We got some heavy, wet snow last night and with the leaves still on the trees, it’s caused quite a mess. We lost three of our five apple trees that are producing, including hundreds of apples that hadn’t ripened yet, and about 30 other smaller trees plus a bunch of branches. Didn’t lost power, and no real damage to anything.
The ducks, though, are unfazed.
The snow has come and gone, and then come and gone again. It’s been a wet fall but with the transitions from rain to snow and back again, we still don’t have a lot of the white stuff on the ground.
The chickens are happily pecking away in their new coop and run, and I do feel better having them in a fully insulated coop, now that the night temperatures are getting into the single digits. They’re all huddled on the perch, snuggling to stay warm. At least now I can flip a switch and they have heat. Last winter it was warming a piece of granite on top of the woodstove and then running it out there to try and keep them warm. I like that they won’t be in my living room this year. At all.
But the weather has limited the outdoor activities. I don’t mind warm rain or cold snow, but cold rain is annoying. I don’t want to go hiking and there’s no snow for skiing, and with such a little piece of property, even mine and Pico’s walks have to be on the road. It’s not too bad, but he is still getting used to the leash again, and I miss being able to just let him run around unattended.
One benefit of this type of weather though is that I don’t feel too bad doing indoor projects. A couple months ago I made a new cutting board for us and read that it could be sealed with beeswax. I had a huge block of wax around, and so I spent the evening melting wax, rubbing it on the board, and then heating the whole thing in the oven over and over to make a nice sealant for the cutting board.
I used the board the next day, and most of the wax came off when I washed it. Seemed like a good idea, but in reality, it just didn’t pan out. I got some mineral oil and treated the board, and it’s now nice and waterproof. But I still have a huge block of beeswax just hanging around.
So I had to figure out what I was going to do with the wax. I didn’t want to make candles, as I used to make them all the time out at the cabin. I would make them all the time by melting down the little stubs of the candles I burned for light. So as I was sitting on the couch one day, my stepson asked if we had any lip balm. His lips were chapped and he wanted some relief.
I ordered empty lip balm tubes and picked up some peppermint essential oil and coconut oil in town, and waited patiently for the tubes to arrive. And as soon as they did, I thought I’d have my answer of what to do with all that beeswax. Making the lip balm should have been really simple. Melt the oils and wax together, pour it into the tubes, and let them cool.
I would have done the whole melting process on my woodstove, but hey, now I have a microwave! We gathered all the materials, and he was pretty excited. After making him wash his hands a couple of times (who knows what a nine-year-old is doing when out of sight) we got into it. After thirty seconds in the microwave, the beeswax was barely melted, but that was apparently enough for the microwave. It was dead. It was also bad timing, since I had promised this kid his very own lip balm.
We moved to the range top and managed to melt enough to make a few tubes of the lip balm. It’s got a menthol-coconut taste that all three of us love, and it actually works really well. Plus, since it’s in tubes, he doesn’t have to stick his nasty fingers into the stuff to put it on.
I love having the convenience of modern appliances, and the fact that whole process didn’t require a headlamp was a really nice touch. But I was reminded of the fraility of those electronics. Sure, it would have been slower to do this on the woodstove, but at least the woodstove wouldn’t have died in the middle of it.
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When you already have a garden, one of the best ways to benefit from it long-term is to save and store the seeds that your garden produces. Instead of buying seeds every year to plant, why not just save a few from each plant and use them again next year?
Of course, some plant seeds stay and store better than others. Also, letting certain plants get to the point where they are producing seeds can mean that they are not all that useful for consumption. But you can always plant an extra one or two and allow them to go to seed. Most plants produce more than enough seeds for you to have a viable garden the following year.
Aquatic plants and large-seeded plants (such as oak, avocado, etc) are very hard to store. Larger seeds tend to need a fair amount of moisture to remain viable, and the amount of moisture required will lead to fungal growth and rot in a short period of time. If you have oaks around, harvest the acorns and make nut butter right away. Let the squirrels bury the seeds for you, and you’ll have some new trees in a few years.
These seeds, unfortunately, really need to be planted right away in order for them to germinate. However, there are a wide variety of seeds that you can save all winter long, and maybe even for more than just a single winter.
