Back in the swamp and as usual dealing with yet another life and death situation. This time literally life and death.

Two days ago I was feeling pretty good about my efforts at installing the fridge so I was considering leaving it running while I headed to town for a day or so. It was late in the afternoon so I had plans for spending the night, buttoning up the next morning then head out for some AC, shower (of course) and a WalMart run to stock up on “Refrigerate After Opening” supplies. A couple of hours before dark I decided to do a detailed inspection of the fridge. And boy howdy it’s a good thing I did.

When building the enclosure I followed the manufacturers instructions like a person possessed. If it said 32.4 inches wide the end measurement was 32.4 inches. Within 3 degrees of level became dead level. Seal and insulate is triple sealed and triple insulated. I went whole hildabeast (no offense to hogs) installing this thing.

The manufacturer clearly states that all baffles, enclosure walls, base, etc. may be fabricated out of wood, sheet metal or aluminum. I used wood and backer board throughout. In addition to foaming all joints, I sealed every joint with aluminum tape. Overkill, right? Not so fast. It wasn’t overkill by a long shot and very well may have resulted in me returning to a crater of smoldering ashes where the Taj McZiggy once stood.

My inspection was an in depth hands on type. I felt joints for leakage, touched everything than was accessible and even wet my hand to try to feel for air movement. Then I got to the chimney. At first all appeared well so I grabbed it. Well, maybe not grabbed, more like lightly brushed my fingers over it. It was HOT!!! As in, had I grabbed it I may have some healing blisters right now.

Now I expected some heat. Maybe enough to be slightly uncomfortable but this was beyond uncomfortable. And it was pointed directly at a 2×6 brace I had installed per the manufacturers installation instructions. Feeling the wood, it wasn’t blister hot but it was way to hot for any kind of mental comfort that I was searching for. After staring at it for about 3 or maybe 12 minutes a thought surfaced, “Oh shit!”.

I then went into a detailed review of the install which took maybe 90 seconds and arrived at the conclusion that I was hosed. And discouraged (again). And angry (again). But relieved. I was very relieved that in three days of running the fridge on generator and propane I hadn’t burnt down the shack with me and the Boy in it.

So, I went inside and checked the installation manual. Sure ’nuff, I built the enclosure just like they said to. Then I shut the fridge off, turned off the propane, loaded up and headed to town. Or maybe I should say campground since I don’t really live in town.

While in campground, I called the manufacturer, they wouldn’t even talk to me once they learned what I was doing. “That refrigerator isn’t certified for any install other than in a recreational vehicle.” What the hell? I told them to think of it as an RV without wheels. No luck there. Like talking to a democrat about gun control. Dumb as shit and twice as full of it.

So I set about finding my own solution to the problem. Which I’ll get into later in much more detail.

I got a late start out today while it was raining cats and socialists. The roads were slick as all get out but then everyone knows that democrats are full of it anyway. I rarely got over 15 mph so the trip in took nearly an hour and a half. Once I got here the place was soaked. Apparently there’s been over four inches of rain in the last two days with a lot of it looking to be sideways. The prediction was for less than 20 percent chance of rain so I’m guessing the weather forecasters are out at some bar yucking it up tonight about how they can be wrong 100 percent of the time and still not get fired.

Worst part is that I hadn’t put a tarp over the vents for the fridge so the sideways rain ran right in. The cooling unit and controls are soaked. So I can’t light it off until tomorrow sometime after I light off the air compressor and blow it dry. At least it’s not nasty hot tonight.

This morning I oozed out of bed and built some coffee. My Coleman stove was wet from the rain so when I lit it there was flame coming from everywhere except the proper flame place. Some compressed air dried it enough that I was finally able to get water going for coffee. Instant, oh yummy. Not.

Checking the fridge I decided it was dry enough, turned on the gas and started it up. And so it ran, and cooled, and ran, and ran. As far as I can tell, the burner hasn’t cut off yet after about twelve hours. I actually expected this since in the trial run it took nearly a day and a half for it to finally cool enough to cut off. For the trial I had it on one of the coldest settings but this time it’s on a warm setting so I believe it will cut off sometime tonight or in the morning. I wanted to get it to some steady state baseline before I modify the exhaust. This will let me know if the modification helps or hinders cooling.

