In this modern world, many people’s only recollection of a root cellar is from television. However, prior to modern refrigeration, root cellars were one of the ways that families could store food for the winter. Root cellars are underground structures that use the earth to provide a means to naturally cool, insulate and maintain proper…
Once the most important aspects of the driveway were complete, the other major project that we needed our bulldozer contractor to focus on was building the farm pond. Clinton and Ed Cockriel from Ed Cockriel & Son Dozer and Backhoe Services have years of experience in pond building in the Western Kentucky area. We appreciate…
Several months ago, Philip met with Clifton Cockriel of Ed Cockriel & Son Dozer and Backhoe Services to get an estimate to tackle a few of the larger tasks on the homestead. One of the biggest jobs we needed to complete was building a new driveway all the way to the building site of our…
As Philip and I continue the process of building the homestead infrastructure, our goal is to build completely off-grid. That will include solar electricity and possibly wind-generated power. For water, our initial plan was to install a well that we hoped to power with a windmill. However, after getting a sample of our neighbor’s water,…
The first Winter Workcation of 2022 is in the books! Philip and I spent the end of February and the first week of March at the farm. I call them workcations because even though they are technically a vacation, I work much harder on the homestead than I do back at work! I have a…
As with all projects on the homestead, our workcations are shorter than the time it takes to do a large building project. So we chip away at them little by little until we get them done. Well, that’s the goal anyway. As I think about that statement, all of our big projects have lingering aspects…
As we look forward to upcoming projects, we are trying to wrap up a few projects that are in progress. Since Kowalski Mountain is built-in workcations, it seems like there is always a lingering project that needs completion. The two big projects we must wrap up are the barn and the bathhouse. While the barn…
September marks the beginning of deer hunting season in Kentucky, with the opening of archery season, a Labor Day tradition. It’s Philip’s favorite time of year, the crisp cool air, the changing of the leaves, and hunting season! While the work on the homestead never ends, it does take a different direction during hunting season….
Welcome to the July 2021 Workcation series. The fifth post in the July Workcation Series Is about our off-grid water pressure system. If you missed the overview post, about all the tasks we completed during our July Workcation you can find it here. I’ll link all the posts in the series at the bottom in…
Welcome to the July 2021 Workcation series. The fourth post in the July Workcation Series is the biggest task that we tackled on the homestead, hauling logs out of the woods. I’ve already given you a brief overview of the projects we tackled while at Kowalski Mountain for our annual workcation. If you missed the…