Small seeded plants, like most garden vegetables, are relatively easy to save. These seeds are what’s called desiccant-tolerant. This means that they are able to survive and remain viable even when dried out.
Peas, carrots, beans, and herb seeds are all very hardy seeds that can handle being dried and stored for long periods of time before they lose their viability. However, you do have to be careful how you handle, dry, and store the seeds. You can’t just grab the seeds off of the plant, throw them in a baggie and then plant them next spring. Well, you could, but there are ways to improve the chance that those seeds produce healthy plants for your garden.
Seeds, like any other organic matter, are subject to rot if not handled properly. The reason an individual plant produces so many more seeds than is necessary is due to evolution. This adaption takes into account that a large portion of any seeds produced will either be eaten, rot, or not survive until adulthood.
By properly drying and storing those same seeds, however, you can greatly increase the amount of usable seeds you have. One individual plant will produce more seeds than you could possible use before the seeds are no longer any good.
The first and most important step in preserving seeds is drying them. In nature, most seeds spend the winter months frozen in the ground, where the ice crystals actually make the ground very dry. The seeds should be spread out in a shady, cool, dry place. Also, don’t make a pile of seeds, spread them out thinly on paper towels or something similar.
Properly dried seeds will show basically no flexibility. Beans and peas will be rock hard, and larger seeds will not bend. Obviously, larger seeds need more time to dry than smaller seeds.
If you live in an area with high humidity, then you will probably want to use a desiccant. Those little packages of silica gel that you get for free with a new pair of shoes are there for a reason: They make it so that your new shoes are not all moldy. They do the same thing for seeds, though you probably want to buy some silica gel instead of using the packages from your shoes.
Once the seeds are dry, place them in an air-tight container like a glass jar or baggie. Store them slightly below freezing, and they should be good for a very long time. Just try to think what a seed goes through before it germinates, and you can have an idea of what needs to be done to save them.
Saving and storing seeds is a long-running activity for those of us who garden and want to be self-sufficient. By properly drying and storing seeds from your garden, you can almost guarantee that you will never have to buy seeds again.
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Hot showers. Man, I could literally write an entire column about how 
much I love hot showers. It is such a pleasure to take a shower each morning. I used to get up and throw wood in the stove and then stand there and let the heat wash over me for a while before I got my day going, but now I can let the heat of a hot shower actually wash over me. It’s one of the main reasons I get out of bed every day. Well, that and work and animals to take care of and my soon-to-be wife and stepson. But really, the shower is the best part of my morning.
It’s nice to be back after the summer hiatus. Audrey didn’t want to move into my cabin, and I can’t say I blame her. And her apartment was only a little larger than my cabin, and just as drafty. So we looked for a house to rent starting in the spring, and found one rather quickly. The rental housing market up here is cut-throat, and we were lucky to get into a house that we could afford with floors that weren’t too uneven and decent windows and insulation. Three weeks after we moved in the house was sold, and we were on the hunt again.
It took us most of the summer to find another house to rent. We found one and have now settled in. Well, physically anyway. I am still in awe of the wonders of modern living. Light switches and hot water and indoor pooping are all wonderful things. Unfortunately, the light switches are in odd places so I’m still sporting the headlamp every single day.
And despite the changes, Pico is still lying on the couch next to me and Midget is crowing in the yard. We’re working on a new coop for the flock, which has grown and changed some. We have four new girls, but Blondie was causing trouble, so I took her to a friend’s. We lost one hen a few months ago to a fox in the yard, but other than that the girls are doing good. We get far more eggs than we can eat, and two of the new hens haven’t even started laying yet. We’re going to be giving away a lot of eggs.
As I get used to modern amenities and family life, I still think about the cabin a lot. It was harder to move out of that place than any other house I’ve lived in. Hell, most of my apartments I couldn’t wait to get out of. But that cabin was more than just a house, it was home. It was a part of my everyday life. And that’s the biggest difference I’ve found. I don’t care about my house now so much. But the loss of the cabin has been replaced by my new family, and it’s definitely been a worth-while trade.
