Nicole pulled this year’s garlic from the ground, it’s now in the sugarhouse to dry.
They’re pretty big, hopefully just as tasty.
Every Day
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.
Corroded Temperature Sensor
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.
Got Some Rafters Up
It’s been a busy couple of days
I Try Not to
But the sky is just too much some times
Random Crazy Moon
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.
Random Construction Pics
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.
Procrastinated Planning
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.
It’s Been Dry
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…
Currant Inspection
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.
Chasing Fireflies
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.
More Subfloor
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.
Subfloors
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 🙂
Construction Stunt
I remember as a kid finding construction sites particularly fertile to mischief.
Put the Tin on
It took about 3 hours. I want to build another one before next Winter and I’m pretty sure I’ll adapt the way I built it, not the plan itself which worked just fine, just the order and methods for putting it together. I’ll try and publish a guide then. In the end, it takes a day to build, and it’s very sturdy.
Bill of material and plans bellow.
Bill of Material
- 2x4x8 Pressure treated (2)
- 2x4x8 (7)
- 2x4x10 (16)
- 8×3 tin panels (8)
- any 3/4 thick cheap lumber for bracing (4)
Plan
Wetter, Hotter, Doucher
Megadouche is back in business, it has been since early April. We’ve learned that we can deploy it early and get some use regardless of small frosts. We have it for almost half the the year now and its deployment is cause for huge celebration. The kids are very excited about it.
It comes with several major improvements this year too, I’m not sure we’ll be able to top that.
Bigger tankless heater
This guy can heat double the amount of water the previous one could at 3.2 Gallons per minute.
Bigger pump, bigger shower head to go through all this water, and a better platform to step on
Output Switch
We now have a choice between the shower head and a longer hose that can reach places like the tub or laundry spot.
Continuous Propane Supply
It used to suck, when a tank became empty, to go get another one in the middle of a shower. This “auto change-over” contraption comes from the world of RVs and will alleviate that. I still need to make all this a little more stable.
Lights
We’ll often be out there after dusk, and so instead of playing with flashlights I found some outside 12V DC string lights I could hook up to the little solar system we have out there to move water. It’s extra magical.
The very fancy control board
Pest repellant
last year a mouse built a nest right in the water heater one night. I imagine it must have been traumatic how its house turned into a sudden inferno. I had to disassemble it and clean it, no thanks. Also one day the water switch was just pulled to the “on” position, and we’re just not sure what happened but we blame squirrels. In any case, this thing there emits ever changing ultra sounds and LED blinking to hopefully keep all this away.
What’s the same
The siphon & sediment tub are the same, the formula works great. I did add an old battery to the solar setup, but it wasn’t really necessary, I just had it laying around.
This very well may be the final incarnation of megadouche, it’s become a fixture we all love.
Heavy Construction
I often joke that the siding I use for my house is more house. And well, this year will be no exception. The piers are in, more house will follow soon. The more experienced I am at all this, the more I procrastinate on the planning. I’m still figuring out the roof line but I did get the footprint in the nick of time for pier day.
Miscellaneous Construction
Deck Stairs
As always, but especially with stairs, figuring them out on a more malleable and fault tolerant medium saves a considerable amount of time. It helps get all the little details right too.
It will move with the ground frosts, and so it attached to the deck in a way that will allow for this.
A Door
This is the first door inside the house, and it’s going to the kid who started needing privacy. He still leaves it open at night because he’s not used to being isolated, he’s still just a little boy. We had to explain a few things about door use that are not obvious when you didn’t grow up with them. Being careful with where Esther’s fingers are when he closes it, or how not to close the cat in. He of course slammed it once, and I told him just as I had constructed the door, I would deconstruct it if he did that again. The threat was deemed plausible and it’s been honestly hilarious to see him ever so gently yet angrily close his door when he throws a pre-teen fit.
