Anybody into homesteading?

[Caminofeld]

For a long time now it has been my primary goal to get my lifestyle to a point where I can be self-sufficient should SHTF. For me, that requires shelter, potable water, and renewable food sources. I hope I'll never actually have to test these skills, but they are nice to have in the event of trouble. I'm working on building a root cellar and a smokehouse, so I've been doing lots of reading on both. Earlier today I was watching this video and was really inspired by the dialogue beginning at 4:44, so I thought I'd share...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6UkXhHUTfM

[Caminofeld]

If anyone is doing similar things, please post and share for others to learn...

[El Camexican]

My folks border on the lifestyle. Basement is always full of preserved goods and all veggies, fish and meat in two large freezers is courtesy of Dad.

[HondaXRider]

My family has raised most of are own food for a long time now not planing for a Domes day or anything its just alot healthier and cheaper. We raise a garden and butcher are own meat its not hard and it is nice to know what you are eating. I dont realy see any reason to leave your home in a seconds notice with every thing you will need to survive. If I can not stay and protect my own property than i sertanly do not want to be running the rest of my life.
Just my opinion

[tripledog]

I working toward the goal of homesteading. If all goes well with my home refi, I should be adding another 5.5 acres to my lot (for a total of about 10 acres), as well as a fairly large 1800's barn. I heat with wood, which is one of the reasons I can afford to keep my old shanty comfy. When I bought my house in 1999, I heated it with a propane fired baseboard hot water system for a very short time. The price of propane was less than $1 a gallon, and it cost me over $450 to heat it to 65 degrees for 9 days. I bought an old (circa 1985) Shenendoah R-65 woodstove for $55, and it was money well spent. My biggest heating expense is now maintenance costs of my chain saws. I hope to find a replacement, or retrofit a new, hydraulic pump for my old Didier log splitter. I have split about 30 face cord of Walnut and Maple this year with a splitting maul, and I have another 20 or so left to process. Sorry about the bike in the pic, but I heard that posting pics of just your wood can get you in trouble.

[El Camexican]

I heard that posting pics of just your wood can get you in trouble.

You crack me up T Dog:lol:

[Caminofeld]

So far this year I haven't turned the oil heat on and have been relying on my wood stove to heat the house too. I may just set the thermostat at 60 or so to keep the pipes from freezing when temperatures warrant such, but right now it's 51 degrees outside and my living room thermostat is reading 75 with just the fire going. What amazed me is how efficient some stoves can be. Mine is an older Harman with a heat pump, and I can easily make 3 smaller pieces last the night provided I start with a decent ember base. I've also been playing with different ways to get the heat upstairs...nothing fancy, just a small duct connecting the dining room (where the stove is) to each upstairs bedroom. It seems to work alright now, but we'll see when the freezing temps hit...The toughest part for me is finding an ample supply of wood.

[Bren_downe]

I do a little bit, the house I live in was built by my parents about 15 years ago, wood heat only and totally off the grid. With the rising cost of propane and our dismal dark winters they decided to connect. Now they're gone to warmer temps and me and my family live there. I was able to cut and process about 3-4 cords of firewood this year and only had to order 2 cords. That Hearthstone wood stove heats 2500 sf no problem! We like to garden but with a busy young child it's been too hard so we only do a small garden and joined a local CSA. Next year though we plan to do a full garden and soon we'd like to add goats, chickens and bees!
Caminofeld, I need to look into root cellars too, got any suggestions?

Anyone want to buy a 40ft wind generator? Lol

[tripledog]

You crack me up T Dog:lol:

Was the "nut job" comment in your signature directed toward me, El? Just a heads-up; if we were to fight (mentally OR physically), there is good chance that someone would be SERIOUSLY injured; and I am pretty sure it WOULDN'T be you! Consider yourself warned...

[tripledog]

I do a little bit, the house I live in was built by my parents about 15 years ago, wood heat only and totally off the grid. With the rising cost of propane and our dismal dark winters they decided to connect. Now they're gone to warmer temps and me and my family live there. I was able to cut and process about 3-4 cords of firewood this year and only had to order 2 cords. That Hearthstone wood stove heats 2500 sf no problem! We like to garden but with a busy young child it's been too hard so we only do a small garden and joined a local CSA. Next year though we plan to do a full garden and soon we'd like to add goats, chickens and bees!
Caminofeld, I need to look into root cellars too, got any suggestions?

