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(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the series.)

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Monitoring Work

I don’t like to micro-manage but at the same time monitoring the progress of work helps ensure that you are getting what you pay for. As I have stated, the building contractor who built our addition had a very detailed quote and nice computer-generated layouts of what it would look like when done. The only drawing he did not have was one for the addition onto the basement. Guess what the only issue we had was? The mason put the man door in the wrong spot. I caught it but it did require additional costs in which the contractor absorbed. I also noticed that when they broke up part of the cement floor that was being replaced in the basement, that there was busted up clay drainage pipe (new damage) and they replaced that as well. I would drive out each night after work if I could to look at the work and progress. I was not able to spend as much time driving out to check on the work of the first contractor who remodeled our kitchen and replaced a window and the door into the mudroom.

Recently, I started to remodel the mud room and took down the old paneling in the room and noticed that the contractor who had replaced the door and window didn’t even put any insulation in, that was stipulated in the contract. If that wasn’t bad enough, there was improper work done on fixing a 2×4 in a load-bearing wall. He also only used little one-inch screws to hold the hinges onto the doorframe versus the longer 3-inch screws that go into the actual framing. This would have make it a little more difficult to kick in the door. Needless to say, we now have the 3-inch screws attaching the door hinges to the door frame. If I had been able to see the work before it was enclosed, I could have ensured that I got what I asked and paid for. Don’t be afraid to ask for photographs of the walls, et cetera before the contractor encloses them.

Well Water

When we were going through the seller’s disclosure on the house we ended up buying, I noticed that the seller reported that the water did not initially pass the test for total coliform. The seller stated that they treated the well with bleach and it passed on the second test. When we purchased the house we had the water tested again and it failed. The levels being detected where not high but none the less the test showed there was an issue. I removed the roof that was on top of the well house and discovered the issue: Someone had the wrong well cap installed. There were holes that were probably allowing mice, or other small critters to enter the well and then decay thus adding to the small levels of total coliform that the test were detecting. I had a well driller come out and he extended the well tube up and out of the well house, put a good cap on and re-ran the electric wires.

The well driller put a few concentrated bleach tablets down and gave me instructions to wait 24 hours, then run the water in the house from each sink, etc. until I could smell the bleach. I waited a few days after that and then took a sample in for testing and: nothing. I was concerned about the quality of well water in this area since it is notorious for being very high in Sulphur. However our water is good and we have a well that has no issues with recharging. One of the things I also noticed when looking over the house was that the wire for the well pump was “casually” connected with just two wire nuts. Since then I have updated that so that if the power goes out I can now just un-plug the well pump from an outlet and plug it into the generator.

Landscaping

Our newly-purchased home needed some landscaping done. There were several pine trees around the property that that were in desperate need of trimming. We also had to apply poison ivy killer to a number of areas. Due to lack of trimming the trees had taken over parts of the lawn and even part of the drive way. The un-trimmed trees blocked the view of my one of my neighbors. When we were looking at getting insurance on the home it was as a “seasonal” home and being able to be seen by three neighbors lowered the insurance rates. From a survival standpoint I want to have good fields of fire and be able to see what is approaching. From a Mutual assistance group (MAG) standpoint I want to see what is happening at my neighbors’ homes too. The last reason for attending to the landscaping was that it made the place looked “lived in” and thus perhaps passed up by thieves.

Shooting Range

One of my pet peeves about living in the city was having to go to a shooting club. Not that I’m anti-social but it seemed like I would spend more time talking to people about what I was shooting than shooting. There was also the time spent on waiting for others to walk down range and back either setting up or checking their targets. And of course, there was being muzzled by the idiots who didn’t care where their muzzle was pointed. When I would take time to go to the range I want to shoot not talk or be shot. I built a small 100-yard to 140-yard range (depends where I set up). The range allows us to practice even things that were forbidden at the gun ranges due to their rules.

