Homestead Project: Rain Barrel Catchment System

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Future project: water catchment in rain barrels

One of the future projects that I am looking forward to is building a water catching system using my 55 gallon drums. I have twelve at the new homestead after donating ten back in Flagstaff. I simply didn't have the space on the moving trucks to bring all of them with me to Idaho. I donated them to a family that allowed us to stay in their home on the last day of moving since we got snowed in AFTER all of our stuff was packed up and locked onto a trailer.

I bought most of my barrels off of CraigsList and have been trying to garner as many as possible, much like my little 20lb propane tanks (of which I have about eight).

The plan is to create a system much like LDSPrepper demonstrating in his YouTube video here. He incorporated a runoff tube that not only collects a majority of the sediment and debris but it can also be quickly drained via a threaded cap at the end.

I will probably use this system to water the garden but it certainly has more possibilities.  I'm thinking about a configuration that consists of two columns, one on each side of the window. This will also be a good location to keep it hidden from view.

~OJD

Parts That Make a DIY Rain Barrel Catchment System Work Better

A system like this comes together a lot more cleanly with the right parts on hand. A downspout diverter kit routes water straight from the gutter into your barrels without cutting and fitting everything from scratch, a screen filter keeps leaves and sediment out before it ever reaches the barrel, and a simple spigot and overflow kit makes drawing water back out for the garden much easier than tipping a 55 gallon drum. Little upgrades like these are what turn a stack of drums into an actual working system.

Homestead Income Idea: Shipping Container Storage

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Sign says "$1 Move-in Special"

We were driving around our new town and Wifey noticed some storage cans on one side of the road. I call them sea cans (they travel across sea on large boats) but some folks call them shipping containers. We have seen folks use them to make homesteads, bunkers and underground storage places.

The way she mentioned it as we were driving, I thought she found someone selling them so I turned around to go check the prices.

Turns out it is a homestead on a few acres and someone has bought a dozen or so of these containers and has the property set up like a commercial storage facility. I thought this was a terrific idea. It utilizes the property to produce income and the homesteader can run it right from his house. This location has a container made into an office too. So either way, he has a place to go to get out of the house when necessary...says the guy with six daughters...

I thought I would share it with ya'll in case you were looking for a way to make income from your homestead. I know I will file this idea away in my mental rolodex for future reference. Last time I checked, these containers were selling anywhere from $2,000 - $4,000 each. I think they are a great investment for the long term AND they can be used for so many different things.

Then again, I'm a Home Depot bucket hoarder too...

~OJD

Turning a Shipping Container Into Usable Storage

Shipping containers are a great cheap-storage option, but a few upgrades make them far more functional. A heavy-duty container lock box and puck lock protects your gear far better than a standard padlock since there is no shackle to cut, an insulation kit keeps temperature swings from ruining anything sensitive stored inside, and a set of sturdy heavy-duty shelving turns wasted floor space into organized storage. Small investments like these are what separate a container that just sits there from one that actually earns its keep.

Homestead Reboot 2.0 : Dryer Fail

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If you are lucky enough to find a homestead that you want to move to, take an extra minute to look at the dryer and stove outlets on the wall if you are bringing your own appliance (or buying one upon arrival).

Then take a picture of it.

Because without fail, every time we move somewhere, the outlets don't match the plugs. In flagstaff, the dryer outlet was natural gas...we had electric. Bought a new dryer for $500 and lost it five weeks later in the fire. Home Depot didn't care, I still had to pay it off.

Then our rental house had a different wall outlet than our plug so I had to buy a new set of wires and change it out with the old ones so that I could plug our stove into the wall.

Here we are again in our new homestead in Idaho with:

Exhibit A: our wall outlet

and

Exhibit B: the dryer plug

Insanity: doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome.

 Shouldn't the government be mandating some kind of universal plug initiative or something?!

