Going to be Semi- off grid for a couple of months (VIDEOS ADDED)

Pulling an old Jayco Camping trailer to South Carolina where I purchased a dilapidated old house that needs lots of work. I plan on living in camper a couple of months this fall and a couple more in the spring. Refrigeration will be small. I don't want to spend lots of time or energy on food.

I decided to purchase a pressure cooker canner and some canning jars. I am going to can meat, soup, and other meals before I leave. I think if I can have good homemade food ready to eat that doesn't need refrigeration I will be living large!

I plan to have electricity turned on at the property and am hoping to run a 50 amp cord to the camper. Should have plenty of power. Water could be the big issue. I have been told that there are 2 wells but I don't think either one is in service at this time. It is one thing to get drinking water at a store but another to have to haul water for washing and other things. I am hoping that I can get a well working quickly even if it is just to shower or wash clothing.

I will go there with my wife for a week or so and try to get a few things set up and leave the camper. Then I will return home and drive a smaller vehicle and tow an auto trailer that I already have so I can use it for supplies and such. The vehicle I will use is a 1997 4Runner that tows a boat fine but will probably not tow or move that heavy Jayco.

Good for you! Looking forward to reading the updates.

XNN

This is so cool. I wish I could get my husband to do something like this.

Have fun .

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Originally Posted by angelatc

This is so cool. I wish I could get my husband to do something like this.

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You can take mine. He'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd need water and electricity before I even considered attempting that.

Best of luck to ya, Shiff!

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Originally Posted by Suzanimal

You can take mine. He'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd need water and electricity before I even considered attempting that.

Best of luck to ya, Shiff!

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my homes have all the modern amenities.

I will not be leaving for a two weeks.
I just ordered the pressure canner and supplies and I have lots of things to wrap up around here before I leave. One of our tenants was evicted at beginning of August and the huge apartment needed a makeover.
My wife will only be with me for the first week or so. We will go there and hopefully get set up some. We will return home and she will return to her paying job and I will go back to South Carolina. As mentioned this property needs lots of work. This is a long term plan to move there. So I plan to work spring and fall for several years to make that house a home.
I never did any canning. I was looking into getting dehydrated prep food but opted to get the canning equipment. One serving of dehydrated meat is 24 grams. Yes I understand that a huge portion of water has been dehydrated but the cost seems pretty expensive. Then after reconstituting it I would have to make it into a meal. I think with the canning, I can open it up and eat. I also think we can use the canning all year.

Awesome. Just be careful with canning things like meat. It's great if you do it right but if you do it wrong it can kill you. Make sure you know what you are doing.

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Originally Posted by William Tell

Awesome. Just be careful with canning things like meat. It's great if you do it right but if you do it wrong it can kill you. Make sure you know what you are doing.

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Seems pretty straight forward. Purchased a pressure canner. It seems like you can just dice, slice, or cube it. Leave it on the bone or take it off. Loosely fill jar and don't even have to add liquid. Pressure can quarts for 90 minutes when below 1000 feet altitude.

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Originally Posted by Schifference

Seems pretty straight forward. Purchased a pressure canner. It seems like you can just dice, slice, or cube it. Leave it on the bone or take it off. Loosely fill jar and don't even have to add liquid. Pressure can quarts for 90 minutes when below 1000 feet altitude.

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Just do it right, have everything clean and sterilized and don't get botulism and you should be good.

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Originally Posted by Suzanimal

You can take mine. He'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd need water and electricity before I even considered attempting that.

Best of luck to ya, Shiff!

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I;d rather keep my husband at home making money, and I'll go down and do the rehabby stuff. He's much more likely to freak about not having water or power than I am.

It's still summer for a while in SC.. when you get there, throw a couple seed packets of marigolds around.. should keep some of the bugs at bay when they come up.

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Originally Posted by William Tell

Awesome. Just be careful with canning things like meat. It's great if you do it right but if you do it wrong it can kill you. Make sure you know what you are doing.

