Can't remember where I left off.....

But here is where I am now with the projects And please I am no longer that other guy......... There is only Kamp Krap and Krappy and the Poo now.

The Lake is DONE, The Little Pond is DONE and the Big Pond......... Yeah I am going to have to pump it out quite a bit next summer to finish it on the tails.

I went with a terrace on the big pond dam and needed to get a bunch of honeysuckle out of the West Woods tree line so ripped it out with box blade and put it on the back side slope.


I put eight 25 ton tandem loads of 3" on the top, water side slope and terrace flat part. The waterline will come up to the Mount Krap Mountain pass terrace. LOL I decided to keep the 30' tall Mount Krap and use it as my watch tower and deer stand. Best view of the entire property is from up there.


Built it all with a 6' box blade and the Still newish 57hp tractor. I did compress every 8inch layer with the old 12k pound Massey and 10 ton sheep foot roller. Pic is from November there is about 8' more water in it now. Had to make it 30' wide so my friends biggest combine could cross it. We shall not speak of how many hours it took to build that dam


I cut a spillway in each end of the dam in the virgin clay and stuck a 15" pipe in either end and put a whole lot of rip rap in it down to the little pond between the lake and the big pond. I am standing in the bed of the little pond to take the pic.


The big pond will flood about 50 yards into the woods between the big dead tree and the little cedar tree to the left. We finally got rain and the tails there and on the South to keep scraping. Will pump it out next summer and finish it up.


The little pond ended up only being 1.25 acres but real deep. And kind of a dangerous little pond with very steep banks and shallowest water under the big pond dam being 7' deep. Zero wind action in the little pond but there will be a pretty good current when the big pond overflows into it. 3" rock on the slope to the water line and 6" rip rap below the water line..... Rip Rap was not in at the time of the pic Thick layer from the 3" down to where the water is in this pic now.


Tore the old ceiling out of the Kabin and put sistered ceiling joist in on 24" centers and filled it up with R-30 unfaced rolls, then put 3/4 inch OSB on top

Changed the stove pipe from through the wall to through the roof with 6" triple (10" OD) And filled the roof with R19 faced bats(Not done in the pic)


Had enough siding left over from the machine shed walls to skin the ceiling of the Kabin. I like it, need to caulk and tighten the seams together but I like it.


Gave old sparky a long overdue seal job and face lift. and basically remodeled the entire Kabin to boot. Tried a few different things on Sparky to increase his burn time and overall efficiency. He is getting 7 hour burn times now instead of 5 and with insulation improvements the Kabin stays 70+ for 9-10 hours. I will call that a win for old box stove.


And the finished product done just in time for that extreme cold last week! Well except for the High Temp Dektite Flashing and storm collar. Those arrived yesterday and are installed now.


Moved on to building the new house. Windows in, concrete slab in, ceiling spray foam on, door in, first floor framing mostly done, stair stringer cut out and put up...... I hate making stair stringers for the record!


Does not look like a McMansion but it is a nice little 1200sqft on the first floor and another 400 square foot of living space in the center of the loft. And we dropped down to -10 within a few hours of taking that pic. LOL childs play for Northerners, brutal Cold for Southern IL!!!


Shot 3.5" Nail into my hand hit perfect and went good and deep into the palm.

Pulled it out, flushed it out real good with iodine.


Wrapped it up real good and went back to work Never a hint of infection, just hurt like hell for a week!


Finally broke down and bought New USED very good GN Trailer only 24' and 14,000gvwr but will handle everything I want to haul going forward.


Middle finger healed, only have about 2/3s of the tip left after it finished rotting out and the tip bone worked its way out of the hole. Stunk like a rotting pig carcass for a week until doc scraped and boiled all the rotten crap out with super powered peroxide. Totally dead and with out feeling to the second knuckle, but still good for giving people the bird!


Bought two more containers one to be the tool shed and WIND WALL for the remaining high tunnel. Tired of the 70-90 mph winds for a week or two every spring shredding my high tunnel skin!


The second is going to house my personal water treatment plant. Drawing from the lake filtered, and UV sterilized in the container and sent to the 5,000 gallon sealed cistern for the house. That is a 2023 project but container prices are not showing signs of getting any cheaper.


A lot of work done in 2022, a lot left to do in 2023 but life is good and getting better. Mostly Mrs Krap was diagnosed with stage 3 pancreatic cancer a Month ago and we go a good distance for her chemo treatments that are 14 hour day and then repeat the 4 hour round trip 2 days later to get the portable chem pump removed. Every other week for the next 9-12 Months. Found the tumor while removing a gall stone that was not a gall stone but rather the tumor pushing the bile duct shut. Caught it early enough that there is a good chance of treatment and a surgery curing it...... rather than a stage 4 death sentence. But she is in good spirits except for the 3-4 days after the chemo treatments, they are real hard on her So a bad week after Chemo and a good Week before the next Treatment. Just gotta keep her spirits and morale up through the bad week and charge he up going into the next bad week. Right now it it just looks like a very long road with very dim light at the end of the tunnel. We are gonna beat this though!

 

No worries figured it was my name choice or a tech issue..... Then leaned toward tech issue when a much kinder and gentler name didn't work either

 

I am seeing a whole lot of really expensive and really crazy on the horizon. There is a long term price that will have to be paid for all of the bad choices being made for short term gain that is mostly illusions and houses of cards. Only two ponds, half a house, a water treatment plant and 40KW solar system left to go for 2023. Then it is take it easy and enjoy watching the chaos in the outside world play out.

