Updates

Hmmm, where to begin, been a long time since I posted but we've been rather busy with purchasing and transitioning into our new home. We were stuck with the apartment lease to finish out, which was good and bad in that it gave us time to move things and it was close enough for the little woman to walk to school. On the bad side it of course was a bit costly but in the end it sort of washed out.

House wise it's finally starting to shape up, things are getting put away and we're figuring out various areas and what rooms will hold what. We did get in a garden and while it's not all that we wanted, it's much better than nothing at all. No livestock yet, need to do some work before we take that step so it will most likely be next year. Land is slowly being cleaned up, the previous owner left a lot of junk to be cleaned out.

I guess you could say the first concern when we bought the house was heating and that's what the rest of this post will be about. When we purchased the home it came with a masonry fireplace, fuel oil heater, add-on wood furnace, and baseboard heaters. The way the home is setup the fuel oil forced air heats the first story of the house while the electric baseboard is upstairs. We've since started and are in the midst of changes.

First things first, the fuel oil furnace which wasn't something I was hoping to have to say the least. My preference would have been propane since it's so versatile but that's what came with the house and seeing as how the unit is a hardly used only three year old unit I'm not complaining too much. Of course the major problem with fuel oil furnaces, besides the price, is that they just never seem to really heat a house for the cost of running one. With oil prices in constant flux and always seeming to push a little bit higher we really wanted an alternate source of heat.

The wood furnace add-on should and would have been our logical preferred source of heat but alas the previous owner proved that finances weren't the only thing he was ignorant in. Upon inspection we realized that the furnace had been exposed to very high heat, such as one gets from burning coal and it was never designed to handle that. The current furnace in place is no longer usable. We did attempt to get the furnace replaced and had settled on a Yukon Eagle Big Jack, but found out that it would involve a lot more work than just replacing the add-on thanks to new regulations. The regulations in our county were changed right about when we bought the house to where every item using a chimney requires it's own flue, previously it had been allowed for a furnace and add-on furnace to share flues. In order to install an add on furnace to our home, we would either have to run another chimney or add another flue. Not exactly something I'd want to do here.

The baseboard heaters are located upstairs and well to be honest we have yet to find a reason to run them. In fact after we walked upstairs and found the second story to be nearly unbearably hot while it was about 30F outside we shut them off and didn't run them even during a few cold snaps. That may change should we have an abnormally cold winter but for the time being they just seem quite unnecessary.

Finally that leaves us with the masonry fireplace, which did get used briefly this past Spring during some colder days/nights and well performed like a masonry fireplace which means it ate tons of wood for little heat return but was definitely better than nothing. At least though it left us with an option when we found out the issue with the wood furnace. We had already talked about putting in an insert into the fireplace, did some research and had found that the Hearthstone Homestead wood stove would work as an insert with the benefit of having a top that one could feasibly put a small pot or tea kettle on. Added bonus it seems that Hearthstone does a sale every summer on their wood stoves. Went down to the semi-local dealer yesterday with measurements of the fireplace and hearth in hand, talked it over with one of the reps and ended up purchasing a Hearthstone Heritage with matte black trim for about the same price due to a better sale on that model. Due to be installed in a couple of weeks. This should be a major improvement in our heating situation and is a heck of a relief off of our shoulders. We did end up spending a little more than planned, as the install will include getting the chimney lined but it was something I'd thought of having done anyways due to the age of the chimney so not a surprise expense and price wise our dealer seemed quite fair about it.

One lesson learned, always be open to different options, have a plan B, and be ready to move quickly to take advantage of opportunities. I had previously looked over the wood stoves months ago just to read up on them and so when we had to change plans and found out about the sale I'd already had a wealth of information on hand to let me feel comfortable enough to spend the money without having to spend too much more time waffling or researching. One of the major reasons we went with the Heritage was due to the soapstone construction which helps to retain heat and thus provide heat for a longer period of time. A very nice feature to have during long winter nights. We also had really wanted something that we could put something on top to cook with should we need it. The last thing I had wanted was to find myself without power during a winter storm and no way to warm the house or cook food. That sort of thought should be on every homeowners mind, because as recent winter storms, hurricanes, and derecho events have shown they are able to strike quickly and leave millions without power. Being able to take care of basic needs such as warmth and food should be things that people should be able to handle themselves in an emergency.

