Settling In!!

 

Hi Folks! And welcome back! And settle in to follow Frog as I build my "tiny cabin/house"!

I have curbed my travels quite a lot. It is time to not be on the road as much! Between the cost of fuel, Lily's age (and mine) and the general condition of our current society...I'm just tired of dealing with a lot of it. And the overall cost of just daily living has almost gotten out of hand! 

So I'm parked on the kids land, have drawn up plans, chasing prices for lumber currently...and waiting for some decent weather!!! Which I am hopeful will start arriving in the next couple of weeks! But this is Alabama spring...in the last 36 hours we had a daily high of 72* at midnight Monday. By 8am it was 40*, it was snowing at 10:30am, sleeting at 12:45pm and sunny at 3:30pm!! You have to keep a sense of humor when you live here as far as the weather is concerned!!

We're in the 20's the next 2 mornings, highs in the upper 40s and Sunday we could have high temps of 80!

Anyway...I just wanted to get rid of the cobwebs from not doing much video over the past few months and also to let you know what is going on with Travels with Frog!

Hope you like the video! 

It has been a busy 3-5 days or so!! 😉

The weekend started out last Thursday! Josceline and the cheer group had an exhibition for Zee's at the Glencoe HS Gymnasium. The girls, both the littles and Josceline's group did very well!

 Friday was a fairly quiet day! Did some coloring, reading, cleaned up in and around my spot some. So overall a very pleasant day here on the homestead!

Saturday was another good day...quiet, reading, a little coloring, etc. Then around 2100 (9pm) a front of rain and storms started moving in. At around 2130 (9:30pm) there was a hellish straight line wind blow thru...and another of the big pecan trees came down! That tree was about 35 feet away from me and Lily! Thankfully it came out of the NW blowing towards the SE! Which was perfect for the tree to go down almost parallel to us! But let me tell you...it was LOUD! Loud to the point that I instinctively ducked here inside of Lily! LOL! It almost sounded like a cannon going off! 💣

 

 

Luckily, it did not get the chicken coops (neither of them), and missed the pigs....but the horse & burro no longer have a cooling shed!! 

But there is quite a bit if other damage on the property. Quite a bit of fencing will have to be redone, of course the cooling shed will have to be rebuilt, the chicken run is still "intact" as far as it comes to keeping the chickens in. But about 30% of it has to be rebuilt to include a large part of the over-fencing that keeps the hawks out!

 

So in actuality, we came thru it with no "loss of life"! 😉 But there is a lot of repair work to now be done. Not to mention the downed tree and the other couple that took a beating from it! So there will be quite a bit of chainsaw activity over the next couple of weeks.

And all of the past couple of days is in the midst of my trying to finish getting my plans finished for the cabin and deciding just what wood I will need for it...and a door, couple or 3 windows, flooring, roofing, etc, etc!!  LOL!

 

 

And as I am writing this the next line of rain & t'storms is slowly coming in. It has just began to rain! 

So the removal of the tree that was left standing with the big other tree's limb hanging directly over the pigs is now no longer a threat!! So the pigs are safe....for now!!! 😉😎 As the thunder is now rumbling in also!!

 

 OH....and Saturday afternoon was also Josceline's B'day party!! An ancient, wise (one of these days) 13 years!! And I actually did get pictures!!

 

 So it has been a full 3-5 days! And not to take a break and relax, listen to some shortwave radio, color some & just chill!!

Hope this finds everyone well and always staying in a preparedness mode! I do not know what all is coming down the line, but right now all I can say is be ready for ANYTHING!  Be it weather, economics, civil, politics...actually, there is so much going on right now, all I can say is watch you back!!

Til next time...Be Safe, Travel Easy, Go to the Woods &......

                                       Stay in Preparedness Mode!!

C'ya Next Time..... Frog🐸 & Rosie🐶

 

 

 

The TwF website is no more!

Good morning gang! Well I have made the changes and www.thetruckingfrog now points to my original blog. Which, as I mentioned before....is still in existence!! And this morning I had my URL, thetruckingfrog.com,  transferred over to direct everyone to the Blog. And it is up and working!

 Also during the past few days I have been thinking out my cabin plans. Like I've said, I've lived in less than 60 sq ft "spaces" for the better part of the last 20+ years! And I do truly live the typical "tiny house" lifestyle....a very large part of the time I'm outside, my needs (i.e. - electric, water, propane/gas, lights (most are rechargeable, etc..) are very minimal. Plus I want to be as close to totally off-grid as I possibly can. Not only that, I'm planning on repurposing as many of the items needed for the cabin as I possibly can.

That being said, I sat down a few nights ago and worked on another floor plan for the cabin. And it is probably going to be the plan we work with. I'll almost double living space, up to 100 sq ft inside. It will have a 10'x10' porch with roof. It will also in the very near future become a screened in porch at which time I should have enough of the area around the house cleared to start putting together a patio and garden area. 🐸🐶 This plan will also allow me to use/repurpose more lumber which means less money out the door and out of my budget! 

