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Must have fire

Here is another Bobbage project, we have a semi-enclosed deck space between the bedroom and the laundry room or whatever that room is this week :)

We are able to use that space for much of the year, it’s cool in the summer because of the tall roof and mostly open ends that allow cool breezes to blow through. In the winter, it’s protected enough to keep us cozy, last winter PB put a small wood burning stove in there, it worked well enough, but we wanted more.

So late this summer, PB began to design a large, more open fireplace fit for a castle. I didn’t know how serious he might be, he has many plans for this and that, but having plans is no guarantee that it will be done. As per usual around here, this project is being put together using scrap material laying around the SkyCastle, stainless steel we brought from Dallas (leftover material from the work PB used to do), an old rusty mortar tub we got from a friend out here, a fireplace grate that was picked up from an abandoned property PB helped clean up, several large slabs of slate scavenged from a home PB helped clear out when the owner passed away…

Of course there are more parts than that, but you get the idea. PB knows each and every piece of material and where it came from, he loves to recite the backstory behind each part.

The biggest plus to this particular fireplace is we will be able to burn pine and other normally undesirable wood, wood that normally burns too hot or causes creosote buildup in normal chimneys. I’ll explain this more in future posts.

Meanwhile, please enjoy the pictures and videos of the SkyCastle fireplace.

https://youtu.be/WkzUKHOdq4g

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September 27, 2015 No Comments

Tiny home on wheels in Chattanooga

More and more commercial businesses are getting into the small home or tiny home business, this company based out of Chattanooga, has gone above and beyond to show these mobile tiny homes.

I love their use of space, especially how they incorporate drawers at cubbies into the spaces like stairs, I like how they’ve done the shower, the Japanese soaking tub made out of stainless steel looks great, I bet it works even better. Personally I think I’d like more of a walk-in shower, a bathroom that incorporates shower/toilet everything all in one space, but that’s just me.

Enjoy this short but informative video about their latest tiny home on wheels.

https://youtu.be/oPQ0B0Oukn8

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September 20, 2015 2 Comments

How the Do It Yourself World came to be

Several years back, I found a YouTube channel featuring Troy and his Do It Yourself World, he posted videos about going off-grid on the smallest of budgets, I suspect his budget was even smaller than ours was, and that was pretty small.

Troy seemed to struggle quite a bit, he lived in a small, run down camper, things went wrong more often than they went right, winter was particularly hard on him. But he persevered, he kept trying, he didn’t give up, I think perhaps he didn’t really have anywhere else to go so he had to make it work, it’s amazing how motivating that situation can be.

He has come a long way since that time, he recently created a video explaining his history and how he got where he is now, it’s quite the interesting tale, I’m not sure most folk would have lasted as well as he has. One thing I do know for sure, he is extremely thankful and grateful for his followers on YouTube and on his website.

Watch and enjoy

https://youtu.be/SL2Fl7Sw8Io

Troy’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/techman2015
Troy’s websites https://www.thedoityourselfworld.com/ and https://www.theoffgridproject.com/

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September 16, 2015 1 Comment

Community

Two flats in three days

Two flat tires in 3 days, what are the odds? Well for me, apparently, pretty good. I was planning on buying new tires in the near future, just not this quickly. What happened? The first flat, I was on my way home from work, I was very near home, just a few miles, I have a series of cattle guards to cross, they are large pipe structures in the road that people and vehicles can cross, but livestock (cattle, horses and the such) will not cross. The final cattle guard I cross to get into my neighborhood has 2 damaged places in the pipe and one of them gouged a hole in my tire. Within 5-10 seconds of crossing, my low tire light came on in the truck, I stopped to check and sure enough, I was losing air fast from one of my front tires.

I gauged how long I could drive before the tire was completely flat and headed home, I made it a little farther before having to stop, I didn’t care if I damaged the tire by driving on it, but I didn’t want to damage the aluminum wheel. I was close enough to my house to easily walk, I didn’t relish changing the tire in the dark and knew PB would take care of it, I just had to get to him. Cell phones don’t work out here, and even if they did, we don’t have a home phone. I noticed the lights were on at one of my neighbor’s house, he drove me home, we got PB, and he drove us back.

So now I have my spare on my truck, my low tire light is staying on because of that. It’s getting close to the end of the week, payday, that’s when I’ll get a new set of tires. I had to work 2 more days before that would happen, on my way out of my neighborhood, that same cattle guard got me again, this time I made it nearly to the town I was to work in that day, being daylight I would have changed my tire myself, but I was using my spare. So a quick phone call later and I had help on the way.

Living out in a rural area with miles and miles of nothing between towns, it’s nice to know that people will still stop and offer help when you are sitting on the side of the road. I love small town life.