 

I sure wish I had your energy level ,, really appreciate you walking us thru your projects ,, it's nice seeing it all come together .

Really sorry to hear about Mrs Kamp ,, my prayers are with you both .

 

Great progress everything is looking so good, those old stoves will last forever just need some TLC. OMG seeing that nail in your hand reminds me of my son. he was working on a house shot a nail through his thumb (nicked the bone) and stuck to the wall. His friend had to use a claw hammer to get his hand free. Came home white as a sheet off to the emergency room.

 

Doc looked at it a few days after and suggested if I do that trick again.... Cut the head off and push it out instead of pulling it out. It was a nail with the little barbs and did more damage pulling it out. LOL it shot right through the 2x4 and straight in where I was holding another 2x4. One of those the gun bounced and did a double tap. First nail went into the stud second nail ran right down the side of the stud into the hand. Did not help I had the aircompressor set at 200PSI to air a tractor tire up and didn't set it back down to 100PSI for the nail gun LOL. I don't care where one hits you or nicks you Nail gun nails hurt! The stuff they coat them with I believe is where all the special pain comes from.

 

I knew it was a probably too big project list to get done in two years. At the end of year one, I am actually shocked and amazed that everything on the 2022 list was accomplished and some of the 2023 list started. Having to go to the City two days per week has slowed things down a lot NOT Complaining even a little bit....... well I am but not for getting things done reasons I also check on Mrs Krap every hour or so to make sure she is doing alright or if she needs anything during those rough days after a treatment. So that derails things a bit. Again not complaining and she did the same for me when I was face down ass up in the dirt. It was like getting hit in the head when the surgeon came out and I was expecting to hear a gall stone was removed with no problems and heard that there was no Gall Stone only a tumor and that it was most likely cancer but would not know for sure until the test on the tissue came back. Had about a half hour while she was in recovery to get my mind around it and put on the brave face for her. She expects and needs strong and positive from me and I will deliver it. But behind that is a whole lot of doubts and worries that I just can't let her see. The good thing is that it was caught before it had grown out much from the pancreas and was only just getting started in the lymphnodes. She ain't short and fat anymore, just short now. She has lost better than 100 pounds since this started. LOL she has always struggled to keep her weight down, so she is not complaining about only weighing 120ish something now, just about how she got there. I don't care if the projects slow way down or even stall out this year. I just want my Mrs. Krap to beat this and still be here in 2024 We have been together pushing 26 years now and I kind of like having her around!

 

God bless you both ,, I pray the lord will look after Mrs Kamp ,,, and grant your wishes .

 

Hey! Welcome back! Your whacky zaniness was greatly missed! Blessings to Mrs. Kamp. She'll be in my prayers for a quick recovery.

PS. Did you say 40KW solar system?!

 

Love the way things are going on the Kamp. Praying for your wife's health. Chemo Dr told me that chemo is kind of like football, if you walk thru all the practices during the week in your street clothes it will be easy, but you wont win the game on Saturday. Glad to see you back again.

Looks like a nice compact comfortable cabin, wood stove and all.

 

I like it Nothing fancy about it.

 

Whacky you say!!! Not seeing it

 

Prayers to the Miss's for a healthy recover. Stop it with the nail gun wildman!!!

 

Better pic of the 20' container I put on a mound on the SW Corner of the high tunnel. We had a drought for the most part all summer until a few weeks ago, That mound was made from Dust pulled together with the boxblade. Not a drop of moisture 8" down and I didn't want to dig a hole but needed to get the top of the container higher than the top of the tunnel. Building new ends and getting rid of the roll up sides and then stripping the inside level and building cinder block raised beds and roadpack floor in between raised beds is on the agenda for next year. I did grow a bumper crop of Foxtails and Goldenrod in the tunnel this summer

Aside from being a wind wall that hopefully stops that SW corner from getting shredded every spring and then blowing it up like a big balloon and blowing the whole North end and East side out........ It will be a good place to store all the little mowers, tillers, long tools and leave a 6x8 spot for heat, grow lights and plant starting. And I can get all of the garden tools, tillers and little mowers out of my machine shed and actually have room to put the tractors inside of it

 

Good to see you back and that things are moving along.

Prayers sent for Mrs Kamp, my brother. Y'all call do this!

 

I need 15kw at a bare minimum for the house and the electric fences. The machine shed, food container, tool container, high tunnel and wood shop need another 10KW bare minimum. Could run everything during the day with 25KW but nothing left over to charge a big battery bank for night, low sun days and the 5 months of less than ideal solar. So I want to have enough excess collection to make it viable during the off months for collection, keeping the battery bank charged and daily use with the generator running as little as possible. I ended up buying a Honeywell 22kw propane generator and a 2500 gallon tank. I have a few malfunctions with going grid tied. The biggest being you have to turn control of your generator over to the Co-Op Smart Grid where they turn it on and off as they need to. If you don't consent to that then a backup generator can't be connected to the system. Second is the bottom of the barrel rate the Co-Op pays VS the amount of surcharge for allowing you to feed electric into the grid pretty much cancel each other out and most folks I know that are grid tied still get a decent size electric bill. The Co-Op does NOT pay you for the electric you put into the grid, they give you credits toward your bill on the electric you use from the grid. So I can't see much value in being grid tied other than to get the bulk of the system and install for free and then pull the plug on the grid as soon as the agreement/contracts for the free expire. Thus over sizing for the future disconnection of the Co-Op makes good sense to me.