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Good to know. We didn’t buy the corner supports but will have to look into it. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for sagging and try and move snow accordingly. Thanks for letting us know this!

Thank you! Feels like there is still so much to do but feeling better about winter being here. We felt like we were racing the snow but now it’s just changing with the seasons

Good idea, I can definitely include some updates on that. Maybe about my thought process for the amount we felt we needed too. I’m definitely still worried we don’t have enough! Haha. December and January can be bitter cold here. We’re already sitting in the teens for highs. Woke up to 10 degrees F the last couple days. It’ll be fun to see thoughts vs reality in the coming months🫣

@ maybe you can get an idea of much you will need by taking how many logs you use in a day and multiplying by how many days you have left in winter. Then doing a ruff count of how many logs you have. lol I’m not sure how accurate it would be but it might give you an idea.

@unbecomingtimmy8122 absolutely, I’ve actually played around with that a lot. I took how many days there are from November through April and averaged out how many logs are in a cord usually. I’m hoping we have the perfect amount to make it through till spring. I’m sure some days will vary with the amount we need but crossing my fingers it averages out well

Thanks for watching! Glad even though it isn’t the van content you still want to watch!😊 Hope you had a great thanksgiving! If you are planning another trip north and west, you’d better stop by!!

Awe, thank you!!

Welcome! Glad you found us and to have you along! Winters here at our cabin so we may have to come visit soon😜

We do have one that we owned already but the only catch is they use so much power and we’ll be on generators as we are off grid. We do plan to run it in humid times but intermittently because of the power usage. Definitely a great idea as I think a big part of the water damage was due to humidity

Thank you!😊

We appreciate your concern! Any dog has the ability to show aggression. Behavior is complex and there is nothing about Huskies inherently that make them as a breed more or less likely to show aggression. We have a lot of experience with dogs and behavior - I (Katie) am a veterinarian with extra education and special interest in canine behavior! We plan to do any introductions very slowly to set everyone up for success. 💛

Hey John! Hope you did too!! Thanks for your comment, just chipping away at the list. Always something to do. We did take the holiday off and had dinner with friends so that was nice! Have a nice weekend!

@Trailvagabonds u2

Oh yes, aggravation is the perfect word for it 🤣 . So much work but it’ll do the trick. Way to get yours done too!! 🙌🏼

Thank you so much!!😊

Thank you! We’ll do our best as it can get mighty cold up here!! So far we’re acclimating pretty good

Agreed, that’s one of the main reasons we went with it. And of course why we didn’t fence the front of the cabin because we didn’t want to ruin that picturesque view 😍

Thank you so much! And for always commenting!! It means a lot! 😀

Yes, good thinking, we did buy chicken wire for just that but sadly the weather didn’t hold out to dig it in. It’ll come. Also stakes and a few other things. The fend also has overlap on the ground. The fence company sent white flags for just what you said as it’s hard to see the fence especially when dark. Thanks for your comment!☺️

@@vanomadcyclist3474 Thank you! 😊 Winter is definitely here. We had 6” total, now it’s been coooold. Woke up to 10F this morning. We’re hopeful you’ll have snow too if you want it! Last year this area had barely any but most years average well over 100 inches. Sometimes into the 200s! Dog sledding paradise, haha

Great idea! Thanks for the tip! We’re debating if we should wait until spring now as temps haven’t been getting above 25F. Worried it’s too cold for concrete to set up.

The other thing is we’ll have some outdoor huskies and they be a pretty good deterrent in their own right. Bear up here usually hate dogs and stay far away if they can help it

Absolutely​ @Trailvagabonds . I have german shepherds, and they deter the local bear and coyotes. I was just wanted to come back on and mention that I wound up putting a 2x4 board at the bottom of fencing (attached to posts) to provide more stability down there. My dogs like to push out on the bottom and the board prevents that. Maybe a next spring project in your spare time (that's a joke around here).

@brendacoates3354 oh yes! Our list is ever expanding, never ending! 😆 we have talked with some locals about fortifications and have ideas, that’s a pretty great one! It’ll all be trial and error, I’m sure. And ever evolving as we have decent enough weather to play around more. Not to mention the cost of things, haha. Thanks for your comments! Awesome to get ideas and hear others experience

Climbers, oh no! 🤭 Even with a bunch of snow, we’re hoping this one will be tall enough. But you never know, we have a dog that can jump pretty high

Thank you!😊

Yes. That fence isn’t going to work as currently constructed with the greatest of respect.

The only signs of bear have been very old and outside of the fenced area. We’re hopeful they’ll be deterred. Luckily they aren’t around in the winter so if something happens it’ll hopefully be at a time we can update the fence if need be. Crossing our fingers we won’t have issue

Thank you!!😊

Haha, gotcha. Sometimes saying it out loud makes me feel more confident because half the time I don’t know what I’m doing 😜

We hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving, too!! Thanks for watching this one😊, they were definitely trying times not being able to live in the house. But we made it through, made us stronger for off-grid living!

After another look we stacked it on the rack on our backyard and hope to use it on the fire. Some of the really falling apart stuff we got rid of but a lot of pieces we are keeping. That’s so cool to hear you’ve been living the life!! I’d love to hear more one day!

