When I was a teenager my folks bought 80 acres in north central Minnesoda,
heavily wooded with a few acres open. Sandy soil, perfect for growing pine
trees, not so good for farming. It had an old house that had been added on
with several rooms and porches. No electricity, no running water, primitive
by today’s standards but it was reasonably cheap. My folks cleaned it up,
bought some livestock and we were going to be farmers. It was early enough
in the spring that we had time for a garden. When winter came we had a
barrel stove in the living room that kept that room warm and a wood burning
cook stove so the kitchen was hot in the summer and comfortable in the
winter, as long as the fire was going.
The farming part didn’t work out so well, my Dad had to get a job to buy
feed for the cows and finally decided to sell the cattle and just work for
wages. My brother and I grew up and left but they stayed on the farm, the
REA had brought power and my Dad put an electric pump on the well. They
still burned wood but finally had to change out to a fuel oil stove in
their later years.
The years pass for us all and it was time to me to decide how I’d spend my
retirement. I wanted to return to my earlier life style but with a little
more comfort. My wife and I had gotten accustomed to
a more modern way of living but still wanted to keep some of our earlier
traditions. She was from a small village in the south of Viet Nam, I had
never stopped being a bumpkin. In addition we were sort of independent in
our thinking, both thrifty (cheap) and willing to work. We found the
property we liked and started nailing boards together. Actually a little
more complicated but still…
Building the house, upstairs
I wanted a wood furnace that would heat the whole house. I also wanted a
propane back up, for those times when we might be gone for a while. The
missus wanted a big, modern kitchen. We both got our wishes. Now I had to
provide the wood for the winter and garden produce for her to can or freeze
for the off season. I bought a tiller and a chainsaw and went to work. I
had no idea how much wood we’d need so I cut, split and stacked what I
thought was enough.
As it turned out I had cut plenty for the first year and that gave me sort
of an idea of how much we would need. The first few years I stored the wood
outside with a tarp over it in the winter, that worked out fairly well but
I always had an excess, money in the bank sort of thing. I decided I needed
a wood shed to store the wood, keep it dry and not worry about having too
much.
Fall 2005
I contracted with some Amish guys that built metal buildings. I went with a
30 X 40 structure, big enough for wood and to store some equipment inside.
Every Spring I would cut, haul, split and store my wood in the shed. I
found that I always cut too much and over the years the woodshed was full.
Then I was back to storing the excess outside and burning that first but
with a shed full of wood, enough for several years.
As the years passed I realized that unless I stopped cutting I never would
get to the wood in the shed and some other person would be enjoying my
work. In the fall of 2019 I broke into my wood savings account. That wood
was super dry and we used that for ’19 and ’20.
It was great, not having to cut wood any more and living off the stored
stuff. During the years of inflation I’d convinced myself that I had
accumulated interest and I was saving even more money. Then the fateful day
in March 2021 all my plans suddenly changed. We turned the switch and the
propane furnace started and we didn’t need to worry about being cold. We
coasted through the winter of 2021 and only stopped to cry when the truck
came and filled up the tank.
We still had a shed full of wood. I was thinking maybe if I hauled small
loads I could sort of get back to burning wood, as long as the snow and
cold weather isn’t too severe. Now with December upon us we still haven’t
used the gas, I’ve been able to keep the wood box full and start the fire
every morning. It feels good to keep the tradition alive. One day soon
we’ll have to switch back to the gas and Cheapskate (or Prepper) Fourscore
will cry again.
We really don’t live off the grid, we need the electric to keep everything
humming, even the fan on the wood furnace. It’s a game of pretend but it
works for us.
A Firster’s love is very different from that of a seconder.
He loves himself more than anyone or anything else? And often.
A Laster’s love is forever.
Yes, with calloused, chapped hands.
Can confirm; Fourscore has a lot of wood.
HEY NOW
Yes he does. I believe he sold some of that wood to Stillhunter so Fourscore is also a dirty capitalist!
Yet he charges ridiculously low prices for his honey.
I can attest to Mrs. Fourscore’s proficiency in the kitchen. Her chicken thighs are awesome.
Mmmm, I love a good thigh.
No, no,no. The wood Stillhunter got was part of the wood stove sale. No sale unless he took the wood and a wood box. I hope he comes next year and we’ll make him take another load.
It was nice to finally meet him.
You need a power toboggan to tow your ice gear out on the hard water. They don’t run on wood though.
Prepper or Cheapskate? The first few years I was fishing 4-5 days a week, winter/summer. I enjoy fishing alone. No fishing now, sadly.
I haven’t fished in forever. Always something else to do. And the wife doesn’t like fish so it was always two separate meals if I caught anything.
