Tag Archives: Homestead

How do we…take showers

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We are a family of 5 (while our godson is living with us) living in an off-grid camping trailer while we build our house. 

And we ripped the shower and toilet out of the trailer long before we ever started living in it.

So, how do we de-stinkify ourselves when the need arises? (And believe me, living all together in 280 square feet, the need arises quite frequently!)

However, in reality, we all take fewer full showers than most people do. Being that we have to haul in our own water, we try to conserve as much as possible. The girls and I only wash our hair once a week, and the water always gets turned off while soaping up. And in between those several full showers a week are the “rinse offs”. This is where we basically only wash off the truly stinky parts. You know, those areas you’d hit with a quick sponge bath.

When we lived here two years ago for those few idyllic months, we mainly took sponge baths and went to my mom’s house when a full shower was needed.

But we knew that couldn’t last for too long, so when we moved back to the homestead this summer, we knew we needed something more permanent. And yes, there’s always Pajii’s trailer, but we don’t want to constantly be using his water and power or crowding his space every time we need to clean up. Not to mention how tiny those trailer showers are!

So Hubby built us a shower room constructed from 2×4’s and plywood.

This 4×4 mini-shed makes a very spacious and wonderful shower. We use a 20 amp hour, 12 volt battery connected to an RV water pump which sits on top of one of our 50 gallon barrels of water. 


A 100 watt solar panel is hooked to the battery to keep it topped up. The pump brings water through a propane powered instant hot water heater.


Right now, we only have the ability to turn the water on and off while inside the shower, not adjust the temperature. So showering can be quite the adventure depending on how warm the ambient air is as well as how warm the water inside the barrel has gotten. If you’re taking a shower mid-afternoon on a warm day, you’d better turn that puppy waaaay down before you get in there. 😀 We have plans to rig it up so we can adjust the temperature from inside. But we’ve had a few, more pressing projects.

And speaking of the inside…


The reason we have a shower curtain in there is so we can hang our clothes and towel on the hooks and close the curtain around them so they don’t get wet. 

There is no floor built into the shower. Rather, we placed pavers on the ground inside so the water can drain easily. 


So far, the whole system has worked almost seamlessly. Once the temps drop, we will need to do something to keep things from freezing, but for now, and probably at least another month or so, we’ll be fine.

And hopefully we’ll have the well in by then and can move our whole base of operations down to the house pad (we’re still camped out on the upper pad about a quarter mile away from where the house is going to go.)

Oh, and the latest news on the well is that the drilling company has a broken rig, putting them further behind schedule and they’ll contact is when they can get us back on the schedule. *Sigh*

But it will happen when it happens. There’s nothing we can do about it, so why stress over it? God has his reasons. In the mean time, we’re keeping busy.

So anyway, now you know how we get clean here on the homestead.

Adding on and making room

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We have an addition to the family. At least for a few months. Meet our godson, Raven Boy.

He’s 13 years old, can drive a vehicle, is great with electronics and tools, and is a ginormous help around the homestead. He and his family visited for the summer, and when his family went home, it was decided that he would stay here with us for a while to help out with building the house and other projects. 

So, as I looked around our trailer, I realized we didn’t have enough room for another full sized person to sit anywhere when we’re hanging out inside. (He has a separate “bedroom”in our extra trailer that we use as storage.)  And with winter approaching, spending all our time outside isn’t going to be an option for too much longer.

So, Hubby and I had a talk, and figured out that with a little bit of rearranging in the living room, we could build a bench to comfortably seat another person or two. And it wouldn’t take up any more space than was currently being used.

I forgot to get a before picture with all our stuff there, but here’s the area cleared out. We had Scooter’s kennel, a couple of file boxes, and the toy chest in this corner.


We cleared out and cleaned the floor. Then started building the frame for the bench. This is where Raven Boy really shined. He already knows so much about using tools, etc that he cut all the wood for the bench, as well as helped put it all together.


Once the frame was together, and the door in for Scooter’s cubby, we covered most of it in plywood.


