Catfish?
A live trap can be easily converted to a very nice fish trap.
Do you have plans to dig a root cellar?
A live trap can be easily converted to a very nice fish trap.
Do you have plans to dig a root cellar?
Ready to make the move to homesteading
- Thread starter DrHenley
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"SNAKES".........I hate SNAKES.......!!!!!
I love snakes, they make fantastic wallets and belts
The first thing I would get is a good boat.Southern Virginia. Appalachian foothills basically. Lots of ridges and hollows.
Oh, and a river runs though it...
We have several acres of flooded land at the upper end of a hydroelectric reservoir. The reservoir turns back into a river right at our property line and there are some backwater areas on our land. No fish consumption advisories, so we can eat all the fish we catch from the basically chemical free water. (nothing but forests upstream) Below the dam you can only eat one fish a month.
Red line is property line.
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As we age we might enjoy or need electric at the flip of a switch provided by the electric company.
For reselling electric would sure help.
I have lived with and without electric. Without takes way more advanced planning for even simply every day needs. If your working a regular job , honestly no electric is a pain in the butt on a good day much less a bad one.
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Too far south for trout. There are trout in the mountains not far from here however.
We have red eared bream, bluegill bream, largemouth bass, chain pickerel, crappie, and channel catfish. I'm sure I'm leaving some out.
Ticks, yes, but I've learned how to deal with them. I've only been bit by chiggars once. We did a prescribed burn on half the place not long ago which killed most of the ticks there. We will be doing a burn on the rest of the place this summer.
Once we finish burning and thin the pines that will draw in more birds the birds will eat ticks.
Not a lot of hardwood, a few acres of bottomland near the river is all. And some beech trees in some hollows in the pines.
But there is a 25 acre plot east of us I want to buy that is 90% hardwood. (mostly beech and white oak)
I'll be selling timber sometime later this year or early next year when we thin and clear the 3 acre area. We will also be daylighting 100 ft on one side of the road.
And I've been preapproved for a quail management program in the pines, so the state will be cost sharing some of the improvements. Including planting fruit trees!
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Except for the river channel, most of the backwater is pretty shallow. We are talking 6"-2' deep. I bought a fishing kayak and can get just about anywhere in it. I want a good canoe too, but that will have to wait. The current in the river channel is pretty slow. It must be REALLY DEEP because I've seen the river upstream a ways and it had a pretty strong current there. But on our place, paddling upstream is practically effortless. I'll probably eventually just have a canoe with a trolling motor.
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Same with my wife. She can't even stand to see them on TV.
I've been going there for over a year, I have explored nearly everywhere in all four seasons, and I have only seen one snake the entire time. And that was a "good" snake (black racer). There is a marsh in the bottomland and I was surprised I did not see any cottonmouths there, or any other water snakes.
Doc could always get something like a Reliance ProTran2 A510-C transfer switch and put it between his main panel and solar inverter
Solar Panels --> Solar Inverter --> A510C <-- GRID
That way he can toggle any load, any time, to run from solar OR the grid.
Maybe he will start with a ground mount of only 5KW of solar and use the grid just for HVAC and Range/Stovetop?
As he adds more solar, he might never need the grid (but would probably be billed for $20 or whatever the power company's minimum charge is.)
The gist is, that he could have the grid available, but only use it as much as needed or wanted.
My wife would want the option of the grid too. She'd say something like: "it's not that I don't believe you can make solar work, but I'd just feel more comfortable knowing REAL power is available...just in case!"
Welcome
Sounds like you are well on your way. Good luck with your project. IMHO you will be quite busy for some time. 
This is what I was going to suggest - it's what we have at our new place. We could not afford a complete solar set-up all at once, so it was essential to me to be set up to move to solar once we are able.
The switch allows for two sources of electricity. When the switch arm is up, the source is the electric company. When the switch arm is down, the source is whatever we plug into that down slot - be it a line from a bank of solar-charged batteries, or a line from a generator.
So right now we get our power from the electric company. But when the power goes out (and it's rural, so the power goes out at least a little bit every time it storms), we can plug in a generator. Meanwhile, we can start developing our solar system piece by piece as we are able, so that eventually solar will be our primary source, but still have the grid for backup if needed.
Good place, the only thing I would say is for heating purposes as soon as possible get a large storage tank with a completely frost proof to 30 below input line fill it full before the first frost I have seen Temps while working in SW VA go to well below 0 for nearly a week after a thick ice storm.
Not knowing your topo the only other problems I know of in the Apps is flash flooding and fires.
If you have lived in Northern GA part of the Apps you know all of this so I feel you are set up in a manner that takes all of the into account already.
My maternal grandmother is from Avery Co NC. So we be mountain folk on that side, Hehehe
Dragged between the bayou and rockytop!!!! living on the river,,,
It is unusual but the temp has been down that low twice in My adult lifetime I think the last was in 85 for about two days thankfully.
Not knowing your topo the only other problems I know of in the Apps is flash flooding and fires.
If you have lived in Northern GA part of the Apps you know all of this so I feel you are set up in a manner that takes all of the into account already.
