Roughing it?

I know that many of my friends and family think that I am depriving myself, or doing without here, but this morning I cannot help but feel sorry for them.

Breakfast consisted of oatmeal in yogurt with fresh raspberries the size of my thumb!

Lunch will be fresh catfish with okra from the garden, fried.

Dinner more catfish, with squash, cherry tomatoes, and fresh asian beans. Also refrigerator pickles with cukes fresh from the garden.

My poor deprived friends and relatives.. having to make do with supermarket fare..

Food Forests and Hemingway

The weather has not cooperated much lately, consisting mostly of cold rains. So my time has alternated between getting soaked while feeding cattle, and stripping off to try to stay warm until next time I had to go out to feed cattle.

During the times spent drying off and getting warm, I have been following the rabbit trail of links on permaculture and food forests. The basic concept of a food forest is to create seven natural levels of the forest with various complementary plants which will provide harvestable food with minimal care. In fact the food forest is a type of no-dig gardening once established.

Now before I get too far into any explanation, I have to admit that I have only just begun to really start to think about, learn about, and consider the concept, so I am not really in a position to provide any more than that basic explanation.

So off I go again on a book search, this time to find a really good book on food forests in the hopes of being able to create a wonderful environment of mixed edibles, from fruit and nuts, all the way down to potatoes growing at the base of these trees and shrubs..

And speaking of books, I have just finished Hemingway's Snows of Kilamanjaro. It was a slow read and most of the stories just were not compelling, unlike his longer works. However, that cannot be said of the last short story in the book: The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. This one read like Hemingway at his best. This one story justifies keeping the book (not that I ever need much justification for that!) and certainly will keep me reading through the Hemingway library.

So that makes book number.. 12 if my count is right.

I am already reading The Sword of behleu by Lawrence Watt-Evans, which is about half completed. Hopefully the Agorist Primer comes in soon as it seems time for a non-fiction work, though to be honest a history of some sort, such as a history of science is really more the flavor of what I am in the mood for. Well that or something on food forests of course..

Dolly is back!!

In the world of frugality and self reliance there is one person who shines brighter than virtually all others. She is Dolly Freed. Don't know her? Well you probably did not grow up in the 1970's when she wrote the runaway best selling book Possum Living.

I came across this book a few years back, and like so many others I immediately fell in love with it. It is on my 100 must read books on Goodreads.com and one I recommend to anyone with even the slightest interest in intentional living, frugality, self-sufficiency, homesteading, gardening, or really just living. Dolly and her father lived without jobs in the suburbs in Pennsylvania, so they were not back to the landers, as were common in the 70's. They were not survivalists, like the Y2K-ers or the media image of militias. They simply lived for what is important: life itself.

A couple of years back I was wondering what happened to Dolly, who was illegally home schooled, which obviously worked since she wrote her book when she was merely 18. I searched the net, and though at the time you could find copies of her book available free online, no one seemed to know what Dolly did after the book, the talk shows, and the documentary. Well now we know because she is back!

On her site, possumliving.net, you can read her blog, get a copy of the reprinted book, get recipes, and follow the new press about her.

In these difficult times, just as in the 70's (though I predict ultimately far far worse) we need all of the examples like Dolly to remind us that we can live, and not merely live but thrive by living intentionally, living smart, and valuing what is truly important.

Welcome back Dolly!

Are Tiny Homes Really Less Expensive?

It is no secret that I have a fascination with small or "tiny" homes. Many are engineering marvels, others show us just how little we need to live very comfortable, even luxurious lives.

That said, I am always a little annoyed with the proponents of tiny homes in particular, tout the economy in buying or building a tiny home. Tumbleweed Tiny Homes sells its tiny homes (more or less a well built travel trailer which looks like a shrunken New England home) from $40,000 to $55,000, with square footage ranging from 65 ft sq to just over 100 ft sq.

If that sounds more like the square footage of your backyard shed, well it is! However in defense of Jay's designs, there are lofts, and the designs are very well laid out, as long as you are under say 5'10" at best.

