Camping attitude and a website makeover...

We will be taking a week off from things here at Woodhenge to go on a canoe/camping trip. This is an annual event and always leaves us charged up for the work of the Sumemr ahead. One of the topics we'll be discussing on the trip is how to redo our website. We wish to divide it up into several areas so that you can track the different projects around here more easily. Solar projects, water projects, housing projects, gardening projects will get separate categories that you can view without having to read every blog. Pictures will be included at this point.

See you in a week! -Jim-

Aeromotor Water Pumping Wind Mill Found! Yahoo!

My friend Richard Douglass (the one I traveled with recently to get his flour mill from N Carolina) called yesterday to say that he had read an ad in a local paper that somebody was selling a water pumping wind turbine. He knew I was looking to get one to add to our own version of homeland security here at Woodhenge. The price was quoted in the ad as $500. As the ones I had priced out as new for an 8' diameter Aeromotor with a 30' tower were well over $6000 by the time I added shipping and all of the little bits I told him to go ahead, if it was in fair shape, and buy it for me. He called a few hours later and said that it had a few small missing parts (a return spring) and that a couple of pieces were bent, but overall it was in fine shape and as a bonus it didn't have a 30' tower, but a 50' tower!

Since I'm also in the process of writing a book on water systems for the homesteader this is a perfect opportunity to practice what I'm preaching. The book: "Water, Water Everywhere...How to Get a Drink?" will cover the basics of how to get potable water both with and without available electric power. Hand pumps (suction and deep well), piston pumps, solar pumps, digging your own well, basic plumbing, and wind powered water pumps will all be included.

We're leaving on a week long camping trip tomorrow and I have a job list a mile long to get done before we leave...I still might try to get the machine home before we leave...just to think about rebuilding it while I admire the scenery in our Adirondac campsite.

If you are interested in learning first hand how these wind turbines function you are welcome to come and lend a hand with it reconstruction and erection! Contact me at jsjuczak@gisco.net
or 315 771-7333.

Farm failures and successes

We're new to growing things on the scale we tried this Spring. In offering shares of our farm in a modified CSA (community supported agriculture project) through a local health food store (Green Thyme in Adams Center, NY). There are presently 14 subscribers to our joint venture. We sold "Boxes of Health" in small, medium and large boxes. The boxes include fresh veggies from our 3000' of row crops, veggies and 'certified natural meat & eggs' from my friend Steve Winkler's Lucki7 Farm and Livestock and products from Kelly Widrick's store. Typically, customers get two big bags of greens (cooking and salad), some herbs, garnishes and maybe some rhubarb from us at Woodhenge, a half chicken, a dozen eggs and a pound of some kind of ground meat from Lucki7, and a pound of steel cut oats (or something similar), a bag of organic snack chips from Green Thyme. Pick up is on Friday afternoons. Prices start at $30 per week for the small box.

We have some crops that are growing like crazy- broccoli, cauliflower, greens, onions, cabbage, carrotts, potatoes, sweet potatoes are all doing well...it is the viney stuff that is giving us trouble...wimpy cukes, non-existant mellons, and so-so squashes. I've been buying extra produce from Grindstone Farms in Pulaski to fill out the boxes, we want to keep our customers happy as we learn some of the more complex 'how tos' of the art of farming.

Feel free to contact me at jsjuczak@gisco.net for any questions or comments. Thanks, -Jim-

To the Survivalblog Readers interested in my pump...

Hi fellow survival nuts and preparers!

I'm terrible at replying to questions on my website postings. You are much better off asking me questions by sending them to my e-mail address at jsjuczak@gisco.net. If you are in the Adams Center, NY area feel free to stop in for a tour. The pump plans, my book, and a sample pump are here for your viewing and for purchase. Thanks.

Milling your own flour...

I just got back from a 2 1/2 day whirlwind trip to N. Carolina to help my friend Richard pick up his 16" stone flour mill from a gentleman that rebuilds the nearly 100 year old machines. It was a good, but way too long drive. The mill will be added to the growing pile of tools, machines and equipment that Richard and Aimee Douglass are setting up on their non-electric farm in anticipation of troubled times ahead. Richard is building a horse powered "sweep" that will power an overhead pulley system in his machine shed that will run all of his stationary equipment. A fascinating return to sustainable technology! The mill is circa 1919 and weighs almost 800# and had been returned to new (or better than new) condition for a total price of $6000. New ones that are smaller cost the same and will not last as long.

