Transformer and Service Panel

Service Panel waiting for completion

I don’t know about you but I think that this is THE question for these modern prepping  ages. We went round and round on this issue for over a year. Should we? Shouldn’t we? Solar seems to be becoming more and more viable  but still quite expensive and we wouldn’t be there full time to monitor the condition of everything. What to do, we can’t be reliant on “the system” but we do want those stinkin luxuries you know! Well we went ahead and took the easy road and sold out to BIG POWER… It isn’t actually big power, its SMALL POWER and I am very happy with the result but still not comfortable with the reliance on the system. We do however have the standard back up options with a Honda  standby generator but I will go into this generator backup issue at greater length in an upcoming post. So now we have made the decision to go ahead and work with the devil. This deceptively nice young man came out to the property and had a look around. He was going to do all the calculations to determine the costs of bringing the power in from the road.  Now, I had already measured the distance that I thought would be required to run the line in. However, his number came in more than 100 feet different? With the rate being $10 bucks a foot at that… What the heck? “Well you know that if we were to bring the line in the way you thought we would”, basically straight up the driveway, “all kinds of horrific things could happen!” After hearing a more realistic explanation on these untold “Horrors” that I might expect, we went ahead and used his plan. It really wasn’t a conspiracy, you know us wacky preppers of doom always believe in those, it was going to be better for some of the large trees in the path and he was trying not to have to disturb their roots. Something about possible large boulders and dynamite being additional considerations as well as a considerable extra expense helped to strengthen going with his plan too! Now, don’t get me wrong I might have paid a little extra to see the whole dynamite thing but with my luck I’d sit around all week waiting and then they’d blow it off when I ran to find the toilet paper or something? So, we had a meeting of the minds and came to an agreement on how the line would run and when he thought they would get it all completed. All that was left was to write another large check… I know, I know – coulda gone along way toward the true independence that we were seeking by putting it into a solar system! Well, I know by now your thinking this prepper guy isn’t for real, spending all this money on grid power? I’m for real and haven’t completely sold out but I’m really for real with having to work inside a budget just like the majority of everyone else… While I wish I had unlimited funds to build this uber retreat all decked out with the latest prep finery but as you will discover I am actually trying to pay as I go and get it done as economically as possible. The next post will be a real tear jerker when I tell you about my experiences with the DEEP DARK HOLE of independence!

Prepper

Driveway starting to take shape!

Alright, where were we? Oh yeah… we had to bring in a driveway or really it was more about legitimizing the dirt track – fire trail that was already mostly in from 100 years ago. See most people have a mental picture that comes to mind when they here, Seattle. “RAIN”, well its true – for the most part anyway! It rains quite a bit in the Western Washington area but only for about 9 months out of the year… Unless its an unusually wet year and then its 11 months but that only happens every other year, so its not so bad! Although, on the East side of the Cascade Mountains its much less rainy but we get alot of snow and colder weather in general through the winter months. This brings us back to the needed driveway… You have to have an improved driveway if you want to get into most properties in any other way than on foot during the Fall and again in the Spring. When the ground is frozen during the winter months it pretty stable and access would be good except when you have feet of snow to contend with. Spring and Fall are S-L-I-P-P-E-R-Y… There are alot of areas that have volcanic soil and it’s a fine dust that blows extensively in the summer and gets oil slick in the wet seasons. So we had to bring in many loads of base rock to stabilize the driveway. Base rock is less expensive than the regular gravel that we are all used to seeing on the average driveway, 3/4 minus I believe its called. This base rock is like 2-3 inch size rocks and compacts down to make for a good “Road Base”… As you can see in the pictures we have a beautiful driveway into the land! I’m bias though as this IS my dream place. Anyway, looking good or not it wasn’t going to work to have to haul ourselves and supplies in on foot through the mud and snow all winter, so “Driveways” another luxury… I know what your thinking, Prepper and his luxuries… Yes, I am very blessed but I doubt I have added anymore luxuries than the other folks that like to drive right up to their house and have indoor plumbing, etc… Mrs. Prepper, an outstanding woman, is much happier with the whole indoor plumbing thing – actually I’m much happier with the whole indoor plumbing thing. Now I’m not old but flush toilets and weekly showers, need em or not, are much preferred to the sponge bath and outhouse I have dealt with in the early years. I guess that this will probably suffice for the information on putting in the driveways, not exactly rocket science but still a giant step forward for prepper kind. Yes, I know you saw my 4 legged friend, so I might as well make the introduction a little earlier than I was planning. Meet “BOD” short for Bug Out Dog! No, I didn’t do that to the poor animal, her name isn’t really BOD but as far as the blog was concerned I was going to just refer to her as “bug out dog”. Well, this leaves us at the end of the first week. Yes, I realize it has only been 4 posts this week but it is still Friday and I am heading for the hills ASAP, that means right after work! I haven’t been to the BOL in 2 weeks and I can’t wait to get there. I have projects and will be taking pictures, still haven’t decided on which video camera yet but there will be additional still pictures coming and I will give you 5 posts next week. So with this, I’m outa here!

Prepper

Land Clearing 2

Early Stages of the land being cleared with Equipment

Well, lets continue on the saga of how my personal little slice of heaven came into existence and developed into what it is now. Probably restating the obvious, we wouldn’t really need to say we began clearing the land. I’ll say it anyway… “We began by clearing the land!”  Really it wasn’t all that difficult to get the process started. I mentioned yesterday that we had this dirt track that ran through our woods, this made the obvious location of what would be our future driveway. The land is laid out in roughly a square of 10 acres and I wanted to try to stay as far to one side of the property as possible, without giving up to much privacy if we ended up with a close neighbor at some point in the future. HOPEFULLY – NOT! Now I’m from the suburbs so a 1/2 acre lot would be concidered large, this is 10 acres in the sticks and is thought to be on the small side. I digress, we planned an area to one side of the driveway and began taking out alot of the smaller trees. As this space opened up we could start getting a real good lay of the land. What seemed like an area just barely large enough to comfortably park an RV on, turned out to be large enough to locate the future home in? It’s strange how someone new at this stuff could have so underestimated the size of the clearing he had made? I guess it must be the proportions are so much different than I was used to? Well, as anyone who has ever dreamed of having a property like this knows, I already had the entire project laid out in my head. In my minds eye I could see where I wanted the house, barn, workshop and gardens, etc. This “Minds Eye” view didn’t mean much to my “Dirt Guy” though… By “Dirt Guy”, I mean the nice man that cashes all those checks that seemed to be required to make my minds eye view come more clearly into reality. Truth be told, my Dirt Guy, is actually a VERY nice man and has proven to be one of the greatest assets in making this all happen. Not being from the Country or familiar with the operation of heavy equipment, a trusted person to take care of these larger jobs really was crucial. SIDE NOTE – I do plan to fix both, the being from the country and knowing how to operate heavy equipment as soon as possible! It took a little explaining to my new friend and he was off making adjustments on my land to prepare for all of this country finery I had proposed. Finery, like driveways and septic drain fields, you know, the luxuries! Oh well,  I guess that kind of fills you in on what happened next. I’ll keep the details coming in the next post and I think you’ll get the jist of it by the time I’m done. I really do plan to get the videos rolling in the near future and than I can take you on a real tour of the joint but just remember I’m not to keen on the prospect of having neighbors to close so don’t get any ideas!