Tales from the Clothesline

Many of you won't be surprised that I am writing about a clothes line since I've mentioned it before, but you know what? I am so excited about having a clothesline again. It's been about 15 years since we've been able to hang clothes outside. We've used a few creative indoor clotheslines from time to time over the years, but the last time we were able to hang clothes outside was in the spring of 2000. Now is the time for us to have a simple, effective,

outdoor dryer available to us again. A few days ago we moved the antenna towers and mowed down the tall grass in preparation for our new adventure in drying clothes outside.

  

Frank installed turnbuckles on the end of each line so we can tighten them up as needed. I thought this was a great idea!






You'll notice that the clothesline is very close to the outdoor kitchen. That will make it very convenient when I am also washing the clothes outdoors, not just drying them. More about that process once we have the kitchen

completed. As I took the first load of laundry out of the washer, I had this vague memory of sorting the clothes before loading them into the clothes basket and heading outside. I'll probably relearn how I want this done as I get used to this new, old routine. We have a plastic clothes basket that I could use, but I've chosen to try out a metal bushel basket instead. Every plastic basket we have had eventually breaks off at the handles and has to be replaced. I plan on this lasting more than my lifetime.

I seem to have that radio on all the time, don't I?

I have had this clothespin apron for many, many years. I don't remember who made it or gave it to me, I only know that I didn't make it. We used to have one with a hanger in it that you could hang on the line. I like the apron better. 

Back in August as my birthday approached, Frank asked me if there was anything I wanted. At first I couldn't think of anything, but then I remembered something. I had recently read about Herrick Kimball's clothespins. For those of you that aren't familiar with Herrick's blog, he is over at the Deliberate Agrarian. He also works from home creating and producing items for his homestead based company, Planet Whizbang. I contacted Mr. Kimball about my interest in his Classic American Clothespins and found out they would be available in early October, but since we didn't have a clothesline yet, that worked out just fine.

I recently received my clothespins and yesterday was the first opportunity I had to try them out. I was surprised how much larger they are than the regular, store bought version I have been using for years. The stainless steel spring is larger also, and easily holds a pair of jeans or thick jacket. Not only are these clothespins sturdy, they are made from beautiful ash wood. I expect these clothespins will last us a very long time. If you go to his site, you will find that Herrick sells out of his clothespins very quickly. His production run of 8000 is already gone. He did mention in an email that he may have an extra run of 8000 available sometime later, you'll have to check with him if you are interested.

Ladies please don't be offended, but I've always just thought of us as girls, regardless of age. Now that you understand that I want you to know, as I took the clothes out to the line, hung them up with my new clothespins, stood back and admired my work, that I was one happy girl. A little kooky, huh? You know, why do all that work? I told my friend Grace the other day how excited I was to have a clothesline again, and that I expect some folks to think I was a little off my rocker. There is a young mother that lives close by, and she told me she loves hanging out her clothes, she feels like she is saving money for her family. She's right, and then there is the advantage of the sunshine killing bacteria, the clean, fresh fragrance without artificial chemicals, and the stiff scratchy feeling of the towels. We were very surprised at how quickly the clothes dried. Frank commented that it was much faster than the dryer.

We broke down today and changed the sizes of our t-shirts. Frank and I were still wearing the shirts we wore before losing almost 50 pounds and they are hanging very loosely. We hate to put something away before it is good and worn out, but it was time to 'down size' our clothes. 

As I was hanging out this batch of shirts, Frank 'Wilson' Feral arrived and had me laughing so hard I could hardly take this picture. He is one funny man, and I am one blessed woman.

It is truly the simple things in life that fill my heart and soul with a deep, abiding joy and sense of contentment. Seek out what fills your soul. When you are in the midst of stress or strife, dip from that well of contentment and take it in stride. In the coming days our stress levels are not going to go down, they are going to continue to increase to a fever pitch. The

Our sheepskin prayer rug

uncertainty of the future has already caused many to lose hope, lose their temper, lose their families and, for some, lose their life. The stress of the coming collapse can bring the most stalwart and courageous to their knees. We find ourselves in prayer on our knees, side by side, every night before we go to bed. It gives us strength and binds us together like nothing else can. Seek that which will give you strength to face the coming days, weeks and months as our uncertain future unfolds. You will need it.

Until next time - Fern

Homestead News, Volume 12

It has been a very productive week in our little corner of the world. We seem to have a lot of irons in the fire, but at the same time, the progress we are making on a number of projects and tasks, not only makes the days fly by, but when we stand back and take stock, we are amazed at how much we are getting done. I'll probably forget something, but here goes with the latest news from our humble homestead.