I noticed that one of my foundations is washing out so I spent a considerable part of the day moving rocks, busting up three bags of concrete which had got hard from humidity and busting up concrete rubble. By the time I quit, you can hardly tell I was even there. I still have some rock to use but it’s not going to be near enough. I need to raise the area about eight inches which doesn’t seem like a lot until you actually start doing it. Then it becomes Mt. Everest. I’ll probably end up heading to the hog wallow with a wheel barrow tomorrow for some fill. I swear I need to buy some illegal aliens to do the work this American doesn’t want to do.

I pulled the card on my front game camera and settled in for the usual six hundred pics of brush moving slightly and nothing else. Then I freaked.

This game camera is about fifteen feet from the front porch of the shack. I’ve never got a picture of any critter other than Ziggy. Then I came to this one. It’s hard to tell but that is Mr. Bear hanging out within spitting distance of where I hang out. I checked the date and I was in shack at that time.

Keep in mind that there’s no bathroom in the shack. If the urge hits in the middle of the night you have to go outside and commune with mother nature, and a bear possibly. Now I’m all into this “it’s his home”, “he was here first”, “not all bears are bad.” I don’t give a rats ass! I don’t want to walk outside to take a leak and find a four hundred pound bear on my porch ready to go all jihadi on me.

So tomorrow I’m going to set up some early warning traps that will hopefully discourage him from hanging around. I have some mouse traps I’ll attach to stakes then glue a primer to the bar so it ignites a pack of firecrackers when tripped. Since the boy is deathly scared of firecrackers I’ll have to put them out just before dark. Hopefully no one will decide to come visit after dark.

In the swamp tonight. No clue what day it is. Think it’s mid August. August I’m pretty sure of at least. A huge “Thank You” to whoever bought from Amazon using the link on this page.

Been a lot happening so I’ll start with the refrigerator. It’s in the shack, on a platform, mostly framed and baffled in. I’m hoping to finish the baffling tomorrow, seal the plenum and light that bad boy off on propane. If all goes well I’ll be celebrating ice this weekend. If you want to know more head over to the Refrigerator page under Projects for so much detail you will be scratching your own eyes out. Sister Suzie has asked how it works so I’ll give a short run down on ammonia cooling.

Before I go on, a short explanation about names on this blog. In general I don’t use anyones real name here. Or maybe I do sometimes. The thing is, I mostly make up names for people based on how I’m feeling at the time or something about them I’ve noticed while interacting with them. All the names are intended to keep their real identity concealed and are meant in fun. Under no circumstances do I intend to insult, demean or otherwise offend someone. Truth is, if I don’t like someone, they will probably never be mentioned here.

OK, so let’s talk about bears. Or rather a bear. As in there’s a great big honking bear hanging out here that has me a bit on edge. I’ve never shared space with a bear so I feel justified in admitting that I’m constantly prepared to run screaming like a scared little girl.

This guy is big! On his hind legs he is at least six feet tall and we’re guessing his weight in the 350 pound range. In the pic it’s hard to tell but he’s molesting a feeder about seven feet off the ground. What’s not shown is that he knocked the feeder down and tore it in half to get at the corn inside. All this happened about 100 yards from the shack. Bears can run up to 35 miles per hour. I can run up to 1 mile per day with frequent breaks for snacks and water. Maybe a mile and a quarter if I have those guys that stand alongside the road and hand you water and energy bars.

So there’s this new bear in the hood that I have to figure out how to coexist with. Never let it be said that I’m not into diversity. My biggest concern is the Boy. By muzloid standards he’s a freaking brilliant genius capable of inventing space travel, again. In truth, he’s dumber than a box of rocks and to stupid to run from a bear. Which means I would have a martyr on my hands to gather up and bury which I really, really don’t want to do. Thank god I never had kids. I probably would have kept them velcroed to the wall until they turned about 30.

