Housekeeping & Blog Info

Just a little tiny housekeeping stuff of two kinds around here. First a little business. Then a look back through time. :) It's come to my attention that some folks get the auto email alerting you to a new blog post, and then try to comment by replying to that email. The only thing that does, thanks to some kind of software magic I figured out at one point by watching a tutorial and have now forgotten, is to automatically send you an alert so you know when there is a new blog post.... and no one sees replies to that. So please comment so right under the post! I love hearing what you folks are doing, what the weather's like in your area, and answering questions. Though I know sometimes it takes me a bit to have time to sit down and write replies to everyone.

Anyway, on to fun stuff. The photo above was about the second day after I moved into Fy Nyth. I know many of you never saw it back then so I thought a look through the changes as I gradually rearranged things to best fit my needs would be fun and possibly provide thoughts or ideas for how to best fit your own needs. As you can see, I was just trying to get everything in the door. Below is actually what it looked like just a few hours before

Snowshoeing & A Bit of what I Do For Work

Hello from Burley and I who are still very much enjoying things like long snowshoes through the woods! Thanks to our good friend Beth for snapping this great shot of us together on the last snowshoe she joined us for. Around here winter is gradually turning into spring. The snow is still quite deep in most areas, but a few cleared spots that also face south have melted out and become mud. 

I hope you are all doing well and getting to do something you

March Snowpack Comparisons around the Tiny House

You folks always seem to enjoy weather and snow comparisons. And I find it fun to scroll back through older photos and be reminded of the differences myself. So here's one for March! The above photo is today, March 19, 2020. As you can see, there's still a good bit of snow around. It's about my waist level in most areas where it has not been shoveled higher. Below is 

We Won!

Thanks in large part to all of you, this photo won that contest I mentioned! Folks were asking me for the results, but the entry and then judging deadlines were such that I just got them myself. And this photo is the winner! Thank you very much to all of you who gave it a vote so it made it into the judge's consideration. The prize for this competition was a year's free subscription to the website that I use to host my photo sales. This is a bit off the normal topics of tiny house life, gardening, cooking, off grid life, etc. but at least some of you know that another of my passions is wildlife photography. Occasionally though someone will suggest that I make photos available for sale, so apparently not everyone knows

Pandemics, Panics, Murphy's Law, and Living in a Tiny House

I hope you are all having a wonderful, healthy, and safe winter, spring, or whatever season it is for you at the moment! Recent events, or more accurately, some of the reactions I've seen from people to them, have prompted me to cover a little bit about what I do when things go wrong around here. I've been asked many variations of these questions over the years. "What if you get sick?" "What if you get hurt?" "What if you are snowed in?" "What if your vehicle breaks down?" "What if any of the other million things someone can think of goes wrong?" 

The short answer is that I plan on things going wrong, breaking down, and getting ill. Because this is what I've observed through both my life and broader history. Stuff breaks. Weather does unexpected things. Things wear out. I get ill. And usually all these things happen at the most inconvenient times too. 

One good example is shortly after I moved into my tiny house here, the heater broke. Now I'd just moved in recently. I only had one heater, a situation that is no more as I now have at least three options to heat my house! It also happened to be a Friday night. Also it happened to be twenty something below zero fahrenheit. Also, the closest heater repair guy was a 17 hour round trip drive away in the winter, and did I mention this was heading into a weekend? Also, I happened to pick up some kind of stomach bug and was flat on the couch throwing up. Too

Tiny House Life Frugal Tips - Cut Your Own Hair

I've been pondering for a bit a lot of the questions and comments I get that relate to something along the lines of "how do you afford to buy a tiny house/do what you're doing/etc." Well, in general, there's two basic ways to be able to have what you want I've found. Earn more money, or spend less money. Now there's lots of experts out there who have much advice and ideas on all aspects of the "earn more" side of things. From jobs and skills training, to the most profitable fields to work in, to investing and more. All of that is far from my area of experience for the most part. I've generally found that personally, it's easier and more fun to find ways to spend less than earn more. 

Now I certainly don't have a goal of spending as little as humanly possible though there are folks out there who can advise you on how to do that as well. For me, my goal is more about spending money only when I find my life benefits greatly from the thing that money buys. And for many things, I just simply enjoy doing them myself more than paying someone else to do it for me, not having them, bartering for things, or using a different/older/second hand item versus buying something new. Some things I would still rather pay someone else to do. Like I just really don't enjoy

Winter Bird Watching from a Tiny House

Over the past few years I have really enjoyed watching the birds that frequent the woods around our tiny house and the feeders. I have to thank my good friend and fellow tiny house dweller Moose for giving me a bird feeder he had when he moved. The little birds that started to visit it inspired me to create the current bird feeder setup I have. (It's so far been bear and squirrel proof! Check it out if you are interested - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0zylzSISwE) There were birds around before for sure, but I didn't get to see so many or watch them as up close. Watching and listening to the many little feathered friends is so much fun, plus they do a lot of work for me. Constantly patrolling the garden in the summer for any little unhelpful bugs that might be trying to take over, searching out the larva and eggs over the winter, and eating a lot of mosquitoes! They are great neighbors to have. And the time to enjoy watching, photographing, and listening to them is one of the many things I enjoy about living a slower paced life, much of which has been made possible by my tiny house. So I thought it would be fun to share with you all some