Taking Stock

Every once in awhile, I try to take a look at what I'm doing to see if it is working. Since we do not have to go to work, we have more flexibility than most people at what we can spend our time. It's a luxury, believe me, and we love it. Still, time used foolishly will catch up to you, sometimes with a vengence.

Left on my own, I tend to get lost in what I'm doing. I focus on one thing to the exclusion of all others. This is a huge strength and my Achilles heal. It allows me to get a lot done in the area I'm focused. Things can and do get way out of balance and a few times a year, I try to consciously look at where this is leading us and redirect our efforts to the weakest areas to avoid big problems.

Most threatening problems are going to be at least partially financial. So we have tried to reduce our spending to reflect our reduced income. We have made good progress. Here are a few high points (I like to look at these first to make myself feel good):

We have invested in a small Solar Electric System and it is working well for us. We live very simply and it powers a couple of light bulbs, the laptop, and small kitchen appliances. It has cut way back on the amount of time we used to have to run the generator. This summer, I believe we will be able to use it to pump at least some of our water. It has improved things around here greatly. Less noise and gas consumption from the generator and much more convenience. It cost around 3000. It has worked better than we have expected. It is winter, days are short, we get extended periods of cloudy weather and it continues to put out sufficient power. It is working well for us. To power a conventional house you would need to spend at least 20,000 and still you would need to be tied to the grid. A solar electric system takes maintenance and you have to keep checking on it to make sure it is functioning properly. So to sum up my thoughts on the solar system: it has worked good for us, unless something changes, it is not economically viable for most people.

We have invested in a pioneer wood cook stove made by the Amish. This is a huge success. It heats our living area, the upstairs utility area which contains our water barrels, the batteries and solar control panels, and our food storage.
The stove has been a wild success and makes alot of things possible. The hot water storage on the back provides hot water for the household and the horses drinking water. With the metalbestos chimney needed for installation, it cost around 3300 and anybody with a wood supply would be wise to own one. It has a firebox as large as most stoves designed just for heat and this makes it a lot easier to cook with since the fire takes less tending. We count this as one of our best decisions.

We invested in a submersible, deep well, soft start pump. We had a shallow well pump and we used it for two years. It worked but it required a heated building in the winter. When we decided to move to the barn from the well house, it made heating the well house an unnecessary expense but we had to put in a submersible pump.
This worked better than we had hoped. The new pump puts out enough water in 5 miutes to run the homestead for three days. We were pumping for 15 minutes everyday with the old shallow well pump. This is a huge savings in gas and wear and tear on the generator. As an additional bonus, it appears if we run some large wire to the well house from our solar panels, we are going to be able to pump at least some of our water with solar power. So, the pump has worked much better than we would have guessed.

We invested in an a very old excavator. This was and is a large gamble. If it quits working, it can easily be too expensive to fix. It has turned out so far to be a great investment. We have saved a huge amount of money and effort as a result.
It made it possible to have a bit of pasture and a large garden. It allowed us to set the barn poles on big rocks buried 4 feet below the ground and as a result, the pole barn so far has been very stable. It has buried water lines, removed stumps and boulders, and built our fire circle which we consider to be our outdoor living room and the heart of Missed Skeet Farm.
This spring we hope to use it to create a larger pasture further from the barn.

The garden has been a big success. For its small size it has been very productive and has provided most of the food we eat. What we do is really a form us subsistance farming. Producing what we need to eat and nothing else. It is very time consuming from early spring until November. Farming at any level is a gamble. It is only going to be productive if you work hard, spend the time and have weather good enough to produce a crop. Lots can and does go wrong. We have cleared an area that will double the size of the garden. It will cost more in time and money to work it. It is an insurance policy. Our needs will be satisfied at a lower productivity level. A poor yeild may still be enough. During good years we will try to market some of the excess. We spend a lot more time in the garden than we do anything else. It has to provide food, the alternative is not having food.

Canning, freezing and drying-- preserving food is where another large portion of our time is now used. Kris does most of this and I help some. It requires discipline to garden and can your food supply. You may be dog tired but since you are dealing with perishable products, you have to make yourself do things when they need to be done-- not at your convenience. This is probably the hardest and at the same time most rewarding activity on the farm. We have over 500 jars of food stored. We are still canning. We are just now starting on squash. We could end up with a hundred jars of squash.

Maintenance is an area that could use some help, mostly because I do it and I am not as disciplined as Kris. I tend to prioritize my efforts and this makes maintenance a problem. It is one of the most important things you can do, yet it is rarely urgent, so it keeps getting shuffled down the list. Changing oil, greasing, cleaning airfilters etc. are always behind schedule. We have a lot of equipment. All of it needs regular maintenance and not getting it done will eventually be expensive--maybe catastrophically expensive. I really need to get better at this.

Cleaning. Well if I'm bad at keeping up with maintenance, I am horrendous at keeping up with cleaning. I can only juggle it to the top of the list by letting it get so bad that I can barely walk through an area. Then I will stop and do enough to get by and then return to my poor work habits and lack of discipline that created the mess. I am trying to get better, but I am not sure there has been any real progress.

The last three days I have put a few hours into cleaning upstairs and straightening up the storage areas. This will give me room to make the pantry cabinet for our canned food storage. This will clean up the heated storage room. I am hoping for the dominoe effect.*

* I wrote this blog a while back and never posted it. I have the canning cupboard done and unfortunately there has been no dominoe effect to date.