~OJD

Simple Maintenance That Helps Avoid a Repeat Dryer Failure

Dryer failures like this are often preventable with a little regular upkeep. A dryer vent cleaning kit clears out the lint buildup deep in the ductwork that a lot of house fires and overheating issues trace back to, a simple lint trap brush keeps the trap itself from clogging between loads, and keeping a spare heating element on hand for your model can save you a repair visit if it fails again. A homestead runs on appliances working, so a few dollars in maintenance now is cheaper than another breakdown later.

Hazy Crazy January Fog

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Fog sit over the pasture next to us.

The locals are telling me this isn't normal but it's been here for three days now. This low lying fog is certainly interesting although making driving a little more dangerous. Yesterday morning I slid through a local stop sign because the roads were iced over and I didn't see the stop sign until I was right up on it.

Since we are completely new to the area, we have to pay special attention to this stuff. I don't have all the roads and signs memorized yet. It was interesting that Wifey and I both slid through that same stop sign on the same morning.

Good horror movie fog

I kind of like it because it makes me feel like our homestead is even more isolated than it really is. The bales of hay seen in the bottom picture (off on the right) are about halfway down our three acres. So we can only see about half of our property.

Looks like I'm going to have to get used to living with lots of mud too...and leaving boots at the door.


~OJD

Everyday Essentials

Posts like this always remind me to keep the essentials on hand. A few things worth having around: a set of storage bins, a daily planner, and a durable tote bag.

Getting Idaho License Plates

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Three two-year plates (3 cars) for only $271. Nice!

Moving to a new state often requires several things such as new driver's license, license plates and automobile registration. Here's what I found out moving to Idaho:

1. You don't need automobile inspections like we did in Arizona. In Arizona, I would have had to drive my vehicle to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) and pay someone to check my car for functional blinker lights, tail lights, brake lights, hazards, mirrors, windshield and bumpers.

In Idaho, don't need that. All they want to do is verify that the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) on the paper title matches the VIN on the actual vehicle you are going to register. Now, you can drive each vehicle to the local DMV and they can do it for $14 each or...

You can call your local non-emergency police number and a police officer (in my case, Sheriff) will come to you house and check them all at the same time for free. In turn, you get a pink slip of verification for each vehicle signed by the officer.

Take that pink slip to the local DMV and simply ask for your new plates. Side note: I was happily surprised that I was able to get new two-year plates for three vehicles for $271. That's less than $100 per vehicle for two years worth of tags. I'm digging Idaho!

Oh, and Idaho requires front and back license plates on each vehicle.

2. You will have to take a written test (and pass) to get your Idaho driver's license. You only have 30 days from the day you move to your new homestead to get this done or you could get a ticket if you get pulled over. Same 30 grace period for your license plates.


3. Registration, which is to be kept in the vehicle at all times, will be given to you with your new license plates. The generic plates are available immediately but you can go online and order custom plates if you desire.  There are lots to choose from but I went with incognito generics.

~OJD

Preparedness Gear Worth Having

Posts like this always remind me to keep the essentials on hand. A few things worth having around: a hand-crank emergency radio, a battery jump starter pack, and an emergency food supply bucket.

Boo in the Urgent Care, Flower Tossing Cookies

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Boo in the Urgent Care, Flower Tossing Cookies

Point of injury below pinky toe, red streak flowing medially

I warned the girls about jumping up and down on our mattresses...although I didn't expect this outcome. I try to teach them, year after year, that furniture isn't for walking on yet they insist on bouncing on my bed, walking on the couches and so on.

Well, a few days ago, Boo was jumping on the bare mattresses we had laying on the living room floor and a piece of metal poked through and stuck her in the foot. Wifey slapped a bandaid on it and off she went, back to playing. She went to school fine the next day as well although she did mention that her foot hurt a little.

Now, day three, Wifey summons me to look at Boo's swollen sole of her foot. There it was...the telltale "red streak" of tetanus reaching across her foot. Of course, this HAD to happen during the tiny little 30-day window that our family doesn't have medical insurance (since I've started a new job.)

I called the local Urgent Care clinic, which is called Active Care here in Idaho apparently, and made some inquiries. If I got her there right away, they would squeeze us in before they closed for the day. Zippidy Doo Da and we were in the lobby. An hour later she got her tetanus shot in the thigh and a prescription for antibiotics.

