came out with... : )

Notice the drain stopper in the background... Dan had previously cut a hole the size of the plunger handle into the drain stopper. He used a utility knife to do this. He also cut a hole in the lid of the 5 gallon bucket the same size. Then Danny took to drilling the plunger.

Assembly is easy: Place the plunger with holes into the 5 gallon bucket. Put the lid with the hole for the plunger handle over the plunger; then put the drain stopper over the lid. Into the bucket you can place the dirty clothes, some soap of your choosing (or 11.5 pH water), and the lid with the stopper. Use the plunger as the agitator to move the cleansing water through the clothes. 

You can dump the gray water onto your garden or use for flushing the toilet, then add clean water to rinse. Wring the wet clothes out by hand and hang on a clothes line with clothes pins to dry. You can even set up an indoor clothes line, if you don't want to draw attention to yourself by stringing the clothes line across one side of a room to the other using hooks in the walls. The clothes line can easily be taken down when you want to use the room for other purposes. When the clothes are dry, remove from the clothes line. Fold the clothes, and wear as needed.

Food/Meal Preparation and Cooking

By then the afternoon was ticking away and I thought I best figure out what kind of one-pot meal we'd have for dinner. Not sure how long it would take to cook, I got it ready early. Plus, at this time of year, we learned that it's best to do tasks when there is still sunlight to make it easier. 

In my largest pot, I put a bit of olive oil, chopped onion, shallots, garlic, and celery. Then I washed and sliced red potatoes, carrots. I opened a can of pink beans with my hand crank can opener. Sprinkled ground sage and ground jalepeno pepper onto the mix with salt and pepper too. Added some 9.5 pH water, which speeds cooking and enhances flavors. Put the lid on 'til we were ready to start the MSR Dragonfly burner.

The MSR Dragonfly burner was new and since I had never assembled or used it before, I very much appreciated having Dan who is experienced with these things to guide me through the steps. We watched a few videos on YouTube beforehand as well to get ready.

The cookstove had to be opened up and set on the aluminum round protective barrier that it comes with. The fuel tank needed to be filled. We used Coleman propane, which you can buy by the gallon. Then the two parts at the end of the tube need to be inserted into the fuel tank and secured. Once the gas is turned on on the tank and the stove, you can use a long handled fire starter to ignite the fuel. It'll burn high 6-8" flame for a few minutes and then it'll start hissing. When it starts to hiss, it is ready to have the fuel adjusted (up or down) so the blue flame (like a jet) can be used to cook the food. Since I was doing all of this for the first time, I was so engrossed in learning the steps that I didn't take any photos of this part. Maybe I did better when Danny was learning the next day... Anyway, once the flame was going we set the coffee pot on the burner to start making coffee which we'd have to sip on while the stew was cooking. We did all of this outside and temperatures were brisk. Keeping warm became another issue, which I'll cover in a later section on clothing.

I also purchased a Sterno burner (because that's what I remember from when my brothers were Boy Scouts when I was a kid) and it didn't look too complicated. Set up Sterno burner, open Sterno can, light it, and place on the sterno holder rack below the burner rack. Place pot on top. 

I discovered that the sterno burner is really good for heating up stuff, but not quite hot enough for cooking real meals. So it became the holding place to keep things warm. Like once the coffee was perked, we moved it to the sterno burner to keep it warm and put the stew on the MSR Dragonfly burner to cook. 

The stew turned out great. We ate outside on the picnic table and had wintertime S'mores for dessert. Winter S'mores consist of graham crackers, section of chocolate bar, sliced banana, and a graham cracker on top. I placed them on aluminum foil and warmed them on the sterno burner so the chocolate could melt a bit and become soft. I found out that graham cracker when heated sticks to the aluminum, so next time I'd spray it with some cooking oil first. It was yummy though.

As you can see in the photos that it is dark outside and cold is setting in. We also had a Coleman lantern that had never been used, so we had to prepare the mantles by lighting them and then turn on the fuel and ignight it. We decided to only use it outside because lanterns emit carbon monoxide and we didn't want to risk anything, even with having our house windows open a couple of inches at the bottom for ventilation. 

