Hey!

Yeah, I don't have regrets. I think the dependence on money and hoarding I was doing when I was younger was an essential part of my path. Maybe if I'm closer to busto I'll have different thoughts on it. The whole dependence on money thing is pretty wild imo and just generally accepted as normal.

The lifestyle is ideal for me. If I had 20 million I'd probably have better tools, better machines, more land.. and the same lifestyle.

---

In a slightly related topic, I have been reflecting on trust. I find it interesting that most people put most of their trust into banks and governments. Essentially the most powerful, centralized authorities. People are willing to give ~everything that they own and sign contracts for life/get shots etc. Again, accepted as normal.. but perhaps its a little crazy? I mean, should we really be trusting these giant centralized agencies? Is this a story that keeps repeating itself in human history(what are zee results?)?

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The trenching nightmare has ended. The excavator work was closer to $9k, and I had him do more than I was expecting and it was closer to a full 7 days then 3-4 days. There are ponds, roads, build sites, buried water lines, power lines and such. I think it is a really good investment. There was quite a lot of damage and fossil fuels burned.. but overall, still worth it.

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The excavator ended up bumping the mill and causing damage to it. It's close to perfect but def is not cutting as well as before, and also will result in sawblade life shortening. I've spent a few hours trying to get it straightened out, and will spend a couple hours this morning tweaking it.

I've only put about 10 hours running time on the mill. I have about 500sq ft of flooring, a few cedar beams/posts, nice maple countertops/tables, some 2x6 flooring and 2x4 framing, loads of siding, a bunch of firewood, and a pile of speculation wood-- probably mostly for garden use. I have probably spent about 30 hours milling, despite the short amount of time the actual engine has been on.

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We got some big rains the last couple days and have been trenching. The water softens the ground. We are running short lines for water/power near cabins. We have a long power run to trench through the bush. Will be a rooty bushy battle... I'm going to go about 8 inches down for a 250ft power line. I'm thinking we may be able to get 'er done before the sun hardens off the ground.

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Building has been slow. Foundations are complete for both the solar kiln and large greenhouse. Both structures are waiting for logs to be milled which are stuck at the bottom of the log pile. Both buildings will be completed late, probably closer to late July for the solar kiln and mid Aug for the big greenhouse.

---

The community is growing. I have two people here now, one in the cabin and one in the bell tent. The woman in the bell tent is likely going to be here for a long time. This place fits her values perfectly and she loves it. A friend who has been helping me the last year with various tasks around here is going to be moving into the cabin on Aug 1. There are two separate parties arriving on Aug 1, one person may end up staying long-term.

There are not enough spaces for everyone. The person staying in the cabin now would like to stay longer. That means 5 people, 3 dwellings. This is a problem. I'm trying to figure out accommodation options for Aug 1. I'm playing around with the idea of getting a trailer and building a roof for it before winter. I'm hoping to find someone fairly desperate to sell who I could get a decent deal on a decent trailer. Unfortunately, It's not the season for such deals. Alternatively, people start living together in dwellings. I'm starting to have feelings for someone here who I previously was not interested in, so that's exciting, regardless of outcome

There is also a possibility of turning the power shed into a small cabin. It's kind of ridiculous that this structure that I somewhat poorly built to be a carport would now be turning into a cabin, but it may be the best option. It would be a lot of work to insulate it and make it proper for winter. I'm thinking it could serve well as a 3-season space for volunteers. Rustic, minimally insulated, with a couple bunk beds. It's close to the wifi. It could work in the winter if a woodstove goes in there.

In order to do this, I'd have to upgrade the large carport by the yurt into a shed. I'd have to give it a wall and floors so I could store all the tools inside before winter. This wouldn't be that hard, but yeah, its work. I'd also be wise to put in some sort of drainage system, as the foundations are fairly exposed to water.
I'm starting to be grateful that I overbuilt these structures as it seems there is a natural lifecycle of upgrading structures.

Well, this post was part of a 3am wake up this morning. So much on the mind. Going to work hard today. Hot springs tomorrow.

That's wild yeah. I don't trust banks/governments but there isn't much alternatives except stuff like what you're doing, which sounds appealing in some ways but I'm way too comfortable doing things the way I have been. Perhaps I'm a bit nihilistic (or not ambitious enough?) this way but I'm basically just hoping I can maintain my current standard of living until the day I die

Yeah its a strange situation with the banks. Even though there is no trust, in giving them a large percentage of overall worth, its inherently trusting them.

I still use banks too, but its something I'll be continuing to move away from in the coming years.

