Bitcoin Holiday Gift Ideas & Cabin Framing Updates
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It was 13°F in southern Tennessee when I hit “Go Live” for episode 867 of The LOTS Project Morning Show, and the tiny wood stove had just barely kept up. Between tending the fire all night, chasing rock deliveries that may or may not exist, and rethinking the cabin layout, there was a lot to cover—plus a full segment on Bitcoin holiday gift ideas for Bitcoiners to make your last-minute shopping easier.
Staying Warm in a 13°F Tennessee Morning
The day started with a recap of the night that led up to the show.
Our little wood stove did its best, but when the temps drop into the teens, it turns into a full-time job. We’ve got the stove dialed in so that about 1 hour 45 minutes between reloads keeps enough coals alive to make the next burn easy. Stretch it too long, and you’re relighting from scratch in the middle of the night—never fun.
- I stayed up late (for me) to get that last pre-bed load in around 11:30 PM.
- Woke up again around 3:00 AM to stoke the fire.
- Kori had her small electric space heater running in the back room because the stove can’t push enough warm air behind it.
We’re also playing the winter game of “Please don’t freeze, pipes”, watching for a couple of days of brutal cold before a big warmup into the 60s later in the week. It’s that awkward season where you’re farming heat inside and praying everything outside survives.
The Bitcoin Guessing Game – Just for Fun
Like every Monday, we checked in on the Bitcoin Guessing Game that happens over in the Telegram group.
- Price during the show: $89,552 per BTC (at 6:08 a.m. on December 15th, 2025)
- Last week everyone guessed high, mostly in the mid to upper 90Ks.
- Scrambling took the win this round with a guess of $93,500, closest to the live price.
No prize—just bragging rights and another chance to guess next Monday. My guess for next week’s show: $94,321.
If you want to play along, join the Telegram group here: t.me/lotschat
C4 Coffee Club Sale: Best Deal in Coffee
First big topic of the show: the annual C4 Coffee Club sale at Food Forest Farms.
C4 is a monthly coffee club where you commit to at least 2 pounds of air-roasted coffee per month. That gets you:
- A guaranteed position in the club (limited number of slots)
- Full-pound bags of premium, air-roasted coffee
- Access to order up to ~50 pounds of coffee per month at your club price
- The ability to do white label or custom blends for your own audience, store, or brand
Normally, the yearly membership is $540 (24 pounds of coffee per year). During the current sale:
🟢 C4 Annual Membership:
$480 for the year – that’s $60 off and works out to $20 per pound for hand-roasted, small-batch coffee.
You can pay with:
- Fiat (USD)
- Bitcoin
- Doge (which Brian at Food Forest Farms happily converts to BTC)
👉 C4 Club & coffee:
https://foodforestfarms.com
(Affiliate – use code LOTS10 for 10% off regular orders & free shipping.)
Why Air-Roasted Coffee Matters
If you’ve ever had that burnt, charred, “gut rot” feeling after a few cups of coffee, there’s a good chance it was drum-roasted coffee. In drum roasting, the beans tumble in a hot metal drum that can char the outside.
With air roasting:
- The beans are suspended on a cushion of hot air (think old-school hot-air popcorn popper).
- There’s no scorching metal drum.
- The roast is cleaner, and for a lot of people, much easier on digestion and acid reflux.
After drinking only air-roasted coffee for a long stretch, going back to random restaurant coffee is almost impossible. The taste and the way it feels on your stomach just aren’t worth it.
The Rock Delivery Roller Coaster (Still)
The next big section of the show was about everyone’s favorite recurring villain: the rock delivery saga.
We’ve been working with a neighbor who does dirt work for a living to fix the easement road back to the cabin properties. The original road:
- Was cut in without proper culverts.
- Had culverts added later in all the wrong places.
- Had no real drainage, so rain turned it into a rutty, slippery mess—especially on the long, steep hills.
He’s been slowly fixing it:
- Moving culverts to the bottom of the hills where water actually collects.
- Cutting the tops off big hills and building up the low spots.
- Adding drainage ditches on the sides.
The remaining big problem: no rock.
He’s been trying for weeks to get six loads of rock for the road plus two more for my driveway and turnaround area. Finally, we thought we had a break:
- Friday: I headed out early to meet him, expecting trucks rolling in all day.
- He worked on another problem section near the entrance while we waited.
- The rock guy kept saying, “I’ll be there soon.”
- We waited. And waited. And waited.
By 2:00 p.m., there was still no rock. I had to leave for dog walks and life stuff, assuming the whole day was a wash.
Later, I messaged him and found out:
They did get some of the rock… after I left.
Just under half the loads.
The rest is supposed to come Monday.
No Saturday work, no Sunday work. Very much on “their schedule, not yours.” If you’ve ever tried to get contractors or suppliers to actually show up in this area, you know the vibe.
The hope now is that:
- Enough of the hills get rock that we can reliably get in and out in wet weather.
- The remaining loads actually show up when promised.
- The road holds up through winter and into spring.
Cabin Framing Progress: Angles, Windows, and Weird Geometry
Inside the property, we’ve been slowly grinding forward on the cabin framing.
The side walls are straightforward:
- 2×6 framing
- Square bays
- Standard bottom and top plates
The end walls, though, are a different story.
The trusses run left to right, so on the ends we have to:
- Frame up to the bottom of the truss with 2x6s
- Then frame the rest of the way up with 2x4s beside the truss
- Deal with angles on the underside of the truss, including one steeper section and one almost flat section (~4°)
That means lots of:
- Measuring
- Re-measuring
- Doing the math for the angles
- Building window rough openings that line up across the whole cabin
- Trying to square things from the bottom when the top is angled
We’ve got:
- 4 of the 10 main 2×6 wall sections framed and installed.
