Tag Archives: homesteading

Cabin Life – #102

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I’m sitting at my table writing because right now, this is the only thing that Edwill keep me from curling up in the fetal position on my bed and sobbing uncontrollably.  Ed, my little gray cat, the first pet I ever had, just died in my arms.  And I am not handling it well.

This is actually the second article I’ve written today, and even though it’s late and I have to be up early, I know that lying in bed will be worse for me psychologically than staying up and doing something productive.  I’m upset for the obvious reason that my cat and one of my best friends of eleven years just passed away, but that’s not the end of it.

He went quickly, deteriorating in just a week or so.  His strength was gone, he could barely breathe, and he had stopped eating.  He couldn’t make it to the litter box, and had to lie down to drink water.  That’s how weak he was, he couldn’t even stand up long enough to take a drink.

But my sorrow is so much more than just the thought that tomorrow I have to bury him and that he won’t be around anymore.  That cat saved my life countless times, and in the end, all I could do was sit with him in my lap as he took his last breath.

Most of the time that I lived in Jacksonville I was so depressed that I was Ed, a little olderfrequently suicidal.  I hated everything about my life, and quite frankly, if it wasn’t for my pets, I probably would have killed myself.  I had even gone so far a few times as to wonder who would take my animals.  And the thought of Pico being back in a shelter and Ed and Herbie being separated was enough to stop me.  The number of times that it got this far is scary.

But all along, Ed was there, all ten pounds of him, telling me in his own way that he loved me.  He was born in a barn outside of Malone, with no pedigree or anything.  There were three kittens in the litter, and Ed was the only short-hair.  I called dibs, and Amy took Ed’s brother while someone else took the only girl.  The farm was being rented by my friends, and we knew that the kittens were coming.  So Amy and I headed up there a day or two after they were born, and I got to hold Ed.  He was smaller than my palm, but opened his eyes for the first time while I was holding him.

A few weeks later I brought Ed home.  He was pretty wild, as kittens tend to be, but even then, he had some idiosyncrasies.  The house I lived in at the time was one main floor, with my bedroom upstairs.  Every day I would go to school or work and leave Ed in my room.  I didn’t want him chewing on wires or digging up house plants, so I gave him food, water, and litter to get by for the day.  However, each day when I got home, Ed would greet me at the door.

There were a few times when I figured that my roommate had let him out, but more often than not, Brendan hadn’t been home since before I left.  I could not figure out how Ed was getting out of the room.

Then one day after a few weeks, Brendan called in sick to work.  I got home from school, and he told me that he knew how Ed was getting out.  My room was the only thing upstairs, and so the stairs went straight from my room to a door at the bottom which led to the living room.  So Brendan was sitting on the couch (most likely watching The Simpsons) when he heard a racket coming down the stairs, then a loud thud, and then the door swung open.  Brendan stared in amazement as Ed came trotting out from my room.  The little kitten, maybe weighing a pound or two, was flying down the stairs and just doing a full-body slam against the door to pop it open.  After that I figured that if I found a way to keep the door shut tight, he would probably just hurt himself trying to get the door open.  He had earned the right to have full run of the house.

When the weather warmed up that spring, I would take Ed swimming in the lake or for short canoe rides.  I took him to work with me and let him wander around outside, pretending to be a hunter, though never catching anything other than dead leaves.  His hunting skills got better over the years, and he caught many mice.  He never killed them, just trotted around with them in his mouth, occasionally dropping one so he could catch it again.

This was a cat that learned how to turn on water faucets so he could play with the water.  He somehow managed to get on top of the pipes in my parent’s basement to crawl around and hang out.  He could hang upside down from the ceiling and jump to the top of a refrigerator from the floor.  He would go for hikes with me and Pico in the summer, following closely but sometimes sprinting ahead.  He had refined and discriminating taste in beer.  In short, Ed was the man.

I love that cat with all my heart, and to know that he’s in a box on the porch The Last Pictureis devastating.  I’m glad he went quickly though, and thinking back on all the times I just shook my head and laughed at my little man is making things a little better.  I feel bad for Herbie though.  Herbie was the fat lazy one, and now he’s got no one to play with.  Herbie just brushed up against my leg.  He gave my calf a little nip, which he does a lot.  But hearing him purr makes me realize one thing.  Ed died purring, warm and comfortable, held by someone who loved him and will never forget him.  He had a good life, and even though he’s gone, the little man will always be with me.

