The Prep 2021

During these days, I also started setting up a temporary garden to grow some tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs; I didn't want to go overboard since there was plenty of other work to be done. I also had plants from my mom and my friends in Knoxville (did I mention we made a trip up there to get the stuff they held for us? Thanks JR and Peggy!)

We quickly realized that the 6 panels were insufficient to live comfortably in the RV, mainly AC and cooking appliances, as well as tools in 'the shed', aka the shipping container. In layman's terms...

6 panels x 315 watts / 120 volts = about 16 amps; at the RV park we could use a maximum of 30 amps; on a typical day with AC and other cooking appliances, we were usually using around 20 amps.

So we opted to buy an additional pack of 16, giving us 18 on the roof and a few extra to use or sell at a later time.

18 panels x 315 watts / 120 volts = about 47 amps; plenty of power to get us started!

Once the panels were mounted to the roof, we'd be able to harness the power of the sun - as long as the sun was shining! What we were missing was the batteries to store any of the power that we weren't immediately using. The search for quality batteries that weren't going to break the bank was on, and we found them, back in Illinois! I had no idea how heavy these types of batteries were (150 lbs each, and we needed 4), so shipping was not an option. And so once again, just before Memorial Day holiday, we were back in the truck with Loki, making our way to Chicago. The timing worked out, as we were able to celebrate my nephews' graduation and see some more of my big, fat Greek family :)

One last programming note. You may have noticed that I changed the name of this section from "The Build" to "The Prep". That's because we haven't even come close to starting to build our home. I had no idea how long it would take us to prep the property so that we could live here while we build! The upside is that we have no standard expenses - rent, electricity, water, sewer and trash - and that's a big plus for us!

The Move to the Property

Having electricity and water on the property were the key pieces we needed in place to move the RV up to the property. I packed up a lot of the breakables in the RV and Pete went around outside to be sure we were ready - we hadn't moved the RV since we got to the RV park in January! The drive up was uneventful, Pete drove the RV and Loki and I followed in the truck. Loki doesn't like the RV when it's moving! We put it in a temporary spot next to the shed; the permanent spot will be on the west side of the clearing so we can get some afternoon shade to help keep it cool in the summer. We need to get gravel for that section before we move it there, so it's another waiting game with the gravel company.

The first several days were a bust because it rained so much (but our water totes filled up)! It made such a difference being up here full time and not having to drive back to the RV park everyday! Now it was time to really get situated and start making the place run more smoothly for us. We spent most of the rest of the month working on the following:

• Set up the laundry in the shed - took some time to tweak the amount of detergent to use; seems like using rainwater doesn't rinse the clothes as easily and the rinse cycle ran 'forever'; I'm also not using the dryer much because it's a power hog - we had to hook it up the the generator, and even then it still needs to be run on ultra-low. I use the power of the sun and wind, along with my new drying rack and rod for most things these day

• Getting Betsie the tractor up and running - she's helped us move the huge stumps out of the burn pile, move the dirt from the burn pile, and remove the old RV fridge through the RV window (story below!)

• Hired a mouse hunter - we adopted a 4 year old tortoise shell female cat. She's an outdoor hunter of mice, birds and snakes!

• Replaced the RV fridge (sort of) - when the cooling mechanism gave out on the original 20 year-old fridge, we ordered another, more efficient one online. We got it into the RV and plugged it in while Pete built the side pantry next to where the the new fridge will sit. It was cooling down the entire afternoon, but after putting it into the cavity, I noticed the next day it wasn't staying cold. Turns out it's a dud, no amount of troubleshooting fixed the issue. We're now waiting for a new one that will arrive in about a month. In the meantime, we are making do with two dorm-sized fridges!

It has definitely been a busy month, but we made sure to make time for ourselves as well. We had a nice dinner with our new friends Joyce and Robert, and we celebrated our third wedding anniversary! Let's see what July brings us :)

July / August (Updated 8/21/21)

Chiggers Bites, Nature and Harvests, oh my!

