Summer Break...

3:20 pm - 92 degrees - sunny with a light breeze...

It’s hard to believe August is almost over!!  Maybe it’s true what they say about getting older; the hours in the day wiz by and weeks turn into months in the blink of an eye because summer has certainly flown by! 

Although I love the heat and sunshine, and the sound of kids playing outside all day, the end of August signals the start of school, the end of sunshine at 9 pm, and the beginning of our descent into winter.

Here are a few pictures from our busy summer...

Tony graded the driveway (over a mile long) a few times this summer and then the kids and I get to clean all the gravel off the bridge.

We went on several family hikes this summer including another trip to the Ape Caves!

Firewood is a never ending project of falling trees and cutting them up into rounds...

...then splitting the rounds into firewood.

Summer time is all about playing in the water - trips to the creek, river and lots and lots of water fights!

 It's just not summer if we're not outside bbq'ing!

We love to go for drives and wander around looking at and enjoying all the spectacular sights around us!

Tony spent just over an hour driving the 8 foot copper coated steel rod into the ground using a fence post driver.

Getting some of the parts of our power system organized - a pile of cables and wiring, 24 batteries (3 groups of 8) and 8 solar panels (5' x 2'6").

Some concrete, framing, plywood and the room under the stairwell is almost enclosed.  A little more work and then the "control room" for the electrical will be done.

And of course, we made several fun trips to the beach.

Top 10 Posts...

3:08 pm - 93 degrees - hot and muggy...

Out of all the blog posts I have written, it's always interesting to me to see which ones are the top posts.

Today I am sharing with you the top 10 posts from Off-Grid Home Sweet Home.

#10 - Off-Grid Power {Battery Bank}... (March 13, 2013)

#9 - Alaskan Chainsaw Mill... (May 26, 2013)

#8 - Peanut Butter Corn Flakes... (December 1, 2011)

#7 - Swedish Torch... (June 23, 2013)

#6 - Gravity Fed Water System {Water Storage}... (January 5, 2012)

#5 - Off-Grid Power {Generators}... (July 16, 2013)

#4 - Questions and Answers... (October 26, 2013)

#3 - Log Reindeer... (October 20, 2013)

#2 - Board and Batten Siding... (July 27, 2012)

#1 - Kids Handprint Stepping Stones... (May 6, 2011)

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great day!

Summer School...

2:04 pm - 88 degrees - hot and muggy...

A small glimpse of our mountain morning fun... learning ABC's and 123's on one end of the table and what a complete subject and complete predicate are in a sentence on the other end.

Firewood...

1:52 pm - 80 degrees - sunny...

The firewood cutting for this coming winter is underway.  In past years we have aimed to have all the firewood done by Memorial Weekend, but that has never happened.  So this year we’re giving ourselves a realistic deadline.  We are going to have a minimum of eight cords and hope to have the majority of that cut and split by the end of next month.
 

Besides getting all the firewood cut and split, Tony wants to build a firewood shed so we have somewhere to stack the firewood besides under the house.

While Tony has been busy cutting and splitting firewood, I’ve been busy splitting cedar rounds into kindling.  A warm cozy fire in the fireplace is a great idea, but sometimes that fire is a challenge to start.  That’s where kindling comes in; kindling is an excellent way to start a fire on the first try.  Even though kindling is essential to heating one’s home with wood, it’s often overlooked.

We store our kindling in 5-gallon buckets and crates for a couple of reasons: kindling is inconvenient to stack; stored vertically, any dampness tends to wick away faster; and its an easy chore for our kids to fill a 5-gallon bucket full of kindling from the kindling crates and then bring it into the house.