That is about it for today! For a day that was supposed to not rain or have a "sprinkle or two"....we had a good storm blow thru! Literally! The rain was sideways which means my  being under the canopy was an act in futility!! It did cool things down here about 13 degrees!

So until more news from N Alabama, 

Be Safe, Travel Easy, Go To The Woods...and...work on Preparedness!!

 

C'ya!  Frog & Rosie  🐸🐶 

TwF D-day nears - 03/06/2026 - Website Ends! Having Preparedness is a NOW thing!!

 The "thetruckingfrog.com" will still link to me....but it will be to my blog that I started about 12 years ago. So you'll be able to keep the same link you have used these past years, no domain name change, just a landing change!

 

The TwF Blog D-Day is getting close! In fact, it is just 7 (seven) days away! As I posted a week or so ago, I will be canceling my website as of 3/6/2026. I have spent the past few weeks canceling quite a few "subscriptions" that I just either don't need any longer or are just a waste of my budget dollars! As I've gone thru the list of subscriptions I realize that I really do not use very many of them, which translates to I have just been giving money to these big corporations without a real good reason to be adding to their deep pockets. So they are no longer in my budget...and still have several more to drop!

The thing  that I  have learned doing these cancellations is....these companies/groups will do work their hardest to NOT have you cancel. There are several that I do use/like that cut the subscription price more than 50% to keep me from dropping them. I can make a lot of them work in my budget, especially when they ask what it would take to keep me and I give them a "price"....it amazes me just how close, or sometimes less, to the price that I say would fit in my budget. And a couple of them have given me a 50% plus cut in cost AND have locked me into that price "for as long as you keep the service"! I must say that I do like those price deals!! :-)

 Now, in all truth, I am having to "relearn" how to make my old blog site layout, work smoothly, notify followers of new posts....all those fun things that you get to do when you want to be "online"! Bah-humbug!! LMAO! But it does let me stay in touch with the folks that check in every so often to see where I'm located/seen/headed to.

Mentioning that - where am I now and upcoming - I am in Alabama for the
foreseeable future. To be totally honest...just getting real...things are getting so stupid, both in the USA and in the Global area, that I honestly just do not want to be on the road much any longer!  It is really sad for me to say that, but there are just too many stupid actions going on and I just do not want to deal with it. SO.......

I'm almost through with the drawings and listing of needs to build myself a little off-grid cabin here in N.E. Alabama on the kids land. I've lived in very small spaces for so many years that "going tiny" is not "a thing" for me. It is a fact of life that if we are to survive and thrive and still have something to pass on to the next generations, then we have to scale back out "wants" and live with our "needs" (and if there's left over $$ then we an add some of the wants to life).

This is the reason that I have been purging for the past...oh let's say....10 years!! YUP! I have been lightening up the load for 10 years. Living in a van for 3+ of them has made it easier, but I still have stuff that I actually rarely, if ever, use in daily life! It is just dumb to have so much crap just because we can afford to buy it and we see all the "social trendsetters" just having to have it to make life easier! Well...to that I say....B*ll$h^t!!! 

 

 

 

This post is getting longer that I expected, but I feel I needed to put this out. I have talked about be in a state of "Preparedness", not with a "prepper" mentality but in a state of mind of being prepared for most any 

situation that might happen to come along. I am working on some videos about that I have done to be as prepared as is possible for just about any "happening" that might crop up. My YouTube channel will stay just like it always has been. And my Patreon page will stay in the same place as it has been. 

I have also been working on my plans for my little cabin. Cleaning out the camper to be able to close it up has shown me just how quickly a person can "acquire" things that they really do not need or even necessarily want! It is almost mind blowing! But I'm wading thru it and still sorting and throwing! I almost have my desk top cleared and actually have an empty storage tub! :-)  My actual goal has been to be able to feed myself and help a few others if needed for at least 45-60 days. My real goal is to get to the point that I do not have to "go to the store" for 3-6 months. But I'll have to be in my cabin before I an really reach that goal. 

 

As you can see I've gotten my 2-wheeled suitcase ;-) out and cleaned up and reloaded. This does not show the stuff that went into the burn can or into the trashcans! LOL! 

 

I think I have gotten the links on the blog homepage fixed. It is interesting to have to relearn the things that you were able to do so easily a few years back! The learning curve is definitely bigger as I've gotten older! 

 

 But just know that I am not "going anywhere", still going camping in the area (up to 4 hour away) in the Nat'l Forests that are in this part of the country. And the backroads in the South are truly backroads!

 

That's all for now! I hope to get the email notifications working correctly in the next couple of days also. Bear with me as I make this change.

 

Until later....Be Safe, Travel Easy, Go To The Woods & Be Prepared11

 

Frog & Rosie