!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Quarter Moon Pinehowl Campstead Blog

Boozhoo from the Pinehowl Campstead, a reality adjacent to any community experience you are likely to be familiar with. Many moons ago a seed was cast into what remains of the 'wilderness' in the land sun-ward of Gichigami, or South of Lake Superior as those inclined toward European culture normally refer to it. That same demographic would mostly view what has resulted here as some sort of social weed, but the enlightened audience of Permies may prefer to view it as something akin to permaculture. A more sideways view might see it as the conflicted bastard child of globalism and localism.

Earlier efforts to relay progress and aspirations for this project were made here and here. These initial attempts to present a cohesive view of the endeavour proved unsuitable over time. As an individual attempting to bootstrap a unique community, the idea of presenting it in a concise post of words and pictures didn't fit with the goal of adopting and advancing the real world activities required. I ended up spending time on physical tasks and letting promotion of the general project sit on the back burner.

Numerous discussions have been held with interested seekers, but it seems without a critical mass most are reluctant to chance the leap into unsure territory. The question becomes, what does it take to find those who are willing to pierce the ineffable fog shrouding the path to the ethical development needed to guide humanity back to a responsible relationship with nature? Or, barring that, who wants to live a simple, fulfilling life and not worry about pretentious word salads that get tossed about on utopian web logs?

This blog version will simply focus on establishing a cycle of communication concerning status of the project. I'm starting at the idea of an update every quarter moon. We'll see how it goes.

If anyone has interest in working with the project, please reach out with a PM. Arrangements are being made for spring to accommodate those interested in going through the moccasin camp experience next year, and other arrangements will be considered on an individual basis.

As an example of works done so far, I did document the building of a Rocket Mass Heater for the first yurt (yupee). Dubbed Rusty the dragon with the help of a young acolyte, it is providing a comfortable living environment heading into it's third winter...

Good stuff! I can echo much of what you wrote from similar standing and orientation with a ~4 year new effort on beautiful semi-wild, long neglected land in far north California, which holds lots more to offer currently than people to embrace it. Glad to hear I'm not THAT eccentric or misguided

I take it you'd like this to be a personal record thread as your project evolves, so I'll steer commentary and discussion elsewhere. But good on you for persevering in a principled manner, I too believe this is important foundational work that will only grow in relevance and appeal - assuming all manner of inevitable pitfalls are nimbly dodged, hah! Thanks for sharing the journey.

I am not sure if the realization that winter does not start for another week and a half is inspiring or intimidating. The first year living here in the yupi (my hybrid yurt/tipi) was a very mild winter- not very cold and almost no snow. Last year fall seemed to portend a return to harsher weather with a cold, snowy December, but the rest of the Winter mellowed out some. This year, the end of November and beginning of December have been even more extremely winter like. But after last year, I'm curious to see if the pattern of oscillating temperatures will repeat. I looked a bit into the El Nino/El Nina phenomena last year, but don't have personal resources to devote to grasping a new branch of knowledge.

I did finish mounting insulation on the yupi this week. While working at an organic cranberry bog this fall, I diverted large cardboard sheets from pallets of incoming materials that were destined for their burn pile. I removed the canvas from the yupi frame and stapled a layer of the cardboard around the outside of the frame, being careful to shingle them top to bottom to shed any water that seeps through the canvas (don't ask how I discovered this need). Then I did the same on the inside. The corrugated cardboard sheets have ~1/8" thickness, and the roof rafters (uni) give a 1 1/2" of air gap between them. I have no idea how this might translate into R-value, but it makes a huge difference for inside comfort. The first year, with random blankets and sleeping bags stapled up around the interior, I could only raise the interior temps about 30* above ambient, and they quickly fell once the RMH was extinguished. Although the bench under the bed was still warm in the morning, the air temp was usually just above freezing. Now, when I'm running the RMH hot enough to cook dinner on the barrel, I've essentially created a sweat lodge, with room temp measured close to the wall at knee level reaching up around 90 by the end. Air temp has been around 30-40* above ambient in the morning. It feels more like an old farmhouse than a yurt, a little chilly on frigid nights, but very livable with plenty of fresh air. All major constituent elements of the structure are of natural materials.