Now I’m sporting two spanky new tires on the front of my truck, next payday I’ll get the rear two replaced. What this has reminded me of is to always be prepared. I had the ability to change the first tire, but not the second. I was prepared to sit out quite a long time on the side of the road, I carry water, …

September 12, 2015 No Comments

Community

Improvements on the rotisserie

The chicken rotisserie has really been a hit around the SkyCastle, PB has been working on it, tweaking it, improving it, making it work better and better. We cooked the best chicken to date on it the other evening, I didn’t have to work that day, I brined the chicken overnight in salt water, it cooked for about 2 hours, I added 6 small baking potatoes wrapped in foil for the last hour of cooking. We have been discussing all the other things we could cook on this, I’m thinking corn on the cob, smaller chickens (Cornish game hens) and the such.

Here is what PB had to say about it in his own words:

The professor strikes again!

I (lol, get ready) re-engineered the rotisserie mechanism, trying to add some ‘run time’! Took me all day, runs good, and because I got a gear ratio assembled backwards, lol, I did nothing but add another shining tutorial on my fb page for yall! ——- I’m feelin’ like an ‘Einstein’, lol.

I’m going to get the gears corrected and make a fresh chicken for Wretha as she did not participate in the first two test chickens for obvious reasons! (mainly, so I could be credited with saving her life!) Today she’ll be here all day, home form work, waiting, tick, toc, for the best chicken so far. Actually, she’s preparing and starting the chicken, and I’ll babysit the machine.

Last night she breined, bryned (however), the chicken,,, and she’s gonna be in charge of this one! I’m lettin’ her ‘chef prowess’ shine. Fixin’ that chicken all up with it’s own zip code and everything! She’s gonna have a blast. I guarantee it!

I’ll still act as, ‘spit boy’ because,,,, I like being ‘spit boy’! Just sittin’ there with the weather, tic-toc-ing past… Makes me feel, primitive! Like a million years old! — and that’s worth something!

and

Chicken #3. The Majik Chicken

This was a fresh chicken that Wretha fixed up and it turned out so juicy and with so much flavor! It put me in an instant 9 hour coma! Thank you Wretha, Executive Chef at SkyCastle! Best meal so far.

The heating section is working fine in the rotisserie. I increased the gas flow and added more ‘breathing’ holes. The flame is blue, contrary to the video, as I had bumped the cooker just prior to the video, thereby disturbing some rust (iron oxide) and causing red colored flames. I ran the burner at about 2/3d’s of ‘wide open’ and saved some fuel. Plus, getting things too hot seems to cause a smoke, from the spattering of chicken fat, that imparts bad taste. I’ll make a suitable knob for the gas valve soon.

The rotisserie mechanism ran much better than expected this time. After swapping the chain driven gears and getting the ratios correct, it ran dependably, for an

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September 10, 2015 No Comments

Community

Tiny House Hunting review

For those of you who follow me here, you know I write a lot about tiny homes or tiny houses, I have lived in small spaces and do pretty well, when PB and I first moved to our off-grid home nearly 8 years ago, we started out in a 16X16 box on stilts, it was our everything room, the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, the office, the bedroom, the bathroom, we lived that way for quite some time before adding on the 12X12 extension that would become our bedroom. We have expanded a bit more over the years, adding a semi-enclosed deck, a walk in shower, a utility room, but by most standards, we still live in pretty tight quarters. In fact, some of the TV shows I’ve seen recently, I saw one master bedroom that was bigger than our entire home.

Each time I watch TV at a friend’s house, I am more and more glad that I don’t have TV, I really don’t miss the commercials. But back to the review, this show Tiny House Hunting, the premise of this show is a person, couple or family wants to downsize, to buy a tiny home, they are shown 3 homes within or near their budget, they pick one and that’s pretty much it.

What I like:
I like that tiny homes are becoming more mainstream, hopefully it will prompt more cities and towns to allow these tiny homes to be located within city limits without restrictions. I enjoy seeing all the different styles and sizes of tiny homes, it gives me ideas about how to better live in my small home.

What I don’t like:
The main thing I have a problem with are the budgets, I can’t imagine spending that kind of money on such a small space, while it’s definitely cheaper than buying a full on house, I just don’t see the benefit of spending that kind of money on something so small, I tend to be a DIY’er though, and doing things ourselves is always cheaper than paying someone else to do it.

The other thing that bugs me, the people looking at these tiny homes, a common comment they make is to complain about how small it is, how small the rooms are, HELLO? You are looking at TINY homes, they are supposed to be small… I also don’t consider some of these homes to be small, they may be smaller than some of the cavernous 4000 square foot home they are used to living in.

I’d give the show a solid 8 out of 10, it’s very entertaining, even if it’s just to shake my head at some of the buyers. There is very little drama, this is about the tiny homes, not a soap opera.

