Well, it's been two weeks since my last update, I better keep up, since things are happening at a fantastic rate!
I've made about 5 visits to the land since my last update, maybe even 6. Each time I fill in a little piece of the puzzle, and do a little bit of work.
We bought two large water cisterns, and dropped them onto a spot behind the shed. They hold 1250gal each, and I also bought a pressure tank to go with it, so we'll have running water! I just need to figure out how to get the water from the cistern tanks to the pressure tank, without having the pressure tank outside where it can freeze in the winter. Freeze protection is a concern for everything we do here. I've thought long and hard about it, and I think I have some solutions, but I'm also searching for others who have had the same problem and solved it. No reason to reinvent the wheel if there's a better solution!
We finally got possession of the mobile! The lawyer stuff and all the nonsense with the seller was sorted out, and we got possession yesterday! I need to make a trip out there to start pulling the skirting off, securing the cupboards, and making her ready for the 120km trip. The moving company should be able to get the move done around the 8th, or shortly after. Then I have to get the stairs and the shed there somehow, and we're in business!
We bought the woodstove (on sale too, sweetness!), and got it off the truck with some insane effort. I can't believe how freakin' heavy that thing is!! It's at least 400lbs, and cannot be lifted by the combined effort of me and my wife. I'm going to need four huge goons to get the sucker into the mobile when it comes time! Either that, or a hoist on my truck or something. Getting it off the truck was tricky. We ended up letting it fall a short distance to the thankfully soft ground, where it rolled onto it's top. I had already taken out everything I could grab, like the firebricks, the ashpan, and I pulled the door off too. It still nearly sunk into the ground when we were moving it just a few feet! Holy smoke. For $944, it seems like a pretty solid unit to me! It even has a blower motor on the back to distribute heat.
That brings me to the most recent activity - firewood collection. I cannot believe how expensive firewood is! For a cord of hardwood, the lowest price I saw was $490/cord!!!! Crummy softwood was minimum $220, and that's me picking up unseasoned, unsplit wood and doing most of the work myself. However, leave it to a cheapskate to find a solution...
I put an ad in a free online service saying I was looking for scrap wood, like dimensional lumber and such. I got two hits right away, a couple folks were giving away scraps of wood. I picked up a lot of wood the one day, although much of it has screws and nails in it, it's not a big deal, they'll just end up in the ash, and eventually rust in the compost!
Just as I was driving back today, after dropping it all off, I got a call from "Bob". His company has probably 4-6 cords worth of packing crates behind their loading dock, and he wants me to take everything I can get! I got there, and he wasn't kidding, it's a crapload of wood!!!!
I filled my truck and trailer with everything I could get, mostly the stuff that was broken up already. There are many full crates, but I don't have a crowbar, so pulling them apart would have been next to impossible. There is enough wood behind this loading dock for 2 winters, easily. I think we'll be ok for firewood!
On another note, we discovered just how big the land really is...it's massive! I have some pictures of crazy things I found on our property, which I'm going to post right away. It's almost like an ancient junkyard, with farm equipment from the 20's at least, and an old shed that's almost falling over.
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