Alexandra Malecki made it to PEP2! What happens next?

Welcome,
A month ago, I was talking to an elder farmer and he said that you have to be as good at marketing as you are at farming to make a living at it. I think about my desire to be matched well to an ‘Otis’ or ‘Otessa’ and subsequently my dread of becoming more public to the internet as a means of marketing myself. I prefer to be a private person and not have much on the internet but I’d also like to do what it takes to be successful at the SKIP program. So, I’m here trying to market myself in hopes that by the time I reach PEP 2, I will be contacted by an Otis/Otessa with land, infrastructure, and tools.

I hope to continue the legacy of an Otis/Otessa’s permaculture system so that my family and I can enjoy the gifts of fruit trees planted long ago, soil built over decades, and a small part of this planet that has been stewarded and loved.

Currently, I’m 80% to PEP2. This seems like I still have a way to go since, at this point, I have completed 291 BBs. However, I currently have ~10 more BBs to go (depending on how many points my BBs are awarded) since most of the last tasks are Wood or Straw level tasks. These few remaining tasks require a lot more time investment or correct seasonality to complete.

A bit of backstory:
I found out about SKIP around 4-5 years ago when I supported Paul’s SKIP kickstarter. At the time, I relished the idea of doing SKIP instead of college as a viable pathway in life for my kids. I never thought that I’d do SKIP since I was already too deep into the corporate and already paid off my loans to get my Mechanical Engineering degree. I also have a family and doing SKIP seemed like a program targeted toward teenagers and young 20s.

For so many reasons, I need to get out of the city. I want to live toxic free, close to nature, grow and forage my food and medicine, raise animals, build rockets and other natural structures, build community, mental and spiritual well-being, and more. I knew I needed a plan to make large changes in my family’s lifestyle before my kids get too old to grow up in a more healthy, natural environment.

Two winters ago, I was working the numbers and timeline to see how much more I’d need to save to get out of the city and start a life in the country. Option 1: raw land, move now? That didn’t seem like a viable plan; it would be too radical to get buy-in from my family. Option 2: whatever we can afford that already has infrastructure, move now. This option sounded like settling for a non-permaculture property; would it be better to start at nothing? Option 3: keep working my corporate job, save more for a better permaculture property, move later when kids are older? I’d rather accelerate the timing. But wait, was I actually ready to move? Did I actually have the skillsets I needed to start homesteading?

That’s when I thought about SKIP and the structured means of building skills, confidence, and property by the end. Suddenly SKIP seemed like the perfect program for me.


Thanks to SKIP, I’ve pushed myself out of my comfort zone and have accomplished so much! Here are a few links to some of my favorite BBs and why:
1)  https://permies.com/p/3109385 and https://permies.com/p/2962594. This past spring I built a rocket season extender with a hügelkultur on top. This was a significant project. I tested out new design aspects, built bigger hugels than before, and planted it differently than I have before. The rocket has a clean combustion within 5 mins, the integrated cold start works without leaking smoke, and the growies are so lush and layered. I can’t wait to see how this system continues to perform over time!
2) https://permies.com/p/2509584 This was my first time operating large machinery and I had so much fun! I’m eager to make a hügelkultur maze similar to Allerton Alley at Wheaton Lab one day. Having competency with an excavator makes this dream viable!
3)  https://permies.com/p/3110622 I subsequently gained a large amount of respect for the amount of maintenance required to use large machinery. I’m glad I had this experience.
4)  https://permies.com/p/2521931 I never thought that I would ever fell a tree and this was a very exhilarating experience!
5)  https://permies.com/p/2938754 This 3-log bench now rests in front of my home and I love how beautiful it is. I feel so proud of this project!
6)  https://permies.com/p/3433881. I’m currently working on a rocket oven, this required a lot of cutting, welding, grinding, and burning my skin. I suppose as I continue to practice these skills, I won’t burn my skin as much. I’ve had to learn a lot about metalworking, masonry, cob and fibers, and perseverance. I’m nearly done with this build and I’m so excited to host a pizza party soon! I’m thinking I should probably also take a welding class. I’ve really enjoyed building various rockets and talking to people about rockets. I can see myself continuing to develop my skillsets in building rockets as a right livelihood. I get excited thinking about the possibility of traveling for rocket workshop builds as a family business one day.


Currently, I homeschool my elementary-aged children who are 10 and 8 years old. My husband works a virtual job as a Mechanical Engineer and is an aspiring woodworker/craftsman. I would prefer to start transitioning my family and I to the country as soon as possible. The photo attached below is the most recent family photo I have from my birthday in March. It’s a bit blurry but I also don’t love the idea of posting photos of my children online.


I’m grateful to Paul and Mike for creating the SKIP program and hosting the SKIP event last summer. I’m grateful to all of the permies volunteers for supporting the program. Thank you!


What’s next for this thread? I’ll give updates on my last ~10 BBs until I get to PEP2! Perhaps I’ll think of new things to add or perhaps someone has questions for me? Maybe this thread will end with my family and I getting to move out into the country to homestead!  

Hey Alexandra, it has been really impressive to watch your progress! I appreciate that you have been doing some of the bigger projects for your friends.

Thanks for your post, Jeremy, and for taking so much of your time to review so many of my submissions!

Most of the bigger BBs I’m not able to do at my suburban house so I feel like I’m the lucky one who has a few permaculture friends who welcome me to do these projects on their land. I love that I get to bring my kids and husband to visit and stay on these permaculture farms. Mostly, I benefit greatly from the collaboration. One of my friends gives me the kindest constructive feedback: "listen, Alex, I see what you’re trying to do and I’d like to empower you, try this and that instead.”