The left side was left open and put on hinges so that we can lift it out of the way and still deploy our couch into a bed. It was Raven Boy who came up with the design for that section.



We also left the top plywood unattached on the right side in order to easily access the area underneath for storage (and to be able to clean out the dog cubby when needed).


We bought pillows and pillowcases as the cushions for the bench. And we downsized Flower Girl’s toys to fit in a small tote and put the rest of them and the family heirloom toy chest into the storage unit.


I plan on painting the bench and sewing up the ends of the pillow cases so they look a bit more like cushions.

Overall, though, I’m very pleased with it. And since the weather has cooled off considerably recently, it’s been nice that the five of us can sit comfortably in our living room. We can also go over to Pagee’s (now spelled Pajii) trailer to watch a movie or something.

And Pajii put the full dinette back in his trailer after Bachan passed away, and all 6 of us can sit around the dining table when the weather (or yellowjackets) is not conducive to eating outside.

So that’s one more thing checked off our list of things to do to in order to live comfortably in the trailers for the winter. Next up is heat! Pajii’s trailer has a working furnace. Ours does not. We have several ideas of how not to freeze over the winter. I’ll keep you up to date on what we come up with.

How do we…wash clothes

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After a busy day of taking the portable septic tank to be dumped, filling up 4 barrels of water, and doing 4 loads of laundry, I got to thinking that you all might be interested in how we do some basic things here on the homestead. Such as wash laundry. And take showers. And use the toilet.

We live in a camping trailer, yes, but that trailer doesn’t have running water and is not hooked up to septic. In fact, it no longer even has a bathroom. 

The former bathroom

And even when it did, we never used it. Would you if you had to move the entire outdoor living area just to take your trailer out to dump the septic tank and take on fresh water every week or so?

Yeah, us neither. 

So, we have an outhouse of sorts, an enclosed outdoor shower, and we even have laundry capabilities, right here on the homestead. 

Over the next several days, I’m going to be doing some posts on how we do these mundane, yet necessary tasks.

And since today has mostly been about doing laundry, we’ll start with that.

So, how do we wash laundry? Well, I suppose we could take our laundry to the laundromat. Probably most people would do that and most people probably think that’s what we do. But we’re not most people. I don’t want to spend several hours each week sitting in a laundromat (the nearest of which is all the way in town). 

Ain’t nobody got time for that!

Disclaimer: Pagee takes his laundry to said laundromat. So obviosly he has time for that. 😉

Not too long ago, we acquired a washing machine for free. It now sits beside our shed, with two 55 gallon barrels of water next to it. 

The first time I used it, I had to manually fill it with 5 gallon totes. That thing uses upwards of 15 gallons of water for the wash and rinse cycles – each! That’s 25-30 gallons of water per load! And it’s not that old of a washer. No wonder everyone is going to HE washers!

Anyway, we have to run the generator to run the washer, so it’s a noisy process. But I don’t have to leave the homestead to do laundry. Which means other stuff gets done while the laundry is washing. And that’s a big deal, folks!

So here’s what our set up looks like. 

(The tent in the background belongs to some friends who are visiting. 🙂 )

We use the generator (sitting behind the water barrels) to run the washer. The water pump we took out of our trailer is hooked up to a battery. 

This type of pump is nice because when there is full pressure in the line, it stops pumping. When the pressure drops (ie when you open a faucet, or the washing machine opens it’s valve) the pump automatically kicks on. Pretty sweet.

Anyway, when we get ready to wash, we make sure the barrel has enough water, hook up the pump to the battery, turn on the genny, plug in the washer, and then use as normal. 

As shown above, the wash water is diverted by a hose and goes to a couple trees. It looks redneck, but it works. 

Note: if your drain pipe is lower than the water outlet on the machine, like if the hose is just laying on the ground, all that water you’re pumping into the washer will just drain right out of the hose. Don’t ask me how I know this. :-\ 

When we’re not washing, we put the hose and table away. So far, we haven’t had any real rain this summer, so we haven’t had to worry about the washer being out in the wet. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.

