Hanging Sheet Metal & Procurements

 

This week, Joseph started hanging the sheet metal on the passenger side, with a small amount of assistance from me.

He cut out the hole for the new door, and put up more sheet metal.  We worked at getting a piece around the front corner in place, just before I typed up this post, starting above where you see the ladder, in the original door area.  My camera battery was dying, so I didn't get a photo of that up.  

Scouring Marketplace, he found a store which purchases hotel furniture when they refurbish them, and found some lovely armoires for $25 ea. for the build, which we'll use as storage, likely our closet and pantry.  We plan to adjust the upper molding, so they can stand side by side.  

 

As the armoires were in Burlington, and it's my favorite place to thrift these days, he agreed to check out three of my favorite stores.  He found a vintage headboard and footboard for $20 for our build at one.  We won't use the footboard, and likely not the bedposts, but may incorporate them in another area.

In one of the many videos I've watched of skoolie builds, I saw a woman who had used a pottery bowl for her bathroom sink.  J & I talked about it, and being it needed to be small, we decided it should be an oval bowl to minimize splashing water.  I found this one at the Goodwill for $2.99.  While it's not exactly what I had in mind, being more fun than classy like I envisioned, some of the dots matched the window, and you couldn't beat the price, so we decided to get it.  We've got a drill press, so it should be fairly easy to drill a hole for the drain.  Well, that's what we've gotten accomplished over the past week.

Addendum:  Gosh, I totally forgot to mention our trip to Georgia last weekend, to attend a Tiny House Festival.  When I contacted them, I was told there would be a combination of 50+ skoolies and vans, in addition to the tiny houses.  There ended up being 7, and only two of those were full size buses with livable spaces.  So, another disappointment, with many hours of driving and an Airbnb rental.  But at least at this one, we came away with a few helpful things.  One was the shower idea above.  Most people use tile, but we didn't want to do that, due to the possibility of cracking from all the movement, and cleaning all that grout.  Not my idea of a fun time.  We like the concrete with plant impressions.  We're still deciding what the shower pan will be.  Another plus was a restaurant which had a fabulous vegan and gluten free entree, with asparagus, broccolini, artichoke hearts, potatoes and mushrooms.  Such a treat!  The manager spoke with us, and told me his wife was vegan, so he always made sure there was an vegan entree.  They even had a vegan dessert of three sorbets.  Gosh, it was nice to not have to fashion a meal from so-so side dishes.

Outdoor Shower Season & The Travails of Gardening

Hello, friends.  When I rounded the corner the other day, and saw the view above, it made me smile.  Between the borage, marigolds and sunflowers in the new bed, and the mullein, bee balm, homestead verbena, yarrow and bachelor buttons in the one behind, I thought it was a lovely combination.  Our culinary sage didn't make it through the arctic blast last winter, so I recently bought more.  I always look for containers that have extra, and found a 4-pack with 6 plants.  I planted them out, under fruit trees and berries.  Nothing happened with my last planting of lettuce, or possibly the insects ate it when I wasn't looking.  I decided to try planting a container near the house.  It's pretty shady, but gets some sun, so I'm hoping it will be happy and safe there.  We were having cooler than usual temperatures, so on a day with a forecast of 68, I decided to can up the last of the winter squash.  I thought about canning sweet potatoes, but J said they were keeping so well, to just leave them for now.  While I was in the kitchen watching the canner, I put five of the potatoes in the oven to bake.  

I was delighted to notice the first tomato through the garden fence, on one of the Italian Pear tomatoes.  Though it's been pretty muddy in there, with the recent rains, I ventured into the garden on Sunday, and found another plant with three tomatoes.  In previous years, it's been August before we got ripe homegrown tomatoes, but I'm hoping with the Amish method I tried this year with some, we may get a few in July.  We've always bought a few tomato plants, so we'd have some sooner, but not this year.  We're sticking with what we grew, and the Amish ones are quite sturdy plants already.  I've harvested the last of the peas, mulberries, blackberries, blueberries, lettuce, oregano, the first cucumber, and gathered the lavender. 

A good part of a day was spent on mending.  When I emptied another feed bag, I planted a potato in it, and placed it with the others.  I think I'll continue to plant more as I can, for a while yet.  On Tuesday, I began noticing some of the chickens hanging out near the fence, close to where the game hen was sitting on her nest.  It made me suspicious that the chicks were starting to hatch, and I started keeping a closer eye on her.  On Wednesday, I heard her do a little clucking, which really made me think she was sitting on some chicks.  Thursday morning, sure enough, I saw two little heads peeking out from under her.  We were expecting it to be difficult to move them into the coop, partly because she was surrounded by lots of briars, and also because she'd always been very flighty.  But Thursday, we were supposed to get a good amount of rain, and then they put out a flood watch, so we knew we had to try.  It went wonderfully well, with J handing me the hen across the fence.  I held her and three chicks, while he gathered the rest of the chicks and eggs in a basket, and handed it to me.  She had six chicks then, and hatched another on Friday.  She's doing so well with them.