The fishing story I tell everyone: When I moved from Las Vegas all I wanted to do was buy a case of beer and sit on the dock and fish. Bought many a case of beer since, but never got around to the fishing.
The snowy pic is sure looking familiar right now.
I figured you surpassed that in September.
So, what’s the exchange rate from cured wood to dollars?
Roughly $200 a cord (4 X 4 X 8 ft), I would burn 5 + in the house, another cord or so in the garage.
That’s about what I paid for a cord three or four years ago.
Even though I have trees on my property, I bought wood. I was going to try cutting down trees on my lot given the layout of the neighborhood and my own lack of skills.
I’ve had trees removed, and the guys removing the trees asked if I wanted the wood. I told them no, since at the time I had those trees removed my shed was full.
“Now with December upon us we still haven’t used the gas, I’ve been able to keep the wood box full and start the fire every morning.”
Great to hear you are doing better.
I’ve kind of topped out, I can run the snow blower and the garden tiller ’cause they have handles I can hold. Use the garden tractor, etc.
I’m grateful for those things that I can do. Thanks CP
Keep at it Fourscore.
Nice story. Man, that is a lot of wood, you done raped mama Gaia good and hard!
How many acres do you have there?
Now about 70, we’ve given 2 smaller pieces away, about 13 acres or so.
Wow, good for you.
I contracted with some Amish guys that built metal buildings.
Good choice. The Amish are good folks.
My brother just moved back to Texas from a big parcel in Washington State. No more wood chopping for him! I salute your diligence, Fourscore!
Many years ago I moved from Texas to MN. My kids still live in TX, they would be lost living in the woods.
I thought we were all more concerned with woodchippers than woodchoppers?
Some times we even care about flipper dippers and whippersnappers.
+23 skidoo
Fourscore, you shame us all.
I’m gonna share this with my boy. You two are cut from the same cloth!
We need the daily challenges, though mine are limited these days. I would have a tough time living in a city or even a town anymore.
My kid just texted that your life is his dream.
Winning!
You know what grows well in sand?
Squash.
My Momma and I grew lots (I mean LOTS) of squash in sandy soil.
We got so good at it that we got tired of eating squash. Squash soup, frozen squash, zucchini bread.
Hubbard.
Acorn.
Buttercup.
Butternut.
Zucchini
.
.
.
I have only recently started eating squash again.
My mom tried to make me like squash. It didn’t take.
Me too. I think it’s one of those foods you either like or don’t.
You are a good man, rhywun brown.
I do like squash and watermelons. I did have about 10 or so watermelons this year. No squash but neighbors have been generous.
Good to know. I’ve got super sandy soil which is the opposite of what I’ve always dealt with and thus no idea what to do.
Two words:
Zucchini brownies
Seriously – the peeled, grated zucchini just melts away and makes the brownies incredibly moist. (They come out more “cakey” than “fudgy.”) It’s one of the few things I’m willing to go to the trouble to bake from scratch. They have been a huge hit when I’ve shared them with my coworkers (some of whom are excellent bakers themselves.)
I thought I knew you.
There is not a darn thing wrong with fudgy brownies. There is, in fact, everything right and good and holy about them. It’s just that this particular recipe with the zucchini gives the finished product a different texture that is also awesome.
Well, that’s better!
(Although I do not think as highly of cakey brownies as you do.)
Sisters, THERE ARE NO BAD BROWNIES!
/ I like mine with nuts
There are bad brownies. Especially the burned ones.
/no charcoal food
My mom used to purposely bake brownies just a few minutes “too long”. They’d go into the bowl under a scoop or three of vanilla ice cream. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Your mom is one of the good ones, MikeS.
Zucchini as a filler for bread is great. Since I’ve never had zuke brownies I’ll take the word of two connoisseurs . Hey, that would be a great HH dessert when you come next year.
Zucchini bread is great.
For quite possibly the fudgiest of fudgy brownies, consider these pancreas-busters made and sold by the family that owns the local Yuppie food market chain and beloved throughout the Miami Valley of SW OH.
The pic at this link gives a better view of their gooey goodness,
My zucchini bread with chocolate chips was the talk of the Methodist basement Sundee brunch crowd. Of course they were all 70+ and I was yust 17-teen, if you know what I mean.
Zucchini brownies are delicious. I also loooooove fried zucchini.
Great stuff.
Wish I could have a place in the woods too.
*currently looking for a place in the woods*
/not a great market
Yup. Prices are crazy near me.
The occasional cabin rental or camping trip is more feasible for now…
Getting harder and harder to find. The prices have gotten out of hand, thanks to the Government Printing Office. As cities and suburbs grow so do the prices.
