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

Tiny House Cooking - Honey Oat Bread

 I've shared several different ones before, but here's another bread recipe I really enjoy with a nice warm bowl of soup. All the below zero weather recently makes me enjoy these kinds of meals. This one is easier and faster than most breads because it's not a yeast bread, but a quick bread. It only uses baking powder / soda and so does not have any of the "touchiness" of a yeast bread. This bread is really fast to mix up, you do not need to wait for

Can You Help Fy Nyth Win This?

Hey all! Just a really quick post asking for your assistance. You can help this photo's chances of being picked by the judges in a photography contest. If you have a minute to go give it a vote, I'd much appreciate it! Just click here:

https://woobox.com/56uw8x/gallery/g_0bq0VqNCY

The top 10 photos as voted by the public get consideration from the judges for the winning spot. When I last looked, my photo of Fy Nyth was in the top 20, so it would be sweet if it could make it into that consideration! And... back to regularly

Changing Showpack Depths

Up to the first of January, this winter was running a little below average snowfall. Of course long term averages are made from higher and lower years. As you can see in the above photo, heading into the new year the snow around the house was not very deep.

 Then at the begining of January, it started dumping. It snowed almost every day for the first half of the month, and actually broke records for January snowfall totals. Which has brought us up to about average for the whole winter so far. Anyway, I thought you might all enjoy photos of

Possible New Video Hosting Site?

Hey folks. Less fun stuff post here. For everyone wandering about videos, I've been playing around with other potential video hosting platform options. This one seems to work more of the time than most (as in from the upload end, it only glitches about half the time). I have a handful of videos there now and would be curious to hear feedback on how the viewing experience is for you all from the viewing end? Do they load and play smoothly on various devices? Is the quality and sound the same as you are used to for my videos? Is it easy to navigate and find things? Any other thoughts you have? https://www.brighteon.com/channel/fynyth 

(For those who will ask, yes I've been trying to copy videos to BitChute too, and over the past 9 weeks, have not yet had a single one of 550+ videos successfully upload to their site though I have hundreds of failed tries.)

And, of course none of this changes anything about the FTC's stated goal of pursuing individual creators with massive fines over vague rules that could include

Winter Wonders - Snowshoeing, Wildlife, Ice, and Snow

We've been very much enjoying winter around here! Many miles of snowshoeing through woods and along rivers have provided delightful glimpses of beautiful things in the natural world.

 The snowpack, the amount on the ground, is always changing with new storms, well below zero weather that sucks moisture back out via sublimation (frozen water turning directly into vapor without melting into a liquid first), or a warmer day with some sunshine that helps compact all the layers from the various storms together as the snow settles. The snow fall totals are a different measurement from snowpack, generally measuring the amount of new inches that have fallen once a day before all the above mentioned effect have much time to act on that new snow. At the moment this leaves the mountain above me reporting over

Tiny House Cooking - Instant "Cheesecake"

Most dessert type foods I can easily pass on. Cakes? Most are dry and I don't enjoy them. Cookies? Eh, if they are really fresh and soft, but otherwise not my thing. Doughnuts? Unless it's within about 10 seconds of coming out of someone's skillet after being home made, don't even really like them. And so on. But I have a serious weakness for anything made with cream cheese. Anything. Like right down to eating a block of plain cream cheese. I really really like the stuff!

 If I'm ever out for dinner with a friend, I'll most likely pass on any dessert offered. Unless the waiter mentions cheesecake. Then I will almost always have a piece. And of course I can bake my own cheesecake. I've made a wide variety over the years and enjoyed every one. One of the best I ever had was a 8 inch high pistachio cheesecake made for me by a good friend as a birthday gift. Truly amazing! But... I don't do this much as my body doesn't seem to digest dairy well. As much as I enjoy the stuff, I avoid consuming it most of the time.