I’ve been training him to stay in sight of the shack by liberally applying the bug zapper (remote control) to his shock collar. But when he sees a pig or armadillo that doesn’t work all that well. Cranking up the setting will light him up like a Christmas tree but again, doesn’t always work. Obviously more work is needed.

Figuring I’d keep the bear at a distance, I bought firecrackers and bottle rockets. Or at least what passes for firecrackers these days. At the gas station I was perusing their fireworks and settled on some M100s and bottle rockets. Hey, vertical envelopment. When I got to the shack this afternoon, I lit off one of the M100s expecting to startle wildlife for miles around. What a ripoff! I can get more noise out of clapping two pieces of wood together. Are kids such wimps these days that they can’t be trusted to handle high explosives without losing limbs? Where do you go to get something that will lift a tree trunk out of the ground? This is obviously another area that the feds got into and screwed up.

So I have this pile of firecrackers that don’t crack and bottle rockets that probably run out four feet then glow feebly. I guess I could dump them all in a pressure canner, hide in the brush, then light it off and throw it at the bear. But then I would probably have a bear laughing his ass off while he ate me.

In other news, wait, there’s no other news. Refrigerator and bear. OH!!! Generator. Yeah! It’s screwing up sad to say. That lovely 30 amp extension cord that came with it went dead the other day. I’m not sure if it’s the outlet or the cord since I have now other cord to test it with. When I have time I’ll check the outlet on the generator for power and see which it is. If it’s the receptacle on the generator itself I’ll be taking it back for a refund this time.

Good news is my solar is working like a charm. More tomorrow. Maybe.

Back again tonight. Long day. Finished framing in fridge, hooked up 12 volt DC control power and fired it up off the generator. At last check one freezer compartment was at 39 degrees and still cooling so I’m getting excited. I filled some ice trays for the other compartment hoping I’ll have ice before I fall out tonight. In a few minutes I’m going to pack the refrigerator part with soda just to have some thermal mass to help keep it cool while I hook up the propane tomorrow.

If all goes well with the propane I’m going to run it at least two days then shut down and head to town for a day. When I get back I want to start it up on propane, run for ten days then decide whether to leave it running permanently. At that point I’ll be able to stay out here two or three weeks at a time and only have to go to town for material and food.

Since I’ll have to refill my propane bottles occasionally I can’t really say that I’m completely off the grid but I’ll certainly be a lot closer than I was this time last year.

With the end in sight for the refrigerator, I have to start thinking about my next big project. As hot as it is I really need to get ready for winter. That roughly translates into finish putting up siding, insulate and seal the shack and installing the wood burning stove. From experience I can vouch for how miserable spending the night in a drafty shack with no insulation is. Candles and sterno just can’t keep up. Besides, it’s very uncomfortable trying to get some rest in a sleeping bag with a 70 pound pit bull in it with you.

Before I get started I’d like to give a shout out to Crazy Al, Daring Dave, Mad Mary, Sister Suzie and Plume who all used the Shop Amazon link from here. Every bit helps and I really do appreciate the support.

Back in the swamp tonight. I spent the morning gathering material, or trying to, then headed on out. I had just spent about six days in town so I was in high spirits to be getting back out here. I didn’t really want to spend that much time there but it seemed like everything that could go wrong did.

The town closest to where my camper is has a very limited selection when it comes to buying material. I needed fuses for the solar so naturally I went to an auto parts store. Sure ’nuff they had fuses but no holders. When I asked about holders the folks at the store were genuinely confused. What sort of danged fool would buy fuses if they didn’t have holders to put them in? I didn’t even try to explain.

The roads on the way out were really wet and a couple of times I thought I might have to get out and lock the hubs in case I needed 4 wheel drive. I made it through but it was touchy in a couple of the puddles. When I got to the shack my rain gauge said it had rained nearly five inches since I was out last. After unloading I took a walk and found that some of the areas that were drying well were flooded again. Naturally it started raining when I was at the furthest point from the shack. I didn’t have much trouble convincing the Boy that it was time to head back.