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My off-grid, simple living, homesteading lifestyle can sometimes lead me 
and my thoughts down very different roads than most people. For instance, if you had asked me five years ago, heck, if you had asked me five months ago what would be occupying my thoughts this winter, chicken diapers would not have entered my mind. But here I am, wondering if and where I can get myself some chicken diapers.
Now, I don’t just go around thinking about chicken diapers. I actually have a very good reason for shopping around for just such a thing. It turns out that one of my chickens is in actuality a rooster. Poor old Midget, who is no longer so little, started crowing the other day.
I had noticed some odd behavior a few days ago, but thought that maybe she was just being a jerk to Whitey. I was watching the chickens in their run through the window, and saw Midget jump right on Whitey’s back. Whitey is the one laying eggs, and maybe Midget was just a little jealous. Nope, (s)he was horny.
And much like adolescent males of our own species, Midget’s mounting fiasco was awkward and over quickly. I didn’t really put a lot of thought into it until the next morning. I had let the girls out and was back inside when I heard an odd sound. It happened again quickly, and I easily placed the noise as that of a rooster crowing. I ran to the window to see Midget all puffed up and strutting around. Then he crowed again.
It was not the regal, wake-me-up-for-chores crowing, but unmistakable nonetheless. It sounded like he was going through puberty, with his voice cracking and the crowing kind of unfinished. Instead of cock-a-doodle-do, it was more like cork-a-do. But he was persistent and actually made some progress by the end of the day.
I’m not going to lie, I like Midget. He follows me around the yard when he’s out and has never run when I’ve gone to pick him up. But I don’t want a bunch of little chicks running around either. There’s no way they’d survive during the winter anyway, and I definitely don’t want a bunch of little chicks stuck in a box in my cabin.
And this is what brings me to the diapers. I’m wondering if there is a contraption that will help Midget keep it in his pants, but if not, I’m only left with a few options. Eat him, give him away, or keep him. I could keep him alive this winter, but it will be tough. Without the other chickens to cuddle up to to keep warm, I’ll have to take some extra steps to prevent him from freezing. But I would like to have some more chicks in the spring.
Keeping Midget is the option I’m leaning towards right now, but if I can’t find some chicken diapers, I may end up with big pot of Midget soup.
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Yesterday morning, I let the chickens out into their run, just like I always do. 
I sprinkled some food in there and gave them my customary “Hey Ladies!” I’ve stopped trying to keep them in the run, as they seem to get out now whenever they feel like it.
Even so, I closed the plastic over the opening in the run, and went back inside to have some tea. Whitey is far and away my most vocal chicken, and she was squawking up a storm. I looked out to see her relentlessly attacking the plastic covering the opening, and as I watched, she escaped. But to my surprise, she immediately hopped back into the coop.
Normally, she’d be out and about pecking at the ground, but for some reason, she had gone willingly into the coop. I’m not sure why, but I thought that maybe she was laying an egg. I haven’t had any eggs from the girls yet, but I was expecting them any time.
I went out and looked into the coop. She was in there, in the back corner, not making any noise. I opened the door to the nesting boxes, but there were no eggs. I looked back in at Whitey, crouched in the corner in a small depression in the straw and balsam boughs. All of a sudden, I spotted a smooth white shape right next to Whitey’s feet. Sure enough, it was an egg.
But Whitey was still crouched there in the corner, and quite frankly, she looked constipated. Her body was heaving a little bit and her neck was working its way in and out. Unexpectedly, she dropped an egg. It made a dull thud as it hit the make-shift nest, and Whitey looked considerably relieved. She made a few small noises and took a few steps.
In my excitement, I grabbed a small wooden cane that’s been hanging on the porch since I moved in. I used the curved end to reach into the coop to fetch the eggs. Whitey was not happy about this. She started yelling at me as I reached in and grabbed the eggs. The one she had just laid was still warm, but the other was cold.
I can only imagine when the cold one was laid. As far as I know, Whitey is the only one laying, so it was probably a day or two old. Luckily it’s been cold enough to keep the egg refrigerated for me. I washed the two eggs, and later cooked them for lunch. It wasn’t much of a lunch, as these were small eggs. Deep golden yellow yolks made the scrambled eggs look almost like sunset.
