Well this morning on my way to feed the chickens I got myself a nice surprise(yes I know "got is baaaad grammar but in this case it suits my needs).  As you can see we seem to have a tad bit more water in our pond. As yesterday when we went out to work it was about 1/8 of the way full seeing it at about 1/2 was a big surprise. A good surprise but still a surprise. Yesterday the pond was not was smooth as it is now in this picture, and as you can see it is only half the pond. That... unfortunately is due tot he fact that after I fed the chickens I ran back into the house for the camera and got a beautiful picture of the full pond. Then I slid on the ice and it fell into the water. I fished it back out, but as I don'rt know if I'll get the image off of the camera I went and got our old smart phone and used it's camera as I know it has a nice camera on it. I guess if this keeps up I need to get use to using the phone camera, we should know in a few hours to a couple days if the camera survives the trip into the pond. As for the pond itself we are suppose to get more rain today then it changes to snow tonight for the next to days. So it is very possible we will have a full pond by week's end. Now we just have to hope it stays full. If it doesn't we will try Silver's method of "sealing" the pond bottom with clay cat litter. He says if you get straight clay cat litter and make a slurry of it and coat the bottom of the pond it will seal the "leaks" in it. Hey, if it works that's good. Here is the other picture of the pond.  The only spot it hasn't done much yet is on the shallow end, which is where my cat tails are going to be growing when the pond is full and it gets warmer. Though I imagine the blackberry canes that grow on that side of the pond will now wind up HUGE with all the extra water they will have there. Pity Paris died over the summer she'd have a blast this summer with a pond in our yard, the two pups do not even seem interested in investigating the pond as it is now. Neither does Midnight their daddy. Can't wait to see the cats when it's full of water and try to walk across that log over the middle. As for the rest of the water that is in our yard... All of our trenches have water in them, also the new septic for the house has a layer of water in it as well. Funny thing is as I was leaving to feed the chickens and was walking next to the electric trench and noticed the water I thought to myself. I'd live to see that much water in the pond. Guess that falls under the "ask and ye shall receive" heading huh? We still need to get the piles of mud down a bit, which I am figuring they will work good to "deter" some of the plant growth I don't want in some areas. We also have to restore the trench that went from the section of woods that line the road to our pond as it was the natural draining area. I'm going to have to hand dig it. At least it will ensure steady influx of fresh water though. I also did notice that when I watched the water in the pond yesterday that it was still bubbling from the ground up, so it's possible it may stay liquid at the deepest parts in the winter which would be great for raising fish. Well that's it before breakfast, which is going to be beef hash (leftover from last night's roast) with eggs on top and maybe some of my fresh sourdough. While my oven is on the fritz I can only make my "no knead" sourdough bread as it cooks at 500 degrees. ..and don't forget today's moral... don't stand on ice above a pond to take pictures with your camera! Have a good day all! Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
Well it's a lovely warm day, and considering what was on the ground that means MUD... the dreaded "M" word. I really, really love mud... don't you? Especially since it's all clay mud which as it sticks to your shoes adds 50lbs to your foot.. or at least feels that way. Today we went out and put the rebar stakes into the MUDDY ground.  The ground is just squishy enough to make it easy to get into the ground, I almost wish we had the ground rods to put into the ground, they would be very easy to get into the ground right now. While we were doing the pounding my son who doesn't currently attend a church got to stand in the middle of the mud circle and hold our 100ft tape to make sure we had the right length from the center. We also had to measure the distance between each one which needed to be 6ft 8in between each one. The rebar "arches" need to be slightly off of where we put our stakes so that there is an opening in the center of the top of the dome. traditionally this is where a chimney is put. We are going to put glass block windows, vents and a whole house fan in a small addition above the top of the dome in the center. Silver is planning to find a way to run the chimney up it as well, but we need to figure out the logistics of it first.  