Anyone want to buy a 40ft wind generator? Lol

I used to hate the sound of a chainsaw. Now I love it! Keep your eyes and ears open. Follow the sound. For most every lot or yard that is logged (in my neck of the woods anyway), there is a property owner that is more than happy to have someone clean up after the loggers. Some folks will even pay you for your time, but I won't take any money. Relatively free heat can't be beat. Feel free to insert your own wood related joke here.

Watcha want for the wind generator? I develop a lot of wind energy on my own, but it smells like crap.

[slashfan7964]

I suppose I kinda live like that. I have a large creek behind my house for water if I need it and I have a massive garden for food. It rows, between 3-6 feet wide that go for about 50 feet per row. As far as electric and heat, not so much, but could be done if we needed to.

[redsox]

The local "Market Basket" grocery store chain went on strike for over two weeks this past summer. Had to shop at the Stop & Shop instead. If thats not bad enough, I lost my WiFi in a windstorm for almost half-a-day. Ya,,,, i guess you could say i've seen some shite... Made it through though. Preparedness is truly the key. You just never know...

[Dirtweed]

Not me, I'm a suburban guy for now. The day job keeps me way to busy to tend to anymore than I already do around the house.
I'm also a techie person so I like to have my gadgets. I can grow a garden, hunt fish (fly fishing that is) and know what to gather
so I know I'd last longer than most of my neighbors.....plus I have the most guns in the neighborhood. :)

[hatc200x1]

I live on a 600 acre farm... 400 acres tillable and 200 acres of woods/pasture, not to worried if SHTF.

[czac]

I have split about 30 face cord of Walnut and Maple this year with a splitting maul, and I have another 20 or so left to process. Sorry about the bike in the pic, but I heard that posting pics of just your wood can get you in trouble.

Oh I know that feeling... I only did about 2.5-3 full cords this fall and it was a chore! the last 1/4 to 1/2 cord was the worst... I had 3 big pieces of tree trunks down at the end of the drive way for two years two big Maple chunk and a big hunk of Hickory that I was gonna bring to the mill and have cut into boards but never did.
I finally went down there and cut them up into 16" long rounds then I split each well seasoned piece with a Maul and a wedge. I ended up having to cut a big X into the top of each piece with the saw just to start the splitting. these were 16" x about 30 inches round chunks...lol
I got a lot of wood from them but it was a lot of hard splitting. I would rather split unseasoned red oak, that stuff just busts right apart.

[Caminofeld]

Yeah, I broke 2 axes this week splitting locust. That stuff sucks!

[Caminofeld]

soon we'd like to add goats, chickens and bees!
Caminofeld, I need to look into root cellars too, got any suggestions?

That's great! I'm putting the finishing touches on the coop in order to start my chickens in the spring and this winter when the brush dies down I'm building my goat pen. Bees are amazing too, let me know how that goes if you do it.

As far as root cellars go, they are just naturally or artificially insulated rooms that you can store crops in for the Fall and Winter. Ideally they are buried below the frost line and can hold a consistent temperature of around 40 degrees or so. The recommendation is between 6 and 10 ft underground and on a North facing slope to shade the door. Most people seen to build theirs into hillsides. Unfortunately all of my slopes are South facing, all of my hills have rock faces under them, and I'm too close to the water table to dig down. What I'm planning is building a cinder block and insulated roof/door structure as far into a tree-shaded Southwest slope as I can and then building the hill out over top of it. Air flow is key, and you'll need an intake and exhaust pipe to allow air to circulate. Humidity is important too, so most people have either a dirt or gravel floor so they can add water as needed. Different crops like different temps and humidities, so you can shelve high and low to compensate. Also I've heard that fruits and veggies need to be stored separately to prevent cross-contamination.

[tripledog]

I heat only with wood. My boiler is no longer in operation. I save money in strange ways. I am so frugal that if I need to patch areas of my lawn, I wait for the taller grass to go to seed and collect it to use for repairs.

[jays375]

One thing with a wood stove you should burn it.Not let it smolder.If your wood isn't completely seasoned really gonna have troubles.Doesn't take much for a chimney fire start.Or plug the chimney.Especially if it is a damp day.Locust will produce a lot of heat.Almost like coal.

