Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[C-Mag]

Damn. I might actually have to buy one of these.

I Like It !
I'm really into 19th C tools, I have a decent little collection going.

I went to that Scythe Supply, $ 200, not bad. Here's a page for Scythe anvils, I knew about them, but I've never found one.
https://onescytherevolution.com/peening-anvils.html

[Haumana]

Did you see the video I posted on using a sawzall to break them down? It works a lot better than how I used to do it.

After that I sand them all down with a power sander, but a planer would would make it a lot easier. Got to get one of those one day.

Yeah, it's a lot of work, but the lumber you get from it can be really really nice looking stuff.

I used my sawzall to break them down and I will hit them with the belt sander when I am done. I did have issues with pulling the cut nails from the 2x material where I needed to make cuts. I need to be more selective in my choice of pallets. Not all pallets are created equal. I broke down 6 pallets day before yesterday and was only able to salvage 6 out of the 18 2xs due to previous breakage and other issues.

I did have two pallets made of some tight grained oak. Those are the nuggets of gold.

[C-Mag]

I'm out of chickens, have been for a few years. Kids are out of the house, just don't use that many eggs anymore.
We raised Plymouths and Leghorns. My peak was 24 chickens, man when their laying, you can't give away eggs fast enough. We had 18 dozen eggs in the fridge at one time.

I'm into beef and pork now. Slaughtering the beef in a couple weeks.

Holy shit! 24 chickens??? We were keeping 1 - 1/2 dozen on hand every week for a house of 3 with just 2 high yield layers. 18 dozen eggs is downright ridiculous. HAHA

Post some pics of the beef harvest. I want to find someone who will sell me 1/2 a cow and stock my freezer full!

I need to get set up with a photo sharing site, so I can post pics. Any recommendations ?

She's about 900# right now. Should be about 560# of meat, plus liver, heart, sweet breads, should be over 600. Right now I'm doing some deep maintenance on the old man's 1940 Wells Manufacturing Meat Saw. Basically a meat band saw. Makes cutting steaks and roasts easy.

[Haumana]

I'm out of chickens, have been for a few years. Kids are out of the house, just don't use that many eggs anymore.
We raised Plymouths and Leghorns. My peak was 24 chickens, man when their laying, you can't give away eggs fast enough. We had 18 dozen eggs in the fridge at one time.

I'm into beef and pork now. Slaughtering the beef in a couple weeks.

Holy shit! 24 chickens??? We were keeping 1 - 1/2 dozen on hand every week for a house of 3 with just 2 high yield layers. 18 dozen eggs is downright ridiculous. HAHA

Post some pics of the beef harvest. I want to find someone who will sell me 1/2 a cow and stock my freezer full!

I need to get set up with a photo sharing site, so I can post pics. Any recommendations ?

She's about 900# right now. Should be about 560# of meat, plus liver, heart, sweet breads, should be over 600. Right now I'm doing some deep maintenance on the old man's 1940 Wells Manufacturing Meat Saw. Basically a meat band saw. Makes cutting steaks and roasts easy.

I use my FB page. It isn't good for much else. Wife uses Imgur.

Damn. That'll keep the family fed for a while. We thought we were buying a primal cut of ribeyes last week. It turned out to be a 9 1/2# frozen boneless ribeye. Not optimal but nothing to cry to loudly about. Butchered it up into some dinner steaks, thin breakfast steaks and shishkabob for the rest of it. There is something quite satisfying about having a freezer stocked with dinners.

[C-Mag]

Texas has its own power grid.

Got my water report in the mail yesterday. Found out where our water comes from.

Thanks for the 'minder. I started to listening to this episode of Levin and got pulled away.

I think the big advantage to the Texas power grid is that if they need to do catastrophic repairs it's a lot easier for them to get it up and running becase it's a single decision head.

WATER
Whats the story on your water supply?

So, water is an area I've been a little weak on. I've enjoyed pretty rich resources generally, that I haven't paid as much attention to it. But the recent flood has gotten me going . I improved my water storage container capacity quite a bit. Started looking hard at my filtration system(which needs replaced) and started looking at ways to pump water from my wells without power, filter it and get it to the house.
I made some small progress on getting my old hand pump well going. That's going to happen by Fall. Once I have a hand pump well, I'm going to feel pretty solid.

The report says we get our water from the two reservoirs in the area, and that the two systems are not connected. One is county, and the other regionally run. I don't yet know which system we're hooked into.

Check out this ram pump and see if it could fit in anywhere on your place.

I could actually use that during Spring run off, and when the irrigation ditches are working. I should put one together. I have most of the parts right now except the check valves.

My grid down plan is to put a 100 gallon tank I have on the second story of the house, fill it from the well by pumping water through a garden hose, then gravity feeding for the sink and showers, maybe the toilet at night. I have an outhouse for use too. A solar water heating system would be tits.

I have an old 350 gallon plastic tank I should set up on by my shop for water catchment from gutters.

[Okeefenokee]

I use a punch and hammer to knock the nails.

[C-Mag]

I use my FB page. It isn't good for much else. Wife uses Imgur.

Damn. That'll keep the family fed for a while. We thought we were buying a primal cut of ribeyes last week. It turned out to be a 9 1/2# frozen boneless ribeye. Not optimal but nothing to cry to loudly about. Butchered it up into some dinner steaks, thin breakfast steaks and shishkabob for the rest of it. There is something quite satisfying about having a freezer stocked with dinners.

Thanks.

Yeah, it will feed us for a while. This year I'm putting up about 800# of meat without wild game. Freezer space is kind of an issue. If an EMP hit during the summer, I'd have a hell of a time curing my meat and saving it.

[Okeefenokee]

And I use postimages.org for posting photos around here.

p.s. I finally found the data cable for an old external drive that was the only copy I had left of a bunch of old photos today, and promptly backed it up to another drive. Should be fun going through it to see what I've forgotten about.

[Haumana]

I use a punch and hammer to knock the nails.

That worked for the 1x material but the 2x material has to have the nails pulled. I have a crafty old school tool that was given to me by an old contractor client. It worked pretty well in getting those cut nails out of the 2x but it was a bit of a pain in the ass.

[C-Mag]

I use a punch and hammer to knock the nails.

That worked for the 1x material but the 2x material has to have the nails pulled. I have a crafty old school tool that was given to me by an old contractor client. It worked pretty well in getting those cut nails out of the 2x but it was a bit of a pain in the ass.

Awe, the old Nail Puller. I think a bunch of those pallets are put together with twisted nails, near impossible to get out in one piece.