Planting

We knew that we wanted apple trees and blueberries, so we planted four apple trees the second year we owned the property. We did not plant any the first year since we wanted to see how the property drained. The third year we planted four more trees. However, only one of those survived. The trees I got the third year were not what I wanted. I have been buying my fruit trees and plants from the local conservancy who has a plant sale every Spring. The variety of apple tree I wanted was not shipped and on the advice of the people from the conservancy I took a variety that I knew nothing about. Advice from others is good but doing your own research is priceless. We also planted six blueberry bushes and they are coming along nicely.

The two elderberry trees that i bought did not survive either, but they did not look healthy when we got them. The good news is that I found two elderberry trees by our “pond”. We started our garden by making five, 4-foot by 10-foot raised beds with one being planted with asparagus. We did not plant a garden this year due to the move. But we have planted tomatoes, peppers and, onions with a very nice harvest. Now that we have moved to the BOL full time, we will be expanding the garden area. I would highly recommended that when you buy your BOL that planting fruit trees and bushes be on your list of priorities since it will take time for these plants to start producing.

Neighbors

In my opinion, regardless of whether you like them, your neighbors are your de facto MAG members. I have a better relationship with my new neighbor now than I did with the neighbors in the city after 10 years. Besides wanting good neighbors, I strive to be a good neighbor, especially since I’m the “new guy from the city”. Establishing a good relationship with your neighbors sets the foundation for cooperation when SHTF. Like any relationship, developing trust is the cornerstone.

The first year we owned the BOL, the nation was still in the midst of the .22 Long Rifle ammo drought. I was out one weekend and the neighbor came over to talk with me and told me that he “hoped I didn’t mind” that he had dispatched thee ground hogs on my property. I told him that I didn’t mind and that he was more than welcome to dispatch as many as he wanted. I asked what he used and he said “just a .22 rifle” and then mentioned not being able to find any .22 rimfire ammo. After he left, I went inside the BOL and got a 550 round bulk pack of .22 ammo and then took it to him. He was shocked that not only did I have .22 ammo but that I was giving him a whole box when such an item was almost impossible to get.

My closest neighbor runs his own business and has animals and fields to tend to at night. He mentioned needing to get to town for something but that he didn’t have time. Since I still work in town, I told him anytime he needed something just let me know and I’ll get it for him. He has taken me up on this a few times and is very thankful. Our relationship has now progressed to the next level and he borrowed my compound miter saw. My neighbor has been a great source of information on local contractors, saw mills, stone quarries, and other local businesses. He is also sharing what varieties of vegetables have grown really good in his garden. We also discussed raising they same breed of chickens so that we could swap out roosters. Since his apple orchard is already well-established, he was very interested in know that I am starting my own apiary. This year I also offered to let him hay my fields and he cut and baled about 200 small square bales. I figure when we get our animals next year that we will make some share arrangement for him to bale and for me, to get a number of them.

Communications

The Internet and communications were perhaps one of the most challenging issues we had. Our kids wanted Internet, while my wife and I both need the Internet for our work. We are lucky if our cell phones work. I have gotten to the point that I know where I need to stand to make or take a call. Texting is more successful unless I’m inside the house or trying to send a picture. Getting the Internet on my cell phone is also challenging. We looked at getting inter-net service and it seemed like everything was the same, slow and expensive. I talked to our IT director at work and told me about Ubifi. I checked into it and we signed up and it works great. We can actually stream a movie. As for our cell phones, we are planning on getting a cell phone booster, to help improve that service.

Planning

To me, having a strategic plan is imperative. (See: “Putting together a Strategic Plan” in SurvivalBlog, January 16, 2019).   I can honestly report that checking off items from my May 2019 plan has been a dismal failure. The vast majority of my projects will be carried over to 2020. Why? Well, frankly, looking back I assumed that our house would sell quickly thus allowing the funds to be used for many of these projects. The other issue is that I didn’t realize how much of my time would be monopolized by actually moving. We did not hire a moving company. We did it by using my truck and the wife’s mini-van for most of the stuff. For the large stuff like furniture we borrowed a large truck and had our extended family help. We moved from a house with 2,800 plus square feet and a 3 car garage into a house with barely 1,000 square feet.   As I mentioned before, not having a good tractor has been a major impediment to getting stuff checked off my list. That isn’t to say that we didn’t get anything accomplished, because we did. So, our 3-year plan turns into a 4 year plan!

