TheReturnHomestead

Not all trees are alike. Some of the smaller trees on our property will never grow for the 70+ years that the Hemlock we cut in a previous video did. Most will remain small and stunted for lack of sunlight. These smaller trees have spread out up top and create a curtain of leaves that limits our view. We want to be able to see more of our property from the front porch so these trees need to go. Chainsaw time! These trees are not wasted though. Some are a perfect size and straightness to make fence posts, and others are great for the fire place. Before they make heat though, I will have to hang off the edge of the cliff to cut them down. ___________________ All Good In The Wood by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/

This summer was amazing for tomato production on The Return Homestead. We collected tomatoes as fast as possible, and Marti quickly scored, cored, and froze them. Heading toward winter, we are still watching the growth of the fall garden. While we wait, it is a great time to get some tomatoes processed for long-term storage. Marti makes our sauce and processes it into jars with a water bath canner.

Our fireplace was used for the first time two years ago. Though we have no indication of problems for the coming year, a good cleaning will help ensure safe heat for the winter. We cleaned the chimney cleaned up the mess, and did a little maintenance on the fire place. We should be good to go for winter.

We had a very enjoyable day working the chainsaw to break down a pear tree on the neighbors property. The tree fell in the early Spring and is now well seasoned and ready to burn. This is a Bradford Pear which makes a lot of blooms, makes no fruit, and is considered an invasive species. It will burn though. This is a hardwood and should give us lots of heat this winter. __________________ Back To The Wood by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/

Installing your own electrical circuits is simple. The pieces of the circuit are copper wire, junction boxes, switches, outlets, and appliances such as lights and fans. The electricity part scares a lot of people, and it should, but with the power turned off none of the pieces of the system are dangerous. _____________________ Landras Dream by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/

Sometimes your tools are not ideal to the task. Knowing a little geometry helps overcome the deficiency. The ceiling in the masterbedroom is not flat and the tops of the walls we built do not connect to the ceiling. We need to build angled frame sets to fit into the gap. Using simple geometry we overcome the deficiencies to cut a shallow angle across 3.5 inches of 2x4 with a 2 inch saw depth. ______________ Country Cue 1 by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/

Take advantage of the slow time between the Summer and Fall harvest seasons. We have no produce to harvest right now, and the only preservation going on is running the freeze-dried. This is a perfect time to make mustard. Not the bright yellow watery stuff that comes in plastic bottles, but the richly flavored, thick stuff. Mustard seeds break down easily with a little vinegar and water. A stick blender makes quick work of turning them into a sauce. Spoon that into a jar and process.

Autumn is here, and winter is close on its heels. Last year, we collected about one cord of wood from our property. We purchased another three cords from several different sellers. A standard cord is 4x4x8 feet, and a pickup truck holds about half a cord. Many opportunities to purchase firewood pop up online this time of year. Some sellers collect end cuts from local sawyers and coopers. Others collect large rounds from castoffs of harvesting operations that they split and deliver. Last year, we burned both, and the wood quality varied. Our purchase of wood saved us about $200 over using only electricity last winter. This winter, we want to supply most of our own wood. This hemlock won't burn hot, but it will provide heat at the cost of a small amount of fuel and a lot of sweat. Breaking down this hemlock presents special challenges. Hemlock is relatively lightweight, but this is a big log. Securing the log on the hill requires careful attention.

Knowing how to build a wall begins with vocabulary. This video reviews some of the simple terms of wall-building: Top Plate, Bottom Plate, Load, Stud, Oncenter Spacing, Plumb, Drywall Backing, and California Corners. Understanding how these concepts work together helps you recover from the inevitable mistakes.

Exiting and entering our back porch is complicated. The original stairs were made of railroad ties that eventually rotted away. We pulled those ties away from the porch and dry-poured a new landing pad. That pad does have some issues because of the old concrete we used, but the pad will still support a staircase. The stairs provided access to the studio originally. Now they will fit perfectly on the back porch.

The back porch needs stairs at the end. We have been relegated to using the bridge since the last stair case fell apart. That was not really a staircase, but rather a stack of railroad ties, and they finally rotted away. We have a set of stairs that will fit. If the bottom of the stairs just sits on the clay though, it will sink in. We need a concrete slab to support the stairs. We have seen several YouTubers doing dry pour slabs, and we want to try it. __________________ Jenny's Theme by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/ Corncob - Country by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100565 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ All Good In The Wood by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/

Growing strawberries is easy, and converting them into jam is also. This spring, we harvested strawberries every other day and collected more than 10 lbs of strawberries. These have been in the freezer, waiting for the garden to slow down and allow us the time to make jam. The process is simple: squish the berries, heat them up, and add some pectin and sugar. After that, put them in jars and process them. The flavor is fantastic, and even the low-sugar variety we prefer is super sweet. Strawberries are rich in vitamin C and anthocyanin, making this sweet spread an excellent addition to our pantry. ________________ Country Cue 1 by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/

When we purchased the barn it was packed. We have made great progress toward getting it cleaned out. We want to start on the tool cage. We have seen some of what is in there, and today, we are setting out to evaluate some of them fully. Each tool should either have a specific use on our homestead or it needs to go. Some we can sell to raise money for the remodel, and some need to be permanently retired.

