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Well I took the easy way out, I've been contemplating building myself a workshop on wheels and then came across this. It's a 8' by 16' office trailer, that was formerly used as a foremans office out on the pipelines. At this point all it is, is a tandem axle, insulated, propane heated box on wheels. Now I need to salvage some kitchen counters & cabinets and build a little wood stove to keep it warm on the cheap. I do have to do a little maintainance on the exterior tin & caulking, gotta look what Mayberry was using on his escape pod for caulk.
As well as being my MobIle Lab of Doom (MILD), the trailer fills a very important gap in our preps... all season portable shelter. Up in our crook of the continent, most holiday trailers ain't built with enough insulation to be of much comfort in our -40 spells, and the ones that are built for it are way out of our price range.
I also picked up a barely used Lau-Tze 3500 watt portable diesel generator that I hope I'll be able to run my corded tools and welders off of. First attempt at running a welder off of it wasn't real successful, something popped and it wasn't a fuse or breaker, hopefully it was the voltage regulator or capacitor and not a winding within the genset head. I'm only seeing about 2 volts out of any of the various output taps, oh and both of my welders are rated below the supposed capabilities of the genny.
I'll close this post with an update on the condition of the greenhouse, it survived the winter in great shape, in spite of the snow load lower on the walls and all the high winds.
Well I'm off to the archery shop and to get some details on a possible property for our homestead.
TTFN and don't let the shape shiftin' slimy scaley ones gitcha.
Got my green house finished not long after my last post, and the tomatoes have been doing great in there. The wife really likes playing in there, she can stay nice and warm and out of the wind or skeeters if it is calm.
Speaking of the wind, I've never ever lived anywhere that has such a regular wind as here. I'm certain I'll be able to supply the majority of our electrical needs via a few windmills, but of course the only true test will be actually doing it.
We've been watering the garden from water collected off the roof last time we had some real rain. something still sitting on my list is to redirect the downspouts coming from the asphalt roof into a 250gal water hauling tank we have. Hauling buckets last rain worked, but I still missed out on a lot via overflows.
Dump runs have been ok, but nothing too spectacular, a few UPSs with mediocre batteries, and a few other good SLA batteries, also 1 good small deep cycle and 1 good starting battery. A couple more computers and a 24" full suspension bicycle. The SLA batteries will be used for my electric bike project, right now I'm just Jerry rigging a 24v motor & gearbox from one of those mobility scooters you see old folks and the morbidly obese riding around on. This will be a test platform to try gear ranges, then I'll build the low slung electric recumbent bike I've wanted to build for a few years now.
If the economy is tanking as fast as us doomers and the stock market bears think, I better figure out what computers I'm going to keep and sell of the rest while there is still a market for them. Canadian economists are saying that we have about a year before the recession that is on going in the States reaches the same levels up here, this must be focused on Ontario & Quebec as usual, I doubt that anyone from a forestry driven town in BC would agree with that time line.
I'm finally going to attach some pictures of my A frame greenhouse, the frame is nice and solid, the plastic is a worry, but has already weathered some good wind storms favorably.
You might be able to tell from the pictures, that I ain't no Finish Carpenter, in fact I'm pretty sure I don't have any Scandinavian in me.
Anywho, keep preppin' and learnin' or the Reptillians are gonna gitcha.