Funny timing to see your response Jeremy because I was just taking a break from working on my rocket oven and thought about adding to this thread. I was just mixing cob when some straw sliced my finger open. I put some cut rescue powder on it and I’m amazed by how well this stuff works! See first photo. I didn’t use to trust remedies that weren’t a name brand and I use to faint at the sight of blood but I actually got excited that I started bleeding so that I could use this herbal powder for the first time! My husband got a deep cut a few weeks ago from cleaning a knife and it was amazing to see how this powder stops the bleeding. I’m thinking about spending this winter studying herbalism; maybe finding an in-person class. It’s been a while since we’ve used any sort of pharmaceutical but I need to learn more about plant medicine.

Then I started thinking about how intimidated I use to be of making cob wrong. It was such a helpful exercise in testing different batches of adobe brick for a BB. I've since made and tested various long straw cob, short straw cob, cattail mortar, sifted chopped straw plaster, and flour clay paint. Now I even harvest and process sand and clay from my 0.35 acres and forage for my cattail fluff. I’ve made so many batches now that I was just reflecting on how far I’ve come in developing natural building skills! I would like to live in an underground, earthen home instead of the modern house I have now. Cob is an amazing building material.

The current state of the rocket oven is that I need to finish the cob around the wire mesh and buy ingredients for pizza night on Friday!!!  Oh, I’m so excited to see how the oven performs and I invited a few of my permie friends over for pizza night to celebrate. Yay!

Every day I aim to make forward progress in many little ways. Most days don't feel like there was anything particularly notable about the tasks I've done. However, now looking at my last post, so much has changed.

I wasn't able to host the rocket pizza workshop as originally planned on account of a week of rain. However, the sky cleared and I was able to run the rocket and have people over! I invited all the people that I've been keeping updated with my rocket build work. Building this rocket oven took a lot of momentum to complete. It required a lot of metalworking skills that I haven't had much practice in previously. The entire time I kept thinking of ways to improve version 2. Anyhow, it was so fun to explain the rocket oven and teach people how to run it and make pizza! I also learned a lot about what went smoothly with having 14 people making 20 pizzas in <90mins. I'm looking forward to hosting another rocket pizza workshop with a whole different group of permies in my community who weren't able to attend yesterday.

Given the rain, I had to wait a week after finishing the rocket oven to run it and the first run ran very inefficiently because the firebrick needed to dry out. Even still, I was able to keep the temp above 350degF to bake zucchini bread. The second run during the rocket pizza workshop, the operating temps were way higher and ran efficiently. The workshop went so smoothly. The pizza was so tasty! The cleanup was a lot but fortunately for me everyone pitched in and helped =) My husband was so proud which meant a lot because he's been so supportive of me allocating so much time to skip.

Today I also found that my version 1 ash scoop works near perfectly in the combustion chamber of my new rocket oven. I've since made a version 2 ash scoop that I plan to test out when I return to my friend's orchard. I've been noodling around ideas for a version 3.

I submitted a BB for building a rocket oven  

9 BBs left to go!


Then I also submitted a BB for hosting a 1.5hr workshop teaching a crowd how to run a rocket oven and make pizza in it

8 BBs left to go!


In other tangential news, the rain in the last week tested the experiments that I've been doing on the hillside to mitigate flooding and erosion issues. I'm so proud to continue to notice that my check dams and other earthworks have been slowing, spreading, and sinking the water such that it doesn't accumulate as a beach on the road in front of our house. Every year I've been at this house, I've been continuing to make small, incremental improvements and it's good to get a soaking rain to get feedback. This week I noticed that a cute purple bindwind was growing on a rather large check dam upstream of my house.  See first photo. Beautiful!


After cleaning up from the workshop, I started getting back to work on completing the plumbing bits for the rocket water heater build. Unfortunately the copper coil that I arrived was a different size than what I ordered so I'll need to pick up reducers and sweat it in tomorrow. There always seems to be something that goes awry to troubleshoot for. But some good news is that my husband put on a new safety screen on the grinder for me! Otherwise, I'm ready to depart for my friend's orchard to finish old projects and start new ones.

I arrived on my friend’s farm this week without (any members of) my family. I wish they were here to get to experience life on the farm but it has been easier to focus all of my energy at the tasks at hand. Not bringing my kids also means that I don’t need to rush back home for something on our calendar but instead, I’m able to stay here until the tasks get done. No more unfinished projects!!

The first thing that I had been eager to check on was my rocket season extender hugel and GAMCOD plot. It’s changed so much in the last 6ish weeks since I was here last. I have since found out how challenging the watering situation has been and I’ve been grateful that a number of people in the community here have tried their best to keep my garden watered. However there was a period of drought that killed off a lot of the plants. Yet, surprisingly the corn has thrived despite the drought. It’s looking tall and lush and I’ve taken video footage for the GAMCOD project so that’s all I’ll say about it here. See first photo.

The next thing that just made me happy was in seeing how the baby turkeys have grown up. They’re so cute! One of the residents here traded for a mating pair of turkeys in the spring and it’s been fun to watch the progression of what it’s like having turkeys on this land amongst all of the other animals. There are now 30 goats and 21 ducks, dogs, cats, and I suppose that’s all. There are a lot of animals and different people who live here are responsible for parts of the goat herd and I get to see how they have figured things out. See second photo.

