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23 Comments

  1. On our homestead this week we were able to continue to haul in a few logs, split and stack. We find we are not using as much wood now that we have our coal stove going in the basement. Also, the drywall mud continues in the pantry area. We are new at this so it is taking more time than we would like. The pantry/reloading room and garage area are just practice for the living area as we are finishing our basement. We had a few days where things were melting so we were able to put on the doors for the fuel shed. Had to shim the doors but it all looks good. We will pick up some more of the paint we are using for our outbuildings and finish it up. Several folks at our church have come down with the stomach flu. We just got over our illnesses, so we plan to take our germ wipes for after the meet & greet session and take our elderberry syrup before we leave. No joke folks, we are in our 60’s & 70’s and it takes weeks for us to get well. Too much to do to be sick again. Blessings to all and have a great week.

  2. Buying up the peat moss and soil amendments at the local big box store. Will get tilled into the garden once weather breaks. Placed my first order of the season with a seedhouse. More clearing for fencing, couple more burn piles to be made, and everything for the new pasture should be cleared and ready to start fencing in Spring. Starting to look at spring-seed starting as well. There are a few things that can be started 8-12 weeks before planting outside (that’s 3 months!) Guess it’s almost that time!

  3. This is the day the Lord has made. Knowing that, I must admit I am anxious for spring to come.
    We are trying heirloom seeds for the first time this year. One particular variety of black cherry tomato has us excited.
    We installed a fiberglass green house. After years of research we settled on a commercially available product made in Washington state.
    Cleaning and lubricating firearms is easily scheduled when it is storming outside. A few at a time.

  5. I’m in the process of buying a new battery bank for the solar system. For those in our area that use solar you quickly find that you can go for days without seeing the sun in the winter, and I need to add more capacity.

    The battery I’ve picked out is a 48 volt forklift battery rated at 800 amp hours. It literally weights a ton, so I’m currently reinforcing the area where it will sit and waiting for the ice to melt a bit more before ordering it.

    With this change I’ll be off grid this spring!

    1. If your in northwest Montana consider axmen in missoula. I’ve bought several solar related items from them. I purchased my 1250ah, 48volt bank from them. They even boomed the batteries into my 8’deep battery vault in my solar shed with there propane truck. They will price match as much as they can but I’m willing to pay a little extra for the local service.

      1. Guys

        I’ve heard mixed stories. My question is with overall power consumption. There are so many items out there even selling on amazon which run off of 12 v DC but not higher voltage as 24v DC. Like light bulbs and tools and the like. So does your converter turn your 48v DC into 110 v and then you power everything in your home with just wall outlets or do you have a mix of voltage needs such as gadgets running on both AC and DC.

        I’m asking because we have a neighbor that’s not so bright (pun intended) but he purchased those 12v items such as bulbs and what no and says it saves him power.

        We’re getting ready to go full solar in the spring and don’t want to overlook something.

  6. Was given a runt hog out of a confinement, got it all butchered out myself, got 75lbs of meat. Yesterday we canned 20 lbs of ground pork and found 18 lbs of venison in the freezer to can as well. Other than that, still building guns and staying in deep hibernation. Needs to get some seeds ordered this coming week.

    1. Just opened a new TSC near our MO location and they are carrying bee supplies. Prices pretty high but so is shipping from any of the big companies. Recent check of our hives show them all wintering well. Will soon start feeding for early buildup. Seed orders in and a few weeks until we open the greenhouse.

  9. We are in the process today of wiring in another 220v outlet within our back/mudroom so me may begin running our harvest Right FD once again. The garage simply gets too cold here in Northern NY. We are also redoing a bathroom as well.

  10. We have completed our wood burning stove with 6 inch flue chimney of the Log home.

    Question. We took back a stove which wasn’t putting out heat and now have a much deeper box and tripled the cubic feet with our new King stove. However we get plenty of heat to the upstairs just fine but to the back rooms of the first floor where the stove resides the heat just isn’t traveling that far back to the corners of the home.

    Do we need a fan? A duct ? Or another stove inserted?

    We have 1500 square feet of living space.

    Thanks for any advice and as always appreciate the blog.

    1. I will reply with the thought that you have a Blaze King “King” model stove. Do you have the catalytic version or non catalytic type? I have the King with the catalytic converter built it. It has been my primary heat system now for 6 years. I live in the interior Arctic and my home is just under 1250 square feet in size and I have a full size crawl space under the home that I can walk in. My stove has burned only clean, 2 year dry birch wood and never anything else.
      I use a heat activated electric fan to circulate heat when the stove it lit. The fan does a great job to circulate heat, and the temperatures under the house have never gone below 40 degrees during our burning season which is from September to late April.