By the 4th of July weekend, we had our outdoor living space set up and able to have friends over for dinner. Blackberries are in season, so I picked a bunch at my friend's house. She made an amazing cobbler, and I've been using them in yogurt, on french toast and making syrup to put in my bubbly water! What I wasn't prepared for, and in fact, was oblivious to, were that chiggers are a BIG nuisance here, and they especially like the blackberry bushes. So for several weeks, I was in the dark on bites that appeared on random parts of my body - and they itched worse than any mosquito bites I've ever had! I finally got answers from the Facebook community here in the area and learned that they were chigger bites. To this day, I still suffer for a resurgence of an itchy bite which has not quite gone away :(

I'm still exploring around the property and discovering all kinds of flowers and bugs. We even encountered a rattlesnake at our friend's property, and were lucky enough to survive it without incident! The amount of butterflies and fireflies has really surprised me, but my most favorite past-time is watching the hummingbirds at our feeders!

We didn't plant a big garden this year, mainly because we were too busy with everything else, but I did get some good tomatoes and cucumbers, and my friends have shared their bounty, mainly tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers and eggplants. We've made homemade tomato sauce, salsa and eggplant parmesan; and I'm eating salads almost every day! My hope is that by next spring, we'll be able to start planting in our greenhouse. In the mean time, I'm starting my small fall garden with lettuce, spinach, kale, more cukes and butternut squash - we'll see how that goes.

Growing Family

At the end of July, we headed back to Texas for a visit. We left as a family of three - Pete, Loki and me - and came back a family of four. Olive is an eight month old Red Heeler mix, and she needed a new home because she was killing chickens on the farm where she lived. I've been wanting a companion for Loki to keep him occupied while we're working around the property, so we went to meet her. She's cute, playful, loves to be petted, and annoys Loki enough so he'll play with her every once in a while :)

Pete's main focus has been Betsie the tractor. He got her up and running in June (remember the fridge extraction?) but she had a leak, and she needed a PTO (for you non-tractor buffs, that a Power Take-Off shaft, designed to transfer mechanical power from the tractor to the implements on the back). As of today, she's put back together and we even bought a used bush hog (a mower that's pulled behind the tractor - believe me, I'm learning all KINDS of new terminology now that I'm out in the country!).

We were able to clear more of the burn pile/dirt in the middle of the clearing, but it's been raining for the last week or so, making it difficult to complete the work.

The first week of August we went yard sale shopping on one of the longest yard sales in the country - 127 Yard Sale - from Michigan to Alabama. We started in Alabama and made our way north past Chattanooga. Some of the yard sales were in neighborhoods, affluent and not; other parts were in clearings along the road with multiple vendors, almost like a flea market. It was an eye opening experience and I definitely want to do it again next year. I did find some goodies!

An update on the refrigerator: after Walmart refunded us the original purchase price, the manufacturer sent us another one. Upon plugging it in, it didn't work! There is no way we got another dud, so Pete put on his 'Jack of all trades' hat and started troubleshooting. In the end, he figured out that the RV wiring wasn't working properly; even though it was supplying enough power to operate the fridge light, it wasn't supplying enough to actually run the fridge. He managed to correct the wiring problem and viola, we now have two working fridges, one in the RV and one in the shed for overflow. Sometimes things work out for us in the end!

And last but not least - we finally have internet installed on the property!!! Catch you next month, thanks for following along on our grand new adventure!

September - December (Updated 1/16/22)

RV Protection

This project spanned the end of August into the beginning of September. Knowing we have an older model RV and that it rains quite a bit here in Tennessee, we decided to build a super-sized carport over the RV that will serve multiple functions:

• Minimize the chances of leaks from heavy rains and snowfall

• Shield the RV from the sun in the summer and expand the covered area of our 'front porch'

• Use the roof as another source of water collection

Pete built a 40' x20' cover; the front is 12 feet off the ground and the back is 14 feet off the ground, giving us a nice slope for the water collection.

Alternative Cooking Methods

We wanted more ways to cook food without necessarily using appliances in the RV. There are so many ways to cook outdoors that utilize power sources like the sun and wood. We decided to build a rocket stove and a solar over. Here are the results:

Rocket Stove - an efficient and hot burning stove using small-diameter wood as fuel. We've used this bad boy quite a bit over the last few months. The fact that we have so much wood on our property made this a no-brainer. Pete essentially built it from scrap metal using his welder. There are a couple of down sides, mainly that our wood is not very dry yet, so burning it is sometimes a challenge and the ash that it produces requires that whatever we cook is covered, so no saute meals. We have used it to cook stews and Loki & Olive's dog food. I've also discovered that when we use our Lodge cast iron dutch oven, you can roast in it when you put coals on top of the lid! Christmas roast turned out yummy!

