In November of 2021, my wife and I sold our home of many years and moved to the southeast coast of North Carolina, running, if you will, from the high taxes and never-ending winters. We did however, elect to keep the farm, The Blue Mouse Ranch, here in Burlington Flats, NY for a myriad of reasons.
Since we have relocated, the trek to the ranch has expanded from 5 hours 15 minutes to 12-ish hours. This expansion of travel time does two things; Raises the cost of coming here and extends my time here. With a 12-ish hour commute to the ranch, I can no longer drive up on a Friday night and stay for the weekend, going home on Sunday night and repeat that process each weekend. The new routine will now be to leave North Carolina bright and early Saturday morning, arrive here Saturday evening and stay to the following Saturday. Repeating this routine every month.
While that sounds great, and it is, I still have to work to fund this trip and my life in North Carolina. With that, I have made preparations to bring what I need so that I can work from the ranch for the week. This will be a completely new experience. In the 21 years I have owned this property, I have never done this.
So since I work from home normally, and have been for three years, this would require that I have available to me all that I need to do my job as a CAD Draftsman.
- Computer
- 3-monitors
- Keyboard
- Mouse
- Docking station
- Table to work on
- Chair
Company laptop, check. Keyboard, check. Mouse, check. Docking station, no. Table to work on, check. Chair Check. 3-Monitors, sort of. Internet, check.
Oddly enough, in the new house my wife and I bought, the previous owners left behind a lot of stuff and they don’t want it back. One of the things that they left behind was this dual-monitor stand, with two monitors on it. Did they work, yes! Now the only thing I needed was the docking station the laptop needed to connect all the devices and that was still at the actual office. I contacted my supervisor and they agreed to ship it to me. In preparation that I might not get it, I Amazon’d a new one and it arrived two days before I departed. Untested I might add.
Though I departed North Carolina on Saturday at 6 a.m., I had to detour to New Jersey to pick up something for the cabin. Therefore, a stopover at my brothers house for the night was put in place. Oddly enough, it only took me 9 hours to get to my first stop in Jersey. Sunday I was up and out and at the ranch by 1 p.m. and I arrived to no snow but frigid temperatures. What I also arrived to was a fixed driveway. That’s right, we hired my neighbor to put in some culvert pipe and fixt the low spots and eliminate the wet areas. It was glorious, muddy, but glorious. I no longer had to drive through the stream. 21 years later and I finally had that done. Better late than never.
I spent most of the day Sunday getting things in order since my last appearance on the ranch, setting up the feeders for our furry friends and setting up the computer station for my work week ahead. As fate would have it, the docking station that was sent to my by my supervisor didn’t work and luckily, the new one I bought did the trick. I tested the system and everything worked is it should have.
I was still operating on Solar power when I arrived and I would operate that way until late Tuesday. With temperatures in single digits and snow on the way, the batteries wouldn’t last much longer. So I mentally prepared myself for the fact that I’d be running on Generator for the remainder of the week. An unfortunate casualty of winter and solar panels.
My daily employment continued as it usually did with no glitches or problems. And if I had to site any issue, it would be that the satellite internet was horribly slow. Tremendously slow. So slow that dial-up would have been better. But thankfully, my work didn’t require real-time interaction unless if I had a Teams call and I did a few times. The delay made it interesting to say the least and we usually got a kick out of it.
Monday and Tuesday of that week saw the temperatures in the single digits at night and the teens during the day. This posed a few problems. During these cold temperatures, solar batteries get sluggish and they really don’t like the cold. Another issue is that with these cold temperatures condensation becomes a problem. In the new unfinished room mostly. Though cold outside and since there is no heat in the new room, yet, it remains mostly cold. But heat from the main house filters in there and that creates condensation on the unfinished ceiling. As a result, it drips madly and then freezes at night. I’ve been battling it now for 2 winters but that will come to a close this summer.
The other issue with these cold temperatures is that it seeps through the floor. That’s right, if you put your hand about 8 inches above the floor, you can feel the cold like it’s a thick mat of condensed air resting on the partially finished surface. This is mainly because the house is on pilings and the space under the house is not completely closed in, so the cold are just finds its way.
Although the air temperature in the house may be 70, it still feels cold. I sit at my makeshift desk and shiver while I work. Wearing a long sleeve t-shit, sweatshirt and light hoody, I feel mildly warm but my feet are freezing. I have them elevated off the floor but it does little to stave off the intense chill of the air from below. This would be my daily ritual Monday through Friday that week. Wake up cold, work cold, go to bed cold. The only time I would be warm is when I was in bed.
