Tiny Farm Solar stuffs

Brrrrrrr!!

It's getting a wee bit chilly around these parts! It looks like winter is finally here, our night time temps have been in the low to mid 30's and down into the low 20's a few times. We got snow last week, about 4" worth here though there was almost no accumulation in town. We figured out pretty quick that at least on that day it snowed way more at our place than it did at our closest full time neighbor who you can kinda see if you stand in the right spot.
  We got our borrowed snow plow up here after figuring out that the battery and alternator are both shot. The battery was an easy fix, just another trip to town and money. The alternator is a different story unfortunately. The plow is mounted to a 1974 Jeep Cherokee and if you haven't noticed there's not a ton of them running the roads anymore, this makes the alternator a little harder to get. Thankfully I've run into this before and it's an easy problem to solve. I need to take a trip to Spokane but i'll replace it with an alternator from an early 80's Chevy pickup, it's a bolt in and super simple to wire, the best part is they're available for about $32.
  In other news we rented a tractor with a bucket and backhoe on Friday, getting it up here was an adventure! Our 1980 F250 has a 6 cylinder and while they are tough as nails and really economical to operate it's not exactly a powerhouse. Thankfully there wasn't any traffic on the state highway as I had to use 4 low to get up the last grade before our turn and was only able to do about 20 mph in a 55 mph zone. After getting it here and unloaded I got in a little less than 30 minutes of work before the driveshaft that powers the hydraulic pump broke at a previous repair leaving it with no power steering or hydraulic power for the bucket which was down. Through some struggling we were able to use a highlift jack and some ratchet straps to lift the bucket and hoe enough to get it back on the trailer. Thankfully the Rental place in town had a mini excavator which while not the right tool for the job has gotten the job done.
  I was able to get the spot for my moms carport and solar shed leveled, I enlarged and deepened the pond quite a bit and have been working on filling in a giant puddle in the road up here. I was concerned about the puddle which at times has approached small pond size, once the weather gets a little bit colder it could have been a problem.
  In other news there have been deer bedding down around a 100' from our trailer at night, given the weather we've had to run the generator a lot and when I go out at night to shut it off I've seen them, the dog either hasn't or doesn't care because it's past puppy bedtime or because he has to go potty.
  The carport company did try to deliver my mom's carport yesterday, it gets dark about 410pm or so and they go here about 2, then got stuck on the road up here. I pulled them out with my F150 but they were unwilling to try to assemble it this close to dark and with it being this muddy. I'm not sure what the solution will be, it's not going to get much drier, warmer, or lighter until I dunno, lets say March? I was pretty proud of my F150 though, it drug the loaded 2wd Dodge diesel with it's loaded trailer up hill in nasty mud without hesitating, about 1/4 throttle in 4 low and 2nd gear.

I know, I'm bad about not having or adding pictures, I'll work on it I promise. I hope you have found this interesting and have a great day dear reader. I'm off to put in work. Before I forget that's one thing they never mention when they talk about homesteading or living off grid, the work never ends.

A brief and long over due update.

We both absolutely love this place! we've been rather busy getting ready for winter and only recently got the internet. I'll give you a brief rundown of where we're at.
My mom is living on the land with us now in her own RV, We are running two solar setups to power the trailers, one for each trailer. I have learned a tremendous amount about solar power in the last few months! There has definitely been some trial and error! We started with a 400 watt kit from Renogy with some mismatched batteries and have transitioned to as of today 1020w of panels feeding a battery bank of 6 Interstate group 27 marine batteries. As we are moving her trailer on the land soon we still have changes to make to her battery bank and solar system in general. Her array is currently 4 100w Renogy eclipse panels and 2 310w renogy panels, these panels are arranged in two strings and both strings are wired in series. After her move the 100w panels will be removed and included in our array. My mom has 6 310w panels for a total of 1860w once she is moved though it's going to require a controller upgrade as her controller is maxed at 1040w input at 24 volts. The solar panels are augmented by a Champion 3500w generator with remote start and 2 Iota DLS 27-40 battery chargers.
My mom's solar setup is in need of new batteries, marine batteries are not at all well suited to life in a solar array and neither provide enough power or have the durability for it. Our next evolution is to replace her 6 batteries with 8 Trojan T105 golf cart batteries which is a huge step in the right direction. she currently has 225AH of battery capacity and the switch will bring her to 450AH of battery capacity. The current bank is usually 80% discharged overnight which is not good for the batteries longevity.

