It was a cold, dark day at the off grid homestead so we spent some time washing clothes, crafting and other homestead projects. Most of the time was spent doing indoor work on this day.

 

It was pay day so Melanie and I went shopping for our monthly grocery supplies. We go to Aldi now and save a lot of money each month on our food bill compared to the more expensive local grocery store. Most everything is cheaper there and you can come out with a loaded shopping cart for the same price as three plastic shopping bags at the local store.

 

We got back to the homestead around three in the afternoon. It was dark and cloudy out so we had no solar power coming into our off grid tiny house solar battrey bank. We may have to run a generator as a back up if we do not see the sun soon.

 

Melanie was washing clothes by hand in the tiny house bathroom. She uses a clothes washing plunger in a five gallon bucket to wash our clothes when its too cold outside or the weather is too bad. She also uses homemade laundry detergent to wash our clothes. This saves us money and also makes our clothes cleaner. The laundry pluger actually gets clothes cleaner than using a machine due to its sucking and pushing method. Melanie says it is really easy to use and not tiring.

 

 

 

Off grid laundry washing with five gallon bucket and plunger

 

She hangs the clothes in the shower to drip out and then hangs them up in the living room from the tiny house rafters.

 

This is perfect because our thermal wood stove fan blows hot air right onto the clothes to be dried. This was a gift to us not long ago and it sure does help a lot. Melanie loves to have that fan blowing its air into the kitchen of the tiny house when she is working in there. This fan needs no outside power source. The heat of the wood stove generates electricity inside the device which powers the fan.

 

It started to sleet outside but we needed drinking water so I grabbed a one gallon jug and went to the creek with my mini bike. The bike is easy and faster than anything else in this weather. I get fresh mountain water from the creek and bring it to the tiny house on wheels. Then I pour the water into a black Berkey water filter which I made years ago. I took a pretzel container and put the filter inside. Then this I mounted on top of a sun tea jar. When we want a drink of water I pour from the jar spout right into my glass. Pure, fresh drinking water from nature.

 

I went out to the greenhouse to show you around a bit. I guess not everyone saw the video where the greenhouse wood stove boiler froze on us during our last trip away. The greenhouse was a total loss and everything froze. I will not be working on the plants again until it warms up some. I dont have a heating system in there anymore so there is nothing I can do for now.

I do use the greenhouse to store and charge up my batteries. I have a bunch of batteries that I use for standby power and for use in the campers and work shops around the property as needed. The greenhouse has its own solar power battery bank installed with a set of Harbor Freight solar panels and the HF charger. I will eventually swap out this charger with a better quality one.

 

I am using my old Bedini motor to restore badly sulfated lead acid batteries right now in the greenhouse. The work bench serves me well for this purpose since we are not using it for anything else at this time.

 

This old Bedini motor was the first one I ever made using junk parts through and through. Everything was salvaged from junk electronics. Even the wire was salvaged. This device has restored many batteries through the years.

 

I am currently trying to restore some old car jump starter packs with my Bedini motor. The one I am charging right now was so low that the volt meter did not even move when I pressed the battery status button. Now it is up to about 11 volts.

 

Homemade Bedini Motor Restoring Lead Acid Batteries

 

I have a few of these jump starter packs around because each year I get one on deep discount at the end of the season. Sadly though they only last a few months because they sat on the store shelves too long. The batteries get too badly sulfated from neglect. But the Bedini motor can bring them back to full service again.

 

I brought in a plastic shelving unit to the loft of the tiny house on wheels. I put it into the large window which faces south. Then I put our herbs on the shelf where they will continue to provide us with fresh clippings all winter. Soon we will plant seedlings in this window to get an early start on our garden for this year. When the seedlings are bigger they will go out into the greenhouse to continue to grow until the weather outside is warm enough to transplant them in the garden.

 

Growing plants in the window over the winter

 

Melanie has her crafts under the shelf and I took the antique piano bench that she had the plants on to use as a table for my Q3 charge accelerator. This should restore lead acid batteries faster than the Bedini motor when I have finished building it.

 

Later though Melanie was sewing at my table. She is learning how to make quilts.

 

You can watch today's video here: Homestead Laundry ~ Water Filtration ~ And More

 

While you are over there please subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow our daily videos as we strive to become self sufficient and off the grid on a budget.

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Troy Reid

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