West Virginia Sustainable Homestead Update – October 2016

This video is a West Virginia Sustainable Homestead Update – October 2016.  We provide updates on bags of leaves, winterizing the rainwater harvesting system, winterizing the garage, a broke 4×4, the new Great Escape Farms headquarters and the last fruit harvest.

Leaves

I’m not a big fan of fall, but one of the nice things about it is leaves that fall off of the trees.  I especially like it when all of the neighbors in my neighborhood help.  The rake the leaves, bag them, and put them out by the curb for me to pick up.  I take my trailer, pick them up, bring them out to the farm and use the leaves as mulch.  This weekend I picked up about 50 bags of leaves and brought them out to the farm.

Emptying the Water

As part of the winterization process for the rainwater harvesting system, I need to drain the tanks.  So instead of just dumping the tanks, I used a sprinkler and thoroughly watered the food forest.  It took almost seven hours to drain the thousand gallons I had in the tanks.

Winterizing the Water Harvesting System

The rainwater harvesting system is now ready for winter.  This weekend I drained the tanks, drained the pump, and disconnected the pipes.  We then changed the water diverter to the winter setting that will bypass the tanks and dump water in the field.

4×4

The Honda 4×4 has had difficulty starting for the last couple of times that I have been at the farm.  It would not start at all this time.  So I pushed it over to a hill and pulled the trailer on the downhill side of the hill so I could load it onto the trailer.  I transported the 4×4 back to the Pasadena residence so I can give it a carburetor and electrical overhaul.

Headquarters

I believe this is the first time that I have shown you the new property that we just purchased.  It is the property adjacent to our farm and it has a mobile home and four additional out buildings.  There is a good chance that the mobile home will become the headquarters and office for Great Escape Farms.  It needs a good bit of work, but looks salvageable.

The Last Harvest

We have already had at least two frost days this month with many more to come.  The watermelon vines and winter squash vines have all died.  The tomato plants are done.  So this is our last chance to harvest any remaining fruit.  We harvested tomatoes, winter squash, several watermelons, and a couple of dozen apples.

I used the True Temper Fresh Fruit Harvester to get the apples from high up in the tree.  It is basically a twelve-foot pole with a basket on the end that allows you to harvest apples from high up in the tree without climbing the tree.  I’ll be doing a product review on this product in the future.

Garden Huckleberry

I harvested a gallon bag plus another ½ gallon bag of garden huckleberry.  They were put into the refrigerator for further processing.  I hope to do something with them next weekend. I’ll be doing a video and post on harvesting garden huckleberry in the future.

Cell Relay

One of the other big projects for the weekend was installing a cell relay.  I really didn’t have any cell service in my house at all because we are in a valley.  But I get 3-bars of service on the roof of the house.  So I bought a cell relay system that has an antenna for the roof, an amp for inside the house and another antenna for in the house.  I now have 3-bars of service on the main floor and 2-bars of service in the basement.  I’ll be doing a separate post on this product in the future.

Winterizing the Garage

The garage was also winterized this weekend.  This involved turning off water to the sink and toilet and draining the water lines.  Once the water lines were drained, we added RV antifreeze to the pipes and toilet.  This will prevent any residual water from freezing and breaking the pipes.

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