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Tim
Member
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# Posted: 28 Aug 2012 08:03am - Edited by: Tim
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Hi everybody!
Well, we have been in our "little cottage" for about a month now. I thought I would give a little update.
The chicken coop / tool shed is now finished as in the chicken run. We got 8 chickens, 5 New Hampshire reds, and 3 Road Island Reds, all young pullets that had just started laying. We have been averaging about 5 nice big brown eggs a day.
We have started clearing out some brush and cleaning up the woods around the coop and cottage.
There was an area that was a nice medow, I had to dig all up to put in the leach lines for the septic. It has been all leveled out now, and seeded. The grass has started to come up through the straw and is starting to look nice and green back there again.
I got lucky and had just enough rain right after I seeded it to get by.
We got direct TV satellite hooked up now, so we can catch up on the news again. lol
Up until last evening, we had no internet though. The local cable company swore to me they could hook me up, but when the field rep came out he said we were over a mile away from "the hub" and it would be about $95,000 to run the cable. That was out of our budget!
Next I contacted Dish network. Twice I had an appointment for installation, for both dish TV and satalite internet.
TWICE they failed to show up after I waited for ever on them.
I called Direct TV and asked for the same hookups. Well, to their credit, the TV guy showed up 2 days later and did a great job of installing the TV service, but still no internet. He had no work order, and said they would probably call me. They didn't!
So.....I called "Wild Blue" as satellite internet service that is notoriously slow and limited band width. Get ready for this.......they didn't show up either!
Yesterday afternoon, I had an idea. I called my cell phone company. They hooked me up with a "hot spot" through my phone, and the plan was actually 20 dollars cheaper than the plan I was on. It is a little slow, but will get us by.
Anyway, we are getting settled in, and it really seems like home now. I have 6 raised beds built for gardens in the spring. I hope to get 2 more built.
I have been getting loads of cow manure from a friend that has been sitting for 2 years to fill the beds. Mixing in some straw and grass clippings, it should be really good stuff by spring.
The landscaping around the cottage will have to wait until next spring, but will be fun.
We are planning for lots of good veggies, maybe a grape arbor and some black berry bushes eventually.
Here are some pics of the coop and chickens........
chicken_run_7.jpg
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close_up_on_roost.jp.jpg
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barn19.jpg
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first_day_first_eggs.jpg
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Tim
Member
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# Posted: 28 Aug 2012 09:44am
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more pics..
Oh, we got the washer and dryer in too!  
washer_dryer.jpg
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barn11_3.jpg
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barn24.jpg
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old buddy
Member
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# Posted: 28 Aug 2012 11:58pm
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Tim, your place is looking great. I have the hot spot too. I have a 5 gig limit per month which I have never exceeded in a year. It sure is nice to be able to get on the net while at the cabin. I've talked to Old Old Buddy about putting an antenna on the cabin to pick up local channels so we could watch a Steelers game someday...I thought a smaller lcd tv would be easy to transport and wouldn't take up much room. We'd have to power the tv with the generator though...kind of noisy while watching a game. I wish we had power sometimes, but it would cost BIG BUCKS to have it ran to the cabin.
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Spudmasher1
Member
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# Posted: 29 Aug 2012 12:52am
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TIM, Tim, Member Tim. I have a question posted under cabin construction about using driveway sealer. Please look for it when you have time. Thanks Spuds
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Rob_O
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# Posted: 29 Aug 2012 02:26am
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While I *could* get either Uverse or cable at my cabin, I'm going with OTA television and cell phone internet. I'm tired of overpaying for poor service
Quoting: old buddy I've talked to Old Old Buddy about putting an antenna on the cabin to pick up local channels so we could watch a Steelers game someday... We'd have to power the tv with the generator though...kind of noisy while watching a game.
Get a couple golf cart batteries and a small inverter. That's enough to watch the game, run a light or two and listen to some music. Manage your power carefully and you should be able to get through a long weekend without using the generator
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MJW
Member
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# Posted: 29 Aug 2012 08:08pm
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The place is looking great, Tim!
We use a Verizon hot spot card in our travels and it is great. Only $69 a month for plenty of bandwidth and lots of times we get the 4G connection which is faster than any DSL I have ever had.
We plan on keeping it when we build our place to be able to stay totally off grid.
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