Use It Up, Wear It Out

"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."  It's a mantra from the Depression era that I have come to embrace over the last couple of years.  No so much because I'm a tree hugger, but because I'm a tightwad and even us evil right-wingers don't like to see trash and waste.  Shout to reader, Lindsey, who a while back suggested that I give some tips and tricks about self sufficiency and how I manage money...with a Back 'er Down twist.  Lindsey has a great blog too by the way, you should check it out.  The following is a quick tour of a few of the items that I've reused in interesting ways.

This is my potato drying rack and storage facility.  It's suspended from the rafters in my shop using chain that I found at the dump.  The framework for this beauty is the base of a crib.  Our youngest son transitioned to a bed last spring and the crib wasn't really fit for use by another family, so I butchered it and made this.  I do have a few bucks in the screen that lines the bottom.

Coke crates are great for carrying things.  I particularly love using them in the garden because dirt can fall out of the holes in the bottom.  I also like to wash veggies in these as the water and dirt sifts right out of the bottom.  I guess that technically this crate is property of Coca Cola.  Shhhhhh.  I honestly don't remember how I got it.

I love a bucket!  I have a lot of pickle buckets and a few like the one pictured which had hydraulic fluid in it. I use buckets as containers, seats, planters, scoops and a bunch of other things that I'm not remembering right now.  They're really great to put under the tongue of light trailers to keep them out of the dirt.

This is one of my more interesting reuses.  The crates are store bought, but the framework is the body of an old creeper that I had lying around.  Two of the wheels had messed up, so it wasn't really useful to me anymore.  Compound that with the fact that new casters cost about as much as a new creeper and it was destined for a better use.  I trimmed it up, drilled a few holes and used angle iron down the front for stability.  Fortunately I was able to tie into existing holes and mounting brackets on the golf cart.  This front rack has been a really useful addition.

I probably have a container fetish.  Coffee cans are a weakness.  I use them all the time for organizing nuts, bolts, washers, small parts, etc.  I have also used them as planters and we event use one as a dog food scoop right now.  However, you see the picture above of seven cans that are currently not in use.  That number has recently grown to 15.  Might be time to stop with the coffee cans ;)

This is an old cast iron washpot that belonged to my grandparents.  I really couldn't think of a practical use for it, but I couldn't bring myself to toss it.  So as it sits with much historical value, it also doubles as a container for fat-lighter splinters.  Note the bricks too...... left over from the construction of our home.  I'll use them one day, LOL

So that's a quick tour of some of my reuses.  I also reuse burnt motor oil, dryer lint, coat hangers, bent-re-straightened nails and wire.  I'm a tightwad.  I consider it a virtue.  How about you?  What do you reuse?  I'd love to hear new ideas.

Y'all take it easy,

Alex

Let the Garden Games Begin!

Preparing the garden

It's getting to be my favorite "Back er Down" part of the year.  It isn't so much because it will be easy, because it will actually be a LOT of work.  It's the #1 thing the epitomizes my desire to take it easy and focus the more important things in life.  It's almost time to plant the garden.  We're going big this year!  The list includes: snap beans, peas, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, peppers, watermelons and even a little sugarcane.  I'm going to document the entire season, complete with pictures, here on the blog.

The garden provides food, exercise, recreation and education.  It gives opportunities to learn lessons about life, the value of hard work and actions & consequences.  Last year's garden was good, but we're almost out of veggies.  We ran out of corn in December.  We're down to our last few quarts of tomatoes.  Two quarts of squash left.  We do have plenty of snap beans left to get us to the first picking.  Seems we planned just about right with the exception of the corn.

Nutrient-packed compost

We will plant potatoes late this week, but the bulk of everything else won't be planted until mid to late March.  Even so, the work is well under way!  We planted oats over the winter and recently plowed those under to add some matter to the soil.  After breaking the ground and letting that rest for a couple of weeks we got started in earnest this weekend.  We laid out the entire garden, trenched for potatoes and bedded the rows for watermellons.  Something new for us....we're composting and using horse and quail manure this year.  We worked the horse manure in during this first prep.  We will use the quail manure after planting.