Surviving the "upcoming" crisis

Okay, the real problem with surviving a crisis often doesn't involve the amount of equipment you have amassed, the bulk supplies you've cached or even the remote location you've prepositioned everything. It is mostly a matter of how you and your family/neighbors/friends are mentally and psychologically prepared to endure and even thrive. There are a lot of good books out there. I highly recommend The Long Emergency (Kunstler), The End of the Oil Age (Savinar) and Peak Everything (Heinberg) if you want to get good and paranoid about an uncertain future. However, instead of curling up under a blanket in your basement you need to be an adult and face life. You aren't going to turn into a mountain man or woman over night. If you actually looked at the lives of the earlier pioneers they were brutal and short. We can, with our knowledge, do much better than they did. The biggest obstacles are our habits and comfort zones. If you can overcome your preferences and prejudices you will thrive. Otherwise you will freeze to death in the dark waiting for "somebody" to bail you out. For there to STILL be people living in FEMA RV parks from the aftermath of hurricane Katrina is beyond comprehension. These people still don't have a plan and the ability to change their ways...they deserve what they get from the government.

I'm rambling...Can you dig into a pile of leaves to sleep when it is cold out? Are you willing to try to eat the "weeds" from your lawn or the field next door to satisfy hunger? Drink freshly harvested goat's milk from the farm down the street? Cook dried beans until they are soft enought to eat? If you need that electric blanket, salad in a sterile bag from the grocery store, chemically processed cow's milk or a bean burrito from Taco Bell then you will be in a world of hurt sometime in the near future.

Take your change one step at a time...I'm sure there are lessons that can be adapted from places like Alcoholics Anonymous or Weight Watchers that would help you here...look for them and adapt.

Start to look at the problems you could face and tick them off one at a time. Short power outages? Buy a generator and learn how to maintain it and preserve it between emergencies...better yet, learn to live without power during those emergencies. You can do a lot with non-electrical and battery powered (buy a solar recharger for those batteries) gear.

Food shortages? Start to stock up on both staples and luxuries that have a long shelf life...one is for calories ant the other is for comfort. "If you eat all of your rice and beans you can have a chocolate bar!" is a good bribe for adults and kids alike.

Have sturdy shoes for every family member...that way you can walk away from problems.
Prepare a pack that has all of life's necessities in it for every family member...that way you can walk away in style. DON"T BECOME A REFUGEE! Leave before "they" make you go.

More to follow!

Solar powered Electrical System to be installed

This Saturday and Sunday (June 13th & 14th) we'll be hosting a solar powered electrical installation seminar here at Woodhenge. Call 315 771-7333 or e-mail me at jsjuczak@gisco.net if you are interested. Cost: $150 will include class text, instruction, some meals and a campsite - under roof lodging is available on a first come first served basis. We will be installing the off-grid system at Phil's underground home at Woodhenge. 20 PV panels, two charge controllers, inverter battery bank, wires, fuses and disconnect switches will all be installed by the class. This will be a great opportuity to see how it is done.

Hope to see some of you there! -Jim-

Sometimes it's the little things...

I talked to one of my kid workers the other day and mentioned the "For want of a nail the war was lost" story. She'd never heard of it. It goes something like: "For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the rider was lost, for want of a rider the message was lost, for want of a message the battle was lost for want of a win the war was lost, all for the loss of a nail." or somethng like that. Learning to be self-reliant invloves looking for "loose nails."

I look at the world and what it could become...there are the bad things, starvation, disease, civil unrest that would result from a rapid change in available energy and then there's the good things, cooperation and friendships with your neighbors, a slower pace, looking at the big picture for what will endure rather than what is the fastest way to solve a problem set. That will take some time to adapt to culturally- in the long run it will be, I hope, for the better.

My mind is still reeling from the prospect of not having a steady, outside employment-type job.
Thank you for those of you that sent me words of support.

-Jim-

Am I crazy? I'm quitting my job of 25 years!

Pump plans, kits and book sales are only netting me $100 a week or so, but that is without much in the way of advertising or publicity. I feel that it will grow. I've been faced with the normal problems of a 50 year old mind and body while trying to do the work of, by conservative estimate, 2 1/2 people. Things are falling apart physically faster than I like...mentally there is the constant strain of trying to keep all of the "plates up and spinning" (there used to be entertainers that would spin up a bunch of plates on long thin sticks...the idea was to get as many plates spinning as they could and then keep moving the sticks to keep the plates spinning...eventually they would hit a point of no return and the bulk of the plates would come crashing down- I like the analogy). Three different people commented that I wasn't so much quitting my teaching job but changing my venue- instead of teaching kids to be prepared for the future I was teaching a wider audience skill sets that are needed RIGHT NOW and in the near future. Okay, I'll buy that. I have my letter of resignation written and will print it and hand deliver it today. The Board of Education for our district meets tonight, so I would be a 'good' employee if I acted prudently.

I was faced with a decision matrix that one of my friends commented that, with five distinct choices, I would be crazy to maintain the least appealing one...continuing the status quo.

It will be an interesting adventure!

Plan sets, scrounging kits and pump kits are available. just e-mail me at jsjuczak@gisco.net
for details.