This Old (tilted) House

My number one biggest problem I am having with our new home is one of my own making.

Allow me to set the stage for the explanation.

On the day of our departure from the city I woke up at 3am. This provided me with about 3 hours of sleep that night. I drove our U-Haul through mountain passes, winding roads, and over what passes for a road leading up to our new home. I had been driving for about 6 hours before we finely got to the land. I was a bit fatigued once we got there and I knew I still had to at least unload some things for us to sleep that night.

We had a place all picked out where we wanted the cabin to go. The fine gentleman who delivered the cabin was able to drop it right where we wanted.. He even offered to help me level it. I, in my addled and rushed state of mind told him not to worry about it, I would take care of it myself latter. That was my big mistake.

As soon as I started putting stuff in the cabin I knew I had messed up. The cabin sits a good 6 inches lower in the front then in back. Walking and standing in the cabin is a challenge, much less moving furniture about.

After falling a few time in the cabin it didn't take long for me to start trying to do the leveling, note that I said "trying". I have a 12 ton hydraulic jack so I set out to lift the front of the house up. A 12 ton jack would make it easy I thought.

The first obstacle was the jack itself, it wouldn't fit under the house so I had to dig out a spot to put it where I could still move the handle to pump the jack. About that time I discovered I had failed to pack our shovel. Out comes the trusty Bolo knife, the all purpose tool, to dig a small hole. Once I had a hole deep enough I shoved the jack in and gleefully started to jack up the house. Obstacle number 2, a 12 ton jack jack has a lifting surface of about 1.5 in in diameter, trying to lift up the soft wood was just putting a nice round hole in the wood of the cabin floor. Easy fix, put a chunk of wood on the lift point, but first more digging to make the wood fit.

Note for anyone who may try this, make sure your hole is level and your jack fits, not that it will help fix the problem, it just will keep you from having to dig yet some more like I did.

So now I have a level hole to put the jack in and a piece of wood to protect the cabin, easy cheesy I think, boy was I wrong.

Obstacle number 3, was the one that scared the wits out of me and the wife. When one tries to lift a multi-ton object that is on an incline one should not be surprised when the object decides to slide down said incline.. suddenly. Ever seen a 10 x 20 building start sliding down a hill, were you in front of said building? An old man's reflexes work better then expected in this type of situation I discovered. Luckily our home only slid a bit and then stopped itself.

Since that attempt I have pondered a safer way to approach the leveling. I thought maybe if I pushed my truck up against the front of the cabin it would keep it from sliding but I worry about damaging the cabin with that idea. I did try a wooden wedge under the front of the house but the wedge slid just like the house. I have thought of pounding in re-bar to try and brace the cabin, but I'm not to sure about that idea.

A few days ago a friend suggested we try lowering the back of the house instead of lifting the front.

Blink..blink ... dooooh.

So this week I plan on trying that, wish me luck. To paraphrase the immortal Dr. "Bones" McCoy: I'm a geek Jim, not a builder.

The Mad Mountain Geek of Treehaven

Adjustments

I'm relearning the fine art of adapting to situations. Every little thing I once took for granted is coming back to haunt me. Things like showers, hot water from the tap, on demand power, and even mail delivery.

When I was out at sea in navy we had to deal with "water hours" and took "navy showers". Water hours meant that you could only take a shower from such and such time, to such and such time. Normally you would have about a 30 min window to try and grab your shower for the day, along with about 20 or so of your good shipmates. Once you got into the shower you could relax and enjoy your 2-3 min of running water. Navy showers consist of, wetting yourself down from head to toe, turning off the water and soaping up, and then quickly turning the water back on to rinse off. There you have it, a nice relaxing navy shower. After your window, the next group would politely (please note the sarcasm) ask you to go away so they could shower.

Out here in the wilds, I would almost kill for one of those nice relaxing navy showers, We have been heating water and "bathing" in a large tote bin. At first this was a MAJOR undertaking. We had two little coffee pots we would heat up our water in and use it to "sponge bath" ourselves. Once we got the turkey fryer and could heat gallons of water, this process became a lot easer. It's still not a nice relaxing shower by any means but all things are relative.

