New Chapter

Well, I guess most of you know that we have sold our place on Beaver Creek. The folks that bought it live in Billings which is about 4 hours from here and won't be moving out here for at least a year. I was able to make an arrangement with them to stay in the little cabin rent free for a while. It is good for them since they are not here very often and I can keep an eye on it for them. It is good for me because I can still keep the horse here and as I said it is rent free! When I do move, the little cabin will still belong to us- it is small enough to be moved easily. That's one reason I only made it 11x15 (11x20 with porch).

So a new adventure begins. I know there are a lot of questions about how I can live in this little cabin with no water service or utility power.

Heat is with a nice woodstove. It is a Jotul 602 which is a small cast iron stove made in Norway. We haven't had any super cold weather yet but I can tell that it will be easy to heat the cabin with just a little firewood. The stove is cast iron which helps it hold heat through the night and there is also a steel eye on top for heating water, cooking, etc. Cooking on it should be fun

 

Yes, I have an outhouse! It is not as bad as you might think. It is clean and not too much of a hardship to go out in the night. (Check back with me about this in February!)

 

I built this little shed to keep some things in and for a place to keep the dogs during the day. They have a pen that they can go out to. My CNC is inside but not running yet. The shed will also come with when I move.

 

For power I have a generator. Soon, I plan to add a battery bank and maybe some solar panels. More on that later. I have TV, internet and phone.

 

 

Light is by battery powered lantern or if I need a lot of light, a propane lantern.

 

I have a shower (some things are a must!). It is in the corner behind the shirts. I put a bucket of water (12 quarts) on the stove at night. It is usually just the right temp when I get up in the morning. If not, I heat it with propane. This is enough for a 5 minute shower. The shower is basically a shower stall with a shelf over head. I put a water tank on the shelf that has a spigot. Water goes in tank and then it is just gravity flow out. Works fine.

 I am sure most people would think this is a hard way to live but really, it is something I have wanted to try for a long time. So far it has been a lot of fun. Terry is away for a while so I can take this time to do this experiment and in the mean time save up $$ for our next place.

For now though I am still "On Beaver Creek"!

 

Log Cabin Article

Some of you know about my website where I offer plans for building woodworking jigs that are used for cutting log cabin notches. That website is http://logdovetailjig.com

I occasionally even sell some plans.

I got a phone call about a year ago from someone who said they were writing an article about log cabin building. I answered his questions as best I could and then pretty much forgot about the conversation.

Today I got a magazine in the mail. The New Pioneer Magazine is a kind of homesteading publication and it had the article about cabin building. They had a pretty good write up about my plans and website so hopefully I will get a few customers from it.

You can read the article here:

http://logdovetailjig.com/new_pioneer_article.pdf

Family Pictures