New episodes air on FYI on Saturdays at 8pm central. Here are some clips …

September 5, 2015 No Comments

Community

Unplugged Nation review

As a couple, PB and I have lived 100% off-grid since Dec 22, 2007, we have lived pretty rough, doing everything ourselves on a very small budget. In the last few years, going off-grid has become a popular for entertainment purposes, TV shows. I have turned down numerous offers from more producers than I can count wanting to put us on an off-grid reality show, the ones I have seen tend to promote drama and do not reflect the reality of a normal family living off-grid.

We don’t have TV, I refuse to pay to watch TV, I can watch just about anything I wish through the internet, but on occasion I catch some TV when I’m at my neighbor’s house. The other evening I was down there and caught a show called Unplugged Nation, the premise is they take a family (usually from the city) who are interested in living off-grid, they show them 3 properties within or near their budget, the family chooses to spend 4 days in one of the homes, they have an off-grid expert Jay Gruen (who is also the host) giving them pointers about how to live on the particular property, there are tasks to complete, then the family chooses whether or not to make an offer on that property or one of the other 2 properties.

What I like:
I have seen 3 shows and so far it’s OK, I would give it a 7 out of 10, mostly for the entertainment value, I do appreciate the fact that they aren’t just following the families around hoping to catch (or even create) some drama. Jay is a very laid back guy, he doesn’t get excited, he doesn’t yell or cuss, at least not on camera, I suspect he shakes his head an awful lot though. I would like to see more interaction with him and the family, and see the family doing more things, some real things.

What I dislike:
I don’t think it’s very realistic, so far I’ve seen very citified folk who have no clue about living rough, I think they have a fantasy idea of what it’s like. It’s not possible to show very much in a one hour show (40 something minutes of real air time with the commercials), so they have to be very brief in everything, you don’t get to know the families, you don’t get to see their real day to day life in their psudo-off-grid challenge. I see it as they are getting a free vacation, possibly even getting paid to do it, like going to a dude ranch or camping.

I also don’t relate to their budgets at all, we live so very differently, I can’t imagine having a budget of $400,000 or $500,000 or $600,000, it seems like chump change to them, of course where I came from, “back in the day” …

September 1, 2015 No Comments

Community

Updates in western Texas

Lately I have been working like a mad woman, and I’m not complaining, much ;), I would like to have a little more time around the SkyCastle, especially with the latest projects that PB has been doing. This blog post is an update on what has been going on, with summer sliding into fall, the nights and mornings are getting cooler, almost cold, it’s funny how 50 degrees F feels so cold right after summer, yet next spring that same temperature will feel quite nice. The picture above is a volcanic plug, the hardened material that stays put as the rest of the softer material (dirt & rocks) washes and erodes away over the eons. My friend calls these thumb buttes. I like the dead tree in front of this butte.

This is a picture of a building PB started a couple of years ago, he tends to be a little ADD on projects, starting things then getting distracted by another project, eventually returning to the first one to finish it. The idea is to use this as a guest house, and for us to live in it while the SkyCastle gets an overhaul, mainly the roof and perhaps rearranging some of the living spaces that are more easily done when we aren’t LIVING in it. :)

This is a late evening picture of the SkyCastle, just under the peak roof on the left side of the picture you can just make out the windows PB installed.

My drive home, I’m in my “neighborhood” here, we have 70 something miles of unpaved road, I’m a couple of miles from the SkyCastle here.

A rare picture of myself, PB snapped the picture in the fading light of evening time.

Here are some pictures of PB’s chicken rotisserie in action, of course this is still very much a work in progress, but as you can see, it has actually cooked a chicken, and we ate it. The fire in the box needs to be hotter, something that is about to happen very soon. He also improved the tick-tock clock pendulum mechanism, I’ll write about it soon.

Some of the views I get to see when I’m out on the road traveling from town to town doing my job. I pulled over, jumped out of the truck, crossed the highway and tramped through the grass to squat down in front of this prickly pear cactus encrusted in tunas. This is a well known mountain in my area.

The sky out here is magnificent, we are at the tail end of our rainy season, it clouds up every evening, sometimes it rains, sometimes it stays dry, either way, the sky is impressive.

One of our “neighbors”, a big bull, he kindly posed for me when I whistled loudly to get his attention. I have no idea what breed of …

August 29, 2015 No Comments

Community

The Edge of Green tiny home

Another tiny home, I really like the layout of this one as well as the material it’s made of. I love how they incorporated the solar panels into the building, not only collecting sun rays, it is doubling as shade for windows and a deck. Much of the building materials were recycled, some from Craigslist, some from Habitat for Humanity and such.

I LOVE the kitchen, for a small space, they really made it best of it for the kitchen by making a U shaped kitchen. I have also been noting the marine heater that I keep seeing in the tiny homes lately, they have them for propane as well as wood burning, they are TINY but apparently put out a good amount of heat. I’ll be checking those out more.

