Lovin the Country Life.

So far so good with the shack and everything. We've survived some pretty wicked weather up here. It kinda sounds like everyone everywhere is having a little of that off and on. Lots of snow in alot of the south too I hear. What a weird year for weather again. Personally I like it when it stays a little bit cold, just so things are'nt melting and making a big mess then freezing again. If it stay below freezing the snow wipes or sweeps off things pretty easy, but lately I'm finding alot of boards need a good ice scraping in order to build with it. That sucks.

I lost a few days when it was severe cold out, then when the weather warmed up a bit, just as I thought, they needed me at work, so that took another 3 days of my building time, but I guess I'm that much wealthier also so it just does'nt really matter. Today is the shortest day of the year and everyday is going to get a little longer from here till the shack is built. (Hopefully). So that is something to really look forward too. Especially when you're running solar energy. The solar thing is going good, but because of the extreme cold temperatures, I do find myself running the generator a little more than I would like to. More to keep the batteries at a warmer temp than anything. This is a minor little problem that will be rectified in the new cabin when it is done. As far as I know, I can have the batteries in the basement if things are all done right. This would solve alot of problems, but if for some reason I can't put them down there, then there are still other ways.

Well I have four walls up finally. When I look at this basement, it is going to be a pretty tall house for the size of it. It might even look kinda funny, but I don't care. I will enjoy the veiw. The walls that are going up next are a little more than 10 feet tall, then the trusses with a 1 to 1 slope(I guess that's what it is called). These basement walls are 8 feet tall.

I am really enjoying the building process lately, even though we have been getting alot of snow off and on, and the weather has been windy and chilly, but warm enough to build in anyway. I probably wont get much accomplished on the cabin tomorrow, besides getting some building supplies and a tiny little bit of Christmas shopping and other supplies etc.

Brutal Mother Nature Test

Me and my little shack are really being put to the test now. I did'nt do much building today. I'm pretty sure that if I tried to drive a nail in a board, it would have just split the board. Lumber even sounds different in weather like this. Right at this moment my thermometer is reading about -39C/about -38F. Thankfully there is not much of a wind. My propane is still flowing, but I have done a few little precautions in case. Propane quits vapourizing at -44C, I have read. Our local forcast for tonight is calling for lows of -43C. I dunno, thats a little close for comfort. Out here, hopefully it gets no colder than it is, but it also could get colder than the local forcast. I have seen alot of this -40 stuff over the years, but not since I moved out here in the shack. I can actually remember one day, quite a few years ago where it was in the -50 area, but that dos'nt happen very often. All I know is that the floor in this old shack is cold enough to freeze an egg on.

Today I bought a couple of 72 inch battery warmers for inside the deep freeze to keep my batteries warm when ever the generator is running. Right now they are at +4C, which is not bad concidering what the temperature is outside. When the power is taken away, it takes quite awhile for the batteries to get to the outside temperature. I'm guessing that if I shut it down right now, the batteries would be about -15 to -20c by morning, maybe even warmer than that. I used to just use a 100 watt light bulb for this same purpose, but it was pretty slow warming it up a few degrees, but it did work. I'm actually quite impressed with the battery warmer blankets. However, in my new cabin I will have it somehow, so I don't even have t0 worry about things like this. This is actually quite a good experience to live in this shack for a winter before the house is built, just so I can iron all these little issues out and kinda plan things in. This is all kinda new to me also. I have done alot of research on things, but nothing beats hands on experience to really get to know how things actually happen.

I also put a 250 watt heat lamp in under the propane tanks which are covered with a tarp. I don't have that plugged in at the moment, because I want to see if this propane is going to keep running on it's own or not. I really need to know, because if I were working, I would'nt be around here to keep a generator running and all that. The generator is running now, but I wonder if it will start in the morning if I shut it down. I really should invest in another generator for backup. I'm also thinking that I should have bought another one of those battery warmers to wrap around the propane bottle. I think that could pretty good maybe, and might even be a little bit safer. I think, anyway.

I did do a little work with my pay job, but I also managed to get a little more building done. It must be like watching paint dry, for anyone who reads this blog. lol. Trust me, by this time next winter, I will be sitting in front of a warm crackling fire inside my new cabin type house, and I won't even care if it is -50c outside. I hope. lol.

