Yawling Rock to First Light On Narrow Pond

Wind yawling and screaming through the cracks and crevices of the standing rock erosion could not remove.
  Wind and water left behind an determined profile against the horizon of a modern super storm.

What is that noise? A vague nagging time is wearing away? The dissonance of our planet's dying discomfort?

Or your realization you must get out?

Too poor? Too busy? Too in debt?

Or swamped with money with no safe harbor in sight?
Or swamped with land and no hands to help?

yawlingrock Dot com

might be a method to immediately steer in the direction your gut is demanding and yawling for.


Is that light?  Over there?  Is dawn beginning?

ahhhh sun, first light will reveal the state you find yourself in...  

What then?

the winter isn't all corporate work when you select the Ant path at Wheaton Labs....

Six different apple strains, blackberries, plums and wine grapes in the backyard of this city's outskirts ...and there are three of us contributing in our own ways....

...might be a fourth too!


We save organic food scraps to compost over the winter also...dark rich soil come spring time

There are ways for those of you who desire to abandon a lifestyle you know won't last beyond an average 30 year old's lifetime.

No excuse for you now that you know. Now that I am proving a person with nothing but a backpack and two changes of clothes can ....now you have to act.  

the work on yawlingrock dot com will continue soon and provide you immediate pathways...

so if you feel stuck, no money, no time, etc..

....there's an underground waiting and ready to help you get out, go offgrid, and live well.

Not some day, but on a specific day.  

Your choice. live it or just talk about it



...now where's that cider we've been making???

yawling rock crew in action

while in the cities for the winter wage slaving for offgrid infrastructure, we are also doing a few permies things somewhere inbetween the work, eat, sleep, work routine:

larger apples gave us a gallon per picked five gallon bucket

smaller apples gave us less juice per picked five gallon bucket AND they were waaay harder to grind and then squish in the press.


source: beyond organic apples from Warren's back yard.

...and of course our food is organic so our compost and soil is too

As some of you know, Warren Douglas Bellant passed on September 25th, 2021 at 1:30pm.

He was a generous supporter of Paul's permaculture efforts and a generous supporter of my permaculture efforts via Yawling Rock.

Warren felt strongly enough about permaculture for the ecologocal impact on our planet and as a way to personal freedom that he was willing to over look other people's political views and orientations.

He felt that ensuring our planet's biogical survival is the greatest prep a prepper could do. He was glad permies worked with preppers and he looked forward to other groups, such as MGTOW, adopting permaculture also.

So while Warren and I disagreed strongly on other philosophies, we both believe that permaculturist, no matter how purple or brown, must be willing to set aside serious political or religious disagreements to focus on the biological survival of our planet.

How else will all the human inhabitants of Earth whose cultures, religions, and politicians have all humans literally at war with each other, be able to unite to stop the systematic destruction of life on Earth?

Permaculture, at it's heart, addresses human and all other life systems survival.

Permaculture methods rely on alert, aware troubleshooting which lends itself to decentralized networks rather than dogmatic centralized thinking.

Some people attempt to replace their current dogma with another rigid dogma which they believe is permaculture.

One cannot be dogmatic in their care of dynamic, interdependent, living systems and be successful for very long.

Cause and effect become layered bands of probability statistics the more complex and full of life a system becomes. Such reality cannot be fully captured by any unthinking dogma.

In the celebration of a mechanical hacker's life, I invite all here to be inclusive of those whom you might not otherwise work with when a human being comes looking for good permaculture practices.

Goodbye Warren, I'll miss your technical troubleshooting aplomb and your cheerfulness in the face of physical pain.

A thousand winters in one. One of masks, half masks and the unmasked. Where did the bed go when I layed down? Did I dream it? Somewhere between the flannel sheets and a soft quilt of the softest layer of feathers?

And to what reality have I awakened? Can anyone tell me? What exactly has transpired? Is it like 2020? Is it like 2021?

From the answers snarled and shouted glee, I am even less certain that I am awake, for these answers reflect not a trace of the place I remember when I was lulled into winter's to hibernation.

Perhaps another bout of slumber will wash over me and I will surface safe, warm and radiant in the bed I cannot find.

My feet find the ground and my left shoulder aches like a Mack truck has introduced itself less gently than I wished. What has occurred? Has winter really gone? Is this mid-May?

My eyes focus, sunlight through spring hail greets me and I find myself at First Light on Narrow Pond.

Cool air enters my lungs, tools come to my hands, and the strange dream that surrounded me fades to stranger eddies which threaten at any moment to erupt, to engulf my consciousness and the planet I inhabit.

No need I tell myself, to feed nor justify these strange eddies. There is hunger in my belly which needs attending more, shelter I need for refuge, and water for waking thirst.

So I exert the tools to the material while I continue the design On Narrow Pond. I hope all can find the soil upon which to stand, to breathe unburnt air, and watch the sun caress soil's seeds into green.

A Yawling Rock crew will assemble at First Light on Narrow Pond in two days.

At the end of a week, each member attending will know of three other people's abilities and who they want to invite to help on their own abode, farm, ranch, and hopefully permaculture project. Additionally, they have banked for later use one week of work from a Yawling Rock member.

Yawling Rock provides three different rifts:

-cyberpunks city jams with smooth transitions to offgrid permaculture sonatas;

-blue grass that raises the greatful dead, barns and homes.

What's the third?  BIO because Yawling Rock is all about RTFM approaches followed by hella creation sets...not many do so hence Yawling Rock.

It ain't to hard for me to jaaaaaam!