When I arrived the 5-gallon poop bucket situation was in need of attention so I spent some time sorting that out. Which led to a conversation about humanure. My friend and I disagree on a few things. However, one thing is for certain, it’s ridiculous that my family and I defecate into perfectly clean drinking water at our suburban home. I wish to discontinue this practice and find a better solution. I also don’t like the ick factor with my friend’s 5gal bucket method.

After a 6hr, beautiful drive to get here, I spent time unloading and sorting my materials across all of the different work sites. There are a number of projects that I plan to complete and a few that I’m just starting.

One of the new projects is a rocket water heater. I anticipate that this project will require the longest project timeline due to curing delays. Getting the 6in concrete foundation started was the highest priority. I don’t like to use concrete but this will be a very heavy installation. See concrete slab photos.

The next priority is to build a fruit rocket stove for my friend’s future business. This isn’t for a BB but it’s a gift for my friend and another opportunity for me to experiment. I don’t have a photo of that built to post but I do have photos of the mortar mix. I sifted and soaked the clay from subsoil onsite to an eighth of an inch and also sifted eighth inch imported sand then added in cattail fluff that I harvested last year. This mix is my favorite one to make, it feels so luxuriant. I need a LOT of mortar mix for the upcoming builds. See following two photos.

In my downtime I did some hand filing of the p-channels that I fabricated at home. I wanted it to be as tight of a fit in the RMH j-tube feeds that I’ve previously built here. I think my next post will cover the two incomplete RMH builds that I have underway. I plan to finally complete them and submit for those BBs before I leave this time. There have previously been water shortages, time shortages due to cob drying times, and – also – I’ve wanted to wait until I’ve finished fabricating all of the Rocket accessories. This includes a feed cover, a p-channel, and an ash scoop at each build. Oh, and I have yet to mention my favorite part: my metal dragon! More to share soon, I’m sure!

I had an opportunity to attend a regenerative farm tour by Jake Takiff who works closely with Mark Shepard. It was really incredible to see how a landscape can change in 9 seasons. There were huge junipers in a ravine that were dying because they’re being drowned. The significance of that is the early succession plants were transitioning to a late succession, deciduous ecosystem with diversity. He had transformed a sage and ragweed plain to silvo pastured, swale rotational grazing with cows. The other aspect I loved was his success with naturalizing animals to be in harmony with the land. Aside from the cows that Jake manages intensively as it’s his main income, he has a variety of other animals on his land that survive and reproduce on their own. At three different times Jake was asked how be keeps his animals from leaving his property. The answer: I’ve made food and habitat so desirable here that they don’t choose to leave. Also, a lot of discussion on stock ponds, swales, and breed selection.

I’m so grateful to have gone to the workshop even if it slowed my progress on tasks today but I thought that it was well worth it! I anticipate that all of the information I got to experience today will be useful soon! I was just reflecting on how 2 years ago I had read dozens of gardening, permaculture, and natural building books but lacked the experience. Since then I’ve focused more on just doing things and building a relationships with people and nature. Now that I’m close to PEP2, I’m eager to steward land with animal systems and do regenerative land management techniques. It would be delightful if the land we move to already has techniques in place to improve the water table and soil.

Also, while I was on the farm I went to inspect some chinking I did on my friend’s log cabin that he’s building. I hope to build my own house one day as well. His log cabin is beautiful but I’d prefer an earthen home.

My friend and I met today so I can get the green light to move forward with the water heater plan implementation. The installation was originally going to go inside a sugar shack. It’s a structure used for condensing maple syrup but he wants to replicate it to make fruit sugar syrup called stroop. The gable roof on the structure would have modifications to vent steam. I started building a non-BB rocket stove to cook the fruit and the water heater was also supposed to go in that same structure.

The structure is not structurally sound.

The water heater was going to be very heavy and the concrete was cracking so it was relocated outside. Now the plumbing won’t be insulated an insulated space so I needed to account for ease of winterization… weatherproofing… added scope.

The fruit rocket was also not viable in that structure so today we decided to abandon that project. There’s a certain point where failure is the best option to restart.  I made plans and have the material for it so I can try again when he figures out his infrastructure, long term vision, and timeline.

As an aside, I’m hopeful that our future home has some Off grid infrastructure that we could scale up or improve. I think I’d like to visit some off-grid farms to research existing systems, I have a few in mind. My friend has limited utilities and actively aims to embrace inconvenience. Inconveniences strengthen us.

Anyway, the water heater project is a go! I attached a photo of my dry mock up/footprint for demonstration. At this point my friend has approved 5 rocket builds and the fruit stove was the first to be abandoned. My friend has a degree in Architecture, we met at a PDC in 2021 I believe. It’s always so helpful for me to consult with him throughout the builds.

Go ALEX!! Woot woot!

Thanks Rebekah!! Hugs to you <3

Water Heater build is slowly shaping up! This is the current state, see photos. Firebrick masonry is complete for the j-tube which requires a lot of precision. Each course of the regular brick requires almost a full bucket of mortar so it a lot of material to move around and mix. I’m pretty pleased with it so far.

I often go back and forth about whether to fire the rockets before it dries on its own. There are two different philosophies in this space. Fire early and often or let the clay dry slowly to prevent cracking. I’m on the fence with this project.

I completed the cob work on the first rocket bench on my last trip out but this trip I’ll be wrapping up the metal art and have completed the p channel, ash scoop, and feed cover accessories. Now I just need to run it and take photos.

Meanwhile I’ve been taking some time to continue to move forward on the second rocket bench that I started on my last trip but couldn’t finish. I’ve been building up the layers of the insulation around the riser. I hope to get the stratification barrel on today to run tomorrow morning now that the temps have chilled.

I guess I have 2 rockets to run tomorrow morning!