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Cabin Life – #101

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Well, the low temperature last night was still above zero for the first time in Fresh Eggsa week.  It’s not much, but it’s something to look forward to.  And then tomorrow they’re saying that the highs will be above freezing.  It has been a wild winter so far, weather-wise.

While the rest of the nation was experiencing record cold last week, we were watching the snow melt and the ruts in the driveway disappear.  Then we had bone chilling cold with nasty wind.  So much so that if I didn’t check the chicken coop every hour or so for eggs, the eggs I did find would be frozen and cracked.

One nice development out here at the cabin is that Brownie the chicken has started laying eggs too.  Nice light brown ones that make the egg carton look so pleasant.  With Whitey and Brownie laying now pretty much every day, I’m getting more eggs than I can eat.  At least when I find them unfrozen.

But back to the weather.  It was so windy the other night that I actually had to prop one of the chairs up against the door to keep it from blowing open.  The corner of the old woodshed roof lifted and had to be repaired (the people who built it only used about twenty screws for the eight sheets of metal, so no wonder it pulled away from the shed).  I’ll have to keep an eye on it the next time it gets windy like that.

The one upside of the wind is that I had several trees come down.  I could hear the popping and crunching of branches falling all night a few nights ago, and when I took Pico for a walk to check on the upper cabin, I found about a half dozen green ash trees down.

This was a huge bonus for several reasons.  First, they fell right across the road to upper camp, making them very easy to get to.  I can use the sled to bring firewood back or let it sit until spring and use the four-wheeler.  Either way, it’s a bunch of wood that I don’t have to work too hard for.  For once.

Second, and more importantly, with the ridiculous cold we’ve had, I am burning through wood faster than ever.  And it’s not the stove.  The new stove is far more efficient.  I get about eight hours of burn time with three big logs in there when I put it on the most efficient mode.  The old stove would have needed six or seven logs jammed into it to last that long.  But, it’s just been so cold that I can’t have the stove shut down all the way for the most efficient burn.  I need some air getting in there so that the temperature in the house stays comfortable.

With the wood shed about halfway empty, and three solid months of non-stop burning left in the winter, I’ll be dipping into next year’s firewood before the winter is out.  It’s a good thing I started working on that in the fall.  I already have about three cords tarped and split, so when the shed gets empty, I have a little safety net.  It’ll just mean more work and more money next winter, but I can’t stop burning wood and just turn on the furnace.

I have to admit, I kind of miss the days when the heat was just on.  It didn’t require any work or effort, just had to set the temperature and go about your day.  And sure, the wood stove keeps it steadily comfortable in here, but at what expense?  Year-round work trying to find and cut and haul and split and stack and carry and burn wood.  It’s a ton of work, and then add to it the unpredictable length of winter and it becomes a lot of stress too.  Luckily for me, one of my favorite ways to relieve stress is to cut trees up with my chainsaw.

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Cabin Life – #100

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As is my new custom, I’m sitting at the table looking out the big window at The Little Streamthe winter weather, and I’m sweating.  The new stove is amazing, but way too large for my little cabin.  A wealth of heat is not necessarily a bad thing in my circumstance, but knowing that the interior of the cabin is a temperature that in the summer I would deem too hot is a little disconcerting.

I open one of the windows a little more, since all four windows that open are already open.  I’m greeted with sounds that are both welcome and unwelcome at the same time.  The sound of snow and ice dripping off of the roof is nice, but the sound of freezing rain joining the melting is unpleasant.  I woke up to about a half-inch of ice covering everything, and while I by no means got the worst of this storm, it is not enjoyable to be living through another ice storm.  I can also hear the small stream out back, rushing like crazy.  The stream really only flows in the spring normally, and to hear it running now makes a constant sound of traffic.  It is eerily out of place here.

Around noon today I went out and started my car.  I wanted to get as much ice off of it as possible before the second round of rain/sleet/freezing rain began.  It was only a little below freezing, so the ice started to peel off, but because it was so thick, it took me most of an hour with the defroster and an ice scraper to get to the point where I could theoretically drive.  The radio playing in the car told me to stay off the roads for unnecessary travel.  But I was out of beer.

I had other reasons for making the four mile trip to the store.  I only had a little gas in the car, and just in case I needed to use it as a generator for a few days, I figured I better fill it up.  I also wanted to get the paper, and of course find out the gossip from whoever was working.  I quickly discovered that the most dangerous part of my journey was the driveway.  The main roads were fine, but I took it slow anyway.