In regards to you wanting to keep your living standard until death... I think its subject to change. So much time between now and then..

In my view, more and more of humanity is having these "awakening" experiences, so to speak. There is certainly a possibility of you having an experience which completely changes your perspectives. Given your openness and curiosity, I would not be surprised if you had one.

Quick update:
There are 4 of us here now. We have been sitting in a full house for a few weeks.

I'm way behind my schedule that was put in place in the winter. Like, wayyy behind.
General maintenance on machines/tools if taking way more energy than expected. I spend about 1.5-2hours fixing/tweeking the mill for each hour its running. The wood chipper, chainsaws, trucks, tractor, even the axes.. all these things take a good amount of time to upkeep. There is also a bunch of noobs here who don't know how to use the machines/tools, which increases upkeep time.

The first pile of logs is about 70% done. The easy 70%. Getting the lowest logs up onto the mill deck will be a bit more challenging. The second pile of logs will probably not see much action, this year. I will need to get to it next year, or the quality of the wood will suffer. In the future, there is an opportunity it pickup logs from people who planned to use them to mill, but plans changed and they need money and have no capacity to mill. This could be the next stage in a few years, after I've cleared out more here and done the bulk of the milling.

I'm working on the solar kiln / small greenhouse today. I'm pretty much done the framing. I'm going to be putting on the roofs, and perhaps adding some interior walls/shear support.

Tomorrow I have a full day at someone else's property. I traded a day of work for ~$800 worth of solar equipment. (Charge controller, inverter, and battery insulator).

The day after that, its back to the solar kiln build. I will have to create a bracket for the solar panel, build the manual vents, and install/hookup the fans.

If all goes well, I'll be wrapping up the kiln with tyvek and putting walls on Friday afternoon.

Solar kiln is effectively completed. I will be using it as a greenhouse this fall, and will be storing wood inside this winter. I will likely be using it as a greenhouse for the foreseeable future. It turns out I have no need to dry lumber quickly. The season is almost done and I have ~unlimited projects.
We started a dozen trays of veggies and will be trialing the greenhouse to see how she runs. I started some mushrooms.

Some pics:




I'm still feeling a bit overwhelmed. I have quite a bit of help here, but its mostly unskilled and needs lots of supervision and direction. In many cases, It's nearly as much work to explain how to do something than to do it myself. It's sort of frustrating.

Even today I'm faced with the decision on whether to spend 30minutes to an hour to hook up plumbing to help water piles of mushroom logs.. or getting peoples to fill up 20+buckets and walk them which will take 1-2hours+ and use way more energy. Sadly, its a close call. I'm stretching so thin that a job that is so simple that it doesn't require supervision and even though it uses a ton of energy, is often worth assigning. Its so hard to find ways to use that energy that doesn't require constant direction. On the flip side, the system I could set up would be useable for 2-3times/yr for the next 5 years. So yeah, in the end I should just invest my own time and make a 1.5hr job a 1hr job. The issue is certain projects ~need to be completed by snow-fall deadlines that my time starts to become way more valuable.

There is a huge bottleneck of tasks that only I can do, and the list of tasks that others can do mostly requires me to set them up so they can do it. Even once I do that, it will often be done not-so-great(or need to be re-done), and any hiccups that occur while doing the task and I have to leave my task to problem solve the solution for the other person.
I really need to be thinking of ways to set up systems to leverage unskilled working hours if this is going to be one of the strategies I have here. I also need to get really honest with myself about expectations from unskilled labor and start assessing based on performance.

Assembly lines and simple repetitive work is boring and lame, but it sadly makes sense for the majority of people. It feels so strange to use energy to set up boring linear systems, but... It seems even more difficult to attract people who can problem solve. I mean people who can problem solve are rare enough they can be asking for $30-$50/hr+ with a modest skill set just to figure things out, while the unskilled labor is often worth close or less than minimum wage, unless you can setup lines of work which are super straight forward to complete and difficult to do by hiring a machine.

Anyways, its all an adventure this process of figuring out how to manage people. I'm still a pretty big n00b at it and make mistakes regularly. I tend to make a lot of assumptions based on.. logic and reason. Assuming logic/reason is one of those fundamental things that are actually not a given in the real world. Most times despite me explaining why something is being done, that information is not considered when doing a task. What is more effective is very clearly explaining what needs to be done without any whys about what is happening.

Update:

Winter is here. It was an extended fall.

I had huge piles of brush from logging we did. Several tons worth. 15 ft high piles. The excavator came over to do the job a few days ago.. and his machine immediately broke down, again.