I ran both rocket mass heaters and they both perform well. No visible smoke <5mins. I’ll have to upload the documentation for that when I return home to a desktop. It’s so nice to wrap up both of those projects!!

While I’m here, I was able to submit for community art. I made the Metal Dragon a few months ago but I didn’t have enough room to travel with my husband’s MIG welder previously so I finally got it mounted on this trip!

7 BBs left to go!

All I have left to do at this point to complete the rocket wood level is complete this rocket water heater and upload all documentation. I plan to mount the tank today. I still need to fill with insulation, connect the plumbing interface, build the brick air gap, and let it rip!! It’ll take a few more days of work to complete this BB.

I love your little dragon Alexandra - what did you use for the wings? a bicycle gear? The chain is very effective.

Hey Nancy, thank you! The wings are made from a bike rotor for hydraulic disc brakes.

Small update on progress… I got myself a deep gash from the stovepipe so I’m going to need to pause the water heater project and heal. I’ll just need to schedule a return trip. Now I have a second rave review for cut rescue powder. No pics this time.

I rarely watch movies or shows and I could care less about actors, plots, and/or highly simulated content, as Paul can attest to. However, when I’m laid up I like to go through my list of documentaries or other similar content.

Today I watched living the change, you can also watch it here: https://www.happenfilms.com/films/living-the-change

It was a well done documentary that captured a good breadth of information. I’ll admit that I don’t think I learned anything new but it always makes me feel good to see other people also making changes. Oh, I should say that I am amazed by the forest gardens that were filmed; I aspire to garden in this way with a few hugels too.

Watching the documentary reminded me of a time when I was sitting in a lecture room for a sustainable engineering course at university. I recall feeling a state of urgency to find solutions. Some technology to be discovered. Of course, I was a product of modernism.

I continue to feel a state of urgency to find solutions, far more so now than I did when I was at university because I think about my children’s future. However, I’m no longer disillusioned that some sort of new tech will carry us past peak oil.

As I’ve continued to search for things to make sense,
I find it rather beautiful, natural, and simple that the solutions are rather beautiful, natural, and simple. This doesn’t imply at all that it’s easy.

I’ve been working tirelessly on the skip program because I’m hopeful that my family and I can prepare a future for ourselves on land without having to trade our financial stability for it. However, I’m not disillusioned that it’s going to be easy after this point. In many ways I know that the work will just be beginning. Outside of tending the land, the real work will be in building resilience in relationships and helping others up because we’re all interdependent. Continuing to plant the seeds for diversity and growth for the future. Learning skills and life ways that existed prior to fossil fuels. This era of modernization and convenience will have consequences when it ends and I’d like to prepare my children and as many people as I can for this change.


There’s so much work to be done that I just don’t have the patience to watch tv or movies. But I am finding irony in that the film I watched to rest is just getting me more energized to get things done.

Now that I'm back home, I've collected all of my documentation from multiple rocket builds that were spread out over many months and many trips. I think I spent an hour looking for a single photo that I knew I took and I'm so relieved that I found it!!

It feels so exciting to finally submit for the 2 Rocket Mass Heaters that I started building months ago. On this last trip I accessorized the rockets, finished the cob, and took the videos of starting the rockets.

The first rocket bench I built, I'll never forget how amazed everyone was by how much warmth was generated by such little fuel. "But wait, there's more!" and I brought everyone outside to see the exhaust and it was clear, everyone was psyched!! It's one thing to hear about rocket mass heaters and it's a whole different thing to actually experience it - to feel and see it for yourself. I was really satisfied with how this build went and I'm really happy that it's in a community space so that many people get to experience it! I heard good things about it's performance this past winter, the dance parties that were had on it despite the cob being unfinished, and I inspected the system this summer for ash buildup and creosote and it looked great. I wish I could have added more benches to this system and recessed the benches into the ground. This was definitely a successful experiment and I'm happy to submit for this BB!

6 BBs left to go!

I had originally planned on building a second RMH at a local educational farm in my city but they kept pushing the install date back month after month due to a host of hurdles on their end. I hope to still install one next season in a hoophouse that they'd like to use for a classroom and season extender.

Fortunately, I was still able to meet my wood rocket BB requirements with an unexpected rocket bench build. In the cottage where I originally built a 6in rocket stove, the couple who lives in this space desired an 8in rocket because they found the 8in rocket bench far easier to feed and they wanted more BTUs. So I dismantled the stove, which was so insightful to get feedback on my construction choices. I didn't like the 5min riser or dry stack and I found that some of the straw in the cob foundation had burned under the burn tunnel. There were a few other aspects wrt the stove itself that I wanted to experiment with as well (and planned to with the fruit stove that I started building two weeks ago). So, a larger (6" to 8") yet more compact (smaller footprint) system was built in it's place. I have to say that I'm getting pretty proficient at installing these systems; less hesitation and more execution. It was nice that this system had minimal cob work to do -- I find that this takes the greatest amount of time and energy.

5 BBs left to go!

I look forward to getting feedback on how these rockets perform in this next season with these changes and new accessories that I fabricated.

I did a rocket build consultation for moneys last month. I really struggle with asking people to pay me because I just want to do everything I can to help other people do awesome permaculture things. However, this is just another example of the SKIP program forcing me out of my comfort zone. I much prefer to exchange my effort for non-moneys.

I did
-- another rocket consultation for a family in Missouri in exchange for their help to create a website for me (for my future rocket biz)
-- another consultation for a couple who gave me a ton of food and meat that they grew
-- another consult/build for a farm where my kids get to do programming at no cost

Those consultations felt more rewarding for me. I'm trying to figure out how to thrive outside of capitalism.

