Mountain Man's home

Mountain man

Entree Cook
Gold Site Supporter
Here are the front and back yard views.
 

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QSis

Grill Master
Staff member
Gold Site Supporter
Re: "What's Cooking?" Sun.10/28/12 to Sat. 11/3/12

Okay, so here are some things I've always wondered about you folks that live in such rural areas:

1)What do people there do for a living, and how far is their commute to work?

2) If you want to "run down to the store for a quart of milk", how long does that take?

3) When it snows, do you plow yourself out? Or do you just stay put until Spring?

To get to my mother's family, I had to drive through the Berkshire Mountains, and I've always wondered about this stuff!

Lee
 

QSis

Grill Master
Staff member
Gold Site Supporter
Re: "What's Cooking?" Sun.10/28/12 to Sat. 11/3/12

Mountain Man and Peep, would you mind if I take the posts starting with MM's photos and started a new thread with it?

I'm fascinated!

Lee

NOTE: This IS the new thread. I just left this post here so that MM's reply would make sense. :)
 
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Mountain man

Entree Cook
Gold Site Supporter
Re: "What's Cooking?" Sun.10/28/12 to Sat. 11/3/12

It don't matter to me! Wait that was a song by Bread way back in the day. As for your questions, The milk is only 3 miles away but I don't care for their milk much. When it snows I have a truck with a plow as well as a skid loader and 4wd backhoe. I also have chains for all 4 wheels on the truck and backhoe so I don't sweat getting out IF I want to. As far as income I used to build subway cars and it was a 30 mile drive to work. Medically retired now and only work for the wife. HELP!! :yum:
 

QSis

Grill Master
Staff member
Gold Site Supporter
Well, those distances don't sound too far away. Not as far away as your property pictures look!

Thanks for the reply, MM!

Lee
 

Sass Muffin

Coffee Queen ☕
Gold Site Supporter
Bill, do you have any pics of the bee hives?
I know you have a pic of you in your bee hat.

You should share pics of Pawla (the Shepherd) and the kitties too! :)
Oh and the birds! haha
 

Mountain man

Entree Cook
Gold Site Supporter
We have 107 acres and the nearest neighbor is 3/4 mile away at the bottom of my hill. Where I built this place is out in a 29 acre field on top where the glaciers left the hard rock. We have tons of fossils in the rock up here but the rock shelf on top is real tough to dig through. We have a lot of wildlife up here. The turkeys with the snow were 2 flocks together in my pasture after the cows were gone.
 

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Mountain man

Entree Cook
Gold Site Supporter
Bill, do you have any pics of the bee hives?
I know you have a pic of you in your bee hat.

You should share pics of Pawla (the Shepherd) and the kitties too! :)
Oh and the birds! haha
JeeZ! Will have to do some looking around. I know i have some of the hives on this PC.
 

Mountain man

Entree Cook
Gold Site Supporter
This is something new we got into this year. We started with one hive and then bought a colony of bees for it. I planted 2 plum trees and 2 apple trees along with some shrubs and flowers that bees like. Then we fenced it off with 4 strands of electrified high tensile wire to keep the bears out. Then we got a second hive but ended up with that colony swarming off, most likely in August as there was some honey in it.
 

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Mountain man

Entree Cook
Gold Site Supporter
Here is the end result after a lot of work and money to get started. We ended up with a little over 5 gallons and we left 8 big frames with honey in them in case the bees need extra in the spring. The big stainless steel thing is the centrifuge for extracting the honey from the frames. That is pure gold in those jars. We use it in almost everything instead of sugar.
 

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Mountain man

Entree Cook
Gold Site Supporter
This is me in my bee suit. And the others are pics of our other little projects. I built her the first greenhouse and heated it with radiant pex tube running off the wood boiler. Then she has to have a second one. They are both built with recycled windows and doors and the biggest expense was the roof panels. They have thermostat controlled heat and ventilation fans. We grow tomatoes and carrots and other stuff year round as well as keep entirely too many flowers from year to year. The smaller one has a seed starting area in it so we can start veggies and flowers early. This past year a very late frost killed a lot of things and stunted the 8 fruit trees we planted back in late March. I have a big garden area fenced off to keep critters from helping themselves to our food.
 

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Mountain man

Entree Cook
Gold Site Supporter
Here are a few of the plants in the newest one. We have tomatoes flowering right now and also have some strawberries in hanging pots that should be flowering soon. It is nice to pick stuff in the dead of winter when the snow is flying. I have a hard time eating imported veggies and stuff after all the recalls the past few years.
 

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Adillo303

*****
Gold Site Supporter
MM - You are living my dream.

I see no mention of livestock. Do you have any. Just out of curiosity, are you pretty much self sufficient?

Andy
 

QSis

Grill Master
Staff member
Gold Site Supporter
LOL! WOW!!!!!

These are fantastic photos, MM! Sass is right - you sure ARE an interesting person with an interesting life!

I love your greenhouses, and I ADORE your pool and the view from it. I can see myself on an air mattress, with a book, just soaking in the sun and scenery.

Thanks for posting all these, MM!
 

Mountain man

Entree Cook
Gold Site Supporter
MM - You are living my dream.

I see no mention of livestock. Do you have any. Just out of curiosity, are you pretty much self sufficient?

Andy
We raise 2 beefers each year but send them to butcher at the end of October. That is the compromise the wife and I made after my health problems started. I sold all my hay making equipment and wagons and don't keep any critters over the winter. Will get 2 more in the spring to raise up. We are pretty self sufficient up here for most things. We have more food than we can eat and swap things with some of the Amish for labor to cut some wood. I do haul them if emergencies come up like injuries etc. It is a pretty good life overall. I do some excavating for neighbors and they haul my cattle for me and lend a hand when I need it. Sometimes it sucks being too old and broken down to do what I would have done in my younger days.:whistling:
 

Mama

Queen of Cornbread
Site Supporter
Wow....great pictures MM.....what a wonderful life you have been Blessed with!
 

Adillo303

*****
Gold Site Supporter
All in all it sounds pretty great. I am pretty sides that day to day its a lot of work.

Wheel with it, though.
 

joec

New member
Gold Site Supporter
I need your gps coordinates as well as hunting season of deer and turkey. Man that is my dream to live on a piece of land that beautiful that I can hunt in my back yard. Perhaps next June with I sell out my business and retire.
 

AllenOK

New member
MM, I have a question. How to you fertilize the tomato flowers in the off-season? Do you have some bees in the greenhouse, fertilize by hand, or something else?

Love the photos!
 
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