Starring Contest

After having supper, I got up to get something from the kitchen area of my shack, and to my surprise there was a deer standing on the top of the hill right outside the window of the shack. It kinda caught me by surprise at first. The deer was looking at me as I was very still trying to remember where the camera was. When it started eating some weeds on the hill I made my grab for the camera. We had a bit of a starring contest, but obviously, I won. I am always looking over my shoulder and checking around before going outside from the shack. That could have easily been a bear, which if it was would more than liking run away at the sound of me opening the door, but you never know.

The following pictures are in no particular order, just a bunch of random pics since my last post.

Since my last post I did find some time to build, but I did work at the pay job a fair bit too. I just had a pretty good splurt of work and today was the first day back building for awhile.

I finally got the loft all insulated and the vapour barrier up. I also managed to get a little more drywalling done. Still a bit more drywall hanging to do yet though, but it is getting narrowed down. So far I have purchased 66 panels of drywall. I did'nt think a small house like this one would take that much. I might even have to get a little more yet, but I'm not real sure yet.

All the heavy rainfall that we have been getting has sure been taking it's toll on the creek banks. I've owend this property for probably over ten years and have never seen anything like this. Build a house overlooking the creek and guess what happens. lol. I'm not real concerned at the time, but I do have plans of doing some kind of erosion control for future flooding. If it were to rain like this for a few years straight, I would probably start to worry a bit if I did'nt do something. The water level is'nt overly high in this photo, this is just some of the aftermath.

I have been doing a fair bit of trucking lately. When I snapped this photo, I was kinda stranded out in the middle of no where for a bit. There is four belts on this truck, and for some reason they all blew off. I suspect one broke and caused all the rest to derail. I managed to salvage one belt for each set of pulleys to finish hauling what I had to haul and then get home. Alot of squealing was going on when the fan kicked in. So I managed to finish the day with half the belts anyway.

The insulation in the loft ceiling is R40 value. I thought would take a shot of the space above the insulation which will be the ventilation space. You want to have some ventilation above your insulation. On my house the air flows up through the soffits under the roof over hang and goes out through the vented ridge cap. That's what it is supposed to do anyway.

Just a shot of some of the wetness we've had around here lately.

Before I did my drywall surrounding the tub, I wanted to test it for leaks. My first test actually failed. What a mess downstairs. So I redone the drain and overflow installation, and this time it was good. But, as I was pumping the water out of the tub, I accidentaly bumped the drain plug with my pump, and I made another mess down stairs. I don't have the tub completely connected in the basement yet.

Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

Heck with it.

Heck with work, (for now, I'll go there on the rainy days). Heck with the mud. And heck with using the ladder too. I got me a house to build.

I finally found a use for all that 2x10 lumber that I used for my concrete footing forms. I use them for sidewalks and I also built my ramp up to the main floor out of them. A few years ago, my neighbor from in town and I built a new fence. My neighbor thought I was nuts when I wanted to keep the rotten old fence instead of throwing it in the dump. I'm sure glad I kept it.

In the morning, all this mud should be real nice to walk and drive on, unless it decides not to freeze over night. It is like dry dirt when it is all frozen. Tomorrow morning I'll have to forward some of my lumber over to the house on the frost, then go to town for some more lumber and supplies in town to keep me busy over the long weekend. I am finally getting into the swing of things again. Today I put in a long one, and my poor old knee is feeling it. It stays light pretty late here now. It is after 8 pm before I lose my daylight. I shut it down just before 8. Today I glued and screwed the last sheet of plywood down on my basement floor, and finished caulking it all. I had to leave that one open for awhile so the inspector could have a peek at things. He did pay me a vistit about a week ago or so. He made me add one more ply to my main beam down there, so now I have four 2x10 wide. I still have to phone them for an inspection again before I backfill the basement, but I'm not going to backfill until things dry up around here. But I can build up top while I wait for that to happen, so thats what I'm going to do. I kinda mentioned to them at work that I want no interruptions for about 2 weeks. We'll see how that goes. We are kinda at the end of the winter work season and things really slow down or stop for awhile. I kinda feel like I should be there and working on my truck and all, but, if I don't get a roof on my house soon it just might rot away eventually. It is my top priority right now. Heck with work.