They were delicious, though I’m most likely a little biased. But it was sweet to get something out of the chickens other than a peck to the eye.
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The chickens have become escape artists. I don’t know how they figured 
out the elaborate trap of chicken wire and plastic that comprises the door to the run, but they’ve managed to get out for two days straight.
I don’t mind letting them roam around when I’m around. But as the weather gets colder and the predators get more desperate for calories, I’m thinking that the door to the run may have to be reconfigured. It’s sad to admit, but my half-assed door can’t even contain a bunch of literal bird brains.
It is nice to see them out and about in the yard though. They have thoroughly picked over the spots where the run had been, and have even seemed to have found some food left over in those spots. I like seeing them come running up to the front door when I walk out, or see them flying for twenty or thirty feet. They appear to be happy and content, and their tail feathers are sticking up higher than ever. I’m not sure how much I should read into the angle of their feathers, but I heard somewhere that if their tail feathers are up, then they’re happy.
At least they have been putting themselves to bed every night. Usually just past dark I’ll go out and all four of them are huddled up on the perch inside the coop. They snuggle and cuddle and have so far kept themselves warm, but we haven’t had any of those bitterly cold nights. Yet.
Since the solar panel has been working well, I figured I should buy a heat lamp for the chickens. It won’t be long before it gets really cold, and since I don’t want to have four more roommates for the night, I have to heat the coop somehow.
I bought one of those cheap clip-on lamps, an extension cord, and a pack of light bulbs. I honestly cannot remember the last time I bought light bulbs. It felt weird. But I came home and set to installing the heat lamp.
Now, for most people this would entail screwing in the light bulb and then plugging in the cord. That would be the end of it. But for me, it involved almost two hours worth of work which included two hand drills, a hammer, chisel, a new hole in my house and an eye pecked by a chicken.
The only drills I have are two hand-crank augers that I picked up at the junk store in Saranac Lake. For five bucks each, they were a good deal. That price however, does not include time used in actually cranking those things. With an electric drill it may have taken me fifteen minutes for the entire project. But with the low speed of a hand-cranked drill, I could not spin the size bit I needed to be able to fit an outlet through it.
I did manage to make a nice circular mark in the linoleum floor indicating where exactly I needed to remove material. But that big bit was not spinning anymore. So, I pull out a small bit and start drilling. All the way around the hole marked by one bit, I had to make twelve very small holes. After that, I used the chisel to knock out the hole.
I then had to go outside, remove some of the stones that line the base of the cabin, and reach up to feed the extension cord up through the newly made hole. Of course, me crawling around on the ground attracted the attention of the escapee chickens. Midget, who is now full sized, has no fear of me and runs up to me all the time. This time however, she decided that she would be content to just peck at my face while I was on the ground with both hands occupied searching blindly for a one inch hole in the floor.
As I closed my eyes and turned my head to avoid the love taps from Midget, I finally found the hole. But of course, the cord did not fit easily through the hole. I jammed it in there and went inside to pull it through the rest of the way.
I pulled the cord up into the cabin and plugged it in to the inverter. I had left the lamp in the “on” position so that I could turn it on and off from inside just by pulling the cord from the inverter. I proudly plugged it in to see if it was working, and sure enough, it was. I then proceeded to watch two hours of TV on my computer using the battery. As dusk turned into darkness, I thought maybe I should turn on the light for its first night of use. But I had drained the battery watching TV. Luckily, it wasn’t that cold out last night.
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The snow is falling quickly and quietly outside. I have a nice fire and a glass 
of bourbon to keep me warm and dry though, so all is right with my little world.
I love the first real snow fall of the year. Everything looks so clean and neat, and the world is quiet. The birds aren’t making any noise, the few deer that took off running when I let Pico out hardly made a sound, and tree limbs are hanging low, heavy with fresh wet snow.
This is isn’t the first snow of the year, but it’s the first one that might stick and be around for a little while. Every night before now that I’ve had a fire, I didn’t worry about keeping it going all night. The new stove cranks out heat, especially when it’s loaded with the dead elm that my friend dropped off for me. In fact, tonight will the first night that I’ve had a fire where I won’t be going to sleep with a few windows open.