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Ya , better to let the squaw dehydrate it .

The pressure canner and all the other stuff arrived this week. Went out and purchased the least expensive beef I could find I think it was eye round, some cheap pork loin $1.89# and some chicken breast. Got a little over 7# of each meat. I also bought some celery, onions, and baby carrots. I cut the celery, carrots, and onions and put them in the bottom of a quart jar. Then diced meat into bite size portions and crammed them into the jars. My wife took a container and dumped some spices into it and mixed them up then put some on top of each quart jar. No added water. A little while later we had jars of cooked food. They all sealed. We opened two of them and 4 people had dinner. The beef was super tender. I am going to be canning my butt off over the next few days. I plan to slaughter some of my rabbits. We also plan to can some meat only in pint jars. When we do the meat, we will spice them differently so they won't all taste the same. I am super excited about this pressure canner. This thing is awesome!

Still alive after a couple of weeks of eating canned meat.

Found a water well with water in it. Water is only a little over 20 feet down the hole and about 12 feet deep. The well is encased in a 2' diameter cement prefabricated, stackable style column. I put a Harbor Freight shallow well pump with a check valve. After getting the pump primed I was able to get some water out. Problem is the pump reaches its maximum then won't pump any more water out. I can only pump about three feet of the water about 70 gallons from the well.

I am heading back there tomorrow for a couple of months. I have a submersible pump and tank I am going to hook up. I know the well produces. The area I am in is purported to be in an 11year drought and the well still has water. After pumping out 3 feet, the well refills in about half a day. My new neighbor, a nice 70 year old guy that has a farm in PA says he has drilled many wells. He says the longer a well sits the less it produces. He says that if I pump out a substantial amount of water from the well repeatedly the veins that supply the water will once again open up and refill the well faster. Considering that 70 gallons is only 1/4 of the water in the well, there is more than enough for me to get water and probably more than enough for the house. This is obviously an old school well and not a 300 foot drilled well but it is water! I plan to put a 10" canister style cartridge filter after the tank, and another small canister filter at point of use. The small filter I use to use under sinks on the cold water side. That cartridge is rated at removing everything as small as .1 Micron. That is right not 10 micron but .1 micron. I figure at first I will run the well and let it produce onto the ground for a few days without running it dry before putting any cartridges into any of the filters.

The house is very appealing from the outside and is big but needs lots of work! All the first floor floors and joists are rotted and need replaced. I tore up all the carpet and rolled it up and put it off to the side. The kitchen first had hardwood floors that got bad so somebody put a layer of OSB and tile over it and then when that went bad they put another layer of OSB and carpet over that. After pulling up the carpet, I had rotten OSB. The 6x6 beams the house sits on are also bad in places. I plan to support the carrying walls from the ground to the ceilings. I will pour footings and put in concrete block piers. I plan to snap lines and cut the wall studs higher up and replace the 6x6 beams with tripple 2x12 and attach a new 2x6 to the bottom of the wall studs. After laying plastic on the crawlspace I will then put 2x8 floor joist attached to the top of the new 2x12 beams thus raising the floor. The house has rough sawn lumber sheeting both on the interior and exterior of all studs even interior walls and is still very plumb. They have wood paneling on all interior walls on top of original "Beaver Board." The original ceilings were over 9 feet from the floor and were also rough sawn wood covered with Beaver Board. In most rooms someone dropped the ceilings and put in drywall. When they did that they ran wiring for outlets, HVAC in the ceilings and then blew in 12" of insulation between the Beaver Board and the new drywall dropped ceiling. All that is going to be removed. Even when I raise my first floor I will have tall ceilings.

The house has approximately 1600 square feet on the first floor and has the ability to have over 1000 square feet upstairs. When it was built 1923 I think, they never had living space on second floor. There are no stairs to get up there. The first floor ceiling joists/second floor floor joists are not adequate to support living space and will also need to be replaced. A large decorative dormer sits across much of the front of the house. The height to the peak of the roof is more than 13 feet from the second floor floor joists. I will plan to put in floor joists and support them by my new strategically placed first floor carrying walls. Once the foundation/piers/beams/floor joists/floors are in the house will be a different place.

