The Tiny Voice of Reason

RV Homesteading: Landscaping Gone Wild

   After the well was put in all that was left was this barren wasteland around our well.  Every day I walked past I would cringe and try not to look in that direction.  "Eventually the grass will grow back", I said to myself.  Then that know it all voice just had to pipe in and say, "Yeah, sure, it took you two years to get the grass back the last time the land got scalped."  Ouch, the truth really does hurt.  

I went out and got some landscaping cloth, then some blocks, then some mulch and I really don't know what happened after the mulch.  I think one of the garden gnomes hit me over the head and ran off with my debit card.  Either way, I regained control, banished said gnome to the back 2 acres for mutiny and our front is looking very nice.  

Well, I'm off to mow what is left of the "lawn".

RV Homesteading: Well Water, Finally!

     It has been two years since we have turned on an indoor tap and saw water running out.  It will probably still be a few months before that is a reality.  Today was a good day.  We woke up at 6 am and tottered around our RV like any ancient being in their mid-thirties and late forties would, according to our six year old, then called the well drilling company to see how close they were.  Ten minutes was
the reply.  Our digital camera batteries were fully charged and raring to go and after bundling up in our layers of winter clothes for the brisk ten degree windchill, out we went to greet them.  It took midday for our camera to catch on that today was the ninth of February 2012 and not the 8th, poor thing.

We were not expecting to see such massive trucks.  The space I had cleared in what will eventually be our front garden looked miniscule.  The well drillers greeted us with enthusiasm, popped out with shovels and quickly moved our three blueberry bushes and one lone rhododendron out of
the way.  I briefly wondered if they might perchance do a bit of gardening.  I laboured over moving just one of those plants with it's frozen soil.

The drill was up and running by nine, with it's drill tower reaching further up than our utility pole.  I tried not to look up at it with all those clouds moving about as the illusion of it swaying in the breeze made me quite queasy.  Vertigo really does suck.  The noise was also very loud, not deafening, just loud and you could feel the ground vibrating through your feet.  We received an estimate for an eighty foot well, water was struck at sixty feet then another twenty feet were drilled to ensure it was perfect.  

We don't retain oil or mineral rights in this state so even though we pretended we struck oil, we were
perfectly happy they did not as we really do not wish to move or whatever happens when you do not own oil rights. There was one barrier that was put up around the drill site and we soon found out just how messy it is drilling for water.  The barrier, which was already filled with excavated dirt from the hole was now flooding with water and turing into mud.  A second barrier quickly went up utilising my garden edging stones as temporary weights.  Those edgers sure are versatile, aren't they?

The casings were prepared soon after with some welding to do what naught.  I have no idea what the naught was, then installed in the well and sealed with casing seal.  I initially thought the bags were cement until I read the sides.  They added a contraption at the top of the well which reminded me of There Will Be Blood since it had that wheel like thing on top.  There was a piece of casing which was welded off and leveled in a way so the water began to pour out of it.  Can you believe I ran out of batteries on our digital camera right when it was gushing like a broken water main?  I had to run inside for my spare duracell and charge the lithium ones.  I did not succeed in getting the "gusher" shot as I think of it, though I did get a "steady flow" shot.

After that, the well was capped and out the drill truck went before the casing truck backed up, turned around and followed.  Until tomorrow when a trench will be made, pipes will be laid, a water tank installed, perchance a water pump if it's not in there already and eventually a standpipe.  Our job is to build a room around the water tank and provide a heater to keep it well insulated, or so I have heard.  
Either way, we will keep you posted with blog posts and pictures.  There are so many of them I'll just have to pick the most relevant ones.

RV Homesteading: Going Back Home

I have had quite a few people wonder out loud why I am not "totally freaking out" about homesteading in a travel trailer.  The only answer I have to that observation is, I have done this before.  I grew up in the West Indies in what many would consider a three room shack with my maternal grandmother, my mother and about five older cousins my gran took care of for my aunts and uncles.