Me, mud, work and weather.

A self inflicted picture of myself. I'm not sure how to pose for a picture, especially when I'm the one snapping the shot. The squirrel in the tree and my dog was wondering what's goin on. Now everyone else is probably thinkin the same.

It snows, then warms up, then snows, then warms up, then........It's quite a mess around here at times lately.

Inside of the water cistern. 8 foot diameter and about 11.5 feet long. 3500 gallons of water storage. Well it will be a little less once the concrete is poured in the bottom. There is a little water seeping in as things melt around here. I'm sure that will stop eventually in time once everything is saturated and settled. I won't be pouring concrete in here untill a little later in the summer to give things a chance to thaw and settle.

The cistern has been backfilled for awhile now, I just did'tn get around to posting pics until now.

I decided to go with the blueskin water proofing membrane around my basement. I put on a piece of it one day just to get a feel of it. I'm waiting for a nice day to get it all done. I have just about had enough slopping around in the mud trying to get things done on this thing. I'm seriously thinking about just concentrating on the pay job for a bit and let things dry up a bit around here. The peterbilt is due for an inspection at the end of April and if I don't work on that now, I will find myself doing it later on when the weather is nice for building. Also one of the trailers that I am pulling is in real need of some TLC. So, I might as well get all caught up with that stuff working in a shop and getting paid for it, rather than slopping around in the mud. March has been kinda busy for me at work. It is usually our busiest month of the year. All the oil companies are in a big panick to get some last minute things done before spring break. Pretty soon, alot of the bush roads will be closed to heavy traffic. As it is now, we can only go on them at night, when the temperatures are cooler and the mud is frozen. This time of year, I find it really hard to work on my own project even if I am not working all the time. Go out one night and it kinda screws your whole schedule up for a day or two.

Just when I thought things might be starting to dry up we get some more snow to melt. This one was taken this morning. Today I am being a bit of a house plant(shack plant I guess). Sometimes I enjoy doing nothing but hanging out in the old shack and playing around on the computer, like today. The dog likes it too, but the squirrel misses us. Although it is snowing and clouded over, when I check out the power generating situation, I find that I am bringing in a little more power than what I am using right now. Somewhere around Feb 14 2010 is the last time I have used my generator to run my shack. Most of my power used to run power tools etc has also come from my solar setup, but I have used the generator a few times for misc things such as plugging the backhoe in on a cold morning and running power tools at times, on a cloudy day etc. Life is pretty darned good. I'm thinking about doing a little house cleaning today possibly. lol. We'll see.

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I almost forgot to mention that I updated my blogger profile a few days ago. It used to say what I wanted to be doing and how I wanted to be living, but I guess I am now doing all that.

Busy February at Work.

I hav'nt found much time for working on the cabin this month. It's hard to believe that the month of February is already done. The weather has been pretty nice for here, and I have been
spending it out in the bush playing in the mud alot of the time hauling equipment. It's almost like we're in the middle of an oil boom or something. The other driver was getting tired and needed some time off, and things did pick up for awhile there. I THINK that things are slowed down again. I hope. I would like to get my basement done and backfilled soon, before things really turn warm and sloppy. Today I just kinda got started working on the house again. Well, actually on my water storage cistern. I need to get it out of the way before I can backfill my basement. I have just a little bit left to do before I can get inspected. This is something that I hoped to have done by the beginning of this month, but I guess I am a tiny bit behind. lol. Below are a few pictures from work. It was actually a nice break for awhile there, but I'm ready to build now.