For the last few months we have hauled our water in and filled 50 gallon cisterns that I hooked to a 12v RV water pump that produces 60 psi and flows 5.5 gallons per minute which was in turn hooked to the RV to mimic a city water connection. This was powered by a small battery, 30w solar panel and PWM controller. The problem with this is in the winter it will freeze which would be bad! I'm currently planning changes to next years water arrangement which hopefully will include using water from one of the springs on our property and a much larger cistern. We are planning to use the RV's internal tank and pump for the winter as it won't freeze though the capacity is much smaller.

With the help of my beautiful wife we've built an outdoor bathroom and storage room that we house our solar equipment in and on the other side have our as of yet unfinished bathroom. We have included a sink and our composting toilet and plans call for a shower in the spring. I have milled the siding for the bathroom out of cedar that was down on our property using an Alaskan mill. I am not yet finished milling cedar for it as it's a slow process! I'll include pictures in a future update.

I'm going to leave you here for now dear reader, we have a lot of catching up to do and I really don't want to bury you with a book! Look for future updates concerning specific areas in the near future, there will even be pictures, some of which you may have already seen on Instagram or Facebook. If there is a specific area of our life you want to see detailed in a post please don't hesitate to ask!

Q&A (aka Dave's fat chipmunk)

Okay folks! We asked what you guys are asking, and we put together some (?) answers, maybe, we think. I have decided to change question phrasing, for my entertainment only.

Q: What is the deal with your land? How off grid are you? Is it desolate or what?

A: We financed a 40 acre plot of land with owner terms, so aside from an escrow account, we are not dealing really with any banks. It is raw land, without utilities. 

We have access to electricity, if we want to pay a lot of bucks to get it here, which is not really on the to-do list. We haul in water available for a small donation at the local fairgrounds. We have extremely limited cell service on the land. No calls, just the occasionally lucky text that gets out. Likely, soon to help here will be a change to Verizon, who the locals use. We have no access to reliable cell/data/internet currently, aside from going into the closest town. Honestly, I'd like to keep it that way. I'd like to get a call out, but I could pass on the constant availability of the Internet these days, and given that it takes money and electricity, I'll gladly wait. Dave may disagree on this point--and he has a point--there is a wealth of information on things we need to know out there. If only you could get Wikipedia and bibliographies without politics or the celeb scandal of the news day.

Anyway, we do go into the closest town often, so we keep up as we can. There is a lot of "Wtf was I supposed to google today!?!!?" Anyone want to be on our sporadic text research team? Expect texts to go through finally at 5 am asking, "what the hell bug is this?" and "can you look up a bird that sounds like water? Thx" 

On the property, we have a lot of trees, a pond, at least two springs, a low and high road, each with landings and turnarounds. Flowers, butterflies, and wildlife live here with us. As we speak, (work with me here) I am hearing turkeys, and two different kinds of owls, and someone as yet unidentifiable calling along with the crickets.

It is paradise, and we wonder each day what took us so long to get here. 

Q: I don't like reading. What is the deal with Dave and fat chipmunks? 

A:  You should try reading, reading is good for you. We put up a bird feeder, the birds haven't been near it. It is now owned by a chipmunk that recently gained a lot of weight. His name is Carlos.

Q: How will you manage winter? Aka. Will you all die in winter?

A: We are not dumb, at least not dumb enough to live in the tent-mahal for the winter. It would get crushed in the snow, and is not even feasible. The current plan is to use an RV kindly on loan to us, winterize it, and be smart about stocking up. The RV has a wood stove, and we are picking up a used generator for the rest, but we also have a propane setup. We bought a beater with a heater we call the tractor, which will be our plow and winter beast. Winter food storage will be easier, as we can freeze bulk stuff, by putting it just outside, with some animal proofing. A storage shed is also in discussion, to keep tools and etc sheltered. It will be cold, and we will get stuck in our valley surely at some point, but we have no worries about keeping fed and warm. No dying, pinky swear.

Q: Self-sufficiency is great and all, but have you made any friends?

A: This is my favorite question so far! People need people, networks of friends are gold when living like we are. We have met many of our neighbors, and they are absolutely amazing people who do amazing things. In the valley we now live in, there are very few neighbors currently, and we are doing our best to meet them, make connections, offer what assistance we can, and also ask what the skinny is on local stuff. We learned a ton, when to plant what, where to fish, where to get this or that, who to pester with questions about timber management, where the "good" dumpsters are, who has the better beer selection, will this plant/mushroom/berry kill me if I eat it, etc, etc. 