Satisfied we headed indoors. Inside we used candles and not too many of them. The fewer you have lit, the less you have to keep track of in case of emergency. We gathered in the living room for additional reading/conversation time. I had purchased some flashlights that strap on one's head, so we were able to read for awhile. But it didn't take long before we each went to our individual sleeping spots. Early to bed, early to rise comes to mind.

We also noticed how quiet it was in the house when there were no appliances running. Stone quiet.

The next day was very brisk outside. Around 19 degrees Farenheit. The idea of having to get up, get dressed and go out into the cold to start the burner to heat the coffee really wasn't too attractive. Fortunately, Dan is tough and got the coffee made before I knew it.

When I went outside, he had some tinfoil panels, which we had previously used for a solar baking experiment last year, blocking the N-NW wind. There's also the protective shield that goes around the MSR Dragonfly burner to protect the flame from the wind. Interestingly, the coffee left over from the night before was stored at room temperature and when brought outside into the cold started steaming without ever reaching the cook top!

Clothing and Layers

I was still learning about layering when he brought hot coffee into the house. I'm glad and thankful that he doesn't mind doing these tasks. I had bought some long underwear for Danny and me the day before, so we each decided today was the day to break them out. Under my jeans and sweatshirt they went. I had a neck scarf on, headband, and gloves in addition to an outer jacket, but when I went outside I was still cold. Dan told me to get my polypropylene jacket on. Replace the sweatshirt with a 100% wool sweater. Swap out my knit gloves for the survival gloves I have. I also had my thick wool socks on my feet. With those modifications, I was much warmer and could function outside. Daniel made similar discoveries and tweaked his clothing layers as well so he could manage in the cold.

More Cooking

The next day we decided to heat up the leftover stew so we wouldn't have to deal with storage or waste. It was already cooked so it wouldn't take as long and we could just crack some eggs on top once it was boiling for some poached eggs.

The stew with the poached eggs was yummy. We elected to eat indoors since the wind was a bit much to deal with.

Preparing Food became very important. Since I don't have experience doing this stuff and we only had one real burner for cooking, I didn't know how long it would take to make various dishes. Right after breakfast we discussed how we could cobble together an makeshift oven because I had a cake I wanted to bake. Dan suggested we take the largest pot and after washing it, place a layer of stones on the bottom of it. Then mix up the cake and pour it into the smaller sized pan and place that inside the larger one. The stones will act as a buffer and distribute the heat around the smaller pan so it's like an oven. I put the lid on the smaller pan and we had to put tinfoil over the larger one since it's lid didn't fit securely with the smaller pan's lid on.

The kind of cake I made was using a Chocolate Cake Mix, I can cherry pie filling, and 6 oz. gingerale. I mixed them altogether and put it into the smaller pan. The directions on the box said the cake would take 35 minutes. We checked it then, then added 10 more minutes, and then 15 more minutes for a total of 60 minutes (1 hour) before it was done enough. We didn't want the cake to burn or the bottom to become too crusty so we took it out when it was still deliciously moist.

 

Unveiled... what do you think?

The Chocolate Cherry Camping Cake looked so good to us, we really didn't want to wait to eat it after dinner. Danny quickly got instructed on lighting and using the MSR Dragonfly so he could whip together a quick lunch for us. Then we decided to have some of the lovely looking cake for dessert after lunch.

Dan and I had Bocaburger sandwiches and Danny ate Canadian bacon sandwiches. Then we enjoyed the cake... : )

Since our "oven" idea worked so well with the cake, Dan thought we should try using the same 'oven' and make baked potatoes. I washed 6 potatoes, poked holes in them with a fork on both sides, and wrapped them in tinfoil. We place that into the large pot with the stones on the bottom. That went on the burner at 1:00 and it took about 3 hours for the potatoes to be baked. We decided that wasn't the most efficient use of fuel or time, but since they were baked we'd warm up some beans with BBQ sauce on them and have that for dinner. We ate at 4:30 p.m. so we'd still have light and not have to light candles.

Cutting the baked potatoes in half, adding a pat of butter and a scoop of the BBQ beans made for a very tasty dinner that didn't require too much work. 