Like many of you reading this I didn’t think moving to a BOL/Homestead full time was possible, at least not until I retired. Now, with a challenging medical condition here I am, a dream turned into reality. Looking back, I wonder why we thought we couldn’t do this until retirement? But like many instances when we stop saying “I can’t” and replace it with “I can”, things happen. Yes, our drive to work is a little longer, we spend more on gas, and I’m sure our car insurance will go up. But we are living our dream of being in a safe location, able to raise our own food, shoot our firearms, and let our dogs run around in a huge yard. We don’t hear the wail of police car sirens.

The kids’ class size went from 26 down to as low a 16, in some classes. My son commented that he hasn’t seen any fights at his new school. Our taxes are about $8,000 less, per year. Some of the money wasted on the taxes will be used to pay for improvements to our new homestead/BOL or to absorb the added cost of fuel, vehicle maintenance and insurance. One of the things we all appreciate and enjoy here at the homestead/BOL is looking up and seeing stars that were unable to be seen in the city with all the lights.

Our world is not becoming any safer. Disasters, crime, political discontent, coupled with cities that are looking Sodom and Gomorrah have made moving to a rural area one of the safest and smartest things that you can do. Yes, we have to drive into the city for work but we are confident that we can get out and back home should anything happen. It is nice to know that, statistically speaking, my home won’t be broken into, my kids will get a better education. They also see kids being kids and not little gangster wanna-bes.

Just start by stop saying “I CAN’T” and replace it with “I can”. Good luck. You won’t regret it.

(Continued from Part 1.)

Construction Type

One of the other expectations that I had was that the home be built post-WWII but not past the 1970s due to both construction practices and construction materials. It was not a common building practice to attach the frame of a house to the actual foundation until after WWII. This means that an earthquake or even the winds from a tornado could literally move the house and unfortunately the electric wiring, plumbing and gas lines that are not meant to move. My personal opinion is that the quality of building materials started to fall starting in the 1970s with the advent of OSB. Sure, OSB is strong as long as it doesn’t get wet.

The BOL that we purchased has a very well built 1960s home. Real wood and solidly built unlike today’s slapped together with cheap materials like particle board and glued beams. The lack of quality in modern “lightweight construction” is so notorious among fire fighters that in some jurisdictions a sign must be displayed on the door to warn fire fighters that the building is of “lightweight construction”. I took a building designs course, taught by two building inspectors, as part of some volunteer training for collapse rescue in my community and saw how, for the most part, houses being built today are like everything else being manufactured and are basically “disposable”. Instead, we wanted something of quality that would last even after the end of the world as we knew it.

Timing of repairs and additions

When we bought the property, the home on the property had three small bedrooms, one bath an all-electric kitchen, dining area, sunroom, mudroom, and living room. There was a basement under the house with part of it being a garage. As we originally were planning this as a retirement home, we planned on only using it for the weekends and summers or if some disaster would necessitate us bugging out.

Our very first project was to update the kitchen. With that update, I had the electric stove/oven replaced with a propane one. We also added a ventless propane heater in the basement. I have always done this in each home we have had so that if we have a prolonged power outage in the winter these heaters, that don’t require any electric, could provide enough heat to keep pipes from bursting. We once had a three-day power outage in the dead of winter and that little heater keep our 2,800 plus square feet house at 50 degrees in most places. The BOL that we ultimately purchased had a fuel oil furnace, a wood burner that is plumbed into the homes heating ducts, and a Heatilator fireplace. With the addition of the ventless propane heater we now have four heating systems.

The old kitchen cabinets were solid wood but had been painted and the arrangement was not what we wanted. The old cabinets were replaced and relocated to the basement for added organization and storage. After the kitchen remodel I started to bring out a substantial amount of preps in case we did need to bug out of the city. This was probably a good idea for logistics reasons but our construction projects on the house were not done so having a bunch of workers running around looking at your preps isn’t the best Operational Security (OPSEC) move.

