TOTM February 2023

our prayers to you and Mrs. Krap for a speedy resolution and recovery. would love to have a small pond, just don't have the equipment or finances right now. yours looks & sounds great, getting the vegetation and fish stocked you'll end up with a really nice fishing hole. going to put in a small dock eventually?

 

Thanks. And I spent All of July through All of October Sitting on a 57hp tractor dragging dirt with a 6' box blade. 6 weeks solid of 14 hours per day every day was scraping top soil down to hard clay in 4.5 acres of the lake bed that the half ass contractor didn't do. 2 weeks solid building the little pond dam. Then 5 weeks building the big pond dam and scraping until MUD SEASON arrived.

LOL this project started out as just having the contractor build the 550' long big pond dam and pond. Then scratched that and had him build the 1100' long 150' wide on the top 20' tall in center Lake Dam and the two large deep oval bowls below the dam. Cost for that was $30,000 IF I used Check or Card and $25,000 if I paid in Real Cash ( I pay everything that I can with real Cash and off the books.) Anyway a 5.25 acre pond turned into A good size lake, a small pond and the 5.25 acre pond, I just build the dams and the ponds myself with a Box Blade. Hey everyone said keep busy when you retire or you will sit, rot and die

I will get far more use out of the big pond than I will the lake. Took these pics before the last big rain, after that last rain the water is well into the woods. That point that comes out is now a island with about 2" of the end still above water. I built that point and put a lot of rip rap on the opposite side of it to break the current of the run off. We now know that it works as intended and causes the current to swirl around and turn back on itself. I did not want that strong current working on the base of the dam.


North Arm

South Arm

South Arm of the Big pond. The Container is going to get moved next summer and will house the pump and filtration system for the water treatment plant and draw the water from the North Deep hole below the lake dam. I put a 7500 gallon cistern behind the house and will have a secondary filter and UV system in the house utility room and pump from the cistern into the house. Kind of a complex filter/Pump/Pressure tank system to move the water from lake to house cistern. But WATER IS LIFE and I want a independent chemical free pure water source. Debating leaving the container there and drawing from the 18' deep hole in the Big Pond.

Looking down on the little pond and its dam from the top of the big pond dam

South end of dam 15" Pipe over flow.

South end of big pond dam overflow spillway into the little pond. A twin to the overflow on the North end of the big pond dam. Only it is rip rapped and heavy 3" rocked and set low enough that if the pair of 15" pipes can't handle the overflow volume that the water will flow over the North end pipe and instead of a pipe over flow it becomes a 18" Deep 16' wide spillway over the North end pipe. LOL Back up plan for the back up plan. The sheer volume of water that runs off the fields and out of the woods in the big down pours is massive. The grass area behind the tractor is the future home of 3 rental cabins.

More than just bodies of water The rental cabins = Income. The water = Potable Water Source after pumping and filtration, Fish = Dependable High Protein food source. After the next two ponds are built it = a defensive moat on the west and south sides of the property that funnels invaders onto the dams. It is a Deer, Turkey, Goose and Duck Magnet for even more food opportunities. The 400'W 900' L stretch along the South Dirt Road between road and Lake South Arm is ideal for another Orchard, with millions of gallons of water right beside it.

Cost to build the big pond dam excluding the new tractor and box blade to date was 450 hours going in circles dragging dirt, $500 for the 15" Pipes, $300 for the straw mats, $1,300 in fuel and $3500 in 6" rip rap and 3" rock. Low Contractor bid to build the Big Pond was $21,000 med bid $27,000 high bid $43,000 (That high bid got a "Is you F'ing crazy!" out of me.) So doing it myself came in under $6,000. I Do need about 50 more tons of 3" Rock and 25 more tons of Rip Rap and I am going to have to pump it down about 10' next summer and let it dry out so I can get the trees in the woods cut down and the stumps removed and then scrape the tail going up by the house out 2-3 feet deeper. So I will get probably another $5,000 into between fuel and rock before it is done to my satisfaction. LOL I just ran out of time before mud season arrived. The County road coming down to me has a 10 ton weight limit November through April and my Rock Guy brings tandems with 25 tons on them, we shall not speak of how overweight he runs with the semi Truth be told he won't be able to bring more rock until the end of June without risking breaking through the junky ass County part of the road. LOL the Township believes putting dirty CA6 on top of dirt without making oh say ditches and building a solid road base under the Dirt 6 is the correct method of building a road and that grading the 2' deep ruts in the road out in the spring and putting another thin layer of dirty 6 on it, is how you maintain a gravel road. More than Obvious where the Counties road ends and mine begin