I find it strange that machines show up here and break down. Also though, something feels wrong about lighting up tons of biomass into flames. It seems like a massive waste of energy. Does anyone else think its unusual that setting bush on fire has been the norm out here and has been for over a century? We take giant piles of carbon(mostly) burn it all and create Co2 in the environment and are left with a small pile ash. Is this really the best practice we can come up with?

It's even worse than that, most of the time. I see brush piles with thick trunks. 24inch thick "undesirables" in brush piles are not uncommon around here. Starting the fires with tires is common. Diesel/gas to manage fires.. etc..

There are reasons why people burn them.
I tried to mill those undesirables. I see why they are undesirable. The wood isn't good to cut, the trees are heavy and I suspect the end product will need extra tooling and turn out to be pretty average.

I also took any limb parts over 2inches thick and cut them into firewood. Yet, it amounts to so little firewood and often that firewood is sub-standard. For instance, I would be able to cut around 50pieces at 2"-4" thickness at 14" lengths from a tree with a 22" diameter. Its lots of chainsaw time, harder to cut to length, more chances of getting pinched/making an error, and I have to bend over ~20times to pick up the pieces.
The other option would be ~two 14" rounds from the base, chopped ~14 times, with around 6-8 bends(and higher weight). It's less chainsaw time, fewer cuts, easy to cut to length, and less strain/time to harvest/use.

Is it worth it?
It's hard to say. You get +BTUs out of it, sure. Yet, if you compare it to the alternative of picking a large tree off of a road and driving around hauling it its certainly less hours and and strain to get large rounds from the forest. Although, its destroying the forest. I think if you are strictly valuing ones time and health(where health is a shallow metric does not account for harmony with the environment)... its not worth it.

Same with the milling of undesirables, not worth it anytime we are considering hourly wage + wear and tear on the body.

I suppose the questions I have is are there any practices worth it, when considering wage/health?

What to do with essentially a few tons of small branches and undesirable trees. It potentially has some value as compost, although its mostly cedar/hemlock which compost very slowly and my understanding is its quite acidic(I already have acidic soil). From what I can tell, it would not be a good addition to the current soil here. That said, this is just what peoples are saying on the internet. There is a group of peoples who feel otherwise, and they have farms and homesteads that have stood up to the test of time... When I think it about it more deeply, all the richest soils around here come from areas were water pools and there has been loads of organic forest composing.

When the excavator broke down, my partner introduced me to a book by Sepp Holzter. It's about forest farming and permaculture. He has had great success creating berms for growing trees in the forest. I have to do this anyways because of the super high water table. I can't root trees in 8inches of soil. So, I pretty much copied his strategy. I gave clear directions to the landmover to make raised mounds of earth+branches, and marked out the spots I wanted the raised beds of biomass. He somehow was unable to do it. He's so use to burying and leveling off or burning biomass. I'm pretty sure he has never been requested to do what I was asking, and couldn't understand why I would want what I was asking for. Yet, there is more opportunity now.

If I can work an excavator, I could provide a service for myself that doesn't really exist out here, and provide it to others. The operators of machinery out here(or at least most of the ones I know) have limited concepts of permaculture or growing food, it seems. I think it seems pretty intuitive that more mechanically inclined type people are less involved in permaculture. I know I have lots of learning to do when it comes to operating machines.

Anyways, my point is that it's so usual to take piles of brush and burn or bury/level off biomass that it's essentially second nature out here. Requests to do otherwise are not understood.
(To give credit where its due, the operator did an excellent job logging and road-building, it seemed like a very effective job.)

In the fall we managed to finish:
building the big greenhouse
retro-fitting the carport into a shed/shop
retro-fitting the shed into a dwelling
the rocket mass heater inside of the greenhouse
a fair amount of logging
most of a mudroom for the yurt
inside of the yurt, plumbing, electric, kitchen version 1.0 of many systems

Pics:
Big Greenhouse( Big GH ) and Rocket Mass Heater (RMH)






Carport to partially finished shop/shed
Shed to witch-hut conversion
Yurt mudroom addition, partially complete
Image...]

Yurt setup year2

Looking good. Did you get more or less work done than planned?

From my winter plans, I got less done. I was short a large carport and woodshed which would be a ~3-4week 2 person build. I was a bit too ambitious from the onset as I had more labor than I was expecting, and got done quite a bit less.

I strongly overestimated the output of loosely directed volunteer labor. I estimated it at about half my productivity. The output is far less than half of what I'd be outputting for 80%+ of tasks. There is also the bottle-neck of the hardest 50% of the tasks only being able to be done by me or maybe another skilled labor person.