It is amazing how many we have had and how many are still appearing even while it’s freezing outside. Hoping to get on top of stopping some of the entry points and hiding spots by closing things up more. But gotta find traps that work better too. I can’t imagine them being worse than at the end of fall, they were so terrible

@Trailvagabonds my 40 acre off grid cabin is in littlefork mn about as far north as Minnesota goes. And I still haven't found away to controll the flies they are so brutal . Hope you guys figure something out. I've noticed it starts to get bad about July and goes all the way until deer season

That’s super cool! My mom grew up on the iron range and my family had been going to that area for decades. My grandpa hunted, trapped, and fished up that way. Bummer to hear you haven’t had luck with anything. If I find something that works, I’ll be sure to mention it.

Thank you!😊 Glad to have you along and thanks for your comment!!

Thank you! We’re still sore from moving all of it, haha. But glad to have it checked off the list. The snow hit today, we were just in time!

We thought about it for sure. Our main thought was this wood can be reused for future woodsheds. And pallets a lot of times shouldn’t be burned and we are so remote that bringing them to the local landfill would cost as much as buying the lumber. So it was kind of a what’s the best play for our future usage. It feels like the right decision as they are burley and even if we decided not to recycle them for a woodshed, they’ll give us many years of usage regardless. Good thinking though! It was on our minds

I didn’t realize mosquitoes liked firewood, good to know. This area is known for mosquitoes in the summer so how fun to have them year round 😆

I had heard termites aren’t very prevalent up here and that it’s usually carpenter ants or a wood beetle normally. I read about the powder post beetle that makes wood into a fine powder almost and thought maybe that’s what it could be. Maybe we’re lucky with termite too

Gotcha, hopefully we get ahead of them in the future and can start preventing them

And you’re in northern Wisconsin, so pretty similar conditions. That’s great to know. Hoping this will last us all winter!

Very cool! Your property sounds amazing! We have contemplated putting in an in-wall propane furnace. Taking the edge off, or at least keeping it above freezing when going into town for multiple hours seems very important. We’ll have the explore that here in the coming weeks. Next week isn’t supposed to get over 25 degrees. And we have up to 6” of snow forecasted over night. Winter is here and we still don’t feel ready. I definitely plan to move a couple days worth of wood inside. But we don’t feel we have the space for more than that as we plan to store totes of stuff downstairs. Thanks for your comment! Looking forward to hearing more of your experience in the comments going forward!!😊

Thanks for subscribing! It does make the space so much better and brighter down there! And thanks for mentioning the dogs, they’re pretty great 😊

Thank you! Ease of loading up for the wood stove is a must, especially when winters here regularly hit negative temps

The price varies by wood type. We found a local guy who was better than average. We ended up getting 5 cords of wood to add to what we already had. In the future we hope to use downed trees from the property or purchase logs that we have to process ourselves as it is much more affordable. We were just really pressed for time with winter on the doorstep that we went with pre-chopped and seasoned. The GZ from empty would take 12 hours to completely charge. We have solar panels we just got out of storage so we hope to be better about topping it up with those. If we think about it, we try to charge well before it’s empty so that we aren’t running the generator for hours and hours. It can get pretty annoying listening to it 😆

Glad you found us! Thanks for following along and for leaving a comment! We do have a lot of future plans so hopefully it stays interesting. Glad to have you along!😊

We are both so sore after all the wood moving and stacking. Getting fit!😀 I’ll be working on some new shelving inside the cabin here pretty quick. As we are getting things out of storage we need to find place to put everything. Our next video or two will probably still be some outside projects. But definitely lots to come about the inside!🙃

@@Trailvagabonds I bet ya'll are sore...lol..So looking forward to your upcoming videos....much love to you guys

Smart! Because once the snow does hit, the sled will have to come out. And that’s so much more work 🤣

Hopefully you can repurpose those beans to use for your wood. shed

@ I’m hopeful we can too. I’ll just have to be intentional about lengths and things but it was kinda my thought when buying this wood that it will hopefully be easy to repurpose like that

Sweet upgrade! I saw something printed on the bottom that they sell the no flat tires, may need to add it to my holiday wishlist!😊 We love wood heat too, just hoping it’s enough 🤪

Yep! We have tarps for the tops of all the stacks. Sadly, the ones up front got a little wet with the rain but since it’s seasoned it should hopefully dry out quickly. We’ve got enough dry dry wood that we haven’t been worried😊

It definitely feels good to check this one off the list!

Oh absolutely! The stacks in front will be fun to move in back as we use up those stacks though, hehe. I guess they say, it warms ya twice 😊

Great thinking! We’ll use tarps this winter but we do have plans to make big covered sheds in the spring. That way we can collect green wood around the property and season it properly too.😃

So happy to hear you’re enjoying from across the globe, Sara!! Thanks for your comment and for following along! It means a lot! 😊

@Trailvagabonds 😘

Whew!! How big was your place, and logs? We ended up getting a 5th cord delivered this morning actually. And we had about a cord already on the property we can probably burn. I did rough math for our square footage and felt good but as it gets colder and colder, it would be scary to run out. We can always sled it in if we get worried mid-winter, haha

Love how you are getting the important things done first!! Will you have a spot to start storing green wood you get off the land for next year? If you don’t mind me asking how many acres do you have and how big is the house? I love the size of the cabin, I am guessing around 1200 sqft adding all three levels up. Heat rises so hoping the 6 or so cords will be enough, I am sure you both will figure out how to stay warm😂

The cabin is actually about half the size you thought. If you include the loft it’s just over 700. We have 120 acres. We’ve already had to cut up some downed trees that fell across the trail. We stacked them where they were and next year we’ll buck them up and build a large wood shed to season logs. We decided to wait on larger sheds with roofs until at least spring. Having this winter to see how much wood we use will be nice. It’ll be nice to process our own wood as it’s much more cost effective haha