Anybody into homesteading?

[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.)