Time to replace the tarp on the roof with some tarpaper and cedar shakes.
First I had to do a lot of leveling and trimming. Then I put on rolls of tarpaper.
Now I am going to put on cheap white cedar shakes. Here’s a sample.
I will either paint or stain them. This is what the same shakes look like on the front of the cabin.
I got five bundles of them. Since I use a very narrow overlap this should be enough. They are really just for a rustic look so full coverage isn’t important. But I’m done for today. I’ll continue tomorrow.
I did some more on the shed. New siding. I used new fence pickets. I like the look. And they are cheap. This in addition to extending the front two feet. But notice there are still no doors, or gable ends. And I plan on putting cheap cedar shakes on the roof, like I did on the front of the cabin.
My cabin is located in the middle of mushroom paradise. Good for mushroom lovers but also means mold grows fast in the summer. This time of the year is great for gathering mushrooms. Here is about 15 minutes work.
Some of these I don’t yet know so I won’t eat them, but most of them are edible, even if they don’t taste good. The ones on the left of the basket are delicious. They are Chicken of the Wood and Black Trumpets.
Chicken of the Wood (Sulfur Shelf) and Black Trumpet mushrooms
I fried them a little bit in coconut oil and then mixed them in cream of chicken soup. It is delicious.
Chicken of the Wood actually has the taste and texture of chicken strips. Really. Black Trumpets have a smoky, woodsy taste.
Here’s something I have been thinking about for some time.
Solar Dehydrator
A dehydrator. The picture says solar but it can actually be used over a wood stove by just using the upper box. The lower sloping box is just an air duct with a glass top. The inside will be painted black and the absorbed sun rays will heat the air. The heated air will rise up to the upper food rack box. Then the air and moisture will vent out the top at the back. To use it over a wood stove I will put a small fan to keep the air moving.
In the photo the dehydrator is not quite finished.
I haven’t posted in some time. I haven’t felt much like it. Well, last week on August 23rd my Dad died. He was ready to go. I was not quite ready for him to go. He was 87. I already miss him a lot. If it wasn’t for him showing me the wonders of nature, taking me hunting, camping or just laying out under the stars, I would never have developed my love of the forest. And so many other things.
Okay. I have finally decided to develop an improved refrigeration system. Here’s what I’ve been using up until now.
Current coolers
Stock pot
Basically, it’s just a stock pot with a wet t-shirt thrown over it for evaporative cooling. And filled with well water, which is actually between 48 – 50 degrees. So it keeps it pretty decent for vegetables but it’s not good enough for long-term storage of perishables. I need to get the temperature down to about 40. Or lower
Since I want it to be off grid I’m going to have to make it 12 volts so I don’t have to run my inverter.
And using a regular compressor driven refrigeration unit just uses too much power for the solar panels I have .
So I’m going to use thermoelectric cooling devices. Peltier chips. What they do is when you apply voltage one side gets hot and the other side gets cold. They can lower the ambient temperature by anywhere from 15 to 30 degrees. So since I’m only needing to go 10 to 20 degrees, I should be able to accomplish this. I could buy thermoelectric coolers pre-made but they won’t fit what I want to do. Because they only lower the ambient temperature, if it’s 90 degrees out it will only go down to maybe 60 degrees. But if I can submerse it in my well water, and change the well water regularly, the ambient temperature would effectively be 50 degrees. Which means I could get down to 40 with no problem anytime of the year. And also during the winter I could still use the storage system and just use the temperature outside to refrigerate like I have been doing. So I have two peltier chips on order. They’re not that expensive. About six bucks a piece. One is just for backup. I’m only going to use one and I’m going to put it on top of that stock pot so the cold is on the inside and the heat dissipation is on the outside and then a fan blows the cold around inside and I will insulate the pot outside.
The basic parts. An old peltier chips is shown on the right.
I could have used just a store bought cooler and cut holes in it to put the peltier unit inside but I like the idea of the metal container. I think that it will hold the cold longer when it’s not running if it’s insulated from the outside. And also I will submerse the bottom into the cold water. I may just get a round cooler and put put the pot inside the round cooler. And have the benefits of both.
In addition I plan on something that almost all of the inexpensive thermoelectric coolers for sale, don’t do. I ordered a cheap $5 temperature control module, that runs on 12 volts and very low power usage, that can sense the temperature inside and turn on the thermoelectric unit when it needs to be and turn it off when it doesn’t need to be on.
Most of the $50 – $70 thermoelectric coolers don’t have thermostat control. They just get cold or if your reverse the voltage they get hot to warm things up. They don’t get real hot, but you can keep food warm in them too. So my unit will actually be able to do that too if I want to heat it up, but I can’t imagine why I want to do that. But here’s the unit that I ordered.