We both make a point to learn about the local happenings, and to introduce ourselves. Part of our tiny farm goal was to live in a strong community, so we are learning our way around this area, and the people who build it. Really, quite a few people know us by now. We still have those Texas plates after all. Believe it or not, a guy asked an entire store once who had the Texas plates, just to tell us about his time there... Simply put, people here are friendly, especially if you make the effort. If you'd rather be ignored, they seem cool with that too,

Q: What is the job situation there?

A: There aren't many if you don't know logging or trucking, or are willing to take your trade up against the local guy. That said, there are healthcare positions, and local govt jobs from time to time.

Q: What was the hardest part of this process/what would you have done differently?

A: This one was a tough question, I kinda feel like this decision itself was the hardest part. To take the jump. It was scary, and in some ways still is. People thought we were capital C crazy coming here to camp indefinitely, move to the unknown, let go of all the stuff we had.. to cram everything into old trucks and just leave. Once the decision had been made and acted on, it was downhill from there--no matter what people had to say, the process had begun, no going back. It was a relief. Funny thing is people here seem to get it. They listened to the short version of our deal, and for them, camping til you found home was totally reasonable.

As for things we would have done differently, I am betting we'd have different answers. I would have actually downloaded music. Aside from that, I'm good. Better than good. I'm here now, and that is what matters. Oh, and if you could google "teeny tiny, black and white, polka dotted, moth guy with big, silly-looking white antennae" I'd owe you one.

Gobble, gobble, gobble!

At 0440 in the morning when the dogs so lovingly woke me I was surprised by two things, first it's light out. The suns not up yet but it's already pairing a pretty picture over the mountain to the east and I can hear a tom turkey gobbling down the slope from me.

We need a turkey call! I'm 100% certain we could call them in close enough to see, they sound pretty close already and they're around all the time. I really like turkey!

We thought maybe it was time to talk about this land deal. We talked to some gentlemen at a local sporting goods store who told us about a woman who was owner financing land she owned right outside of town and asked them to pass along our information. That was early April and we heard from the woman quickly but she was out of town until early May. She gave us directions to the land and some brief information and we were interested but had to wait till she got here to get the details. We looked at other places but didn't see anything that had quite the same appeal. Fast forward a ways to this past Tuesday when we met with the woman who explained what the details were and showed us the initial tract we had looked at and a few others. We decided we really liked a 40 acre tract and we have camped here since Wednesday, today is Sunday.

We absolutely love it! It's quiet, like quiet enough it can seem like there's no one else out here. There are people in the valley, it's a big valley. You have to stand in the right spot to see any houses though. On one side is land owned by a timber management company and other wise we are next to two vacant 20 acres tracts and a vacant 40 acre tract. 

Every day there's been turkeys gobbling, we've heard coyotes calling in the valley and seen eagles playing above the ridge. Yesterday on the drive out there was a healthy moose cow grazing beside the road and she was not worried about us being 40 feet away watching.

I could go on about how amazing it is or about the view of Benewah lake or the seemingly infinite shades of green the sunset makes glow on the mountain side but I'll stop here.

We hope to start dealing the deal Monday, and see about getting a porta potty out here. We love it and can't wait to share it. We've got a lot to figure out but we're both very excited to make the tiny farm happen!

Local-isms

So after being in Idahome for a month, we've picked up a little bit of the local flavor, this includes some terms, pronunciations, and local rules of thumb. Let me tell you about these, so when you come up to see us (do eet!) you will avoid the ridicule of the natives.

First, we are staying 30 miles from St. Maries. It is where we come in to get ice, supplies, and cell service. Like many places in Tejas, the pronunciation is not what you would think. It is not pronounced like "Marie's" it is actually spoken like "Mary's". If you call it St.Maries and not St. Mary's you will be instantly relegated to "stupid tourist."

This also applies to a lake named Pend Oreille. Fancy sounding right? It's French for pendant. Except here it is pronounced lake "ponder-ay". What is even more confusing, is that there is a town called Ponderay. It is as if they couldn't remember how the spelling went for the lake and just went from local phonetics. 