The long term plans for this stove is to also use it as a steam engine to power our batteries on cloudy days (more on that when the time comes!) and to pump warm air into the RV for heat (more on that when the time comes); all of this will be powered by wood!

Solar Oven - a device that harnesses the power of the sun as a source of heat for cooking. I watched videos on solar ovens and was intrigued by the concept; some people make them out of cardboard boxes! But not us; we were given old, used gate controlled gear boxes and we thought they'd make the perfect housing for our oven. We cleaned out the boxes and welded them together to make a metal box that would fit baking dishes. To harness the power of the sun, we polished an old satellite dish and mounted them both to a dolly for portability so that it can be turned towards the sun as it bakes. We used high-heat black spray paint, oven rope and a scrap piece of glass for the top. Unfortunately, we couldn't get the temperature any higher than about 250 degrees F. The reflective surface of the dish wasn't getting the box hot enough, so I never was able to bake in it. We decided we'll modify it by adding a wood burning feature to it in the future. This will allow us to use it on cloudy days and use our ever-abundant supply of wood! More to come when we get to this enhancement.

Not Much Happened on the Homestead...

The rest of September was spent selling the rental property in Texas and looking for a new rental property here in Tennessee. We looked at places right in our town, in Chattanooga, as well as in Georgia! In the end, we found a beautiful, newly renovated 4 bedroom home about 40 minutes from us. It has the potential of being an AirBnB because there are many state parks in the area with good hiking. But right now we're finding that there are people who are building homes in the area and need housing, so we're sticking to the month-to-month tenants right now.

We decided to furnish the house, so Pete flew back to Kansas in September, rented a truck, and with help from two of the kids (thanks Aundria and Drew!) packed up our stuff and drove it it back here. We spent all of October getting the house ready (lot's of shopping!) and actually stayed there for a few weeks to be sure everything was running smoothly and that we had everything in the home that tenants would need. I was getting used to living in a house again, but alas, it was short lived. We were lucky enough to find tenants that moved in at the beginning of November.

We did some clearing of brush and vines at the rental house, and as luck would have it, we got poison oak rash. Pete's was severe enough that we had to go to Urgent Care, and then a week later to the dermatologist - it was a wicked rash that burned and hurt the first two weeks, then itched like crazy for two more weeks. He says that it's the worst thing he's ever experienced, including the road rash he got when he wiped out on his skates going 42 mph as a teenager! The rash got me too, but not as severe, and it started 3 weeks later.

The forecast here for the Thanksgiving week was rain, rain and more rain, so we packed up the dogs and drove to Chicago for Thanksgiving with my family. Knowing that we two and the majority of my family were vaccinated made the decision simple. But Covid-19 had other plans for us :( Both my parents, my elderly aunt and uncle and Pete contracted the disease; I was lucky enough to test negative, and so I was able to be a nurse to everyone. My uncle, who's 88, was the only one that was admitted to the hospital, and after a few weeks of care, he was released back home. My parents and Pete recovered at home - home-made chicken soup was the staple of the week! But Pete was well enough to make us a turkey, stuffing and gravy for Thanksgiving, so a turkey was eaten on Thanksgiving!

December was a light month on the homestead, but we did some work to prepare for the winter. We insulated our water lines, including using heat tape to keep them from freezing; we put a controller on the generator so that it will auto-start and charge our batteries on cloudy days; we finally cut all the trees we felled last year and started splitting the wood to dry. Before today's snow, we were even able to burn more brush and scraps of wood.

Christmas was quiet here with just the two of us and the dogs. We had a Christmas tree and lights outside, cooked a roast on the rocket stove and had exchanged presents by the little poinsettia plant - I got what I wanted: welding gloves to use while using the rocket stove and tending the fire pit! It was a really cozy Christmas.

GOOD BYE 2021!