We finally broke down, and ran the a/c Sat. evening.  We had been out of town since the evening before, so didn't get to open up and take advantage of the cooler nighttime and early morning temps, and when we got in, it was 79 and stuffy in the house, and still hot and humid outside.  It's definitely the latest in the year that we've turned it on for the first time.  We opened back up again at bedtime.  It does look like some higher temps are headed our way, including some days in the 90's.  Besides the energy usage, I mostly miss the quiet, when we're using a/c.  As we heat with wood, the majority of the year, we don't have to listen to a system switching on and off, which is so much more peaceful.  We do adore our peace and quiet here.  That reminds me, I've mentioned before that we don't watch TV.  We do have Netflix, the type where they mail a CD to your home, and we average three a month.  As we don't often agree on movies, we just watch them on our respective computers with headphones on.  I recently got the first disc of the Outlander series, and love it so far.  I know it came out in 2014, so I'm a wee bit behind the times there.  

I've been meaning to check our peach trees, and did while walking by them this weekend.  We're apparently down to the last peach :o(.  I'm guessing the only reason it's remaining is because it's at the end of a very spindly limb, too thin to support a squirrel.  Sheesh.  Here's hoping the peach makes it until it ripens.  If so, it will be precious indeed.  Same story with the tromboncino.  J has planted seeds three or four times now.  I found five seedlings eaten to a nub this morning, likely by pill bugs, with only one remaining.  This is a most challenging place to garden.  Now that the days are beginning to feel more like summer, the outdoor shower was turned back on.  Our homestead has a great many little systems that keep it going, and I endeavor to record the workings of it, in the event J got ill, had to be out of town for a time, etc.  I haven't done all that well with this project, but I did take pics and make notes of the shower process, along with the reverse process for the fall (slightly different), and added it to my homestead manual.  The pups inaugurated the outdoor shower season, both getting "baths".  I've never seen them both so eager to have one, which made it delightfully easy.  Wishing you the little joys of the season you're in.

Live Edge Slabs & Rivets

We've seen quite a few skoolie builds with live edge slabs for counters, and decided we'd like to use it for ours.  We're no stranger to live edge slabs.  Our house is sided in live edge pine, with cedar along the bottom, and when we were building tables for our SoulSeeds shop, we used them for a number of their tops.  Joseph was able to find two local red oak slabs, the largest being 25" at it's widest.  It's already been dried in a kiln, so should work well for our counters.  We'll epoxy the cracks when we start working with it, though that will likely be a while yet.    

He's started affixing sheet metal to the bus, to join the upper and lower bus, cut for the roof raise.  An air riveter was purchased, to make it a bit easier.  Thank goodness, as the back of the bus required a great many of them.  The Carolina wren hatchlings fledged, so the nest is now empty.  Next post, I'll tell you about an event we're attending soon.  We're hoping to get lots of inspiration there.

As Spring Shifts Into Summer

Hello, friends.  This year, J is trying something new with the tomatoes.  All the large plants have had soiled mounded up around the stem, before mulching them, and placing a cage around them.  Many of them seem to have curled leaf ends, which is concerning.  Not as bad as plants we've seen with RoundUp effects, but something.  We've only used organic fertilizer and organic straw on them, so should be safe, but these days, one can never be too sure unless it all comes from your homestead.  I harvested lettuce, chard, thyme, oregano, rosemary, lambs quarter and peas.  A new recipe for GF pizza dough was tried.  I also tried a new vegan mozzarella, which wasn't bad, but I'm not sure it added enough to justify the cost.  It's been a while since I did any baking with yeast, and both jars expired in '22.  The oldest jar was pretty wimpy, when I tested it, so I added it to the compost bin.  The other did fine, but I added yeast to my grocery list, so I'll have newer on hand.

I read one of the free books on my Kindle, and went by the library to pick up three more, one of which is a children's book.  Water from rinsing vegetables was used to water plants and fill bird baths.  Shower warm up water was used to flush the toilet.  Plastic bags were washed and reused, and laundry was dried on the line.  I finished the last of setting up my sewing room, and mended a pile of items.  Joseph harvested our garlic, and it's drying under the carport.  He planted melon seeds, lima beans, and another round of tromboncino.  The squash bugs have hurt some of the squash, though we're both trying to monitor and squish any we see.  One thing that does seem to be better this year are Japanese beetles.  I hope I'm not jinxing myself, and instead they're just running late, but they have been far fewer in number so far.  I went through the last of the '22 garlic, kept five heads aside, dehydrated the remainder, and ground it into garlic powder.