We had no indoor plumbing, no electricity, an outhouse, outdoor shower, gas tank stove, two beds and a huge garden.  The one difference I have had to deal with while RV homesteading is the frigid temperatures.  The temperature rarely drops below sixty in the West Indies.  That might be the reason for my obvious obsession with being warm.

Before my uncle installed the outdoor plumbing, we would walk to the local standpipe with various buckets, empty jugs and canisters to fill with water we hauled back to the storage containers we kept in the kitchen.  There would be a line and occasionally someone at the standpipe would be taking a bath with an improvised shower curtain.

I consider how I am living now to be luxurious compared to my upbringing.  I have electricity, a refrigerator, television, a computer, telephone and other amenities we would walk over to a more well off neighbour to obtain the use of.  I never heard of insulation growing up.  Our house was simply unpainted, uninsulated and untreated lumber.  If a board or two rotted my uncle or cousins would simply rip it out and replace it with a new one.

Everyone had chores as far as my grandmother was concerned.  I cleaned the glass chimneys of the kerosene lamps, trimmed the wicks, washed any of my clothes that did not need bleach and took out the portable toilets (aka chamber pots, potty) all by the age of five.  By age six I knew how to light the gas stove with it's portable gas tank, handle basic knife skills, garden and cook the basics.  

These skills are essential to most of the worlds population who do not live in developed nations or live in the poor areas of developed nations.  I never thought of these as extraordinary skills or that not everyone knew how to live a simple life.  Normal is whatever you make it.  What I am doing today, homesteading, is like getting back on a bicycle.

RV Homesteading: 46 mph Winds, No Electricity for 2 hours and Still Warm

  Wow, what a night we had.  There was a severe thunderstorm warning, snow and a high wind advisory last night.  Our travel trailer is located from east to west so it barely vibrated with the high west winds.  The temperature went down to 18 degrees, though I have no idea what the wind chill was.  The power went out around 11 pm.  I would say about 10:45 pm.  We notified the utility company of the outage then waited for the power to be restored.

The weather reports had forecasted 65 mph winds and the maximum gusts only got up to 46 mph from the actual weather reports I read.  The inside of our travel trailer was still toasty warm even with the high winds, low outdoor temperature and no heaters running.  It stayed warm for the entire two hours we waited for the power to be restored.  I do believe I did a good job on the insulation and windbreaks if I say so myself.  Nature does like to give pop quizzes it seems.

There are no tall trees immediately next to our travel trailer so there was no danger of falling debris. We also have a back up gas powered generator, yet it was so warm inside there was no need to rush out to plug the trailer into that alternative power source.

RV Homesteading: Down to -6 Degrees F and still warm

It is a warm 9 degrees F outside and about 70 degrees inside.  Our front door lock was frozen, so we heated some water and poured it on to get it open.  I've got to get started on a mud room so that stops.  The temperature dropped to a chilly -6 degrees F last night and we were all wrapped cozy under our microfiber plush blankets dressed in our thermals, hats and wool socks.  Though that might sound cold, okay it was cold outside, it was not as cold as January 2011 when the temperature reached a sub-arctic -27 F.  We piled everyone into one room with two of the electric heaters running and our two dogs piled on blankets on the floor.  

I believe that our having placed the travel trailer with the bedrooms, and all the windows, facing south helps with passive solar heating.  We open the shades to let the sun warm up the travel trailer and close them in the evening when the sun sets to keep the heat in.  

The sky is nice and clear right now and the temperature is rising.  I actually started to feel overheated after being outside for ten minutes or so.   I like to stand at the top of the driveway and survey.  I look for improvements I could make and I have been thinking about adding an attached greenhouse to the south wall.  Set up some 55 gallon barrels, that have been painted black for maximum heat absorption, of water to create bio-mass.  The absorbed heat will then be released at night.  Well, that is a project for another day.  I can't wait to see how it works.  I should also be able to put some winter greens in the attached greenhouse.  Why not make use of the space?

