Rodney Polden

I wish this package was available as a set of DVD's.  Some of us are in situations where DVD's provide much better and more durable, long-term access to the info you are offering.  Any chance of that?  DVD's plus printed plans would be my much-preferred option.
Thanks for what you're doing.

Starting from scratch on my place when much younger (in my 70's now), I had to learn how to do most tasks single-handed, and without electricity for quite a while.  I still value tools that are multi-functional, as lightweight as possible without losing strength, and hand-powered rather than petrol or electric. So, a "come-along" as it's known in Canada (essentially a lightweight, use-anywhere, hand cable winch) has seen use for everything from hoisting timbers into place to erecting and tightening fencing, shifting small boulders, persuading a tree to fall where it needs to go when being felled... you get the picture? It's a simple force multiplier, good for those of us not built like a horse.

I learnt a lot from the expression "The more you know how to do, the fewer tools you need to do it with," a maxim from the bushcraft way of thought.  A tool, even if somewhat expensive, that can do quite a range of tasks and still fits in your pocket, ends up being cheaper and more useful than ten tools that are all back at the house/workshop.  So maybe it will be helpful for you to take a look at the range of Leatherman or equivalent hand-tools that can replace or extend many of the single-function screwdrivers, pliers, wirecutters, and similar. You may well need to buy some of those screwdrivers etc later on anyway, but it's very helpful having a single tool that can fix or adjust a great many things, and is quickly available to you, in your pocket etc.  Same with eg a "Swiss Army knife".

Since I have a lot of trees on my forested land (Gulf Islands of Canada), there's always a need for a saw that can handle many of the everyday tasks without all the weight, noise, petrol and hassle of fetching a chainsaw. Your mentions of coppicing and pollarding made me think of the two saws that have really helped me greatly: a folding saw, easy to carry and under 1 lb in weight, from the Japanese 'Silky' range called Bigboy 360. Since it cuts on the pull stroke rather than the push, it uses a much thinner blade (14 1/2" long) for a narrower kerf. This way, it is extremely swift cutting with little effort, even in maple. With a longish, grippy handle the same length, it's comfortable for two-handed use, so much less tiring for extended work. It's comparable in speed of cutting with my battery-powered Makita recip. saw with a 10 or 12" blade, but less weight and no vibration.  I also use the smaller Silky folding saw with ~7" blade, sold with a compact plastic holster to carry on your belt - very handy for many tasks.

The other saw, useful for tree work, is a long-handled extending  lopper/saw for pruning and branch cutting. The telescoping handle extends to around 11 ft long, with a pulley-equipped secateur-like action at the head operated by a cord.  Beside that is a curved 14" saw-blade that can cut through decent-size branches, maybe 10-12" dia. Best of all, your feet can stay safely on the ground for much of the work.  The length of handle is useful too in permitting a much greater range of angles and locations for the operator, even if up higher and on a ladder.  Being able to stay well away from the path of a falling branch is a benefit itself.  The tool is still quite light and manoeuverable, since the handle is tubular.
The coated sawblade is quite quick cutting, and the tool weight with the extended handle helps keep the saw in the kerf, for long and smooth strokes without extra effort.

I have a number of Makita power tools, both corded and battery-powered, and have been very satisfied with their affordability, durability and ruggedness, having built my family home and studio with them. No complaints there.  

For a couple of decades, I have not bothered with splitting firewood unless it was unavoidable. These days, I bring in the firewood I heat my home with, sometimes also cook on, in the form of Douglas fir poles up to 6-8" dia. and whatever length is easy to drag or carry to the house from the forest. Once I have a pile of poles, I place my Makita chopsaw on a sawhorse bench, feeding each pole into it and cutting to length for the wood cookstove or the open-hearth fireplace.  It is so much less work, both in ease of transport and in labour of splitting. The less handling required, the greater the efficiency of the whole operation.  My petrol chainsaw still gets used occasionally, and my corded electric chainsaw also, but much less these days than previously. The noisy work with the chopsaw is brief and all completed in a short bout of work for most of the winter season's needs. Instead of lugging the saw around to the trees, the trees come as slimmer poles to the saw near the house, where they'll be cut to length and stacked to dry.  My ridgetop land is hit by the full force of gales that constantly prune the forest of both big branches and skinny trees, so there's plenty of firewood without the need to kill living trees here.