Working with limited power has been a big adjustment. Yes we have a generator, but gas isn't free. We are still having to run the generator all night so we can keep a critical piece of equipment running. We plug in everything that has a battery, like our laptops, and grab a charge at night, but batteries have this weird habit of draining down just before you are ready for them to. I am hopping to get our DC to AC inverter this week and that will make life a lot nicer, and save gas and ware on the generator.

The next time you see your postman, give him or her a hardy "thank you" and enjoy the luxury of your home mail delivery. No one up here on the mountain gets home delivery. We all have to go into "town" to get our mail, a good 20 to 30 min round trip. Don't even think about ordering anything from on-line, UPS couldn't find us with a GPS unit and live satellite feed. We worked out a deal with a local in town just so we could get any deliveries we needed.

So there you have it, a few of the adjustments we have made living out here in the wilds. Stick around for more fun and adventure with ....

The Mad Mountain Geek of Treehaven

The Man Speaks!

Good morning world, its time for the man's side of life for a bit. Just call me the Geek hubby, or as I have come to think of myself, The Mad Mountain Geek.

Adjusting to life here in the (sort of ) wilderness has been a challenge for me to say the least. If anyone could be called an Internet addict, it's me. The withdrawal has been rough but discovered I can survive with out the constant flow of information the net provided, as long as I can still get a fix every now and then.

My big thing is podcasts, for any one not aware of podcasts check out http://www.podcastpickle.com/ and http://www.mevio.com/. Podcasts are just mp3 audio files that you can download or listen to on-line. Most folk who have Ipods listen to the shows on the Ipod, thus the name "Podcast" I get audio drama, history programs, science programs and a whole lot more. These podcast have been my main form of entertainment here in the wilds.

Now about our new home; Small and cramped is a bit of an understatement, but I spent many a year in the navy and our little house is the Ritz compared to what I lived with on ships. I can live with small, sure it's a challenge and a bit of a hassle sometimes but, this house and land are MINE. I can put up with a lot just to be able to keep saying that. My Land...it sounds so sweet.

We got our first snowfall this morning, well let's call it a snow dusting. I am still waiting for the real snow that all my new friends say should be coming. The cold is always around but it's true that a dry cold does not feel as bad as the wet cold we had at our old place. The little snow we got was light and flaky, nothing like the heavy wet snows I have gotten use to.

OK, so this was my first blog entry. Not much, to it but it's a start. Stay tuned for more ramblings and stories from a geek exiled to the middle of nowhere.

The Mad Mountain Geek of Treehaven



--


"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. "
"Specialization is for insects."

Robert A. Heinlen

Turkey Frier and Berkey info.

Yesterday we didn't go anywhere. It was very nice. I would love to get that time that we go nowhere up to a week or so, but can't do that yet. We still have to go for gas every other day for the genereator. But, it's getting better. And, after this week when the inverter arrives, maybe we can stretch it for a week. We'll have to see.

I have a battery pack that will hopefully run my apnea machine for a night or two. If so, then 1 can of gas will run us for an extra night! That is so exciting and something to really look forward to. We currently have two 5 gallon gas cans. I don't know about storing large amounts of gas, it could be very cost prohibitive if the price of gas goes back up. Not to mention dangerous. I know that a lot of farmers have tanks installed that they get filled once a month or once a year, I wonder what it takes to get that installed? Either way, right now our best option is just another gas can or two and a steady rotation. Keep adding battery packs and viola, we won't have to worry about being snowed in for a week. We already have enough propane to last us a week, and we are adding to it this payday too.

Breakfast this morning is corned beef hash. Don't know yet what dinner will be. Soup? Ramen? Some kind of sandwhich? Don't know, haven't thought that far ahead yet this morning. :D I haven't thought beyond turning off the generator and sitting down to write for the blog as a matter of fact.