RV Homesteading: Living Without Running Water

We have no well on our property yet and have spent two years living on our homestead, in our travel trailer full time, without running water.  I never thought I would ever say this, yet, I tend to forget that we have no running water here.  Actually, everyone who visits us or passes by our place is shocked to learn that we have no running water.  They always turn and stare at my "garden" in wonder then ask "If you don't have water, how do you have so many plants?"  I have no idea why everyone thinks I planted all that greenery as most of it is nature.  Inevitably they all want to know how we bathe.  

The answer is simple, there are several places you can actually go to get a bath, not free of course, yet they exist.  The first place we were directed to by a cashier at the gas station was a trailer park.  They have public showers that you can pay for $5 a person.  The owner was nice enough to let our kids bathe for free.  While talking to another person at the local supermarket we were told about the Y.M.C.A and yes the song did automatically roll through our heads and stayed for the rest of the day to our dismay.  

We drove a few towns over and found the Y, went in and filled out some paperwork.  If you are suffering financial hardship they offer financial aid.  I think you have to volunteer when you do that though.  We have a family rate that covers all of us for the entire facility.  From showers, to the pool, to the exercise equipment and even the little day care center.  

When we first parked our travel trailer on our new acreage, we thought to buy a portable RV fresh water tank and fill the water storage tank.  We took the heavy duty vinyl water tank to the gas station, filled it with about 50 gallons of water, I'd have to check the capacity to see if that's correct, and started to fill the tank.  That is when we noticed the pipes in the bathroom were leaking onto the floor.  We started looking for alternatives right away.

For home water use, we bought a 5 gallon potable water container from the hunting section of Wal-mart.  We used that for one year and then switched to bottled water.  There are not many gas stations with outdoor water faucets in the winter and there's only so much water begging you can do before they cut you off.  We save all the water bottles and take them back to the supermarket for the $0.05 deposit.  That adds up.  We have been able to pay for our groceries on occasion using just the deposit money.  

Our laundry is done at the laundromat a few towns over.  I'm looking into an old fashioned hand crank washing machine and clothes line for next year.  The well drillers were here  a couple weeks ago and we got a few estimates mailed to us.  It will cost us almost $6,000 to drill the well, put in the electric pump and storage tank.  We will have to hire a plumber to hook the water up to our travel trailer.  Just having running water, even if only a stand pipe, on the property will be a relief.  The savings from not driving to take a bath and buy bottled water will be tremendous.  

RV Homesteading: Staying Warm In A Travel Trailer In Winter

I spent a year searching the internet for anything I could find to make our park model travel trailer warmer during the winter for full time living.  It was like pulling teeth to find anyone who was not taking a winter camping trip.  Very frustrating.  The RV winterizing I was searching for did not include shutting off water valves and putting on a camper cover before parking our RV in a non-existent garage.    

I wanted to know how to insulate, what to insulate and how to keep our travel trailer warm at -15 degrees Fahrenheit.  The first bit of insulation we bought were vent cushions from an online RV store.

Through lots of trials and errors we are finally comfortable at 9 degrees and below.  Our first year our neighbours who are a few miles away suggested hay bales for skirting.  That was okay until the mice moved in.  Not to mention that hay is also a fire hazard and can spontaneously combust.  Hay is also heavy once spring hits and all that ice starts to melt.  We used it to mulch our lawn since we couldn't haul it very far without a wheelbarrow.  We had no plants around our travel trailer, just high grass, brush and the gravel plot the seller for our land made for us.  Nothing at all to slow the wind down.  When it blew the entire travel trailer shook, swayed and shuddered.  The floors, windows and doors were extremely cold.    

So what did I do to get us warm?  A variety of things.  The first bit of information I found when doing a search on homesteading was about permaculture of all things.  When spring of 2011 came around I drove straight to Home Depot and bought plants to create a windbreak to create a mircoclimate next to our travel trailer.  The wind is what sucks your heat away and out through the many crevices in the travel trailer that aren't sealed.  Slow down the wind and you slow down the heat loss.  

