Welcome to Bowman's Woods. Many of you may know us from our Cruising Off Duty channel where we did predominantly sailing videos. We still plan to sail but our new adventure is that we bought 155 Acres of woodlands and are planning to document building an off-grid homestead. We will be harvesting some trees in the forest to make firewood to heat our home and water with an outdoor wood boiler and get almost all of our electrical needs from solar panels to allow us to live completely independently of the main grid. We will delve into firewood production and plan to have a greenhouse and grow as many vegetables that we can and supplement that with chickens and perhaps more. Come along as we go into new and uncharted areas for us.
Are you going to put these panels on your rv roof? That's allot of panels 😂 I go crownland camping and just bring the i power 4300watt generator.. Easyer 😂. Uses propane burns clean and can run the a/c 👍
Here are some opinions to your concerns at the end of the vid: The electric propulsion idea isn’t far enough along for it to be practical. If you are caught in heavy seas, or need to power thru a strong headwind and need to get somewhere safe, trust me you want diesels. Also, you can find diesel mechanics anywhere in the world, but not electric motor mechanics. Diesels are tried and true, take care of them and they will take care of you. You get a boat that can sail in light winds and you are only firing up the motor on and off anchor, burning very little fuel. Balance is working with integral and they will be introducing a hybrid drive motor soon All the electric catamarans still carry generators and have to burn fuel quite often. Cloudy days are plenty and solar panels aren’t efficient unless the entire panel is exposed to sunlight. You’re going to be firing up the generator I’m a green conscious guy and I would still urge you to get new diesels. The cost of hybrid isn’t worth it. Also shaft drives have become much more reliable
read about the Kukje A2300 mech fuel inj engine, you bought the most simple modern tractor engine made. the least sensors and computers in the industry.
hehehe, not a huge head, were you expecting a dance floor or a place to take a dump and a reasonable shower(it's actually bigger than mine at home) Bang for the buck. The Antares gives more. Much stronger and can withstand much more punishment . But if you want lipstick and mascara get the cheaper boat. Looking at the problems others had with their new boats, you get what you pay for. In the first two years of mine, the only problem was a engine starter battery. Good Canadian boat
Zamp Solar Legacy Series 230-Watt Portable Solar Panel Kit with Integrated Charge Controller and Carrying Case that I have now that is a real" beast" a little over 40Lbs. I camp where coastal breez is a freak of nature sometimes blowing 20-30mph. The Bluetti panels look like anything over 10mph is a knock over. Yes it needs a tie down or something. Wind is a big influence on a purchase.🌬
Thinking about getting one with 400 watt panels to run a 8000 btu inverter ac on my rv. The gas generator is a pain in the ass as I have to get up in the night to turn it off. The sun is about 30 feet off from my rv but sure there are extension cords for the panels.
I keep my solar panels on the batteries and at the same time use the batteries to keep the solar generator charged you don't have to charge them separately
When you store the grapple open it up some and dump it over and sit it down on a pallet or something that is level . With it open some it won't fall over . I store mine that way. Enjoyed the video and look forward to see you make progress on your property.
Congrats on Retirement and the new land!! We have the same sort of plan once we retire. Buy some land, lots of travel and hopefully still do some sailing but probably Bahamas and Caribbean rather than world sailing. We joined you when you were a sailing channel and we were patreons and now looking forward to your homesteading channel. Cheers!
Well that Flail mower issue SUCKS I watch "Good Works Tractor" channel with Courtney and as well as "Tractor Time With Tim" and they love their Flail mowers.
I do watch those. Not every flail mower was easily available locally. I went with Del Morino on Murray’s suggestion when he knew the price range I was looking at.
Thanks. I have seen tons of flail mower reviews using hammer blades and they were supposed to be great for taking down brush. I think a better flail mower would have been perfect. Bush hogs hang far off the back of the tractor so it’s hard to work in smaller turn radius places.
I'm thinking your next 'tractor' purchase is a post hole auger. I'd get 2 bits, one 9" and one 12" and an extension for digging over 36". Don't forget spare teeth and bolts. That's what wears, the auger will last a lifetime. Let the fun begin
Use your pallet forks for any loading and unloading. We use them more than a lot of things other than that. Great for digging out small trees. We use them more on our skid steer than we use the bucket. Also a suggestion, a skid steer is worth the investment. I prefer to have a skid steer and a tractor without a loader.
Ya. A skid steer does look like it has some pretty awesome use cases. But expensive!! My next purchase will probably be a mini excavator. Around 3 - 4 ton. Great for doing way more than a tractor can.