The ground stakes have to be in the ground 2 foot so the 5 ft rebar stakes need to only have 3ft above the ground. So after placing all the stakes Silver went back around and pounded them into the ground till they reached the correct depth. We only had issue in one spot:  I am not sure if you can see it, but this one here is stuck in a frozen block of clay, so once we have enough above freezing days we should be able to go back and fix this one. Well it figures we'd have one that would not be able to be at the proper depth. We should have really gone out and fixed some of the mud piles before the bad weather came through.. but you know what they say about hindsight. I'll also have you know that as I am writing this.. all that snow you see in the picture? Yeah... it's gone, not there... just the MUD! So when we finished putting the stakes in we spent some time looking for the orange "tape" to mark where the stakes are as they are a tad hard to see against the browns.  It is much easier to see the outline with the tape on the rebar. also this is taken at the place where our door for the house will be put. The nice thing about it is that the door will open to just across from our soon to be outdoor kitchen. I think that is very convenient. As you can see from this picture there is much more mud than snow now, at this point we had the kids moving the rebar from up front to the house ring as Silver is going to start making the arches. The arches is what the second floor is suppose to be connected to so that it is more secure, I'm not sure if we are going to do it that way as yet and Silver is thinking we may only need to make half of a second floor based on how much space there is in the interior. As for the start of the arches...  First, after we set out three pieces of rebar of course. We needed to bend the rebar, Silver discovered after trying to use his "bending" tool that it wasn't going to work very well. That is because when he first tried to bend it the tool bent. So as you can see he went and got out the pipe wrenches and used them with me standing on one end of the rebar while he hand bent them. The one downside I have to say for the birdcage dome site is that they do not mention how they bent their rebar. So we had to figure it out ourselves. So we had to bend two of three pieces, the two end pieces. The center piece gets bent when you attach them together. We discovered it's much easier to bend with the help of two children in addition to me standing on the rebar. So after the bending comes tying the rebar together.  We are using rebar ties to connect them together, now we have seen people using zip ties. While they will hold a great deal, I think using the metal rebar ties will be 100% better as then they will be part of the concrete with the rebar. Silver is planning on using a couple of zip ties then we put the arches up and need to temporarily secure them to the rebar stakes while we get the others in place. Then will go around and use the metal ties to finish securing them. Incidentally we did not put this one in place as we have discovered we need to have a ladder or a scaffolding in place to do that as we need someone at the top to hold it in place while it is secured. As it is flimsy while being strong. I know once they are all in place they will be much more secure, jut one by itself would not be. We only put one arch together so as to get the "idea" of how to do it for the first time. Notice in the picture... no snow at all and all the MUD on Silver's shoes? That was after he scraped the MUD off. The kids finished bringing back all the rebar, after some issue over figuring out how to navigate over the trench while carrying the rebar. We found one random plank to place across it, and it's kinda working. One child of course fell into the trench and had a fit over getting muddy, I guess a 13yr old doesn't think MUD is fun anymore. Well at least she had changed into the jeans she didn't want to wear before it happened so the pants she prefers are saved for school. So now we are all sitting around the house MUDDY waiting turns to bathe the MUD off. I'll be last as I have to go back out in it to get the laundry down. Then it's on to start cooking our dinner tonight. which will be a beef roast mashed taters and peas. YUM! So I hope everyone enjoys their start of MUD season... I know I am... rolls eyes Be Well BE Safe and Blessed BE...
Well here we are the morning after the storm and I'm making brownies. Sourdough brownies specifically, it takes about 25 minutes after the sponge sets most of the night to mix them. However I am a tad worried that they might come out a bit burnt as my oven is now running a lot hotter than it was before.
As for the storm...? Well we have ice, we have snow, and we have power. That makes me happy, not long after my post yesterday our internet went out for the whole day, it was expected as we have satellite internet; breathe the wrong way and it goes out. The kids again have no school so lets see... They had a total of 2 days of school this week, guess it's better then them not having any school at all. Granted though some school are having a late start today it would be near impossible for them to walk to the bus stop safely. Also as Silver mentioned yesterday due to the ice, we are not driving for the next couple of days.
