evan's ant village log

Turkey, venison? My grandfather didn't hunt, but he carried a gun when he worked the fields. I expect he thought of it as harvesting.

Evan will need to wait 180 days (from whenever he arrived) before he can get his MT residency.... or pay non-resident hunting license fees. 100's of dollars for license and appropriate tags.

Spring Turkey? maybe MT has a season. Spring deer? I'm highly doubtful.


Hang tight Evan, find their water sources, bedding areas, and travel routes. In October, should be close to your 180 days, after you renew your DL, you can buy resident tags and it'll be way cheaper, and legal.

Montana hunting regs

I always wanted to ask - are there any fishing opportunities at Wheaton Labs and in its vicinity?

As to the diet change - they say a human body adjusts to a new diet in up to three weeks, so changing the diet entirely every 30 days is not gonna give trustworthy results. From my experience it is better to have a transistion period of 2-3 weeks when you change your diet gradually, then to stay on the new one for 4-6 weeks to see how it works for you. Then, if you like, enter another transition period that will lead you to another test diet. Your gut bacteria will be grateful for that

If it doesn't I wouldn't drink the water. There are strategies to bait areas of a waterway to try to increase the odds of having fish present at a fishing event.

Sunflower Deeproot - Chapter 1

"Hey Sunny, are you excited about the dinner party at Willigood's? It's gonna be a ruckus what with that band from out west playing and all. I'm sure Daisy will be there..." Tom delivered this last line with an unsubtle wink and a nudge.

Sunny stopped pulling weeds and looked at Tom to see if he was pulling his leg. "What party? I didn't hear about any party."

"Oh? Everyone who's anyone in Eastshire is gonna be there. You didn't get an invitation?"

Sunny returned to his weeding with determination. "No... I didn't..."

"Oh. Well forget I mentioned it then."

The two continued their task in silence. Sunny's usually effective rhythm was a little off, and he kept accidentally ripping the tops off while leaving the roots in the ground. The weeds would undoubtedly regrow if Sunny didn't get the whole plant out by the root, but he just moved on to the next patch, his frustration slowly mounting.

After a few minutes, Tom broke the silence. "It's probably because you're too tall."

"What!?" Sunny was indeed of above average height compared to most Nicefolk. But it's not like he was one of the Tallfolk. He said as much. "It's not like I'm one of the Tallfolk."

"Well, you may as well be. Willigood probably doesn't want you showing up and having to duck just to get through the front door." Tom chuckled a bit to himself at the thought. "It'd be embarassing for everybody. Willigood wants a very specific sort of atmosphere there, I'm sure."

Sunny continued ineffectively weeding, refusing to dignify Tom's comments with a response.

Tom made it to the end of his row and stood up, stretching and yawning. "There's just two more rows left. Ya don't mind if I knock off early so I can take a bath before the party, do ya?"

Sunny mumbled something that sounded like "Sure."

"Thanks Sunny. I owe you one."

Tom hurried off down the path and Sunny was left alone in the garden. He finished his row and moved on to the next with a sigh. By the time he made it to the end of that row, he'd gotten back into a good rhythm and the weeds in the last row were coming out with ease. When he finally finished, the sun was setting and the sound of a band starting to play could be heard in the distance. What he could hear of the music sounded hip and pretty danceable, and he briefly considered the idea of sneaking into the party anyway, but Tom was right, he would stick out like a sore thumb.

As he was heading home, he decided to take a detour through the woods, partly in an attempt to muffle the sounds of laughter and applause. It wasn't the first time Sunny had walked through this part of the forest at night, but by the time he was far enough away from town that he could no longer hear the unwelcome revelry, he found himself in less well known surroundings. The high oak and hemlock canopy blocked out most of the starlight, and the waxing crescent of a moon did little to illuminate his path. Sunny decided to stop distractedly wandering before he got himself lost, and so he sat down cross-legged on a stump.

Sunny focused on his breath. Perhaps meditation would help clear his mind of this all too familiar feeling of being snubbed.

~~~~~~~~

Day 31

Obviously my life is not experimental enough. So in addition to this temporary vegan diet experiment, (which after considering Richard's comments and doing a little research, I now think 60 days will be a better test,) I'm also going to use this thread to document some of the other, even weirder, craziness that's floating around in my head. I figure now that you, my lovely audience, are hanging on my every post, I'll subject you to rough drafts of my hobbity literature, in serial form. Mwuahahaha! If this isn't your cup of tea, feel free to skip over the tiny green text that will occasionally appear at the tops of my posts, and continue enjoying the nitty gritty details of my normal boring life carving out a permaculture homestead in ant village.

Besides doing a bit of writing, cutting and limbing some fence materials, and watering my garden, I also worked on a sketchup design of the octagonalish shelter I'm planning to build. It's pretty funky.

Re the wofati-esque plans... looks like by adding the side wings you are adding considerable wall and roof but minimal floor area. What about two octagons side to side, giving you twice the floor area but sticking to one building/design approach? You get to stick with your shorter log length too.

Have you considered a hexayurt structure? Triangles are better structurally than squares. Or do you need the extra porches on the octagon?

http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_frame

Love this thread by the way

rough drafts of my hobbity literature, in serial form.

Oh, boy....Just like the Whole Earth Catalog I always loved following the story in the early catalogs (do they still do that?) along the edges of the pages. We will be patiently waiting for the next installment. .....and the daily pictures are wonderful also!

Day 32

Hauled and staged tons of logs for my wofati today. I also scoped out a couple big trees on my plot that I'm thinking I'll take down and mill into lumber. I'll be using milled lumber for the wing retaining walls, and logs for pretty much everything else.

The idea with the wings is to have light, air, and views from all four cardinal directions while still keeping lots of dry earth close to the living space. The wings will also provide storage spaces for things like storing firewood and tools, a compost toilet area, and maybe a sort of mini-kitchen area. They'll also make it relatively easy to expand in the future, whether with attached greenhouses or more living space. They do add some complexity, however, and I definitely won't be able to singlehandedly place the super long beams that top the gables and span the length and width of the structure, but there'll only be a couple of them.