A Long Day of Commitments Elsewhere

Today was a long day. By long, I mean it's one in the morning, and I'm just new getting to a place where I can catch you up a little bit.

We had a huge (by our standards) rain storm here two nights ago. It was pouring for over an hour. In spite of the lightning and thunder's magnificent attempt to entertain us and frighten Dog, it exposed a weakness in the trailer. The pvc poster I made and had on our wall in Ketchikan is  duct-taped to the outside of the front window. It's been like that since just north of Casper, Wyoming, the unofficial capital of the most inconveniently politically conservative and unfortunately unlucky state I've had the privilege to travel through.

Anyway, that leaked pretty well. I'd say we would bring in about a gallon an hour. We wedged towels in there and everything. Hardcore. But Little Girl slept through it all.

The overall state of things... shelter is good. It's not insulated well, and our swamp cooler has a difficult time keeping up, but cooler weather is just around the corner. Electricity has only failed when power in town fails, which has only happened twice since we moved here.

Water is tricky and the system is constantly getting refined. Currently, we have a small camping porta-potty for the toilet. Those things are fantastic, by the way, for those of you who road trip with families. For water storage, we have two big 7 gallon cube containers with taps outside on my makeshift table. We also have another seven gallon jerry-can shaped container as a back up. The trailer itself has plumbing, but it's leaky, dirty, and basically needs to be replaced, so this is the temporary solution. We have a few big jugs we fill with water for use inside, and I just hooked up a couple of 42 cup coffee pots, one by the kitchen sink, the other on the roof above the shower. I'm hoping that it'll let us do dishes and take hot or at least warm showers without the hassle of boiling water on the stove.

Since all of that is gray water, we just let it fall into the yard into the garden. We're using the fancy, multi-purpose soaps from the organic food store. I'm planing to build a filter system for it, basically a ditch leading to the garden that has gravel that gets smaller until it's fine sand.

Anyway, that's where we are with the trailer at this point. The yard is slowly coming asking. Hetero Life Mate has been working on a path system through the yard. She connected our makeshift pallet deck to the old brick path Mom built years and years ago by framing a dirt path with wood she found elsewhere in the yard. She cleaned up that old brick path, and made another path from the back porch of the Big House to what's left of the old gate on the back wall of the old basketball court/future patio.

Lots done, but lots to do yet. Every day is an adventure. Stay tuned. This was extra long tonight!

Progress on the Homestead

The trailer has been doing wonderfully for us in this tight stretch.  I've managed to rig a few temporary fixes to allow us to make do with what we have until we get caught up.  We've got a wonderful spot on the alley, off the street, and hidden behind the old shed in the back yard.  There is space around the rig, enough to even build a small yard at some point.  (Work has been humbly super busy, so my time to work on house projects has been minimal.)  We've only had to make some minimal improvements for it to be relatively comfortable, save on the days of 90 degree heat.

Our improvements so far have included ripping out the bench seat by the door and covering the hole in the carpet with a simple throw rug.  It took a few hours, but it wasn't too difficult.  I also found a bookshelf up for grabs and placed it above the wheel well where we're storing towels and Half-Pint's toys.  Our safe with what the Lady calls "our life" (important paperwork) goes in front of that and doubles as a seat, stool, or short table.

We've also installed a few tarps we had outside, creating an awning-like cover of our little patio between the trailer and the shed.  It's tight, but it's cooler out there than it is in the trailer on the hot summer evenings before the sun goes down.  We've hung colored lights underneath them and I built a make-shift table from an old, rusty, angle-iron frame to a shop bench and an old door that fell off the shed years ago.  On it, I have a citronella candle (damn mosquitos are no joke this year, thank you wet-ass July), and two big 7 gallon jugs of water.

We have electricity piped in from the shed, which powers our radio, lights, clocks, and phone chargers, as well as the swamp cooler and small area heater for the chilly mornings.  When it was really cold, I picked up one of those small, propane Buddy heaters, and that thing is fantastic.  Can't imagine staying in a cabin in the winter without one now.

My Brother ripped up a super long pallet at work, and I put it in there as a ladder from the first floor to the top bunk for The Boy when he was down this summer.  He stayed up there and loved having his own space, his own windows, and a ladder to climb to bed (even though his sister climbed it more often).