oh! The British Berkefeld. My sister was asking about what a berkey is. So I'll take some time to talk about it here. It's a wonderful invention for purifying water. It's a two chamber system with a ceramic filter. The bottom chamber is solid (think of a bucket) construction with a spigot built in. The top chamber is formed so it sits on top of the bottom chamber. There are two ceramic filters (they are a little obscene looking when you pull them out of the box) that you screw into the bottom portion of this top chamber. They filter out girardia and other nasties in the water. There are other filters you can get to ADD to these filters that are smaller and black and they filter out lead, mercury and the like, I don't have them yet. Anyway, you then pour the water in the top chamber and via gravity it filters through the filters into the bottom chamber. When you want water, you get it from the spigot in the bottom chamber. Simple as pie... No, wait, pie is harder. Simple as Ramen then. With this system you can pretty much filter sewer water and drink it. It was invented for the British military to take into places that are 3rd world and still get clean and clear drinking water.

http://www.britishberkefeld.com/

Even without the secondary filter for lead, mercury and more, my berkey has taken the plastic taste out of my old stored water 100%. We run ALL of our water that we injest through it, even if we buy it at the store. the filter is good for about 3000 gallons. At 5 gallons a day that will last us 2 years or more. And you can wash the filter and reuse it again. So these filters will probably last me almost 3 years. Needless to say though, I am going to be purchasing some more ceramic filters, and some of the black filters sometime soon. The black filters don't last as long, but I won't need them until we start using more questionable water. What we get from the store, I'll just continue using the normal filters with.

Yesterday we hooked up the turkey frier (I called and renewed my library books over the phone!) and boiled water and did dishes. One of the things about doing almost anything out here is that it takes longer. Back in Eugene, even after the dishwasher died, preparing to do dishes was a matter of filling one sink with hot water from the tap, then washing them and putting them in the other sink. When you have a clean sink full of soapy dishes, you turn on the tap, and you rinse them and put them in the dish drainer to dry. Out here, it is NOT so quick! You have to set up the table, and your wash buckets, boil the water, wash the dishes, rinse the dishes, dry the dishes and put them away, then put away all your tools for doing dishes. Back in Eugene, when you were done with the water, it just went neatly down the drain and you were finished. Nope, out here even that you have to do SOMETHING with yourself. :D What could take 40 minutes for the same amount of dishes in Eugene, takes about 3 hours out here! Ugh. But it's pretty satisfying. You really feel like you accomplished something.


Going to have to get me two big tubs, and a scrub board so I can do laundry.

But I digress. I was going to tell you about the turkey frier. It's NICE! oh Gosh is it nice. Once we got it set up (stupid me lost the instructions for putting it together so we flew by the seat of our pants) we put aobut 4 gallons of water in it and turned it on. Now, I don't know if you have ever HEARD a turkey deep frier before.. But when you light that sucker, it is akin to a large plane taking off. WHOOSH! and then a loud rumble that is so loud that if you are standing next to it you can't hear anyone talk to you. And it gets HOT. We put it on the ground in front of the cabin, and it melted the frost in a circle about 6 feet across! And the frier stand is only about 1.5 to 2 feet across itself. The best part though. It used so little propane that it didn't even make a dent in a 20 lb tank, it was sill just as heavy. It took 10 minutes, yes, just 10 minutes to boil 4 gallons of water. I am sooo in bliss. Once I get a tub big enough, that means in 20 minutes I'll have enough for a BATH.. OH! The joyful thoughts of that. And even though we flew by the seat of our pants to assemble the frier, we didn't blow ourselves up.

Not sure what today entails, except we have to fill gas cans for gas tonight. Then tomorrow it's back into town to fill everything, and pick up some more groceries and all that.

Domestic Bliss

No snow... It'll come soon, but not quite ready yet.

They say that hunger makes a good spice for food. I think that was in reference to a starving man's first meal after a long time of privation, so I don't see how it applies to us out here in the wilderness. But, it does seem that meals cooked out here taste better. I made pancakes for breakfast yesterday. They were sOOO good. Even through the headache I had most of the day they tasted yummy. For dinner last night I opened a can of treet, (I brought a spam cookbook, need to find it, it'll work for treet too) sliced it up, and fried it on the griddle. Add some velveeta, and eat it as sandwiches with mayo and stone ground mustard and it was fit for a king. Now mind you, we are VERY far from starving. :D We have plenty of food, and we eat when we are hungry. But, everything tastes better it seems since we moved out here. cleaner is one way to describe it I guess.

