Waste not, want not...

My book "The High Art and Subtle Science of Scrounging" is self-published and has met with what I'd call a good success rate. Especially considering the fact that I haven't done much in the way of advertising. I know I have to be more creative about getting it more widely known, but time is time and it has a way of running away from me. Sometimes I feel that I'm running from little fire to little fire with no time to look at the big picture.

I just finished reading Robert Kiyosaki's "Conspiracy of the Rich". He is the author of numerous books, the most famous of which is "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" which is now available on-line for free.
He talks about the conspiracy of the richest people to keep the rest of us in servant mode working to get them richer and richer. He also made me realize how poor my financial training has been. Don't get me wrong I had financial training in classes and from my father, but it was just enough to stay a part of the conventional thoughts on money: study hard, get a degree, find a steady job, buy a home, have a diversified investment portfolio, plan for retirement, etc. Not that all of this is bad, but there are so many aspects more to the picture. He points out that owning a home isn't an asset, but almost always a liability...that mutual finds are not the best, nor the safest investment for a reliable retirement.

I've played with some of the ideas he talks about, some of them even before I read his books and the speed with which money came in was scary...scary enough so that I stopped doing them. Now I'm back to considering them again...I'm not talking about scams, but solid business plans that require me to get the big picture and develop a sound business plan. It is funny that I have so much knowledge about all kinds of things, but haven't harnessed the tools to make that knowledge pay for itself. I can write well enough for people to be interested in buying what I write...the trick doesn't end there though...in fact the writing is one of the smallest parts of the profit building formula. The idea is to turn the book(s) into assets by putting them on a kind of
autopilot- Don't get me wrong here, I love getting the cash and checks for $25 in the mail- it is a great motivator to continue to keep writing, but I have to consider other options...
getting the book out as an interactive book on the internet is the next step. I had always intended on writing a sequel or expanded version and have offered free copies of the new version to people that have good scrounging stories to add to the chapters. That offer will still stand.

Now I have to learn how to get the book on line....

The same could be done with my deep well hand pump plans and kits....my golf cart home emergency power supply system and a lot of other good ideas that should be available to people.
Bill W. gave me a copy of Guerrilla Marketing that I have let languish on my shelf for too long. Time to reeducate myself...How does that quote go? "If you keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting things to change then you really are crazy!"

I am now reading reader comments to this blogsite. Please feel free to write a comment or suggestion or even an addition to my scrounging book. I promise to look and probably respond!

On independence and attitude

I rarely publish comments sent to this blogsite. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the published comment, but I do feel obliged to present a wide variety of views. I personally do not think the spankings I received growing up in a family of five children (I'm the oldest) hurt me at all or did anything to me in a long-term physical or sexual sense. I did listen to my psychology professors and education professors really well though. Both were filled with a sense of wonder about the capacity of the human brain to learn and change due to internal and external influences.

They also talked about how the senses are integrated and the 'skewing' of the modern educational system to the extreme on visual and auditory learning above all other senses. I do NOT believe you should beat your kids, but some kind of physical intervention to refocus them on hearing what a parent is telling them IS sometimes necessary. It could be a hug or a 'swat'. In this age of abuse scandals on the part of certain churches is is important to realize that going in the complete opposite direction may have unintended consequences. Having taught in a half-dozen school systems at everything from grade school to senior high, both long term (26 years of full-time teaching should count for something) I can tell you we're raising a nation of zombies! The influence of media compared to the influence of parents and the school is ruining the kids ability to think for themselves. Now I'm not talking about your kids...it is the other kids
I'm speaking of (sarcasm intended here!).