But the question I am considering today is: are these really money savers in a time when even after the real estate crash, homes are still selling for hundred's of thousands of dollars?

If we look at it the way these designers and manufacturer's do, then the answer is "yes" just as they assert. After all, $50,000 is less than $200,000.. But is this a fair comparison? I argue that it isn't. During the boomtime for housing, I helped a young couple who were buying their first home. That particular home they purchased for right around $200,000. What did they get? 5500 ft sq! Now, it was not to my liking, nor located where I would want to live, but comparing house to house, they acquired a great deal more house for the dollar than in these tiny homes.

Jay's homes can cost more than $550 per square foot! This is more than 5 times the national average!!

Don't think that I am picking on Jay. He is far from alone from offering such outrageous sq foot costs. I came across a blog today, here, which offered a similar size home but just the shell, for $29,000+

All of which makes me wonder why these folks don't consider more reasonable alternatives. My own home should end up costing about $5 a square foot, less than 1 percent the cost of Jay's.. I will have more room, lower heating and cooling costs, far lower maintenance, and full utilities (off grid).

I understand that my own home is closer to the low extreme than most, but surely there is a great deal of room to work with between $5 per foot and $550 per foot..

Home builders, designers, and architects of all sorts need to rethink what they consider reasonable. We can do much better, especially for the poorest amongst us in whose name these designers of tiny homes often appeal.

We can do better.

Old is new again

Well, the "old" setback of not being able to sink the posts into the ground because we have excavated down to solid rock,  has also defeated the "new" solution. The "new" solution was to drive Re-bar down into the rock (it is "soft" rock) then pour concrete around the posts and re-bar thus giving the post a good strong footing. Well, a few days ago I tried to drive some re-bar into the rock to no avail. Not even a hint of progress.. So onto the next approach.. 

Now I am going to try to dig out a trench out of the rock, using a pick and my own labor. Depending on a few factors, this trench will either be for the posts themselves, else for concrete wall to sit in front of (downhill/inside) the posts to prevent any downhill movement. Then I will be running cedars from the uphill "wall" to the downhill so as to further prevent any chance of movement. I am fairly certain that this is overkill, but though I plan one day to take my own life, having a few tons of soil come suddenly crashing in on me is not the way I plan on undertaking that endeavor. 

Regardless, I can see no other way to resume progress on the site now that the equipment is locked away for the season while the owner heads to Cancun.. And to think that there are some who question my wanting to do virtually all of this myself when I cannot rely upon others to meet any sort of deadline.. 

In the meantime I have been working out the details of my plan, catching up on movies (odd for me) reading economic books, and buying christmas presents using the rewards I receive from various frugal/reward sites. The $20 in Amazon cards went a lot further than one might think.. and a delayed present from another site will be 26 weeks of the Economist for Rancher Bob, which has the benefit of my getting to read them when he is through with each issue. 

Yes money is tight now, but there are still ways to make the most of things using the various rewards. To be honest, I have not even touched the best reward program yet (Harris polls) nor have I counted the cash from Pinecone Research. 

I've also come around to the decision to forego a refrigerator completely in favor of an ice box. I realized that over the past year I have been living with this small RV fridge, and using it mostly for the freezer section at that. Moreover the use I have for the fridge has been for leftovers, which in my case get eaten right away, and for condiments. With that in mind, I calculated that I can use a well insulated container for these items, making the ice (for now) with the freezer unit which I intend to keep. This will mean firing up a generator* once or twice a day to keep the temp cold and to make sure that I am making ice for the icebox, but that seems a small price to pay for the energy savings from not having an appliance that I really have little use for.  I hope to get to the point of being able to do without the freezer as well, perhaps by building one of the solar ice makers** that have been designed, and perhaps by canning more of the foods I would normally freeze. Then too in the winter when the temps drop into the teens, there ought to be no problem creating ice for the icebox, and to add to the freezer to keep it cold enough without needing to fire up the generator. 