One of the things that has been on our to do list for months is moving the fall leaves to the pond garden.  J had raked them up into piles, but we hadn't gotten to mulching them yet.  His son came to work on them, and after several attempts to get the mulcher running, J gave up, and had him pile them onto a tarp, and pull them with the lawnmower.  It's nice to have that crossed off the list.  It's gotten very dry here, so I've held off planting all the little seedlings.  This coming week, there looks to be a good chance of rain several days, so I hope to plant lots of them between showers.  There are zinnias, calendula, tomatoes, dill, a marigold, basil and wood betony.  I hope you enjoy this week, as spring shifts into summer!

Skoolie Door, Windows & More

 

This week, Joseph cut out the new door spot, framed it, and fabricated new steps.  He's going to add one lower step, but is still figuring out what he wants there.  

He's been fabricating frames for most of the windows, including these two.  The original step area will be turned into storage space, accessible from the outside.  

The sparks you can see are where he's grinding a window frame on the driver's side. 

 

He's also welded all the connecting pieces to the uprights that were cut as part of the roof raise.

He was able to go back to the place he got the windows and stove from, to get the freshwater, graywater and blackwater tanks from the RV.   The man he bought the bus from called him, and he went to get a spare tire and two air ride seats from a Peterbilt truck he had.  That's the freshwater tank, which will live beneath the bed, in approximately that spot.  Of course, he got a great deal on all of it.  We're discussing the floor plan, which soon needs to be decided, to move forward.  Addendum: I forgot to mention he also got an extra fuel tank.  This will give us more flexibility in the amount of miles before stopping, and to fill up at the best price.  It appears most buses get from 9-11 mpg, depending on variables such as terrain, and if another vehicle is being hauled, so any savings would be appreciated.

Late Spring Days

Hello, friends.  After a soap delivery, I got some pretty good deals at Dollar Tree, including lentils, northern beans, tissues, sponges, parchment paper and seeds.  The seeds were mostly for my Back To The Garden sets, but if I don't sell that many, we can use them ourselves.  I got a cantaloupe for $2 at Food Lion, and used a $3 reward toward my purchase.  The cooler night time temps mean we have not had to turn on the A/C yet this year.  Though we are mostly on solar, there is a "background" 10KW a day we are using from the grid, even when we're away, which J hasn't had time to figure out yet.  It's a bit complicated here, with our home, J's business and my shop all on separate meters.  Here's hoping he'll figure it out soon.

My closet was switched around, making the summer clothes more accessible.  A few items were pulled, and added to the thrift store pile.  A wool hat and gloves were handwashed.  For a dinner, I made colcannon with our cabbage.  I harvested mulberries, gathered eggs, and picked dandelion greens for the pups.  Knowing we were going to have a cool night and following morning, I soaked garbanzo beans and pulled bags of veggie scraps from the freezer, and simmered them, and canned both the next day. Batches of bird suet and hummingbird food were made.  I sewed a button on a shirt.   Lambs quarter, peas, and the first blackberries were gathered.  Peas were blanched and frozen.  We attended a jazz concert in our little community, then met with friends at the local wine bar, which was a fun evening.  

Our little game hen showed up a few days ago, on the outside of the fence, and proceeded to eat, drink, and take dust baths, before heading back to the woods.  The second time she showed up, I waited, to watch where she went, and found she has a nest just a foot or two beyond the fence, between the roots of a cedar tree.  I'm happy I can keep an eye on her whenever I'm in the chicken yard now, and the next time she's off the nest, I'll see if I can count her eggs without upsetting her.  If I get too close, she may rush to them.  We're hoping the homestead snakes will leave her and the eggs alone, until she's able to hatch them.  Then we'll intervene, and bring the chicks to a safer place.  Hopefully, she'll follow.  That's our plan, anyway.  Wish us luck.  Have a lovely week!

Prettying Up the Skoolie

On Saturday, we went by a wonderful local shop, which imports antique stained glass from England.  I found two small windows to use in our skoolie build.  The upper one will be for our bedroom, and the lower one will be used in our bathroom.  Some little touches of pretty.