The amoung of information that the past two generations has been bombarded with on a daily basis is causing the split in our society. The big businesses and government that they influence are taking advantage of it with sweeping legislation that are eroding our basic freedoms. Supporting is very different from not knowing or caring. I question kids once a month in my 5-hour prelicensing class about their freedoms given to them by the Bill of Rights, Amendments to the Constitution and the constitution itself...the silence is scary and telling. I may get the exact quote wrong, but "May the chains of slavery rest lightly upon your shoulders as you bow down to lick the hand that feeds you" seems to be the destiny of peoples living in 'these united states'. The only encouraging thing I'm seeing is that there are a lot of states loosening up their restrictions of their carry concealed hand gun laws. On the other hand, a kid bringing a butter knife into school can be suspended for carrying a weapon and need a superintendent's hearing to get back into school! I have never heard of an attack ever carried out with a Boy Scout pocket knife....the only injuries I've ever seen were from my own stupidity with my own pocket knives...and those lessons ARE necessary to teach people the dangers of dull and misused knives.
I would never stop those lessons from being learned by banning things like that. Maybe we should ban wood stoves or hot pots because a little kid can burn his finger on them...maybe we're doing that right now bu teaching microwave use instead of cooking on a stove in Home Economics classes.

There are some rays of hope I do see in my exposures to the youth of today. Kids that have any reasonable contact with their parents every day and home schooled kids both, by and large display a refreshing independence and ability to interact with multiple generations that isn't found in the common students I deal with on a daily basis. They will be the leaders of tomorrow...I hope they lead us well!

How sweet it is! on maple syrup and honey

The survival nut in me always looks for sources of things that won't be available after a major societal collapse. As a type II diabetic sugar is a consistent thought...too much or too little affect my mood and thought processes. We keep a couple of hives of bees..I got into it as a part of my 'get over what you are afraid of' mindset. Plus bees are a great tool for teaching you about working gently with nature. My friend Bruce loaned me a copy of "The Barefoot Beekeeper" and it rekindles my interest in playing with them...besides the honey I extracted a few years back is almost gone and it is time to refill the shelves. Having watched the process of making maple syrup at the FFA Camp Oswegatchie in Croghan, NY a few weeks back and having done a little refining with my middle school kids. I was pleased when Lee took the bull by the horns and used the buckets, covers and taps we'd found while insulating the attic at the local yoga center to tap the trees at the home of our friend Nancy. Lee has made about a half gallon for the season.

I spent a part of yesterday extracting honey from a semi-wild bee hive that had been set up by a swarm of our bees in the roof of our entryway last year. We want to hive these bees and pulled the boards. battens and soffit to get at them. Lee was the brave soul that broke out the chunks of comb that were in the way of the main hive. The stuff we got was not being used...probably abandoned due to the cold as the bees huddled in the central area for warmth for the winter. I used a double boiler arrangement with my canning pot to hold the water and a stainless steel stock pot to melt and separate the honey from the bee debris and wax. I scooped the debris out and dumped it into cardboard egg cartons...I'll use it later as fire starters. I let the wax and honey cool and was able to remove the 2 pounds of wax as a single layer and then poured the honey through cheese cloth into three quart sized canning jars. Not bad at all.

We're going to try to grow a variety of beet this summer that can be juiced and reduced to beet sugar syrup...we'll let you know if that experiment works out. Now to plan the combination sugar shack/smoke house/honey processing facility to add to the hundreds of other projects I want to get done...

On education and children learning

While substitute teaching in a wide range of grades and subjects I've had the opportunity to observe a wide range of teaching and learning behaviors. I've learned a few things. First was just how unusual I must have been as a teacher with my curricula continuously changing and experimenting with differing teaching strategies. My friend Richard D. called last night a bit worried about how people in our "Ark community" were perceiving his rearing of three active boys.

Don't worry these two themes will come together in a bit.

Richard and Aimee are great people- active and thinking minds, certainly well above even the experts in their perceptions of the effects of present day society has on mental and physical health on people, especially kids. They home schooled their three boys until they had a horse and buggy/car accident that left them recovering from a wide variety of severe physical injuries. The community got together and funded the tuition of getting the two older boys into the local private school hosted by the nearby intentional community. The kids did well there, we all noticed changes in their behaviors that we perceived as positive, especially in their ability to socialize...but were our observations correct? or were the behaviors just what we were used to.