We have a lot of steep hills to work on at The Return Homestead. We need to take down many trees on steep inclines with some deep ditches and creek beds to add to the mix. This Hemlock had only one safe place to bring it down, and I dropped it where I intended. Half of the trunk is on a steep incline with a ditch running across it. Operating a chainsaw while standing on uneven ground and with loose branches should be fun. With caution and slow progress, we will turn this tree into firewood. _____________________ Back To The Wood by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/

Take advantage of the slow time between the Summer and Fall harvest seasons. We have no produce to harvest right now; the only preservation is running the freeze-dried. This is a perfect time to make mustard. Not the bright yellow, watery stuff that comes in plastic bottles, but the richly flavored, thick stuff. Mustard seeds break down easily with a bit of vinegar and water. A stick blender makes quick work of turning them into a sauce. Spoon that into a jar and process.

Today, Marti converts oil and eggs into Mayonnaise. This process is so simple that buying this condiment in the store seems laughable. The homemade version is thicker, creamier, has a better mouth feel and has no sugar. We control the flavor by adding our choice of salts, spices, and flavorings. For those of you trying to eat Keto or Carnivore this sugar-free delicacy makes adding a little fat simple, and a little bit of your MCT oil blends in nicely.

We spent the day building walls in the master suite of our 2001 Fleetwood mobile home. The first attempt at one wall was in a previous video; today, we fixed it. The next wall to go up is the second side of the shower. Even with our extreme attention to detail to line up, square off, and make everything plumb, we also had to take two runs at this wall. In the end, we got it into place, making many adjustments along the way.

Autumn means winter is around the corner. Last winter, we had to purchase most of the firewood we needed. With temperatures getting down to -25, we burned about 4 cords of wood. This year, we intend to use less electricity, which means more wood. In previous videos, we cut down Beach, Black Cherry, Hemlock, and Big-Leaf Magnolia trees. Some of this wood has already been cut to length but is spread across the property. We want some idea of how much wood we are starting the winter with, so today, we start hauling all the wood to a central location for stacking.

A barn the size of ours won't clean in one day. Rain pushed us indoors today, but we have plenty of work. The back of the barn is still quite a mess, and it is time to clean it up. We discover a few interesting artifacts as we dig through the piles of hay, trash, and decades of rubbish. Neighbors shared a credible story of a previous owner, who became suspicious that his family was stealing from him. He hid most of his fortune somewhere in the barn to prevent the loss. We are not staking our future on finding a fortune hidden in the barn but instead on getting the barn back into usable condition so we have a proper place to tend to our animals. While shooting this video, we were surprised by an apparent ghostly disturbance, so watch closely to see the action.

Today on The Return Homestead, we frame up 3 wall sections that define the master closet and bathroom. We chose 16 inches on center framing for stability. We employed some moderately complex framing techniques to build the intersections of walls at the closet edge and shower. Installing California Corners provides drywall backing at the edges. We used a laser level to define another problematic bump in the exterior wall. That small bowed-out section of the wall and the other off-level, off-plumb, and off-square issues we have identified in this room indicate a need for careful measuring that provides a margin of error. The last wall section was built to precisely the correct length according to measurements taken at the floor level. Standard practice allows for minor variations on a large wall section by reducing the size by about an eighth of an inch. That eighth of an inch would have allowed the wall to slide into place easily, but I like my framing tight, which led to an epic fail this time.

Making progress on the Master Suite requires getting this shower out of the room. To move it out, we have to remove the outer doorpost to make room for the shower to move through. The doorway is only 29.5 inches wide, and the shower is 30 inches. After we get the shower out, we see an open space with plumbing sticking up in two locations. Moving the plumbing to the exact locations to fit our design is possible, but it creates complexity to an already challenging rebuild. With the floor cleared, we finally see another option.

We made it to the halfway point! We surpassed 500 subscribers in just over 4 months, which is very exciting. Today we are doing the same thing we were doing on May 1st in our first video on The Return Homestead. We are applying the manure to our blueberry plants to provide some needed fertilizer. The plants are starting to wind down to dormant for the winter, and this manure will be well composted by spring when they need it. Weeds over grew those beds this summer and the pine bedding we used will help lock out those weeds next year. The bedding and manure will help fill the bottom of the swales and help hold the water on the bed longer. So far the water escapes through the rocks and disappears down slope. So with one simple homestead project we clean the coops, fertilize the blueberries, reduce weed pressure, and help retain moisture. Everything on the homestead is connected with each system dependent on the other systems for proper function. _______________________ All Good In The Wood by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://audionautix.com/

We are almost finished with the alcove buildout in the master bedroom. We did not attach a headboard when we built our bed two years ago. This remodel is the perfect opportunity to make the headboard. Rather than connecting it to the bed, we decided to make the wall the headboard. In this video, I review the techniques and tricks I have learned to keep walls square, plumb, and level while truing them to the space. Bullet levels, laser levels, and tape measures are invaluable tools in this effort.