Wow, great video, very informative. I just bought 2 - 12.8V 200aH Power Queen Li batteries for my houseboat. Found your video after my purchase and it certainly reassured me that I made a good purchase. I have approximately 1200 watts (at 100% charge) of solar panels on the roof in conjuction with a Renogy 40A solar charger. I opted awhile ago to swap out our propane fridge for a Unique brand DC powered fridge (Danfoss compressor and draws about 56 watts as per the specs). I have been using 3 x 12V large AGM batteries in parallel to power the houseboat cabin (approx. 90-100aH each) and this worked, however I eventually got into the cycle of changing out a bad battery and adding a new one to the mix. This of course is not optimal and before long I would be swapping out another battery, then another, and of course none of them had the same initial charge, creating internal issues between the batteries within the bank. With the current costing versus re-charge cycles of the Li batteries versus AGM, I am way ahead of the game with the Li. Even with fairly strict monitoring of the charge process of the AGM batteries (I tried to stay in the top 80% of charge as much as possible) inevitably a 2 or 3 day rainy period without sun would drag them down to below 20%, and with the almost linear drop in voltage over discharge time, the AGMs would soon reach the low voltage warning of the fridge (11.2 VDC). I trust with the discharge of the Li batteries being a much straighter line at it's 12V range before if drops off, I will have power at 12V longer before needing to fully recharge. Also wanted to mention you convinced me to go ahead and add the Power Queen battery monitor. I was going to rely solely on the Bluetooth monitor that came with the Renogy solar charger, but the monitor you highlighted is a lot more informative. Again, thank you for a great video and Happy Boating. If you ever find yourself on the beautiful Ottawa River, keep an eye out for a Three Bouys called "It's our Moor eh!!"
Idea is good for extra backup capacity. But it is not useful when you have several time per day blackout due to russia and you need to charge batteries once power restored. With such scenario additional actions are required to connect/disconnect charger. It is just for consideration for those who are looking for extra capacity...
Wish there was more to see as our family moved to the Barracks facility in 1950. We lived in the last house in officers row currently labeled C/O. Dad had blocked off the third floor of the home as it was too expensive to heat. We only stayed one year before we were transferred to another base and to dad‘s reliefHe didn’t have to pay to have the coal bin restocked. As a seven-year-old, we broke into several of the buildings that were empty only to find wood stoves in the kitchens and very antiquated cold burning furnaces with augers, running into a coal bin for fuel. My brother and I would love to return and see the place where we used to live, but we are both in our 80s and it may not happen in this lifetime. Sigh.
Ya, I’m sure a few people are like, WHO? It was better to rename that to close the channel and start from scratch. Well thanks for following the new adventure.
We LOVE the idea, the yachting was also great but we agree if you planning to travel the world this isn't the optimal time. We're going to enjoy watching you both reclaim the land and when the time is right for you we'll be there too.
Thanks. Ya, I guess my days of “kicking tires” on Catamarans are over unless the world all of a sudden got along. Not seeing that scenario any time soon
Cool. Things change in life & u roll with it. Happy for both of you & enjoying things w/your life partner makes it all worthwhile. Is there water on your acreage like ponds, creeks, etc. ??? Peace & love from Roxas City, Philippines 😊
I would call it skepticism and apprehensions, not really fear. Always hope for the best but plan for the worst. Then there is far less to fear as you have thought about what you will do if the worst scenario happens. You just have to decide how much risk you are willing to take for the potential reward. For us, the risk, right now, just seemed too high.
Literally, I was thinking of you two last week. I am not surprised by your decision to abandon "serious" bluewater cruising, considering Janice's reluctance to learn how to sail. And now, you two are "preppers" I wish you two the best.
Thanks, Ya, we have been very "hope for the best but plan for the worst" type of people. 5 years ago the risks seemed inconsequential. Then we saw how COVID closed all the borders and had sailors stranded in far away countries for months or they had to abandon their boat and fly home quickly before the borders closed. Now you have the threat of bird flu and every other type of variant and the new risk of massive world tensions. Never before is the risk of WWIII bigger than it is now. Hopefully that is not news to anyone. With all of that the risk, to sink your life's savings into a boat to travel the world just seem like a very very bad decision. More risk than we will willing to take. Janice knows how to sail (in theory) but prefers I do most of it when we are both awake on short passages. She does all the cooking etc which I don't want to do. We each had our preferred roles. On a catamaran on a long crossing, she would have done her shifts just like everyone else. :-)