Of course an ongoing concern is firewood supply. I've built up my own stock here, but am also supplementing it by purchasing more. All my wood is conifer (mostly pine), but I have a friend local that sells face cords of well seasoned hardwood for a good price so I'm buying that while building up my own reserves more gradually. When I spend the entire day at home and run the RMH, it has been averaging 3 banana boxes of wood (1/3 soft, 2/3 hard) on the colder days. It has been a few weeks since temps were above freezing, and morning lows have been in the teens or single digits, with a few brief spells below zero already. One of these days I'll calculate what those boxes add up to in the long run, but last year I ended up burning 5 face cords of hardwood, 1.5 of pine, plus an occasional load of sticks when I went around to gather other stuff lying around.

After the limited snow the past two years, this past month has been a surprise as it has snowed frequently. It seems I haven't gone more than 3 days without having to brush off the truck, tents, and solar panels. It has been dry, light snow each time, but very regular. Hopefully it will serve to insulate the roots of various perennials I've recently started on the hugel and other places.

Yesterday was our Homesteader Club meeting nearby in Rhinelander. I took the pickup for the trip because I had just found an electric stove on the free page of the local Craigslist, and it was along the route. The gentleman was helpful in loading the stove into the truck and graciously accepted my gesture of gratitude in the form of a bottle of homebrewed cider. It looks like a simple, low power stove/oven- perfect in case I upgrade the batteries on the solar power system and have space for it in the outdoor kitchen, but regardless the main thing is I now have a sheet of high temperature glass to install in a rocket cooktop/oven once I'm ready to work on that.

My biggest free time project right now is advancing toward spring construction of new structures. I'd like to put up a second yupi and 2 or 3 wigwam/longhouse inspired storage spaces. Putting together the frames of these should be pretty easy, but assembling the covers for structures has been the sticking point to date. I bought a couple bolts of lightweight canvas when I started out here and was able to use an old sail cloth sewing machine to assemble the yupi cover I have now, but have been searching for another way to sew large, heavy cloth since then. A local leather worker suggested buying a Singer 404 slant needle as they used to be in many school home economics departments and are now widely available on eBay for cheap. I picked one up for $80 shipped, but am now on my 5th or 6th session with it trying to figure out how to make it work. The bobbin shuttle is not picking up the thread so I'm seeking out the leather worker for guidance.

Ben Brownell wrote:Good stuff! I can echo much of what you wrote from similar standing and orientation with a ~4 year new effort on beautiful semi-wild, long neglected land in far north California, which holds lots more to offer currently than people to embrace it. Glad to hear I'm not THAT eccentric or misguided :)

I take it you'd like this to be a personal record thread as your project evolves, so I'll steer commentary and discussion elsewhere. But good on you for persevering in a principled manner, I too believe this is important foundational work that will only grow in relevance and appeal - assuming all manner of inevitable pitfalls are nimbly dodged, hah! Thanks for sharing the journey.

I'm guessing you won't echo much of this latest installment, you being in norcal. I'm also sorry to inform you that I'm no standard to find exception to being eccentric/misguided by, but am likely to be available to commiserate should problems grow too large.

Discussion in this thread is quite welcome, as long as it doesn't drag on about ideas not related to the goings on at Pinehowl. I think comparisons to similar ventures would be very interesting. Do you have your own project thread?

Deal, happy to aim for mutual uplift and/or sympathy as needed!

Actually I do get a taste of winter in my vicinity, being located above one of three major rivers that crosses the Cascade crest allowing much colder interior air/weather to 'leak' out West. Touched 2F last winter...although yes, generally above freezing most days and little accumulating snow.

This year has been a process of reorienting my game plan somewhat and trying some different angles of outreach, both locally and further reaching. I summarized that here a few months ago, and haven't advanced much since in terms of finding enthusiastic engagement:

https://permies.com/t/287020/Join-creative-rewilding-community-trial

Might work toward a more structured apprenticeship program next year where people could learn by building, and have use of the space provisionally thereafter, similar to programs running here (Permies). Lots of very affordable land nearby too, where people could then plant themselves longer term if desired. We'll see! I will do a little better end of year recap either in the above thread or a new one more like your blog format here.