So I'm getting old and cranky and tired of doing stuff over and over again that's not always so pleasant. Fall mucking out of the previous year's humanure is one of those tasks. I've noticed that over the course of a year or more as it dehydrates though, it shrinks down significantly. Also, the place where we're dumping it is on the edge of our normal habitable zone, and has room itself for decades and decades and decades of humanure piled under sawdust. With that in mind, I've decided to try to rethink the hacienda into something that can be left to its own devices over time. I hammered in se ..read more

This had the rather awesome unintended consequence of providing a stable base for me to put the ladder on all last season. So last Christmas, from the ladder I swept, The top three panels, before using my deck. This year, to save me from fears I'll rave about my pipe so special. (special) Lets me stay on the ground - all safe and sound. This year, I needn't have feared, I cleaned with no ladder to wrestle. (wrestle ..read more

to filter our dug well water here on the homestead. We purchased one size down from the largest, and found that it had a good capacity for our family of three plus guests. We've been using this awesome invention for the entire time we've been here, and I think I can safely claim that so far it has performed awesomely to prevent us from ingesting any nasty bugs. Eventually though, I've found that it was sometimes inconvenient to have to monitor the water levels in the two sections very diligently to make sure you don't overfill it, or don't run out of water either. Now that I have come to under ..read more

It took us two days to finally blaze the trail back to the mailbox on our snowshoes, but the views were well worth it. We earned our hot chocolates with this effort! So excited that the snow tires go on the last vehicle tomorrow ..read more

Crazy! Mother Nature held off shockingly long this year before giving us enough snow to do the traditional date ..read more

Grandpa's boat at camp is awesome. It's always fun to take it up and down the lake and get an exclusive view of the camps (and homes) to be found there. The lake is also home to many people with what I call "party boats" - probably more accurately described as pontoon boats. They're big, slow, and very stable. I don't think I've ever seen a party on one, usually retirees just puttering around the lake. But I have often thought of how perfect a platform they would be for an electric boat - a huge awning of solar panels above, loads of buoyancy to support some large, heavy batteries, and a coupl ..read more

Grandpa's boat at camp is awesome. It's always fun to take it up and down the lake and get an exclusive view of the camps (and homes) to be found there. The lake is also home to many people with what I call "party boats" - probably more accurately described as pontoon boats. They're big, slow, and very stable. I don't think I've ever seen a party on one, usually retirees just puttering around the lake. But I have often thought of how perfect a platform they would be for an electric boat - a huge awning of solar panels above, loads of buoyancy to support some large, heavy batteries, and a coupl ..read more

either. We needed room behind that tap to set the kettle and drinking water pitcher. I purposely positioned the levers so that they moved up and down vertically, rather than horizontally. This ensured they wouldn't interfere with the operation of one another or the Berkey. I managed to hook it all together, ensured the levers were closed, and then pumped a bit of water into the tank. I was honestly quite stunned that no leaks developed! At first the pipes pointed directly horizontal out over the sinks. You can imagine my surprise when I engaged the first lever only a bit, and a jet of water sh ..read more

The quality of video isn’t very impressive, but it’s still fun all the same! We’ll maybe try to get more footage showing the horizon soon, so you can better appreciate the landscape around the cabin ..read more

We ate the whole (1/3?) cake in two consecutive evenings and it was fantastic! And out of one box, we still have two more coming! I give this recipe a good thumbs up! Size wise, it’s nearly identical, so I saved the pot, steamer basket and lid from our original and they all can work with the new one – theoretically I can even have both steamer baskets installed at the same time! 13 hard boiled eggs at once – what a boon. To help celebrate, I queued up a cake mix I had recently purchased. Kenny has received some cake mixes for his Birthday from Aunt V!, and we had enjoyed them so much that we w ..read more