Yesterday I got up with a horrible headache and it persisted through most of the day. It was accompanied by some nausea and general grumpiness. (I think I used some new swear words at the pancakes at breakfast... ) We have come to the conclusion that our propane fireplace is using up too much oxygen. It's not carbon monoxide poisoning that you can get with these appliances. There is no symptoms of that and the dogs aren't sick. Thor sleeps on the floor all the time and he would be the first one affected if it were carbon monoxide, and he has no effects from that. So, yesterday we cracked a window about an inch, and last night we left it open too. So far this morning, I am feeling no headache and am doing better than I was yesterday morning. Other than a bit stiff in the joints and such from having to sleep in a contorted position (as usual!) so the dogs can have their portion of the bed I am good to go! Problem solved (I hope!). We came to the conclusion that it was using too much oxygen when we tried to light a lighter and it wouldn't work unless we opened a window for a few minutes before it lit. This tells me that one of the components for fire was missing. Since we had a flammable fuel, and an ignitor the only thing missing would be oxygen. So tada! Problem of the headache solved.

Today, we are going to do one of a few things. :) Yesterday we were going to put together the turkey fryer my beloved Mother in Law bought for us so I can do some dishes and wash my hair. This plan of action however was pre-empted by my headache and ill tummy. So we may do that today. The other option is to drive into the library so I can update the blog and return some library books that are due today. If we don't return them today, then I'll have to do it Monday and pay the fine for being late. Which I really don't want to have to do. I guess it comes down to weighing how much the fine is vs. how much gas we will expend going today. The other factor that will decide if we go to town or not is how badly hubby wants to download new podcasts. lol. He's such a podcast freak. He listens to them while doing other work. I can't really blame him though, it's a great way to get caught up on the world at large. Of course, there is always the option of going nowhere, and doing nothing. In which case, I'll work on some crochet, and hubby will probably play a computer game or take his chainsaw out and see if he can actually cut down some trees. He was going to do that yesterday, but I woke up with a headache... I wonder if that is what gave me the headache?

Not sure what I am going to make for breakfast today. French toast was for breakfast on Thursday, and pancakes yesterday. Maybe some kind of egg something. Fried egg sandwiches? scrambled eggs and cheese? Egg in a Nest? Boiled eggs? Hummm... Will have to wait for hubby to wake up and see if he has any input on this egg thing. Maybe he'll want something entirely different. I'll have to figure out how to do omelets I guess on this propane stove, that would be a nice change of pace.

Rice. Now there is something else I have to figure out how to do on a propane camp stove. Back in Eugene we had a rice cooker. It was nice, pour in the water, add the rice, close the lid, hit the button and walk away. Here though, you can't do that. If I were to pour in the water, add the rice and walk away I would have a real mess on my hands. LOL. Something akin to a charcoal briquet with glue on top. Boil the water, add the rice and set to the side for an hour? Maybe that would work, although it would also be cold when we went to eat it, meaning that it would have to be smothered in gravy or other goopy sauce (not my favorite way to eat) in order to heat it back up. No microwaves in the wilderness. hummm.. Boil the water, add the rice then set it on top of the propane heater while the rice cooks. Maybe that would work better. The propane heater has a flat top and I keep the tea kettle there. It never really boils the water, but it keeps it hot enough for hot chocolate or tea. If it keeps the kettle that warm maybe it'll work well for making the rice up.... I'll have to give it a shot and see what I come up with. It would be nice to have some rice and something as a change for supper. I've made mac & cheese a few times and it is pretty good, and we gorge on it when I make it. Here's the recipe, sorry there isn't any real measurements, it's not how I cook. :D


boiling water
8 hands full of macaroni noodles

boil the noodles over a low to medium low propane heat until they are just tender, then drain.

one large fist size lump of velveeta, cubed
1/4 "ish" cup of milk (can use a small handfull of powdered milk and a sploosh of water or canned milk)
salt
pepper

Add to your hot pot the velveeta CUBED up in about 1/2 inch to 1 inch cubes, add your milk, and dump the noodles back in, stir like your life depends on it. You don't want to scorch it. Add a little salt and pepper and your done. I like to add a drained can of chicken to this for some added goodness. If hubby won't be partaking of it then I'll use a can of drained tuna instead. Makes for a more balanced meal. If I still had a freezer, I would keep a bag or two of frozen broccoli in there, and I would have added some broccoli to the noodles while they were boiling so I could have some veggies in there. A can of canned peas can make a world of difference in this meal, just open, drain them off and add them at the last minute. Can sprinkle with some bread crumbs or parmesan for extra "oomph" to the meal too.