I’m thinking the WFH concept will allow some to move farther away from the home office.
Wife always wants more woods. Or did. Maybe looking at somewhere closer to civilization. Like being able to walk to grocery store.
I hear downtown Portland is nice.
It’s as not bad now that the city is doing their whitewash/cleanup. The bums are getting pushed to other places but lots of vacant businesses. Pearl is as full as ever. Same with much of the residential neighborhoods. Pretty penny for many of them. St Johns/North Lombard look like real shitholes now.
I don’t know if she’d go back though. She worked in downtown Portland for twenty years and left when it really started getting bad. She went to drive home one night and some bum fell off the back where he’d been sleeping (and she didn’t notice). Breakins, hassles, etc too.
I’m glad to hear it’s getting better. Frankly, I’m surprised.
So I am I. Caveat that it’s just pushing the bums elsewhere and crime rates are higher than they should be (but still overall not the high and not equally spread out over the city). Also, the graffiti is still out of control.
Thats a big difference.
Dems don’t need Manchin now.
In other football news,
https://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/2022/12/oregon-states-mike-hass-says-its-pretty-unreal-to-be-inducted-to-college-football-hall-of-fame.html
Good for him. College football HOF for a walk on. Watched some good games back in the day when he was playing.
Imagine if the Stupid Party ran someone less embarrassingly flawed.
Fuuuck… a turnip should be able to beat that asshole Warnock.
So, with everything going against the Dems, they pick up a Senate seat and barely lose the House. Un. Fucking. Real.
Just imagine how bad things will get if we stop doing what we are currently doing!
Did Walker win a crowded primary like Oz did? Oz, endorsed by Trump, won a crowded primary by only 951 votes over a guy who could have thrashed Fetterman but was found unacceptable because he didn’t go all Trumpian on the election fraud claims. Maybe it isn’t always the “Stupid Party” but just enough stupid party members to throw primaries to unwinnable candidates?
Not sure if I recall correctly but I think there were four candidates running for the GA Republican senate nomination.
This was nice, FourScore. Makes me think of my fathers old place.
No fishing, but plenty of deer, mesquite, rabbits, birds out the wazoo.
You are inspirational to me. My legs aren’t worth shit anymore but you just keep chugging along!
Neither are mine, but I embrace the mech suit future. Someday the cartoons I watched as a child will be my reality!
Fulton County swung another election. My shocked face is stuffed up Fox News’ ass. I watched the results in real time.
It’s like the rest of the country (world?) is trending in a different direction than me over the last few decades. It makes no sense. I can only SMDH.
Indeed! I don’t get it at all. I’ve ODed on black pills.
I hope you brought enough to share.
Black beauties? 😉 Naw, j/k.
Glad you’re feisty again, Festy.
(Well, you sound thus, anyway.)
Of course Walker was going to lose, Vikings always choke.
“Of course Walker was going to lose, ”
Yup. Commie rat fuckers got cheating down to an art form now on a large scale.
Meh, Walker was a shitty candidate and Atlanta is a thing…the people there would vote for The Devil Himself if he was a Dem while the Reps will tend to stay home if a candidate’s personal life doesn’t comport with their ideas of decorum. Not that cheating doesn’t happen there but Reps need to do better vetting before they endorse another guy who’s paid for god knows how many abortions in an antiabortion state.
Record setting early voting – for a run off election. Uh huh.
(Your points are still valid.)
The early voting numbers are because of the system being changed due to Covid and those changes were stupidly bought into by the Republicans at the time. The Dems are good at vote harvesting, not cheating but still sleazy, and the Republicans better get over their misgivings about the practice or they’re screwed.
I don’t see how vote harvesting is any different than other get out the vote efforts such as poll rides or phone calling/door to door canvassing.
Because it puts ballots in the hands of literal political operatives without any oversight, thus compromising the integrity of the election? Personally I think it should be illegal.
Get rid of the Aussie ballot. Have complete integrity in voting.
We’ve seen broken pipes, “found” thumb drives, late night deliveries after counting had stopped, blocked poll watchers, ballots found in desk drawers, unlawful mail in ballots, duplicated ballots, etc.
I’m saying they’ve graduated from obvious shenanigans to being able to hide it better.
I’m sure we’ll still see registered voter’s addresses at vacant lots if someone looks hard enough.
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2022/12/state-trooper-charged-with-dui-after-arriving-to-work-smelling-of-alcohol-police.html
When your co-workers don’t like you…
Guy even got a couple hours to sober up.
‘A legal blood draw was taken around 5:30 p.m., which showed Burney had a blood alcohol concentration of .086, which is above the legal limit, according to the affidavit.’