*Compressors and other motors require too high an initial draw to safely operate on a small solar/wind/battery system so a generator stands in to take the draw and at the same time recharge the batteries. 

**http://free-energy-info.co.uk/P13.pdf

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/08/solar_icemaker.php

We are expecting rains starting Tuesday, lasting for three days, so that will once again prevent any on site work from getting done, but it feels like I am making progress by getting some of the plans worked out in better detail to deal with the new/old hurdles. 

That is the news from the backwoods of hell.. where the children are absent, the men overworked, and the women are welcome. :) 

Practical and Effective Health Care Reform is off the table

Borrowed in whole from WendyMcelroy.com:

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Since the Big O* is giving a speech tonight to try to sell his health care plan, and will doubtless regurgitate some blather about being open to all options, I thought I'd list for the record at least nine options for health care reform that are "off the table," and will never be allowed on the table...or even in the room:

1. Ending medical licensing.
2. Ending employer tax deduction for medical insurance; or better yet,
3. Providing a personal tax deduction for all medical expenses.
4. Ending patent protection for pharmaceuticals and medical devices.
5. Ending all regulation of drugs and supplements.
6. Ending Medicare.
7. Ending Medicaid.
8. "Fee for service" for routine medical services.
9. Tort reform.


* Obama. But to Canadians, "the Big O" has a special connotation of government extravagance, incompetence, and cost overruns: the 1976 Olympic Stadium.

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Feasting from a few gardens

Tonight's dinner was a large spaghetti squash (if you have never enjoyed one of these you are missing out on a wonderful and unique natural treat), topped with a butter and olive oil sauce of red anaheim pepper, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil (four kinds), garlic chive flowers, and a touch of kosher salt. With the exception of the salt, oil, and butter, all of this delightful meal came from gardens I have worked in. Two in the flatlands, and one in the Oauchita mountains.

There was no longing for prepared pasta sauce, or some mass produced accompaniment, but rather an explosion of flavor which reminds us of what pale shadows all of the mass produced food is to real food.

Mass produced food is food with no history, no story. Even the "farmer" who harvests it could not recognize even one of the pieces of produce from "his" land, but the farmer who truly respects his or her crop, who knows the land and that which grows upon it, whether in a urban plot, suburban back yard, or acreage in rural areas, can identify the produce, the product of their effort. There is a story behind every piece of food in those gardens.

Tonight's stories include failed efforts to raise emu for meat, discovering entirely by accident a volunteer pepper plant brought low by malabar spinach vines, and a union of efforts of specific individuals, amongst other stories. These all add spice and flavor to the meal directly and indirectly.

I find great joy in the fact that even a nomad (as I have recently been dubbed by none other than the great David (another story, another time)) can enjoy the wonders of the garden in which he/she has worked, or in this case several gardens. Nomadic gardening.. there is an idea..

A day of labor

As is my usual tradition, I spent this day working, specifically doing labor. No paid time off, no demanding that others give me anything more than I actually earn.

Today was somewhat trying of that tradition in that I feel poorly and spent the day doing siding alone. As I write this I fear that I am succumbing to some annoy bug. Hopefully not, time will well.

Laundry

Give the cold front that came in with the rain last night, and the snow flurries this morning, I opted for remaining inside as much as is possible today. Granted, a cow and calf had different notions as I had to walk a calf to meet up with mama in the new pasture..

So after a couple of hours out in the cold this morning, I returned to the big house to once again make use of my little laundry machine. The first go around was less than impressive, but I did have a few complications which may have resulted in a less than stellar performance.

So I have begun round two. I have done three loads in the little washer, essentially the last two weeks of clothes. So far what I have learned is that adding more water than they recommend helps, and has no impact on the ease of turning the crank. The next lesson is to add close to double that amount of water for a rinse cycle. I am still using far less water than a conventional machine.

Because it is cold and wet, and I do not have a rocket mass heater in the big house, like I will in my own underground home, I am using Rancher Bob's high efficiency dryer for the final obvious step :drying..

I will know more in an hour or so..