Saturday, July 17, 2010

Sad coincidence

As I was reading book number... yeah still haven't recounted.. Inherit the Stars by James P Hogan, I learned that Hogan passed.. This is a great loss to the sci-fi and liberty world both.

Preparing for travel again, this time deep in the heart of Texas. More work, some stand in work for a customer, and just a wee bit of catching up with friends, including one poor traumatized black dog I've been missing.

I leave at a particularly bad time as lots of food in the garden is coming ready to put up. All I can hope in this case is that there will be some left when I return, perhaps as dried beans for instance.. That said, I am planning on spending part of the day tomorrow putting up edemame, one of my favorite foods, for later use.

Zero progress on the homestead thanks yet again to delays in the excavation. As I have said all along, I have but one step in this entire process upon which I am relying upon others (paid help) and that is what has prevented this home from being built.. Perhaps when I return in just over a month.. If not, then I may build a different, smaller home, as a temporary home and future guest house, as I cannot bear a third winter in this caravan.

So goes it here in the Backwoods of Hell..

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Foraging

Its been a good week for foraging.. I've positively identified some staghorn sumac, great for lemonade, some sasafrass, great for root beer and gumbo, wild blackberries (not a tough one there), and another edible and delicious mushroom, provided you only want to live a day or two: death angel..

I also identified a possible fruit for the future.. it may be a plum of some sort, though it is late and hard for that, but it may be a wild apple... I will watch it and see..

In the mean time I am enjoying a bumper crop of pin cherries, and cannot help but notice that the orange pears are abundant.. I just have to get that fruit press built this year so I can have delicious cider.. maybe some hard cider as well, since like the frontiersmen I want to preserve the harvest....

Monday, July 05, 2010

Back to school

So much of this blog has been keeping up with the basics of homesteading, my building projects, determining what power sources to use, etc. that I feel I am overlooking some important aspects of intentional living.

So here is a bit about my life which is not directly linked to the build project, nor is about growing veg, or composting toilets.. I have opted to go back to school.

Now for those who may not know me as well as others, I have many years of school under by belt, and I have been both an instructor and a guest lecturer, so school is nothing new to me. Still, I've not been a formal student for 11 years now, and so this choice to focus again on formal studies is an important choice.

So why return to the classroom, and moreover why as a student instead of a lecturer? Well, there are a few reasons, but most important to me is the motivation to explore something I have been exploring but have lacked any feedback on. I am taking two courses, one on the basics of liberty, and the other on alternatives to government coercion to law and order.

I have more than a decade, perhaps two, under my belt of defending liberty against those who would impose their ideal (various forms of tyranny) upon the rest of us, but still I would like to have more concrete examples of non-coercive measures which serve as alternatives to the current coercion which we endure from government. Basically voluntary is always the better option.

The classes last through the 15th of September, so amidst travelling, building, ranching, remodelling, etc. I will be making time for video lectures, pretty intensive readings, and online "chat" class times..

More on this as it progresses..