The pups kept me company in the skoolie on this work day.  There were lots of screws that needed picking up, as well as a good amount of conduit straps.  Once I got up the majority of them, I was able to sweep.   J has a high tolerance for working in a dirty space.  When he and his business partner opened New Earth Fabrication, the majority of the work they did was in biodiesel, which is an especially dirty business.  So, he comes by it rightly.  Metal fabrication itself is a dirty business.  I have to be careful not to touch anything when I'm in the shop, or I'll come away with black marks.  It made me very happy to sweep and get some of the dirt and junk out of the skoolie, and do a little organization too.

Mama wren hatched some babies.  Joseph snapped this pic one day he was working on the bus.  I can see three little mouths in there.

He's been working on welding some of the uprights, so he can take out the wood supports from the roof raise, and also welded in our back window.  A few more little steps.

Homestead Days

Hello, friends.  Last week, I redeemed Swagbucks for a $25 gift card, using a 12% discount and $1.50 credit.  My sister recently joined Swagbucks through my link, which they did not follow through and acknowledge.  I wrote them twice, and eventually got all that they promised, which includes 10% of her earnings for as long as she's active, which is a pretty great.  Hopefully, I won't need to write again.  I made batches of Golden Paste for the pups, and vegan cashew parmesan on Memorial Day, while watching the canner with baked beans processing.  It's become a habit to collect the aloe ends from smoothies for several days, blend it into fertilizer, and feed different plants.  

The Mother's Day flowers are still going strong, from my spirit daughter.  I'd known some orchid flowers could last for months, but didn't realize their cut flowers were also long lasting.  This Tuesday will be four weeks since they arrived, and they're still gorgeous.  I hadn't mentioned, but the bantam rooster was allowed back in with the flock, once the abused hens got their aprons in place.  Sadly, our bantam hen went missing last week.  She was, of course, my favorite.  The bantam hens I've had always seemed to have the best personalities.  She was such a little thing, we expect a hawk may have carried her off.  I've been gathering mullein flowers for a skin oil, after seeing one of it's uses is for eczema.  I know nothing topical will actually heal it, but if it can ease the itching and redness I still have off and on, I'd love that.  I picked up an armoire off of FB Marketplace on Saturday, to house fabric.  Saturday night, I woke at 3:30.  After finishing a book, I got up, organized, and put all the fabrics in it.  

I made a batch of bird suet and hummingbird food.  I stopped feeding the birds sunflower seeds a number of weeks ago, due to the cost, and they're going through about two suet cakes per day.  The deer are eating the tips off of quite a few plants in our landscaping for the first time, including borage and sunflower, which are quite prickly plants.  Go figure.  I tried the first of the garbanzo beans I canned in March, to make hummus, and was very happy with how flavorful it was.  I love hummus, and this seemed especially good, even though I left off adding any olive oil.  I tried the first of the canned baked beans, with black bean burgers.  They were good, but I'll tweak the recipe a little.  I'd like them a little less barbeque and a little more sweet.  Fresh pea soup was made with some of our peas.  It's admittedly better with real butter and half & half, but the vegan version was still tasty.  Pasta sauce was made, using our butternut squash, vegetable broth and sage.

Something ate all of the cucumber seedlings I started in pots, which was tried because something ate all of them planted in the ground.  Sigh.  I tried another round in pots, and put them in our seed starting tool box, hoping they'll be safe there.  I'm pretty sure I forgot to mention that I started an additional six potatoes, planted in feed bags this time, and all are up and growing.  I brought four of our tomato seedlings to a neighbor, who is beginning container gardening, and said she could use these.  I got the sweetest surprise from Daisy.  She sent several different seeds she'd saved, and a windsock with an old pick up truck on it.  I've told J before that my dream vehicle is one of those old trucks, so it's perfect.  I already planted some of the black eyed susan vine she sent.  I noticed a wide variety of gas prices one day locally, all at the same brand.  It started at $3.29, next I saw $3.36, and finally $3.19, which is where I filled up.  Their prices are not usually so different.  I harvested peas, lambs quarter, and chard for us, and dandelion greens several days for the pups.  Wishing you a week of simple pleasures.

Skoolie Roof Raise

 

There's not a lot to show this week, though Joseph has been working hard on the roof raise.  He finished cutting and detaching all that was needed, put some support posts along the sides, cut it all the way around, and raised the roof 18", using jacks and all-thread rods.

He wants to move the door more central to the bus, still on the passenger side.  He cut out the floor in the spot for the new door, which will be needed for steps, and welded a door frame in the spot.  If you look close in the first pic, you can see an "H" shape midway, which is the frame.  If we can find something we like, we'll add a small stained glass window at the back.  I already checked Marketplace and craigslist, with no luck.  Next, we plan to check a local shop, which import stained glass from the UK.  That's it this week.