We are planning on either tomorrow or Sunday to go out and set the rebar stakes into the ground, more likely on Sunday as we are going to be in the 50's then. Maybe I'll cook something outside on our mini grill if it's going to be that nice out. Though we had something interesting in the storm previous to yesterday's. The old dishwasher that was left on our property before we got here that we are going to turn into a smoker was knocked onto it's side by wind. Now it's sat on it's base for years and a couple of days ago it gets knocked over? Defiantly a strong wind, or rather strong gusts. The wind that day also picked up one of our 2 good outdoor chairs and dropped it in the pond breaking it. So now we are down to one outdoor chair, we need a couple more; hopefully we can find some more cheaply as we still have building supplies to buy.
Speaking of which on next Friday we will have money again and after bills/animal feed/gas are paid for and my DL is replaced we are going to go and buy soil for the apple trees then the next item on our building supply list. Which may be either wire, pipe or fencing for the dome itself. Depends on what we have left really.
Well have a nice day all, I have to go check my brownies as they are starting to smell very done way to soon. Where did I put that aluminum foil again?
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
… my daughter came home with a stomach bug over this weekend and yesterday after Silver finished working it struck me. So I couldn't even eat the nice dinner I made last night, Roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, and corn. Then I got to spend some quality time with the porcelain goddess around midnight. So imagine how much sleep I got last night...
We took the track hoe back this morning and had no issues getting it back to them unlike the trip out. I will say if you are ever in my neck of the woods try out:
Bailey's Rental & Sales
305 S. Madison
Lebanon, Mo 65536
(4170 532-2353
I would recommend if you need at least 2 days of rental do it for Saturday as you'll get Sunday for free as he is not open. We are considering when we need scaffolding renting it from him. His prices are reasonable.
Tomorrow barring any rain we're going to go out and start putting up the the rebar framing for the house starting with the stakes. I am hoping to be able to set up some flower beds this month near where the outdoor kitchen will be. I have flower bulbs coming some time in the next month along with my apple trees. I want to this fall get some mums as well so we have flowers most of the year.
Well as it's rainy today and the kids are off of school we are watching movies today. Have fun everyone!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed be...
Well today was FUN, we picked up the track hoe,;(again I am amazed that there is such a thing) and after seeing the full sized back hoe up close I defiantly think the track hoe is the better option for us. I was very happy when we picked it up that the hitch held, which I was worried about it. As we left the young man who got us hooked up (literally)
However as you can see when we got very close to home the tire..
...didn't last. Well I called the person about it, and he came out quickly with a replacement. Within 20 minutes and considering where we were sitting that was fast. He even made a joke, as he used the track hoe to lift the trailer. “It comes with it's own jack”, cute joke especially while we were pissed off at the loss of the time.
So we drove it home, the dirt road was so much -fun-; we had no traction and we had to go at about 15 miles an hour to go up the first hill. We had to “get off to the side” twice on the way to the house on the dirt road as no one would yield for us.
So the first order of business when we got home was, COFFEE! For Silver anyway, (btw pics will now be tossed in at random)I set up a new pot of coffee and put cookies in the oven for a warm treat. While he “figured out” how to start it. While he has used heavy equipment before this was a different model than he was use too using. Of course our dogs were not happy with this new loud scary looking device and only stopped barking once Silver stopped using it at about 4pm.
After he figured out how it worked he started on digging the pond out for our fishies to go in. I am also going to grow the edible water lilies and cat tails for food production. We are also considering either ducks or geese to keep in the pond, mainly to keep the algae down. If we get pairs then we can butcher the extras.
So we have a short area for the little fishies and the cat tails to grow in. Then a deeper area for catfish and full grown other fish. We are considering Tilapia. I think the deep part is at least 6 foot deep maybe deeper, hard to tell until the extra dirt is “ground down” and we can tell the “actual” ground line. After we finished it off and worked on a few other projects we discovered something that may be very good news. We may have a spring under where we dug for the pond. I will know more tomorrow after it has sat overnight.