Richard and Aimee have a plan for their kids and it doesn't involve getting their kids into the lock-step regimen of present day educational standards. Some of their approach is sort of Montessori-like and some is conditioned response more on par with the old school of learning. Mostly what they did was to allow their kids to explore the carefully arranged world of their home and farm. While their spelling and 'rithmatic might have suffered a tiny bit, their abilities- and I mean all three of the boys!- to problem solve, interact with the natural world, fix things, use tools, and hundreds of other things was hard wired into them. I watched them doing various things around the new property that amazed me, when the oldest wasn't more than 5-years-old
the three of them managed to figure out how to dig out a hay wagon that had 'melted' into the farm field. It involved figuring out just how much soil had to be removed from the front of each of the tires and at what angle, how to set up the levers and fulcrums and where to push to get this 1000 pound+ vehicle moving again. Dad came over and gave one push with them and it was freed! They spent days doing this project. What 'normal' kid has this ability and endurance...the younger brothers took directions and made suggestions (well maybe the 2-year-old was a bit quieter) to take on a project like this. Tree forts, rebuilding bicycles, and tons of other things are constantly going on.

Their parents, like Krista and me, believe we're on the cusp of a major societal change to a much lower energy economy and lifestyle. What good will all of the computer skills in the world do any of our children if they can't fix a window, grow food from seed, kill a chicken, cut and split firewood (let alone build and tend any kind of fire- even a campfire!) and the thousands of other skills needed to survive a difficult future? Education is supposed to prepare you for the future, right? These kids are already there.

They are three active boys and sometimes the message of "don't" doesn't penetrate their ears...and sometimes they get 'swatted' by their parents. What a wimpy world we live in. People will feed their kids into morbid obesity, allow them to watch countless hours of mindless crap and advertisements on the television, i-pod themselves into a catatonic state, nintendo themselves in a world of imaginary life-destructive computer games, yet they object to a well deserved spank on the rear if one boy is hurting his brother and not stopping after a verbal warning. I have a whole philosophy of education on how narrowly our educational system educates the senses and if you are a tacto-kinectic learner and not an auditory or visual learner you are labeled 'special ed.' What a waste of good energy for the sake of passing a standardized test.

The time I've spent in 4 different school buildings over the past few months has been eye opening. As a sub I have the time to observe what the "don't say 'no'" philosophy has done to the kids. Only positive reinforcement (not in the psychological definition of that term...a punch is a positive reinforcement according to my Psych 101 prof) and making them feel good is turning them into a bunch of spoiled whiners. "This is too hard", "This is boring", "I'm not doing this",
and "They have to pass me anyway" are common phrases in every room I've been in. Granted, I'm just the sub, but the quality of education and even the competitive spirit is being diluted to the point that I don't get the point of it all. I guess I got out of the full-time education business just in time, I would have had a break down if I'd have opened my eyes a bit more the last several years of full-time employment. If we are truly looking to compete in the world educational market we need to stop worrying about scores on standardized tests and get the kids back into the art of learning for the sake of learning.

If I were king of the world most schools would lose about 1/3+ of their student populations just to make the educational system better for the rest. What would those 'losers' do...in the words of my daughter "IDK & IDC" (I don't know and I don't care). I worry about the skill sets of our future doctors and mechanics if all they learned was from a 'standardized curricula' and their parents weren't creative enough to expand their horizons. Richard and Aimee have expanded the horizons of their kids probably ten years beyond their peers by 'keepin them down on the farm' and I applaud them for it.

By the way, the kids are enrolled in the local public school right now and even though they 'tested' a year behind their age related peers at the start of the school year they are all at the head of their classes now! Their parents timed the situations perfectly, the boys were 'ripe' for learning rather than being bored or zombified they are eager to learn...how many of you can say that about your kids?