 Occasionally though, I just really crave the rich creamy taste. And if you ever feel the same, here's how I get that cheesecake like fix, in less then a minute, without having a whole cheesecake

Best Snowshoe for Deep Powder, New vs. Old Snowshoes

As I mentioned in one of the last posts, we've been doing a lot of snowshoeing recently. And as discussed, I have found modern style snowshoes to be pretty ineffective for actually moving through deep snow. I've pondered for several years if I needed a new-to-me pair of snowshoes and if so, what would best fit my needs. I have found over time, this is a good process to work through to be sure I am going to acquire an item I actually need or want and know I will use for sure. I don't have time or space in my life for things that don't fit that description, so I don't want to waste any money or energy on any of the trillions of items in the world that I do not need or want and know I will use for sure. 

 So, when I'm thinking through something I might want, unless it's something I already had that is totally worn out, broken, and unrepairable, and needs replacing with the same item, this is what I usually do. Think about, do I need this? Almost always the answer is

Another Big Nighttime Visitor

A couple mornings ago, when Burley and I woke up and first went outside, I saw new tracks in the snow. One advantage of getting more snow almost every day, is the ability to easily pick out and follow fresh tracks. Burley has a pretty huge foot print for a barely 50 pound dog. Much larger than many dogs his size, and this serves him well for living in deep snow country as those big feet act a bit like snowshoes. But at first glance I knew these tracks were not Burley's. They were two to three times larger than his feet. My first thought was that our resident mountain lion had visited again. But a second glance let me know that they were not cat tracks. Just like a house cat, mountain lions can retract their claws, so their paw prints just have a pad and toes, no nail print visible. Each of these tracks I was looking at had a very clear nail print at

Snowshoeing with Burley

With lots (more than 11 feet in the mountains above me since January first alone!) of snow, Burley and I have been enjoying quite a few snowshoes through the woods. I love being able to float over the deep snow, the quiet of the winter woods, and

Winter Squash

Some of the many squash I helped grow and harvest at a previous job in a different and much warmer location!

 Winter squash (the hard, sometimes oddly shaped and colored ones, not things like zucchini which are summer squash) are a great way to get lots of vitamins, minerals and fiber, among other thing, into your diet in the winter. Check out http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2751/2 or other sources if you want to see a list of all the vitamins and minerals they contain. They also store very well, so are a great winter food. I would love to grow and store my own as they are pretty easy to grow. If you have a warm enough climate. Most varieties take a 100 day plus frost free growing season and here we're lucky to have 50 days without snow. Usually with multiple frosts in that period. But wether you can grow your own or buy them, one of the best things about squash is how easy they are

2019 Highlights

Sometimes on new years day, I want to tell people, "you know, a new year starts for you each day you wake up still alive." Do something with it. Don't wait for some random day on a calendar to make resolutions and do new things. If it's something you want to or know you need to do, start right now. Whatever day on a calendar that is. 

That said, it is nice to look back through what happened in the last while every now and then. So here's some highlights

Safe Cleaning

At this time of year, some of you may be doing a bit more cleaning than normal due to the residue of family visits and holiday parties. In any case, I'm guessing that most of you do some cleaning, at some point in your life. As a society we seem to have been sold the idea that this needs to involve a lot of expensive and toxic

Night Time Noises

The most frequent night time visitor we see here is a fox. Probably more than one as there are quite a few in the area, though I don't usually see more than one at a time in our yard. I love having them come through as they are great at putting a dent in the population of small rodents. Last night Burley and I were awakened in the middle of the night by a very different sound though.

Winter Decorating with Pine

As you probably know, I really enjoy the flowers surrounding my house, garden, wild in the woods, and seeing their beauty all summer. With our long winters, there are many months of the year with no flowers growing outdoors here. So, I do some winter decorating with

Tiny House Cooking - Christmas Caroling Chili

With the frigid cold weather we woke up to this morning, with temps a little below zero F, a good hot hearty soup was on my mind. Chili seems to be another of those dishes that most people have passionate opinions about the correct way to make. I never order chili if I am away from home because