      Be certain to never burn trash, paper or other items in your stove, and use well dried wood. When the temperature here are at 60 to 70 degrees below zero we sometimes have to open a window to cool the house in the living room where the stove is located.

      I hope this helps you.

  11. JA
    We have used ceiling fans to assist in distributing air to the back of our home. Not perfect but it seemed to help. I have thought about cutting a vent high up between the walls to provide passive distribution.

    J in WA
    I hope I don’t break a rule by mentioning the company. I can assure you I do not work for them.
    Like I said we researched for a while. We went with Solar Gem. I cannot comment on our experience as we have yet to grow a crop. The best deal we found was at Costco.

  12. Tonight’s snowfall will likely be rain. All I can say is how thankful I am that we moved the placement of our small cabin to higher ground because of sitting water in our unusually wet spring and summer. It delayed our plans by months and required a lot of extra work, but it appears to have been the smart move.

    We continue to reorganize and resupply as money allows. Bought the final 30 gallon trash can to store the rolled oats. Purchased a replacement battery charger to carry in the pick up. Since our other one died, we waited and bought one recommended on a regular blog I follow. It is a treasure trove of usefulness with a air compressor, multiple opportunities to charge electronics and quite the light source.

    As many of the veterans reading will know and fondly remember, our Air Force ROTC son has spent a bit of time polishing his new black uniform shoes while sitting round the woodstove. He has a but of Ironing to do before Tuesday as college starts up again.

  13. I will be very interested to to hear what is your experience with the Russian bees. We have Russian bees. They are an entirely different animal than the Italian bees. For every bit as loving as the Italian people are compared to how fisty the Russian people are, the same is true of the bees. I can work the bees and they will still remember me 3 weeks later and still be mad at me and come sting me if I step out of the house, and fly the 50 feet to where I’m standing and sting me. They also have longer and stronger stingers, so they will sting you through your usual bee suit, if you don’t have three thick layers underneath. It’s a JOY to work them in these hot Mississippi summers. (Smiles) On the plus side, they are extremely hardy, and are heavy honey producers. They do perfectly fine with only being worked once every year or 6 months. We finally moved them across the road in a less used area, so they can be mad in their own domain and leave me be in mine.

  14. Mr. Latimer,
    Sorry to hear about the sickness in your family. When I hear about someone catching the flu, stomach virus or some other communicable disease I have to wonder if we preppers who are holed up in our little groups after the SHTF will still be susceptible to all of that. I have to wonder if we might actually be more healthy. What do you think?

    1. @M-ray
      A good reminder to us that no matter how much you love the person/people, you can’t let your guard down when it comes to communicable diseases. We mingled, shook hands and ate with people whom we knew were sick. Choices have consequences 🙂

  15. taking advantage of winter weather and pork butt / 99 cents/# sale by trying our hands at making fresh polish sausage. once we refine flavor to our taste we will move on to a batch of smoked polish sausage. picking out this years garden experiments and improvements. getting our ducks in a row for 2018 homestead projects and repairs. thank you and keep up the good work. winter weather allows us to stay current with survivalblog. once the weather breaks we often have to catch up on our reading . would not want to miss out on all the great info you supply.

  16. Getting ready for our annual camping in the snow event this next month. Bought some new tent heaters (brand new in the box) and assembled them this weekend, will take them outside this week and fire them up for several hours just to burn them in and make certain we have no leaks. This year we are going to cross over to Canada and play with our friends in Canada; if the weather holds constant the average temps should be between – 25 F to – 45 F with a lot of snow pack this year. After the event is over and I’m back home, there will be a hot pot of cocoa ready and waiting by the wood stove. In mid March I am going to school for re-certification on Arctic survival skills. Oh joy for the coming of break up…. the Mrs. has her Siberian seeds set out and in late March will start her greenhouse sets. Root crops rule …

  17. Don’t know if you live in a modular or a stick built house, but that 1 1/4″ gap at the bottom is most likely for return air flow to the heating system. Newer modulars don’t have return air vents– just large gaps at the door thresholds. Basements often use the same method for return air flow.

    If you start waking up with headaches, restore your threshold venting to its original condition.

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