Barrels in which I will plant something...not sure what yet.
Likely heirloom tomatoes and some kind of peppers

We expanded the size of the garden again this year.  This will be the final resize for quite some time.  In addition to the manure we are also entering uncharted waters with an electric fence to try to discourage deer.  (Pause for a little frugal bragging:  I was able to make the 4 corner posts out of a free utility pole...thanks Alan.  I got all of the t-posts and insulators for free.... thanks James.  Dad had a whole roll of wire already.  I'll be charging the fence with two deep cycle batteries....also free....thanks Gil.)  My only cost is the fence charger for which I laid out the cash.  It is rated for 100 acres....my garden is about 1/8 of an acre.  I gotta remember to turn it off when the kids come outside ;)

The weather has been nice.  It's tempting to get started early, but I know in my gut that there is another hard frost coming.  I'll wait and obey the Almanac.  After all....the Almanac has been getting it right for what 200 years?  I'm very optimistic about this year's garden.  We have some nice soil amendments, a good watering plan and hopefully a barrier that will zap the piss out of any four-legged intruders.  Looking forward to it.

Y'all take it easy,

Alex

Old Times There Are Not Forgotten

I've often thought what it might have been like to have lived the prime of my life 50 or even 100 years ago.  When folks today talk about their skill/trade/job it's much different that I think it would have been then.  Seems to me that for a majority of people during that time their "job" was staying alive.  Any skills possessed were directly related to that.  Here I sit today and what skill do I have?  I'm a PR man, lol.  In the simplest of terms, I write and talk for a living.  Man would I have been screwed back then or what?

In my quest to "Back 'er Down" I've taken on the task of trying to learn skills that are dying out.  Gardening, mechanics, carpentry, etc.  A part of that is my volunteer work with my local Kiwanis Club for the county fair.  I'm learning the ropes of cooking syrup.  My teacher is a "retired" 80+ year old farmer.  I had the opportunity recently to ride around with him, gather wood and visit a sugar cane patch as we prepare for the upcoming fair.  He's farmed, sold equipment, collected debt, served on the county commission, been a father, husband, grandfather and now great grandfather.  I believe that this man has forgotten more than I'll ever know.

The stories that he has shared are nothing short of amazing.  Just the tidbits as it relates to cooking syrup are fascinating to me.  For those that aren't aware of this time honored tradition, here is a Reader's Digest version:  You harvest sugar cane stalks, squeeze the juice from it, and boil the juice in huge cast iron pot (ours is 60 gallons) until the majority of the water is cooked out.  The remaining part is pure sugar cane syrup.  It's done with no electronics, no fancy tools and the heat source is a wood fire inside a brick furnace.  (I'm told that this is similar to how northerners do it via maple trees, but I'm not sure.  If anyone north of the mason-dixon are reading, holler at me.)

On our trip we visited with the farmer from which we get our sugar cane each year.  That cat is 90.  Yes, 90!  He gets around better than a lot of folks half his age.  He showed us around the fields, (he also plants several gardens and farms peanuts) showed us his syrup setup and even walked us through a miniature citrus grove.  (Hell, I didn't even know you could grow oranges in Georgia)  The shed where his syrup boiler is was of course not ready to be used for that task, so his furnace was covered up with gallon glass jars of wine....which he makes himself....from grapes that he grows.  He took a lid off so that I could see the juice "working down."  Seriously, this man is an American Treasure.

I rely on my father for many of the same lessons and nuggets of information.  It seems like every time I ask a question he not only has an answer.....he has experienced it.  The sad part is that men like this are getting old.  They're not going to be around forever.  They are literally walking, talking encyclopedias that we often discount as "stuck in the past."  We treat them as a novelty rather than a tool or a reference.

I often think about what would happen if things got really bad in our country.  What if we experienced something like the Great Depression now?  I fear that we would be royally screwed.  I challenge anyone that reads this (all 4 of you) to learn a skill that is becoming a lost art.  It might be something as simple as changing your own oil, cutting hair or canning vegetables.  If we don't do it, we're literally 15-20 years away from losing this knowledge forever.

I'll never end on a somber note.........We've been attending a great church lately.  Lots of familiar faces and involvement in the community in which we work and live.  There are lots of young people there too!  What a blessing that is.  I'm looking forward to seeing what God has in store for our family.

Ya'll take it easy,

Alex

Why the title "Back 'er Down?"

