Tag Archives: Homestead

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.

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

 

Paradigm Shift

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The last thing I expected to have happen, after moving here, was to find a place that I really liked in less than 2 weeks.  I was browsing the real estate listings.  I do that fairly often when I have 30 minutes to kill.   I noticed an 800 sq foot cabin for sale on 18 acres. We were going to wait until spring to purchase but this place came along and I started to dream of the possibilities of all the building projects and things I would do to make it my own.

I have some solid requirements for the property we purchase.  It must have access to internet, because I am a telecommuter.  I would like it to have power or access to power and to be in the general area that we are living in now. It must be vacant land, or a small building and hace room to build a new house on.  Not be a total dump, be mostly wooded, and that it should have the ability to add a well for water.

In the process of checking this place out I called and talked to a well drilling guy and he looked up existing wells in the area and found 2 in the nearby area.  One at 380 feet the other at 90.  Well casing was quoted at $48 a foot, so for you non-math people that is a difference in cost of about $20,000.  It is a huge cost difference.  In a worst case scenario, the well would end up costing about %50 of theTOTALcost of the property.  I was very disappointed.  Everything else was just about perfect.  Location, topography, access to internet, power, and a building that is not just habitable but actually quite nice.

It would be an exaggeration to say I was crushed but I did a lot of legwork on this property, calling banks, telecom company, zoning inspector, well guy and it sucked to think that work was for naught.  I realize that I would rather do the work and educate myself and find out before buying it that something was askew, than be stuck with a property that has a flaw.

So here it is.  After talking with my wife and the property owners where we are currently living.  I realized I don’t really need a well immediately.  Millions of people live without running water, many of them in the United States.  I mean, we were not going to plumb this cabin anyways, so what is the big deal if we don’t have a well.  This represents a massive shift in what I deem to be essential for living.  The place we are renting now, does not have running water inside but we have a well.  We rarely use the well, we use a composting toilet, wash and bathe with rainwater and fill up 5 gallon jugs at one of the artesian wells in town.  It is a bit more work but it is not insane by any means.

Why this place works.  It has power on the property already.  It has an existing structure making the loan a mortgage and not a loan for land.  I have found out that this totally changes the process.  Down payments are less, and more banks are willing to talk to you.  You see land is just land, banks hate selling foreclosed land more than they hate selling foreclosed properties.  There is just too much of it on the market.  It is .2 miles from a major highway making it easy for the wife to drive to work, even with a massive snowfall.  The existing building with power allows us to live on site and plan the big house.  The existing building is well constructed on a concrete slab allowing us to use it as a guest lodging or workshop when we complete the big house.  The property is very nicely wooded, and just down the road is about 5,000 acres of county land that borders a national forest.  The property has plenty of southern exposure making a natural building very possible as well as renewable energy should we decide to go that route.

This process has been very educational, and self reflective.  It is difficult to evaluate what we really want and need.  I think I will learn a lot more about myself as I continue to explore myself, the area, and build my little homestead.  Hang on folks, this is going to be a very interesting ride.  I can’t wait to start to get going on this project, or a different one if that is how it works out.

 

New Boots, and an Amazing shoe store.

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This past weekend the wife and I had to do some serious running around.  That entailed a pickup truck full of wood, new boots, the laundromat, groceries, A&W, Walgreen’s, checking out some property for sale and some other places that I am probably forgetting.

There are a few take-a-ways from this trip.  Old fashioned shoe stores are awesome! Wood is heavy, running errands when you live 1 hour from town, is serious business.  It is a full days work.  We left the house at 9am and returned about 2 pm.  I guess that is not a full day but it was a long one.

On to the shoes.  I have been wearing Red-Wing Boots for at least the last 10 years.  I loved them, very comfortable and they hold up well.  However, they are shipping more and more production to China.  I don’t mind paying for USA quality footwear.  In passing conversation with my neighbor, Thorogood Shoes come up.  I store that away in my brain to look into when we arrive at Bear Shoe Works in Superior.

Most awesome shoe store on the planet.

The guy who helped me out instantly recognized my boots and handed me the exact same pair.  I told him I was interested in trying on the the Thorogood’s and he then gave me the exact comparable pair to the ones I was wearing.  They were $40 cheaper and he goes on to tell me they are actually made in WI.  How about that.  I was sold.  I wore them out of the store.  That is not all, they are going to resole my old boots in about a week because they actually do that in the store.  How awesome is that.  Not to mention they gave us both free T-Shirts to celebrate their 100th year anniversary.

There is nothing I enjoy more than someone who takes pride in what they do and are good at it.  I don’t care if that person is cleaning floors, or investing millions of dollars in the stock market.  Doing your job to the best of your ability, and being good at it is a skill that is sorely lacking in many places today. Besides they have a stuffed bear in the store. By the way I could have gotten these boots online for $20 cheaper but, I like the service and the fact that they will fix them.  Yea, they repair them instead of making you buy a whole new pair.  This place is a gem.

Shoe Bear

Greenhouse Repair Stage 1

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I helped out a bit doing some greenhouse repair around the homestead this weekend.  It was a nice experience.  I am really looking to get some more experience with construction related skills as I look forward to building my own place.  Helping out around here is a great way of doing that.  Stuff gets done that needs to get done and I walk away with a little bit more experience building things.

The bathroom basement of the house we just sold was the largest project I have ever tackled and that really stretched my comfort level.  I am hoping to continue to do that as I begin to get settled in here.

Greenhouse with old roof off.

Here is the greenhouse building with the roof off and the new 2×4 pine purlins installed.  The old ones were 2×2 cedar and not nearly as strong as the new ones we installed.

Property owner and jobsite foreman keeping everyone in line

The Polycarbonate and battens going up on the new purlins.

The old panels went back up, with a little bit of acrobatics.  The seams are covered with 1x 4 cedar battens.  The battens have been sealed using an interesting product called butyl tape.  It is sort of a caulk tape.  It comes on a roll and you lay it out then remove the tape from the other side.  Similar to two sided foam tape.