Insect Repellent Clothing

The mosquitoes are so bad out on our off grid property this year that I had to source something better than spray this year.

Men’s Insect Repellent Shirt

I was surprised and somewhat skeptical when I hear about mosquito repellent clothing but I decided I needed to give it a try because really what did I have to lose? Either it’s going to work and I’ll be thrilled or it won’t and I’ll have a new shirt or pants.

Men’s Insect Repellent Pants

So I did some searching and bought a long sleeve shirt and a pair of pants. When I bought them I was just concerned about the mosquito repellent abilities of this clothing, but then also discovered that this clothing is also rated as tick repellent clothing, what a bonus that is as we do often do some hiking in the bush and ticks are known to be in our area as well.

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An update on the Small Log Cabin

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated on the small log cabin.

Traveling to the cabin

We have been enjoying snowmobiling up the past few winters, it’s been great as we live not far from the Great Canadian Trail and can snowmobile right from our home to the cabin which is a trek of about 45 km. It took some time to get the cabin back to the point of being able to use it, but now it’s great! Small log cabins are wonderful.

I keep the cabin stocked with blankets, towels, a change of clothes and the basics of food year round and we use it lots.

We don’t leave any canned goods over the winter, but I do have flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, oatmeal, salt, pepper and lot of dried foods. One day I’ll do an inventory and post if on the site. We have never been short of food when heading out for a day.

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Growing your seedlings in Peat Pots

Wow! I have all these seeds started and went out to my garden shed to find I have run out of peat pots  I need 2 1/2″  or 3″ pots to replant these veggies.

I have spent the better part of this morning calling every store I can think of in our area to see if anyone has pots…..no luck absolutely everyone is sold out!  I guess with this Covid-19 the time as come that more people are realizing they can grow there own food.  I think this is fabulous, but holy moly do I need pots.

One of the stores would said they would order them for me if I can’t find any, when I called back and placed the order all was good until I got a call back saying the order would not be in until mid May early June.  I can’t wait that long  It’s April 24th today!  Now what?

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Yeast Recipe – making your own

Yesterday I went to the grocery store only to find out due to the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) the shelves in the super market where not only sold our of toilet paper and flour among other things, but there was not a container of yeast to be found.

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Mini Fridge for Off Grid

We have a little cabin off grid and for the most part we don’t really need to use a fridge, but we have installed a small solar system for things like this.

I’ve been thinking it might be nice to have a fridge in the summer, especially since we will be spending more time there; so I started doing some research and found some that should work nicely.

The Mini Fridge

Ice Cube one of many mini fridges

This mini fridge is 15 litres and runs on 45 Watts so will be able to run on a 200 watt inverter with no problems.

Some great advantages to this one are:

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A solar panel for the Small Cabin

Off Grid Solar System

This has been great!  We put up a 200 watt solar panel and attached that to a 200 watt inverter with two plug ins.  Now we have power!

Solar panel kits have come down in price and many great ones can now be purchased on Amazon.  Here is an example of one from Amazon

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Best Rat Traps on the Market

This year has been a really bad year for mice and rats, we have mice where they have never been before and it appears most of the neighborhood is experiencing the same problem.

Why do we have such an increase in rodent activity? I suspect it has something to do with the weather, we have had an unusually cool summer with much more rain than usual. Here is an article I found that talks about how weather can affect rodents. Home owners over run by mice

The best Traps

I don’t like to use poison as we are out in the country and who know what is going to eat that poisoned rat or mouse, so we are careful with how we get rid of these critters.

This year I found these new traps and I just love them! They are way better than the old Victors (that’s the old wooden ones grandma used) The Catchmaster traps I think are the best, they are so easy to set and to take the mouse or rat out of. They come in three sizes. I have them all!

Catchmaster 2-Pack Snapper Easy Set Mouse Trap
In the past we have tried all kinds of makes and models of mouse and rat traps, some works OK and others not at all. These are by far the best, and very easy to set and very easy to remove the mice as well. The trap is built well, not flimsy at all.

Price: $19.90 (two pack) Mouse Trap

Price : $24.97 Rat Trap

What to use for Bait?

Rodents eat mostly nuts and seeds – I think the majority of people use peanut butter to bait the traps.

I have used peanut butter before, but I found if I put two or three pumpkin seeds in the well of these new traps works very well.

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Dandelion Wine

Last May the Dandelions were out and with so man we figured we would try our hand at making Dandelion Wine. This was a first, but I had come across an old recipe in my Grandmothers book, so thought I’d give it a try.



Dandelions are the first flowers to be seen in the spring, we often add the tender young greens to our salads because of the healthy benefits this plant has. Making wine with the dandelion flower gave us a wonderful tonic, we would occasionally have a glass for its medicinal benefits.

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