Summary

• We ended up consuming 3 gallons of water for 3 people over the day and a half for cooking, drinking, beverages. 
• We used about 1/4 of the fuel for all the meals we cooked and determined we could probably make about one week's worth of meals if we cooked judiciously.
• We decided that we really liked modern amenities and that it takes a lot of energy to think everything through when learning how to do this for the first time.

Then we waited for sunset so we could turn on our lights and conclude our Roughing It Weekend. : )

It's a Dream of Farming, living, and enjoying a life lived

A Dream of Farming, Living, and Enjoying a Life Lived

This is a hoophouse we constructed over several weeks. It started in May of 2012 as a 35ft long by 20 foot wide structure. Now the length is 85 or so feet. It has 4ft sidewalls and the top has three purlins. The far end in this shot is a treated wood frame with all the plastic captured between the 5/4 by 6 pieces of wood.

Starting at the far end you can see a sliding 4x3 foot window. It was taken out from behind where this picture was shot and moved to the end. In the winter it remains closed. Come the first of Feb or so this will have to be opened on the more sunny days as the temp inside could easily reach into the 90’s F.

The brush under the window is actually last fall’s tomato plants gone by. They gave good fruit, resisted disease and bugs, and when they finally got hit by the cold (in late Oct) they showed their final strength by exhibiting a massive root ball. I am planning to build an overhead frame of some sort to support the bearing part of the plant in the coming year.

At the middle right is the small child wading pools that I got for half price at the end of the summer. I believe there are five or maybe six.  I will use these in an aquaculture based system this year. Along with these pools I have some PVC eave troughs that will be mounted on the sidewall and then the pool water, holding fish, will be pumped up to the top of the eave and allowed to gravity feed back down through some plants and thus be filtered for the fish to use. 

The nutrients the fish put into the water will grow some wonderful plants, the return water will be clean enough to support the fish until it gets circulated again.

The clump of plants on the right hand side is a small type of broccoli. It is going to seed yet and theses seeds will be used to start another patch in the spring. They got hit a bit at the end of the season with a small mite sized insect and the last of the lady bugs seemed to get them under control. I would guess this susceptibility to being buggy is from the pH of the soil being too high.

The soil test we got last spring from the state Extension Service showed a level of about 7. This might be alright for humans and such but my veggies like it down around 6 or 6.5. Sulfur added to the soil will lower the 7 down a point or so. Follow the directions as to how much to apply per 1000 sq. ft. and it will be perfect. 

This picture is looking from the SSW and shows the woodwall, the small pile of woodchips, the sides for turning the little trailer into a small dump wagon, and the pallets farthest up is a three stall compost pile and on the far end of that my hoopbending table.

By the way-the satellite dish you see was put in when I first started to develop this place. It was about a quarter mile from this point to the road and we couldn’t get phone service for six months. I think at that time a good internet connection was like 56k download. So what I did was to move an old RV that I had onto the property.

Next I installed a satellite service, Hughes or something, and ran everything off my generator. The next order of business was to plants a small garden to test the soil. It was right under where the hh is now. We also bought a few hundred trees and put them in the same area and planted them out when time was available.

Plans were chosen for building the new house and I then built the little barn the same size as the house was to be. This gave one of the bosses in my life an opportunity to better visualize the inside spaces we would be working with in the main house. If I remember the dimensions it was about 32x36 or so. By leaving the ceiling off the inside of the barn, the inside of the house could be imagined as it would have a complete cathedral ceiling.

One day I was going into town and saw a crew chopping down some trees by the ditch up north. It was to run lines and equipment for a new high voltage power line through the county. We have over a hundred of the wind turbines on this side of the county now and we needed more distribution power-in and out. Well the loop is close but not that close and when I noticed they had shredded up a truck full of branches and leaves I stopped to inquire.  I wondered where they had to transport their cargo to. They said down the road about 35 miles to their shop.  I told them I would very much appreciate it if they could dump it at my house, which was only ¾ of a mile down the road. Well, he said he would check with his boss and let me know.