My maternal grandmother is from Avery Co NC. So we be mountain folk on that side, Hehehe
Dragged between the bayou and rockytop!!!! living on the river,,,
It is unusual but the temp has been down that low twice in My adult lifetime I think the last was in 85 for about two days thankfully.
I would never try to live where I am now in a survival situation, I would never try to live at a working farm for a long time in a survival situation if it involved a government collapse, on the first falling I would harvest everything I had, load as much as I could and have a uninhabited, and deeply secluded place with all of the things I need to start as secluded and undetectable homestead as possible ready to deploy for an infinite time,
The "known" factor is the downfall of many plans, stealth and surprise are of maximum importance in any survival situation.
When the roving foragers begin to gather and plan it will be the time of the test of your planning and stealth,
The "known" factor is the downfall of many plans, stealth and surprise are of maximum importance in any survival situation.
When the roving foragers begin to gather and plan it will be the time of the test of your planning and stealth,
Exactly, but a switch like the Reliance ProTran2 lets you access both electrical sources at the same time.
It's NOT JUST the main breaker you can toggle, you can flip every circuit between the grid and solar.
Need HVAC? Leave the HVAC breaker pointing towards the grid OR flip that breaker to your solar.
You could have one, half, or as many breakers as you want using only solar or do the same with the grid.
There's no leakage between solar and the grid because EACH load goes through the ProTran2 and is either toggled to grid or solar (or whatever your alternate source of electricity is.) It's pretty nice to be able to add (and use) as much solar as you want but still have the grid available if needed. After you've had all breakers flipped towards solar for a couple of months, you may want to save that standard access fee and completely disconnect?
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The cabin and the fields/pastures will be on high ground. There isn't really flash flooding, there are gullies that get a lot of water when it rains but drain out quickly into a marsh down near the river.
We are already doing prescribed burns on a quail management program. We did half of the place in the spring and we'll do the rest in the summer. We'll continue doing prescribed burns.
Winters are much milder than the SW corner of the state. We are much lower altitude and little bit closer to the coast. About 90 miles east of the mountains. I think it got down to the teens only once or twice this past winter, and that was only at night and early morning.
Most years it never gets too low in the WNC along the Piedmont Plateau areas But I lived In Winton-Salem and one year There was an ice storm in late March.
Most of my working time In VA was spent between Duffield - Gate City and From Roanoke South on Norfolk Western & Southern lines.
Most of my working time In VA was spent between Duffield - Gate City and From Roanoke South on Norfolk Western & Southern lines.
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Looking at historical highs and lows and also at my (admittedly limited) experience there, this place has 10° lower highs in summer and 5° lower lows in winter than our place in the Mississippi Delta. So about 5° less range in temps than the Delta. And summer is much much drier than in the Delta with most nights cool enough to sleep without A/C. It's in the same cold hardiness zone as north central Mississippi, even though it is much farther north (in Mississippi, we called Memphis "Way up north" LOL)
Based on all the ancient log buildings everywhere some of which look like you could blow on them and they would fall down, it seems like the place rarely has tornadoes or heavy straight line winds.
Based on all the ancient log buildings everywhere some of which look like you could blow on them and they would fall down, it seems like the place rarely has tornadoes or heavy straight line winds.
I have never seen any tornado or strong winds in all the times I have lived and worked around there,
The cabin My Cousins aunt lived in on the side of the mountain was just like the ones built in the late 1700s to some present day built back in the woods.
The old wood cook stove for heat, hand hued bedframe, Cotton stuffed mattress on ropes linen hand stitched dresses. the 1800s in reality.
She lived like she and her family did when she was a child on the side of the mountain in her cabin with her dogs chickens etc and was healthy as a horse when she was my age.
The area around the house was swept like the floor in the house.
When you go to the "Commercial" Smokies, a lot of the log cabins you see will have Watson listed as the builder. The crews building those were my maternal aunts grandsons. The owner was a Master Carpenter best in the industry as far as I can see.
Big C got him about 10 years ago in his prime he was born when I was 10 years old.
The cabin My Cousins aunt lived in on the side of the mountain was just like the ones built in the late 1700s to some present day built back in the woods.
The old wood cook stove for heat, hand hued bedframe, Cotton stuffed mattress on ropes linen hand stitched dresses. the 1800s in reality.
She lived like she and her family did when she was a child on the side of the mountain in her cabin with her dogs chickens etc and was healthy as a horse when she was my age.
The area around the house was swept like the floor in the house.
When you go to the "Commercial" Smokies, a lot of the log cabins you see will have Watson listed as the builder. The crews building those were my maternal aunts grandsons. The owner was a Master Carpenter best in the industry as far as I can see.
Big C got him about 10 years ago in his prime he was born when I was 10 years old.
Oh wow, that would be fantastic! Never knew such a ting was possible. I'm really thankful for our switch, but that would be even better.
I will say, when it came to use getting our switch two years ago, it was in the height of the supply chain woes, and getting it was a long wait (and pretty dicey as to whether it would be available at all). I don't know what the situation is now, but questionable availability may be something to keep in mind.
