On a earlier post I complained about my digital thermometer waking me up at night because of it’s ice alarm. After reading the manual, and finding no way to disable this sleep depriving “feature”, technical guru, Laen Finehack, came up with this idea to disable the ice warning alarm on a Oregon Scientific thermometer model #RMR382A :
The ice warning only works on the #1 sensor so just set your inside unit to channel 2 or 3 and the outside sensor to the same. Tonight when it dropped to 37 degrees, I felt relief when it didn’t go off.
Enjoy your hike but please don’t touch the armaments.
The nicest part of the Florida Trail is a live bombing range. The swamps have bog bridges, so you don‘t have to slog through alligator and snake infested waters and it was one of the few sections I felt safe in; most of the Florida Trail is plagued with armed rednecks that come out at night and roam the woods with spot lights and dogs.
To go through it, you first need to hitch hike or get a trail angel to take you to a place where you see a video on the dangers of walking through a live bombing range.
The video starts with a happy little girl skipping through the woods and then cuts to film of fighter jets dropping bombs and the narrator boasting the merits of multi-use land. I may be wrong, but Florida seems like the only place in the world that would think of combining a park and a bombing range.
Then, in the video you see a hiker surprised to find what looks to be a cruise missile. 
She then takes some flagging tape out of her backpack and begins roping it off. She flags down a ranger, or what ever you call the person that patrols a bombing range/recreational park and reports the armament to him. I never saw one of those guys; I never saw anyone. And as prepared as I thought I was for any event, I had never thought of bringing flagging ribbon in the advent of finding live armament in my path.
You are not to leave the trail, and you are to camp at designated camp sites only, but the trail was so enjoyable to hike, that I kept hiking and would just camp anywhere I was at dusk . Afterwards I thought this rule was probably because there could be bombs in the bushes.
Two days after I walked out of the bombing range they tested the “Mother of all Bombs� there and people in Alabama said they felt it.
town harvest.
In the back of my truck is 65 gallons of water, 3 gallons of lamp oil
.
Once you leave will you ever truly go back?
Once you leave society and experience the peace, beauty, and serenity of living alone in a beautiful spot, I don’t think you could ever go back, totally. I think you would always be kind of bitter, mad that you weren’t back in your peaceful life. Though, after months of being alone without anyone else’s thoughts, part of me sometimes gets bored and wants some new thoughts. Now I have a solar panel, a phone and a laptop to appease that part of me, I’m wondering, now, will I ever have to go back? – And also, with all that stuff, will I ever really leave?
My cabin’s water system.
I don’t have a well so I fetch my water in a bunch of one gallon bottles. There is a spring about ¼ mile away but, in the summer I worry about the cows polluting it so I pay the town 10 dollars for 500 gallons and fill up at the community spigot. In the winter, I put 4 jugs in my backpack when I head out for my walk, and fill them up at the spring. I also have a 55 gallon drum in my loft that feeds to the sink below it. I fill it up using a funnel and the one gallon jugs. Mostly, I just use the water straight out of the jugs and save the water in the barrel for when I need running water, like to rinse my dishes. This system combined with 8 gallons of hot water on my wood stove is a comfortable system.
I keep the empty bottles on a rope wrapped though their handles. That way I just have to grab the rope and sling all the empties into my pickup.
In the winter I leave a couple of the bottles outside to freeze then put them in my cooler to keep my fresh food cool.
Every day you should…
When a nomad stops moving.
Sometimes when I’m sitting in my cabin, my mind turns to having a pet: a dog or a cat. I forget how much work and money a pet takes. I forget that a pet will tie me down. That I can forget about hiking or travel. And sometimes, when I’m snug in my cabin, I think why do I need to go anywhere? I could just stay here, build my cob house, plant a garden and have a pet. Sounds nice. But I know the need to roam will rear up in me after awhile and I will be antsy for adventure.
Ice shoes.
For taking long walks on ice and packed snow, nothing works better for me then screwing sheet metal screws in to my shoes. I get the kind with the hex nut head, 3/8 inch long for the toe and 1/2 inch long for the back of the shoe. For complete instructions visit http://www.skyrunner.com/screwshoe.htm. I don’t have a hex nut attachment for my cordless drill so I used my screwdriver’s hex nut driver and did it by hand. The screw driver is called a 6 way all in one screwdriver.
Last year I went through 2 pairs of Yak-Traks: they broke after about 2 weeks of use. Then I tried a pair of light weight instep crampons but they were always slipping up and I had to stop and adjust them all the time. Then I learned about the screw shoe. When spring came I just took out the screws and my running shoes where fine.
NOTE: Change into screw less shoes before walking on nice floors.
First snow.
Snow
The first snow of the winter is here. My wood is covered with tarps. It looks a little shabby, but it works. Some day I hope to build a wood shed. The weird thing is, I always seem to know when I should tarp my wood even without a weather forcast. I just get up one day, go out and throw tarps over everything. Then I think, “it must be going to get wet, Pat’s tarpping her wood.”
I wish I never had to leave.
I’m tired. I’ll be glad when my wood is all in, my supplies all bought, and my time is all my own.  Nothing to do, all winter, but watch Netflix movies, surf the Internet, read, go for walks, live my life without interruptions; never, having to go to town.
Good luck will rub off if you shake hands with me.
Afraid that I might not have enough firewood, I drove up to a part of my property that had been touched by a forest fire a couple of years back. The dead pine up there was in good shape and small enough that I wouldn’t have to chop it. I got covered in soot: my clothes, my shoes, my lungs. The back of my pickup was a big sooty mess. I don’t think I’ll go up there again, this year anyway.
I went to town and bought tarps to cover my wood piles because the weather forecast is calling for snow tomorrow.
Winter is here and I’m not ready.
It got down to 11 degrees ( -11 C) last night. Snow is forcast for lat
er this week.  I’m not ready for winter.
I’ve been trying to get a propane stove. The shop in town had one. I spent two days trying to find the hoses and regulator I’ll need for it. Finally I found a guy who would make me the correct hose but he wanted me to take a picture of the stove fitting. I went into the store to take the picture and they said that they had sold the stove. Maybe next year.
Every thing I try to do up here seems to take so much effort. It took me a year and over 1500 dollars to get a phone.
Hermit woman dies, but doesn’t notice.
There was a cabin in the north. In the cabin lived an old woman. She did not like to cut firewood. Instead of cutting her fire wood she watched Netflix movies and looked around the Internet. Winter came. It was bitterly cold. The woman ran out of wood. After suffering for a long time she froze to death. She didn’t realize she was dead. She just kept doing her chores and activities, day after day. Till one day someone entered her cabin, worried that they hadn’t heard from her in awhile, and was shocked to find her dead on her bed. They screamed. She looked down and for the first time noticed her dead body on the bed.