4 BBs left to go!

I just submitted a BB for hosting another 1.5hr workshop teaching a crowd how to run a rocket oven and make pizza in it. I'm able to have up to 10 points of duplicates and I anticipate that I'll continue to host workshops using this rocket oven because pizza is delicious and a great way of introducing rocket builds to people. Fortunately, I won't have to continue taking any more awkward photos with a clock after my workshop yesterday! Yay! Depending on how many points my metal dragon art was awarded, this could be my last BB that I need for a community straw badge!!

(Depending on points allocated on my pending community BBs, likely) 3 BBs left to go!

In related news, I got my 5th straw badge approved for the Rocket aspect and I requested my last sand badge for commerce.

From here on out I'll be continuing to harvest and document food from my garden (garden straw badge), implementing shop optimizations (tool care straw badge), and making it back to my friend's orchard to complete my rocket water heater (rocket wood badge). I also need to solo parent for a bit, process and preserve a bunch of produce for the winter, and homeschool my kids. Life is full and delightful.

Congratulations Alexandra on not only your achievements  but on being an exemplar to all of us on what can be done with a little planning, focus and drive.
My heart is out there for you as you count down the last three.

Thank you for saying such kind things, Paul; it means a lot to me!  However, I feel that the amount of effort I've put into this program pales in comparison to the collective effort of so many people (including yourself) who have made this program exist; so thank you!


I intentionally saved the shop optimization BB to be one of my last tasks so that I can get our garage workshop organized and optimized at the end of the project season. I've been working on mounting a variety of vertical shelving and collecting boxes to label and sort our stuff.

I've also been working to harvest the last of my grains and sunflowers to process - which has been an enormous amount of work. I've never done so much threshing, parching, and winnowing!! I will never look at grain the same way again; how can it be so cheap in the store?!  Of course, I'm also harvesting as much from my garden as I can and documenting every bit of it on a day to day basis. I can't believe how few calories radishes have per oz but I figure every calorie counts and so I continue.


Today I got to drop in to a PDC taught by my local Permaculture Society and it was so lovely to socialize and see the latest round of students prepare for their design presentations and give the different groups feedback. I've already completed 2 PDCs so I can't justify taking another but I yearned to be in a cohort with other permies. I also got to advertise my next rocket oven pizza workshop and talk about SKIP. Spending time with this group really filled my cup. It reinforced to me how essential community is in my future homesteading/off-grid plans.

Speaking of community -- I made an incorrect assumption that my dragon art submission in the community aspect was worth the maximum point range but it actually was awarded (unofficially I suppose) the minimum. So, it turns out I will be continuing to take awkward clock photos!! hahah! I suppose that's what I get for making assumptions! So I'm back to 4 BBs to countdown instead of 3!

4 BBs left to go!!

I'll admit that the daily 1% gains haven't been feeling like much of an update. The mornings are focused on homeschooling and then we continue to do tasks throughout the evening. For instance, my daughter has been carding wool and felting it into insulated blankets for the cat boxes. With a bit of initial investment, she's now independently getting the blankets done after she completes her homeschool tasks. Meanwhile my son tends to be my sidekick, he likes doing the things I like doing. So he follows me in the garden and brings me the different bags, baskets, and boxes of the different species that I've been collecting and weighing. So after I harvest enough to use, I weigh it.

This is my fourth gardening season on this property and I started with hardpan, high-clay, with juniper/pine/scrub oak. I had just taken my first PDC and I was excited to test my skills on a challenging property. I've had to build up soil from importing hardwood mulch, inoculating it with saprophytic fungi and building up dry stack terraces for every garden bed. As of last night, I have 91,608 calories documented from 12 different species. I'll admit that the hardest part is reaching that minimum calorie count. I feel like there are the starch and fatty species, but the juicy species tend not to have a high calorie/oz. The species that I specifically planted to meet the 100,000 calorie BB were species that I don't typically grow.

These are the species and calories/lb that I've been tracking to:

Acorns - quercus rubra - 1755 cal/lb
Buckwheat - Fagopyrum esculentum - 1615 cal/lb
Burdock leaves - arctium lappa - 399.2 cal/lb
Burdock root - 326.6 cal/lb
Corn - zea mays - 390 cal/lb
Fava Bean - vicia faba - 399 cal/lb
Garlic - allium sativum - 676 cal/lb
Green Bean - phaseolus vulgaris - 144 cal/lb
Kale - brassica oleracea - 224 cal/lb
Mint - mentha spicata - 320 cal/lb
Mushrooms - stopharaia rugosoannulata - 184 cal/lb
Peas - pisum sativum - 368 cal/lb
Potatoes - Solanum tuberosum - 431 cal/lb
Summer Squash - Cucurbita pepo - 80 cal/oz
Sunchokes - helianthus tuberosus - 331 cal/oz
Sunflower - helianthus annuus - 2616 cal/oz
Wheat - triticum aestivum - 1536 cal/oz
Winter Squash - Cucurbita moschata - 198 cal/oz

I wonder if you agree with these numbers? I'll admit that I sourced these numbers back when I was buying seeds. Also I have a few from the same genus but they're different species.

I still have quite a bit of winter squash, potatoes, and sunchokes yet to harvest so I have no doubts that I'll get this BB completed. Since I don't want to harvest my sunchokes before the first frost, I rest easy and work on other things in the meantime.