There was one factor for team output that I greatly undervalued. Output completely changes based on the group leaders proximity to the working area. For example: If I'm in charge of 6 people one day, the two people working with me as a team we will accomplish X-output. The other three people working away from me on their own project(s) will often complete far less, and from what I can tell, spend a good deal of time standing around.

I was surprised by the amount of slacking and general disinterest in the tasks around the land. It was a bit of a projection as I'm the anti-slacker and somehow just forgot how little people will do if they feel they can get away with it, or they have some sort semi-rational justification.

As far as productivity goes, the first full season was more productive given the cost and season length. It turns out I can get more done by hiring one skilled worker, and one hard worker paying $45/hr total with total supervision for 15-25hours/wk and ~150-250 workaway hours 75%+ supervision, with lower management skills

Having 6 volunteers eating organic food and living around here working ~25hours/wk with improved management sills somehow outputs less.

Total labor cost is similar(assuming building rental values are very low)
Total labor hours is 2.5x in the second scenario.

It seems a bit wild to me to have a lower output with 2.5x labor hours.. but I think a lot of the losses in productivity can be contributed to a few things:
1- No supervision leading to slacking off.
2- Communal tasks being mis-attributed as contribution to the exchange.
3- Disinterest in the tasks being performed leading to slacking off.
4- A sense of being under-valued or under-paid leading to slacking off.

Of course the biggest factor are the actual people themselves, and I think that goes without saying.

#1
when I'm working with people and actively supervising them generally there is no cell phones or other distractions and there is way more focus on the task at hand. We still take breaks, but they are shorter. When I go to see how people are self-managing themselves its very common to see people standing around talking about something unrelated to the task or on their cell phones, or even focusing on a task unrelated to the task at hand. There is also a higher probability that they do the task poorly or incorrectly, which sometimes means re-doing the entire task.

There have been instances where I leave for a day and 4-5 people are working for a 5 hour day and they get as much done as I would in a 8 hour day, or less. One time I left for a week with a manager in-charge that I incentivized with cash and what I would output in about a 25hours with a skilled worker was accomplished in 125 labor hours.

#2
This is another major issue. People attributing communal tasks to be tasks for exchange hours.

Example:
I cook for the community for 4 meals for 4 people over 2 days(~16portions). It takes 3 hours. There is 30-45minutes of dishes and clean-up which someone else does. That person takes an hour to do the dishes and counts it as there contribution to the exchange.

Somehow this person has come up with the idea that they should have someone else prepare and cook their food for them(in ways better than they would for themselves), and then the much less difficult task of cleaning up is done at a slow pace and then is attributed towards being a contribution to rent/food costs.

I can see how someone that had mommy cook/clean and look after them could make this judgement, or if they are use to cooking/cleaning as a profession(this is not the case here, unforunately). Regardless of why, In practice, this is how about ~25% of the people treat cooking/cleaning and other major communal tasks on the land. It's happened with 4 people, and 3 of those people spent more than 2 months on site. Even though it is obviously a task that needs to be done by each person regardless of if they are living here or living elsewhere. It's more common in the younger people and doesn't happen among the responsible people on-site.

#3

I'm quite surprised at how little interest people have in most of the tasks on site. There have been plenty of people interested in plenty of tasks, although I'd say most people are not interested in most of the tasks they do, and some people don't have interest in 90%+ of the tasks they perform.

The most interest people have is in tasks they have no experience in and there is a chance of injury or destruction of property. For simple tasks and low-risk tasks, there is much much lower interest.

Obviously this poses a problem, to all parties involved.

A few years ago I worked a wheelbarrow and doing basic construction at a farm for $18/hr. It took an hour commuting by bus. I could have earned $50/hr+ playing online poker.

I did it because I wanted to learn. I was present with every movement, every decision. I greatly improved my skills in wheelbarrow work and general construction.

I did a great deal of work for them over my ~100-200hours of casual work at that farm. They benefiting from my desire to learn.

I seem to struggle to find people interested in learning the tasks at this farm. Wheelbarrow work is treated as if its some sort of slave-job and I'm consistently surprised by how slow and poorly it is done.

I try hard to find projects people are interested in and give them an opportunity to do it. This has been successful for a few projects with a few people but it generally a big fail.

I think most of this problem can be contributed to poor recruitment. People seem to be more interested in a place to live and less interested in learning about the tasks on the land.

If someone cannot be content to chop wood and carry water(aka simple tasks, done with presence) then they can't be allowed to use a chainsaw or drive a truck.