I got back to the cabin and read the paper and did the crossword.  Well, most of the crossword.  Okay, some of the crossword.  I found out at the store that we didn’t get the brunt of the storm.  I’m glad for that, and that everyone around here seems to have power still.  Not that it affects me, but everyone else I know relies on the power and phone lines.

It’s not that I got off scott-free though.  My firewood is wet.  Not all of it, but a decent portion anyway.  The old metal roofing that I used had holes in it when I put it up over the summer, but during the summer and fall rains, very little water leaked through the roof and into the shed.  The problem this time is that the eight inches of snow on top of the shed got iced up and couldn’t drain fast enough.  Every little hole in the roofing started to leak, and that’s the end of that.  There’s nothing I can do at this point short of moving all nine face cords or so into another shed that now contains tools, an old woodstove and lots of other crap.  Not that I would move all that wood anyway, but that’s my only option.

I’ve been picking and choosing the dry pieces farther down in the wood stacks.  I’ve also brought a bunch of the wet wood inside and stacked it behind the stove.  That should dry it out pretty quickly.  The biggest problem is that this weather is supposed to continue through the night and into tomorrow.  After that it’s going to be bitter cold again.  The cold will freeze the water onto the wood, and I’ll be thawing firewood for the rest of the winter.  This is not something I’m looking forward to.

You’d think that after a full two years out here, I’d have all this figured out.  But I don’t, and I’m okay with that.  It’s a process, a learning experience.  I’ve made many, many things better out here, but there’s some things I just can’t control.  Like the ridiculous temperature swings.  It’s sixty degrees warmer than it was last weekend, and by the middle of the week, it’s supposed to be almost fifty degrees colder than it is now.  At least I don’t have to worry about the stove keeping it warm enough during the cold streaks.  I just have to worry about having dry wood to put in the stove.

 

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that this is the one-hundredth essay I’ve written in the Cabin Life series.  I never expected the amount of readers that have found my stories interesting.  Thank you for reading, I hope you get as much enjoyment out of these essays as I do.  Thank You.

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The Chicken Coop

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Cabin Life – #99

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My off-grid, simple living, homesteading lifestyle can sometimes lead me Midget, aka Little Jerry Seinfeldand 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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Cabin Life – #97

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Yesterday morning, I let the chickens out into their run, just like I always do.  The First EggsI 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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Cabin Life – #95

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The chickens have become escape artists.  I don’t know how they figured Whitey and Midgetout 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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Cabin Life – #94

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I currently have twelve independent fires going inside of my cabin.  The one Recycled Candlesscented candle is making the mixture of burning candles, lamp oil, and spiced apple almost pleasant.  Almost.

This time of year is the roughest, psychologically, out here.  When the sun starts to dip before most people eat dinner, it’s tough for me to stay positive.  Especially on a day like today, when it was overcast all day and never really that bright out, the night seems just about unbearably long.

In order to fight of the dark, I light candles and have battery powered puck lights going.  The one electric light I have is lit up by the door and my best oil lamp is burning bright on the table next to me.  There’s also my ubiquitous head lamp hanging around my neck, though I’ve gotten better this year about not wearing it in public so much.

I brace myself for the onslaught of long, long nights by knowing that before the end of the year, the days will be getting longer.  Perhaps it’s only a couple of minutes a day, but I remind myself every day that after the winter solstice it will get better.

I don’t know why the dark beats me down so much, but I bear it alright.  Not grin and bear it, mind you, just bear it.  On nights like this all I want to do is be inside a nice, brightly lit house.  It seems so much easier to just flick a switch instead of digging out an old half-candle and match it up with one of the holders.  Then I have to keep an eye on them since I don’t know which candles will be dripping like crazy.  I also have to get to them and blow them out before they get too low into the holders, otherwise I’ll be grabbing a screwdriver and digging out what little wax remains.

All in all I guess it’s not too bad though.  I re-melt the stubs into new candles, thereby recycling even the meager little inch of wax that otherwise would go into the garbage.  Compared to my first winter out here, this place is like the Las Vegas Strip at night.  But that’s only a relative observation.

To be honest, I have to choose the stress of basking in darkness for an inordinate amount of my day, or deal with the worry that accompanies having a dozen fires going in my very dry wooden house.  At least I’m not worried as much about the woodstove, but I do think a few more electric lights may be on order soon.

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Cabin Life – #93

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The snow is falling quickly and quietly outside.  I have a nice fire and a glass The First Snowof 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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