poultry, self sustainability

We had another broody hen this year. Only 1 of the fertilized eggs we gave her made it, so quick thinking Nicole went to the store and got a few more chicks. The hen adopted them all and has been a great mom. We gave them separate quarters so the rest of the flock can get used to them without being able to attack them. It is absolutely brutal what mother hens have to go through, beyond the deprivation of not leaving her eggs for almost a month. Separate quarters is a must or I’d personally murder the rest of the flock. Friends of our told us that their broody hens leave the flock. It’s literally safer for them to sleep in the woods with coyote, fox, mink, hawk, bears, racoon, fisher, skunk, …., than it is to stay within their flock.

Esther is enamored with the baby chickens, but mom won’t let her get too close.

I.T., plots, plotters, web development

I built a website for running experiments in collaborative drawing. It’s pretty neat and I’m not going to describe it just yet, but in the process of testing it, I threw at it all kinds of plots I had at the tip of my fingers, and it yielded some pretty cool results.

I may have here my next plotting streak: microplots. Some look predictably bad as they were meant as stress tests, but some came out well enough to make me curious.

More to come on all this soon…

self sustainability

A couple of years ago we built a small bridge that let me take the ATV to the other side of the land. I was just able to take the tractor over it, after 7 years of pushing for it.

I’ve been working on trails back there, and the tractor will be a huge help. Not only that, but I’ve also been able to take the ATV with the big trailer up the hills, loaded with lumber. This means we can start considering building there. I wish I had more time for this, trail building is just fun. Alas, it competes with more important projects.

agriculture, self sustainability

We get a good 10lbs of blueberries every single day. It’s hard to keep up with all the harvesting, processing, gifting and eating. Next year the operation will most likely be turned lucrative.

This season, I can safely say that we have enough berries for our family’s generous yearly consumption. It got me thinking about all the things we solely provide for ourselves. Heat, electricity, water, maple syrup, garlic. These are all major sources of pride, savings, and resilience. Blueberries and currants can definitely be added to the list this year, it took 6 years of tending to the frailest sticks in the ground to get there. As with many things around the homestead this year, we are finally reaping the rewards, and they are plentiful.

This year’s canning label

Soon, we’ll be harvesting en masse from Nicole’s massive garden. We might have other staples to add to the list then. Others like cider are close but not quite 100% self produced yet. Although we don’t particularly seek autonomy as an endpoint, it is pleasant where we have achieved it. It all feels unreal sometimes, that our decade old typical silly dream of leaving the city for greener pastures, could end up being so fully incarnated.

self sustainability, solar power

For a couple of days, we struggled to keep batteries charged even though Sun was plentiful. Quick investigation revealed the charge controller taking pauses for no apparent reason.

I looked at the charge controller’s screen which had some sort of fault, the manual wasn’t particularly helpful but the screen did show that the battery temperature sensor was reporting 67°C, which was absurd (and checked by hand).

The culprit was the sensor, which held against the batteries inevitably got acid water splashed on while refilling the batteries.

The charge controller does not need to know the battery temperature, but it is better for charging decisions and fault protection. So it can simply be unplugged for a bit, but also… I actually have been slowly accumulating double our solar setup, 18 more panels, 1 more charge controller, 1 more inverter, and all the bits and pieces to put them together. We are slowly getting our ducks in a row for an electric car and this currently not deployed expansion is for it. In any case, I just grabbed the sensor from the extra charge controller and plugged it in and ordered another one. It’s nice to have backups of everything too :).

I also added to the monitoring script so it would bark if no amps were coming in during day hours, this really should never be the case.

nature encounters

Sometimes you look up and there’s a giant glowing orb in the sky. Between this and the fireflies, Vermont Summers are quite the show.

building, self sustainability

To make my life easier, this time I’m insulating the floor while I can get to it from the top. I also blocked at 47″ meaning the rockwool batts fit right in with no cutting whatsoever. I still spent some time crawling under to sheathe the flooring and that very much sucked, but at least the next step (insulating) which used to suck horribly, went like a breeze.

I popped in a couple of walls next, more coming soon.

3D modeling / printing, building, self sustainability

Driven by necessity, I finalized the plan for construction 2022. I struggled pretty hard on this one, because I tried to figure out many ways to gain half a floor, and I had to think hard about snow management. Ultimately I ended up keeping it to just 1 floor because I do NOT want to mess with the existing tin roof. In Vermont currently contractors are impossible to get, let alone roofers who are notoriously difficult to begin with (and rightfully so). So it was always the plan that I’ll be doing the tin myself, and because of that, I really cannot mess with the existing roof. So this addition has an independent roof line which does not at all integrate with the existing one.

There were a couple of challenges to solve but in the end, it’s a pretty straightforward build. Nicole is getting a whole 12’x16′ all to herself to accommodate all the projects she’s spearheading on the homestead.

agriculture, self sustainability

I have plans to expand and diversify our water sources next year: roof capture, pond, stream buffering, well overflow, well from the old house we recently acquired. All will be at least investigated if not deployed. We want more alternatives to combat dryness, a fact that is made particularly relevant because of how many things we have growing nowadays, and it’s always hard to see them struggle from lack of water. On the same sad but relevant tone, we have started meeting families which moved to Vermont as various levels of climate refugees. We ourselves picked the area a decade ago for it’s better position in this regard, among other things.

This dry year, we’re moving water as we can, which is to say it helps but it’s far from a panacea.

Filling up at the stream, which is almost dry…

agriculture, self sustainability

It’s shaping up to be a good year in the orchard. I rarely post about growing plants because it’s all Nicole these days. I’ll have to try to do justice to everything she put in the ground this year, let’s just say the garden more than tripled in size.

nature encounters

This was Esther’s first time seeing them, she couldn’t believe it. One of the great privileges of parenthood is to witness kids discover the world.

building, self sustainability

I finished blocking and attaching to the house the 2 subfloors.

The 24’x12′ section weights a ton so I booped it in place with the tractor.

Checking for level, perfect!

Checking for square, could be better… The original 2015 tiny house and the 2017 addition aren’t perfectly orthogonal and so I have to find some compromises.

I started making trips to the lumber yard to get the next steps lined up. I’m going to try to insulate the subfloor right away from the top as opposed to crawling under later and doing it against gravity which is always tedious and miserable.

And after many, many screws and nails it all tightly made one with the existing structure. I want this to be solid, I tend to overkill fastening.

building, self sustainability

Not much to be said, as I said a while back, this blog is bound to become repeats without the enthusiasm of discovery. Don’t get me wrong we are excited to get more space, but the building process is very routine these days. In fact the experience is starting to show, what took me 2 days of work now takes a short one, and I’m less tired, and the result is better. It’s really nice to know what you’re doing.

Staging the boards

Cutting to length (12′ in this case). I can now wield this skilsaw one handed with great accuracy, such was not the case a few years back.

Working alone means more rigging

There are really 2 distinct subfloors to this project

June this year has been particularly perfect weather for building

And now, blocking…

But again, it went a lot easier with years of practice

That’s it for today 🙂

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