I think their biggest problem they are having now is not living in such a small space, but finding a place to park their home, it would seem they have had to move more than a few times, once was because of a HOA, apparently they didn’t like having a tiny home or “mobile” home in their neighborhood. Another time was because they property they were on went on the market. There were other issues with other properties. I think it’s harder for them because they want to live in town or closer in to town because of jobs, that really limits where you can plant your tiny home. I hope they are able to find someplace where they can stay for a longer amount of time.

Watch and enjoy, I’ll include a link to their website below.

https://youtu.be/TRHcygdYjBw

https://edgeofgreencasitas.wordpress.com/

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August 27, 2015 No Comments

Community

Low-energy rotisserie made from scrap

The chicken cooker went live, this is something PB has been working on for a few months now, I might have thought it wouldn’t be finished, but I stopped doubting PB a long time ago.

He wanted a dedicated chicken rotisserie cooker and needed a way to make the chicken turn on a spit, we considered buying an electric motor to achieve this, but in good PB fashion, we call it Bobbage, he used miscellaneous parts found on the property and manufactured a clock works pendulum and weight that would turn the chicken over the heat.

He spent the most time working on and tweaking the clockwork mechanism, going through several different iterations, he finally settled on this design. The body of the cooker used to be the main body of a Lehman’s manual washing machine, we received that many years ago from a neighbor, PB fixed her chainsaw that is no longer made and parts aren’t available, she really liked that chainsaw and didn’t want to have to buy a new one, she had this manual washing machine but never used it. I didn’t like it much once I tried it, but the wringer on it was worth its weight in gold.

So PB took the stainless steel body and made that be the body of the chicken cooker. He used a lightweight sink for the lid. The main part of the clockwork mechanism is an old circular saw blade, the chain and sprockets came from an old trash compactor that someone gave us years ago.

This is propane fired, but it can be made to use wood or charcoal.

The rest of the materials were scavenged from here and there. I purchased a chicken from the grocery store a few days ago, I am shocked at how expensive chicken is now, they were running near $10 for a medium-small chicken! When I got home, PB had the chicken turning on the spit.

It still needs to be tweaked, but for the first test run, it was pretty tasty :)

https://youtu.be/xtkgOgu45wY

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August 23, 2015 No Comments

Underground housing guru

How many of you remember Mike Oehler and his “$50 & Up Underground House Book“? I have a copy of this book and if I didn’t already live in a Sky Castle, I would want to live like this, since we have a mountain side we live on, it would be perfect!

I found this recent video, I am excited to find he is still alive and kicking and his mind is still sharp.

https://youtu.be/8B6xR3T37gI

I was quite excited to see how he is living now, underground, and it’s clear his design is still relevant and stands the test of time.

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August 19, 2015 No Comments

Backup plan for internet

What’s your backup plan? Do you have one? I hope so, everyone needs one no matter where or how they live. Today I’ll discuss communication. A few weeks ago, we had a huge thunderstorm that knocked out the electricity where I live, that’s not such a problem for us because we are off-grid and make our own power, BUT it also knocked out our internet, that is our only source of communication as well as entertainment and other things.

Eventually the power came back on for the neighborhood, but the internet didn’t come back on for nearly 2 days. That is our local wireless internet that comes from 2 towns away, it’s some 40 miles away. I do have a cell phone, but it doesn’t work here, no signal, I can use it when I get out on the road, but for here, it’s useless. My backup for communication and internet is my neighbor, he has satellite internet and a landline phone.

I was able to take my tablet down to his place and at least check my email and do some other things online, I really dislike satellite internet, it’s slow, expensive and they meter your bandwidth (ie they give you X amount of data download per month, if you go over then they knock you back to dial up speed for the remainder of the month unless you pay extra to have your data bandwidth reset), but with that being said, I will say it’s pretty reliable, as long as you have power then you will have internet.

I have been trying to talk my neighbor into changing over to our wireless internet, but I’m just as happy he hasn’t because of times like this.

This is our setup, what would you do if your power went out or your internet went down? Are you prepared with a backup? Perhaps you could use a neighbor if they used a different internet provider, or chances are you could even go to a local store or restaurant, most of them have free wifi, I wouldn’t want to rely on that exclusively, but it’s good in a pinch.

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August 14, 2015 No Comments

All you need to go off-grid

Community

Must have fire

Tiny home on wheels in Chattanooga

How the Do It Yourself World came to be

Two flats in three days

Improvements on the rotisserie

Tiny House Hunting review

Unplugged Nation review

Updates in western Texas

The Edge of Green tiny home

Low-energy rotisserie made from scrap

Underground housing guru

Backup plan for internet

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