When we finished working the pond Silver went out and dug a septic for the dome out past our tree line. The only problem we had there is he was hitting something too hard for the track hoe to cut through after about 3 foot down. So he had to opt for a wider septic than a deep one, which we would have preferred. Once he finished that he dug the trench for it all the way into the area we have cleared for the house.
The next item we did was “unpleasant”, but necessary. We needed to dig out some more on our current septic. No I did not take pictures of it, I didn't want to take pictures of it shudders it's disgusting.
After that Silver went and turned the garbage pile of things we cannot burn or are already burned and is just the garbage ash. The thing that surprised me was that it seems some of the things “out there” are decomposing. Now before anyone rips my head off. Please recall the post where I commented on the fact that while I really want to be “green” I know in some things it not possible. Garbage, is one of those “things” I burn my trash, then I dispose of the ash and the “unburnables” in a pile that will not if it ever composes down be used for food crops. However, I will be happy to grow flowers over them.
That is all we have managed to do today, tomorrow we dig the trenches for the well and the electric. Then Silver will have to find things to do with it.... I am sure he will figure something out, one thing he wants to do is remove that engine block that was here when we moved in.
I am baking some sourdough brownies right now, and tomorrow morning is a bread/laundry day. Have a happy weekend everyone!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
Well today was not the fun day we were hoping for. The delivery people called us to let know that the flatbed truck is in the shop so it'll be a few days before our rebar shows up. I am almost anticipating that they will wish to deliver it on Friday when we go to the grocery store. I looked ahead at the rest of the month weather wise and due to overnight temps it'll be to cold to put in the potatoes. However day time temps certainly will be warm enough.
I have taken the covers off my plant trays, and I did discover so far one of my sugar cane seeds have sprouted. All of my tomatoes have sprouted, though I am still waiting on my peppers of course to sprout. My eggplants also have not sprouted as yet.
We did run out and get some straw for the dogs and the chickens, next time we re-straw the chickens I'm going to get pictures as they are so funny when we put fresh straw out.
That's it for now...
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
We have had a great weekend so far folks! We got some of our building money, and we have a load of rebar coming tomorrow. We have decided to go down to a 34ft diameter dome. When we staked it (40 ft dome) out we noticed that we mis-staked it and the 34ft is not that much smaller than what we had staked out..
I got my apple trees ordered, I ordered ultra mac's for Silver and double delicious for me. I love the golden and red delicious. The company I ordered from a local nursery for this state Stark Bros nursery, they offered free shipping on orders over $85. So as I ordered 2 of each the order with the free shipping was just over $100. So I saved at least $20.
We had gotten a “pay later” flower catalog, that had Dahlias (edible root) and a few herb and bee friendly plants, We have been approved on their credit plan and I have a order of quite a few flowers coming that will be planted in a few various places one being our outdoor kitchen that will make it nice there and I will have lots of butterflies, bees, and humming birds stopping by.
We have also prepaid on the track hoe for next weekend as we had rain yesterday evening and this morning it would have been a waste of time and money getting it for this weekend. My son is crossing his fingers and behaving overly well in the hopes of getting to learn how to use it. Well, a 16yr old boy should have that opportunity to learn it. He's not doing all the work however. Especially since we need to dig a ditch from the power pole out to the clearing. I'm NOT having a child no matter how old digging near the power pole.
The next pay day we are going to get the chicks ordered, I wanted to do it Friday; but we didn't get a chance to. I did get the chick food and the new light for them. We will still need some pine bedding and a cover for the brooder before they get here though.
Now for the next week we have to clear area for the track hoe to run in. Yesterday my son and Silver started on it before the rain showed up. They'll go back out today after the rain lets up and it drys up a bit. Tomorrow it'll be just me and Silver working out there.
On another note, I was thinking about the weather and I believe we are already in our “Spring pattern” for here as we are getting tons of rain. Which is normal Spring weather here. Oh, my plant starts have started sprouting. Cabbages, grains, and tomatoes; also a couple of herbs! I am very happy about that.