[tripledog]

I have been heating with wood for over 13 years, so I have a fairly good understanding of the finer points of doing so. Last year my block chimney cracked, and I nearly lost my house. I heated with electric space heaters for the majority of last winter, and the house was only marginally comfortable at best. I recently installed a new stainless steel triple wall chimney, and I LOVE it! I can now clean the chimney less often, and clean it while standing on the ground, as opposed to having to navigate the metal roof of my home to run the brush through from the top of chimney. I will still have to get on the roof after every few cleanings to remove the cap and clean the cap itself, but the new chimney is a vast improvement over the previous block chimney.

Sorry if I steered this thread off course, Caminofeld, and thank you for starting an interesting thread.

[czac]

That's great! I'm putting the finishing touches on the coop in order to start my chickens in the spring and this winter when the brush dies down I'm building my goat pen. Bees are amazing too, let me know how that goes if you do it.

As far as root cellars go, they are just naturally or artificially insulated rooms that you can store crops in for the Fall and Winter. Ideally they are buried below the frost line and can hold a consistent temperature of around 40 degrees or so. The recommendation is between 6 and 10 ft underground and on a North facing slope to shade the door. Most people seen to build theirs into hillsides. Unfortunately all of my slopes are South facing, all of my hills have rock faces under them, and I'm too close to the water table to dig down. What I'm planning is building a cinder block and insulated roof/door structure as far into a tree-shaded Southwest slope as I can and then building the hill out over top of it. Air flow is key, and you'll need an intake and exhaust pipe to allow air to circulate. Humidity is important too, so most people have either a dirt or gravel floor so they can add water as needed. Different crops like different temps and humidities, so you can shelve high and low to compensate. Also I've heard that fruits and veggies need to be stored separately to prevent cross-contamination.

I saw an article on the Mother earth news site a couple years ago that had plans for making a small root celler in your basement. it was basically an insulated room with a pipe going outside through the foundation to allow cold outside air into the room.

[hatc200x1]

We live about 2 miles from my dad's farm house. We heat with geo thermal but the farm house is a wood boiler and back up oil. My uncle rents the house from my dad... On down time we are cleaning fence lines, or clearing trees for more farm land. So we are killing 2 birds with one stone. We are pretty thick with the woods up here and we are trying to expand are farm, so we bought a 1960's? Wood skidder, and a wood trailer that we pull behind the tractor, it has a big hydraulic arm with a grapple at the end of it. Wood is very easy to collect now, LOL.

On another note, all of our neighbors are armed to the teeth, and everyone is like family out here. Gardens at every house, deer out in the field, grouse and rabbits littering the woods. Nothing like the country life!

Like I said, not to worried about it.

[tri again]

Heat and water are my main concerns.
I designed a way to get water out of the well with some oxygen tubing.
Essentially 2 tubes go down the well and a party balloon just pushes air down the well and bubbles bring the water UP.
Granted, a gallon size balloon only pushes a gallon and it takes a while but better than nothing and should work to any depth.
I also have extra water tanks outside that don't seem to freeze but also have 3 water tanks around my wood stove.
One on each side and one behind. The air and water tanks outside will pressurize the whole house with HOT fire heated water when the power goes out.
Say, 40 or 50 5 gallon baths?
Tanks are generally free. Old well tanks people replace and some are water heaters that don't leak.
Need to find the temp and humidity that root cellars need to be.
I, also have an idea to use a beat up electric trolling motor to generate 12 volts from the creek. Seems to be the easiest way to get juice from water and shoot light anywhere I want.

Have geese all winter but need to figure out how the indians survived here for 10,000 years.
Guess THEY had it figured out for sure.

[Bren_downe]

I've seen plans for a root cellar that uses an old chest freezer buried up to the lid. Two pipes going out for ventilation.

[ironchop]

Yeah I`ve been into homesteading since birth although we called it "being Farmers" instead of "prepping" or "homesteading"

I`m really happy to see so many people take their own destiny and survival into their own hands rather than expect to be saved. Shows the start of a serious paradigm shift for our society really. I hope it continues.

seriously though, the wife and I and a few close friends are working on a bigger community garden for next year so we can each grow specific things and then barter them to each other. We are probably going to do some community preserving....like when we were growing up, the whole neighborhood went house to house during harvests and we all pitched in to help each other get their veggies processed and meat processed for those who home butchered and it made the work so much faster and easier when everyone helped. We have eaten four jars of that Salsa we put up, Caminofeld. If we don`t lay off it, it`ll be gone by December!