Anyway The Big Pond was in the plans since I relocated the farm to here. It just took me 15 years and retiring to get around to building it........ and a little more....... I am not seeing a very bright near or mid term future. So I want to get these major projects knocked out. I am great on food independence, now great of water independence, the new super energy efficient house is chuggin along and should be done by the end of June. That just leaves Energy, since I retired I have no need for the 1600Amps of Grid Service, Just taking the big walk in freezer and Coolers off line and selling them, cut the electric use by 60%. All of the changes in electric use since retiring have taken us from 6500-7000 KWH use down to 1000-1500KWH Use per Month. A few more cuts and upgrades will get us down to 650-700KWH Use and in the range that a decent size solar/generator system can cover with a lot of room to spare and expand on.

It always amuses me that so many think my life is miserable and that we are dirt floor poor and eating meadow mice and snakes to survive Amusing but also I very much like that general perception of us. Building the Lake, A pair of new tractors and a lot of new implements, 6 containers coming in, the lumber deliver trucks rolling in fully and leaving empty, and my own box truck and GN regularly leaving and returning have not helped to maintain that low local perception of us and generated a whole lot of trespassing sight seer traffic since April of last year. 2 years from now though it will be forgotten and we will once again be perceived as being dirt floor poor. Hey if things get as bad as I believe they are going to, having every believe that you don't have anything worth taking is one of the best defensive measures you can take

 

excellent pics sir. we like to keep a low profile here as well, just move along nothing to see here. i hope it all gets finished before things turn "sporty", stay safe/stay gray.

 

Thanks. One of my larger regrets was not keeping a very low profile. On the other hand by not being gray for all of those years I put myself in a much better financial position. 1998-2008 My primary business was a landscaping/Excavating business and in order to grow I had to put myself out there, but it was a different world during that time. There were not masses of leftist looking for reasons to destroy every business and business owner that did not march to the Marxist Drums. 2008-2012 After selling the 2nd biggest Landscape Company to the biggest Regional Landscape Company and relocating 250 miles to the South, thing were good, slow paced and then I caught the attention of the Regional Communist here so 2012-2020 was pretty much a constant battle with non stop social media attacks, harassing my customers and continual calling venues that I was booked at demanding that I be cancelled. Not to mention a couple days per week of fling drones over the farm and parking on the public road and watching and photographing everything they could see from the public portion of the road. The funny thing is that outside of one Leftist County the rest of this region is very deep Red and the harder the Marxist attacked the more business I did. Their very public attacks were a large driver of my average 350% annual growth. 2020 and Covidmania is where I decided to just quit and retire. The food trailer business was booming, being able to get things like togo boxes, cups, straws, napkins, ingredients that I do not or can not produce on the farm and coupled with the all over the map Covidmania restrictions 2 of the 3 farmers markets I owned were shut down because the public parks that I rented the markets locations in were shut down. The 3rd was allowed to operate but could only have 1/3 of the vendors and the City enforced the no more than 50 shoppers in the market area at one time. So I sold the markets to the same Marxist NFP that was behind the constant attacks on me for considerably more than they were worth and just put the food trailers in the parking lot and took a wait and see posture. Then came Biden and Bidenomics and the crazy diesel fuel prices, the crazy inflation and even worse supply chain issues. I prepped the food trailers for long term being parked and moved my retirement up from 2026 to 2020/2021 and dropped off the face of the earth as far as most of the pubic knows. In 2023 I have largely been forgotten as I intended. I never did any business in my home County and only two of my neighbors in a 5 mile radius know anything about me. The general local populations fully believes in the Crazy Hermit Guy at the end of the dead end road Fairy Tale. So locally going to a Gray State of being was easy. Regionally it took a couple of years to mostly be forgotten and in another two years no one will remember me or the businesses at all. I still have the Corporation but have changed it a bit so that it is just a asset management and pass through corp not a actively doing business Corp. LOL In other words I am to lazy to liquidate the Corporation and there are still benefits to the bulk of my income passing through the corp rather than directly to me. But for all practical purposes the Old Me has just ceased to exist and the new me is 99.8% unknown and out of sight and minds.

