3.11.2009

In a hurry as always. I’ll have time to set up this blog tomorrow. I went long at lunch because I was up at the meat place getting our pig-in-boxes for the freezer, which I realized during the drive would not carry us through till next year because it’ll take our pigs longer than that to mature. Now I have to leave in 13.5 minutes to get home and clean the chimney while there’s still daylight, because we woke up this morning to a cold house full of smoke. Hey, that’s life in the woods.

I have five guidelines for this blog.
1- Be completely honest. This does not include being a lout, which is most people’s excuse.
2- Don’t hide my religion, which is as much a part of my daily life as my hands.
3- Write every day for 15 minutes or less, for four months before deciding whether it’s worth the effort.
4- No locally-identifiable proper nouns except my name.
5- Open until I have more experience blogging and know what #5 should be.

Its purpose is to detail our lives in the woods, and to share our experience as we go along. We are not survivalists; we live on the grid, and I go to a 9-to-5 job in town every day. But we’re out of debt and living toward a dream I’ve had since I was a boy. The only remaining parts are to work from home and to pay off the house. Maybe this is a good time to launch this blog since a lot of people are trying to live more frugally, and it’s already a way of life for me and Beautiful (wife. See rule 4 above). If we can do it, so can anybody who’s willling to pay the price.

Well, that has to be enough for today. Not quite fifteen minutes, but my employment calls.

3.12.09

Wow, did that ever make a difference! Turned out all I needed to do was clean the chimney, which I haven’t done since we installed it 17 months ago. Also I’ve had to burn my firewood reserves this season (coming up this summer: a bigger woodshed) and much of that was wet or green.

Cleaning the chimney was no big deal. I checked out a 6″ wire brush and 20′ worth of threaded fiberglass rods from the local fire department (free), climbed up into the valley of the roof where the snow has accumulated (for better footing), unscrewed the chimney cap, and cleaned thoroughly clear down to the stove. Then I went into the house and vacuumed up all the gunk using a shop vac.

We heat our house entirely with that wood stove. 2100 square feet, two stories, five bedrooms, three baths (yeah, I know. It’s compact), etc etc, and it’s usually so toasty Beautiful doesn’t even wear socks. But the fire was burning feebly of late and the house was cold. The stove just needed air, and cleaning the chimney did the trick. We placed the stove according to instructions I found at woodheat.org –a great site for information on the subject. Annual cost of heating our home: about $50. That’s for chain saw gas and maintenance.

I told you in the beginning I’d be honest. I don’t intend to brag about these things; I’m just telling you what we’ve done. We’re just folks. If we can do it, anybody can who really wants to. But we did plan our home and land this way, and we’re working hard to bring it about. There are no sweeter fruits than of one’s own labors.

I’m Doug, married about 14 years to Beautiful, with seven children (all ours). About three years ago we found property on a forested mountainside, and have started from scratch to establish our own homestead. We designed our home and built as much of it as two novices can (from septic tank through wood trim, but that’s another entry). We’re coming up on our first anniversary in our home and have established a yard, garden, wood shed, and duck flock. This blog will track our progress as we move into spring in the mountains, with our children, dogs, cats, ducks, garden, and carpenter ants.