It was gray and cold all day, but above freezing. It rained and misted and was foul, but then the snow finally started to fall. We’ve all known that winter was coming, so there is no surprise here, but hoping for a nice easy winter like the one two years ago may be asking for too much. The skier in me wants to see the snow fly, but the off-grid, no plow-guy-lined-up me wanted a nice easy winter. With all the rain we’ve been getting though, it was only a matter of time until it turned into snow. So be it.
After letting the chickens out yesterday morning, I went to wash my hands. That’s become my morning ritual, mainly because the chickens are kind of gross. I mean, they poop a lot, and there’s no way of taking care of them without getting some on my hands.
The big white rain barrel I’ve kept all summer has been great for this, and I even took to leaving a bar of home-made soap out on the rock next to the barrel. Then the soap started to disappear. I don’t know what was taking it or why, but I still have quite a few bars left to get me through for a while.
The problem yesterday wasn’t a lack of soap though. I brought some out with me to use right away, but when I tried to turn the handle on the barrel, it didn’t move. The water wasn’t frozen solid, but the handle and nozzle were. I had to bring my soap back inside and wash up. Not that big a deal, you might think, but to me this means a lot.
First, my wash water is gone for the winter. I’m back to using my precious drinking water to wash, and to give water to the chickens. No more getting all nasty and just washing up outside. Now I have to somehow pre-wash my hands so that my drinking water jug doesn’t get contaminated. I have a feeling that I’ll be melting a lot of snow on the stove this year.
The other thing that I’ll miss about the rain barrel is the feeling of back up and security. This was not water that I would drink, but coming off the metal porch roof, it was fine enough for the chickens, cats and Pico. It would also have been fine for washing dishes if it really came down to it as well.
Now, it’s not that I’ll be hurting for water, there are a few places where I can fill my jug, so I’m not losing any sleep over the loss of the rain barrel. But it was a stark reminder of the comforts of summer, and the lack of ease of winter.
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Winter is approaching, and rather more quickly than I would really like. 
Sure, I’ve got the new stove and a shed chock full of dry hardwood, but I have to admit that I’ve really enjoyed our summer-like fall.
“They” are calling for snow next week, but we’ll see what happens.
I had an inkling that this was coming anyway. Yes, I know that it’s October and that it’s a reasonable assumption to think that we’ll be getting snow soon. But last Friday, I got home from work and opened the front door. I let Pico and the cats out to enjoy the sunshine and warm weather. But when I went inside the cabin, I found a sight that told me winter was right around the corner.
The big window was literally covered in ladybugs. The little ladies and gents like to winter in houses, and since my place is the only building around for quite a distance, it only makes sense that they would seek shelter with me. But the amount of ladybugs trying to get into my house told me that there would be cold and snow before the forecasters ever did.
Shortly after that, I made a trip to the outhouse. I don’t talk about my outhouse a lot because I figured that not many (if any) of you would really want to hear about it. But don’t worry, this story will not be rich in detail.
My outhouse is a piece of junk. It was apparently built for people even shorter than me, and has at different times been used for target practice. So despite the small door and low ceiling, there is actually quite a bit of cross-ventilation created by the small holes where the twenty-two caliber shells went through the walls.
As I was sitting there, I heard a familiar sound. It was the scratchy scramble of a mouse. There are a couple of mice that call the cabin home, but so far they stay in the walls and don’t really bother me. But a mouse in the outhouse, that’s something new.
I glanced around and noticed some small pieces of paper trapped in a spider web near the upper corner. I had accidentally left the toilet paper holder open, and the mouse had helped itself to some of the wrapper. As I looked around, I also noticed that one of the pieces of plywood that make up the ceiling was peeling apart. I caught a glimpse of something moving up there and decided that this was a better setup than having them move into the cabin.
A few days later, I was again entering the outhouse and movement caught my eye. Three very little mice were scrambling up from the seat to the ceiling. They were in no hurry, and mama mouse leisurely followed them up the wall and into their little nest.
I have to admit, those little mice were awfully cute. I had no intention of evicting them from their spot, and just need to remember to close the toilet paper holder. And at this point, I honestly hope they have enough shelter to get them through the winter. I mean, they did pick a crappy place to live.
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