Back at the shack I thought I smelled propane. Checking out the grill nothing appeared amiss so I chalked it up to imagination. Come dinner time I opened the grill, lit the lighter and was greeted by a ball of flame that virtually engulfed the grill. Turning off the propane at the bottle I retreated to the other end of the porch and armed myself with an extinguisher while I waited on the flames to die out. Turns out the pressure regulator is shot so the grill is DOA until next trip to town. That is if they are sold in town.

So I broke out the charcoal grill. Naturally the bag of charcoal had got wet at some point so the first thing that happened was the bottom dropped out of the bag. Now I have two five gallon buckets full of charcoal to store somewhere.

About an hour and six lighter cubes later I finally had lit charcoal. I could probably have started the charcoal with fewer cubes but I had absolutely no idea how to use them. Still don’t so I cooked enough burgers to last a couple of days.

My agenda for the next few days is to get the first floor wired for lights and run a line for the fridge. I have some 12 v Dc compact florescent which only draw 12 watts. It will be nice to have a brightly lit shack for a few hours at night.

I think I’ve figured out how to get the fridge out of the truck and into the shack in one piece. Next trip in I’m taking a battery so I can test it before I haul it out here. It requires 12 volts for the control circuitry so I’ll run that this trip. I’ll also put in a 120 circuit so I can run it off the generator whenever I have it running.

Naturally I’ll have to move everything in the shack to get it in place. Then I have to do some of that wood working stuff which I hate so much. I have to build a plenum to bring fresh air into the cooling unit as well as vent the exhaust outside. I also have to seal the cooling unit so if there is an ammonia leak it doesn’t come inside. To say that I’m nervous about this is an understatement.

It’s been a couple of days and I’ve made some progress. I have a circuit ran down the middle of the shack capped off in the back. I put in a light fixture in the middle that is currently occupied by a 13 watt compact flourescent. I was surprised at how much light such a small bulb puts out. It’s nearly to much for just hanging out at night and doing whatever swamp people do at night in their shacks. I dunno, maybe sharpen gator gigs or build hog traps. Anyway, I’ll be keeping an eye out for smaller bulbs for future use.

A second circuit, maybe 8 feet long is for a bulb over the solar stuff. Plumes charge controller has a set of programmable contacts that allow you to turn loads on and off at preset times. I have it set for manual activation right now but will be reprogramming it before I leave today. I’m going to have it turn on for two hours after sunset and then turn on again an hour before sunrise. Not a big deal but it will make a casual prowler wonder if there’s anyone in the shack.

Figuring I’d get the most out of this light I painted the area around it with some aluminum paint I had. The last time I used this paint it was all shiny and aluminummy looking so I figured I would get a semi mirrored finish. I guess storing it outside for nearly a year wasn’t kind to the shiny aluminummy part. It came out a dull gray with no shiny at all. Oh well, it will be a good surface to paint over when I get some new paint. It does reduce the light to a tolerable level so if I have a sudden urge to do swamp shack people stuff I can sharpen my gator gigs in comfort. I wonder if there really are gator gigs? Who in the world would be crazy enough to gig a gator anyway?

Speaking of gators I spotted this little guy while on a boondoggle yesterday. I’m guessing him to be about four feet long. I took the pic from inside the truck so you can kind of get a feel for how close to the road the swamp was at that point. I would have got out to get a better shot but I had spotted a slide that was huge. I’m guessing this guy is looking so sad because he is sharing digs with a gator at least twice his size. I wasn’t about to get out of the truck and possibly meet his big brother in person.

The brushlings have revolted and are in full tilt riot mode. It’s possible I’m going to have to concede defeat for this year, take down the grape arbor then hope for a good winter. A good winter coupled with some good ideas on how to control this mess. I will win this battle. I can’t see owning 30 acres and not being able to see more than 50 feet in any direction.

Back in town tonight. Spent most of the day reading about installing a propane refrigerator and printing parts of the manuals. I guess it’s as tricky as I expected. If I screw up venting it won’t work. If I screw up the exhaust I can start a fire. If I screw up the seal and it leaks I could die a horrible death from ammonia. If I screw up all three all that will be left is a blackened crater with a flaming puddle of fat that used to be me.

I was disappointed to find that the replacement display for my charge controller isn’t in yet. But there’s a tropical depression coming in with predictions of 5 to 15 inches of rain over the next three days so maybe I’ll just hang in town for a few days. It’s that time of the month so I have to do laundry anyway. Yuck.