He drove into the lane a few hours later. The smile on my face was truly ear to ear! He wanted to know where to dump the load and not get tangled in the overhead power lines. We got it as close as we could to the hoophouse. The person next to the pile is my hired hand-or as I like to call her, Mom. She is one of the bosses in my life. The other one is currently finishing a stretch in Kansas, raising the last son of her remarkable family.

The distance and time of development are always difficult. However, many sacrifices are made no matter when you strike out to find your true path in life and we are working both places for our personal growth and development.

Many of the proceeding articles on this blog were written, pictured, and edited by my Kansas boss. She has talents in many areas of living; Mothering, growing, writing, photographing, nurturing and expressing a wonderful, spiritual nature that beams joy and peace.

Here you can see the hoops being erected. The far end is the north end of the hoophouse. It is opposite the windowed/wood framed end you see in the first picture.  The hoophouse sets tight to the little barn and I removed the window on the left and put a full 4x8 foot door as passage from one to the other.

The door is plenty big to transfer equipment, amendments, tools and pallets to the hoophouse. I also keep the heat in the hh and the cold out of the barn. Above the new door will be the whole house fan for controlling the temps during spring, summer and fall.

When I plowed in the spring of 2012 I made sure the ground was turned up all around the hh. This area will be planted in the spring with what I am calling outside crops; Cukes, squash, punkins, cabbage, asparagus, and a grand variety of fresh, good tasting fruits and veggies. Many of these are being planted out because of the room they require. I am going to try to plant according to pounds produced per 100 square feet.

We hope to continue this blog during the year. It should provide some guidance, hope, encouragement and laughter to all who care to read it.

Thanks to all my bosses and thanks also to all the readers of this blog.

Be well; peace…dan

Experiments in the Kansas garden

My Permaculture Experiment...

With the scarcity of rain becoming more and more of an issue across the US and me planning to grow my own food, now and into the future, I figure I better learn how to conserve water when growing said food. When I learned about a guy named Sepp Holzer growing his food without irrigation, I was baffled. Especially when I saw him pull up radishes the size or turnips! How could he do that?! What magic techniques did he use?

I'm brand new to this type of food growing but it uses principles that make sense. So here's my very first baby step down the road of Permaculture... wish me luck!

I've had these raised bed for a few years now and I've also been doing extended season growing by using hoop houses. This has been great fun. Now to become more efficient in my growing—that sounds like a giant leap forward. I decided to try this in manageable chunks. I started with one small section of a raised bed. I dug out the greens that were past along with a layer of dirt and weeds, placing all of that into my wheel barrel. I still have to separate the weeds from the dirt, but I'm saving that job for tomorrow night.

Excited to see some progress and work through the steps, I dug out another layer of soil and placed it on a large sheet of cardboard. I separated the weed roots as I was digging since there weren't nearly as many the second layer down as there were in the wheelbarrow layer. The principle with permaculture is to layer things with wood fibers that contain cellulose at the base of the bed. When it rains or gets irrigated, the cellulose fibers will swell with water and retain it for use later by the plants. The roots will grow toward the water source. Ingenious! For the first layer, put down newspaper...

The next layer place cardboard. I happened to have this very large chunk of cardboard from something that I decided to save rather than take to recycling. I'm recycling in my own yard! How's that?!

On top of the cardboard, you place logs. I happen to have a lot of logs from all that logging I did at my property last winter; so now I can use some of them in these permaculture beds that I'm setting up.

I don't really know if three logs are enough or if I should put in more. If you have experience with using permaculture, I'm open to suggestions. Send them my way...

I placed a layer of black plastic over the dirt I dug out tonight thinking that by heating up the dirt, I have a chance of baking, aka killing, the weed remnants. I'm not sure how long I need to leave the black plastic on, so again, I'm open to learning.

That's as far as I got with this project tonight... I plan to work on it a bit every night that I don't have some other pressing thing to do.

Just to let you know... after the logs you place the soil... then seed it. Sepp uses a mixture of seeds that he just casts onto the ground. No straight rows or little holes or trenches for him. On top of the seed, place a layer of compost or manure, depending on what you're growing. For mushrooms use manure. For vegetables, use compost. I have a bunch of compost that I've been collecting for a few years now in the back by the shed. I think it's getting time that I start using it.