I had to unload this D9 cat 3 times within 46 kilometers. The ole Peterbilt just would'nt haul it up some of the hills in there. Just too much weight and stupidly steep hills.

Just a bit of an update. I hope to have something to blog about real soon. I plan on finally backfilling my water cistern tomorrow if things go as planned.

Solar Power, Country Life and Work

I got brave and posted a couple pictures of my messy living quarters. I have been so busy at work this last week and kinda got behind in the cleaning department. It happens to me like that all the time. But it is quite liveable, I think anyway. I know there are people out there that could'nt even imagine living like this, but I am pretty flexible. So far, things are going great. I still love my country way of life, even though I hav'nt spent a whole lot of time here lately. Last month when worked asked me what my plans where, I was pretty busy moving and all that, so I told them that I would really like to have no work until November. Well I guess they must have thought that what I meant was I wanted to be full bore in November, because that sure seems to be what happend so far. Ever since November 2 I have worked stupid hours. Get up early one morning to go to work, then work about an 8 hour shift, shut down for 8 hours then go back to work at about 10 at night and work all night. I've played around in the mud way out in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. Had bad directions and ended up going a kilometer down a road that dead ended with no turn around with a 330 cat hoe on. Then just as I start to back out of there for a km a wild snow storm has to hit. Well I'm not whinning, it's just one example of what goes on in my world at times. I sure do wish they would see just what a guy does for them. I don't even really care if am even working or not really. But then when the week is over and the hours are all added up, including the overtime and all, then I'm kinda glad it all happend, but at the time, I'm sure that all the wolves and other wildlife out in the wilderness probably learned some fancy new words. I was'nt a very happy camper at times, being tired and all.

I got all my solar panels up before work called. I am glad for that. At night I run one or two lights through the inverter, my laptop, and whatever needs to be charged (cell phone, drill, camera, etc), I occasionally use the microwave to heat up some food or water and I use a toaster in the morning. So far I have not run my battery bank down to any less than 70%. Roughly about 12.4 volts. I usually don't even get it down that low. I have had an evening where I was on the computer for a few hours and still had 70% battery left. I have not had to start my generator this month yet. Every night that I came home, my batteries were completely charged except for one night. That day it rained practically all day and my batteries still did charge some, but not fully. I still had enough power for the night without the generator. My six panels so far are a bit of overkill for my power demands, although I do see some days in the future where the generator will probably need to be utilized.

I have been around town alot lately with work, so a shower was always available at the truck stops. As an experiment one night I had a sponge bath in the shack, just to see how well that works. I was actually impressed. I would much rather take a shower at a truck stop, but if I don't happen to be near one, then to get cleaned up in my little shack is totally do-able, which is really nice to know.

Sometimes the temperatures fluctuate inside the shack. The floor is a bit cooler and the top bunk is alot hotter. I like the top bunk, but I need to rig up a fan with some kind of reverse thermostat that will kick the fan in at a certain hottness to circulate some of that heat around. I just hav'nt had the time for things like that yet.

This is my basement at the moment. All these pictures were taken this morning. Now if I new, that I had a few days without work bugging me, I would maybe take a chance and try to get some basement walls up and a main floor. I would really like to have the basement built and backfilled before the major cold hits. Keeping in mind that I did'nt skirt the shack in yet and I hav'nt really checked into the weather forcast yet either. If I start cleaning this basement up so I can start to build, I would hope that rain and snow would stay away for a few days(weeks). It seems like a big chore to get things started and then have to cover them all up again at the end of the day.

I just checked out the solar charging system. As I sit here and use the computer, my batteries are showing 13.3 volts. When I got the computer they were at 12.5 volts. It all makes me want to waste some power somewhere. I guess I should have more batteries for days like these.
Usually when I use my laptop, it is using about 29 watts. Right now, and the sun is still kinda hidden behind tree tops and light cloud etc, my charge controller is showing 185 watts. At that rate 185 divide by 29 =6.38, that means that one hour of charging at 185 watts should give me 6.38 hours of computer use. One of my lights run about 13 watts and the light it emitts is equivilant to a 60 watt light bulb. I have plenty light. I have four 80 watt panels and two 75 watt panel. If things were right on, my panels should be capable of bringing in 470 watts, although I hav'nt seen that yet. Since writting this part I posted two new pics of the brains of the system(the top two photos). The sun is still far from its peak performance as it is still rising and not yet in the south.