I work with some home schooling groups and just judged the Home Schooler Science Fair. Now there is a group of eager learners! The projects were great, the kids were oddly socialized and I loved it! Do we want cookie cutter kids or independent thinkers...?

"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the curiosity of inquiry." - Albert Einstein

Enough babble!

Bug Out Bag Seminar on April 3rd

I'm offering to host a Bug Out Bag Seminar on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010. It will be from
2pm until 4pm. There are any number of scenarios that could require you to rapidly abandon your
home for 3 or more days. Could you put together the necessities in a few minutes? Probably not; which means that you should have it ready to go. I've been assembling 6 "bug out" bags for several years now. My goal was good quality and inexpensive gear that could be used easily by anyone 12-years-old or older. My bags contain a wide assortment of generic gear suited for a wide variety of potential disasters. There will be a smaller pack that customizes the kit for specific individuals that gets tossed in at the last minute- it contains personal items (identification papers, insurance papers, medicines and data storage for irreplaceable items i.e. family photos and basic clothing). The bigger part of the mail kit has the things you'll need to be independent whether you are living at a friend's home, hotel or in the woods. It includes high calorie, low effort meals for 3+ days. Most of the items, including the backpack totaled under $100!

The cost will be $25/person. Some door prizes and goodies will be given away and a great snack will be served!

Contact me if you'd like to register or have more information at jsjuczak@gisco.net or by calling 315 771-7333

Build your own solar panels

The three day workshop on building your own photovoltaic panels went well. I had around 22 students the first day and 8 the second two days. This was just the right amount to build six 65 watt panels. The wood for the frames and plexiglass had been previously cut, so the kids had to sand, drill, assemble and paint the frame components. Simultaneously we laid out sets of 7 cells and soldered them together. This was fairly easy because the 3" x 6" cells had two pretinned tabs.

The kids had to touch the connection spots on the back of the cells with a flux pen, add a dab of solder to those six points and then solder the tabs from the front of one cell to the six points on the back of the next one in series. We then added some bus wire to the end of each set of seven and hooked 5 sets of 7 cells together. Broken cells, and cells damaged by rough handling accounted for the rejection of around 40 of the cells...MLSolar provided an extra 40 with the shipment...like they knew!

The panels all tested under low light conditions in the cabin we were working in and our first test panel was brought out into the full sunlight and gave us an easy 20+v dc! I'm going to try to post pictures to show you the process. The second workshop will take place at the end of this month and we'll be making a short video of the process. We're going to try to use some double sided tape to keep the cells aligned and a bit more stabilized, some of the damage we had was due to the process of transferring the completed series set of cells from the cardboard to the wooden frame.

The camp was cozy and very easy to use to teach the kids the processes. Bill, Todd, Robin, Jamie and Shari were wonderful hosts. It was fun for me to be a participant rather than the camp cook this time- I learned a lot about how they do things that will save me time and effort the next time I go there.

The second session will have a few more power points and alternative activities to refine the process further. E-mail me if you want to build your own PV panels! jsjuczak@gisco.net I'm also now on Facebook thanks to the careful tutelage of Bill W. on the last evening.

"Be Prepared" & "Do a Good Turn Daily"

I'll be away for three days to teach a group of students and teachers
how to solder up their own photovoltaic panels. I got the solar cells
from a company called MLSolar on the west coast. I picked this company
because they were the first one that actually had a human answer the
phone. The delivery was earlier than expected and the product was
the right price. I got 500 pretabbed 3" x 6" grade "B" cells for $1 each.

In my earlier blogs I talked about bug out bags, learning skills that you
need to be a survivor in a short or long-term area or nation-wide
'problem'. I was thinking of how I began to get into this mind-set and
remembered the things I learned from being in the Boy Scouts. Being
prepared isn't taught as much of a lesson these days...I've been called
a hoarder(sp?) or survival nut. NO, no, no! Because tied with that
preparedness is charity. Would I share enough of my food and other
gear to endanger the long term survival of my family? Probably not.
But we do have enough to share with friends, relatives and neighbors, if
they'd be willing to take it.

