Just found a couple interesting sites.

Haven't had a chance to really explore it. At a glance it looks interesting. Especially to someone like me that believes there is more than one way to skin a cat. Of course low tech isn't very fashionable any more.

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/

http://www.notechmagazine.com/

Woods

A Tribute

This is pretty much a continuation of the previous post. I intended to attack the mushroomed wedges with an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel. I didn't have a cutoff wheel and the wife had our one and only car. I wasn't going to walk 4 miles to a hardware store.

Well I wanted it done. I had two teachers who both passed away too young. Ray Bishop my science teacher and George Schaefer my shop teacher. This post is a tribute to both men.  Both believed in keeping the old ways as common knowledge. This afternoon I spent 45 minutes remembering George Schaefer. I recalled the day he taught me to properly use a hacksaw and file. The prepper side of me decided to use the old way rather than let the skill atrophy.

You can see the crack in the piece I cut from the large wedge. To be honest I was pretty skeptical myself when I started. It is a 1.5x2" piece of metal afterall. It made me glad I took the time to aneal them. Another 15 minutes chamfering the edges with a mill file and it will be done. Just think no noise , no electricity also no sparks or grinding dust all over the place. I did one side of the small wedge with a grinder. It took as long as doing two sides with a hacksaw.

Thank You George and Ray. You may not have known it when you were still here, those old skills are apreciated. Thanks for teaching me the proper use of hand tools. They really aren't that much work when you know what you're doing.

Woods

Remembering "the Grove"

For whatever reason I have been taking little trips down memory lane in recent years. Maybe it's old age, maybe it's reflecting in comparason to current events. Mostly going to one place in time and one particular group of people. At the time I didn't realize the influence that group of people were having on me. Indeed to my peers of that era this group of people was to be despised or worse. We're travelling back to the 1977-79 time frame. Maybe it was my own families economic reality back then. We had just returned from NE Oklahoma. Tails between our legs and pretty much broke. I was in my mid teens and was repeating my freshman year of highschool. Times were tight and if I wanted anything of my own, it was up to me to get a job and get it for myself. Also because times were hard I was expected to pay my parents a portion of my pay towards household expenses. The solution to my problem was the Rochester "Times Union" newspaper.

My dad rented us an apartment north of Rochester on a bay of Lake Ontario. A fairly upscale suburb was developing thanks to the location. My paper route was mostly made up of what we would later come to call McMansions. However right in the middle of it all was a place known as "The Grove". The Grove was a little nieghborhood or community created during the great depression. A landowner about to lose his land leased a bunch of cottage building lots to other people whose economic reality wasn't a whole lot better than his. 40+ years after those leases were created The Grove had evolved into a group of about 12 little houses. It appeared as though the depression never ended  for most of the people living there. I learned quickly appearances don't always tell everything. I also learned poverty can be just a point of view. Frugality and living within your means can appear as poverty to some. I can remeber many cups of hot chocolate waiting for me on cold winters day. I remember being invited in to warm up next to woodstoves. I remember glasses of lemonade in summer, the real deal too, not fron a frozen can or worse a packet of powder. I remember Mr Johnson teaching me how to tune up a car on his 58 Biscayne. I remember being amazed that such a small 6 cylinder engine could even propel such a huge car down the road. I remember bags of tomatoes and other fresh vegetables being sent home with me. I remember Mr Johnsons old johnboat and the motor that bore the same name as his family. I'm sure that motor was almost as old as he was. I remember making extra money splittng firewood for people too old to do it for themselves. Often refusing payment, knowing I would leave with a full belly and/or a mess of fresh filleted fish.  Speaking of payment. I can't recall ever having to chase a resident of "The Grove" for payment for thier newspapers. Sure I remember being asked to collect once a month or biweekly. I always remember that envelope being on time, and more often than not there was a generous tip there too.  I can't say I have any of those memories from the more well heeled customers on my route. Just the opposite.