You may be wondering why am I prepping a bed in August... I'm creating this permaculture bed in my hoophouse area so I can grow through an extended season by covering the area with plastic when the weather turns cool to cold. I'm hoping to have potatoes by winter : )

Other projects that I've been busy with...

Dehydrating herbs and packaging them for use in teas and cooking:

Preserving the abundance of tomatoes this year, Hallelujah! I'm dehydrating both the yellow pear and red tomatoes. 

Don't they look terrific?! When you bite into a dried tomato the intensity of the flavor is astounding. It hits your taste buds like nothing else. Some people call them candy because they are so tasty. Really... who'da thunk?!

Then I use my seal-a-meal machine to suck all the air out of the bag and make a seal. It's pretty cool. I'm trying some with olive oil and some just dry.

It almost looks like beef jerky or something... but it's really just tomatoes. Yum... : )

There was also the fun I had with growing Yellow Eggplants... aren't they the most adorable things you ever did see?!

Here they are after harvesting... : )

I turned them into a persian stew, called koresh. Eggplant koresh with lentils is one of my favorites. Really I like many of the koreshes, but it's fun to have enough time to make one now and then. 

One day we ran across an apple tree (MacIntosh) on sale, so we snatched that up and planted it. With a peach tree and a pear tree already established, I figured adding an apple tree to the mix was a good idea.

One day we decided to harvest the volunteer potato plant that showed up this season... Trying to teach my kids that food comes from the land, I try to involve my kids a bit at a time so they have these memories to draw from as they go out into the world and need to make their way. Who knows what they may need to do in life and if they know that they can grow their own food and what it looks like, they're way ahead of many folks these days.

We cooked those spuds into one tasty treat. It's really fun to eat food that is just that fresh! Every one walks away with smiles on their faces.

Bon appetit!

A sharp chainsaw is like heaven with cookies and milk!

Chainsaw Sharpening & Painting the Stumps

The new chainsaw needed to be sharpened... already! Because so many trees, large and small, had been felled that the saw wasn't cutting through the wood as easily as it needed to and there are more trees to trim and log. Thus, a lesson in chainsaw sharpening (say that fast five times) availed itself. I'm such an interested student because I don't know this stuff, never even realized that chainsaws might get to a point of needing to be sharpened, and don't know when I might need to do this task myself someday.

In the era when I was growing up, in my family, there was a clear distinction between 'men's' work and 'women's' work and the two shall never meet. I remember going outside to watch my dad change the oil in the family car. When I came back in the house my mom said, "Don't you EVER do that again!" Wow... what had I done that was so criminal and deserved such a reprimand? Apparently it was watching my dad do a man's job... Now that my mom, and dad, are in the Abha Kingdom, I know that my mom understands these issues more fully and acceptingly and won't mind if I bring this topic to light.

Next weekend we have booked as Backhoe Weekend where we'll be removing stumps, roots, and other such pieces of wood from the ground to help prepare the way for the garden beds that will need to be worked up, the pole barn cement foundation that will need to be laid, and the pathways and driveways that need a smooth surface for traversing. To get ready for that busy weekend, I needed to mark all the wood protrusions with an flourescent bright pink spray paint to make it easier to spot the stumps that need to be removed. We agreed that I would mark them with an "X"... or something close to an X.

I walked and walked and walked around the areas where trees have been felled and knocked down with the Bobcat to locate all the protrusions that needed to be marked. Then Dan and I went around and he pointed out the one's that I had missed. Then I went around again and marked all the additional ones that I could identify by knocking them with my boots.

I just took one snapshot of stumps slated for removal, but you can look in pretty much any direction and see a similar sight. We have lots of work cut out for us for next weekend. My son and his girlfriend are planning to help us so they can get some real life stump removal experience in additional to learning how to drive a backhoe. My other son and his girlfriend 'may' join us the next day. Stay tuned...

