Building in Sub Zero Temps & Snowstorms | Remote Homesteading in Alaska

Well good morning it's about 8 30 here on the homestead. We have some exciting new additions that we're going to be adding on. We were given a small run-in barn by one of our nearest neighbors so I'm going to go over today see if I can drag it out of the snow. It's not the best time of year to try to move a small barn with all the snow and ice but I'm going to give it my best and we'll see how it goes. Okay well the sun's up probably take the ATV over. There might be a little too much snow for the ATV but I want to try to use the winch to drag it out. If not we'll load up some tools tools loaded. I'll bring the chainsaw because this thing's definitely going to be frozen in the ground and we're not getting those legs out. So we'll cut them off. It's going to sit a little shorter if we get it back here and that's okay with me. Beautiful morning here though. You cannot beat the sunrises over the ridge. Like a lot of people in Alaska I always just feel lucky to be here. It's a beautiful state. Try cutting the legs and see if we can even move it. I mean obviously it would be easier if you tipped it on its side and just winched it up the hill here. Yeah. You have to cut that tree down. If you don't rip the roof off it you know. Do it really ideally what you'd do is I wonder if I could plow this. Like plow it with the ATV and then get the trailer. Yeah and pop in a trailer. Yeah and then done. What I could do is just back the trailer right up to here. Put it on its side. Flip it right on the trailer the way it is and pull out. Well I don't think I'm going to be able to drag this thing out of here but I'll give it the good old one two. I'm going to try to plow a little trail down there. See if I can pry it out of the ground. I'm going to cut the legs and see how heavy this thing is. Okay well that was a fail. I'm going to go over back to the cabin warm up a little bit and you know rethink this. Maybe I'll just build something with some of the stuff I got kicking around here. It's way heavier than I thought. All the weight's in the roof. I'm probably not going to be able to drag it out but I can probably disassemble it and carry it out. So I'm going to make an one piece but there was no way I was getting it out of here in one piece. It's disassembled now. I should be able to reassemble it. If not at least I got some materials which beats buying them. I think what I'm going to go ahead and do now is try to get the roof home. I'll try to just stick it on top of the sled and see if I can skid it out of here. Then I'm going to try to plow this road out here and maybe bring my big trailer back and grab the rest of this stuff. That will be it for today. We'll start in on it again tomorrow. Tomorrow should be the last warm day we have. Then the temp is supposed to start dropping down so hopefully I can get this back over and assembled by the end of the day tomorrow. I'd say the odds are that this is going to fall off more than once on the trip home but at least we'll get it home. Try ditching the sled and just try dragging it like that. That might work. Well I have to say that worked way better than expected. Yeah that's a way to do that. We'll uh come back for the sled and some of this other stuff tonight. Then we'll start assembling in the a.m. Well I got the roof at least back to the cabin. I'm going to go ahead and move that trailer. Clean all that up. Push some of that snow back. Okay well I'm going to run back over now. I'm going to try to take the trailer. We'll see. I don't know if this thing will pull it through the deep snow but if it does it would be a huge help. We'll grab some more materials. We'll tie the sled to the back of it and we'll head home. Well we got one load and then I'll come back for the rest of this. I don't want to get this trailer too heavy. We won't get out of here. One more trip and we're all done. This trailer here is supposed to be my meat wagon. A project I have. We're going to use it to haul moose. I think I'm going to go ahead and see if I can just back the trailer right down in here which would save me a lot of lugging. Well that made it a lot easier. Now I can just load this up and get home. There we have it. Go ahead and tie the sled on. Should be good. Well there we have it. We have all the materials over here. The sun's just starting to go down so I'm going to go inside, warm up and then tomorrow morning we'll start reassembling. You can't beat a nice warm fire after working out in the cold all day. Well it's snowing. I guess we're going to have to do some digging out tomorrow morning before we can assemble our barn but it's a beautiful night. I'm going to go ahead and give these chickens here some stale crackers we have kicking around and try to enjoy this nice weather we're having before it gets too cold again. Oh we got an egg ladies. You guys want some sourdough? Well we got an egg. They've really been laying now. We swapped out the light in here for a white light instead of the red light and it really made all the difference in the world. Someone in the comments had recommended it. We were kind of thinking it ourselves where you know they just weren't laying and I know those red lights are for heat but swapping that light around really changed things. They're all laying an egg a day which is great for this time of year. Well good morning. It's about 8 a.m. It's about five degrees outside. We did get some snow last night so I'm going to go start cleaning that up before I try to put our barn together. Oh it's a lot of snow. Well we got a bit of snow last night so uh this might take a minute to clean up here but I don't know I guess I'll start into it. I