Smoking Bacon And Making Water

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and I wish the same for New Years.

I have lived in North Texas for forty one years and I can now say I have seen two White Christmases. We had some really bad storms come through followed by a bunch of snow that has completely shut down this part of the country.

I finally get to go back to work tomorrow, but sitting around these last few days has been, well, boring. I have done what I could, but other than that my main job has been to keep wood in the house and the fire going.

With deep freezes on a homestead, problems can occur even with the best plan laid out. You still have to go out twice to three times a day to break ice so the animals can get water. The sewer sprinklers still freezes and you have to conserve water use. You still have to drip water in the sinks so your pipes won't freeze and break and the list goes on and on. Add in Christmas and the kids down the road get a new 4-wheeler and want to run through your yard and now you have many more problems.

 Christmas Eve I started early by cold smoking my own bacon. I have waited all summer to do this and that day was the day to do it.
The pork belly has been curing in the icebox for the past seven days and I had perfect weather to get it smoked.
I used Hickory to flavor the meat for four hours at a low temp then took the smoked pork in the house to slice up as bacon. When it was all done, the summer pig made twelve pounds of the best tasting bacon you ever had.
I can tell you this, if you haven't had home made bacon before you need too. It is so much better than that store bought crap.
Next is the hams but that takes a little longer to do.  

While the bacon was on the cold smoker I went ahead and set up the Bio Sand Filter. I know I said I would not do this until the spring, but I do not have any patience and needed to get it out of my shop anyway.   

 After 150 pounds of pee gravel and 500 pounds of sand, I had water. I ran through about 20 gallons of water and it turned pretty and clear.
I won't be able to start using it until the spring, but at least it is out of the shop.






Other than that it has been just fixing one thing after another. The solar heater in the shop had it up in the sixties while the sun was out yesterday, but today the sun has been overcast and it stayed cold in there so not much work has been done in the shop.
One a good note, the kids got me a really nice framing nail gun for Christmas that I really did need so I am excited about that. I am getting ready to get started on the little condos for them, but first I need to find the money to buy a generator so I can go down to our old house on the farm and start disassembling it so I can use that lumber to build the condos. I just can't afford one right now.

That's all I got for now. I wish you all a great new years. It looks like new years dinner is on me this time so I am sure we will have a house full.     

Bio Sand Filter

Even though I was a little bored this weekend and looking for things to do and after the sawdust log press idea was up and working I started on the Bio Sand Filter.

But first off I want to tell you about this. Remember a month or so ago I built a Solar Distiller and no matter what I did, the thing would not work? I finally gave up, excepting that it kicked my butt and it has been sitting there taunting me ever since.
You know I can't let it end like that. I refuse to let something kick me when I am down. I took the solar distiller apart weekend before last, redesigned it a little, then rebuilt it. You know what, the stupid thing works. Not enough to call momma about, but it works. Now it makes about a gallon of clean distilled water a week as long as the sun is out. Not bad for a two foot by two foot piece of glass.

The Bio Sand Filter will be a work in progress. I cannot fully set it up and get it working due to winter coming in. They don't work that well in freezing temps unless it is in an enclosed area or insulated to the max with some added source of heat. The living organisms need warm temperatures and oxygen to survive. So for the time being and since I was bored, I decided to go ahead and start building it.

The picture above is of the finished look. The five gallon bucket is mounted on the top of the 55 gallon drum. You can also see the outflow to the right.

Inside the five gallon bucket is a pipe with holes in it. This will filter out anything big and any heavy solids. Rain water will be poured into the bucket five gallons at a time or at a constant low flow.

On the underside of the lid and bucket combo a system of pipes and holes defuse the water as it's being poured into the top so the water will not disturb the living colony in the first few inches of the sand. This will let the water gradually enter the sand filter.
If more flow is needed then more perforated  pipe can be added. 

In the bottom of the barrel the collection system is made up of pipe with holes in it as well. This will be covered with pee gravel to about six inches and then sand up to two inches below the overflow.
All materials have to be washed and washed again before put into use.
A two inch layer of water will always be on top of the sand to keep the colony of bacteria eating organisms alive.

How this works is after the initial cleaning by flowing water thought it until it runs clear, three weeks or so the organisms will be alive and well. The unsafe water gets poured into to top, filters down through the sand and clean drinking water comes out the side. Fresh oxygenated water needs to be added weekly to keep everything alive and running right.
The flow on this filter will be determined after the set up and three week growth period. It should, without any problems, produce around 10 gallons of good water a day if not more.
Before I decide to drink any water this device filters, I will take samples from the source and from the outflow of the filter and take them to a lab. Even though I know this will work, I do not want to take any chances.

Around March I plan start the filter up. The idea is to have a float valve inside the top bucked and the rain water from the big tanks gravity feed the float. this will keep a constant flow of water and keep me in a constant supply of clean drinking water. This way I can increase or decrease my flow rate when needed.

I am not sure yet but I will probably still add a cap full of bleach to each gallon before storing. I will have to do some experimenting with that to see if it is needed.

That's all I got for now.  Check back and you see what my boring Sunday had in store.