But yeah, clearly not a favorite of the boss/colleagues.
https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2022/12/06/lost-cat-reunited-texas-family-five-years/4421670350001/
https://youtu.be/Bu3OQFCsKXQ
Was expecting this. (Slightly different time frame…and circumstances…)
https://www.wgal.com/article/pennsylvania-gov-tom-wolf-discusses-handling-of-covid-19-pandemic-fights-with-lawmakers/42170110
Fuck you. Just go away.
Wolf: “I’m going to second guess myself for the rest of my life, and I’m sure others will be looking over my shoulder doing the same thing. I’m going to be comforted by the fact that, at the time, I was doing what I thought was best, and I wasn’t being driven by expediency or politics.”
Bullshit.
I definitely get your hatred of the asshole, but his answers are better than most democrats who literally think that democracy means ‘democrats get their way’.
“Wolf: “That’s the way democracies work. You disagree or you agree. And if you don’t agree, you express that. In a perfect world, in a really smooth functioning democracy, sometimes you end up with better public policy.”
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/gma-prince-harry-meghan-receive-ripple-hope-award/story?id=94579198
🙄
-Prince Harry, Meghan receive award from Robert F. Kennedy’s daughter
Entitled twat gives award to entitled twats…
Does she have an only fans? Why is this girl famous?
‘The Sussexes received the award alongside five other recipients, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, at a gala emceed by actor Alec Baldwin.’
That is too perfect.
‘with Meghan speaking out about being suicidal during her time as a royal.’
What a drama queen. But I’m sure she told Harry that.
Kind of glad the King’s office has said they’re not going to hold their fire- let people see just how tawdry these folks are.
The Alec Baldwin emceeing is kind of the cherry on top isn’t it? Maybe they can get that crypto huckster and his very physically attractive polyamorous girlfriend to host next year.
He was just advancing equity, by putting someone in the ground, the only place we’re all equal.
Special Guests – Michael Beschloss and Michael Bolton
I’m not sure which one is worse, but at least Bolton doesn’t want me dead.
Then President Z went home, banned another political party, and consolidated what was left of independent media.
You cannot make this shit up.
And maybe a church or two.
Another recipient was the CEO of BOA, Brian Moynihan. You don’t make it to the top of one of the 800lb Gorilla banks unless you’re a psychopath.
I’ll note that while Moynihan wasn’t running the company when it was at the height of its mortgage fraud, he oversaw the $16B settlement with the DOJ that is quite possibly the largest kickback scheme to a political party to ever exist. At least until Zelensky came along with FTX.
People wonder where the old mob went. It didn’t die, it just morphed into the Democrat Party.
If you don’t defend her then you’re a rrrracist! (As Tucker Carlson would say. You wouldn’t want to be affiliated with TC!)
🙄
I wished them the best but OTOH, got the measure of her quite promptly.
(As someone who still knows who most of these people are because Mum read Royalty Magazine lo these many years ago…)
Good morning, Stinky, Sean, (maybe still?) TO’G, and Lack!
I…got nuthin’. It’s Wednesday. Make of that what you will.
4(20), thanks for the glimpse into your life (with pictures!) I will take your heavy hint re: zucchini brownies for HH under advisement and see if I can make it happen.
‘Morning.
Looking forward to some zuke brownies with my morning/afternoon coffee. Brownies aren’t just for breakfast, ya know.
And Good Mornin’ , GT and all the other kids this mornin’.
One big question is: If I make a batch of zucchini brownies to bring along, how many of them will actually survive the drive from OH to MN?
🙂
Mornin’ all. Raining here in southern NH. Time to head to the gym.
Good morning, DEG! Very foggy here in SW OH. Have a good workout!
Mornin, Ralph!
@DEG
Did ya see this the other day when I posted it?
https://www.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/zd10xr/pakistan_leeenfield_conversion_to_545_taking_ak74/
The official explanation is “dehydration.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7lUG4bVxrI
Yeah, sure, whatever you say….
And this young guy dropping dead is totally normal.
https://twitter.com/UltraDane/status/1596653383649472512
Now that we’ve used Ukraine up, it’s time to move on to our next disaster.
https://news.antiwar.com/2022/12/06/sen-hawley-tells-blinken-to-prioritize-arming-taiwan-over-ukraine/
But does Taiwan give back the Big Guy Cut?
Pelosi didn’t go to Taiwan for no reason.
Are we the baddies, Hans?
https://jeff-kaye.medium.com/secret-plan-revealed-cia-told-to-destroy-those-supporting-communist-germ-warfare-myth-f466dfb071be
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/12/06/defense-bill-require-pentagon-rescind-military-vaccine-mandate-major-gop-victory/
“Victory”