Well it is actually starting to look something. I don't know how much is going to get done in the next few days. I guess it is supposed to be pretty nippy until about Wednesday, but I might get a little done in the sunshine, we'll see what happens. I am pretty eager to get going on this thing.
Just thought I would put in a little bit of an update, it is my own little way of keeping track of my progress.

Good Weather Test, Building Again.

I woke up this morning to -28C/-19F. You would never know it was that cold outside until you look at the thermometer, the shack was cozy enough for a king and his dog. I'm not totally laughing yet though, there is much colder yet to come sometime soon. There was a bit of a draft coming from what I call my fridge under the bed, so I hung a blanket and closed the fridge off. The fridge is now a freezer in this weather. I have a thermometer under there and the last time I looked it read -2C/about 30F. My cold water bottle dos'nt need to be outside for awhile. I had to take my potatoes, oranges and onions out of there for obvious reasons. I can sure notice a difference in the shack with that all closed off. The shack is skirted. Nothing professional, just full size sheets of OSB leaning up around the shack with a tarp in front covering the propane bottles. I'm kinda hoping that will be enough to keep the propane flowing when the temps get down to
-40C/F area. They might get some of the shacks heat hopefully.

I was building pretty much all day. I needed the old backhoe, but she did'nt want to run without a little coaxing. I had to plug it in for a bit and charge the batteries. I hate starting it in that kind of weather, but it was either go now or wait a few days by the sounds of the forcast. It is this kind of weather that I would just love to be feeding a nice warm fire in my new cabin. When I first started this whole project, I kinda thought that I would have been living in my new house by now, maybe next winter. It was cold, but it was a nice day for building, the sun was shining and there was no wind or snow.

The top picture, one long side wall and one end wall framed. I have an idea, but I'm still wondering how many windows and exactly what size and where they will go. Hopefully I'll have it all figured out for tomorrow morning.
There's the floor, (picture taken on a previous date), still not nailed and insulated. I'm going to wait until I have it a little more closed in and out of the weather to do the finishing touches on the floor.

I finally got done with all the safety courses for work(I think). It's nice to get those out of the way. So far they have not called me for work this month. Good. It sounds like I should be slow until the new year. There's always a possiblilty they could be wrong, but I sure do hope not.

Well there's an update, I'm just loving the country life even if it is a wee bit chilly out. They are talking about some more snow soon. I sure hope they're wrong, yesterday I spent quite a bit of the day plowing a big dump of snow that we just had and I have it all cleaned up nicely. Well I don't know who I'm supposed to talk to about that, but if you happen to be reading this blog, no more snow please.

Living Without a Fridge-Life is Good

Well it has been a month since I moved out to my little shack. So far everything has been going great. We had snow and some cooler weather. The coldest night was about -17C or 0 Farenheit so far, but it has been hanging more in about the 0 to -10 celcius range mostly. That is nice. One of the things that I was kinda concerned about when I first started living out here was living without the fridge. So far, my life has'nt really changed much in that sense. Those two green boxes are my fridge. They seem to stay at about 10 C or 50 Farenheit sitting there on the floor under that bunk. I know a fridge is usually alot colder than that, but this is really working good for what I keep there. I leave a 2 liter pop bottle outside on the step that is usually about half full of water, that I can grab from inside the shack. When I mix some orange juice or powder milk(which I am pretty used to now, Yummy), it is nice and cold. If it happens to be frozen, I just add some water to it, and it is ice cold. The red cooler out in the shed is my deep freeze that I keep stocked with a few days worth of different meats. If I have some left over chile or something that I want to freeze, I just set it on top of the cooler over night, then put it inside in the morning, that way it dos'nt disturbe any of the other already frozen goodies inside. I have plastic bottles filled with water(ice) inside, so if the temperatures rise above freezing for a few days, things seem to keep frozen for quite awhile. There are some advantages to living in northern Alberta I guess. When I get into my new house, I do plan on having some kind of refridgerator, I just hav'nt quite decided yet if it will be on propane or 12 volt DC power. I am kinda leaning toward 12 volt though, I can always help it out in the winter with home grown outside ice. I have been kinda busy at work a little bit off and on this month. Although I hav'nt been there for a few days now. A couple days ago I got ambitious again and cleaned a bunch of snow out of the basement area again. The last time I did this I no sooner got it all cleaned up and ready for action then work phoned and I went to work for a few days, and by the time I got done the darned thing was full of fresh snow again. I hope that don't happen this time. So far so good, but I do have some courses pertaining to work that I have to attend all weekend long.
I finally worked on the floor some more. A wood basement floor seems to take a long time to build. If I poured a concrete one, my whole basement might have been built by now, but maybe not. I blame work. lol. I lost alot of good building weather while I was hauling the bales, and it seemed that once the bales were hauled it started to rain and never did quit. I knew that was going to happen, but I gotta make a living too I guess.