This past weekend I hosted my third rocket oven pizza making workshop! This time I had the greatest turnout and I presented to a number of permies in the community that I didn't know well or at all. I really enjoyed seeing different permies from different areas of my community connect and exchange information! After the workshop was over I spent considerable time talking about SKIP and I gave away my last book (well, aside from the one that Mike and Paul signed). I'll have to order another box of books I suppose.

We made 22 pizzas at ~2.5mins per pizza. I think pizza is best cooked on the bottom rack and only one pizza at a time so we have less efficiency than at WL but I think this approach makes for more consistent pizzas. I'll admit that I use to enjoy eating the pizza leftovers but after 3 workshops I'm getting tired of eating so much pizza!

Now, I definitively have enough points (actually 2 additional points) for the community straw badge that I just requested!

Without a doubt, I now have 3 BBs left to go!!

This week I plan to wrap up my workshop optimizations now that my new shelving and lumber racks have been mounted and continue to harvest squash and (maybe) sunchokes. Some of my sunchokes are dying above ground so I'll likely harvest some of them before I leave town this weekend.

This weekend I'll be returning to my friend's property to finish my rocket water heater project, spend time with friends, harvest as many apples as we can manage to make applesauce, and I'll also be taking my kids to a gathering focused on pioneer skills for kids (not geared toward adults): soap making, flint knapping, food prep/preservation and cast iron cooking, blacksmithing, fiber arts, traditional pottery, trade beads, axe handling, tinsmithing, rope making, leather working, friction fire, whittling, meat smoking and trapping, and dancing! I'll be taking a week off from doing SKIP to go to this gathering and it feels like a perfect time to celebrate and spend quality time together.

When I returned home from the SKIP 2024 event at WL, I created a plan to finish PEP2 by Halloween this year and I'm so pleased that I'm right on schedule!

Come November, I'll be planning a roadtrip to all of the properties and Otis/Otessas that have contacted me. Seeing as that I won't be homesteading without my family and I have yet to visit the majority of the continental USA -- it would be impossible for my family and I to decide where our future home would be without meeting each Otis/Otessa and seeing the land in person. I've never done a roadtrip like this before and I look forward to planning it; hopefully incorporating as many national park visits as possible and stopping by WL for a visit!

Yay, best wishes for you to find the perfect place for you and your family!   It's encouraging that you have "choices".

James Bradford wrote:Yay, best wishes for you to find the perfect place for you and your family!   It's encouraging that you have "choices".

Thank you! As my family and I are on the precipice of a major change, I think it's critical to have many choices. There have been a number of unexpected opportunities that have materialized (that don't necessarily offer as much as what the SKIP program offers) just from telling people what I'm doing and what I hope out of it. Word travels and interesting things have come back to me as a result. At the onset, what I sought was a decent amount of land with a natural source of water in a region resilient to climate change. I'd also like to add another criteria: a property where I see my family thriving. I'm not sure how I'll evaluate that objectively on my trade study. However, all that to say: we're opening up our range of possibilities to include properties outside of SKIP as well. It's important to me that we pick a path that is a good overall fit for my family -- not the most lucrative transaction. I'm hopeful that when I pass the PEP2 milestone, new possibilities continue to materialize. Maybe one of those is a perfect fit, or maybe after this trade study we resolve to go a different path. I anticipate that the journey of visiting all of the possible properties will also have unexpected outcomes; realizations that my family and I don't anticipate. I think this adventure and trade study is just as important as all of the work I've done in SKIP; a decision not to be taken lightly. Whatever the unknown outcome, I'll also be spending this winter getting our suburban house ready to sell, getting ready to move to our forever home!!

Every day has been busy! In the past year and a half, I've been so narrowly focused on completing BBs, that I need to reconnect with my own desires to do things without the extra reward of getting a BB approved. SKIP is so gamified that it's addicting!! This week I made seed balls (far smaller than SKIP requirements -- I think 1in balls are far too large), harvested flower seeds and hops to dry from a local educational farm that we visit once a month, and I harvested sunchokes from a patch of dormant sunchokes in my garden (oh! I suppose this is for a BB), and I've been spending a number of days rendering suet from my friend's goat herd and clarifying the tallow to show some other friends of mine how to make whipped tallow with chamomile and calendula flower infusions (I previously made a whipped tallow batch to gift to friends and family and it was a HIT!!).

I've also been spending some time this week reaching out to elders in my community that my kids admire and would like as their mentors. Honestly, this has been the highlight of my week! I'm looking forward to seeing how my kids grow in these elder's shadows. This has been so heartwarming for me. <3!!!

Every day I've also been pushing to organize our workshop whenever I have a spare hour, yesterday my dad picked up the kids which gave me 4 uninterrupted hours to dedicate to the project! When my husband ventured down to see the changes (he's aways concerned when I organize because he assumes that he won't be able to find anything) he was VERY pleased and surprised that my optimizations were far better than before.

I generally like to podcast while I work and I really enjoyed listening to Paul and Samantha's latest conversation about gardening gardeners. I also envision being part of a community of gardening gardeners communities.

Congratulations and great work with everything you've done so far!! I'm fairly new to the community and this post was awesome to see.

In response to your initial statement about "needing to be just as good at marketing as everything else," I'm a video marketing professional who has specialized in teaching independent creators and small business owners about marketing & social media, and how to make it easier. I'm on a teaching hiatus, but I was/will soon be teaching a 3 class series once a week, every month. I'm also more than happy to talk directly as a consultant or teach you the workshops one on one. Maybe more people here would be interested? Either donation based or for my BB... (I teach free workshops often enough it'll be easy for me to secure the BB once I formally start my PEP1 journey next month.)  Haven't read everything yet so I apologize if you've said it somewhere in the thread already, but what workshops do you teach?