The suggestion for a long 'n strong iron bar (chisel-ended or pointed) is one I'd agree with - its weight can be an asset for some tasks, both in digging holes and as a pry-bar, as well as moving rocks.
If you find you need to move tree trunks or heavy timbers around single-handed, then a peavey may be a worthwhile addition to your tools. It's amazing to see what a not very big human can do with a peavey, once a little practice has given some hints about fulcrums, pivots, rollers and inclined ramps.

A draw-knife for de-barking and shaping/smoothing wood is a tool worth having also.
A good safe extending ladder that can be relied upon is important, particularly when you are working alone much of the time.... and please keep your hips between the uprights!  Maybe another post will have to address the ladder topic, once you have decided what kinds of tasks will require one.

Best of luck with your project. It will be interesting to read of any of your future experiences that you feel like sharing. Stay safe, and enjoy your new horizons and neighbours - they both sound hopeful.

Interesting thread on raptors, thanks all.

I have a few comments regarding nest boxes for at least the ones in my local area (Gulf Islands of BC).
In my immediate vicinity, I see or hear routinely Bald Eagles, Osprey, Sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks, occasionally Red-tailed hawks too.  Turkey vultures live here too in large numbers for much of the year, sometimes returning from the south as early as January or February these days. They're very secretive with nest sites, but they seem to use secluded ledges on the steep rock cliff that runs through my forested ridgetop land, well away from danger of dogs or humans.  And as was said previously, turkey vultures are not raptors.

The eagles need really big trees (Douglas-fir locally) since their nests can exceed a ton or more in weight.  The Sharp-shinned hawk that's been here a long while is presumably nesting at ground level on a rocky bald, since I see it take off when disturbed by human presence.

With the arrival here some years back of capable, aggressive and prolific Barred owls, the populations of the smaller owls have taken quite a hit. Western Screech owls were widespread but have become a rarity, as too for Saw-whet owls.  The latest increase in owl numbers has been in Great Horned owls, now with so many to be heard after dusk on winter nights that I recently recorded five individuals calling to advertise their occupancy all at the same time - two mated couples and a single male seeking a mate. They were all within just a few hundred yards of each other, as I captured their calls from outside my front door.  They will tackle any prey available including all the smaller owls, cottontails, even sick fawns and raccoons. Mostly their focus is on rodents though.

A local favourite is the Northern Pygmy owl, who despite their diminutive size, will haul away fat mice and small birds (juncos etc) grabbed near a seed feeder.  They are remarkable hunters (in daylight too) and quite fearless, even around humans.  In the case of the Pygmy owls, it seems the best way to support them is with a well-fed junco population, since they are probably the commonest species here for much of the year.  A couple of Pygmy owl boxes are waiting for me to find the right, out-of-the-way locations to be installed on trees.  Don't underestimate though, the challenge of getting any but the smallest of nest-boxes up and well positioned safely into a tree location. Take it slowly and plan which hand is going to be free to do what, especially when working on a tall ladder.

Since Great Horned owls are no doubt less common elsewhere, maybe in your area a nest site can be provided this way : Find a large deciduous tree such as a spreading maple etc (maybe multi-stemmed)  and create a shallow triangular platform supported between three of the stems.  This 'platform' is just to carry the considerable weight of branches, leaves and moss the owls themselves will bring to the platform once they discover it.  You can help start them off by putting a small amount there just to disguise the platform once completed.
If you use a wire mesh base such as 2" stucco wire attached to cable, strong wire or such along the edges, between the tree-stems, you'll need to find a way to prevent long-term damage to the tree by using stainless steel screws etc., not galvanised or plated. Otherwise you'll kill the tree eventually. It should be like a shallow saucer to support the natural materials.
The platform must be well-supported since it may be used over many seasons, and they'll bring in much material which, when wet will be a heavier load.  Needs to be installed between 15 and 45 feet up in the tree.

The Barn owl needs all the help it can get, as safe and dry nest sites are ever harder to find for them. If you live in meadow or rough pasture areas that have good populations of voles or mice, then it likely is or was Barn owl habitat, and could be so once again.  A good Barn owl nest-box design is here:
https://fraservalleyconservancy.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/How-to-build-and-install-barn-owl-nest-box.pdf

The Barred owl though has been such a disaster for the survival of the smaller and less 'hungry' owl species, that I'd suggest instead focussing on good, predator-proof nest-box construction & installation solely for birds, such as the smaller owls, that really need it. Where I live, Barred owls are more or less an invasive species, out-competing all but the Great Horned, and both of them significantly reducing other types of owl.

