Homesteading

[Bullet:Mich.]

If you store a lot of grain and oat hay to feed your farm animals and to sell you will be over run with mice and barn rats if you don't keep a few good hunting barn cats around. You wouldn't have time to keep emptying and resetting your traps.

 

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[Indian Steve]

I recently found out that I knew several members of Deepseekers family and actually lived in his Grandparents homeplace from 1983 to 1986. It was a great old 10 room farmhouse with no running water and a 60 amp electric box. When the fridge kicked in, all of lights in the house dimmed. My daughter was born in that house, delivered by midwives in 1984. She is now a Veterinarian at the Charlottesville VA SPCA. Roger and I have been emailing back and forth and will meet soon. After finally finishing reading all of this thread, I thought that I would show ya'll todays load of firewood. I have been getting kiln dried hardwood scraps from a local furniture factory for the last 12 years. It was free until this year. Competition got so bad last winter that I went to the boss and offered $50 for each trailer load. The trailer is 16 ft. long, 6 1/2 ft. wide. Bad news is that the company is moving to NC next month. I hope to get one more load before then.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Yep, Steve is inspiring me to be a water hunter! I've done some beach hunting on the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Huron, but never dipped into the water.

I'm living in my maternal grandparent's house. Steve lived in my paternal grandparents house. As he said about the house, it would have been considered a mansion back after the turn of the century. I only remember visiting that house a few times in my life, as my parents divorced when I was 5.

What maybe Steve may not know is that Granny Laura hid her money all over that house, and to the best of everyone's knowledge very little of it was ever found. The land and house were sold after Steve left and the new owner burned the house down so he could build his own new house near the spot.

 

[joncutt87]

Nice to meet you Steve

 

[Indian Steve]

When we moved into the house it had been empty since 1963. Family members and thieves had taken most of the furniture and all of the doorknobs, light switches, and ceiling light fixtures. People had partied in it for years and left truckloads of trash. The house was about 100 feet from the road but almost invisible because of the vines and overgrown brush. We fixed up one room and taped off all of the loose wires in switches and fixtures and moved in. We hauled 8 pickup loads of trash to the dump. We were doing flea markets for a living back then so anything of any value was kept to be sold and everything was searched before being trashed. The couch and chairs were still in the house and we did find several dollars in pre 63 change in them. A local house painter gave us a truckload of leftover paint of many different colors in exchange for me helping him pull his well pump. We poured the paint into 5 gallon buckets and stirred. No matter what colors went in, the paint always came out some shade of green. We painted the whole inside of the house with this donated paint. While flea marketing, we found doorknobs, switches and light fixtures. There were 3 fireplaces that were stone with mud mortar. The mud had turned to dirt and over the years had fell down the fireplace into the firebox. Each fireplace had several wheel barrows of dirt that had to be hauled out before they could be used. One was full of poison ivy vines that grew out of the top like a small tree. I actually climbed inside the chimney to get it all out and paid dearly for that. We lived in the house for free for the first year and then paid $30 a month for rent after that. I rigged up a 5 gallon bucket with a spigot at the bottom and hung it on the wall above an old kitchen cabinet with sink. A hose ran from the spigot in the bucket down to the faucet for sink water. I had a similar rig in the bathroom hanging over a tub for our shower. It was a great old house and I really miss living there. One great story about the house was about a 1920's music legend , Charlie Poole. He was at the house playing music and drinking the local liquor. It was winter and a big fire was in the fireplace to keep the living room warm. Charlie was a bit lit and went outside to take a leak. He stepped out the front door, hit the cold air, passed out and fell off of the porch into the boxwoods. After a while, he was missed and someone went out and found him. If he hadn't been found, he probably would have froze to death that night. There are tons of stories about this house and the family that lived there.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Steve, you know more about the paternal side of my family than I do!

The house was further off the road when I was a child, they'd cut that new road through some time I guess in the 60's and that road cut out the shed where the 1909 corn shucking picture was taken.

I had never heard the Charlie Poole story! Thanks for talking about that.

Granny Laura was a musician, there was a piano in the formal room. Subsequently Dad became a guitarist, cut a number of records, played with Red Foley, Mac Wiseman, and Bob Wills. Bob Wills tried to hire Dad as lead guitarist, but for whatever reason, Dad turned him down.

Race car driver Curtis Turner was Dad's 2nd cousin. They hated each other.

Dad was a bootlegger, was busted hauling a load in 1954 after blowing his engine. This probably contributed to the divorce in '54, as Dad was one angry individual. My brother and I didn't see Dad again until 1957. I never questioned Dad about those years, should have. I was kicked out of Mom's house and moved in with Dad in November of '63. He threw me out and I hitchhiked to North Carolina, lived on the streets for two weeks until I lied about my age and got a job working 2nd shift in the cotton mills, and went to school half a day. Picked up a room in a boarding house for $10 a week and worked my way through high school. Joined the army the day after my 18th birthday for the free education. Knew nothing about the Vietnam war.