I had a plan to relocate the preps out of eyesight but that plan fell though. I will explain more later. Luckily, I ended up knowing one of the guys and making friends with the contractor and his brother who are of somewhat similar thinking. If I had to do it again, I would have had waited until all the construction on the home was completed before bringing out as many preps as I did. The good news is that although some stuff was seen, it was not even close the majority of it. I also learned that to some people, a “few” ammo cans is a lot of ammo. I bit my tongue before I could say that what they were seeing was only a small portion of what I have accumulated.

Barns

The property had a 24’x40’ barn with gable roof and hayloft. The barn’s frame needed some attention due to improper repairs. Those were fixed and I also white washed half the downstairs. This barn will be used for our cow, pigs and maybe some goats and/or sheep. The loft is very large and is currently used for storing materials such as plywood, 2×4’s, metal roofing/siding and other non-temperature sensitive and critter proof items. The loft also stores lengths of different PVC pipe. Of course, we will store hay in the loft as well. I wanted a big barn with more space for storage and animals but that just didn’t come to fruition.  The old barn is also slated to have an overhaul done on it, replacing the roof and sides with all metal. In talking with the wife, we agreed to have a new pole barn built for storage and a work shop while keeping the old barn for animals and feed storage. I carefully thought out what I needed in a new barn and where on the property the new barn would go.

Since we wanted solar power, it only made sense to place the new barn where we could ensure good sun light for solar panels that will be attached. The contractor we used to build the new pole barn came highly recommended. The barn builder said the barn would be built in the Fall, but he didn’t even start until the early summer the following year. This caused the OPSEC issue with the contractor who were building the addition onto the house seeing many of our preps. My original plan was to remove much of our prepper equipment and supplies from the BOL home to the new barn while the addition and remodel where going on. But since the barn wasn’t built, I could not do that. I have dealt with a few multi-million-dollar contracts at work over my career and know the value of a detailed contract and scope of work. Unfortunately, I didn’t demand that from my barn contractor (it was just a barn) and that caused issues that will be covered under contracting. The good news is that even though the barn contractor and I had some issues over the contract language, I am very pleased with the quality of work.

Beside being situated to get the maximum exposure to the sun for the solar panels, the barn was also placed so that I could use the rain water from the gutters to feed a catchment system and gravity feed a drip irrigation system in the garden. An outdoor shower is also planned for summertime use. I will also be able to use the water catchment system to provide water to the chickens in the warmer months. What I didn’t plan for was a big enough footprint for the batteries, charge controller, and inverter in the barn. I can remedy that but it will be at the cost of having the batteries and large inverter where I really didn’t want them. I had a room built in the back of the barn and loft above it. The room and loft were well worth the additional cost. What I like about the loft storage space is that you must set up and use a ladder to access it, hence no prying eyes. I store a lot of my larger preps that are not temperature sensitive in the loft. I put a number of plastic shelving units in the loft to help maximize the storage space.

My son and I worked on insulating the workshop inside the new barn. My thought was, if we needed to, we could clean the workshop out and make it living space. I have a small spare wood/coal burning stove stored to install if ever needed. The walls of the new barn allowed me an excellent way to organize and store items like my shovels, picks, axes, sledges, saws, air hoses, extension cords and chains. It seems like I have a small fortune in hooks and other holders used to hang many tools and other items up but it is well worth it since I and other family members and quickly see where these items are. I did not include the electrical work inside the new barn since that was something my son and I could do. The electric is pretty much bare bones with four 5,000 lumen LED lights and two cord reels hanging from the ceiling in the main part of the barn. The idea with the cord reels is that I wouldn’t need as many outlets since I could just pull the cords where I need them–even outside. Each man door to the barn has a fire extinguisher and a LED flashlight hanging immediately inside the door. I put an electronic combination lock on the main door (with a key back up). We installed four LED lights and 8 outlets in the workshop.