To help raptors in your own specific area, it's better to get reliable info from local/regional or national conservancy organisations on which species are in decline and need a hand, rather than relying on a "woodworker crafts" organisation for their suggested projects.  Information too, on what actually works for the birds themselves - adults and young - has greatly improved the designs of nest boxes in recent years, so both the recommended dimensions as well as other features have changed in the past few years.  Particularly, techniques for reducing predation by larger species on smaller ones have greatly improved, with appropriate opening sizes and small baffles included to prevent access to the nestlings by predators. It's certainly worth the time to research raptors' needs, before starting cutting the wood.  
Both Audubon Society and Cornell ornithology dept. (Cornell Bird Lab? maybe..?) have excellent resources worth checking out.
Also   allaboutbirds.org

And of course, particularly for the nocturnal raptors, enjoy spending some time outside under dark skies just standing quietly to listen to what owls are in your region - you may be surprised at how many different calls can be heard.  With their phenomenal hearing and vision, they may know very well that you are present, before you know they are, so be as quiet as possible, and patient.  Winter through spring are often good times, as many owls start establishing their breeding territory quite early, and so the pair often call together to tell other individuals to space their chosen territory far enough away. None of them are looking for conflict necessarily - just looking for each to have their own space without disputes.  They already have a big enough task raising their brood, without needing additional hassle from encroachments and conflict.  

Merlin, a free bird ID app for Sound ID as well as visual identification, is a great resource that will help you know which species are living around you.
https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/sound-id/

All kinds of species really benefit from big older snags and dying trees being retained and left to fall by themselves in their own good time, if they're not actually hazardous to people or property.  For wildlife a dead tree is often more valuable than a live one, and so many of them get cut down for no good reason that birds, red squirrels and a thousand other species who depend on dead/dying trees for nesting-habitat and food are getting severely depleted unnecessarily.

Hope this helps.

In more or less mainstream North America, the standard ways of handling domestic liquid waste are so nearly uniform, that most of us don't even question what goes in and what comes out.  But the plumbing of the human body and our daily use of water for purposes other than drinking are of course not closely matched to each other. We mostly have one waste stream out of our homes that carries everything, so that typically huge amounts of valuable, potable water are consumed just to transport a comparatively tiny amount of "dirt" - from baths, showers, kitchen sinks, laundry etc.  The more that the different waste streams from the different functions can be physically separated, the more easily and efficiently we can reduce the amount of water that's wasted, reduce the pollution we cause into our close environment, safeguard health consequences, and even retain the valuable nutrients of different kinds that are otherwise flushed away.

I installed a central composting system (Sun-Mar's Centrex 3000) when I was building a home for my family in 1983, that is in use today. That handles "black water" waste (pee+poo) with a very small additional quantity of water, 1-2 cupfuls/flush, from two SeaLand toilets (used in boats, RV's). Toilet paper is well composted in the unit's composting drum. All other waste (tampons, wipes, Kleenex etc) goes in garbage.  A small amount of bulking material is added to the drum every few days, chopped hemp stalk.

Local building regulations permitted me to reduce slightly the extent of the conventional drain-field used with the septic tank system, but I opted to stay with the regulat size - the difference was minimal, and avoided future complications. With no toilet waste in the septic system, and less cleaners, detergents, grease (we're vegetarian), or other contaminants, the septic tank maintains a good 'digesting' function, meaning it has a very long cycle between needing pump-out (decades).

Potable water is a majorly important issue on the quite small island I live on, so protection of that resource - not wasting, not polluting - has always been a motivation.  Reducing total quantity of water used is desirable of course, but so is reducing total quantity of contaminants of every type that goes into the greywater stream, whether in terms of grease, dish and laundry detergents, shampoos, soaps, bodycare products.  Every item or product "used up" or "thrown away" ultimately has nowhere else than "the environment" to end up in, of course.  So reduction of consumption is key.  