I have spent so many years working 100+ hour weeks for everyone else and rarely doing anything solely for my self. I am taking great pleasure in planning and doing things that I want and not giving two shits what customers or anyone else thinks or wants. Mrs Krap and me went for a walk around the big pond yesterday and standing on the dam and looking out over it she says "This is one very odd shaped pond." Yep it is and I love it. My last 30x100 High Tunnel that I have not sold yet, I decided not to sell. Instead I am going to triple the supports on the ribs, then screw barn siding sown the length and over the top and call it a half round barn. The little 20x40 greenhouse will more than meet our personal needs for cool season and winter growing. And I need another barn to park the tractors and implements under. $10,000 to put the additional supports in and the Steel skin on the tunnel or $35,000 to build a new 30x40 pole barn.......... 3000sqft high tunnel barn or 1200sqft little pole barn for less than 1/3 the cost of the 1200sqft pole barn. Oddball thinking, oddball concept and I am liking the idea plus I will be able to put hay and feed in 1/2 of it and still have room for all of the tractors and implements. And since I am never going to mass grow food for anyone outside of my little tribe again, I don't need even one big greenhouse anymore. The whole way of thinking changes when you are not always asking, what can I do to produce more and produce it better to grow the business and sell more. And you are thinking what do I want and what will give me the most personal pleasure and meet my own needs. And of course what will put me in what I believe will be a great position in a world with ever increasing chaos and threats.

 

yeah, we busted butt to pay off all our debt. many long hours, hard work, but it was worth it. just keeping our heads down now, stocking up, preparing for the worst-hope for the best. our prayers still go out for Mrs. Krap, all i can say is Keep On Keeping On Sir!

 

Well, that is why Survival Monkey exists, right? Hopefully everyone who posts here has at least a modicum of survival skills. It is impossible to prep for EVERY possible contingency, but havin a mechanism to prepare and taking action ahead of time are the way you survive somethin like this. Good time to dust off your "prep-list" and test drive it. Before I retired one of the things I volunteered at was as a FEMA instructor trainer (I trained instructors).. I realized that my family wasn't prepared for a wide ranging national catastrophy so started getting ready.
We put a little aside every trip to the ATM until we had enough put away in our safe for any national emergency (including small bills).
We have enough freeze dried food to last a minimum of 6 months, and perhaps a year when coupled with our two freezers.
We keep a year's worth of paper supplies on hand.
We have back up heat sources, liquid candles, 6-12 months of batteries, and back up cooking source, and a ceramic water filter.
We have enough ammo for most contingencies except .410 which I recently added for the wife (recoil sensitive).

I got to "test drive" the plan during the great TP scare of 2020 (also known as Covid lockdown). I didn't have to leave the house for 3 months, but ended up giving the police dept, hospital and post office masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, and for the hospital, coveralls and shoe covers. After 3 months I eventually drifted out and saw how decimated the stores were in many things. We really didn't need anything, but I restocked on some meat and canned goods that we'd used.

I did provide some excess to neighbors and those are folks I trust. Sadly, none of them are skilled with firearms and have no desire to learn, so would be useless in any neighborhood defense scenario.

 

During the totally botched Government Covid response and the expected shortages, I was able to keep my Sister and BIL supplied with necessities. I had been stocking up for quite some time, and was "social distancing and self isolating" before it became cool. Sis had always joked about my prepping. Well, a year of bare store shelves taught her a lesson.

 

a quick update, spoke to my friend he told me it wasn't just his kid, there were others as well. can't say much about it as he said it will be under litigation (lawsuit).

 

been keeping a "weather eye" on things and stocking up slowly, will provide a little christian charity if i can, but family & true friends come first !! i didn't live this long (68 y.o.) to just give stuff away, as I've said elsewhere on the forum i'll do what i can, when i can. i saw a t-shirt one time that said "i know stuff and can do things" only have a wife and a few dependable friends, the rest i fear will be the "Golden Horde" I've heard about. i hope i'm gray & rural enough to weather the coming storm.

 

My hero.

 

@Hanzo I think we can definitely rescue this island if necessary. We have everything we need here!

 

I agree with this

 

If you're worried about a vehicle being confiscated just take the wheels off it and leave it on blocks.

 

Lol, but this is a very hard solution to do for car safety.