Speaking of pronunciation, if you call a creek a crick, you will fit right in. I just can't bring myself to butcher the English language in this way, so I refuse to say crick. The funny thing is that what is a crick here, would be a full fledged river in Texas. Also, common parlance like say "we are camping UP at Big Crick" is only correct if you are indeed UP the St. Joe river from whom ever you are addressing, so it is important to know which way the river flows depending on where you are. This is a toughy for me, because hell, in Texas everything is UP, as in, we are going up to visit someone in anywhere north of Austin.

Another good one to remember is the term "rig". Unless you have a semi,  your pick-up or 4x4 is a rig, not a truck. Even your car, it's a rig. Not sure where this comes from, but I assume it is because vehicles here need to be strong to survive the roads, many of which are 6 or 7% grade.

So, we don't have a truck or suburban, we have two rigs, which works for me.

One of the common animals here are ground squirrels, which look like a prairie dog and a grey squirrel mated. They pop out of the ground and chirp to one another like meercats. Locally they are known as "whistle pigs" I call them adorable.

A truism in these parts refers to planting veggies. When a mountain called "Round top" is free of snow, plant your root veggies, your above ground seedlings will not make it until another peak (Baldy) is thawed. This can take til June, so that should give you an idea of how the weather varies in the spring. We will combat this with greenhouses once we have our spot! (which may be soon, keep tuned!)

Lastly, logging is a big industry here, although I have yet to meet someone calling themselves a logger or lumberjack. The euphemism for any one in this industry seems to be vaguely referred to as "working the forest" i.e. "I worked in the forest for 27 years." No indicator of actual job, it makes me picture some dude living in the woods and patting trees. Maybe that's just me....

Well that is all the local-isms I have learned, I'll post more as I stumble across them!

Mattress madness

Product review time! People have asked us about our camp set up, or camping rig as I have decided to call it. (Remind me to tell you about my next post theme, Rigs, cricks, and other Idaho terminology).

So, I will tell you all you want to know, for the low, low fee of allowing me to entertain you (?) for a few paragraphs each time I remember to post about it.

Let us start with the repeat offender, #Intex 

Let us also say, although I get that hashtags exist, I am truly convinced no one uses them for their actual intention. So I will ramble first, as I always do, take that #Intex! 

ANYWAY. To begin this saga, we got a queen size cot/air bed combo, Coleman brand. I like Coleman, nay, I love Coleman. Dave also, right there drinking the Coleman koolaid. We got it (along with the included mattress) for a pretty decent sale price, and it we used it probably a grand total of 25 nights, and stored it for a few months in the garage. Last time we used it camping was August, and it seemed to have a slow leak. The mattress had its swan song when Kylie stayed a weekend or so, and neither her father or I could see her when checking in at night, like... it ate her!! Don't worry, she survived the ordeal intact.

And she was wise enough to to get her dad a new air mattress for his birthday, knowing he'd also get consumed via rapidly by aforementioned deflating mattress. I went with her when to pick it out, we left with the #Intex Dura beam.

(I should mention here that Kylie is no fool, she knew she had one more weekend on the cot thingy so she got a pretty damn nice one, and had no problems with it.)

The next time Dave and I set up the cot with the new #Intex air mattress was our first night camping in Idaho, having used the small travel tent "rig" on the journey. The travel rig, btw includes a Coleman air mattress as old as methuselah, if not slightly more icky. Yet it holds air just fine.

We were exhausted and ready to rest for a bit. No dice, welcome to the two night only #Intex air bed downy soft whatever. Ever try to sleep on a half inflated air-bed? Sucks right? Try it with another person and two dogs. It's the worst excuse for a bouncy house at six am that you could possibly imagine.

The very same day we went and picked up another mattress, also Intex, this one was the Classic downy. It held air for less than a week, and we couldn't find anywhere to patch it, so we got yet another #Intex Classic Downy. (Selection is limited in the little town we are near). So now we are traveling with two dead Intex mattresses, another we are expecting to fail us in the near future, and the old and pretty gross Coleman air bed. If you count the Coleman one we tossed, that would be five damn mattresses in less than half as many years, and much less use. We also have been through a few #Intex inflators, which use about 6 C batteries for every full mattress Not cool, dudes.

Given the ratio monetary value of #Intex products we purchased, and the failure rate, It seems #Intex owes us reimbursement money in the mattress department, and should be held liable for whatever amount a few surprise bouncy houses can rack up in emotional distress damages.