#4
This is related to #3. To illustrate by example: One person came from a job working construction in the city. They are use to being paid $35 an hour, maybe $25-30 after tax and such. They came here and calculate they work 100hours in a month and could have earned $2.5k-$3k in a month if they lived in the city, but they only got $1.2k worth of rent/food etc living here.

In this case they are "paying" ~$1.5k/month to be doing the exchange.
This is 100% true, in a sense and people are agreeing to this before they show up and they are excited about it. Obviously there are benefits to being here, and thats what people are excited about. Yet, once they are here the attitude towards this exchange changes and they begin to slack off more and more because they would be getting "paid more" in the city. Even when money is offered without supervision, slacking continues.

The non-monetary benefits in this case would have to exceed $1.5k for that person to be in a better situation to be on the land then to be in the city working concrete. So the difficulty of the tasks, the learning, communal living benefits, the setting in the forest etc. has to be worth more than $1.5k per month.

For the people that struggle to find employment/work, they seem to use above minimum wage as the benchmark of analysis(which I also think is lol, as many of the people who have helped as a farm hand never had and would not be able to get minimum wage working as a farm hand in the industry). Then, they value being in the space at X. In some cases, they believe X is of little to no value for the tasks they complete, and the result is working the minimum at what I would value at $5-10/hr, and then everyone loses. (~1/3 output of someone paid $20/hr).

The cost/benefit is subjective and also based on values and keenness. However, for most people there is a learning curve and most of the benefits happen in the first couple months, then its less beneficial after that point in time.

The worst situation I ran into was having one person who strongly believes they are entitled to rest instead of work(despite agreeing to be here on terms that are not that), and they go around convincing others its true
by showing how much they are slacking off and encouraging others to do the same, distracting others and such.

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So, I've identified those as 4 major factors, and I, as the leader, have to address those factors.

I'm looking to have some sort of contract that talks about the costs/benefits of being here, and has people sign a liability waiver. This should make everything clear so its harder for people to come up with reasons to slack off.

It also makes me feel more comfortable giving people an opportunity to try things that are more dangerous as I won't lose my livlihood to a potential lawsuit.

I think the other major thing is just being super careful about the people I bring on board, and actually being able to ask people to leave when they are having a significant drain on the community. I invited someone this year who was a big drain and I was close to kicking out multiple times. I misjudged the emotional toll that person was imposing on the community and it ended up draining the community much more than they person was adding to it.


To address #2,
We created a communal task list and are recording the times it takes to complete tasks to get a baseline for the communal tasks.
It's also good to get a sense of how much everyone is doing, too.


Alas, I've got a lot to think about over the winter. I have a general sense of what I want and what I don't want. I'm still figuring out ways to make it happen.
Given my financial situation and future career plans, I think I'll have to scale back pretty strongly on the volunteers and paid labor.. or find a good team leader.

The analogy drawn with poker is apt.

In the poker community, you often find two types of regular players: those dedicated to continuous improvement, consistently advancing through limits, and those who, lacking the motivation to work on their skills, struggle to beat low limits.

The majority tends to fall into the latter category

Yeah, I didn't have as much experience working with too many players but certainly saw this with a few peoples during my poker days.

I've got a first draft of a energy exchange agreement. I think I covered most of the bases where there is confusion and/or has been issues in past exchanges. I also added in a standard template liability waiver. I want to add into the liability waiver that there is dangerous work on-site and that it is important to focus and be careful when engaging in dangerous activities. I want to add in where the safety gear is located, first aid kits, fire safety and more. I will encourage people to take safety precautions when engaged in work, and to refuse work seen as unsafe. Sure, part of it is covering my ass from getting sued.. but its also important to protect the people that come here to engage in activities on the land.

In unrelated news: I scored some copper and a hot water tank. I've spent the last several days building a hot water system that works with the wood stove. I've got it running as a thermosiphon. The water circulates via convection through a copper serpentine I've assembled on the side of the wood stove. It's siphoned and stored up high so I can use a gravity feed to a cast iron tub, and a tap at chest height above the woodstove to collect hot water for domestic use. It requires no electricity and is a simple system.

Its in its first version. I plan to have a cold water intake which is controlled by a float valve. As hot water is drawn out, the cold water is deposited into the system. I'll have it so that the cold water intake runs along the roof and coils many times around the chimney pipe to pre-heat above ambient to help boost temps in the system. I've also got to consider how water is flowing and how the siphon is working and can adjust/position elements to help improve energy efficiency.