I have to wonder what the current generation could learn from a place like "The Grove".  Maybe they would decide to pool thier resourses and create a "Grove" of thier own to occupy rather than trying to occupy Wall Street. But alas, it's too late. The occupants of "The Grove" got even older, or moved away and "The Grove" lost it's battle with the McMansion movement.

And that my friends in my oppinion is where we really went wrong.

Got me a date with Bambi!

And I don't mean a stripper or porn star!

It's been a hectic month. Which I'll elaborate on later.

It's been all I can do to get to the range. Had a scope mounted on my little mannlicher stocked 7x57 mauser 98 last summer. Never got around to sighting it in. Went to the range two weeks ago and it wasn't even on the paper at 50 yards. The target backer was so shot up I couldn't tell where I was hitting. Went again last weds, only to get told the range was closed while the local police dept was practicing. Finally got there this morning with a little 1.5" dot on a 2x3 ft piece of paper. Found the girl was putting them dead on elevation, but, 14" to the left. Had to play with the rear scope ring to adjust that out. But, if I can see it, it's dead now. Next saturday is opening day. The freezer is low on meat and my wife will feed me nothing but beans if I don't shoot something.

Come on Bambi! We've got a dinner date!

Woods

Rain Barrel Building 101

As most of my followers know, I work in a "home improvment store". During the spring and summer months it's not unusual to get a phone call from the plumbing dept. Almost always it's a question about building rainbarrels. Most people are looking for what's called a bulkhead fitting, because they got barrel building instructions off the internet. Our store doesn't carry bulkhead fittings, so, plumbing sends the person to me and I try to give the person instructions to build a barrel my way. This usually pisses the person off, because they got instructions off the internet and it's got to be the only right way to do it.

So I'm going to put my way on the internet, so it can be acknowledged as being a correct way too. By the way I've sold these barrels to people that don't want to build thier own. I've never had a complaint about my design.

So, lets get started.

First of all. You do not ever want a bulkhead fitting! Not Ever! Why you ask?
1) They are expensive
2) They usually leak or start leaking soon after being installed.
3) To use them you have to cut the top of the barrel open. Which is a bad idea because it causes an evaporation problem. It's also a bad idea because it turns your barrel into a mosquito farm.

Materials for this project are:
1) Food grade plastic barrel. $5-$10
2) 1/2" Hose bib $5.30
3) 2-3" of 2" pvc pipe $2.90 for 2 feet
4) 2" pvc male adapter $1.14
5) 3"x2" pvc coupling $2.98
6) 1/2" nylon male x barbed adapter $.60
7) 4" square of fiberglass window screen material free from my scrap pile
8) A length of 1/2" garden hose, again from my scrap pile.
9) A tube of Rectorseal pipe sealant. Not sure of the cost, less than three bucks and it has built at least six barrels.

Tools needed are:
1) Electric drill
2) 3/4" spade bit
3) Hammer
4) Punch or metal rod

First make sure your barrel didn't have something nasty in it. Just because it's a food grade barrel, doesn't mean it didn't have some industrial detergent of something similar in it. This barrel came from a cannery and had 10% strength white vinegar in it.

Next use your hammer and punch to remove the bungs from the barrel. One of the bungs will have a 2" pipe thread and the other will have a thread that I have only seen on barrel bungs. I should add here that you should be sure to have the bung with the special threads when you select your barrel. Throw away the bung with the 2" pipe thread on it and screw in the 2" pvc male adapter. Now place your piece of screen on the 2" side of the 2x3 coupling. Use your hammer to gently tap the short piece of 2" pvc pipe into the 2" side of the coupling. Trim the excess screen away. You can also now put the bung with the special threads back in place. I try not to overtighten the bung in case I want to get it off again.

Now place the other end of the short pvc pipe into the 2" male adapter. You've now created a funnel to place you downspout into. The screen will keep out mosquitos and also prevent debris from your roof from getting in.

Stand your barrel in front of you with the funnel farthest away. I keep the funnel side to the rear for reference. Decide which side you want your overflow on. In the case of this barrel I put it on the right side. Drill a 3/4" diameter hole about 2" from the top of the barrel. Here I am using the metal threads of the hose bib as a tap to make threads for the nylon hose adapter. Be careful on this step. Pipe threads are tapered, if you screw the hose bib in too far, you will make the threads aversize and they won't seal well. Screw it in about 1/3 of the way in.