Since we have no sewage system, I tore out the toilet that was bolted to the floor and piped out of the trailer and replaced it with a simple porta-potty.  My dad had one of these that he'd take everywhere we went camping or road-tripping, and it's awesome.  Easy to move around, easy to drain, and easy to clean.  Doesn't smell bad, either, unless it gets too full (because The Boy is 5),  The gray water goes outside and falls through a rock & sand trap before flowing down a gravel bed toward what will be a flower bed.  Honestly, though, our water consumption isn't enough that it's even gotten down to the end of the ditch yet.

For showers, we're borrowing our neighbors (thanks Mom and Dad) for the time being, although the super redneck part of me is going to try to hook up an electric 42-cup coffee pot to the roof and mount a simple gravity-fed hose to the shower to be fully functional with very minimal cost.

At any rate, there's a bunch more going on, but I'll have to get back to you next week.  Be well.  Do good work.  Keep in touch.

-Solitary T

Business as Unusual

Bart and I have been slammed at work. Business has been booming, and while we haven't met the goals we set out to hit, we're picking up pretty quickly, finding a rhythm, and cranking stuff out.

One of our first vehicle projects was installing checkered flag racing stripes on a Nissan Juke. Went well, and that thing looks fast!

We did a huge sign for a local eatery, the Twisted Cork. Their face was old and the colors were "muddy". We built and installed new faces for them, bright yellow to catch eyes!

We've also had the privilege of banning a custom wood sign for a father's day gift. It's a beautiful thing.

Keeps us busy and old!

The Shop is Coming Together

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of insanity.  The location is rented, and we have tables, partitions, a desk, and little else.  Today is only the 21st, and we're looking to open up for Star Wars Day.

To catch you all up to speed on what's been happening, a couple of weeks ago, my brother and I entered into a partnership with a former employer of mine and the former sign guru of Salida, Colorado.  With their help, we're opening Salida Sign Works, a full service sign shop, running the gamut on everything from business cards to vehicle wraps, banners to billboards, and everything in between.

For the next two weeks, we're going to be moving stuff, building stuff, drawing stuff, selling stuff, buying stuff, setting things up to get it all going, etc.  After that, it's only running a successful business.  No pressure.

Pictures soon.

An Update: Counting Down to Bugging Out

Our lease expires in eighteen days. Eighteen days until we load up our trailer, hook it up to our truck, and make for the promised land.

Bozeman, Montana, is a beautiful place. There is no end of things to explore, places to go, wonders to see, but there is a certain amount of money required to maintain that, money which I am not making in my current profession.

Salida, Colorado is our goal. It's where I grew up, a small, artsy town nestled in the Sawatch Range and hugging the Arkansas River. Hopefully, it'll be a better fit for us.

THURSDAY FEELS: Taking Back the Middle Class

I know this isn't what typically goes in feels, but I'm passionate about it, so I'm putting it here. I'm taking back the middle class.

With this whole project, moving into an old trailer, down sizing, saving money, etc., I have begun to think that this is the new face of the middle class citizen. Wages have fallen when compared to expenses. Houses are more expensive. College is more expensive. Food, gasoline, meds and doctors visits, all of the things we need to survive are so much more expensive when compared to how much money we're bringing in. Families used to enjoy the privilege of one parent working, while now, both parents work, usually with one parent making maybe $100 more per month then daycare costs. It's ridiculous.

However, I'm refusing to give this society that much of my time and money. I'm moving into a trailer, a tiny house that we've completely paid off already. We're going to park it at a mobile home park for $300/month plus utilities. This may seem cheap and tragic, but I don't see it that way. I see it as living within my means, responsibly, and not in excess.

It used to be that people saved up for a house. The average down payment was half of the purchase price. Now, people wind up paying so much money in interest to the bank for a suburban, cookie cutter mansion they can't afford, with a huge garage for their SUVs that they drive, solo, to work every day.

We can do better than this, and I think my generation is going to face a very harsh reality: America has messed up pretty badly. We've done on the government level what we've done on a personal and family level. We have tons of debt, we don't have any drive to get real jobs, the kinds of jobs that involve physical labor. We value sinking tens of thousands of dollars into degrees that help us work in retail and refuse to invest thousands of dollars into a certification that would potentially earn us close to six figures with overtime. We're lazy, and we're all moving in with our old parents.

So I'm downsizing. I'm working nights. I fix my own things when I have the means. I'm being happy with what I have, what little there is, and I'm saving for my future.

Help me take back the middle class.

WEDNESDAY SKILLS: Family Creations

I don't have any creative projects that I've worked on lately. Truth be told, we've saving up to do this trailer thing. However. In the spirit of Christmas, here is the Boy with a sonic screwdriver I made from a keychain, an old pen, and some duct tape. Enjoy!