Homestead take 2

So a small break in the review threads series, which have kind of suffered due to attention being paid more towards the topic of this post, finding our own small homestead. Well, it appears that we’ve found it, and while it’s nowhere near as large as we had hoped land wise, it’s a heck of an improvement over our current conditions and fits a lot of the other requirements, including the financial one.  This is the second house we’ve bid on and had inspected. Unfortunately, the first one did not work out, but the second house is definitely an improvement, sometimes things are just meant to work a certain way.

So things came to a head with the previous property when the bank that owned it missed the closing date, said nothing for a week, then their realtor randomly asked us to sign an amendment pushing the closing date back about four months with no guarantee of actually closing by that time. At this point we’d dealt with them taking up to two weeks to respond to any paperwork sent to them, their contractor who de-winterized the home burst a pipe because of failing to let the pipes warm before putting pressurized water through them, and the reason for pushing the closing date was a title issue that supposedly had been resolved in December but apparently they had claimed that in hopes that they were going to be done in January instead of being up front with the issues.  The lie and asking for such a large amount of time were just too much, we decided to take a few days to search around while we had the chance to get out of the contract without too much issue.

At first, house hunting can be really fun as you get to look at all these ads and dream, but to be honest it can very quickly become a dull grind of trying to find something that fits most of your requirements, is in your financial range, and is within a reasonable driving distance of work/school. That really does narrow things down quickly, especially when you see places that fit well into what you want except are just out of your price range, kind of makes it easy to see why some people overspend on their homes.  Not that I advocate going over ones’ budget, much less even going near the top of the budget, but I can see how people fall into that trap. It all can be rather discouraging to say the least.

But then, it happens that right house just pops up, amidst webpage after webpage, ad after ad, that house pops up on the radar. I’d heard a lot of people say they just knew when they saw it, sometimes it took a few minutes of walking through, sometimes they just knew upon the first picture and when we saw this house, we just knew. For starters, it was a REAL house, not one of those manufactured homes that have become so popular as of late, but a house built decades ago. There is less land, yes, but it’s much better laid out, comes with not one but two strong springs, and the area just has a certain feel to it, a more welcoming feel overall. To be honest, yes, it does need work, and not everything is perfect, far from it but for us it works out just right.

Things are working much smoother than the previous home, this bank is moving much quicker than the previous one and is actually getting the things they say they will have done taken care of. Hopefully that means this drama is coming to an end and that we’ll be able to move onto the next step and actually start physical work on the homestead. Looking forwards to it!

Past year pt 2

What is prepping? Prepping is a variety of things, can be as small as putting aside an extra couple of cans each week to growing your own food, from preparing through foods to preparing mentally and physically. Prepping also does not specifically imply getting ready for collapse, one can also prepare for natural disasters such as the flooding that affected the Northeast or snowstorms.

In a way it’s kind of sad that today we have to consciously make the choice whether or not to “prep”.  It’s not exactly like our grandparents called it a choice; it was just a part of life. Such is the way of first world life today, so be it. For us it wasn’t a hard choice, but the basics of prepping were already familiar to us from our upbringing, to others this may be a drastic change in lifestyle. Either way, for those of us in a first world country it’s often a choice, for now.

I wish I could say that my initial reaction to everything was smooth and calm, but really it’s more of the typical reaction many will have, kneejerk almost panic. It takes a while to absorb everything, and there is so much to learn that I found myself spending days just reading back through old threads, debating each discussion and deciding my point of view. Suddenly things like Coronal Mass Ejections became very important as did the need to acquire canning supplies, build a bug out bag, and evaluate whether or not I was a slow crash or fast crash doomer, which seemed to be really important at that moment. While I’m glad to say that like many, I’ve since calmed down quite a bit since then and just take the philosophy of doing what I can when I can and not worrying about what I can’t, there are plenty who never get past that first phase and, to borrow a very apt phrase, are essentially doom masturbators. They’re the ones that just somehow need to live it 24/7, constantly talk about doom, and revel within the throes of possible doom. I will admit, it can be fun sometimes to cheer on things, like hoping that Wells Fargo pops up one day one the FDIC Failed Bank List, and I will throw a massive party should Monsanto finally go down in flames, but I don’t live it constantly.

It helps, I think, to first evaluate what you already have, as it both gives a starting point and a bit of mental peace. For us, we were already avid shooters  and I owned quite a bit of hiking and camping equipment. We’d also both been exposed to canning as children and the idea of raising decent sized gardens. Every little bit helps.