So Alex....why the title "Back 'er Down" for the new blog? Well, it's an old saying that I'm not sure of when it comes to the origin. A quick Google search shows it likely came from trucker's slang for "slow down." Makes sense. My definition has the same meaning, but when my dad would tell me to "back 'er down" when he was teaching me to drive a tractor as a little fella. So there you go.... back 'er down = slow down. An appropriate title for a blog dedicated to simplifying life.

That leads me to some other quips that I found interesting as it relates to this topic. Everyone loves inspirational quotes right? I figured I'd share a few that are dear to me and remind me that life is not all about the rat race.

"If you don't have the best of everything, make the best of everything you have." -Unknown

Since few of us have the best of everything, this is pretty good advice. No clue who first coined it, but it's saved me a heap of money and a lot of heartache too.

"We may not have the best stuff in the world, but the least we can do is keep it clean" -My Dad

My dad is always good for some gems. This was one that I remember from a very early age. We didn't really have nice automobiles or tractors, but he always washed and vacuumed them regularly. He was also pretty adamant that we keep our rooms clean too. I wanted no part of that, lol. Interesting that now I'm borderline OCD when it comes to keeping my stuff orderly and clean.

"Fix it. Paint it. Repair it. Weed it by hand instead of buying Round-up. Collect rain water for your garden. Basically, when your money is in short supply and your time is long, use your time and don’t spend the money." - Unknown

Money quotes are always fun. (I will say this though..... a simpler life does not always mean a cheaper life. At least in the short run. I plan to devote an entire writing to this in the near future.)

Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, "See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk." - GearHead

Not going political here necessarily. This beaut came from a poster on a motorsports message board that I frequent. The point is that we have to be responsible for yourselves and our own families. I tend to count on myself for getting things done. If I need help I'll ask for it. I fear that many folks are becoming too reliant without even realizing it.

So there you go. A few things to chew on.

Keeping it simple over the weekend

Friday was a furlough day so I spent the entire day cutting grass. What a joy. I love cutting grass. The tractor and the lawnmower don't care too much about what kind of day you're having. they just hum along with a nice rhythm and they get the job done. There is a lot of satisfaction in looking back over the yard and field after a fresh cut. Realized accomplishment is a good thing.

Saturday was another day spent outside, spreading mulch and repairing a tractor for one of dad's friends. My one-year old- is loving the outdoors. I'm glad for that and my wife is really fired up at the prospect of sending both boys outside with me in the future ;)

My dad came over Sunday and we looked over the garden and planted some more tomatoes. 74 plants in all now. We'll have plenty if someone wants some. (On a side note, Harveys (regional grocer) has tomatoes for $2.58 each. Holy wow! Is a veggie stand in order in a few months? Garden is looking good. If we can keep the deer out we're going to have a really nice plot.

Ya'll keep it simple.

Alex

Here we go again.....with a new twist

Well whatta ya know! Old Alex is back blogging again.

Over the years I've written on politics, religion, motorsports or whatever other nuggets of interest made their way from my warped mind. I unplugged from blogging a while back because it just became too much to keep up with. Most recently I was doing opinion pieces on various forms of motorsports and defending NASCAR for what it was (that was a hoot!) Doing a preview and recap of about 5 different series became a bit much. I wasn't enjoying it much, so I did what all respected folks in media do. I edited an overpriced season finale and killed it off.

Well, over the last 4 years or so my perspective on life has changed quite a bit. Taxes and children will do that to a man. I'm fundamentally the same, but I found myself yearning for a simpler life. I've always been fascinated with simple living and keeping things laid back. I was never able to do that until recently. Like most I graduated college (PROUD alumnus of Georgia Southern University) and began the pursuit of "things." Life was good! I had a wonderful wife, a nice home, three automobiles. I lived 10 minutes from the beach, 10 minutes from downtown Savannah and my wife and I were making a heap of money!

We decided to move to the country about the same time we found that were were expecting our first son. Over the next four years I began to discover two things. 1: God has a plan for me (though I'm not 100% clear on what it is yet, lol.) 2: Some of the happiest people in the world go home each day smelly and tired.

This blog will be about my journey to simplify life. To live below my means, to be the best husband I can, to raise two boys to become good citizens. Most importantly to do it all without stressing out and trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Can it be done? Heck yeah! Can I do it? Not sure. I hope you'll read along and find out. I'd welcome your comments, opinions and advice. This is a blog that I will truly enjoy even if it's not read by a single person.

Later,

Alex