I am working on a scarf as a Christmas/Yule gift for someone. I'll write out the pattern and include it in the blog in the next day or so as well, it's an easy pattern that is very pretty and I am more than a little satisfied with it. I am going to do a shawl for myself with this pattern I think. I got some new Red Heart yarn in a color scheme called ZEBRA and it's kind of pretty in a monochromatic way. :D Look for the yarn online.

Off to find some kind of trouble... I'm good at that.

Clean Cabin!

Here it is 6:30 am on Friday morning and I thought I would write an update. Not a whole lot going on, but we found out the weather station on the radio isn't the same forecast as for us! We kept hearing it talk about this one place, and thought it included us, but it doesn't. So the forecast for this week and next was highs in the 40's and 50's with lows in the 20's and 30's. Well, yesterday we woke up to a white world. Not snow mind you, but frost, lots and lots of frost. When I went down to the local post office, I was told it was 12 degrees F last night! that would explain the frost! lol. It was 39 degrees F at 1pm yesterday. Now. Keep in mind that the post office is at an elevation at least 100 feet BELOW us in altitude. So we probably dipped as low as 10 or even 9 degrees F. LOL.

We bought a thermometer for inside / outside, but haven't installed it yet, so perhaps I'll get hubby to do that today. Then we'll know how cold it is that we survive. :D

Yesterday the hubby was frustrated, and when he gets frustrated and stressed, he cleans. So our entire cabin has been redone. The insulation around the bed is all in, the bed is now up against the wall, the dressers are all where they are supposed to be, my kitchen is set up, and Thor's bed is under the kitchen table! There is still more insulation to go in, but a lot was done yesterday!

For all our loving living here in the wilderness, I wish that we had some friends that lived closer. We still have to insulate the roof and I'm not looking forward to that. Hubby will have to climb up there and do it himself. We only have one ladder, and I'm useless on a ladder anyway. And, it's a peaked roof, so that presents it's own problems anyway. The wonderful neighbor up here has volunteered that if we need any help to let him know and he'll see what he can do, so maybe we'll ask his help for this stage of the game. But we are going to get all the walls done first. Those we have been able to do by ourselves pretty successfully.

Now I need an area rug for the middle of our floor. Like one of those old time braided rugs or something. I don't want to put down wall to wall carpet in here. Depending on a vacuum when you have no electricity is a little silly. But a carpet of about 5 x 8 would be nice and still be able to be taken up and taken outside and beaten to get the dirt out of it. And we do have dirt!

Yesteray we hung up our copy of the consitution, and a small flag by the door. It's nice that it's there and it makes the place more homey I think. I can't wait until we get either drywall/sheetrock/plywood up on the walls so I can hang more stuff and get the walls painted! It's starting to feel more and more like home all the time.

I had to laugh, we have a tent up right now for storage. It'll come down once we get everything inside, but in the mean time it's where we put things that don't necessarily need to be in the cabin. In our moving around and unpacking yesterday, hubby found our pair of long handled pruning shears. We call them "loppers". Anyway, I was thinking we could hang them from our rafters (such as they are), but he said "no, they'll go out in the garage, there's no reason for them to be in here." I didn't say anything, but thought it was pretty funny that he called the tent our garage. So I sat them outside the door while we continued work in here. Later, he went outside to move some other stuff around and grabbed them while we were there, so he could put them in the tent. Again he said "ok, I'll put these and this other stuff in the garage."... And it hit him he had called the tent our garage. He looked at me and said "how's that for habit!?"... LOL! So now, the tent is officially known as "THE GARAGE".

