Author Archives: admin

Building my tool portfolio

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After my previous post about the axe heads and shaving horse.  I wanted to share the draw knife I purchased off of eBay.  It took a while to find one that was going to be useful as a functional tool, not just a display piece.

I sharpened it using 800 grit and 6000 grit stones then cleaned up the rust with some oil and steel wool.  I think I might give the handles some tung oil to protect them a bit, but we shall see.

Now I have all the stuff I need to make my axe handles.  That should happen in the next couple days.

They’ll kill the old red rooster when she comes: Learning to butcher a chicken.

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Squeamish Beware:  This post consists of where food comes from.  Animals and they have to be killed in order for you to eat them.  In reverence for the animals, they are humanly raised, and killed in as humane a manner as possible.

This afternoon, the wife and I, went over to our friends place to help and learn about butchering chickens.  He had some older birds that needed to be culled, and I was eager to help so I could learn the process for the future when we are managing our own flock.

The process is really rather easy.  The bird is placed in an upside down cone to keep them calm and from flapping around.  Their throat is slit.  Once they are dead, they are placed in a scalding bath of 140 degrees for 40 seconds or so to loosen the feathers.

The bird is then plucked.  Then we start by taking off the feet and head.  Next a cut on the backside and around the butt opens the body cavity.  Gizzard, liver and heart are separated for later processing.  The rest of the insides, esophagus and crop are removed and the bird is ready for a rinse before being put in an ice bath.  Even as a novice, I was able to process a chicken in 10 – 15 minutes.  My friend does in less than half of that.

All said, it took 3 hours to do 5 birds from start to finish, with him teaching and talking through the whole process.  We came home with some organs, and 2 birds for the stew pot.  It was a great day.

Know where it comes from.  Be in touch with it, learn to prepare it yourself if you like.  Do not let other people do the dirty work for you.
-TM

The Ski Fairy Came

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The Ski Fairy came and brought me a lovely pair of vintage Nordic skis.  They were discovered at the thrift store.  I promptly removed the laces from the boots and oiled them up with boot oil.  They have a lovely color now, however, the cat stole the laces and even after looking for 30 minutes in our small house I cannot find them anywhere.

I can’t wait for snow now to try these out.

-TM

Shaving Horse and Axe Heads

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As I start building my tool collection for homesteading, I needed some good axes, they are essential to working with any kind of wood.  As I learn to work with wood, I took the cheap route and traded for some really beat up axe heads, and learned how to sharpen them.  It is a real gift to have that sort of skill.  It sort of became an obsession and now every metal edge in my house is razor-sharp.

Here are some photos of some axe heads I traded for, they were in pretty rough shape and I reconditioned them.  Starting with a wire wheel, then file, and a 3 different sharpening stones.  Well, these guys all need handles.  I have tried to find handles but they all seem to be the wrong size so I am going to make my own.

Making handles requires a draw knife, which I just purchased off of ebay for $10 and it has not arrived yet.  It will need some reconditioning as well, but while I was waiting for it I built the other part of the tools necessary, which is a shaving horse.  I asked some guys on Facebook and they pointed me to Mike Abbott’s Lumber Horse plans.   So for less than $20 and 2 hours time, I have a fully functional shaving horse.

For those of you who do not know what a shaving horse is, it is a soft-headed vice that you sit on.  You use your legs to hold the head down on the work piece.  They are pretty much required for any type of hand forming of handles, spoons, bows, and many other things.  They are very useful.

Enjoy the gallery and keep your axe sharp.
-TM

Mending a Pair of Work Gloves

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I found these work gloves a few years ago and they are really nice.  Thin enough to feel what you are doing but durable enough to stop splinters and keep your hands from getting cut.  They are even comfortable enough that I wear them on the motorcycle or just walking the dog.

