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1. Trimming the apple tree’s and pruning back the landscaping around our homestead.
   Burn-ban in effect until Springtime (can get a permit with a simple phone call), so it’s mostly just stacking and piling up until an appropriate time comes along. As most of the tree’s and shrubs are dormant, it’s the best time for this kind of work. We are letting the horses graze in the yard as there’s very little grass available for them. They are old and very docile. We put the halter and lead-ropes on them and let them wander the yard while trimming and cleaning up. They seldom wander very far, and seem just glad to have something to munch on that isn’t stored hay!

2. Last fall we had our new shop built to house our horse trailer and tow truck, equipment and SUV trailers, small JD tractor and Bobcat, Yamaha Rhino and all of my tools, supplies and materials. What a dream come true.

   During the winter I observed the roofline develop a hump and after pulling a string line I discovered that frost heave had lifted and cracked the slab and one of the posts as much as 3-4 inches. I was devastated they my new shop was already damaged.

   After the spring thaw and dry out it settled back to very close to original, but of course the cracked slab remained damaged. Apparently the frost heave was the worst in 25 years as mentioned by my contractor and I am hopeful it will not have a relapse this year or in coming winter seasons.

   This summer after the slab leveled back out I was able to build my 24′ work bench and tool storage drawers and shelf, some heavy duty shelving was placed right behind the bench and material storage behind those on the back wall. We now have the protected storage for equipment and a wonderful work area for my ‘shop’.

   The real bonus is that we now have the use of our garage to actually park our vehicles in after moving all of my tools, hardware, ,materials, lawn mower and everything else out of the garage and organized into the shop where I can actually access and use everything.

   Just one more step towards being more self sustainable after our move a couple of years ago to the Redoubt. We voted with our feet and are as pleased with our move to such a wonderful new neighborhood.

3. Hugh:
   I’ve worked with machine tools most of my life. I understand the problem you had with lifting your lathe. A good rigger can do this with just slings and chains, but the easy way is to buy a load leveler. If you own one, you’ll be surprised how often you find uses for it (construction projects spring to mind). Search Amazon for “Load Leveler”. They are not expensive. Also, I work for a manufacturer of cutting tools. I can probably help get you set up with some cutters for your lathe if you email me privately.

   1. Wow. That would have been useful. It took us about an hour to try and find the center of balance using trial and error and eventually I just left it slightly heavy on the tailstock side and used the light tie down to balance it. That caused the main lifting strap to lean to the right necessitating the left tie down to stabilize it. it worked out OK, but I had concerns that the lathe bed would rotate front or back, rolling in the makeshift sling. I think the two stabilizing straps kept it pretty stable so we didn’t have to worry about that, but I removed the milling attachment to make sure it wasn’t too top heavy. The load leveler would have made it easy to balance and stabilize it. It’s almost like someone else has thought that problem through many times 🙂 . I’m definitely getting one of those to move the rest of the machinery around.
      With that setup I could have probably done the entire job myself. As it was, the roughness of the floor made it so the hoist would not roll smoothly and I had to have help. One person steadying the load while the other manhandled the hoist.

      1. Oh! In the shopping cart! Straps too.
         Recovering from knee replacement surgery 9 days ago. Will all that titanium and polymer turn me into a Glockaholic?

      2. Hugh:
         Go to AW Direct.com for top of th line lifting straps in different lengths and weight capacities. The sell tow truck gear but they got great stuff, have fun going through their on long ne catalog. And like +P+ mentioned you will find other uses for a lot of gear they like construction on your ranch. You can never have to many tools. Have fun with your tools and projects.

4. Well, cold weather was finally approaching SE Tx so time to harvest the ginger and turmeric. The bed that contained both was 6’ by 3’, so 9 square feet each. Out of half a pound of root fingers I go 15 pounds of ginger and 18 pounds of turmeric! Well pleased as that’s a years worth of turmeric for DW and I. Going to experiment with ginger beer now! I will be growing a lot of both as a cash crop at the new farm land i bought recently, way away from the city.