I hope everyone is having a good weekend!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
We've been silent on the blog as we have not been able to get on the net as much as we'd like too. So an update to things going on here. Well we've had crazy weather again. For 3 days we've had spring-ish temperatures, yesterday we had severe weather in the form of severe thunderstorms and some tornadoes. Today the forecast is for occasional snow flurries and what ever our temperature this morning at 6am would be our high for today. It's so nice to see winter coming back, and I'm serious as I do have flowers that I don't want killed off due to the weather being wonky. Due to the rain yesterday our “pond” (which is still not finished being dug) is filled to the current spill over.
We have finally come to a good place in working with our wood stove, we have it burn new wood at the coal stage only and we have a smoldering fire all day and night. We don't “burn ourselves out” and it stays toasty enough. We also seem to have hit the spot in the wood pile where the densest wood seems to be at. Which is good for long burning anyway.
In the last week I have gotten up at 3 am to bake bread, I have to say I may be doing it more often. The bread I have made these last two times has been heavenly. Good flavor and just the right “weight” (if that makes sense), silver told me today that I need to get up at 3am every morning now. Guess that means he likes it huh?
We have made a small discovery that we hope will work like we think. Loews sells “blown in” insulation that is “green”. This insulation is made from shredded recycled paper. Silver has been wanting to do papercrete on the interior of the dome to insulate it. My only issue had been, where do we get that much paper. Then we noticed that insulation, we are planning on buying one bag and trying to mix some papercrete up and see if it does well with the insulation. If it works out I will let everyone know. Silver is also looking for a way to combine the wall flue of a Russian Masonry stove and a rocket mass heater. Any Recommendation would be helpful.
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
 Now I mentioned in my previous post about this cook stove that Silver made for us last year. Now it was very easy to make. It has metal from what Silver said was a commercial stove that was left on our property and we discovered it when we moved here. He took the metal squares from the base and took the legs off which were later used to hold pots over the fire. The metals squares though were filled with large rock then gravel. The other piece of metal is that back piece, which was also in the original base.
The next thing Silver did was put two standard cinder blocks on the rock/gravel filled base and then filled them with again rocks first then gravel till full. Now I want to say you SHOULD let them sit a day or 2 to let the stones and gravel settle. Otherwise they will get hollow spots in them. Then Silver put the flat cinder blocks on top of the standard ones, just offset enough for the leg "grate" to go across. Now that back piece of metal is held in place with a cinder block that is filled with concrete that we found on site with a rock on top. There was also a broken flat cinder in back to cover and uncover holes on that metal based on how hot you want the fire.
Now here is the only main problem, once you heat the cinder blocks and they get wet. You CANNOT remove them or they will crack and/or break. While this can be built in lass than an hour with all the materials like I said take the time to let it settle the gravel before finishing it off.
 Now like I said we are going to do a cob oven and stove, and we aren't quite going to be doing the "standard" way of doing it. Now I wanted to embed this but I have yet to find the way too so here is a link to the "type" of cob oven we want to make. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lGTGUo6tyQ&feature=channel_video_titleNow in case you were wondering why I am showing you a spot of "dirt" (it's actually clay). Well this is where we are going to build the stove and oven. This is the clay from our root cellar dig out (which we are still doing). After we filled in some "wet spots" on our property where we walk we just had the kids pile it here. Silver went out and hoed it down then raked and hoed it flat on one side. Then "tamped" it down a little to make it very flat. This will be our starting stop for both the stove and oven. The plan is to have a space between to hold wood for both. Now the stove will be redone in a more "rocket stove" manner with the outside covered in cob to help keep the heat in while we cook.
 This of course is the metal base from our first wood cook stove. Boy, did we have fun when we took the old one apart. Seems the local wasps had built a nest in one of the cinder blocks. It was pretty big too.
Now I'd like to point out that it's 2 pieces of metal in squares measuring a piece 2ftX24inX2in. So they aren't really all that big, but together they work well. Silver of course had to level it to make sure it was perfect.
Isn't that a pretty level it's a 6ft level that we only spent $14 on it at Harbor Freight Tools. Silver took me to their stores a few times and I was pleasantly surprised by them. I had never even heard of them until Silver told me about them. Anyway, I personally think a 6ft level is a very good tool for any homesteader whether you are "urban" or not.