And, of course, our dryer is completely solar powered. 😀

And that’s how we do laundry here on the homestead.

Off grid cold storage

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No, this isn’t one of those posts that tell you how we keep our food cold with no electricity.

We like the convenience of a refrigerator. And fridges run on electricity. Or propane, such as the one in our trailer that crapped out on us several weeks ago.

We looked into buying a new one for the trailer and were staggered by the prices. It just didn’t seem like the best deal to spend that much money on a new fridge for an old trailer, especially since we’ll only be in the trailer until the house is built (ie, less than a year). We also looked into buying used, and while the prices were better, they were still fairly high, and the selection was minimal.

So instead, we decided to beef up our battery bank and solar panels and get an inverter so we can run a regular fridge on electricity. Yes, just as expensive (or moreso) than a brand new fridge. BUT, the solar generator system will be usable for other things on the homestead later down the road, rather than just a fridge to sit in an unused trailer once the house is built.

Hubby’s work happened to have a small fridge sitting around, not being used. So they gave it to us.

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It ain’t pretty, and it’s not terribly efficient, but it works. And even though it’s not very efficient, it’s small, so the power draw is fairly small as well.

So now we have four 100watt solar panels on the roof of our trailer. We have a battery box containing three 100amp hour batteries. We have a 1 kilowatt inverter. And we have a charge controller capable of handling the power coming in from the solar panels.

And if you know what all that means, you know more than I do!

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I’m just so excited to have more fridge space again. And to not have to bug dad every time we want a cheese stick or something. But I’m also thankful that for the last several weeks, we were able to keep our cold foods in his fridge, rather than an ice chest.

But then again, if we were having to buy ice every other day in this heat, maybe The Hubs would have gotten the system put together faster. Hmmmm…

Oh well, it’s done now, Hubs learned a ton about the whole process, and even I learned a little along the way.

And we again have a working fridge. 😀

UPDATE: since our fridge sits outside in the hot air rather than inside in a cool house, Hubby decided it needed more insulation.

Thus our robo-fridge!

Keeps our food cold AND looks…well, I guess it looks..ummm, OK, it looks kinda dumb. But it works! And that’s all that matters. 🙂

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

Doing Well

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As the title of this post suggests, we are doing well. Things are coming along and despite some sadness recently, we are progressing on the house. Our plans are in the corrections phase and we are anticipating getting to start truly building in September.

But the title of this post also has a double meaning, because we are also doing THE well! That’s right, we have our well permit and the drilling company will be here next week! Today, we rented an excavator and Pops is digging out the hillside where the well is going to go.

We had to rent such a big machine because it was the only one left in town! It’s the busy time of year. But the bigger machine means he can do the job faster. And by cutting the well pad faster, he has more time to do some other work we need done. So it’s win-win.

These are exciting times, people!

Oh, and what am I doing today while Pops is digging? I’m on fire duty.

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It hasn’t rained here on the homestead since the week we moved here at the end of May. Things are very dry, and the littlest spark can set off a wild fire. So I’ve got a water sprayer handy, as well as a fire extinguisher, and any time he’s digging into the hillside close to the brush, I’m ready.

Kindof a  boring job, but someone’s gotta do it!

Have a great day, folks!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

We have a house! Well…kinda.

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Our house was delivered earlier this week! Well, the outside shell of it anyway.

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We decided a long time ago that we wanted to buy a steel building and use that as the shell of our house and finish out the inside. There are a myriad of reasons we chose to go with a metal building; fire resistance being high on our list. But also, the maintenance is low, it goes up very quickly, and we like the look.

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And once again, we are so blessed in the family God gave us. My dad loaned us his flatbed trailer. Which we ended up not needing, but it was great to have it just in case. And my step-dad operated the fork lift. That was great. ‘Cause it would have taken waaaay too long for us to learn it and operate it.

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So even though we don’t have a building permit yet, we do have a building. That building is sitting near our house pad in a bagillion pieces, waiting to be put together like a big erector set.

