Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[moolie]

Happy Anniversary!

Glad your rental place won't be too hard to fix back up

 

[Joel_BC]

Don't mean to butt in and all that... And not to be overly male about this, but Britesea... how about getting Boartooth to post some about his handyman projects here on SS? Things he's made or fixed out of metal, machine parts, carpentry skills, concrete, etc. Maybe with pics. He's a heavy-duty mechanic, right? A skilled man.

 

[Britesea]

Thanks moolie

Joel, he may be a heavy duty mechanic, but he doesn't do much with wood (his father was an amazingly skilled carpenter and a master machinist; I think it intimidated him). He can weld, but doesn't currently own a welder. Mainly he does things like keep things repaired as best he can. He does make a MEAN loaf of bread, however. Our main project this year was the duck coop and yard, and I was the one that created the plans, including the cutting plans to keep the purchase of wood to a minimum. The pictures I took are on my cell phone, and I can't send them to the computer because I don't have texting in my phone plan and apparently pics count as texting data.
He works with power tools, I work with hand tools (he has bought me a couple of nice Snap-On sets over the years)

Our biggest problem with projects is lack of money for the things that Have to be purchased. I am still paying for some bad decisions toward the end of my business's life, and our income doesn't have much leftover after making those payments. I try to scrounge, but so does everyone else in this area- we've been depressed here since the 70's.

My next project for spring will be building more raised beds to fill the space I've fenced off for a garden. Each bed will have an A-frame built over it that can support bird netting, row covers, shade cloth, or polycarbonate panels as the season and crop requires, and a better watering system. I also want to build either a small greenhouse or a hot box for starting seedlings. I'm hoping to replace the two single pane windows in the living room with double pane, and build a couple of passive solar heaters for them. We still have single pane windows throughout the house, but if I can replace the windows of one room each year it will be affordable for us. I checked out the windows at the local RESTORE (habitat for humanity store), but they were almost as expensive as going to Home Depot. The smallest bathroom window they had was priced at $80.

My projects for this week (after we finish the rental) is to dig a trench by the grey water outlet, to direct more of the overflow to the roses. Almost the entire back border of our property is covered by wild roses 6' high and at least 4' deep. It's better than any fence for security, lol. Then we have a lot of junk that I want pulled out of the shed and from various stash spots and taken to the dump before the snow hits and forces us to leave it in place yet another year.

I also still have some thyme and sage that needs drying, and I finally got the bags for my vacuum sealer so I can pull the rest of the parmesan cheese out of the cooler to freeze it. I didn't have room in my fridge for all the extra cheese and herbs, so I brought in our ice chest and I've been using it to keep things cool. It won't be long before the outdoors gets cool enough that I can store overflow in our watertank house; in the winter it stays about 40F in there- perfect for overflow fridge items. In the summer, it's more like 55F, which can keep fruit or veggies for a day, but not much more.

 

[Daffodils At The Sea]

Britesea, you know what works just as well as double glazed windows is blackout curtains. They hold the heat in nicely, keep the cold out. You can also add a blackout shade that will roll down right next to the glass as a double layer.

 

[Britesea]

I have used the shrink-to-fit plastic every winter, and it has worked fine as well as allowing light to come in (which the blackout curtains would not do). But I would like to build and install a couple of passive solar heaters; pretty much all the designs I've seen hook up to a double hung window:

We have the windows that open sideways, so I want to change windows to allow the solar heater, and might as well make them double glazed at the same time. (It would not be easy to find single paned windows anyway).

We only have 6 windows in the entire house, so if we can manage to do 2 of them each year it will only take 3 years to do all of them. There is a window in the back door, but it's old and not very secure and I want to replace it with a steel one.

 

[Denim Deb]

Do you have more info on that? I'm wondering how that would work w/our house since we have a bi-level house.

 

[~gd]

I have used the shrink-to-fit plastic every winter, and it has worked fine as well as allowing light to come in (which the blackout curtains would not do). But I would like to build and install a couple of passive solar heaters; pretty much all the designs I've seen hook up to a double hung window:
http://www.sufficientself.com/forum/uploads/3802_solar_air_window_box_collectors.gif

We have the windows that open sideways, so I want to change windows to allow the solar heater, and might as well make them double glazed at the same time. (It would not be easy to find single paned windows anyway).