[Caminofeld]

Thanks for so many great ideas guys! From reading this I also realized that I need to be more careful about what I put into my wood stove. How often should I clean my chimney? I recently found the brush in the garage, but I'm pretty sure the chick I bought my house from never cleaned it in the 5 years she lived there. Are there any special techniques, knowledge, or items I'll need to clean it?

[Bren_downe]

From what I've read, it's wet wood that builds up creosote, not different types. My parents only burnt dry hardwoods in our chimney and it hasn't been cleaned in 15years. No chimney fires yet. I did however plan a pro chimney sweeper to come by in the next few weeks and I plan to pick his brain about different types of wood and creosote. This year were burning everything from poplar, spruce, oak and maple.

[Blizzard420]

As El can attest to, if im right in thinking that his parents are still in this great white country of Canada, is that most of us are well prepared for when the SHTF. Being in the Maritimes where bringing in 45k a year is like hitting the lottery, you tend to learn how to make food, wood,water "The Nessecities" of life, last the seasons. As El said we also have a freezer full of wild meat, or half a cow bought from the local beef herder, fish, preserves.
Dear season started yesterday, so the woods are full of Hunters trying to live off of the land. Speaking of which time to leave work and try my own luck for one.

P.S for the creosote comment, My grandfather would alwayse make me put our potato peelings in Newspaper and we would add that to the fire periodically or whenever we had some, and something in the peelings staved off the buildup off creosote. Old farmer trick I guess.

Cheers
Chris

[tri again]

Thanks for so many great ideas guys! From reading this I also realized that I need to be more careful about what I put into my wood stove. How often should I clean my chimney? I recently found the brush in the garage, but I'm pretty sure the chick I bought my house from never cleaned it in the 5 years she lived there. Are there any special techniques, knowledge, or items I'll need to clean it?

Let's all chip in with chimney fire stories.
Green wood is Never good, rain wet seasoned 2 year dead fir or whatever will still steam, NOT as in steam clean but...
we use triple wall right from the stoves to the outside.
Gotta GOTTA keep the wood smoke hot so it doesn.r crystalize on the way outside.
On a side note,
when we cut off the oil supplies to the bad guys in ww2?

They made wood smokers to run their engines.
As you may imagine, if yer campfire is smoldering?
Throw a match into the smoke and it but re fire and burn like propane.
AND run an engine.
Gassifier may be what it's called.
ALso when I replace my smoke alarms, I put the old ones outside over the trikes and woodpile.
And dead water tanks..water heaters etc get 1/2 filler with watre, air pressurized and used for hi pressure fire suppression tanks like the stainless fire extinguishers we fill w/ water and air.
I love this time of year.
We get creative when the power goes out for a week or 2

[tri again]

I have been heating with wood for over 13 years, so I have a fairly good understanding of the finer points of doing so. Last year my block chimney cracked, and I nearly lost my house. I heated with electric space heaters for the majority of last winter, and the house was only marginally comfortable at best. I recently installed a new stainless steel triple wall chimney, and I LOVE it! I can now clean the chimney less often, and clean it while standing on the ground, as opposed to having to navigate the metal roof of my home to run the brush through from the top of chimney. I will still have to get on the roof after every few cleanings to remove the cap and clean the cap itself, but the new chimney is a vast improvement over the previous block chimney.

Sorry if I steered this thread off course, Caminofeld, and thank you for starting an interesting thread.

Hi, TD.
I too, had a catastrophic chim failure.
I put an electric heater under my woodstove and it kinda heated up the stove and conctrete
surround.
That lasted a couple weeks but said (**&^$$# and just ran a new triple wall outside thru the side wall of the house and bypassed the whole 'thru the roof' issue.
STAY safe everyone.
Take pix, make sure h owner ins is up to date and ALWAY buy OVCERCODE pieces and parts.
Fire marshall is our friend.
They'll inspect for free, regardless of permits and often bring a case of free smoke alarms.
They really have a lot of free time and LOVE to check stuff out and rarely, if ever, turn us in for
unpermitted non compliance unless it's really dangerous
EZ fall back is " pre-existing, non compliant". or non conrofmong. AKA grandfathered in.
as in
grandparents house, same woodstove from the 1900's.
Maybe federal air quality more than anything?
New stoves with catastrophic (catalytic) converters that just never burn clean.

(just trying to start some controversity.)

[aldochina]

check out wranglerstar on u tube. Love his vids. wish I could go hard core, but you gotta have a willing wife, and I for one do not!! She is great all the same.