5. I finally got rid of my crummy old reloading kitchen table and started building my new and improved “deluxe” reloading bench. I should have this project finished in a week or two depending on my spare time and then it will be time to test out my new 9mm dies with all that 9mm brass that I have been collecting for the last 3 years.

   1. Bilge…yer giving me WINTER TIME INCENTIVE to ree-load all those 9mm casings I’ve collected over the years! Thanky!

      …plus all the .45ACPs, .30/06s, 5.56mms…the beat goes on….

6. I’m curious about your ‘bunk house’?

   Without giving anything away, how many bunks [stacked 2, 3, 4, 5?], sinks, toilets, showers, heating, cooling, chairs, kitchen, male/female/children accommodations, porch, FA & gear storage?

   If you had to do it again, what would you differently?

   If someone were building a rural homestead, what would you recommend?

7. We have been trying tyhis year to re-establich an orchard. Had 50 trees 15 years ago, scions form good local apple trees we found grafted on wild apple seedlings. Surrounded them with two or more layers of fiel-fence on posts in a 4 ft square, so the pasture around them would not be wasted. Goats, persistent buggers, mashed the fences and pushed through, meanwhile voles ate the roots. This Spring we started over, made upo 17 trees, this time fences with two 16′ by 4′ cattle-panels, each bent ot a right nagle, to make 8ft square enclosures. Even if a browser gets head through an opening, will not reach the tree. Last few trees made an improvement to htis plan, bent the two panels to a circle instead of a square stiluised four posts, but hte curve makes ther fence much stiffer and the radius is now a uniform 5 ft. So far there has been no damage from the livestock, desite cows scratching htemsleves on the cages. We just last week completed the experimental vole defense. The vole is a small, mouse-like vegetarian who lives in the sod, nibbling slightly above and slightly below the soil line. So, after mowing the caged spaces with weed-eater, I built a mound of clean 3/4″ gravel around each litle tree, The theory is that the gravel will be too hard and heavy to burrow through to the tree roots, and the mound will expose a brave vole who attempts to climb it to the owls and foxes. The cattle panels cost us about $18 each in bundles of 50, the gravel not much for 100 lb or so per tree, the trees e graft ourselves from a twig that costs us nothing but a polite rquest to the tree owner plus a wild seedling.

   1. Here in the mid south voles are a nuisance also. A little old lady told me to put a stick of chewing gum down each hole twice a week until the problem was solved. I bought a big box of cheap gum, unwrapped each stick and dutifully put a stick down each hole. In two weeks I had 9 dead voles above ground and probably 9 more under ground. Problem solved at that house!

      1. That’s like putting out sofa pop for rats and mice. We had problem with those two types of rodents some ten years ago and nothing was working very wel or fast. Then my little brother read about soda pop as weapon against the critters online. 3 days later I had dead rodents all over the place, messy cleanup, but worth it. We have been rodent free ever since. I am thirsty!

8. After paying $65 for a Christmas tree (ughh) ordered some Noble Fir seeds. Will be a fun experiment to see if I can get them to germinate and have Christmas trees growing along some fence lines.

9. When you are using lifting equipment be sure all the shackles are “American Made”. Do not use Chinese made shackles as they are not to be trusted.They may look great and they may be bigger than you think you need “Do Not Use Them.”
   When I worked in the oil fields in Alaska we dropped a turbine using Chinese shackles. As luck would have it was only 6 or 8 inches off the turbine deck when one of them broke. The company scrapped all Chinese shackles. As the old saying goes “Save nickles and cost Dollars.”
   Do not trust Chinese lifting equipment, make your own or at least have someone who knows equipment check it out.
   The Gman

   1. I concur, don’t use any shackles that have China stamped on them also don’t use any that don’t have a manufacturer stamp on them…We source most all our shackles from Lift-It and they are superb…

10. Always turn off power to any type of water heater before you open drain valves. If something causes you to delay/forget to do so you can end up buying a new heater. And it only takes a few seconds for the heating element to die if not immersed completely in water.

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