We only have 6 windows in the entire house, so if we can manage to do 2 of them each year it will only take 3 years to do all of them. There is a window in the back door, but it's old and not very secure and I want to replace it with a steel one.

I replaced my doors with steel ones, If you do, go with the magnetic weather striping it is tight and stays tight unless you damage it. I added an attached garage and a steel door was required by code as a fire stop door. [this dumb one didn't know that] After I saw the door in action it was a no brainer to replace the 2 exterior doors. With the unheated garage my gas bill dropped enough to pay for the doors in 2 years! Secure? I would rather try to crack a safe. The weak spots were the screws which I replaced with extra lengrh toughtened steel which went through the double studs of the door frame. I installed a steel plate and there were caps to fit. The front door I just used the special screws. I talked to the cops that investigated Breaking and entering and told me the worst was when the crooks would get into the garage overhead door [very easy if you have a remote control opener] then they would close the door and under cover they could even break thru walls if needed while they took anything you had that they wanted. I think this is true because when I gave up my farm I bolted the garage doors closed. Wen I went back all the rear windows and doors were gone along with really heavy stuff like the stove and kitchen sink [soapstone] you could see tracks where a truck had been taken to the back of the house but it looked normal from the road!

 

[Britesea]

Thanks for the info ~gd Although we have a very low crime rate in our area at this time, I am fairly certain that will change if things continue as they are. This summer, we had our very own "zombie" living in the woods out here. She was seen a couple of times coming out of known empty houses. The police were only able to find her abandoned campsites, but never the girl herself. No idea what she's doing now that the weather has changed, but I haven't seen her or her dog for a while now.

Denim Deb: I bought plans for making the passive solar heaters from Mother Earth News last year. Without digging them out to get the details, you build a glass-topped box that is painted black inside. I think it was lined with aluminum foil painted black as well. Place it at a south-facing window with plenty of sunlight. Cool fresh air from outside enters the box through a small opening at the bottom, where it is heated by the sun; convection causes the heat to rise and exit the opening at the top of the box which has been sandwiched between the window and the frame.

 

[Britesea]

here are some plans I found online for a self-contained type of passive solar- which sounds even better than the one I have:

 

[Britesea]

I made chinese chicken salad for dinner last night, and one of the flakes of rice sticks did not puff up when I threw it in the hot oil so I added it to the bowl of scraps for the ducks and gave it to them this morning. They're real suspicious of the new stranger-- giving it a wide berth as they move around the yard. I'll give it until tonight, and if they still haven't touched it, I'll get rid of it. They did appreciate the lettuce trims though. One pair was squabbling over an extra large leaf, and they ended up getting so lively about it that I got hit on the arm with a chunk, outside the pen, lol.

The local grocery store had a good deal on chicken hot dogs- I got 6 lbs for $5. I don't have room to store them in the freezer so I'll be canning them today. The texture changes a bit when I do that, but they are fine for things like adding to ramen soup or casseroles. Not the greatest food in the world, but it'll make a turd, lol.

I've been washing the jars that I got for free, but I'm running out of room now; that is something I don't remember complaining about before. I guess the rest will have to go into the mini storage until I run out of empties at the house. I have enough that maybe I can buy some local honey by the gallon (which comes in plastic) and transfer it to glass jars for long storage.

Hubby has decided he wants to try crafting with horn. He sweetened the deal for me by promising to make a bunch of horn-and-wood jars for my herbals; I can't wait now! I've seen pictures of what he is proposing and it will be so pretty!. According to what he's read, the horn needs to be softened in 300F oil or fat. Does anyone know if a crockpot reaches that temperature? It would be so much easier than fighting him for stovetop space.

We finished running some poultry wire around the bottom of the garden fence. The tall fence has 4x4" openings- just fine for keeping deer out; but I've noticed a larger number of cottontails this year than ever before, and I'm pretty sure they could slip through. The poultry fencing will also keep the ducks in if I decide I want them to patrol the garden.
The ducks are getting their adult plumage now, and it looks like we have 4 drakes and 6 hens. Not the best ratio, so I guess we're gonna have a duck dinner- maybe for Thanksgiving instead of turkey? I think they'll be out of their pinfeathers by then. Since we'll only have to butcher 2 of them, I'm going to try to save the down and use it to fluff up the comfortor a little- it's 20 years old and has lost some of the down over the years.