I'm on the Farm!!!!!

Well my family and I made it to the farm. Moving always sucks but I have found out its especially sucks when it's  5 hours away.

 I took a walk down to where I was hoping to build the pepinshire... the trail is filled with springs and black nettles.  which trailing behind me was my wife singing "I'm holding on to black nettles" referring to the song Holding on to Black Metal by My Morning Jacket.  Speaking of my wife, she was left for the weekend to tend to the farm chores.  She had to shovel pig slop over her shoulder, over the fence to the 5 screaming pigs twice a day.  Her first attempt to feed Sid (the llama) was a fail, he spit on her.  So funny!  Feeding the goats is also a humorous sight.  Since she is so short, the goats are able to reach their heads into the feed bucket that she carries around to dump grain in their dishes.  So the goats bombard her and steal the grain from the buckets making it impossible for her to move and escape.  The worst for her however are the chickens.  She is scared to death of the chickens attacking her. So she is constantly yelling for Fen the dog to chase the chickens away!


As for me, I have been prepping their gardens, getting my beer making supplies set up, and now taking over the animal chores.  Our son is having a blast running around seeing, petting, and playing with all the animals.  We have kept very busy with settling in and helping around the farm.  It probably won't be till 21st or so till I brake ground.

I walked the upper ravine which has a lot of potential. manly because it would be a lot less work and more accessible to getting materials with in 10ft of the site instead of having to climb a 100ft steap hill with every peace. But I will be walking down to my original site, because I am really hoping it could be down there where we hunt and fish.

once I pick a spot ill post before picks of the site

as of materials. I scored on ~ 7 full sheets of sheet medal that's 9'-3'
                                            ~ 60 ft of angle iron
                                            ~ a lot of industrial medal 2"-6" for framing
                                            ~ small wood stove
                                            ~ 4 insulated windows 32"-38"
                                            ~ a lot of ceramic floor tiles

till next time:)

logistics of Pepinshire

hello everyone, I really don't want his blog to be about my life. but I do feel the need to let you all know that I am moving all my stuff out of Milwaukee today. It’s great because “ am all that much closer to starting this project. In this post I will try to describe more in detail about what I am planning to do, the logistics of the Pepinshire. so..

I will be building this on the bluff of a hill that over looks the flood plane of a cute small ta mid size river that about 50 yards from the bottom of the hill. It will be north facing mini house that will be placed about half the way up the hill. It a very step hill. 

The mini house is 8' by 14' with loft. 

my plan is to basically excavate, by hand, the soil, fill, or whatever I run into, to make a flat surface. toss most of the earth on the bottom side so I can make a decent size patio. keep the top soil aside till the end of the project cuz my plan is to turn the 8' by 14' mini house into a burn/earth house. I think I have to pore a footing cuz the three buried walls (west, south, east wall) will be constructed of cinderblock the north side wall will be mostly windows. On a side note I am hoping there is a different way to construct the west south and east walls preferably wood not cinderblock?? Ideally I only want the north facing wall visible. I will have a drawing soon 

so... thanks for your time and feedback. 

also I just want to apologize for not writing with proper English and also being the worst at using proper grammar / using grammar at all. I only failed one class in college english 100 and I failed it 3 times. let me just remind all ya’ll that I am not a writer. writing is my biggest fear. i am only doing this in hopes that publicizing this project will create the right opportunity for people to help.  “Pay it Forward”

Thanks again Jesse Hoffman

paying it forward

so my wife and i went out to dinner with our friend last night and in my excitement i told our friend about my pepinshire project im starting. I also told her that i started a blog. it was a great to pick because she is a blogger. she was able to give me some insight on why people blog. so she encouraged me to ask myself why am i documenting this event in my life???.. i kinda spent the night pondering that questing. Why im writing, i dont write. writing IS my biggest fear so why am i doing this.... this is a very tough question for me but i came to the conclusion that i am doing this because i want to share that basically i can do this, not by myself but with a little help form my friends. What i mean by that is me Jesse Hoffman a mid educated kid that really struggled throw all my schooling, a kid put in LD classes from 2nd-12th grade labeled with a cognitive disability with a side dish of dislecea, will be able to complete a pretty extravagant project. I am not a architect i'm not a carpenter, I'm not a engineer, i'm not  a plumber, and in short i am not a lot of things. i am a guy that can hopefully can encourage people to help me for no reason other then to build something awesome! i truly believe that we all possess a specific skill set  in our lives. i think my skill set is a ability to create art.  i dont quite think of myself as a artist but more of a problem solver.

i am so intrigued to the philosophy of Paying It Forward (helping out just because)!! i believe that there is enough people in my life that have a broad spectrum of skills that will be able to come together to complete a very extensive project. i even strongly encourage you to be involved to if you want to help in any why and have input i would love to hear from you. seriously even if you want to help me with the actual digging and building, i'm all for it.

i decided to write a in progress mission statement for the Pepinshire:
      within this summer successfully complete a zero carbon mini house that is self sustaining included in this shire will be a small hydro-eletric generator for power and a mulching out house. after completion of the pepinshire ill pay it forward by allowing bicyclist and people who helped me in this project (you) to stay there as a stop on your journey

so thanks for reading and thanks to our friend that we had dinner with last night!!  
 

Pepinshire!! It's planing time, any ideas? help?

well my name is Jesse Hoffman I am a Midwesterner throw and throw I went to uwrf for art and not writing, just letting you all know that right away but I am starting this blog so I can get some help/ ideas for this project. I also haven't ever been a online kind of guy so.. honest truth I have no idea what i am doing, on that note I haven't ever been a blogger so i really don't know what people say in them.

so..., It's about time we had a real shire!! On the first day of summer (June 21st) I will break ground. at my moms farm. its a 80 hobby farm located near Pepin cty. what I will be building is a small 150ish square foot cabin into the hill side. so its kind of a very small earth home. my plan is to use local resources for building supplies. my hope is to construct this shire in a 2 1/2 month time frame. after I'm done. I would love to rent it out on weekends to people on cross county bike trips, couples that want to get away.

 I wanted to share shire fun with the world. I'm super exited!!! I'll be posting so simple drawing (if I can) in a little bit that will help you understand more what I will be doing.