They are not expensive, $6 a pair or something but I had a pair that split near the cuff.  I have several pairs of new ones, but the ones that are broken in are so much more comfortable.  I got out the needle, thread, and scissors and fixed them.  All men should new how to sew about as good as I can.  It is really nice to be able to repair things instead of having to buy them new all the time.  These gloves were perfectly fine still just in need of a little care.

Left hand glove has split along the seam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First seam resewn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Repair Complete.

Really awesome hand sewing job.

Books

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I have been reading a lot lately, not sure why that is, perhaps it was the slower internet and not being able to stream all the TV that I used to watch but I am really enjoying it.  I am always looking for recommendations so comment away on what you have been reading that you like.  I will give it a shot.  At the current rate, I seem to be reading 100-200 pages a day.  So books are not lasting that long.

Recently Read:

George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. 
All 5 books back to back.  Amazing books.  Some of the best fantasy novels I have ever read.  Graphic descriptive battles, morally ambiguous characters.  Huge worlds and what not.  I really enjoyed all 5 books and look forward to the rest of the series.

 

Seth Gramme-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln – Vampire Hunter. 
This is the same guy that wrote Pride and Prejudice with Zombies.  That was awful, I hated Pride and Prejudice, adding zombies made it about 1% better.  Adding Abraham Lincoln made this one about 5% better.  The writing was ok, but the story was lame.  Lincoln is a mere pawn in this story bending to the will of the vampires as they struggle to manipulate and shift power in the United States.  Too many Vampire rules were bent and changed in the production of this novel leaving me confused and disbelieving.  The one interesting side effect of the book was that it caused me to look up some of the historical facts presented in the novel to see where the author departed from reality.  It still sucked.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

I made it about 15 pages into this in about 2 hours.  Written in Olde English and damn impossible to read.  I already know the story, so I gave up.  I might try a modern adaptation but I cannot handle Shakespeare and I couldn’t handle this.  It felt like school trying to read it and I read for fun.

Currently Reading:

What an amazing story.  A Polish Cavalry officer is captured and interrogated by the Russians and sent to a work camp in Siberia.  He escapes.  That is as far as I have gotten so far.  It is an amazing true story.

 

 

On Deck:

The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss

After finishing A Song of Ice and Fire, I went looking for some more high fantasy novels and this one came up.  Interestingly enough the Author is from Madison, WI.  I am looking forward to reading this one as it comes highly recommended by others who really liked Martin’s books.

 

The Thrawn Trilogy – Timothy Zahn

With the news of Lucas selling out to Disney.  The topic of Star Wars came up at work.  The guys have talked highly of some of the books.  After a bit of time on the net these books looked really interesting.

What are you reading?

-TM

What the Hell is a Techno Monk?

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What is a techno monk.  Hell, I have no idea, I am making this up as I go.  It was a term that came up in a hallway conversation at work as I began preparing for the largest change in my life since I graduated high school and left for college.  Many of you can think back across the time-frame of your lives and remember milestones.  Maybe a new job, graduating from college, getting married, whatever it is, you know what I am talking about.  Things that would be a line item in your obituary.

I will get around to posting something about my rationale for moving 7 hours north of where I was living at some point but until that happens, I want to explain why I re-branded the blog and what I feel a techno monk is as well as why I think I am one.  For a while I was calling myself a Neo-Luddite technologist.  A Luddite is someone that shuns technology, because I enjoyed the oxymoron.  I am a technology worker who finds balance in simplicity and doing things that hard way.  After attending the Lake Superior Traditional Ways Gathering. I discovered that I was not alone.  There were many more like me, and that was amazing to find a community that felt the same way.

I cannot fix the world and it has taken me a while to figure that out.  I can fix small parts of it but I can’t fix the whole thing.  When I realized that I was essentially powerless to control many things that affect me it was a crushing moment.  I think some people turn to religion at this point to deal with their insignificance, religion is not really for me, well organized religion anyways.  However, many of the monastic values are for me.  Self improvement, hard work, meditation and self exploration are outlets for me to express myself and deal with my insignificance.  I feel that everyone needs to find value and meaning or their mind will be completely crushed.  They turn to drugs, sex, gambling, or something to fill the vacancy that meaning brings to life.  I find meaning in creating, building, hacking, making, and divorcing myself from parts of society I feel are frivolous or wasteful.