 Now a few things have been done here. First Silver took the broken flat cinders (yep all the old ones broke like I mentioned above) and placed 4 pieces in the 4 corners of the metal to hold it in place. Then he put in rock and then filled with gravel. It has been sitting for 3 days now, partly due to the fact that it was raining yesterday.
We also had (at first) the kids put those rocks along the front, for decoration mostly. Silver went back through and straightened it a bit, and added more. He's good at eyeballing pieces that fit together.
Then he went and put gravel all along the flat surface that we are going to build on. Now the plan is to spread some concrete dust over it and let it dry in place hardening it to prevent "wash out". the hope is also that the gravel pieces will make little channels for water to go through. Silver thinks it will be pretty as well.
That is what we have so far, we need to do the concrete on it before we do anything else and for the cook stove we need to get some more cinder blocks. Silver wants to use earthbags for the base of the oven, we'll see what we can manage. Well at least the "platform" isn't the only thing we need to concrete. We also need to do the stairs into our home as it's just wood holding gravel. We've had to re-make those steps twice now so we REALLY need to get the concrete in it.
I'll update this as we go along.
Be Well, Be Safe and Blessed Be...
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As you can see we seem to have a tad bit more water in our pond. As yesterday when we went out to work it was about 1/8 of the way full seeing it at about 1/2 was a big surprise. A good surprise but still a surprise. Yesterday the pond was not was smooth as it is now in this picture, and as you can see it is only half the pond. That... unfortunately is due tot he fact that after I fed the chickens I ran back into the house for the camera and got a beautiful picture of the full pond. Then I slid on the ice and it fell into the water. I fished it back out, but as I don'rt know if I'll get the image off of the camera I went and got our old smart phone and used it's camera as I know it has a nice camera on it. I guess if this keeps up I need to get use to using the phone camera, we should know in a few hours to a couple days if the camera survives the trip into the pond. As for the pond itself we are suppose to get more rain today then it changes to snow tonight for the next to days. So it is very possible we will have a full pond by week's end. Now we just have to hope it stays full. If it doesn't we will try Silver's method of "sealing" the pond bottom with clay cat litter. He says if you get straight clay cat litter and make a slurry of it and coat the bottom of the pond it will seal the "leaks" in it. Hey, if it works that's good. Here is the other picture of the pond. 
The only spot it hasn't done much yet is on the shallow end, which is where my cat tails are going to be growing when the pond is full and it gets warmer. Though I imagine the blackberry canes that grow on that side of the pond will now wind up HUGE with all the extra water they will have there. Pity Paris died over the summer she'd have a blast this summer with a pond in our yard, the two pups do not even seem interested in investigating the pond as it is now. Neither does Midnight their daddy. Can't wait to see the cats when it's full of water and try to walk across that log over the middle. As for the rest of the water that is in our yard... All of our trenches have water in them, also the new septic for the house has a layer of water in it as well. Funny thing is as I was leaving to feed the chickens and was walking next to the electric trench and noticed the water I thought to myself. I'd live to see that much water in the pond. Guess that falls under the "ask and ye shall receive" heading huh? We still need to get the piles of mud down a bit, which I am figuring they will work good to "deter" some of the plant growth I don't want in some areas. We also have to restore the trench that went from the section of woods that line the road to our pond as it was the natural draining area. I'm going to have to hand dig it. At least it will ensure steady influx of fresh water though. I also did notice that when I watched the water in the pond yesterday that it was still bubbling from the ground up, so it's possible it may stay liquid at the deepest parts in the winter which would be great for raising fish. Well that's it before breakfast, which is going to be beef hash (leftover from last night's roast) with eggs on top and maybe some of my fresh sourdough. While my oven is on the fritz I can only make my "no knead" sourdough bread as it cooks at 500 degrees. ..and don't forget today's moral... don't stand on ice above a pond to take pictures with your camera! Have a good day all! Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
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