Well. @porters sent her weather down to Texas to party this week, and for Foxfire Homestead, it was amazing! Work got cancelled every night this week. How you Yankees and snow mexicans get anything done in cold weather, I'll never understand.
Since work got cancelled, I got to spend some time doing very fun things and sleeping on a normal human schedule. It was great. Lots of time was spent conversing in phone calls and voice chats with other Man Scouts about how things were going and what we were all learning. I learned that our house is probably on the same grid as the hospital, so we didn't lose power once. Which also means our heater didn't stop running once. All week. That electric bill is gonna be nuts when it gets here, but it didn't get below 65 in the house, and we didn't lose any water service, so we were blessed with the opportunity to help a lot of people.
Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were spent elbow deep in the printer. It didn't stop running for probably 80 hours straight. I'm coming out of the 2021 snowpocalypse with a new truck gun. It's called a Mac Daddy, and it's an innovative design in the 3D printed gun community in that it uses a lot of parts from other firearms to create an effective and inexpensive option for self defense. I'm pretty impressed with the viability of this platform.
The Mac Daddy
The Mac Daddy is mostly printable, using a Mac 11 upper receiver assembly and an AR15 fire control group and some bolts and pins as the only non-printed parts. The frame, grip, brace adapter, mag catch, and feed ramp are all manufactured using 3D printing, and it eats from Glock magazines, which can also be printed.
On the printer at the moment is a folding adapter that I'll put a printed pistol brace on. I had to order some flexible filament for part of the brace, so I'll spend a bit of my free time next week tuning that up. I'm excited for this project to come together as my first completed gun print. Now the trick is going to be getting the ammo to test the thing. I did some research and found I can use small rifle primers in my 9mm loads, I just need projectiles and dies now and I'll be in business.
I started up about half a dozen posts this week, and didn't finish a single one. Either I was busy doing projects, busy with friends, or falling asleep because I was plum wore out and nice and cozy from wearing two layers of clothes. Have I mentioned how awesome this week was? Since I twas so hard to make time for a longhand post, I think I'll start making shorter, more regular posts with a picture and a blurb.
Like I said, we were able to help a bunch of folks this week. Two nights Melissa's best friend's power was out, so she and her four kiddos stayed over while her husband was stuck at work. He's a cop, and they put him up at a hotel near the station so he'd be able to be at work. Glad my job doesn't love me that much. I guess that was Monday and Tuesday?
Another day, I was able to get out with two other Man Scouts and chop a bunch of firewood for a church near one of their homes. We got out with axes and chainsaws an "jacked lumber" for the day. It was amazing. After that, one of them came over with his pregnant wife so they could shower and do dishes and laundry because their power and water went out. They had food, firewood, and drinking water put aside for exactly such an occasion, but after a couple days things can get pretty ripe. I'm guessing that was Wednesday.
The next day was really really busy. I don't know what days these all were. I work night shift, so I usually don't know what day it is, and I didn't have work, so I double didn't know what day it was. I was well rested the whole time, so let's just call em all Saturday. My phone says it's currently Friday, so now we're caught up to Thursday. Thursday ended up being milk day.
My friend Sam came over to wash his fam and get some water to set back. He lost power and water too, and had been flushing with bucket water, so they needed more. While his family (his wife and their two kids, his brother, and his father in law) got washed up, we harvested two rabbits. One went to the freezer, one to the fire. After they were harvested, it was time to go to the dairy for milk, we brought home twenty gallons for folks. Then we cooked the rabbit.
One bun for the fire
One bun for the freezer
One bun on the fire
Cleaning tree
Later that same evening, another Man Scout brought his son over and they both showered too. The power had come back on at their place, but not the water. I poured his milk while they showered, and programmed his radio after they were done.
All throughout the week, we were watering the buns twice a day, as well as feeding them a touch extra and giving them extra hay. They all came out alive (except the two that were big enough to harvest), and none of the bred mombuns had to bear a litter during the storm. We found out that Chance, our favored pile bun, is a doe. As is the black pipe bun, which the kids have named Blackberry. We'll be keeping both of them, as they can both be bred to the two bucks we have. Which means the end of this rabbit breeding season is going to be utter insanity, as we'll have a litter from up to five mombuns. That's up to fifty rabbits. At 3-6 pounds each, I wouldn't be surprised if we put 200# in the freezer.
New mombun, digging a hole. Or so she thinks. For some reason she thinks she should push all the hay out of her bucket. Whatever, you do you, New Mombun.
Speaking of meat in the freezer, we found a local grass fed beef farm that's run by someone in Sam's Cub Scouts troop. They're selling grass fed beef for just a few cents more per pound than the store, AND ITS LOCAL. Plus, if we buy in bulk, it's cheaper than at the store by a dollar a pound. Who needs Wally world when you have friends, amirite?
This morning we made gravy for breakfast. I'm really proud of it because it's got the local beef, local lard that we rendered ourselves from locally pastured pigs, local raw milk, and our homegrown homeground corn flour. It was awesome, and didn't last long enough for a picture.
Local gravy ingredients
It was an awesome week, and we took many lessons from our experience. It was cool being so radically social, and not out of recreation. The bonds in our communities and the effectiveness of what we've been working on the last year or more were affirmed and strengthened. This type of socialization, while stressful, was a very real and deep form that felt so much more than recreational society. When the comforts and distractions went away, it felt like things just got so real.
Halfway makes me wish we had this kind of thing more often than 200 years apart.
Love from Texas
Nate 💚
Wow! That's awesome that y'all were able to help so many people out! I'm afraid that's what things are going to come down to. Community and local provisions are going to be life savers.
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