I was happy that my order of ultra bright 12 volt LEDs came in. These bad boys only draw 20 mA each so they will be a welcome addition to my shack lighting scheme. They put out 3.15 lumens which sounds small and is. However for the battery load that’s well within the range of useful. Ten of them should put out about 2.5 watts of light which when spread out will provide a good night light level. I hate waking up in a totally dark place. Besides, they’re just a lot of fun to play with.

OK. Some more pictures. I’ll explain as I go.

OK. Stupid. But I am excited at finally having light. At least light that doesn’t recharge outside during the day or run off batteries. Gotta remember I started this winter with candles and sterno for heat and light. This is a big deal for me.

Bad pic I know. Not sure what happened. This kluge is my current control area. I had to use what fuses I had on hand so they are just hanging out. My terminal strips were all to small also and everything ended up wire nutted together.

My phone camera decided it was time to make a video then recorded a couple minutes of me walking around outside. I did get this shot of the generator shed which still needs walls and a roof. I’ve put one of my generators and the air compressor inside so finishing it is on the list. You can see where I’m spreading plastic around in an effort to establish some kind of beach head against the brushling wars.

That’s all for tonight. I’d like to thank everyone for visiting. Please feel free to comment. Suggestions and criticisms are all welcome. Comments like “You suck” aren’t so very welcome but I won’t delete them.

Well, didn’t make it out to the swamp today. Had to wait until I was sure that the remote for my charge controller was on the way which didn’t happen until this afternoon. No bad reflection on Renogy. Just how it went. I eventually contacted their customer service and had things worked out in a matter of minutes.

If anyone is thinking of starting a solar energy project I recommend at least touching base with Renogy to see what they can do for you. Frankly, the cost of solar is dropping so fast that customer service is quickly becoming a major factor to consider when making your buy decisions. I’ve already tested the water with Renogys return policy and have to rate it as excellent. Be advised that unless you purchase from Amazon through this site I get nothing from you purchasing from Renogy. I’m just trying to steer people toward a happy ending.

How hot is it? I found this pic in my camera which should answer that. This is taken on my first floor porch in the shade. This was taken about 4 in the afternoon. What you can’t see is the Boy in the truck with the AC blasting on high. Anytime it goes over 100 he goes in the truck while I burn precious diesel keeping his furry butt cool. Now that I have enough solar to run fans I try to keep him in the shack in front of a fan but that’s a lot like herding cats. Seems that there’s always some exotic critter out there to bark at and chase.

I have a new in town project to start next trip in. I found this gopher turtle (tortoise) shell alongside the road a few months back that has been sitting on a post in front of the shack. I’m going to paint its belly yellow, the top red, put a kenyan flag on one side, an ISIS flag on the other and a rainbow flag on the back. On top I will paint an owebowmao logo with a hammer and sickle overlay. I’m going to put it on eBay as the “ultimate baracka owebowmao post turtle tribute.” I think it will eventually come to be recognized as a fitting tribute to owebowmao fans and possibly find its way into the Smithsonian. I will list it in a 30 day auction starting at 99 cents with $175 shipping and handling. As with all things owebowmao you have to look at hidden costs and agendas. Post not included.

Not long ago I was headed into town for some silly reason like food or maybe water when I came upon a young turkey walking down the middle of the road. He seemed a bit unsteady on his feet so I thought maybe that he had found some fermented corn and was walking it off.

There’s feeders everywhere out here. Sometimes water gets into the feeders and the corn ferments. Once the game finds it they spend days hanging around to eat the corn and catch a buzz. Larger game such as deer and pigs relish it for the extra calories while smaller game sometimes gets falling down drunk.

Curious I began down shifting and fell in behind the turkey who at first was quite oblivious to me and the noise from my truck. Shortly though he looked back and was visibly startled to see me only about 20 feet behind him. So he sped up but didn’t leave the middle of the road. So I sped up a bit to keep pace while wondering how this would play out.

