The Great Off Grid Ozark Adventure: part 6

Note: This content was written out long before it was published here on the blog. So although this post is being published in early 2025, it was written several months ago. If you’re just finding this post, I recommend starting with part one here to get more background.

My son and I had been on the property for some time now, and my main goal shifted toward finding a tractor that we could buy. I thought about buying new vs. buying used. There are places that offer 0% financing and having a warranty appealed to me. On the other hand, one of our big goals with this adventure is to get completely out of debt. I didn’t know anything about diesel equipment but I’ve seen that it seems to have good longevity and is fairly simple and repairable. I liked the idea of owning it outright. I looked at various options on marketplace when I could get service but again, I had to stand out in the weeds and the sun in a certain area where we got phone service and everything was slow. I didn’t see any options that really stood out to me. In the meantime, I decided that we needed some kind of power in the trailer. I thought about driving north to Harbor Freight and picking up another charge controller, but then I remembered that one of the best solar stores was not too far from us to the southwest. We decided to go check them out first since I knew I’d need to buy some solar panels for the portable power station I had. Mary had sent the cable I needed, but we hadn’t received it quite yet. When it came, I wanted to have some better solar panels up and ready.

This turned out to be a good decision. I told them my needs and they had small charge controllers on a closeout sale for $1.99. It turns out to be better quality than the $80 option at Harbor Freight! I also bought a few bifacial solar panels and we decided to go up the road to a tractor dealership to look at new tractors. We didn’t buy a tractor, but we came home and installed the new controller. It took me 2 minutes to install and our trailer batteries were full in just a few hours! That was the best two dollars I’ve spent in a long time!!! It was nice to have some basic power again. Then, a day or two later the cable arrived and we hooked up the Bluetti station to the new solar panels. We went from only having headlamps and charging my phone in the truck to more power than we knew what to do with! We were even able to run the AC in the trailer during the heat of the day a few times! That was pure luxury for us!

This helped our morale quite a bit, but I felt uneasy because we had been there several days and still hadn’t even acquired a tractor to begin working on the road. After all, that was the main purpose for this trip. I began to get somewhat indecisive. It seemed like when I was home looking for options in Missouri, I found a ton of good options at good prices. Now that I was there, I couldn’t find anything that really stood out. We had decided to go with a used older tractor because it seemed like it was a wiser choice. Finally, I settled on one. It had a loader, and a brush hog (heavy duty mower). It was a little bit over budget but the owner agreed to take a little less to fit our budget. The problem was that it was pretty far away in northern Arkansas. Then Mary suggested some of the other, cheaper options that were closer. I don’t like indecision. It was bothering me that I was being indecisive! We needed to just get something and move forward! I settled on a different option that we both thought looked good so I took off to go look at it, and hopefully buy it.

It was nearly two hours away and when we got there, the man selling it talked a lot and struggled to stay on point. It was fine at first, but got old pretty quickly. He was a mechanic and had done a lot of work on the tractor. The hoses and wires had all been replaced. It had a new seat and brand new tires. That was a big plus for me. The man who sold it had printed the user manual and parts manual and had kept meticulous records of everything that had been done on it. It seemed all good so I went ahead and decided to buy it.

The problem was that I only had one heavy duty tie down. I had planned on using a large number of smaller ones and stopping somewhere on the way to get another heavy duty tie down. The man selling it felt uncomfortable with that and really, I wanted to be safe. He offered to take us into town to Harbor Freight. I asked how far it was and he said, ten minutes. Good enough. We didn’t know what we had agreed to. This guy had the ability to continue talking without seeming to breath! His car smelled of smoke and his driving was kind of wild. We were both carsick by the time we got there. Also, it was more like 25 minutes away so it took way longer than we expected. I bought the tie downs and we headed back and got it all loaded. Unfortunately, it was just getting dark by this point and I didn’t love the idea of towing a tractor in a trailer after dark since I really didn’t know how it would handle. It was all just fine but we didn’t get home until after 11pm.

In the morning, I started it and unloaded it and everything was working fine. I started the brush hog mower and happily cut down all the tall weeds on the trail to our trailer. I cannot express how much more freedom we felt having done that! It was so much easier to walk and not have to compete with thorny brambles and to be able to drive and actually know what was on the ground in front of you! It was fantastic. I was still getting to know the controls and I stalled it trying to move some large logs that had fallen across a trail on the edge of the property. When I tried to start it back up, it turned over a few times and then nothing. Then when I tried again, nothing happened. I’m no mechanic but I know that if there is no turnover, it usually means a power issue. I inspected all the wires and didn’t see anything suspicious so I took the battery out to charge it up on our 12v system. Later we put it back in and used the multimeter to test it. We got 12 volts. Then we tested at various points in the wiring including the starter switch. It tested good everywhere. I tried to start it and nothing happened. We looked at everything we could. The wiring is really quite simple on an old tractor so after going over it multiple times and testing everything, we just hit a dead end. I looked through the manual and even read it cover to cover. I looked at wiring diagrams to see if I had missed something. I simply had hit a dead end.

In the meantime, I decided to take the chainsaw and cut up the logs that were blocking the trail. Unfortunately, that wasn’t working well either. It was not cutting well and started overheating. I felt like I had all these tools and they were all rebelling against me. It was another big disappointment. Finally, I sat down and I just prayed. I asked God what I needed to do to fix the tractor. The answer that came surprised me. “It isn’t about the tractor.” So, I adjusted my question and asked what I needed to do to fix the road. Again, I was surprised. “It isn’t about the road.” So, I decided to keep going and ask a more broad question. I simply asked what I needed to do. The answer was to go and talk to the neighbor.
What?…

We found out a few months back that our next door neighbor whose property we drive through to get to ours, was moving. There is a young family up the road who owns ten acres but it is split by the main road. They started their homestead dream and are ready to scale it a little so they were wanting to buy the property next to us. They wanted to meet with us and get to know us since we would be their next door neighbors. They were a nice family and I hope they get it because we got along well. (spoiler, they did buy it and we’re excited to have them as neighbors!) We had a nice but brief visit and nothing seemed to come of it. That was it. We went back to our property, I walked straight to the tractor, put the key in, and started it. It started up as if there were never any problems. I still don’t know what was going on, but I guess I needed a road block to go the direction that I needed to go in.

After getting the tractor running I also purchased a new chain for my chainsaw. I tried to sharpen it, but I had to finally admit that the chain was simply at the end of its life. I also realized that I hadn’t checked the chain oil and it was empty. So, with those purchases, we had the chainsaw up and running as well. It felt good to be back in business! The next step was to focus on the road.

To be continued…