The project was a horrible first project in soldering. I didn't have the proper tools, and I was soldering 1.5" copper pipe which is much more difficult than working with 1/2" or 3/4" pipe. It was also -10C to -20C (like -10F?) during most of the project and working with metal and soldering outdoors in very cold temperatures with improper tools added another degree of difficulty. I ended up having multiple leaks, one of which appeared after things were installed and heat was added.(I ran the stove super hot in prep for the -27C night(like -20F?), and the pipes were dry and I melted a solder joint). Other mistakes were made.. I used about $200-$250 in materials, and I was given about that much in scrap value copper to use for the project.

I'm quite pleased with the system so far, it seems to be working pretty well. I will be working on the cold intake and building a insulated lid and making more insulation for the system.

The tank will be sitting directly behind a grow-tent I built to grow greens/mushrooms. I'll make a small duct from the tank to the grow-tent so that that heat the tank gives off over-night will go to plants in the insulated grow tent, and eventually to the ambient space to benefit the humans.

Everything is pretty unfinished at the moment. To finish, my plan is to get some thin plywood on the grow-tent so I can paint it to match the room colors. I plan to box in the water tank and paint it, too. I'd like to put cultured stone on the foundational cement blocks of the water tank. I think the copper pipes are going to remain visible, in the open.

The system works pretty well. I got 100L to bath temp in about 20-30hours of running the stove medium-high. This was with a wide-open top and near freezing starting temps. I think with a preheated cold-intake, some flow adjustments, insulating the serpentine, and insulating the water box.. I should be able to get close to 2x the output.

The hot water tank acts as a thermal battery. For example, if its a fairly mild winter night of barely freezing temperatures at night, I wont run a fire over-night. I may have it at a comfortable temperature when I go to bed, although when I wake up, its like 12-13C(60F?). With the thermal battery, the heat from the previous day/night that would have been in the air, is stored into the water and released into the air all night and the next day(s). I'd estimate would give me at least 1 degree higher ambient room temp in the morning, maybe 2 or 3 degrees C.

I'll be tweaking around the system tomorrow and hopefully I'll get some photos to share with y'alls

Pics, cause it happened..
This is the little water distiller. woodstove heats it up and steam is collected and run through a small condenser. It deposits water into a mason jar which I use to create collodial silver and collodial gold(mason jar shown in pic)




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This is the woodstove hot water system:




Water comes into the tank through the cold inlet, which is the line running around the chimney pipe. It gets pre-heated this way. It gets deposited into the tank through the top, into the bottom via a stand-pipe. The tank fills automatically whenever the water level drops slightly by use of the pressurized cold inlet and the float valve installed inside the tank.

There is a flow of water through the system. It is slow and steady. The cold water goes out the cold outlet at the bottom of the system into the copper pipe. It goes through the copper pipe serpentine(aka heat exchanger) mounted on the side of the stove. As the water is heated, it flows up through the pipe and deposits at the top of the tank. This is the thermosiphon at the heart of the system.

There is a hot water outtake near the top which feeds a domestic hot water use tap that comes out for collection over the stove.. or there is a secondary valve which feeds a cast iron bathtub outside.

The entire system is open, so there is no risk of pressure build up / explosions. It uses gravity, convection, and simple mechanical systems. No pumps, no power, no danger(other than a low risk of flooding from the cold inlet)

It's almost complete. It needs an insulated lid insulation at the pipe inlets/outlets, and beautified(it needs a box, and nice cultured stone around the base.

So far on the test run is if I run the stove medium-high it will bring the temperature to a light steam(I'd say barely hot enough for a hot bath) on the 100Ls in under 24h(I haven't timed it exactly, It's probably in the 10-14hour range. If I run it super hot for 12-24hours(enough to get it to 16C-22C inside the yurt when its -10C or below outside) it gets the entire tank to a comfortable bathing temperature. The issue is its too cold outside to bath, or would be too warm inside air temps to justify getting the bath temps super high.

I think if I heavily insulate the system I should be able to make it so that comfortable air temps in the yurt translate to good bath temps in the winter. Worst case scenario, I have multiple strategies for bathing in the winter if the water doesn't get hot enough. First, run the stove as usual to get entire tank to a light steam. Then, fill up 3 stock pots, put on top of the stove. Run stove super high for ~1hour and get the three stock pots to a boil and the water tank temps up to a medium-steam. Drain into tub, and dump stock pots into main tank and drain to tub. This should give hot bath temps. Secondary strategy is simply starting a fire under the tub.


It would be nice to get some opinions on how to minimize flood risk. Not sure if anyone reading this has plumbing experience-- could be a longshot. The danger is that the float valve fails and the system keeps getting fed water. Is an overflow pipe the most economical option? Perhaps I just have it overflow under the floor and then ~6" underground to the nearest ditch(20ft)?