In the meantime, there were branches to be removed from the huge cedar tree that was felled recently, so we needed to get cracking at sharpening that chainsaw. A week or so ago we had purchased a chainsaw sharpener at the local farm supply store. I didn't know what it was or how it worked or anything...  Dan had set up two saw horses and placed some OSB wood (Oreiented Strand Board) across the saw horses to make a table. Then he unwrapped the chainsaw sharpener from the packaging and connected it to the chainsaw... it just gets placed on top of the blade and screwed on... of course the chainsaw is turned OFF! You need to line up the angle of the sharpener with the angle of the tooth on the chainsaw. 10 degrees up and down and 30 degrees right to left for Husqvarna. The angle depends on the type of saw that you have. Every other tooth goes the other direction, so once you get the angle set to align with one tooth, you can sharpen all those that are aligned in that direction. Then you have to readjust the angle to sharpen the teeth that go the other way. It's a much more manual process than I would have imagined... but that's fine.

To align the sharpener with a tooth, slide the chain to bring up a tooth with the angle that you are going to sharpen...

Here's a close up to really see what I mean...

Then hold the sharpener and go back and forth like you would with a saw to sharpen the tooth. You can hear the sound changing from being a course sound and the sharpener is more difficult to move to when it becomes easier to move back and forth and the sound becomes more even and smooth. Then you know it's sharp and you can proceed to the next tooth that is aligned on that angle. The 'chain' part of the saw can be tugged on to move it into position. I didn't realize how easily the chain could slide. I thought it was more attached to the bar, but apparently not.

Then, one at a time, you move the teeth of the saw to the sharpener. Sharpen it and move on to the next. Do this around the whole chain. Then readjust the angle to align with the opposite angled teeth and repeat for each tooth around the chain. Then unscrew the sharpener attachment and you're ready to go.

When you fire up the chainsaw, it'll be able to cut through the wood much more easily than before... just like a knife sharpened to cut through that Thanksgiving turkey you consumed not so many months ago...!

Bon appetit!

More than a traveling road...

A Road Less Travelled...

When I read Pathfinders by Gail Sheedy back in the mid-1970s and decided to forge my own path in life, I had no idea that it would entail building a road from scratch in years to come. That day came this week...

In order to get access to the farm property, we needed to create an entrance since the land wasn't accessible directly from the existing county road. We started by clearing volunteer trees and brush from what was supposed to be a road and driving over it many times to 'make' a road. However, when it rained, the road became muddy and threatened to get us stuck on more than one occasion. We knew we'd need to build a road to provide easy access to the property.

Hmmm... what type of gravel to order? How many dump truck loads will it take to build the type of road we want? Where to go to get the best service and the best price? All questions we had to figure out beforehand. When we ordered the first load of 'gravel' to create a driveway over the culverts, they delivered road gravel, which was really thick sand... not exactly what we wanted. Lesson: What we mean by gravel and what the company means can be two different things. So then we learned there is AB gravel, road gravel, 1 1/2" gravel, etc., etc.. That didn't necessarily make it easier, but at least we knew we didn't want road gravel, because the sand caused us to get stuck more than once.

The first two loads delivered were AB gravel. Clearly, better than the sand and we can spread it over the sand driveway to give it more substance and into the parking area on the property.

The next two loads were to be the inch and a half size gravel. The driver showed up with a nice heaping load of gravel. It took me back to the days when my father used to work for the Huron County Road Commission. He had all sorts of road work stories to share at the dinner table. 

The driver was to back into the entrance, lift the dump mechanism, and slowly drive out to pour a layer of gravel over as much of the drive as was available.

Watching him work... I became a five-year old spectator again...

The driver did a nice job of pouring the gravel evenly along the road...

With the next load of one and half inch gravel, the driver shaped a triangular entrance to provide a wider area in which to come on the road. Then he dumped the excess onto the AB gravel piles so we have some extra to mix into that batch for the driveway entrance.

Assessing the job from the entrance side of the road, it looked like a job well done... We just have to drive over it for the next several months to pat it down. Yesterday when I walked on the new gravel road, I noticed that it was already settling in nicely and becoming very firm to walk on.

Ahhh....becoming a pathfinder has its own rewards... part of it is letting my core being be seen by the world, rather than just playing a part as an actor in someone else's play. The mysteries of the soul are intertwined with the mysteries hidden in the heart. I'm bringing those out into the open now... and it feels right... and good.

: ) Be happy and be at peace.