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It’s totally awesome and a little bit surreal to see the pieces there with my name on them. We’re getting closer to actually building!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

The Heat is On

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Howdy, howdy!

Boy, I’m horrible at keeping you all up-to-date. I keep procrastinating because there’s so many parts to our story I haven’t told yet. But I figure I should just go forward from here, otherwise I’m gonna get further and further behind. 🙂

So summer is officially here and the temperatures are rising. Where I sit right now, under the shade shelter we built, with the breeze blowing across me, it’s not too hot. Inside the trailer? Well, as long as the breeze is blowing through the open windows, it’s bearable. At least Bachan and Pagee have AC in their trailer.

We’ve been having quite the time keeping tarps on the shade shelter frames. The wind has been atrocious.

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But we keep redesigning and rebuilding. And then it’s good till the next wind storm. And by wind storm, I mean literal hurricane force winds. Yeah, anything that’s not tied down – and even some things that are – gets blown off the mountain down into the canyon.

But that’s life up here. You learn to deal with it. You prepare the best you can, and trust God for the rest.

Our schedule is about to heat up, too. Our house plans were turned into the building department this last week! We have just a short month or two to prepare for the work to begin. And then we’re gonna go crazy!

Not that we haven’t been keeping busy.  We finally got our shower all put together.

You may remember that our trailer does not have a working bathroom. So we’ve been washing up with buckets and wash cloths, or going down to Mom’s to take showers.

But now, we can take full on regular showers right here on the homestead! I’ll do a explanatory post on that whole system some time.

And speaking of my mom, she brought a TON of cherries from her trees up to gain some help in pitting them. Her and Princess Girl pitted a large refrigerator drawer full of cherries. Flower Girl helped by being the official taste tester. 🙂

The following day, the girls and I went to Mom’s to help her make jam and a couple cobblers.

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The end result was 27 cups of jam using three different recipes, and two cobblers.

Life hasn’t all been hard work over the last month, though. I’ve had a little bit of time to relax here and there. A couple Sundays ago, I spent nearly the whole afternoon in the hammock.

The girl’s and I had an opportunity to dress in 1860’s clothing and join in a Civil War Days event.

And just the other day, amongst errands, we spontaneously decided to take our fast-food to a park for an impromptu picnic. (I learned that I feel less guilty about eating fast-food if we turn it into a picnic. 😉 )

And amongst all the work of settling into the trailers, getting our house plans turned in to the building department, and the myriad of other things we do every day, Princess Girl and I have been working at our summer job at least a couple days a week.

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One thing I’m learning is that up here on the homestead  everything takes more time. Because we are living completely off grid in an old camping trailer, there are extra steps to nearly every task.

Gonna make breakfast? Gotta gather up of the food and utensils and dishes needed to take out to the outdoor kitchen first.

Gonna go potty? Well, do your business, but know in just a couple of days, you’re gonna have to take care of that bag of poo. (Another post on that is also in the works, just in case you’re wondering. 😉 )

Gotta get something from the shed? You gotta walk all the way over there and back -several times usually – to get what you need.

But it’s a good kind of work and we’re happy to be here. As has been my mantra for the last several months, “the trade off is worth it!”

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

We’re HOME!

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I have said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’m a terrible blogger.

Here we’ve been moved onto the Homestead for 10 days and I have yet to blog about it. Ya’ll were probably wondering what happened to us.

Well, we’re here. We’re happy. And we’re tired!

Bachan and Pagee are all settled in. We still have a few systems to set in place for them to make it for the next year or so comfortably. But, for now, they are doing good.

The Hubby and girls and I are still roughing it as we get our trailer situated and figure out our utilities. It’s been 10 days and we still don’t have all of our stuff unpacked. Seems we collected quite a lot while living in Oregon. I tell ya, the more space you have, the more stuff you collect to fill that space!

And on top of all that, our trailer was used as storage for the two years we were gone. I think we’ve pretty much gotten all the extra stuff out now (finally) so now it’s just figuring out how to put away everything!