As I relocate and start a new life I begin the techno monk stage of my life. There is a list of things I will accomplish as a techno monk.

  1. Upcycle, Make, Build, or Repair before buying new.
  2. Learn more skills, for the above items such as timber framing, construction.
  3. Reduce my impact by simplifying, localizing, and concentrating on what and how I do things.
  4. Learn how to be a telecommuter, and excel.
  5. Share my life with others looking to follow a similar path.
  6. Improve my relationships with my wife, friends, and neighbors.
  7. Become a bad-ass banjo player.
  8. Grow more of my own food.
  9. Raise animals for food and eat them.
  10. Forage more wild food, live off of what others waste or don’t notice.
  11. Quit using tobacco.
  12. Treat my body and fitness as a skill and continually improve it.
  13. Continue eliminating procrastination.
  14. Never be afraid to fail, and fail often.
  15. Continue to push myself out of my comfort zone.  I must not become a hermit.
  16. Learn to like flying in planes.
  17. Release an iPhone app.
  18. Live up to my own expectations for myself.

I am sure I could actually keep going for a while but this is what I could think of off the top of my head.  These are big goals, some of them not very concrete.  I will have to break some of these down into more manageable parts and they will probably become recurring themes here.

I welcome you all and myself, to the era of Techno Monk.  A period of intense reconstruction, techno music, outdoor activity, self exploration, blogging, sharing and growth.

-TM

Upcycling a cloth shopping bag into a firewood carrier.

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Living with a wood stove is not too bad however, it does require one to carry wood fairly often.  Sure, you can load up one arm with the other but this is uncomfortable for carrying more than a few pieces at a time.   They sell these firewood carriers  for $22 at Lehman’s.  I needed one and I have big sheet of canvas that I was going to use to make one then I had an idea.  Why not make one out of a cloth shopping bag.  I have tons of them, for a while there everyone was giving them away and I have like 20 of them.  So here goes.

Upcycling is an important homesteader, hacker and maker skill.  It is basically taking something that is useless or less useful in its current form and modifying it.  The best part is that it usually does not cost much or anything at all.  In this case I already had the bags and thread.  For a small time investment I have a really nice firewood carrier.

Items Needed:

  • Cloth Shopping Bag

  • Scissors

  • Needle and thread

  • Sharp knife of seam ripper

Here is the bag that I started with.  Given to me as a set of 5 from Google when they visited my work.

 

 

I Ripped the seams of the side of the bag.  I chose this bag because of the 4 panel construction.  The piece that the handle is sewn to was one piece and the sides were sewn on to it.  Making it perfect for this project.

 

 

Here is the bad with the 4 seams ripped out.  You can see the shape of the bag.  I just trimmed the short sides with a scissors and cut off the material that was covering the seams.

 

 

On the panels that I trimmed I folded them under and pinned them for sewing.

 

 

 

Here you can see both sides pinned and ready to sew.

 

 

 

Please ignore my awful sewing job here.  I go for function not looks.  I could have fired up the sewing machine but it was so little sewing, I didn’t feel like setting it up since we moved and took it apart.

 

 

Immediately after sewing it, I had to try it out so here is the firewood carrier out at the wood shed waiting to be filled with wood.

 

 

The wife is filling the firewood carrier while I cheer her on and take photos.

 

 

 

Here is the wife modeling the finest in Northland Fall Fashions.  The upcycled, shopping bag firewood carrier.

 

 

 

The firewood carrier from another angle.

 

 

 

Closeup.

 

 

 

This carrier is nice because you can set down the logs and the pile does not roll around while you open the door.  It also keeps all the wood shavings, and bark chips inside it so you can just bring it outside and shake it out when you come get more wood.