The sub floor is'nt permanantly nailed down yet, I still need to be able to get in there for awhile yet.

Just a bit of an update on things. Life is good, and the little old shack is still cozy. I hav'nt started beating my head against the walls yet, so thats gotta be a good thing. The days are getting shorter and I have been running the generator for about an hour in the evening, just to make sure the batteries don't run down too low. I probably don't need to, but it is good to keep them full. Never know what the temperature will be in the morning and weak batteries are more apt to freezing. If I did'nt have a generator, I could survive easily with the solar panels alone, if I were to conserve energy a little, but I have been a bit of an energy pig lately. My inverter charger is equipped with a battery temperature sensor and the solar charge controller is not yet, but one is in the mail. That will help out quite alot, I suspect. The solar panels do usually have my batteries charged right up at the end of the day, but the inverter seems to just dump a little extra voltage at it, because of the temperature correction.

Anyway, this is the life, and I'm lovin it. Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends. Canada's was in October. Catch ya later.

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.

Snow, Batteries, and Solar Panels.

This is the veiw from my door. (Front porch???) I don't know, sometimes I think maybe this is the spot where I should have built my house. To late for that now though.

The building spot is actually straight ahead and between the black trailer and the garage. It will do.
The battery bank. I know, the wiring is a mess, the cables are all different sizes and it is just plain messy. But it works. lol.

Today I was putting some solar panels on the shack. I did'nt get them all up there yet. For a change it did'nt snow all day long and it was pretty warm, but I did have to shovel the roof off this morning so I could do my thing up there. Alot of the snow that used to be up in the trees melted or fell off. Actually today I could hear all kinds of crashing sounds around me with clumps of snow falling from trees and sliding off the garage roof etc. I hope my frozen meat stays that way.

P.S. Still lovin it.

Life is way different now.

I'm just sitting here in my cozy little shack. All 192 square feet of it. And I am loving every minute of it so far. This is where I live, there's no turning back now. Today I just bought 6 new 12 volt deep cycle batteries for the power system. That will be much better than the two smaller ones I was using from the RV. If I want to nuke a cup of coffee with the microwave or make toast with the electric toaster, I just do it. No need to start the gen set right away. I don't have any solar panels up yet, but they would'nt have done much good the last couple of days anyway, with all the snow and cloudy weather. It snowed a bunch yesterday and today here. The snow has alot of disadvantages, but it also has some advantages. Since fall came and the leaves blew off the trees, I sorta lost some of my privacy. But with the new snow, I am totally secluded again, just the way I like it. The snow is making a bit of a mess around my house construction that I want to get moving on again soon. I hate to even uncover anything and start. This whole month was off and on wet and muddy and snowy, so if I were not in the process of moving out, I don't think I would have got much building done anyway. I can't even remember where I left off, but I am sure that it will come back to me soon. I also have a real strong feeling that work is going to phone me right at the beginning of November. I'm pretty sure that I am getting due for all our safety courses (first aid, h2s, whimis, and all that stuff). I am really not looking forward to all that. Who knows, maybe they don't want me there anymore (yaaaahhhh). lol.
I just tried downloading a picture again, and it just dos'nt seem to want to work for me. I even edited the photo first and brought it down to size. I don't know what's going on. My new internet service seems to run not to badly other than that. I'll get it all figured out eventually I hope. I love this lifestyle that I am living right now, even though I find myself really keeping an eye on things like propane, water, power and internet usage. Everything is more work. I now have to wash my dishes by hand, fire up the generator periodically and whatever else.
I can see by using the computer and monitoring my inverter display, that my new batteries are going to make life a whole lot simpler for me. Anyway, thats all for now.