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We’ve also been busy setting up our outdoor living area. It rained the first week we were here (did Nevada want Bachan and Pagee to feel at home or something??), and now it’ turned off hot, so we needed to get our shade shelter up.

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But even when I had to stop and find a spot that gets good cell signal so I could get some office work done, there hasn’t been one moment I haven’t been glad to be back.

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So that’s just a quick update. I have quite a few blog posts to write about our experience so far. Now that Hubs has gotten a good phone charging station set up in our trailer and I’m no longer having to charge my phone in the van, I feel like I can use my phone to blog more often.

I also figured out that I can write the post offline and let it upload whenever I get enough signal. Duh!

So yeah, we’re home. It’s going to be a long journey till we’re settled in our house, but we’re here. And that’s what matters.

And we’re so glad you’re following along on the adventure with us!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121

Spring weather on the Homestead

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We traveled to Nevada at the end of March and while we spent most of the time at my mom’s house, we did get to spend some time up on the homestead.

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This is the main reason that we decided not to stay in the trailer while we were there. It snowed on us!

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But the girls and I went up to check on the homestead anyway. And had a bit of fun while we were at it.

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And three days later, nearly all the snow is gone. We decided to try “witching” for water in other places around the house pad to accommodate the change in location of the septic system.

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This is “Ahma” (my mom) using the copper rods. It’s amazing how they really do react when near water.

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Flower Girl loves trying new things and having “pickmicks”

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Yeah, three days ago and now it’s warm enough to play in the water. That’s spring in Nevada for you!

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Our little “lion” in her cage.

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And look what we found while rummaging around in our log piles (placed there back when my parents owned this property and tore down an old barn).

Logs!

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Y’all remember my post about the logs right?

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And here I have some sitting right there on the property just waiting for me!

Oh, the possibilities!

Leaving soon

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We have our moving date set!

The house is on the market and Bachan and Pagee have accepted a contingent offer. But no matter what happens with the house, we are moving on May 20th!

Actually, May 18th marks the beginning of the big move with me and a friend taking the moving truck with all the rest of our posessions to NV, turning around the next day (the 19th) to travel back to OR with my mom (“Ahma”) in her RV – which is how Bachan is going to be able to make the trip down – then all of the family back to NV with our various vehicles on the 20th.

Whew!

Makes me tired just thinking about it!

In the mean time, since we only have 3.5 weeks left here in Oregon, we are finishing up with small projects around the house, visiting with friends one more time, and just kinda waiting for the day.

And since we have gotten rid of tons of furniture, look what I finally get!

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A reading corner next to a window! I haven’t had this in so long and I always long for a little space all my own like that. Now, this is in our bedroom, which is still Hubby’s office during the day, but in the evenings, when I am tired from the day and would rather get away to read or journal, I finally have a quiet corner all my own.

After almost two years.

For only three more weeks.

Ah, well. I’ll enjoy it while I have it.

And speaking of enjoying it, here’s the view outside that window as I sit here and blog.

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I sure am going to miss the green!

But, the trade off is worth it.

Heres a picture I took the last time we were on the homestead.

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Flower Girl running around the homestead nearly naked. Playing in the dirt. Having a grand old time. And Princess Girl, at 10 years old, was in nearly the same condition.

The freedom they have there cannot be replicated where we live here in Oregon.

We are so glad that our children are going to grow up with a close connection to the outdoors in a place of freedom and openess. They will not know or remember the scrutiny of neighbors. The claustrophobia of being hemmed in by houses. The fear of living in a neighborhood where you stay indoors or in your yard after dark and the curtains are drawn and the the doors locked.

At Castle Rock, we will not be putting in an air conditioner, which means that on hot summer nights, all the windows and doors are open to let in the cooler night air. The cars will be left unlocked, and probably even the house most of the time. Some of the windows might not even have curtains, or if they do, it’s to block out the sun in the summer.

Life in the country is kinda laid back like that.

And we can’t wait! Only 26 more days!

Maridy

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121