could wait till it stops but Well we got that on film. Well it's deep but at least it's light. So today on the homestead we are going to be making some fermented garlic honey. Here I have an older fermented garlic honey. It is maybe six months or so old. We're going to make another batch. It's very very easy. We always keep fermented honey in our pantry. It's great for cold and flu, a daily immune system support and preventative for getting sick. It's also really good if you have food poisoning or an upset stomach. All really good uses for the garlic honey. It's also really yummy in like salad dressings or on game meats and that sort of thing as an infused honey. So all you need to make this is some good high quality raw honey and some garlic. So the method for this fermented garlic honey is very simple. You're going to start with a clean mason jar. If you have a fermenting weight those are really handy to keep the garlic submerged. If not you can use a clean smooth stone to keep that garlic submerged. But you'll take your clean mason jar, put a thin coat of honey on the bottom, add your cloves of garlic and then top it with honey. Then you're going to put the cap on and flip it around. Make sure all those cloves are coated well with the honey. So you're going to pop that on your counter or in your cabinet and then check it periodically. Give it a shake. Make sure all the cloves of garlic are still coated in the honey and then you'll start to see the bubbles happen, the fermentation happen. You can eat the whole clove as a way to consume this or you can just take a spoonful of the honey. So these hand warmers are indispensable up here. Not just for your gloves but I go ahead and I use them as body heaters. I think there's a brand actually made for body heat but I just have the hand warmer. So I go ahead and I put them in my coat pockets, zip my coat up, you'll stay nice and warm. Well it's been one of those mornings. I woke up, fell down the steps, got the ATV stuck and then broke the winch cable. All in about a 30 minute period here. So I took a little break, had some coffee. I'm gonna fix this thing and get back to moving some of the snow. We got our local camp robber over here robbing the chicken coop feed. These things, once they find food, they'll come in force. I believe they're related to the crow and they're super smart. Once they find food though, they stick around. When it's cold or in gloves, you can't use your hands with your gloves on and if you take your gloves off, your fingers just freeze. There we go, first problem of the day fixed and we can move on to cleaning up some of the snow. I was really hoping to try to get that barn up today but it's already 11 o'clock. Looks like I'm just going to be pushing snow all day. We got more snow on the way tonight. So yeah, I just got done saying I didn't get a lot of snow this year and when it rains, it pours. It looks like we're going to get buried the next few days so better start getting ready for it. Back in business. It's deep. I'm gonna go inside, eat lunch, warm up a little bit and then I'll come back out and start cleaning up the rest of this. So we actually got a lot of comments about Tuck, our dog here. He does not live outside, though he is outside a lot and that is of his choice. So he can choose to go in or out 99% of the time unless it is really hard negatives. He wants to be outside. He is a snow dog to the highest degree. So he loves it. He loves the weather but he absolutely does not sleep outside. Comes in, he's got a nice bed by the fire. I got the snow cleaned up. I got the firewood split but I do not think I am going to have time to get to this barn. I think I'm going to go inside, warm up, start getting ready for dinner and I'll get out here in the morning. Another day and it is still snowing. It's been snowing about two days now. So I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna run the car out to the end of the road here and we're just gonna leave it down there till spring. I was keeping the road in here open with the ATV. It took me about four or five hours yesterday just to get it basically open. It still needs work. So it's just too time consuming for me. So what I'm gonna do is just focus on keeping around the cabin open with the ATV and we'll snow machine out to the car from here on out. All right the wild Dennis is going to move the car down to the end of the road here and get that all cleaned up. I am gonna start shoveling around the house, shovel out the chicken coop, the outhouse, the back and front porch and get something warm for him to eat when he comes in. Okay snow's cleaned up. I'm gonna go ahead and start putting this barn together. I'll just put this on for a brace you know and then I'll hook it up to that and I'll just stand up and put the front legs on. Does that make sense? Yep. This thing's heavy. Well I'm chipping away at it but it's really cold. It's probably, I don't know, it's got to be at least negative 10. I haven't checked the temperature but it's just killing my drill batteries. It's killing the batteries and the GoPros too. So yeah it's cold though. Too bad I couldn't have got this done when it was a little warmer just a few days ago but we'll get it done. We're gonna do a little breakfast outside while we work uh or I guess it's breakfast for lunch outside while we work. We're gonna do some chai spiced sourdough pancakes, some fresh eggs from the hens, some fresh homemade sourdough loaf and then some local breakfast sausage. I like the breakfast you're making. more finishing. I'm gonna put some fencing on the front door or I'll frame it in with some plywood and a door. I'm not really sure yet but yeah we're getting close to ready now.