Excited to be here for the final stretch!!

Pj Bauer wrote:Excited to be here for the final stretch!!

Hey PJ, thanks for your feedback!! Sometimes this effort feels like I'm talking to a wall. Best of luck on your SKIP journey! My advice (not that you asked so you also don't have to listen to it at all), pick your straw and wood level aspects and start working on those as early as possible.

Thanks for your offer to help me with marketing -- I'll keep your offer in mind!

Today was a full day in wrapping up tasks and documentation for the last of my grow 100,000 calories BB and for optimizing my shop BB!! I started both of these BBs at the beginning, since April 2024. I knew that they would both have long lead times so I started organizing my documentation in folders and powerpoints to track them over time.

I actually didn't expect to get to 100k calories before departing for my trip so it was an unexpected surprise that I could submit for it! It's been fun to weigh in the food and report out to my family the daily total.

2 BBs left to go!

Meanwhile, I've been working all of the fine details on the shop optimization - I'm thrilled that it came out so well because at the onset it was daunting!! The before photos were taken at the climax of the shop in a dumping zone state.

1 BB left to go!

I intuitively always knew that the rocket water heater would be my last and hardest challenge to complete. I even actively planned for the rocket water heater to NOT be my last BB (more of a mental win) but those plans were foiled (I guess it was meant to be this way).

You can do it, Alex! One more to go!!!

Well done Alexandra! Your progress is inspiring - good luck with the rocket water heater

Last weekend I made it to my friend’s farm to drop off tools and supplies, assess feasibility of rehydrating my mixes that I had to abandon on my last trip, and formulate my plan. Then I left to go to a pioneer themed kids/family gathering. It was such a sweet event where my kids and I could spend time bonding and learning new things together. Now I’m back! My mortar mix is perfect and ready to go.

Today I’ll be getting the stock tank mounted, the plumbing bits in place, and hopefully a few rows of brick placed for the air gap.

I couldn’t find an appropriately sized piece of dimensional wood to mount the plumbing bits to so I took a drawknife to round wood milling scraps that my friend picks up from the local mill for free (he uses it for firewood).

The plumbing part of the system is just missing the water source and power connections, brickwork needs 1-2 more days, and I’d like to also cob around the feed. Tomorrow I anticipate experimenting with a perlite and cattail cob mix for around the feed. I’ll make another mix specific for sealing the bricks to the stock tank.

I’ll also need to work on the stovepipe and not hurt myself again. I’m saving that for the end to allow more time for the mortar to dry. And maybe also because I’ll have to be far more careful this time.

It felt like a project onto itself to get the ladders setup in this tight workspace but it’s now a semi-decent workflow. Each overhead row takes more and more time to complete due to traversing the ladders and preventing the mortar from falling down the air gap. Tricky, tricky!

I only have 3 more days allotted for this trip but I don’t think I have 3 more days of work remaining so I’m feeling pretty good about my progress and buffer time.

I’ve been so narrowly focused on getting these BBs done that, now that I can see the finish line, I often contemplate how I want to spend my time. I’m not sure my days will look dramatically different but I reckon I’ll take far fewer photos.

Everything is complete with the water heater build (minus a bit of cob around the feed because it was slumping). Today, I will finish the cob then fire the beast for the first time. I wonder how hard it’ll be to get it started given how low my exhaust pulls within the structure (for increased efficiency) and because approximately 10% of the mass is still wet.

Last night my son watched the stock tank fill. I told him to watch the float valve to see what happens when the water gets to it. Together, we figured out that it wasn’t a dragon egg, it won’t dissolve once submerged, but, wait, it actually floats and then stops the water! That was fun.  We also got to see all of the insects rise who were trying to make the stock tank their home.

Hopefully things go smoothly today.

This j-tube style unpressurized rocket water heater was my last BB task before reaching PEP2. Of course, I'll still need to submit for the rocket wood badge then the PEP2 badge to officially have obtained PEP2.

Of all of the tasks I've done, this was the most challenging. I'm so relieved that running this rocket went so smoothly while so many other aspects of the build weren't nearly as smooth.

My BB countdown is now at ZERO!

I'll have to think about what to rename this thread.

Yay!!!

Well done Alexandra! I hope your PEP2 submission goes smoothly and that you find a great fit Otis for you and your family.

What's your plan for celebrating?

Way to go Alexandra!!!  That was your 600th post on permies as well :)

Well done.

Thank you, Nancy, you’re so kind!

Today I plan to meet my husband to camp at a place that I call heaven on earth. It’s midway between my friend’s farm and home. It’s been far too long since we’ve been back there so, for me, it’s a perfect way to relax, recharge, and celebrate!

600 posts? Funny, that is coincidental and feels like a lot and a small amount at the same time!! I have even more to celebrate now ;) thanks Mike!!

What a fine job, my friend! Way to stick with it!!!

Congratulations! What a fab achievement!

Thank you!! =)

It's been over two weeks since I've returned from my last trip (and my last post). I've been catching up on the unpacking/cleaning, processing and preserving of my harvest (including 44.9lbs of sunchokes from my GAMCOD hugel and 240+lbs of apples harvested from my friend's farm), putting my garden to bed for the winter, saving seed, making medicine (fire cider, garlic honey ferments, rose hip syrup, herbal oil infusions), decorating and undecorating from Halloween, sharpening all of my knives to prepare for Thanksgiving, a variety of other house and kid stuff, and did I say cleaning and cooking?

