Ron Helwig

Here's a few pictures of the Sugar Shack during this snowstorm. At this point there's been about 20 inches of snow. The building is 12x24 feet with a 4 foot deck along the front.

Yesterday afternoon as I was walking back from skinnydipping in the pond I saw a swarm of bees. Concerned, I told the boss and we checked it out.

Growing up in southeastern Minnesota, I of course was able to visit pig farms. The small scale but still industrial model pig farms were very stinky places. I've heard that chicken farms are even worse smelling than pig farms, and if so they must be horrendous places.

Today I harvested 6 eggs from the new chicken tractor. You might not know what this cool thing is, so here's the short description. A chicken tractor is a portable chicken coop that you slowly move across an area you want to fertilize. Typically you have a fence around the back area of the tractor so the chickens can free range graze in a designated spot. The chickens eat the bugs and stuff, poop on the ground (thus fertilizing it), and roost in the tractor. When they've been on that spot long enough, you simply move the tractor to the next spot.

It was a bit cold in the trailer this morning when I woke up. Some time during last nights rain & snow the electricity went out, and I've now learned that all the heating systems require electricity to function. Thankfully it wasn't bad, and the temp in the trailer was only down to 55F while it was less then freezing outside.

One thing I've been wanting to do for a while is get more resistant to hard times, so when I heard about this stuff called biltong I had to try it. My long time Free State friend and Grange sister Sovereign Sandy introduced me to it, at least virtually, through her blog. (See entries #1 and #2)

Today I'll be writing about poop. But to keep the gross stuff out of the teaser and let people not see the gory details, I'll first talk a little about trees and bees.

The super secret base I moved to, in the Raymond NH area, has a lot of different plans being put into motion. One of the ones that has been going for at least a year now is a maple syrup operation. When I moved here just 9 days ago, I was tasked with gathering the remaining sap. That's a pretty simple task, and while it isn't hard labor it is just a little harder than you'd think.

This morning I tried my first shower in the RV. It took me a while to get it clean enough to use, but it is a decent setup.