Sorry about having to let you all witness my mess inside the shack. I kinda wanted to have it all nice a clean before posting the pics but maybe next time. It'll be like the before and after. I realize I have been a little sloppy on leaving comments on other blogs too. I have glanced at quite a few of my regular bloggers, but just did'tn have the time or energy to spend a whole lot of time on it. This morning I am more relaxing than doing things outside so far.

Things are going really well here at the shack. There are some days when I wonder why I am living like this right now, but when I think of the new income(rent income) and the lack of bills going out, it is like they are actually paying me to live like this. Thats what I like. Time will show the difference. My little house that I am in the process of building, is going to feel like a mansion when I finally get into it compared to the shack.

Minor setback in the hay hauling.

I was off to a pretty good start this morning, until I was unloading my first load. I broke the the grapple. I weld some of my own stuff, but I am not about to tackle something like this. Thats what real welders are for. I kinda thought it would be a quick fix, but the welder man said about 2 to 3 hours. Well I aint gonna wait around, I wonder what else we have in the yard. The bobcat is gone somewhere. There are 3 track hoes to choose from.

I chose the 270 John Deere. I've never used a track hoe to handle bales with before. I should have had this puppy over on the acerage when the basement digging was going on. Something like this probably would have dug it in couple hours, and probably would have done a nicer job. But I get alot more satisfaction out of using my own resources as much as possible.

It actually worked pretty good to get them off with, but they still need to be stacked when I find the time. Or maybe the boss will do it for me.

I got all my bales moved off this field. And now I'm on a bit of a move to the next field for tomorrow, which is quite a long way from here. My new field will be about a 3 hour round trip or maybe a little bit more. They have a little over 200 hay bales for me and probably another 600 green feed bales once they get it all done. I can usually haul 34 bales in a load, unless they are rediculously big, in which case I would haul 30. It looks like I'm going to be a busy boy for a bit.

Just Truckin

This is about where I am with the basement when I got diverted in a different direction. The pipes ar'nt glued together yet, and I took them out for now and stored them away as I am not sure when I am going to get on it again. Hopefully in about a week from now.

I did manage to get my paws on a truck and gravel trailer and hauled some product out to the acerage.

A load of tile rock. This will get me going with my sewage mound and also with my basement. I may need some more later. About $20.00/yard. I can haul about 25 tonne legally(roughly 20 yards). Should be hauling more, but the truck is pretty heavy to start with, as it is a winch truck. Not really the norm for gravel hauling.

This is a load of clean concrete sand. I did haul a load of cheaper sand (free), but then I got a little paranoid that it could cause me some grief in the future, so I went on the hunt for some good clean sand. $25.00/ tonne. Hopefully I don't need anymore of that. Normally sand is at about$8-$10.00/yard that I have seen, but it all looks pretty dirty. There is a sample just beside this new sand on the left where the pipe is coming out of the ground for comparison. When I put water with it, it turned pretty mushy. Or silty. I can use the old sand for burying pipes, I guess, if nothing else. I think it would also work ok as a filler around the mound maybe.

I did quite a bit of my driveway with some finer rock. The price was right so I thought I would give it a shot.

And now, this is my life story for the next few days. Hauling bales. Hopefully the weather stays good so I can just get it all done. I am really eager to get after my own project before the weather turns it into a swimming pool instead of a basement. I guess somebody should tell me to fix that burnt out high beam headlight, before the DOT does.
Just thought I should put in a bit of an update.

A Scenic Drive