And, I never stopped moving where ever I saw opportunity. Never had any ties to much of anywhere, so it wasn't an issue just picking up and leaving where ever I was at the time. Never belonged anywhere. After all, 18 different schools before finishing high school.

And here I am now, living at the Robertson homestead - Mom's Mom's home. Sometimes, like this morning, I still have the wanderlust. I know that if I wanted to, I could pick up the phone and go back to work in some marvelous place like Detroit...... That "why bother" syndrome. In life, I always corrected situations by just moving somewhere else.

 

[Indian Steve]

Did you ever here the story of the fellow that showed up for work early to help build the log barn. There was a log that was on top of the wall, ready to roll into place after a little notch work. He was alone, finished the notch, rolled the log into place and caught a very delicate part of his anatomy in between the logs. He was stuck there for quite a while before someone came and released him. He caught gangrene and died from it. Years later, I was talking with the mans grandson who told me the story. He told me that years later, he went to see Doc Akers for a physical. When he dropped his pants, Doc Akers laughed and said that he cut 2 inches off of his granddad 3 times and he still had more than the grandson. Another Homeplace story!

 

[DeepseekerADS]

No, I've never heard that!

I need to get my brother reading this thread again! He and I were separated in 1960 and he was sent to live with Poppa Jim & Granny Laura. He's the one I get most of my info from on my grandparents. He may have heard this!

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Here's a picture from 1939 of the house. This was Dad's high school graduating class. Dad is on the front right next to whoever that lovely gal was.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

I got up with Indian Steve today to hunt two local beaches. I watched his adventures in the water, and stuck to the beach areas. Used my Fisher 1260X instead of that very heavy CTX, and I found $0.84 in clad & zincolns. That 1260X still works as good as it did 32 years ago! Anybody else still actively using a detector that old?

Had a great time and learned a lot from Steve. Water hunting is a tough job, my salute to all who do it.

At least Steve got me out of my holler and into the treasure again. Steve did well there, but it would be for him to talk about it. We will do it again, he's only about 15 minutes away from me.

P.S. That Indian of his is just flat beautiful, one of the nicer ones I've ever seen.

 

[Indian Steve]

Yes, it was a good day. Telling stories and metal detecting. I got 2 rings , and 86 cents and junk. Rings were titanium and tungsten. We both would have got more if it wasn't for the lightning. We will go out again soon.

 

[releventchair]

We need pics.! Specially of the Indian...
Squintin at the avatar ain't enough.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

We need pics.! Specially of the Indian...
Squintin at the avatar ain't enough.

In the mean time, if you click on his name and go to his page, that avatar gets a whole lot better looking - gives you an excellent hint as to what it really looks like in person.

And ask him about that '59 Austin-Healy of his

 

[Indian Steve]

Here is some pictures of my 48 with a friends 1939 Chief. Mine now has the Chummee seat on it instead of the solo in these pictures. I think the solo looks better but the Chumme rides better.

 

[Indian Steve]

1959 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite.

 

[Oregon Viking]

View attachment 1198307 1959 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite.

That is cool! My dad had a red one that I use to race up and down Oregon Route 255 (OR 255) i Carpenterville road. It was highway 101 years ago. It is 27 miles of corners A LOT of corners. I remember helping him get it running, and at age 14....driving it all summer long. I wished he would have kept it.

 

[BIGSCOTT]

I have fisher 1265 that still works great, im think 28 to 30 years old.

 

[releventchair]

View attachment 1198303 View attachment 1198304 Here is some pictures of my 48 with a friends 1939 Chief. Mine now has the Chummee seat on it instead of the solo in these pictures. I think the solo looks better but the Chumme rides better.

Superb vintage bikes!
The crash cages ad some foot rest options for long rides in addition to their designed function.
One type allowed me to surf before..

 

[DeepseekerADS]

I have fisher 1265 that still works great, im think 28 to 30 years old.

I'm thinking the 1265X came out in '84, about a year after the 1260X. Almost jumped on that! But the 1260 got me three dimes at 10", and it went through dirt where the ADS III only just kept screaming, couldn't handle the ground that got me the WL Half on first use of the 1260X.

 

[BIGSCOTT]

if i remember i bought the gold bug when it first came out, then about 6 to 8 months later bought the 1265, and found it did everything the gold bug did and more, then the 1280x came out, the same as 1265 but with waterproof case, since then i had an e-trac that gave me every electrical problem in the world, and about a year ago i bought a ctx 3030, I still have the first detector my dad bought me when i was about 8 or 9 years old
it's just a toy but i found lots of goodies with it, it will find a nail at about a foot deep, when i was about 14 or 15 my dad bought me a radio shack detector, i still have it also, and a few others bought at police auctions and army surplus stores, dont have the gold bug or the 1280x any more and cant remember what happened to either one of them.