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These images show my grow shelves/tent setup.



It's basically an insulated cabinet. It's all setup with lights and heated pads. I've got it pretty airtight. I'll be running a small duct from the water tank so the warm air bleeds into the cabinet. I've got my first run of mushrooms in there and a couple trays of microgreens that are preparing to sprout.

fire under the bathtub sounds so hardcore, I love it!

I have two questions: 1) About how often do you go back to "civilization"? (Meaning, visiting family/friends, taking a vacation, or whatever.) And 2) Do you miss it at all?

Like many people, I love going to the mountains for a few days for some long hikes and fresh air and whatnot... but I admit I could not live like you do. I find your lifestyle to be equal parts fascinating and impressive and insane.

Could someone tell me about when this blog turned from a PLO blog to living in the wild? Kind of curious to read the thoughts that went into going down that path but the thread is quite large.

Yea, its certainly bad ass. Fire is amazing, happy to be using it.
That said, moving wood and harvesting trees is lots of work. I'm thinking if I arrange some firebrick and blocks around I can get 2x+ out of the wood heat.

Once in November, and I think before that it was about 1.5years.

Hmm, I can't say that I miss it. There are some elements that are nice. My favorite thing about civilization is the crazy amount of "waste" products and deals that are around. The other things like enjoy most about civilization are accessible to a lesser degree where I am now. The things I don't like about civilization seem to be getting worse as time goes on.. so I can't say I'm missing it.

Thanks. I can completely understand the insane element. I think I would have seen my future self as a little insane in the past, and probably fascinating, as well. I'm in a space now where things like traffic, air pollution, water pollution, EMF pollution and such contribute quite negatively to my quality of life. Being in the city now seems crazy to me, whereas it was essential for my life 10years ago.

Would have been a slow transition starting around 2016-17, into full blown wildness around 2021.

Thoughts were fueled by a shift in values/beliefs that came from experiences fasting and working with ayahuasca. That shift led to a gradual shift in thinking.

Spring is coming! Was planning to fell some trees this month before they "woke up". Turns out some of them are already running, which is a sign spring is very near.

The idea with felling them now is that ground disturbance is the lowest because the snow forms a protective blanket. Also, other plants that may get damaged by falling trees haven't put energy into growing then it get smacked, and they can focus energy more appropriately when they "wake up" damaged.

In addition, the trees are said to be the hardest when felled in the winter. This is good news as much of the lumber is being milled. It's easier to see too, as no leaves are around. Lastly, its easier to drag branches around over the snow than it is to wade it through a bunch of bush/rocks.

I have another week or two of tree work to do. I'm focusing mostly on dropping them, limbing(cutting the branches), and piling the limbs. It's also important to drop the trees in a way that minimizes damage to the forest, but also makes it possible to harvest the logs. Some of these tree sections are 1500lbs+, so there has to be a way to hook up a winch or truck to pull out the log.

It's kind of fun. There is problem solving, exercise, adrenaline, and value. I'm always trying to figure out the best use case for everything. In the last couple days I've felled/cleaned 3 firs (17-22" diameter), 2 cedars (14-18"diameter), and a bunch of small stuff.

Any section >8" diameter I consider for milling, mulching, or firewood. For mulching, some trees just suck to mill and suck for firewood, so they go to the garden. For firewood, some trees are alright to mill, but make good firewood so any sections that are slightly twisted find themselves in a firewood pile. For logs that are milling candidates, I've got to judge the best spots to cut the tree based on its growth pattern, but also consider my list of the types/lengths of wood needed for projects.

Sections that are 4-10" I consider to either mill(rarely), post/building uses(often), or firewood. Using the logs as roundwood in building is easier, as it bypasses the processing of the mill. It also is stronger as roundwood. The issue is that conventional building materials don't work with circles, so that has to be accounted for.. I'll mill some of the smaller stuff for specific use cases. For example, some structural elements only need 2 flat sides.. It's a waste to have the extra flat bits. So, I can get a log and mill it on just two faces, and viola.

Sections 2"-4" which includes the tops and the larger parts of branches I use for firewood or mulch. It's quite energy-intensive to gather it, but I think of it as a way of respecting the forest. Most people will just burn all of this stuff rather than process it. Some of the branches are better to use in the garden, some are better suited as firewood.

Sections .5"-2" are used mostly for wood chipping, or mulch. The woodchips are used mostly as mulch, although cedar is nice for pathways and spreading around on high-traffic muck holes.