I laid out a plan for beams in a manner that no floor joist would span more than 13'. So I will be able to use dimensional lumber to reframe everything. My wife has been doing interior room layouts for months. When you only have a couple of supporting walls that you design around and everything else is considered open you can put your kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms..... wherever you want.

This is a long term project where I intend to spend time in fall and spring. I expect it to take several years. House will be all new inside and out including doors and windows.

Fire ants are terrible down there. The property has been vacant for several years and they have taken up residence in the yard. Amazing how many come out of a mound. Drop a leaf on a mound and wow just wow. Step on a mound and regret it. I purchased some boots. The bits burn at first then itch like hell and blister for a week or more. I plan to eradicate them from the perimeter of the house where foot traffic is expected most.

I usually make up a batch of napalm to wage war on stinging ground insects that live in large groups in the ground .

Got the well working the first day I returned. Put a submersible pump in it with a pressurized tank above ground. Right after the tank I put a large 10 inch 20 micron filter to catch the larger debris. I put a Y after the filter so I could run a garden hose directly off the filter or run a hose to my camper. At the camper I put a .5 Micron filter. After I got the water pumping, I shocked the well with some bleach and sprayed the inside of the well casing down for some time with a garden hose. The water was pretty dirty the first couple of days. I did not use filter cartridges at that point because I knew the dirt had all been stirred up and the filters would get prematurely, clogged. After a couple of days the water looked much cleaner. Each day I pumped out over 150 gallons and wasted it. With the filters in place the water is very clean and has no odor. Each day I run the well for an extended period in the morning and evening extracting at least 150 gallons of water each day. I am told that using the water will make the well replenish itself faster than not using it. It has not rained her in over 20 days and no rain is expected in the near future, but I have water everyday.

In regards to the house, I have been busy demolishing things from above. I have removed most of the secondary drywall ceilings and the massive blown in insulation. All walls were covered with paneling and Beaver Board. I have removed most of it. I thought it would be best to get everything from the roof down that was not necessary out before I remove the floors on the first floor. It is easier to get things out while on a floor than on the dirt. I have found some areas where termites have devoured areas. I see no signs of active infestation. The place looks better with everything I take out.

I brought an auto trailer with me. The first day I went to the dump I was offloading it and a worker came over and helped me. He told me that if I loaded it with a strap or chain under the load he would pull it off with his heavy equipment. All loads since then have had a large strap under and around the load from front to back. The guy hooks up a chain to my strap and gently pulls the entire load off my trailer making the task effortless.

Most of the floors are still in place. The back wall is totally rotten/eaten by termites. There are large 4x4 or larger posts that go from the beam to the double top plate that look good but are not. You can take a screwdriver and push it like a knife thru butter into the studs and posts. The beams are the same. I think the rear wall is the worst part of the house. It appears they poured a concrete porch at one time and nailed some 3/4 boards to the beam and buried them into the dirt to hold back the concrete and act like a form. They left those boards in the ground. I think that gave termites and moisture a direct highway to the rear wall. From front to back the house is 48 feet long not counting the front or rear porches which attach to the main house. The roof rafters are very long. The rear wall that is rotten supports the main house roof and back porch roof. It is an intimidating process to remove a 33 foot long wall that is supposed to hold up the house, even with temporary support walls in place. I have poured footings, put in piers, beam, header under double plate, and new studs for the rear wall. Big job for one guy.

Was busy yesterday cutting some low hanging branches around the front and side portion of the property. I have dedicated a place for a future garden and want to build a hugelkultur, https://www.permaculture.co.uk/artic...ts-hugelkultur. I am placing the newly cut green logs on the ground making a pretty good size stack. I then laid the branches on top of those and piled a large portion of the rotten lumber on top.
I have a full day today of finishing up with the trimming and removing all the branches. At this moment I cannot get out of the driveway because of all the branches. I did not want to haul all that untreated old dry lumber to the landfill. There is no stain or paint on any of it and should make some very good soil for my future garden.