I realized that I was going to need to use the generator at some point, so Sunday evening, I put the 5 red plastic containers on the rear hitch rack and made a trip to Richfield Springs where I would fill the gas cans and a kerosene jug all to the tune of $75. This is going to be an expensive week
Tuesday after work, I made the decision earlier that I would shut down the solar array and revert to generator power for the duration of my stay. So, that meant I had to disconnect all of the batteries and bring them in the house. I didn’t have much in the way of daylight left and I had to move quickly so I didn’t have to move the heavy batteries in the dark. Each of the eight batteries weigh 60 pounds and using my Gorilla card, I’m able to move four at a time to the front porch. First I have to disconnect the wires to the system, then I have to lift each of them with the battery strap and carry them to the cart. Then I have to haul the now 250 pound card 75 feet to the steps of the porch, then lift each of the batteries onto the porch. Repeat one more time. Now with all the batteries on the porch by the door, I have to lift each of them inside the front utility room. Backbreaking work. I had started the generator early Sunday afternoon, hoping it would charge the batteries a little during the day and night, it didn’t. There is apparently something wrong with the generator wiring that is preventing the power from going to the batteries. That problem meant that I wasting fuel on a generator that wasn’t charging the batteries OR sending power to the house. Another problem for another day.
With my 7000 watt Generac portable generator working, I knew that I could relax a little knowing I wouldn’t run out of power when it snowed Wednesday and covered the panels. The only problem now is filling the generator twice a day. If I’m conservative with my power usage, and I am, I can get 12 to 14 hours out of a tank of gas, which I did. Each morning at 8 a.m. I’d go out to the generator and fill it and then I’d repeat that at 9 p.m. every night. I had more fuel usage during the day because of the computer, monitors, ceiling fans and fridge running. The only thing I had on at night was the TV, one or two Led Lights and occasionally the water pump would kick in.
Wednesday morning I was greeted with about 2″ of snow on the ground and the realization that I had to make a trip to the gas station to fill the gas cans. So, at the close of work for the day, I made the trip again and another $75 vanished from my bank account.
Thursday and Friday went on without a hitch. Work progressed as it should have an it all worked surprisingly very smoothly with the only issue being the cold that was radiating under my ass and feet while I worked. I longed to be warm again.
At one point during the week I had two kerosene heaters going along with the ventless fireplace and a few oil lamps going. I eventually realized the effects of CO2 poisoning. I shut down the heaters and lamps, and opened one of the upper windows to vent the house out and within an hour the stuffiness and CO2 smell was gone, but not the headache, it remained for another hour.
Phone calls with Satellite internet over the WiFi are interesting to say the least. You have to pretend you are using walky-Talkies. You talk, pause, they respond and talk, pause, you respond and then talk. A simple “How you doing?” phone-call can take 15 minutes. Though HughesNet and Viasat claim fast and reliable satellite internet service, they are well behind the other forms of internet services and truly not worth the monthly expense. Not by a long shot. BUT, if you are off-grid and a mile off the beaten path, other major services like Spectrum, Comcast or Optimum will NOT bring service down a lonely dirt road just to service you. Thanks for nothing.
Saturday came and the plan was to clean up, pack up and get the hell out of there before the next snow storm passed through that day. By noon, the house was closed up, generator was off and I was on the road back to North Carolina, via New Jersey.
I had to stop at my brothers in Cranford first and there I spent the night. Early the next morning, I drove to my brother-in-laws house to pick up the last of the stuff we left behind when we moved and stuffed it all in the new Ranger. Oh, yes, I bought a new truck last month. A wonderful Ford Ranger, my third, and I couldn’t be happier. Good riddance to the Cheap Cherokee.
I left my B.I.L’s house promptly at 9 a.m. like I wanted to Sunday morning. Remarkably, I arrived home 9-1/2 hours later. Tired, but not exhausted.
Regrettably, the trip cost me over $400 in fuel. A number I was not prepared for. The fuel usage was split evenly between the trip there and the generator. I’m not sure what I can to do to make that number go down during these winter months. There isn’t enough daylight or clear sunlight for the solar panels and I can’t extend the time between generator fill-ups. The 7000 watt Generac is great. A real powerhouse and reliable, but it’s 5-gallon tank needs feeding more than I like. My Generac 3250 is a great little machine as well and I used to use it to power the house, but it has since fallen on bad times and no longer produces power to its full capacity anymore. That little gen would run for 16-18 hours on its 3-gallon tank, making running it a joy and affordable. To top it off, it is significantly more quite than its bigger brother. Trying to get that little guy repaired so can go back to using it. Far more cost effective.
I did get some work done while I was there. The shower tile got finished and sealed, which stunk up the house for the last two days but at least it’s done. That little victory made the discomfort of being cold all week long less painful. The next trip will including adding some trim to the walls and hopefully installing the shower doors so I can actually take a shower. Not having a function shower forces one to take a bird bath while sitting in a cold bathtub. Not fun by any means.
Winter is tough on the ranch, tougher than you would imagine. Especially when your house is perpetually under construction with no end in sight. I suspect the next trip in February will be a little easier and hopefully a lot warmer. That next trip will also be a Point A to Point B trip with no “Via” involved and in that case I’m looking at a 12+ hour trip door to door. That should be fun…. well maybe fun is not the word I should use.
Winter on the ranch. Be prepared. But spring is not far off, by calendar standards anyway.
By the way…. any of you interested in Boondocking?
The Blue Mouse Ranch 
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