I've needed some time to also decompress (more like rewire my brain to not think about BBs all of the time) and think about our next steps. Believe it or not, I didn't use to take photos of everything I did. I use to prefer to leave my phone on a dresser unattended to for days (to the annoyance of others) but after the last year and a half I now carry it everywhere so that I can take photos. As I've been going about my day-to-day I STILL find myself taking photos. I figured I’d share a few photos:

We opt out of the commercialization and sugar for halloween. I kind of look at trick or treating like a way to giveaway stuff we don't want. "Choose your fate"

We didn’t have many visitors but the highly fragranced soap (that I didn’t know how to get rid of) was most popular and the apples were also more popular than the candy. The candy is pretty stale, likely many years old (I do that intentionally to make it gross). Hey, I had disclaimers!! Meanwhile, we chose to watch Spiderwick and Goosebumps as a family instead of going door to door.

I took a picture simply because it was one of my favorite moments. I love when my kids want to cook with me. Here, my son is pickling cucumbers, my daughter is processing apples, and I’m making fire cider (and giving them assistance):


Speaking of apples, we harvested over 240lbs of apples! The kids and I have been processing as many apples as possible. Dehydrating, sauce, and vinegar with the scraps. Very little actually makes it to the compost bin.



This is a photo I took purely because my brain is still in BB documentation mode:


This is a photo of the SKIP progress poster that I mounted on the wall to keep my family engaged in the SKIP process. My kids voluntarily drew their vision for our future home. I love them (referring to the kids but also the art). Time to take it down:


Months ago, I made a whipped tallow butter and I made so much of it that I gave it away to everyone and I’m honestly surprised by how many people are asking for more! One of my friends wanted to learn how to make it so that she could gift it away for the holidays so I invited her over and we (including my daughter) spent an entire afternoon weighing and measuring, reading the “Herbal Vade Mecum” for the herbs I grew or foraged that we each wanted to add to our personal blends. Next weekend we’ll spend time together again to whip the infused carrier oils into the tallow that I clarified from my friend’s goat (named scroto baggins, thank you scroto!). This photo is of our blends after a 12hr infusion at 180deg:

It makes me happy to share and do these kind of things with friends.

It’s that time of year to make garlic honey ferments, I like it on its own and added to other medicinal concoctions like fire cider. I use is to support the immune and digestive systems:


Then there’s putting the garden to bed and saving seed, here are some examples:


I like making seedballs out of everything and will make more seedballs by next Spring.

It’s been helpful to stay busy to keep my monkey brain calm and to not obsess over planning for the future. At the moment, we’re waiting. Waiting for an Otis/Otessa to reach out. Surprisingly, no one has reached out to me since I hit the PEP2 milestone. We’re still hopeful that we’re on the right path.

With all of this unusually warm weather and free time, I started defrosting a roadkill hide that's been in my freezer for almost a year. I was excited to braintain it for a new pair of moccasins and straps for a willow backpack I wanted to make. This morning I found that a bear outsmarted me and took it! I had planned to defrost it and then soak it in lye but the defrosting was taking a lot longer and I didn't want to submerge it in the lye before I could clean it up a bit. I should have known better but I guess I needed to learn a lesson. I think it would have been safe from the bear if the hide was soaking in the lye. Maybe. I have more to learn. Hopefully I come across another hide at some point. A picture of my lye being made:


I got my coat hook re-mounted after this latest round of renovations. This doesn't seem like a big deal but it's just another thing that hit the backburner as not-essential while I was doing PEP2 work. It feels so nice to rebalance.


Earlier today I popped down to the garage to see what the boys were up to. Months ago, my husband forged this blade and whittled this (I believe hickory) handle for it. So today they worked to sharpen the blade, heat treat it, and they used the pine pitch glue that my son and I made to assemble it. It's such a cute (and now super sharp) little knife! My son loves whittling and was a curious observer (and sometimes assistant) at every step of this project. Tomorrow they plan to make a leather sheath for it. I can't wait to see how that goes!

I recognize that my family and I are a package deal yet I haven't posted much about them.

Meanwhile, my friend returned to finish making whipped tallow butter for her Christmas gift giving. I love how popular this herbal lotion is and how much more fun it is to share these crafts with others!


In the afternoon, my daughter and I hiked to our nearby willow stand and harvested some first year growth. I didn't take a pic of the plants but I did take a pic of the seed balls we planted as an offering for the willow we harvested.
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I also did my (almost) daily processing of apples (I can only dehydrate so many apples in a day so I need to do a little bit every day).

Tomorrow I plan to hike again (but with a shovel) to harvest burdock root and seeds (to sprout). Burdock root pairs well with sauerkraut and sausage, yum!

I was checking out the PEP3 requirements because I wouldn't mind continuing to work on BBs. There are a number of areas that I'd like to gain more experience. However, I'm unsure about the viability of actually reaching PEP3. This is partly because of limitations of the property I'm on and partly because I wish to do projects again with my kids, husband, and friends. The work I did for PEP2 was isolating; going at it alone all of the time. My family and I are a package deal and I'd like to work to transfer skills and knowledge and fortify our family's strength as a team. For example, I have no doubts that we could knock out the food prep and preservation BB -- we're already meeting the requirements because cooking is a family sport in my house. My kids and husband are always helping out in the kitchen because we value high-quality, slow-cooked meals. In order to submit for those BBs, I'd need to forgo their help. Making meals together is such a nice way to collaborate and bond. I wish to do PEP3 with my family, not just for my family. I'll have to form some sort of resolve on this front. Figuring out the property limitations feels more straight-forward than this predicament of family exclusion.