Author Archive

Established a garden here and the soil is heavy and rocky so it was a lot of work. Pretty much everyday for two weeks.  My wife’s been sore too. She helped a lot. Click on pics for larger version, click anywhere on large pic to close it (don’t have to click the X).

Also got another bed with Lincoln peas, more carrots and a hill of early corn. Maters, peppers and brassicas were store bought starts, onions were store bought sets and taters were store bought seed potatoes. Everything else from seed of course. Been a week since the pics were taken and the red potatoes are a foot tall now. Carrots are getting their true leaves. Peas have tendrils reaching for the chicken wire so I need to brace that up soon. There’s also more green in the rows than there is in the aisles now due to things sprouting up and me pulling the grass and weeds out of the aisles. Need to fence everything in or I’ll just be feeding critters. Also planted some blackberries, raspberries and have some blueberry plants that we’ll be putting in containers made from 55 gal drums. We rent here (actually do trade out for my upkeep of the place/campground) so some would think it strange that we’d plant berry bushes in the ground. They won’t produce until next year but we’ll be here for a few years. We can’t take them with us. Technically we could probably dig them up but won’t. I have a book that tells how to propagate fruits and berries as well as saving seeds from veggies. I’ll be propagating the berries on an ongoing basis just to make more so I’ll always have either some cuttings or some small plants in containers which I won’t put in the ground until I have more cuttings. That way we’ll always have something ready to go.
We’re off grid, primitive, no well etc and during the warm spell we just had, we were running out of water so we quit watering the cow peas aka black eyed peas. Those tough little suckers still pushed right through the crusted clay and some even lifted up rocks to break free.
That red mulch is actually red oak, mostly rotted and sitting since the logging 10+ years ago. Lighter than balsa wood and crumbles by hand. That’s my sit down job and I need to do a lot more of it. Some of that red oak sits high and dry and is still solid. Made nice heating fuel this winter.
All the raised beds were filled with top soil that was pushed up in piles when the loggers made the clearing here for their loading area. It was pushed up top soil along with lots of plants and logs that have all been degrading for over a decade so it’s nice dark brown fluffiness and the plants seem to like it so far.

We set out in early May 2011. Our first attempt we made it 4 miles. We had an old tow truck with rig removed to pull the 30′ 5th wheel camper, the 5th wheel, a 14′ box truck pulling a 20′ car trailer with our family car, a blazer on it. Everything was overloaded and my Wife told me the box truck just wouldn’t get out of it’s own way. She told me this after we stopped due to an electrical fire in the tow truck. I had quickly hooked up the main power cables from the solar batteries to the tow truck to keep them charged since the 12vdc fridge would be running during the trip. I didn’t strap up the cables well enough and the positive got up against the hot exhaust pipe and melted through the insulation shorting it out. I disconnected it and we went on our way. Stopped by the 7-eleven to fuel up and by that time the box truck would hardly move. Dirt in carburetor but I had an extra so I swapped it out. By that time a nasty thunder storm had rolled in so we sat in the parking lot for an hour. Once the storm passed we went back home calling it a dry run. I took the box truck for a drive around the block and it was scary so for the next couple of days I unloaded everything from both rigs and the yard sale began again. I carefully reloaded about half of what we had and took test drives as I went. I left a lot of good stuff behind but that’s life.  A week after our dry run we finally left at 2pm which was kind of late but we made it across the state line into GA that day.  The trip took 4 days and was fairly uneventful considering what we were driving. A 73 gmc tow truck that had been sitting for 9 years, purchase price $500. An 87 Ford box truck that had been sitting for 4 years, purchase price $450. I 20′ homemade trailer originally a 1957 mobile home, purchase price $0. A 1973 30′ 5th wheel, purchase price $250. The major problem was rust and sludge in both fuel tanks crudding up carbs. I had 3 carbs for the two trucks so it was a nightly chore to swap and clean a carb on one of them. We stayed at travel centers all but one night which was spent in a rest area. We walked on tool boxes to get to the back of the 5th wheel where the beds were. There was no floor to be seen in that thing due to all the stuff packed in there. We had a flat tire in MS which was somewhat expected. The 4 rear tires on the box truck had great tread and weren’t that old but the FL sun had taken it’s tole on them. We got pulled over in AR because the Sheriff deputy saw all the smoke coming from under the box truck and was worried it might be on fire. I explained it was oil leaks and that I had been wiping it down regularly and keeping an eye on it. He was still genuinely concerned but wished us luck on the rest of our trip and we were on our way. Less than a mile later on a curve up a steep hill the box truck quit. Out of fuel and running hot. While I was putting gas in (no gas gauge so we carried fuel) up behind us pulls the same Deputy. Told him what happened and he said if we had only gone a little further there was a place to pull off. He was worried about a trucker coming around that curve so he went back around the curve to put his lights on so we wouldn’t get barreled over. Nice guy and at one point we were talking about our plans and he said he had often had the same plans of buying a pc of property, building a simple barn, living in that until the house could be built etc. Totally different from any experience with FL law enforcement. He was just a regular guy keeping people safe, not some over zealous person on a power trip. We got the truck going, made it to the pull off, let it cool down while we ate lunch and were on our way after putting water in.

We rolled into West Plains and made our final fuel stop, carefully calculating how much we needed to get to our new property. After fueling up we had $23 left to our name.

One year later sittin in the Ozarks. Heard 3-4 sirens in the last year, loud rap/hip hop/boom once or twice and haven’t heard any language but English. The foliage was nice this past fall and winter was mild. Nothing has gone as planned but we’re happier and healthier than ever.

Oh, the name. justplainfedup Started out political but after being into that for a year and actually paying attention to politics, ummm, nevermind. Now it’s just plain fed up with the rat race of suburbia/metroland. Got sick of being tailgated by people trying to keep up with the Jones’ who were evidently the ones driving badly in front of me.

I’ll have to make a new header graphic.

So what’s this site about?