When creating a windbreak you shouldn't plant a straight hedgerow of plants.  You stagger different sizes of plants.  Evergreen trees, deciduous shrubs and fruiting bushes of varying heights with spaces in between for the wind to go.  A straight tight line of shrubs and trees creates a wall that the wind will only go up and over to blow only harder and colder on the other side sucking heat away faster. I also put in foundation plants.  I like to think of it all as outdoor travel trailer insulation.

We decided on a wood skirt for the travel trailer made from the same wood used to build sheds.  It's working brilliantly at the moment.  I wanted to put down some plastic sheeting in the crawl space under the travel trailer and add some foam board insulation yet that might be a project for another year.  We ran out of budgeted money and time.  

With the foundation plants, windbreak and skirting, now when the wind blows, it is slowed down by the windbreak, slowed down again by the foundation plants and warmed up by the heat of the travel trailer creating a micro-climate of warm air around our travel trailer.  On the inside I used a few tips I received from some folks in Canada.  It's colder there than here so I figured they have to know what they're talking about.

I went out and bought a few clear plastic shower curtain liners, folded them in half, cut to fit the windows with enough going beyond the window frame (and the patio door frame) then taped it to the surrounding wall with that outdoor weather tape you find at the hardware store, like Value Center.  I got the styrofoam insulation panels (12 pack for $8) from Home Depot and I put those inside the cabinets, closets, the storage space in the bedroom closet and under the sinks.  Under the tub, and that small space behind the toilet where the pipe sits in front, I stuffed fiberglass bats and made an inside cover with a square piece of styrofoam insulation.  

I bought a wool blanket from Wal-Mart for $10 and put that under the fitted sheet on our bed.  It's amazing how warm the bed feels after doing that.  The mattress was always cold under the fitted sheet and you'd huddle in one spot until it warmed up and dare not roll over.  Now the entire bed is toasty warm.  I also bought a few microfiber plush blankets from K-Mart that were on sale.  Instead of the flat sheet under the blanket you put it on top of the blanket.  It is like the mattress in the way that the flat sheet is always cold to your skin.  A hot water bottle is a great investment, or you could put hot water into one of those metal/plastic containers you see in the supermarket now to tote your tap water in instead of using bottled water and cover it with a sock so you don't burn yourself.  

I also got a few canisters of indoor/outdoor waterproof caulk.  Might have been overkill, yeah.  It works for me though.  I caulked around our main door, the windows, the seam where the closet meets the floor in the main bedroom and used expanding foam insulation to fill the floor seam of the travel trailer pop outs.  Around the pop out wall and ceiling spaces I put about six of those air conditioner foam strips.   Thermal curtains are on our windows and the main door and we do heat only the space we are in with electric space heaters along with passive solar heating.  We open the thermal curtains in the morning and close them as the sun goes down.  Another Canadian suggested painting a few 2 litre soda bottles black, filling them with water and allowing the sun to heat them during the day as they will emit that heat into the travel trailer at night when you close the curtains.

The forced air furnace broke a month after we got here, when we were still using the gas generator waiting for the local utility to install our utility pole.  We use two small room space heaters so our trailer isn't overloaded.  Actually, I got a heavy duty outdoor power cord that is plugged directly into the pole so that overload never happens.  

Our electric bill for december 2010 was $400.  Our bills in the summer of 2011 was around $58.  Our bill for December 2011 was $195, which is about half of last December's.  Learning to hibernate the desktop (better yet a laptop is cheaper on your electric bill), and put the microwave on a power strip to turn on when needed, along with all the insulation saved a bundle.  I believe about $20 a month from putting the microwave on a power strip alone.

I will be finishing filling out the windbreak next spring through fall 2012.  This time to put in deciduous trees and shrubs to help with the cooling part of our electric bill.  Oh shady tree, oh shady tree, you mean the whole wide world to me.   I'll let you know how our forest garden is coming along when I've got half the tree planting done.

Edit to add:  Today, Jan 3 2012, the temperature outside is 3 degrees F with a -7 windchill.  Our inside temperature is around 70 degrees.  I still have one sink to finish insulate yet I'm happy overall with the temperature.