So is making good use of whatever methods are available that transform the "bad stuff" into "good" stuff, which means mostly biological action of one kind or another.  That can be in a septic tank, in a wetland which helps purify and transform water with nutrients into potable-grade water, as well as in other biological systems designed and installed to deal with specific domestic waste-streams or nutrient-streams.  An evapotranspiration bed is an example of one such of the latter, and an online search will no doubt lead you to useful examples.  Since some compost-toilet systems still have a small amount of leachate to be dealt with, from occasional heavy use or overflow contingencies, a contained evapotranspiration bed can be very helpful to turn that limited amount of water + nutrients into vegetative growth of grasses & forbs etc, water vapour and oxygen.

Last thought - it's a good idea to take as much care with creating systems to "get rid of" both water and "waste" leaving our homes, as we do in the systems we put in place for bringing that water and those nutrients into our home for consumption.  A great deal of what we treat as waste is really just biological nutrients that we (society) cannot be bothered to handle well enough for them to carry on around the cycle in places that they are actually helpful.  In consequence, waterways, lakes and wetlands around the world are too often being almost destroyed by algal blooms due to those nutrients accumulating undealt-with in the wrong places.  Wetlands and intact vegetated watersheds are a critically necessary part in us all having safe water supplies into the future.  Just tipping raw untreated grey water on the ground soon turns into a real problem, if not for the person doing it, then for everyone and everything downstream from it.

'Hope something of this is helpful to you.

A minor point worth considering in this discussion is that the accumulative effects of many (most) in the population contributing substances they may not realize have enduring effects in the environment, could be as significant as one person using a certain drug for a short period. On the small island where I live, our primary water source for the community (those not on wells), a 'pristine' and fairly remote lake among the forests, was tested for the degree of (unauthorized) swimming affecting water quality.  The levels of residues - principally hormonal compounds from birth control pills and also caffeine - convinced the community, regretfully, that the entire lakeshore area had to be fenced to prevent the uncontrolled degree of escalating public use of the lake, largely by off-island campers and visitors who, I guess, had never thought of holding their pee until away from the lake.  The accompanying fire-risk to both lake and forests clinched the decision, despite the great expense.

I imagine most folks would not even consider coffee and the pill as likely to go further than their own digestion, but the fact they are both present in measurable concentrations despite massive dilution tells us something about even lake-scale environmental bodies, when an entire population is routinely ingesting these two very common substances.  I guess we have to consider pretty much everything that we ingest not strictly for nutrition but rather for its EFFECT on the body, as being worth taking into account after leaving our tail end too.  

I have run a household scale composting-toilet system in my family's home for all our humanure needs for 37 years now, using a SunMar central composting unit (Centrex 3000 currently) from two bathrooms on floors above.  It has a large rotatable composting chamber, and rotation causes the material to move progressively along the horizontal drum until it exits into "The Doghouse" - a sizable bin, which can then be emptied into my enclosed dedicated composting bins a few times a year.  Apart from poo, pee and toilet paper, the only addition is small amounts - a few cupfuls - of chopped hemp stalk (CompostSure) every few days into one or other of the very-low-flush toilets (Dometic SeaLand units).  The system can handle regular household use by 4-6 people, or occasional use by up to say 10-12, since it has a sufficient mass of material that it's not subject to the same swings as a small unit, particularly fluid excess, which can all too easily happen.

To have a system that doesn't demand any handling or turning of the waste or constant maintenance is worth a lot in terms of quality of life, believe me - after a long involvement with these processes, I'm happy to have a system sufficiently oversized for my needs that reduces stresses and greatly extends how well-composted the material will have become by the time it emerges from the chamber.  Slow ageing at cooler temperatures year-round ensures that waste is totally inoffensive (to me, at least) by the time it gets dug out of the hatches at the base of my garden compost bins. In total that might be a couple of years, in the drum, in the doghouse bin and in the garden compost bin

To ensure a high degree of confidence about the safety of the composted waste, my humanure waste stream continues breaking down in separate compost bins from my normal garden+kitchen compost stream, enabling me to choose and assess what and when to put on food plants, what on flower beds, and on the native plants I raise for pollinators and Garry oak habitat restoration.