Coat the threads of your nylon barbed adapter with rectorseal and screw it into the threaded hole you just made. Rectorseal is the only thread sealant I've found that works well. The plastic these barrels are made of will not take glue. All your seals must be mechanical in nature.

Lay your barrel on it's back and drill another 3/4" hole about 8" from the bottom. Coat the threads of your hose bib with rectorseal and thread it into this hole. The location of this hole can closer to the barrels bottom. Locating the hole here leaves about 10 gallons in the bottom of your barrel. At this height you can still get a bucket under the hose bib, when the barrel is on a 4" concrete block. Also by leaving some water in the bottom, the barrel is less likely to be knocked over when it's empty. If you locate the spigot closer to the bottom, you will have to raise the barrel up higher to get a bucket under it.

Here is your finished rain barrel. Ready to put in place under your downspout. After you have installed it, put a length of hose on the barbed adapter. Use a hose long enough to get the overflow away from your house. If you need alot of water, you can use a straight adapter and connect a second barrel.  Now you have free water for the garden. Also when the municipal water has problems, or when the power goes out and the well pump won't run, you have water. The perfect companion to the water purifier we built last week.

Be Prepared
Woods

Sad news.

Hangmans Cottage is for sale! For several tears I have followed the blog of a Brittish homesteader. After several years of health issues he's selling his homestead. I'm posting a link to his site so others can get some inspiration. I know he's inspired me greatly. www.go-self-sufficient.com/index.html This is his post that got me started following him. www.go-self-sufficient.com/outlaw.htm Enjoy Woods

Bread, the families staff of life

In our house bread is a family effort. Last summer my dear bride Pelenaka ordered a bushel of Montana organic wheat from our local health food store. It was one of our rare instances of lack of communication. A week later found us getting ice cream at the county fair and talking to one of our food network friends. When I inquired to our friend about buying wheat from a local grower, Pelenaka said nothing until our friend left. A couple weeks later found us with the Montana wheat home in buckets and our friend knocking on our door with a couple bags containing 100lbs of local grown. The locally grown only cost us a couple loaves of bread to our friend and a couple more to the farmer. The locally grown has proven to be a blessing of sorts.The locally grown wheat came right from the combines auger without further cleaning. Here stepdaughter known as "sidekick" picks chaff from corns of the locally grown wheat. We often find the family sitting around the table doing this. No TV, radio, or video games, just family joking and conversation. Lately we've been cleaning and grinding for our next batch of bread while the current batch bakes. The warmth of the oven allows the thermostat to be turned down in the rest of the house. The warm room and the smell of baking bread soon has everyone relaxed, and the conversation soon flows.

Here the youngest stepdaughter, known from here on as "princess" grinds the grain. The Retsel little Ark mill makes short work of grinding flour. This past december it replaced the Back to Basics mill we had used for two years. The back to basics still works. But, the Retsel greatly increased production rate and quality with it's finer grind. The Retsel mill is well worth the money and a motor can be easily added at a later date should the desire or need arise. The only modification has been the adition of a piece of aluminum flashing cut to fit snugly below the stones of the mill. This helps keep the flour headed toward the catch pan rather than on the mills operator. We are very happy with the Retsel mill and highly recomend it for it's quality alone. The fact that it's american made made it's purchase part of my plan to save the American economy. If you read around on the net you may read of Retsel taking a long time to fill it's orders. That may or may not be Retsels fault. They tell you right up front on the website it takes 2-3 weeks for them to ship. Well it then too UPS a week to get our mill from Idaho to Salt Lake City, then another four days from there to Buffalo, NY. I'm sure you too will find home made bread good for your health. And I hope you'll find the time to grind your own flour. If you do grind your own, may your family find it's health in the family activity. And you know what? I was so busy enjoying myself making bread with the family, I forgot to take a picture of the bread itself. I'll have to post that one later for you. Woods