This project took about 1 hour from start to finish and I am really happy with the outcome.  I think I might try making a few more of them once I get the sewing machine set up.  I do think that the handles are a bit long on this bag so I might trim them or take them off and sew on handles that wrap around the bottom so they are less likely to rip off from the weight of the wood.

Hack, Make, Repair and Upcycle.  Break the cycle of conspicuous consumption.
-TM

My essential items for off grid living

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I have been living and working, for about 2.5 weeks, in a small off-grid home in the north woods of Wisconsin.  We share the energy system with our property owners.  I would eventually like to do a whole post about that system but that may be a while before I get it done.  So as I learn how to manage and monitor the system, I have found a few things that really make my life much more manageable.  I purchased all of these products, with the exception of my work computer, so I didn’t get paid to write this, basically.  I use this stuff because it works, and works well.

I have some interesting requirements being a telecommuter, I need power, and I need internet or I cannot work.  So beyond food and water, a laptop, power and internet are absolutely required.  I am lucky that work supplies me with one of the most energy efficient laptops on the planet, a MacBook Air. This thing draws .2 amps when it is fully charged and plugged in.  That is about 25% of the load of a compact fluorescent light.  I do not use an external monitor but I do use a magic trackpad, and a laptop stand, that puts the laptop up at the correct height.

 

We do not have running water in the house so we fill 5 gallon jugs for drinking water.  The greatest improvement for these jugs are the Dolphin Water Pump.  With a few pumps you can fill up a tea kettle, water bottle, drinking glass or a pan for cooking.  There is no flipping the jug over, or any funny business.  This thing fits on glass or plastic jugs and it just compresses when you screw down the ring on the top.  Very easy to use and makes water management very easy.

 

 

 

Without an abundance of grid power, we conserve power and that means not having lights on when you don’t really need them.  This is where the headlamps come in.  The ones that we use have 7 settings.  White or Red LED’s and bright or not bright.  They are amazing for just about anything including reading, cooking, late night bathroom breaks.  My only gripe about this model is that you have to cycle through all of the settings to turn it back off.  So if you are using the red LED’s, you really need to put it in your pocket to cycle through to shut if off or you will blind yourself.

 

 

Continuing on the topic of energy savings.  We have gone through a period of cloudy and still conditions.  That means that power is at a real premium.  So that means we need some alternative forms of light.  Head lamps work ok but for cooking and things it is really nice to have a wider area of light.  The property owners here have installed a propane gas light in the house.  I picked up a new mantle for it the other day and we have used it a bunch since.  It burns one pound of propane for each 11 hours of light.  And it is really bright on full power.

 

 

Wood heat is amazing and a lot of work.  I don’t really mind managing the wood stove, but I have not gone through a whole winter yet.  It gives off a nice even heat and I always have hot water for coffee, tea, dishes, bathing.  I also like cooking on it.  It has way more BTU than a gas stove.  I am thinking that once we get our own place, we will want a summer kitchen outside to cook without heating up the house.

 

 

 

 

Since I have moved up here, two things are always on my belt.  A mini LED flashlight and my Leatherman Wave multi-tool.  They are both extremely useful and I did not realize how often I would use either of them until I started wearing them around full time.  These have a solid reputation and are backed up by a great warranty.  They work and last.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living in the country means dealing with cluster flies.  Spring and summer these bastards get in the house and they go crazy.  Hundreds of them invade homes at these times of year.  There is not much you can do, and they don’t lay eggs in your food or anything but they are very annoying.  Putting a few strips of fly paper near windows or lights takes care of them pretty quick.  It is amazing when you get 200 flies on a piece of paper they can actually move it around.  They also sound like a model airplane engine.  Totally creepy.

 

 

I am sure that I will find some more products as I continue to live here but for a small amount of money these items really make living much more enjoyable and comfortable.

– TM