  


We showed you the progress on the greenhouse door #1 earlier in the week. The next day the storm doors went up, completing the exterior of the greenhouse. The doors were trimmed to match the window trim that was used earlier when we had the new windows 

installed. Yesterday when it was 97* outside, it was 120* in the greenhouse. We have been trying to learn the temperature variations in there. It's too hot to plant anything in there now, but it won't be long.

Next we finished the new trim on the storage buildings. It's too bad the original trim was such poor quality. It rotted in just a couple of years in several places, so we replaced all of it before we had to deal with more rot down the road. We laid the cucumbers, trellis and all, down on this bucket so the trim on the window could be replaced. I was glad this worked and they are no worse for the move. Frank comes up with good ideas like this all the time.

Frank ran across an interesting article about canned food expiration dates, both store bought and home canned. It's very interesting and basically states, with a number of references, that there is no such thing as an expiration date. I agree. It's a very well done, interesting article that I recommend reading, Dispelling the Canned Food Expiration Date Myth.

We bartered the rest of the young hens and a few roosters, that we are not keeping for our replacement flock, to another young couple in exchange for help servicing our tractor. This young father, they just had their third child, has worked with his father in their tractor shop for years. His help will make for short, accurate work on our tractor. Another very good trade.

 
We found out this week that one of our American Guinea Hogs has greasy pig disease, or exudative epidermitis. See why I just called it greasy pig disease? From several conversations with our vet, and research in books and online, we found out that pigs generally have staph bacteria on the surface of their skin. As long as they are healthy and don't have any injuries, this generally is not a problem. The vet said staph is everywhere, on the pigs, in the ground, and very common. Well almost two weeks ago I noticed a few spots on a barrow's face. It looked like small, white bumps, but not anything important. We watched him for a few days, and when they didn't go away, called the vet and set up a day for him to come out and look.

Vet's assistant

The vet took several little scabby areas of skin from these bumps, took them back to the clinic, looked at them under the microscope, then called to tell us it is greasy pig disease, which is very contagious. The good news is that it is easily treatable with penicillin. The bad news is that pigs are hard to catch. Last night the vet and his helper came out and we tried to trap the pigs in some panels to give them the shots. We were only able to treat Liberty, our gilt. We had not put the pig pen back together since putting the lean-to shed up on the barn because we hadn't needed it. While the vet was here, we got the pen put together. Then this morning when I fed them, I locked them in the pen and called the vet to let him know we had them up. He came out again today and cornered the pigs with a piece of stock panel, and the three boys got their shots. We talked about what could have caused this and found it could be anything from getting scratched or poked with a thorn or on the fencing. Afterward we had a conversation about what to do if this happened again and we didn't have access to a vet or penicillin shots. Antibiotics in water will work, iodine would work, or maybe something else with strong antibiotic/antiseptic properties. Interesting conversation.

By the way, there is a possibility that Liberty and Lance bred a few days ago. If so, we can expect piglets around January 10th, right in the middle of our first kidding season of the year. Piglets and kids in January will make for a fun winter addition to the homestead. We also found out that the reason Lance keeps poking the other pigs in the side with his nose. It's normal dominance behavior. He seldom does this to Liberty, but often does it to the barrows. He is a sexist pig.

I'm glad to report that Faith is recovering from the reconstructive surgery she had last week. She still has a way to go, but has a great attitude and looks forward to getting back on her feet and out doing things, like visiting with her goats again. Thank you for your prayers on her behalf.

We have a couple of new projects on the drawing board. The first one deals with the beginning stages of an outdoor kitchen, or what some might call a summer kitchen. This area right behind the porch is the location. 

For Frank to work over this weedy, overgrown area, we moved this section of antenna tower to an empty area of the garden, and this hay bale that is used for mulch into an empty area of the herb bed. We were surprised at how well the tractor was able to clear off the vegetation that was growing all over. 

 

While he was at it, he also used the disc to mix in the chicken manure we put in the garden last week after our good trade of chickens for a clean chicken house. 
 

 






After I raked and cleaned up what was left, I mixed some weed killer to spray down the whole area. It hasn't been applied yet, though. There were several other things to take care of at the time and I haven't gotten back to it yet, but I will one day next week.

This location is central to the garden, house, greenhouse, clothes line and in a very convenient place. There will be a water supply from guttering on the house and a large storage tank. Firewood will be handy since we keep it on the edge of the porch. Washing produce from the garden or

dressing out chickens will be accomplished here with a basin sink and work bench. Cooking can also be done here, along with a grid down laundry service. Right now, it's dirt and planning. This tree stump will have to be removed, but that will happen when we have the water line dug and installed. The radio towers that now sit between the two holes that will house the clothesline poles, will also be installed before long, some of them here and some of them in another location that will facilitate our community radio communications network. This is another upcoming project which will enhance our ability to communicate by radio.