A year in review, part 1

Ok, so a little bit more than a year, but hey it's been a busy year. I thought I would take the time out to look back and review the things we've done and also the thought process/evolution during the past year. In a lot of ways, that's part of the reason I blog, so I have a record of my thoughts and progress, but I've also noticed a few common things that tend to occur to people after they accept the eventuality of collapse. Just one thing I wish to get off my chest up front though, it really is never too late to start prepping. There are far too many people out there that will tell new doomers that it's too late, and they are incorrect, there are just far too many people, including myself, who started prepping even though we were told it's too late and have at least managed to give ourselves a good starting point towards being able to survive collapse. 

I guess the best place to start is well, the beginning, December 2010. Right about as the fall semester was coming to a close I was hanging out on one of my preferred forums, an archery site and happened to see that Alex, who is the creator and owner of that forum had posted some pictures. They had a watermark with the site; sustainablecountry.com on them, and being a little more than curious I wandered on over and began to read.  There I found a linked site, silentcountry.com, and I will admit to being a bit more than hesitant to click on it. SusCo has a slight doom underlayer, many of the posters there are admitted doomers though doom is saved for its sister site.  It’s full of information on how to make oneself able to sustain your existence and many of the skills discussed have health and financial benefits. Even if you don’t wish to think about collapse, SilCo is a site that’s well worth time spent.

I should take a moment to clarify, we’re not talking right wing Glenn Beck type doom, no these people are generally speaking highly intelligent folks who have taken the time to analyze the facts and drawn their own conclusions.  Collapse isn’t necessarily one belief, there are instead many different views on how it will occur and what will happen. Peak Oil is one of the most commonly discussed theories, the idea being that the amount of obtainable oil is running to a close, and is a broad enough topic that I will discuss it at a later time as it will need its’ own post. Economic collapse is another theory, and often contested between the idea that everything is going to collapse on itself and that those with the ability to will sustain the global economies for as long as they can continue to drain the lower classes.  The third most discussed topic  is change in climate/change in earth, yes that includes global warming, but also keeping an eye on weather patterns, earthquakes, solar flares, and other forms of natural changes.

After a few days on SusCo curiosity finally got the better of me and I clicked the link to SilCo, perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic, but it was like going through a mental block. For me it was like finding the answer to every question I’d ever had. For days I just soaked up information, reading about things I had wondered about for the past several years, reading opposing viewpoints to all of the things claimed by those in power, or better known as The Powers That Be [TPTB].  With much of the Mainstream Media [MSM], much of these opposing arguments are presented with a twist of making the people participating in the shows appear insane or are otherwise somehow presented as being eccentric.

To be continued.

Tattlers

One thing that I'm sure the average canner is going to run across the realization that the traditional metal lids that come neatly packaged with your mason jars are in no way sustainable nor are they getting cheaper to buy replacements. Add to that, they are made with BPA which is a controversial substance used to line cans of food such as Campbells soups, though really if one fills the jars correctly your food shouldn't touch it. There has to be a better way, right? Turns out there is, in the form of a lid called a Tattler, found at Tattler Reuseable Canning Lids.

A Tattler lid is basically a plastic disk that sits atop a rubber ring, in a small way like the glass lids of old. The plastic is not made with BPA. The lids are guaranteed to last a lifetime, with the manufacturer stating that if you ever wear out the lids, they will replace them for free. I've had the chance to use them, both wide and regular mouth lids in a pressure canner and found that with modifying how you can according to their directions, it's not difficult and all the jars that we have canned have remained sealed. Price is a bit of a sticking point, each lid costs roughly about seven metal lids. If you watch the site, usually around the holidays the company puts them on sale for 10% off, and if you follow their Facebook, they recently tried a mega sale through markdown.com which was a huge success and quite possibly to be repeated in the future. I'd recommend anyone who seriously does any canning, even if it's just a few dozen jars of pickles and jam every year, give them a try,

The drugs in your food

Turkey drugs
Do you know what's really in your food? What is actually fed to the animals before they are slaughtered? Unfortunately a lot of the truth can tend to be harder to find than we'd actually like it to be, between big Pharma and closely held corporate secrets it can be a nightmare to find the information and downright horrifying when the information itself is actually found. The above is a good case in point, with a nod to Badkitty for originally posting the link in her blog, I present for your reading pleasure, what actually has been fed to your Thanksgiving turkey, along with pigs, chickens, and cattle. Oh and for your vegans who figure on being safe, it's in the manure and the University of Minnesota has found that means it's also in your veggies. I mean, c'mon, when even China has banned a drug...

