ambitionstrikes

Will it Start?

One of the many "treasures" from the abandoned homestead adjacent to our property is the 1983 Chevy K10. One of Riley's projects for an upcoming sunny winter day is to see if he can get it running and driving!What do you think, can Riley get it started?

Favorite Snow Blower?

We now have THREE ways to blow snow off our road: the skid steer, the Army Truck, and the electric UTV. Which one is your favorite?

Spoiler Alert! You bought a WHAT!?

That's right. If you've been watchingthe channel lately you've likely noticed the new truck in the background. We bought an F150 Lightning, all electric pickup truck. This is the first new car either of us has ever purchased. It's the most bare bones version Ford offers with a whopping 90kwhbattery pack...

Helping Hands - Meet Riley's Parents

Riley's parents have made guest appearances on our channel before, from the DIY Sidecar and Firewood Processor to Riley's recent shenanigans in this Short with the Mall Train. Years ago when we filmed our Army Truck Road Trip, Riley's mom helped out by driving in the chase car with Boone and Bailey.Riley cr...

Shop Interior Upgrades

Off camera, we've been working on upgrades to our shop since we filmed our full property tour and wanted to share some work-in-progress photos with our patrons.In the back of our shop we've created a wood accent wall that we hope to use as an indoor filming studio. Next up we'll add a workbench/desk for Ril...

Some Silly Christmas Cheer

We hope you enjoyed Sunday's video featuring the Oliver Express and our Christmas Toy Drive. Here's a little extra holiday spirit just for our patrons.We hope you all have a warm and safe Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Easter Eggs or Red Herrings?

In Sunday's video we tidied up a bit (okay, a lot) and shared a full home and property tour.Along the way we featured clues or Easter eggs for future projects . . . but perhaps we included some red herrings as well. We want to hear from all of you, what did you see and what do you think is coming up next on our cha...

Cozy up in the Patreon App

Recently Patreon launched a chat feature in the App. It took us a while to get on board, as you all remember you we had a busy summer! Now that the weather is getting cozier we are looking forward to using chat more to connect with all of you.If you have a smart phone, we encourage you to download the Patreon app and t...

To Rent or To Buy?

Theroad project required us to invest in two very large pieces of equipment in order to move the amount of materialwe needed to move. The first was everyone's favorite, the famous Caterpillar D8H. The second was the big Caterpillar 330 excavator. Surprisingly, both of these machines cost us roughlythe same amount o...

Updates and a Teaser from Ambition Hill

It's been a scramble to finish our new container shop and to get our equipment and firewood under cover before it starts snowing. Sunday's video will featuring the rest of the roof install.We have one last "powerful" install planned before the weather turns that will make living off grid much simpler th...

Sunday Sneak Peak

Catch a Bigfoot sighting in tomorrow's video, Part 4 in our container workshop build series.

Building With Shipping Containers

Shipping containers are an instant, strong, secure, weathertight storage solution that come in at a great value. In fact, I don't think it's possible to build 480 square feet of shed space for what a shipping container costs. Does this mean thought that it's a good idea to transform a shipping container fro...

So what's the window for?

Last week in our video "Cutting Holes in our SHIPPING CONTAINER" we teased that we have some pretty exciting plans in store for one side of our new equipment shed, plans that would make good use of the natural light and the great view.Want to take a guess at what we will be making?

"Shocking" update and photos from the vault

In Sunday's video we installed new Bilstein remote reservoir bypass shocks on Courtney's Lexus and it made us feel a little nostalgic for our roots. Here's a short rock crawl down Memory Lane:We met in our college off road club and loved going on camping trips to California's best rock crawling spots: F...

We're Going LIVE (Right Now!!)

See you at 6PM PST to chat all things Ambition Strikes!

What should we build with the wood?

In Sunday's Video we took the trees we cut down for our road project and milled it into lumber.Most of this wood we donated to our local bike club. They are building a youth mountain biking skills park and they'll be using the milled lumber to build a fence around the perimeter of the park.What should we build ...

Livestream Thursday 9/14 6:00 PM PST

Hello Dozer Patrons! Please join us for an end-of-summer livestream this Thursday, September 14th, at 6:00 PM Pacific Time.We'll post the link to the livestream in this feed right at or a few minutes before 6:00 PM on Thursday.We hope you can join us!

Boat Ride with Uncle Chris

Sometimes our family comes to visit and we put them to work on a project . . . other times it's much too hot up on the mountain and we have fun on the lake instead.During a recent visit from Courtney's brother Chris we took our new boat out on the water for a relaxing afternoon complete with a pizza picnic. Dur...

Solving Complex Problems

How do we solve complex problems?In recent months Courtney and I havebeen faced with an overwhelming number of challenges that all seemed so complex therewas no hope in ever solving them. So how do we do it?We've noticed a pattern in our problem solving: the hardest part is getting started. Although this problem so...

What's Next with the Road

This summer we've made major progress with our Road Build Project and we wanted to give our Patrons an overview and a sneak peak of what we'll be sharing on the channel in the upcoming weeks:- We're taking the steepest stretch of the road from about a 25% grade and trying to get it closer to a 12% grade. Th...

Secret Abandoned Cabins

In next week's video we'll be giving tours of an area of our property that we haven't shown on camera until now . . . not one but TWO abandoned homestead sights.We don't know anything about the people who built these structures or the story of why they left, all we have to go by are the clues from what ...

Helping Hands - Meet Sarah

If you're an especially observant follower (or if you've already watched today's video), you might have noticed there's an additional member of Team Ambition who's been behind the camera.Meet the talented Sarah Johnson who is home from college for the summer and doing an outstanding job filming our ...

Excavator Purchasing Decisions: Used vs New?

The decision to buy new versus used is always a complicated one without a clear answer, but it was especially complicated when it came time to buy a piece of equipmentto help us develop ournew property.I'm going to focus this writeup on the decision to buy new versus used, although there were hundreds of other deci...

Dozer Magnets in the Mail

Hey Patrons, check your mailbox for a piece of Patreon-only swag from us to you!We sent them out to all Patrons who have their shipping address in their contact information. If you would like a magnet but have not added your shipping address, please add your address and send us a message so we can send one to you.

Happy Independence Day!

Helping Hands: Meet Tyler!

In Sunday’s video we shared the arrival of our college friends Tyler, Karla, and toddler Charleston. You might recognize this crew from a camping trip in the desert we took last year. Tyler, who we have jokingly been referring to as Riley's "stunt double" is giving us a hand with the improvements to our r...

Updates to Patreon Coming Soon

In 2021 we bought our first excavator. It was an intimidating purchase for us, but we knew it would be a vital piece of equipment as we began to clear our land and build our shop--and we were assured in our ability to purchase it because of the ongoing financial support of patrons. To the patrons who have been supporti...

Oh Baby...

In typical Ambition Strikes fashion, our baby boy just didn't want to wait any longer to get started on his next project! He arrived 3 weeks early on March 31st, weighing a hearty 8lb 8oz. We are so thankful for his good health and are enjoying these bonus snuggles over the next few weeks.We had been working hard t...

It's As Cold As It Looks...

This week we mixed things up and went on a (mostly) fun adventure. Winter is going to be over before we know it and Riley talked me into enjoying the snow in a new way. While I'll admit it was fun, I think I'll stick to sleeping in my warm bed for the rest of the winter.This week's video follows our snow bi...

Homestead Updates!

We've spent the beginning of the year planning and getting all of our ducks in a row and we're finally back to building things! The next few videos are going to be fun to share because they are wrapping up a project we left you all hanging on... the deck build! Spoiler alert, we finished the deck staircase and ...