We built a work bench at the end of the shop that wraps around the wall. There is also a shelf under the workbench that allows us to store totes or tools on the shelf and under that shelf on the cement floor with room for more totes. Above the work bench is peg-board with the exception of a 2-foot by 4-foot piece of dry erase board that I put immediately inside the door. It is a great place to work out math or plot out a project. It is also great for writing down items I need to pick up at the hardware store. Above the door hangs a .22 rifle for dispatching groundhogs in the field.

In the back of the workshop, I installed used kitchen cabinet bases and counter top my wife found on Craigslist for $50. The base cabinets hold most of my nails, screws, and other hardware stores. On the countertop I have some of my chemistry equipment and supplies. We have been looking for used cabinets to hang above the base cabinets but have yet to find the right deal. One of the projects that is on the “to do list” is hanging a piece of plywood from one of the loft floor joist by a piano hinge to make a hanging bulletin board. When not needed the board will be folded up and stored by securing it with barrel slide bolts. I have dry-erase film that I will place on half the board and on the other will have topographical maps of our area along with an aerial image of our homestead. The idea is that we could use this room as a “tactical operations center” (TOC) in a post-TEOTWAWKI world.

Contracting

We have now had three different contracts for work done on our homestead/BOL. The first one was for the re-model of the kitchen. We used a contractor that we had used before that did “good” work (at least I thought) and decent prices. The second contractor was for the pole barn which was good work but ended up costing me a little more in the end due to contract verbiage. The third contract was a contractor that we met at the annual “home show” in the city where we used to live. I can say that he will be the only contractor that we use now after seeing one of the most detailed quotes/contracts that I’ve seen along with excellent workmanship. I received two quotes for the addition project. I did not go with the lowest. There was about a $12,000 difference between the two quotes. I added up the costs of the materials on the very detailed quote and their costs alone was more than the entire second quote. (I checked the prices since the quote provided make and model of cabinets, tile, flooring, right down to towel bars and toilet paper dispenser) I asked the contractor with the low-ball quote for some clarifications and never heard back. Spending time getting and clarifying quotes and contracts is a must. If you want something make sure it is in writing with your expectations. Just because you verbally told the contractor what you wanted and expected doesn’t mean anything unless those words make it onto the actual contract.

(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 3.)

For many of us, being able to move to our retreat/homestead/bug out location (BOL) full time is an elusive endeavor but for some the homesteading life dream does become reality. Our permanent move to our BOL was planned for post-retirement but those plans were moved up due to a medical condition. This article will recount the good, the bad and the uncategorized of our journey to find, improve, maintain and move into our BOL.

Finding a BOL wasn’t easy. At first, I was looking around the Allegheny National Forest, in Northwestern Pennsylvania. (see “Picking a BOL” by Pete Thorsen, posted on June 2, 2019). Many of the locations that we looked at were just seasonal camps. Many of these camps didn’t come with very much land. The wife was concerned that we would not be able to use it very often or check on it regularly due to the distance from our home. I was concerned about security since there are many break-ins at seasonal camps. One friend even recounted a story of showing up to his camp in the same area to find that someone had absconded with all his firewood. I did not cherish the thought of bugging out only to arrive at the BOL to find that it was looted of our preps like an inner-city Wal-Mart during SHTF. We revised our search area to places within an hour to an hour and a half away from our city home. I had compiled a list of things I wanted the property to have and I can honestly say I think I would have had better luck finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow than a property that had most of what I wanted, at least in our limited price range and target area.

I had to whittle the list of features and attributes for the property down to a list of “must haves” and “would like to have”. That search still seemed futile. It soon became apparent that some of the amenities of the perspective property would have to be really flexible. I wanted 10 acres as a minimum but we found a nice place with 8 acres. Sometimes close enough works fine. At some point, perhaps we can buy some of the surrounding land to get to that 10. Or perhaps we can buy some land a down the road. There are some advantages of having some land within walking distance of your homestead/BOL. The land can be used to cache supplies and also for an annex garden. Somethings that I would not compromise on was the property had to have a basement, a wood burning stove/fire place, not be in a flood plain and be able to accommodate food production (gardens/animals). Continue reading“Living The Homesteading Life Dream – Part 1, by 3 AD Scout”