Why isn't there a bigger outcry? Well for one, like I said, the information can be hard to find and is not going to be publicized by mainstream media, who has way too much of a financial stake in big Pharma [and the millions of advertising dollars spent by it] to spread information that could be seen as even remotely harmful to them. For two, people are already upset enough as is with how much they perceive spending at the market, imagine the outcry come Thanksgiving when the usual $0.79 a lb turkey now costs closer to $2.79 a lb? There is a reason why the proverb "Money is the root of all evil" has persisted for many years now.

It's finding articles like this one, and learning more about what these companies have done in the name of profit and share holder dividends that harden my desire to get off the grid. I will admit, over the holidays I was visiting family, and it reminded me that I did miss them, as most of my family lives a couple hundred miles away, and I was contemplating putting off purchases of chickens and other livestock just because I didn't feel quite ready to deal with what one has to give up when taking on the responsibility of livestock. This article reminded me that truly, it's not so much a lifestyle choice, as it is a survival choice to take control of my food supply and out the hands of number crunchers only interested in seeing their stock portfolios fatten and buying the latest BMW.

Bank rant

So between buying a house and dealing with my fathers estate, which includes a house he had purchased only a few months prior to his death, I think I've gained a small insight into the financial mess that helped push our world into recession and continues to plague citizens. I doubt that in the end these are problems that are strictly within one country, such as the US where I am, but are problems shared throughout, as bankers are well, bankers and seemingly are focused only upon one goal, to make money no matter the cost. I can say that what I've seen of these banks does help to remind me of why we want to work on being sustainable, but mostly, I just need to rant a bit.

The first bank I'm going to mention is a small one, in fact so small it was described to me that one could shout out an office door and the entire bank staff could hear you. They also happen to be the owners of the house we're in the process of purchasing and boy do they drag their feet, yeesh. When we submitted our original bid on the house, it was late Thursday night, and we got a counter-bid early Friday morning, and responded with our own counter within the hour, it took them almost a week further to respond back. Not that our counter was that much different than their original counter, it was just that they were taking that long to actually approve the offer. In fact, it turned out that we would have had to of waited that long to get their own counter approved, the counter was just an automatic response of theirs. So we sign the counter paperwork, figuring ok they're ready to sign it only to find out that oh the title wasn't clear yet, it took another week for them to clear the title. Mind you, the bank has owned this house for a couple of years now, and yet they hadn't cleared the title, which is required by law in the state the house is in. Can't say I've been impressed with them in the least, just glad that my money isn't handled by them.

The second bank happens to go by the name of PNC, and my dealings with them have been courtesy of my fathers finances were handled by them, well except for some small dealings with two credit unions, both of whom were by far much easier to get ahold of and to deal with than PNC. Unfortunately my father had mutual funds with PNC, who was presented with a death certificate and admin paperwork with the request to close the account. They were supposed to freeze the funds that day, withdrawal the funds from the investments and cut the check within three business days, yeah...right. What really happened was they kept blaming the computer system and coming up with excuses right up until the guy managing the account, and oh by the way with PNC only the guy who directly handled the funds when the deceased was alive is supposedly allowed to do this even though PNC is a sizeable bank, but right up until the account manager was fired for other reasons. They then decided to send us a check, which showed that the funds had never been frozen and that the account had lost a couple of thousand dollars due to their negligence. Yeah...it's been over five months and it's more than apparent that PNC is staffed by a large amount of inept staff members who love to make promises they cannot fulfill. If you value your relatives sanity, don't bank with PNC, who would make number one on my list of banks I despise, except for the third bank I'm about to mention.