 






The water line we are installing will go 400 feet from the barn to the house. Here at the barn the guttering on the lean-to shed will funnel rain into these three 1550 gallon water tanks. As you can see, this project is also underway. Frank and Henry installed metal trim on the edge of the lean-to roof yesterday to cover some bare wood. It was an oversight when the lean-to was first built, and more will be installed on the pig side of the barn next week.

We met with the man that will be digging the water line for us one evening this past week. He will also dig the trench for the electric line to go from the new power pole out in the pasture to the barn. Frank and Henry have already wired the barn and installed the lighting, all it needs is juice to the fuse box and we're in business. This will probably be accomplished in the next week or so.

We fired up the incubator again this week. We have a number of chickens in the freezer, but not near enough, and we haven't canned any yet this year. There are approximately 60 eggs in there and we hope for a good hatch to supplement our meat supply.

We also found out one of our young does, Easter, has a stifle problem. Her back legs have a wiggle to them when she walks which is not good. We asked the vet about it when he was here and we have traced it to our buck. According to the vet, since Easter's mother and grandmother were born here and didn't have this problem, more than likely it comes from the buck. Another interesting thing is that Easter's mother, Lady Bug, and her twin sister, Cricket, both had kids with leg problems this year. Cricket's boy, Bo, was the one with the severe bowlegs. There is always something new to learn when you have farm animals.

As you can see, we are trying to complete as many major projects as we can in a short amount of time. We are investing heavily in tangible assets and labor. This investment will pay off in untold ways once we arrive at TEOTWAWKI. Do all you can. Time is precious.

Until next time - Fern
 

Grid Down Laundry

Hello Everyone, Frank here.

We were recently visited by some old friends, and yes, we've known them for a long time, and they are getting older. So, I guess that truly does make them old friends. We were looking at some pictures of their new piece of property, and noticed that they had an interesting set up for doing laundry.

They were using the old rectangular galvanized washtubs. Two of them, with a hand crank wringer in between the two. When I asked about how it performed, they told us it works great. We've thought about and talked about many ways to do laundry over the years, and we have a pretty good stash of round galvanized washtubs. We plan on using regular household toilet plungers to facilitate the agitating. But, again, we've known these people for a long time, so we started doing a little research. 

We found numerous websites with hand crank wringers, but they were all the exact same wringer. The prices varied by $30.00 to $40.00, and guess the average was about $155.00. I was hoping for a little bit more selection. When looking for hand clothes wringers, we also ran across some sites that had complete kits, which included the rectangular washtubs, wringers, stands to set the washtubs on, and in one case even a stand for the wringer to attach to. All this is great, and it's doable. Then I got the idea, how about a double sink utility basin? Lowe's has a couple of them that they show. Most of them are a plastic type product, and one they show as a rigid composite. But, remember, these are online, and I'm not sure if attaching a wringer to the vertical partition between the two sinks would be strong enough.

Then I got this shebam idea! How about stainless steel restaurant type sinks? Better get ready for a price shock. Then I thought, you know, besides doing laundry, we could use this for butchering chickens, not the butchering part, but the clean up part; cleaning up garden vegetables; on the rare occasion, processing fish. So, it could be used for other things besides just laundry. Stainless steel is expensive. I didn't mention above, but all of these ideas about doing laundry will be outside and on the porch. I would feel comfortable attaching a hand wringer to the stainless steel sinks. 

 But then I could just get two single plastic utility sinks and put a homemade stand with the wringer on top of it, between the two sinks. That's not a bad idea.

So, here is where I need your help. I recently did a post about a propane cookstove that the ignitor uses a 9volt battery. After I did the post, a couple of folks sent comments about other brands that also have battery ignitors. By looking at the websites, they have more features than what my cookstove has, and appears to be a higher quality. But at the time, I didn't know they existed. Same thing happened with washing machines. I couldn't find one without all of the monitoring sensors. Well, after that post, I received comments from folks about Speed Queen washing machines, which are manufactured without all of the sensors. 

So, I'm going to try something different this time. For those of you out there that are either doing laundry by hand, or know someone that is doing laundry by hand, could you provide me with some information about what type of system they use? This is one of those times that I don't want to reinvent the wheel again. Now, I'm not interested in using a paddle to beat my clothes on the side of the stream on a rock. I used to watch the ladies overseas do that. All the women would meet at the same time everyday, some of them with babies strapped on their back or their front. They would bring their laundry down to the stream. That was an interesting trip.

If you can help me, share some information about how folks in real world America wash their clothes in an off grid situation. Your help would be deeply appreciated.

We'll talk more later. Frank