Last time we went to Wallyworld we bought 8 shelf brackets to put up the shelving here in the cabin. We couldn't find them yesterday (hence hubby's spate of moving, unpacking, organizing) but I need to get them found so we can get shelves up. What's really funny is even though several hours was spent moving around the contents of our cabin, the brackets weren't found! Some shelf bracket gremlin seems to have made off with them. :( So, if you happen to see that gremlin, could you bop him and send him back with my brackets?

oh, the sky is getting lighter out there finally. I wonder if it's going to be a clear day or a cloudy day. According to the weather station (HAH!) rain mixed with snow is in the forecast for Friday night and Saturday night. So we'll have to see what we get. For all I know we got snow last night too. Just waiting on the sun to lighten it up a bit more for me to find out. :D

Ok, off to turn off the generator, and get ready to face the day. I'm thinking PANCAKES for breakfast. :D

Open range (open season? Not!)

Hello again world. The movie was Rob Roy.

That's not to say we didn't do ANYTHING yesterday... ok. We pretty much didn't do anything.

Todays chore is driving into town, and picking up my driver's license. Ugh. Not a chore I wanted to do today. We have an appointment on Wednesday in town too, and I didn't want to have to go back until then. But I need my license, and I also need a few groceries and to do some laundry, hit the library and such too.

There is a wonderful book I have been reading called "wilderness cookery" I can't remember the author right off the bat, but it's great. the original copyright is from 1961, and then this copy is from 1970. It's stuffed full of some wonderful information including this tidbit I love. Vinegar. I use it a lot for cleaning, and deoderizing. I'm allergic to most chemicals in cleaning products and I am not allergic to vinegar so I use it everywhere. But, when you are out in the wilderness, you can run short in quick time. So, here is what you do. Start with 1 gallon of vinegar, and once you have used 1/2 of it, you refill the bottle to full using water. Then you dump in 1 cup of brown sugar, shake it to dissolve. Then leave it. The brown sugar will ferment and add to your vinegar! What the book DIDN'T say is how long it will take it to ferment. I am thinking your nose will tell you, so I am going to have to explore this and see how long it takes it to do the job.


We were in a resteraunt eating breakfast yesterday and heard a conversation on open range cattle. Where we have moved to is ALL open range, in towns and out of towns. The very nice lady who is the owners wife was giving an earful to someone about some cows, who broke down her fence, ate her lilacs, broke the bbq, and in general raised a mess at her house. They even had her mother locked in the house because they were right up on the porch. Now, I don't know if you know much about cows. But open range cows are pretty feral. They would just as soon stomp you as look at you, especially if they are cows with calves! Never go near a cow with a calf at her side if she is an open range cow, she'll stomp you into the next season. Anyway, we found out this. Open range is just that, open range. You get a cow or a horse, brand it and turn it loose. If someone doesn't want your animal on their property then they have to fence their property to keep the critter out. If it's not fenced, then you don't have any reason to cuss. Deal with it. Most of the time, the ranchers are nice, and if you are being bothered by the cows, they will come and try to drive them out of your property to go and bother someone else. Every once in a while you get some jerk who tells you to just deal with it. My idea was that if the cow comes in and is destructive I have steak for dinner. :D But, here's the rub, I have found out that it's ILLEGAL! If a cow comes in, breaks my fence, is a pain in the rump and I shoot him... If the rancher finds out, then I have to pay him the price of the cow, PLUS he can sue me for the loss of the cow! ACK! Stupid cows.


Right now we are at such a high elevation that the open range cows and horses are down lower by the rivers and such where it may have less snow and be a little warmer through the winter. But come spring and summer, this very nice resteraunt lady has told us, be ready for them to come up. In our frequent walk abouts here on the property we have seen some cow sign, but what we have seen a lot of is horse sign. I am hoping this means that we won't have a lot of cows up here, but just in case we are going to have to work on getting the fence up so we can keep them out of the front of the house. And keep the DOGS from running the cows. Last thing I want is some local shooting the dogs because they were chasing their open range cattle.

We need the fence up anyway for when the goats and chickens get here. Don't want my goats running all over the countryside. I know that you can train both of these critters to come back in the evening for feeding and milking so not worried about that. But we have OODLES AND TONS of coyotes up here. We frequently hear them yapping in the evenings. A coyote pack can definitely decimate your goats if you don't have them in a strong fence by day, and a sound stucture by night. And! They can eat about 15 chickens a night. Think on that one for a while.

Off to get dressed and ready to go to town. Stupid drive. LOL. I plan on getting a few new gadgets today, and I'll write about them in the next blog.