That's a lot of work for one person, Shiff. Stay safe.

I will be building a new supporting wall 13 feet in from the back of the house. This wall will support the roof rafters. I will be replacing the large 8x6 sill beam on the entire house. In some places it is solid and other places it is rotten or damaged by termites. I am replacing the 8x6 beam with a built up triple 2x12 beam on top of new piers. The beauty of this plan is that presently studs and posts sit on top of an 8 inch tall beam. I support the wall, pour a new footing, where I want my piers, stack my concrete blocks and fill them with concrete to same height as original beam. On top of the new piers will be a piece of pressure treated 2x6 to protect my dimensional lumber from the concrete. So I have a 1 1/2" high piece of pressure treated wood, then an 11 1/4 inch new beam, then I nail a new bottom plate to the studs, posts that I cut to a new height. This raises my new floor higher than the old floor was and gives me nice good solid wall studs to support my house. The new floor joists will be easier with this strategy also because I will nail a 2x4 ledger to the bottom of the 2x12 beams and then use 2x8 floor joists that sit on top of the ledger and toe nail them to the beams. Yesterday I cut the bottom off the rear 13 feet of the wall studs on one side of the house and put the new bottom plate, and beam in on top of the new piers. I could not get a good angle to cut the studs with a circular saw on the inside of the house where I have a temporary support wall so I just went to the outside, snapped a chalk line and fired up the chainsaw. I cut the beam into a couple of sections, and cut off all the upright supports at my new desired height and installed the beam. Now I am preparing the other rear side. I have removed the floor joists, removed a hot water tank that was installed half buried in the crawl space dirt, and then removed most of the debris on/in the dirt crawl space in this area. I have removed the exterior siding and 3/4 horizontal rough sawn from the bottom 18 inches on the outside and inside, the top rough sawn from the inside. Today I hope to build the temporary support wall and hopefully dig my new footings while removing the existing concrete block or whatever exists where I need to dig.

Back at it. Huge project but beautiful property!

I got back here a couple weeks ago. I picked up my youngest son at the airport on the way. He was on spring break. The camper utilized as living quarters had plumbing leaks. The camper is a 1993 and I have once already fixed leaks. We decided to just run new PEX and be done with it.

The camper toilet water connection was screwed up. I took the toilet out and set up a bucket compost toilet.

Last fall I was using a portable on demand propane water heater. The last day I was here before I left, water was squirting out a round brass/copper figamagig. That unit needed to be mounted outside and was very temperamental. I did away with that and purchased a 4 gallon 120 electric hot water heater for less than $150. I turn on the electric unit a half hour before I want to shower and then turn it off. I have showered twice off of one heating cycle.

Lots of work to do here.

Fell off a ladder a couple of weeks ago onto a pile of broken concrete blocks and hurt my knee. Bought a 1960ish 40hp tractor with a front end loader and a bush hog. Ordered a PTO driven wood chipper. Tractor ran like crap when I got it home. Needed a battery but ran bad. Previous owner rebuilt carburetor. I changed all ignition, coil, points, condenser, removed fuel tank, replaced an exhaust flange that was broken. Tractor runs like a top now.

Tore down a chimney. Lots of bricks. Still 2 chimneys to be removed. The one I removed was in the way of where the new sill beam needs to go. Presently have 35 feet of the right side of the house supported on a temporary wall. Poured all new footings and today put in concrete block foundation.

Been doing lots of landscaping. Have a Hugelkultur that is a work in process. Removed about 50 overgrown trees between two fields. Big job. Removed as much of the soil as I could. It looked very rich. Dug down as deep as I could with front end loader. Lots of stumps. Put all the wood I cut down into the hole and put the good dirt back on top. Planted two pear trees, a peach tree, a blue berry bush, and an apple tree.

so awesome.