There is no 24-hour pharmacy in our neck of the woods, which I filed away in my mental Rolodex, and we hurried to the nearby Costco to utilize their cheap meds.

Like she didn't have enough misery with her appendectomy in 2014. She is recovering fine and to prove misery loves company...Flower started throwing up that night around 1am.

Ah, the parenting life...

~OJD

Moving to Your Homestead: Moving Companies and Packing

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U-Pack trailer not NEAR big enough for a family of nine.

First week and already having issues. Well, routine move-to-a-new-state issues I suppose. We are still waiting for one of our two moving trailers to arrive. We've been in our house ten days and luckily packed suitcases as if we were going on vacation. Thanks to that forethought, we have had clothes to wear and minimum daily living supplies.

Preparing For The Move (Tips)

Tip #1 Pack as if you are going on a vacation. If you aren't driving your things up in a uHaul yourself, plan on the moving company taking at least a week to get your things to your new house. Be mindful of work clothes, church clothes, play clothes and lay-around-the-house clothes. Pack your toiletries and enough snacks to tide you over for a few days at least (until you can get to a grocery store.)

We also towed my 8x10 enclosed trailer up behind one of our vehicles. Even though 60% of it is consumed with my portable workshop, the rest of it was used to haul four mattresses with us. Thanks to this, we don't have to sleep directly on the floor (but the kids are rotating.) We packed a modest supply of cooking supplies like pots, pans, and plastic forks/knives/spoons/cups. We also brought paper plates and bowls with paper towels and toilet paper.

I also packed one of our WonderWash machines for laundry and have already put it to use. The house we bought has no washer and after a week, our dirty laundry was piling up. After a few spins in the WonderWash, we opted for a quick run to the laundry mat.  Utilize any left over space for packing more supplies. We hauled a car on a tow dolly and packed that car to the hilt with boxes.

Tip #2 Research your moving companies. Atlas was a company that would do EVERYTHING for us: box it all up, load it on a truck, drive it to our destination and unload the boxes into the house.

Cost $12,000

U-Pack is a company that estimates the size of trailer you will need based on the number of people in your family and the size of your home (that you are leaving) by number of bedrooms and bathrooms. They drop the empty trailer off at your house and give you three days to pack it. Then they pick it up, deliver it to your new home and you have three days to unload it.

Cost $4500

Uhaul is a company everyone knows. You rent the truck, fill it up and drive it yourself. I did not investigate this option but hindsight has taught me that this might have been a better option. It would have been much cheaper and I could have driven the stuff straight to my house in one day...instead of it taking ten.

Cost: not sure but cheaper than U-Pack

My opinion: Although we chose U-Pack, we are very disappointed for several reasons. Two big reasons are that they have been horrible on staying on time and they grossly underestimated the size of trailer we needed. They were supposed to drop the trailer off between 8am and noon on a Wednesday. Instead they dropped it off at about 830pm on Wednesday costing us an entire day of loading.  You may thing one day isn't much but if you factor in all the stress that goes with moving your entire family, this is one more stress factor that you don't need. Then they were several days late picking it up, causing the delay in delivering it to our new home. To add insult to injury, their driver (Old Dominion) called me on a Saturday (yesterday) and said that if I would pay their driver an extra $50, he would deliver my stuff the same day. Otherwise it would have to wait until Monday. A formal complaint has been lodged regarding extortion. We ended up needing TWO trailers instead of one so I'm sure our cost will double although I have not received a response back yet as to if there will be any compensation for our troubles.

 The saga continues...

~OJD

Packing Supplies That Make a Homestead Move Easier

Moving an entire household onto a homestead brings its own packing challenges compared to a normal move. Heavy duty moving boxes in a range of sizes hold up much better than free boxes scavenged from a store, a roll of furniture stretch wrap protects furniture and appliances from scratches during loading, and a good set of moving straps saves your back when it comes to the heavy stuff like appliances and livestock equipment. A little preparation on packing day goes a long way toward a smoother move.