- 4 of the windows roughed in (with 6 left to go).
- A plan to frame around the covered porch and then tackle the upper sections above the trusses with 2x4s.
None of this framing is structural; it’s:
- To hold windows and doors
- To give us solid backing for wall coverings inside
- To create cavities for spray foam (hopefully) or other insulation
Rethinking the Floor Plan (Again)
Then came the part every builder both dreads and secretly expects:
“What if we move the bathroom?”
After staying in a cabin in New York with a really nice open layout, Kori started sketching. The idea:
- Put both bedrooms on one end of the cabin
- Move the bathroom to another corner
- Open up the living room and kitchen into one big flexible space
- Use a peninsula / breakfast bar as a subtle divider
The rules I laid down:
- We won’t move any of the windows already framed.
- We won’t change the doors already ordered with specific swing directions.
- Everything else is negotiable.
Good news: the new layout idea works without tearing out what’s already been done and might actually improve:
- Flow through the main living areas
- Utility runs (water, electric)
- How we use the covered porch
We’ll likely move the outdoor shower off the shared bathroom wall and put it on an exterior wall instead, which actually frees up porch space for chairs, dogs, and general living.
Next steps:
- Tape measure on the floor of the actual cabin
- Walk it out in real space
- Adjust any wall placements before we commit to the rest of the framing
Now is the time to make changes—once all the windows, doors, and interior walls are locked in, moving things would be a nightmare in a small footprint.
A Quiet Day, Soup, and Planning
Sunday was brutally cold and never got above freezing, so we opted not to work on the cabin.
Instead:
- Kori made soup (which doubled as food and a little extra heat).
- We ran the wood stove all day.
- We got some planning done for the week and talked through cabin layout details.
After travel for my dad’s funeral, constant back-and-forth to the property, and trying to keep everything else afloat, a quiet, low-expectation day was overdue.
What We’ve Been Watching
Two main things this week when we finally sat down in the evening:
Black Mirror
- Streaming on Netflix
- Twilight Zone–style sci-fi/tech cautionary tales
- Interesting stories, even if we could do without the British accents
Docuseries on the Rajneesh Movement in Oregon
- Follows the guru who set up a massive ranch/city in Oregon in the 80s
- Covers the culture clash with locals, legal fights, and power struggles
- I remembered the guy’s face from pop culture but never knew the full story
Good background noise while I’m scribbling show notes and trying to stay awake long enough to feed the stove one last time.
Bitcoin Holiday Gift Ideas for Bitcoiners
Toward the end of the episode, I shifted into something a lot of people are asking about right now: Bitcoin holiday gift ideas for Bitcoiners and the Bitcoin-curious.
Here are three I mentioned on the show.
1. Blockstream Jade or JadePlus Hardware Wallets
Security basics for any Bitcoiner.
- 21% off Holiday Sale from Blockstream
- PLUS an extra 10% off with code TheLOTSProject
- Great for:
- Self-custody for your own stack
- Onboarding new Bitcoiners
- Setting up long-term savings for kids or grandkids
The Blockstream Green app is beginner-friendly but powerful enough for more advanced users. You can hold Bitcoin in a way that’s actually under your control, not your exchange’s.
👉 Blockstream Jade & JadePlus:
https://store.blockstream.com/?code=TheLOTSProject
(Affiliate – supports the show.)
2. The Bitcoin Standard (Book)
This book completely reframed how I thought about money and Bitcoin.
- Explains the history of money and why sound money matters
- Connects Bitcoin to the broader story (think “Bitcoin vs. gold standard”)
- Great for:
- Friends or family who keep asking “What even is Bitcoin?”
- People who want more than a meme-level understanding
👉 The Bitcoin Standard on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/4qdKSyH
(Affiliate.)
3. Bitaxe 602 Gamma Solo Miner
Think of this as a lottery ticket every 10 minutes plus a hands-on education in mining.
- Low-power solo miner (around ~30W)
- Lets you solo mine from home and see all the stats
- Great tool for:
- Learning how Bitcoin mining works
- Teaching older kids/teens about Bitcoin
- Supporting decentralization and network security
You’re not buying it to become a full-time miner; you’re buying it to:
- Learn
- Experiment
- Maybe get lucky and solve a block someday
👉 Bitaxe 602 Gamma solo miner from Solo Satoshi:
https://www.solosatoshi.com/product/bitaxe-gamma/aff/213/
(Affiliate.)
⚠️ Always buy mining gear and hardware wallets from trusted sources. If you’re not sure about a vendor, reach out first—happy to sanity check what you’re looking at.
Show Partners & Support Links
If you want to support what I’m doing and also pick up gear you may already need, here are the regular partner links I mentioned during the episode:
- Signature Solar – EG4 inverters, server rack batteries & more
https://signaturesolar.com/?ref=LOTS (affiliate) - Blockstream Jade & JadePlus – Bitcoin hardware wallets
https://store.blockstream.com/?code=TheLOTSProject (affiliate) - Fold – Bitcoin rewards on everyday spending
https://use.foldapp.com/r/FANEWETX (affiliate) - Comfrey Roots – Russian Bocking #4 root cuttings
https://comfreyroots.com - Food Forest Farms – Air-roasted coffee & C4 Club
https://foodforestfarms.com (affiliate – use code LOTS10)
Affiliate Disclosure:
Some links on this page are affiliate links. They don’t cost you anything extra, but they do help support the show and the cabin build. I appreciate it.
Join the Conversation
If you want to:
- Play in the Bitcoin Guessing Game
- See cabin progress photos
- Talk RV living, cabin builds, Bitcoin, or homesteading
Come hang out in the Telegram group: t.me/lotschat
Another cold Monday in the books. Here’s hoping your week is productive, warm, and just chaotic enough to be interesting.
