Steve Zoma

You can flat ship a book at #2 rate for around $10 via the us postal service.

They do have a cheaper $4 rate I can get that is book rate but often say it is only library to library rates.

Vanity publishing is a known scam because YOU pay them to publish your book. But what they really make money on is overcharging you for editing, printing, promotions and those sort of costs to the point where they make so much money on the author they could care less if that actually sell your book.

It’s easy to not get scammed with book publishing: they pay you and you never pay them.

It’s just tough because you have on average one in a 200 chance of being accepted. With 1 million new books every year completion is fierce.

The book publishing market is really archaic and needs to change.

Awesome.

I just wrote a novel too about Permiculture. It is in its second printing now and reviews have been very positive so far.

I got the good stuff in: rocket mass heaters, underground houses, micro hydro, etc

People often forget how powerful words can really be but they hold immense power.

Good for you!

Sheep

Here in Maine they say a moose felled by a hunter might have over 10,000 ticks on it.

I live on a river and just walking down to the river I might get 3-4 ticks on me. We have a fire pit there but despite the tranquility we have never spent an evening there for fear of Lyme Disease from ticks.

This is a view from our fire pit area last fall.

I have had a lot of land and a little, going from a 400 acre farm here in New England to only 1 acre now. Both had their good points and bad. The bad on land ownership is the property taxes, what started out as a few thousand per year neared $19,000 towards the end. How is a farmer going to pay for that EVERY YEAR and also live? The land itself won’t provide that much cash because every other large landowner is looking to do the same thing with their land. If you get a niche market, the next year you got a crowded market from copy cats.

I sold out when the market was high and found an old Victorian home on a river with barn for $180,000 in 2023 prices. Here is the kicker: it is surrounded by conservation land. I cannot cut trees granted but I can scavenge food on 2500 acres without paying a dollar in taxes and will never have more neighbors than I have now. 4 currently.

The point is people looking for land should think outside the box. Paul did with his kickstarter efforts and such, and I found a fixer upper near conservation land. It can be done but it might not look like what others have, and that’s okay. Your ideal spot does not have to be another persons idea of a perfect place.

Recently I finished my fictional novel on a Permies type of Thriller Novel and that was the premise of the book: no regrets, make what you do have work instead of expending energy and thoughts on what you don’t have.

It is what it is…

Okay, so how could it ever be what it’s not?

Here is an idea, TAKE THE SHIP TO PORT CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!! Of course it is what it is!

What a stupid saying!!!

I do not burn wood, but if I did it would be around 12 full cords per year.

A full cord of firewood is equal to about 100 gallons of heating oil. Since I burn 1100 gallons of oil and a little propane, if I switched to firewood I would consume about 12 cord.

Just adding this in case someone wants to do the conversion.

For voltmeters my recommendation is twofold; to keep it very simple and to buy Fluke.

As an electrician I have messed up a lot of stuff, got a lot of erroneous readings, chased down phantom issues all because the Fluke Meter at work was WAY overcomplicated. With so many options it is very easy to choose the wrong setting! This results in phantom problems.

At work I have many Fluke Meters, but the one I use the most is the most simple. So why do I use the overcomplicated one and make mistakes? Because our powerplant has 103 steps from top to bottom and no elevator and I get lazy with all those steps and use what I have instead of going to get the simple, better Fluke meter.

For a household, the wiring is very limited and simple is all you need.

Instead of buying a Fluke Meter that does so much, like reading amps of a DC battery, just buy a cheap battery tester for automotive batteries. Its not like you will ever need to check the amperage flow on the DC side of the exciter motor operated potentiometer at your house. Keep it simple so settings mistakes are reduced. To that end, get a Voltage Sniffer. They are simple, cheap devices but I use mine at home and work all the time.

At work we only use Fluke. We are not even allowed by company policy to use another brand. In fact we do not even call them voltage meters but rather, "I need the Fluke", referring it by brand name only.