>.5" usually get eaten by the chipper. If they are just lying around I leave them back to the forest and don't bother processing.

The mill also produces "waste" which gets recycled back mostly into garden building projects and firewood.

I wonder how many tons of wood I moved by hand last year. I bet it was over 20 tonnes..

w00t w00t, scored ~100 pieces of 8-10ft 2x4s and 2x6s... chicken coop materials are here! This is great, it seems like a waste to use my nice milled lumber on a coop.

Really intrigued by my body this winter. Last winter I lost a ton of strength, this year I didn't. Other than eating a keto diet, I can't see much of a difference between activity levels. A few days ago I came across a pullup bar and did 4, thinking I could maybe do 2. I easily passed the 1-minute hang challenge of hanging from the bar. I think I could do two minutes.

Last year around this time I started moving some logs around and doing mushroom log innoculation work and was exhausted after a few hours-- I'm curious to see how the coming weeks will go (I'll be doing the same tasks).

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I'm still torn over clearing out healthy cedars to farm land. I have now gone up to a few trees intending to cut them and have not been able to do it. I have opened up about a 1.2acre space to farm, although I think I would need more to support a several people up here given the strategies I'm interested in employing. It's tricky as I don't want to start building a fence until I feel comfortable with the size of the space being cleared out, and I can't farm this area without a fence, and/or a great guard dog.. It would be a mess to re-do a section of the fence, and/or to fell 70ft+ trees when there are a bunch of baby fruit/nut trees 10-20ft downhill.

Getting into natural law and such related topics again, played around that rabbit hole a few years ago. Alphonse Faggliolo has some awesome materials, cal washington I also sutided a bit of his stuff. Brandon Williams has come into my sphere now. The guy is vocal and aggressive, coming out with lots of material that threatens the establishments. I fear he will be murdered within a few years.

Would be good to get my house in order(claim my sovereignty) before spring sets in.

Mud season!

Its true... somehow I forgot. The snow is giving way to massive amounts of mud!

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Yeah, so after a few days of working.. The verdict on the body condition is in...

Somehow, I'm in much better shape than last year at this time. I'm having trouble figuring out how. This year... I was smoking 5-10 cigs a day for 3 weeks and quit cold turkey, had less cold exposure this winter, and less gym/exercise time. The keto diet and/or water charging somehow must have had a very large impact and its the only main difference between the years that is suppose to be of benefit. Perhaps, in addition, the body can re-adjust faster in such a way after it has already done a season. I'm wondering if perhaps last year I didn't give myself enough rest? Still a bit of a mystery of what's going on as it would seem to defy conventional thinking.

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Spring cleaning is beginning in the lower elevations, all sorts of used goods are coming up. Its just about time to start backing up the truck to accumulate the resources. Ideally the road clears of snow soon so I can go get my trailer and backup the trailer... I have an opportunistic perspective on materials. March-May and Oct-Nov is accumulation time. Lots of people selling, spring cleaning/moving. Around here, people are typically quite poor late winter/early spring-- not much work. I buy up all sorts of ****.

There are way more people here in mid-summer, and the peoples have way more disposable income. I will be listing all my things for sale in early June.

Body Odor..

Okay so I thought I'd share some more information which is pretty counter-culture that may be of interest.

I haven't shampooed my hair in years.
I haven't worn deodorant in around a decade.
Last year, I went several months without using soap in the shower, and my showers were usually under 2 minutes.

I would routinely go up to different friends, lift my armpit and ask if I smelled like BO. 90% of the time, the answer was no.

During the winter, I reeked. I used soap regularly and needed showers every other day.
Why? It's all diet/health related.
During the winter I was on a radically different diet and that ended up emitting a very different type of odor, one that was quite off-putting. A type of odor most people would use to describe body odor.
I recently switched back to my standard diet, and my odor as changed, again. More sweating, less soap, and less disturbing smells.
That's how it is.... if you are healthy!

The issue is, one doesn't really encounter the people like me. Or if one does, one doesn't realize that I don't shower often use/use soap etc.
To the contrary, there is an uncommon breed of hippy who doesn't shower, and they believe they fart rainbows and smell like flowers. The issue is, they are delusional and actually are not healthy and stink to high heaven.
Sadly, they are also typically much more vocal and active, so even though they are actually quite rare in society... it is much more likely to encounter this type of person relative to a rural homesteader who doesn't use soap/products, and doesn't smell bad. This ends up re-enforcing the conventional beliefs that you need to buy JnJ body-care products laced with lord knows what to get you to be sick and buy from there medical product care line!