Oh, I saved the best for last, a bank whose red sign and attempt to harken back to the old days makes my blood boil. A bank who has had no issues taking large amounts of bailouts over the last couple of years, a bank whose internal system is so shoddy that no one knows what the person next to them is doing, a bank who is so shady that Congress may be taking notes from them, a bank who goes by the name of...Wells Fargo. Unfortunately for me, Wells Fargo is the holder of the mortgage and the loan on the boat my father had purchased. Neither of which he had financed through Wells Fargo, instead Wells Fargo purchased the mortgage within a month or so of him buying the house and bought out the bank that he had financed the boat through. Yeah, buying out mortgages, isn't that part of the reason why our financial system got into such a mess? Oh right, like the banks learned a damned thing from that mess, they got bailed out and left the rest of us to pick up the tab. It is, in fact, this boat loan that causes the rant today, as I've just gotten off the phone with the third "investigator" that has called in the last two weeks. Never mind that the previous two investigators were given the estate lawyers information, never mind that the repo guy who came by here was given that info, never mind that the estate lawyer has contacted Wells Fargo both months ago and just recently now that Wells Fargo seems to show an interest. They were given a copy of the death certificate shortly after my father passed, but it seems that they are still intent on sending so called investigators to make contact and attempt to bully me around. Right...this last guy tried to mouth off about oh how it was unusual about something or other, basically attempting to accuse me of fraud. Really? What does it take, hell we've even paid to have the boat winterized and stored, and have only asked them to make it an even swap, we'll give them the boat, wrapped and ready to go, just so long as they clear the estate of the debt. Never mind that Dad had been ahead on his payments, the boat is worth more than the loan, it's just the wrong time of year to sell a boat and the used boat market has always been rather difficult to deal with. The mortgage has been handled just as badly, we offered a "deed in lieu of foreclosure", basically offered to turn over the deed and keys and avoid the foreclosure process, a completely legit and normal way of doing things, we would avoid the headache of the house and they wouldn't have to spend the money it takes to foreclose. Yeah, that got shot down. See, Dad didn't have much equity in the house, he had just bought the darned thing three months before he passed and due to a FHA loan, didn't have to put much down, in fact I think it was about 4% down. Wells Fargo wanted none of that, insisting that we put it up for sale, and then a couple of months later started the foreclosure process, all the while continuing to act as if my father was still alive. Even got a phone call from the lawyers office representing them, yeah, at least the lawyer was fairly apologetic when he found out his client had failed to inform him that my father had passed, nor had given them the information for the estate lawyer who had talked to them, etc., etc.. Unfortunately it seems Wells Fargo would rather continue to pursue the foreclosure process, just a pain in the butt really.

I suppose I've gone a bit off topic for this blog, but I really did need to get that rant off my chest. This is, unfortunately just a bit of crap I've had to deal with, I won't bore you with the life insurance company, etc., it's just all the same crap. It has, however, kind of been a reminder that things really haven't changed in the last few years and that companies are still operating Business As Usual, as if they're better than the customers that they are supposed to serve. I'm done with it and will try to continue to cut my ties with large businesses as best I can. In the meantime I have a garden to plant, maybe it's time to order that Gulland Broadfork I've been thinking about.

Thanks for reading and best of wishes on your own search for sustainability!

We've found our 'stead

We've finally found it! Months of searching, who knows how many hundreds of ads looked at, various areas researched and debated, and several houses actually visited to and walked over, finally over. It's not exactly what we were hoping for when we started out, but this will still fit our needs without placing too many changes.

The actual land is about seven and a half acres, mostly wooded, with a stream running the length of the land. The woods are primarily hardwood, fairly typical for our area, with some pine mixed in, and of course is located in the mountains. The mountains, we realized on a trip to Kentucky, were really important to us, both of us just felt...safer in them. Fresh water was very important, granted the house came with a well but should the power go out there would be no way to get water out. With a stream on hand there will be water always available, now just to get a Big Berkey gravity filter.

That leads into the other aspect of getting a 'stead, all of a sudden there is a massive list of things to do! The house itself will take some work, it was a foreclosure, so of course there are no appliances with it, and the previous residents took the water heater with them. In some ways I kind of consider that to be a benefit, as I'm going to take the opportunity to install a propane tank, propane tankless water heater, and a propane stove. One thing that should be pointed out, those new en vogue electric stoves with the glass tops, while pretty, are actually very limited in their abilities. Those electric stoves cannot support a steam juicer or a canner on them and the exposed electric coil stoves waste energy by radiating the heat everywhere.

We are trying to work out our goals for this year, which seem to more revolve around trying to raise rabbits, chickens, and perhaps ducks. We would like to start two to three compost piles, and try to start building up the soil with a garden. I don't hold terribly much hope as it seems the land wasn't well taken care of by the previous owners so it will take a lot of work I think to get everything working well, but it will be worth it in the end.

Lots to do...hopefully it will spur me to post more often and to talk about what we are going through to put this together. Here's to new beginnings and a change of winds!