Key elements for a system like this are a) to limit the liquid input, which can otherwise be problematic if you need to deal with waste from more than one toilet, requiring a small amount of flush to transport it to the central unit. My system now uses no more than about a cupful or so of water per flush; b) limit carefully what guests and others put into the system beyond human waste and TP - tampons, pads, wipes, cigarettes!, toys, recycling, plastic -  no, please, really no;  c) excess liquid leachate from the chamber needs a constant piped route to a properly-sized, dedicated, evapo-transpiration bed (SunMar website offers a sample design).  For years I relied on a French drain soakaway type of pit, and only realised how inadequate that was by the changes/damage to nearby trees, moss-beds and shrubs.  I'm on near-bedrock, ridgetop land, which exacerbated that issue, but it seems to be a common problem in many places, if there's no reliable way for excess fluid to be taken up and sequestered by plant growth.  It needs to work in all seasons of course, from snow to baking heat.  
'Hope some of this is useful to someone in this wonderful permies community.

A little late to this conversation, but maybe someone else will make use of the following info anyway.
Having lived off-grid and in more remote locations (Hebrides, British Columbia, and elsewhere) for a few extended periods, relying on only candles & oil-lamps, I know there are a few important points regarding candles (and other non-electric lighting) that have been missing from the discussion here. I'll put them as succinctly as I can:
*  Beeswax is definitely preferable to paraffin wax candles for air quality. Paraffin wax may contain heavy metal residues among other contaminants, so should be at least given some ventilation, if not avoided.
*  As important as what you burn is how you burn it. Candles shouldn't be visibly smokey if burnt right. That means the flame needs to be as still as possible, not wickering, flickering, changing in size constantly. If available, a glass chimney that allows inflow of air at the base as well as outflow of hot air etc at the top, will go a long way to reduce any draughts that cause those problems. If the candle is in a 'quiet' spot and not subjected to much air movement, the burning environment at the flame permits temperatures locally that more fully combust the fuel. Much more light results also.
*  One cause of a smoking candle is if the wick is either the wrong size or not braided in the right way. If makiing your own candles, I suggest initially buying  wick from an outfit that knows what they are selling. If braiding your own wicks, learn the correct technique.  Properly braided wick material is made to not stand straight up, but to have a small curve.  In this way the tip of the wick remains within the actual flame and doesn't protrude outside the hottest part of it. That both burns the wick away at the right pace, and also ensures that the liquid wax it is wicking up to feed the flame is delivered to where it will be fully combusted.
*  The hottest part of the flame is not closest to the candle or wick, but in a mantle around and above the very central, slightly cooler part of the flame. Further outside and above that hot envelope of flame, temperatures reduce again of course.
* If a candle flame has a visible sharp tip extending up outside the hottest part, maybe looking a bit smokey or brownish, dipping up and down too, then it's not burning the fuel fully, so you're just getting less light and more smoke. The cause is usually from the wick being too long, wrong thickness, or not braided right.
* In an earlier era, correct braiding of wicks wasn't known, so then they would need repeated trimming with scissors etc to remove excess wick that didn't stay hot enough to burn away.  If you pinch out or snuff a candle it's a good idea to snip any charred excess length, so that when re-lit it will burn cleanly from scratch. You can even nip it off with fingertip and nail, leaving just an appropriate length for diameter of candle.
*  When buying wick material let the supplier know what diameter candle it is for, so you get the right thickness. A 2" square candle will need a slightly thicker wick than a 2" diameter round candle, to burn properly.

Same principles also apply to an oil-lamp, needing its wick to be raised or lowered carefully to keep the flame right-sized and clean-burning, giving good white light, with a soot-free glass chimney. Any time soot accumulates on the glass, it means the wick is either adjusted too high or needs to be trimmed smoothly (not square across the top, but in a gentle arc, higher in the centre). Before lighting, make sure the wick is slightly damp with fuel, not totally dry. Once it's lit & has had a chance to settle, gently wind the burning wick lower till the point is reached where there's a clean flame without smoke. Too low gives insufficient light, too high makes smoke.  Hollywood has yet to learn how to adjust an oil lamp it seems, with so many awful sooty lamps in period movies now, because almost no-one has had any experience of a life without electricity, I guess.

Much better lighting results come from using an Aladdin or other patent oil lamp that has an incandescent mantle. Much brighter, whiter light, very steady and usable to light a room.  Occasionally one is to be found that's in good shape, maybe even with the pretty patterned-glass diffusing globe still intact.  Worth hanging on to and caring for..