Temperature Control Module
It’ll be here tomorrow. So I’ll update this post as I complete it. I have to cut a small square hole in the top of the lid of my stock pot. Mount the heat sinks on either side of the chip. Mount fans on top of that.
The fan on the bottom is to circulate the cold air. The fan on the top is to dissipate the heat and if it works out, I may just develop a way to circulate water through the heat part. So I don’t have to run the fan and just use a gravity-fed water to circulate through and cool the top heat sink. The better the heat is is disappated the colder the other side gets.
I always have to try to limit the amount of electricity I use, otherwise I’m going to have to go buy more batteries and more solar panels.
Because of my years doing computer repair, I have plenty of heat sinks and fans from old computers. So I don’t have to purchase those.
The drawback? Peltier chips are not very efficient. (ie. power in for result produced). But since they use such little power the amount of power lost doesn’t matter. And a large compressor does much more than I need, so I wouldn’t be saving anything.
Oh, and by the way. Those peltier chips that take electricity and make heat and cold? They also work the other way around. If you make one side hot and the other side cold they produce electricity. Not very efficient but they make a product which is a pot with a peltier chip mounted on the bottom. When you put cool water into the pot and put it on a campfire it can charge a cell phone. I think the ones I saw were called PowerPots.
UPDATE:. He is the nearly complete refrigerator with the insulation out side. The insulation is not permanently attached yet. A little more testing but so far it works pretty good.
Look up the actual definition of fascist. (hint: it isn’t just someone who disagrees with you). And even the linked definition twists the real meaning, as was defined by the original Italian Fascisti Party of Mussolini, to cover the socialists of Hitler’s Germany, who at least originally weren’t even considered fascist. But both the Fascist Party and the National Socialist German Workers Party were horrible as all authoritarian socialists are.
Many in the press love calling Trump fascist. But he is the farthest thing from fascist. Fascists want government controls over people’s lives. Lots of regulations. A centralized autocratic government. Severe economic and social regimentation. Who is calling for these, I wonder.
Violent suppression of the opposition. And saying “hurtful” things on Twitter is not violent suppression of the opposition.
There is no right to not being offended. What is or is not offensive is ambiguous. Defined by the person observing.
Rioting to stop people who you disagree with from speaking on college campuses and attacking them if they show up. Attacking peaceful gatherings of people you disagree with while wearing a mask to keep from being identified committing assault. These are violent suppression of the opposition. If you look honestly at the situation in the country it is clear who is really much closer to fascism. The only thing these modern day fascists, who use the Orwellian name Anti-fascist, are missing, instead of nationalism they hate this nation and want forced globalism. Hell, even Hitler gave up on Nationalism when he started taking over lots of non-Germanic countries. He wanted globalism too, with him leading the way.
Teddy Roosevelt didn’t set aside public land to keep the public out. It was to let the public get out and enjoy the land.
It is great to see a president who does things for the people. Not against the people.
I looked forward to retirement at a young enough age to spend a year or two travelling from National Forest to the next National Forest camping. They always had the regulation that you can only camp in one spot for up to two weeks then you need to move like two hundred yards. That made sense to keep people from setting up permanent camps. But then, just when I was finally able to reach my dream of travelling the National Forests, President Obama decided that that was just too much freedom for the people. He dictated that you can only camp for a maximum of 30 days a year in any and all National forests. That means if I travel from Forest to Forest and spend just one week in each, I could only visit 4 National Forests a year. That is out of 155 National Forests.
Again, Woody Guthrie was wrong. This land wasn’t made for you and me.
And, of course, this is almost impossible to enforce. But the point is to force people to break the law.
As Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged;
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for me to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed or enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.”
I need a more convenient way to heat water for showers and laundry, and also to cook outdoors. I have started to piece together a fire pit. I’m sure the design will change a lot before I mortar it together.
I took Lily for a walk today down to a branch of Pithole Creek. It is the closest creek to my cabin, maybe 15 or 20 minute walk, but I have never been to this spot before. When we reached the creek I was surprised how large it was. I’ll be going back to go fishing. We worked our way downstream and it suddenly got wider. Then much wider.
Beaver Lodge in center
It was a beaver pond.
This huge tree was a favorite target of the beavers.
Chewed tree with dam in back
The dam looks pretty old, but solid. And no freshly chewed trees seems to indicate the beavers are gone.
This website is the ramblings of The Pithole Hermit, living on his land in a cabin, off-grid, in northwest Pennsylvania. Includes wild edibles, farming, primitive living, weapons systems and other off-grid subjects. And a few electronic projects along the way.