Storing a year's worth of food is cheap if you buy basics in bulk...fifty pounds
of dry navy beans cost me something like $22 the last time I bought them.
Rolled oats were $15 for 50 pounds. I vacuum bag the big bags into
smaller packages. My worry is that neither of these foods are 'instant' and
if you don't know what to do with wheat berries to make them edible then
I just wasted my charity. The same with giving someone a spare solar
panel; unless you give them the knowledge and explain the limitations then
your 'good turn' is useless.

I think that is why I still educate people. We may be soldering up solar panels,
but the kids and teachers will also get a presentation on how the entire system
works and what it will be good for.

My daughter, Lisa, doesn't like to eat fish. However, when our friend brought
over a dish of freshly caught pike she tried it and stated that she would eat it
if she had to...that is a big survival step! I believe most people would NOT eat
what I gave them in an emergency unless I had also cooked it...and then maybe
they wouldn't eat it because it wasn't like Macdonalds...I hope not.

Start to gather the skills, tools and attitude to be a survivor...what do you have
to lose? Just a couple of extra boxes or cans of food every time you go shopping
will allow you to build a few weeks of 'emergency rations' fairly quickly. You can
buy a butane fueled camping stove for under $20..it takes up hardly any room
but will allow you to cook if the power is down. LED flashlights make batteries
last a long time...they are available at the dollar stores...for a dollar! Buy extras!
Remember you can be generous!

On being prepared

I worry about a number of scenarios that could leave us, as a society, in a world of hurt. Looking at the really recent past with things like Haiti and Chile's earthquakes as well as disasters of the near past like Katrina and 9/11 I wonder how well we could, as a society, pass through a long term disaster on a nation-wide basis. The numbers of people going to the energy events and sustainable living events isn't increasing that dramatically. THis means that there is a lot of complacency in the US. I substitute 2 to 4 days a week in a local school system and use my time to observe the kids, administrators and teachers (In addition to the teaching work, of course!). I figure that this particular group of people represent a good cross-section of our society...with the comparitively higher education of the faculty is, perhaps, skewed a bit, in favor of people that are more than peripherally of the problems of a technically complicated society. I see nothing in the way of more than minimal preparedness on the part of the teachers and their bosses...even in the way of emergency planning for the school in the event of a local disaster. The kids come to school in clothing that is completely inappropriate for even a short walk (I'm talking 5 miles or less). I can see sandals, shorts and t-shirts being worn by a fair number of kids, even in the middle of the winter! Many kids arrive without a coat and go from the comfort of their parent's car or the school bus with nothing in the way of winter layering.

Nowhere in any of the districts I go to have I seen long-term, simple survival being taught. One of the reasons I left teaching as a full-time career is frustration with the lack of practical instruction on any level. Shop class is down, in most cases, to fun little practical science experiments...no formal woodworking, plumbing, engine repair, welding and construction. Home Economics is not teaching anything 'from scratch'...it looks like the kids are taught how to use the microwave more than the stove (which is inevitably electric). "Nobody left behind" is really "Everybody dragged along". It dilutes the curricula for the smarter kids.

None of the cars, to my observation, have any kind of emergency equipment ready to go. I'm not talking about sleeping bags and food, just things like road flares and 'fix-a-flat'. I worry a bit about the 'golden hoard' , but only a bit. I think a lot of people will just sit in their homes during a long-term disaster waiting for the government to bring them a hand-out until it is too late. That, in a sad way, makes me feel a lot more secure. Anyone with a lick of sense IS already prepared or preparing and will be on an equal basis with me and ready to barter and trade, not to try to invade.

Enough ranting...contact me if you want to explore this issues further...jsjuczak@gisco.net
Let's prepare together!