Sounds like you're "get-in-er-done." Keep on truckin'.

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Originally Posted by Schifference

Fell off a ladder a couple of weeks ago onto a pile of broken concrete blocks and hurt my knee. Bought a 1960ish 40hp tractor with a front end loader and a bush hog. Ordered a PTO driven wood chipper. Tractor ran like crap when I got it home. Needed a battery but ran bad. Previous owner rebuilt carburetor. I changed all ignition, coil, points, condenser, removed fuel tank, replaced an exhaust flange that was broken. Tractor runs like a top now.

Tore down a chimney. Lots of bricks. Still 2 chimneys to be removed. The one I removed was in the way of where the new sill beam needs to go. Presently have 35 feet of the right side of the house supported on a temporary wall. Poured all new footings and today put in concrete block foundation.

Been doing lots of landscaping. Have a Hugelkultur that is a work in process. Removed about 50 overgrown trees between two fields. Big job. Removed as much of the soil as I could. It looked very rich. Dug down as deep as I could with front end loader. Lots of stumps. Put all the wood I cut down into the hole and put the good dirt back on top. Planted two pear trees, a peach tree, a blue berry bush, and an apple tree.

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Any specific reason you took out the trees in between the fields ?

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Originally Posted by Schifference

Fell off a ladder a couple of weeks ago onto a pile of broken concrete blocks and hurt my knee. Bought a 1960ish 40hp tractor with a front end loader and a bush hog. Ordered a PTO driven wood chipper. Tractor ran like crap when I got it home. Needed a battery but ran bad. Previous owner rebuilt carburetor. I changed all ignition, coil, points, condenser, removed fuel tank, replaced an exhaust flange that was broken. Tractor runs like a top now.

Tore down a chimney. Lots of bricks. Still 2 chimneys to be removed. The one I removed was in the way of where the new sill beam needs to go. Presently have 35 feet of the right side of the house supported on a temporary wall. Poured all new footings and today put in concrete block foundation.

Been doing lots of landscaping. Have a Hugelkultur that is a work in process. Removed about 50 overgrown trees between two fields. Big job. Removed as much of the soil as I could. It looked very rich. Dug down as deep as I could with front end loader. Lots of stumps. Put all the wood I cut down into the hole and put the good dirt back on top. Planted two pear trees, a peach tree, a blue berry bush, and an apple tree.

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Them's impressive shenannigans, oldster! :D:cool:

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Originally Posted by oyarde

Any specific reason you took out the trees in between the fields ?

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Big mess. Lots of vines. Small trees too close. Lots of junk piled there. Now new trees in same place. I left 2 trees one at each end of the area but trimmed them way up so everything can grow.

Going to be here for 3 more weeks. Done with the construction that I am going to do this trip. Reframed one large section of wall. Applied this expensive natural insecticide called BoraCare. If insects eat the wood they die. Put sheeting on the wall followed with house wrap.

Now going to turn my efforts to more landscaping. My new wood chipper arrived and required some assembly. I have not yet put on the tractor. Need to remove the bush hog and check the length of the new PTO shaft. Today I expect to do some wood chipping.

My wife is going to join me later in the month for about a week. We will drive home together.

My older Boxer that I brought with me has been living the dream. About a week ago he thought it would be a good idea to guard the property. He tried to tell a skunk to get off the property. That didn't work out to well for the dog.

There was a large pile of cut branches, vines, and whatever else. I set fire to one section of it and kept feeding/pushing the fire the other way. Ended up burning all that out and discovered that area must have been the original fire pit area of the homestead.

A neighbors friend stopped by and chatted for awhile. He told me that he had considered purchasing this home to flip but too much work. He also told me that this house was the original homestead of a 1200 acre estate.

Heading back south in next couple of days.

Good luck! It's a ZOO now in d.c!