Looking over his shoulder again he seemed genuinely surprised to see me still there and really started pouring on the coal. It continued like this for some time with him looking back and increasing his speed every time but never attempting to leave the middle of the road.

I have no idea how fast we were going when he finally started flapping his wings and at times leaving the ground. Being so young he obviously wasn’t used to flying all that much but seemed to instinctively know that flying was his Shawshank Redemption.

The chase ended with him achieving lift off velocity and clearing the brush on the side of the road then crashing into a small clearing just off the road. I came to a quick stop to watch him crash in the clearing then look around to see if I was still behind him.

I often wonder what animals would say if they could talk.

“Wow, so that’s fermented corn! What is corn anyway? They say it tastes like chicken. I wonder what chicken is? Don’t matter. I’m drunk whatever that is. I’ll just walk it off. Yessir. Gonna just walk down the middle of the road here till I get home.”

“What’s that sound? Hmmm. Don’t see anything. No worries. Wait, it’s getting louder. Oh no. It’s behind me!”

“Oh crap! What’s that? It’s huge! And it’s growling at me! Walk faster. Walk faster. Don’t look back.”

“I gotta look back. Gotta look. Oh crap! It’s closer. Run. Run faster. There, that should do it……………… Wait, I can still hear it.”

“Oh no! It’s still there! Run real fast! Real fast. Why am I flapping my wings? I haven’t finished basic aviation 101. They say I can’t fly yet. Oh god. Oh god.”

“It’s still there. Oh god, get me out of this and I promise,,,,,,wait. I’m a turkey. Turkeys don’t pray do they? Who cares? Oh god, oh god, oh god.”

“It’s still there. I’m going to fly! I’m FLYING! I”M FLYING!!!  I’M CRASHING! I’M CRASHING!”

“Ouch, shit, crap! WOOF! I’ve crashed! Well, they say that any landing you walk away from is a good one.”

“Gosh. Where did all the dragonflies come from?”

“One day an old cowboy was out ridin’ fence and he saw a turtle balanced on top of a fence post. When he got back to the bunkhouse he told the other fellas that he saw a “post turtle”. They all asked, “What the hell is a ‘post Turtle’? And he said it was a turtle settin’ on top of a post! He then went on to explain that “you know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong there, he doesn’t know what to do while he’s up there and you just wonder what kind of dang fool put him up there to begin with!”

“

Just a quick post then I’m off to the swamp for a few days. Just spent several days in town not doing much of anything except sleeping and healing up from bug bites.

Since last post I put in a Renogy MPPT Charge Controller that Plume sent to me. It’s great. With it I can run a fan, charge devices and still keep my batteries topped off during the day. At night I ran a desktop fan all night, about 8 hours, and the batteries were still topped by about 11 in the morning.

I ordered an MT-5 LCD display to go with the controller. It came in broke. So it’s on its way back to Renogy while I wait for the replacement to arrive. It’s pretty irritating to have to wait even more time but I do have to say that so far the customer support at Renogy is very good. In the meantime I’ll have to keep using my meter to monitor the system periodically.

Put on the snake boots and did a walkabout last week. I haven’t toured what of the property I can get to in over three weeks so things had changed quite a bit. Things are drying out a lot so I’m able to see and get to more areas that have before now been far to wet to even try. What I thought might have been a spring fed pond turned out to be nothing more than an optical illusion. In truth the whole area is nothing more than a mud bog right now. I was able to get fairly close and take a pic but it’s still much to wet to even try crossing. After it dries some more I’ll trek in as far as possible and get some GPS readings and pics.

Another area previously off limits is opening up also. I was able to get about halfway through before the mud got to deep and I chickened out. This area is very interesting since the west side is the side leading to the back of my property which I’ve never managed to get to. About 40 feet past where I took these pics is a stand of pine trees. They’re to the right in the pics. Usually, where there’s pines there’s fairly dry land and the brush isn’t so dense. I’m hoping to get back to this area soon with the brush cutter and possibly discover the ever elusive westward passage to the back side of the property.

You just never know what you’re going to bump into out there. After awhile you tend to try to get in and out as fast as possible but then something will happen to remind you that it’s time to stop and smell the roses.