None of this makes sense? Good. Move along. Go on. Nothing for you to see here.

Yawling Rock Crew Building Raiser Status:

Jon:  helping with firewood, 30 gallons of water, clay clean up, clay suspension, loft rafter fitting, and good company.

Davin: peeled logs for floor joist and 8 logs for my Ant Village neighbor, Mark, too. Good conversation.

Ben: called last night to say he was leaving the southwest last night and probably would arrive Thursday.

Jon and I picked up the bandsaw style sawmill chainsaw attachment yesterday:

Mark Neu of Cedar Creek Machine Shop did a great job of making modifications to the sawmill attachment chainsaw combo! He did it two weeks before his promised delivery date. Now I have a battery operated chainsaw sawmill -Thanks Mark!

Missoula Saws provided me with custom bandsaw blades; their whole crew worked all last weekend to clear out two weeks of back log so that I got my blades yesterday instead of the end of June.

Yawling Rock Crew kicking it:
Jon doing the sleeping loft;
Me cutting 2" thick floor boards;
Davin fitting the monster floor boards old school style (one floor board almost 12' long, 9 to 10" wide, and 2" thick);
Benjamin some where in Utah on his way.

Meanwhile Alan is teaching up a storm down on lower Wheaton Labs.

There's nothing like working with a good crew....now if the Lost Patrol would show up, we'd be complete.

The saga of the Lost Patrol came to an end!  The Lost Patrol reported in at 6:30am this morning.

Ben -thanks for all the clay mining, slip straw mixing and slip straw wall stacking!

Thanks Davin for fitting the most difficult floor board in First Light!

Thanks Jon for making the loft appear and putting the final braces on the upper east side wall!

Some conclusions and reactions to the first Yawling Rock Shelter Raising:

-have sheltered tasks planned to accomodate rain (did this);

-have any special item tool or equipment repairs complete before scheduling the Yawling Rock Building Crew Party (didn't do this. spent one day transporting custom bandsaw blade to newly modified bandsaw and tweaking newly modified bandsaw to work);

-stay with each crew member until you are comfortable knowing they have been tasked according to their capabilities;

-be available to answer questions or provide them with tools or materials;

-try to ensure all your party shows up within the same 24 hr period ( probably will never get this to happen perfectly). Have plans to occupy each member on a single tasks and only engage in tasks requiring more than one person after all the members arrive (saves time explaining group tasks multiple times and if not enough people show up at the right time, you still get work done);

- atleast half the crew should have the hand and measurement skills needed to do their tasks otherwise you won't have enough time or people to train the others and accomplish the tasks (I was lucky, everyone had tool eye hand coordination and could measure accurately);

-the location and placing of building materials along with respective work spaces must be planned out correctly (I had four people working on four different and separate tasks all within 10 feet of each other the majority of the time);

-Davin suggests it would've been better to have finished accomodations for people doing the work.

There was an outdoor kitchen, an outdoor luggable leu for a toilet, and everyone was reminded to bring their own tent with sleeping bag. Everyone had three hot organic meals a day.

Missing was a working shower which I had intended to take people to the river and a beautiful lake -the river was at flood stage and lake too cold for my mostly southwest crew.

I made up for this lack of a daily shower with a luxury expedition at the end of the week (which Davin missed out on) which I will not describe here in fear of angering the absent spouses of my crew. Suffice it to say everyone left with laundered clothes, a rested mind and a clean body.

I feel that a work period of 9 to 10 days is better than a week. People need a day or two to get into their tasks and a play day.
But if your crew is working a job with a 8 to 5 schedule, one week is about the limit their families will tolerate.

I feel you should have a minimum of three people show up. Not sure you could say you got more done than by yourself if only two show up...with three intelligent motivated attendees, you will definitely get more done than you could by yourself.

Davin missed out on the knowledge sharing. I recommend on the one day of play, you do knowledge sharing during the later part of the play day where in everyone gives a short class on their specialty which everyone chooses...three of us found this to be awesomely rewarding.

Yawling Rock Project Work Crews worked out great this time! Thank you Davin, Ben, and Jon!

YES!  Someone finally built the bandsaw sawmill chainsaw attachment I thought up a few years ago.  Orin, could you please do a post about it, who makes it, how it worked, etc?  Yay!

The last of the Yawling Rock Work Crew disappeared before noon yesterday.

Now Yawling Rock activity will be put on the back burner:
‐the website will slowly come to fruition;
‐plans to pay back the week I owe to Jon, Davin, and Ben might ignite before summer's end;
-Boots in the Boot Camp might want to transition to Ant Village with winter spent in the cities;
-and the third rift is starting to grow into a melody.

I will keep this thread posted as to the weeks of pay back I owe:
Jon is the most likely as he knows exactly what he wants accomplished;
Ben has many ideas but few supplies;
Davin helped just to help but there will come a project he'll need an extra body for  -I'll be there.

Boots, remember there is the Ant Village Option.

Those stuck in cities, those stuck in no win financial traps, those exhausted by van life,
....remember there is a method to leave the wage slave market.

Yawling Rock leans into the storm while the winds use the rock's very existence for melodies of telling yawls. If you can create, if you can preserve, if determined, the rewards stand self evident.

...she's Lump, she's Lump, she's Lump   She's in my head!!!

Mike Haasl wrote:YES!  Someone finally built the bandsaw sawmill chainsaw attachment I thought up a few years ago.  Orin, could you please do a post about it, who makes it, how it worked, etc?  Yay!

Sadly the company who makes this very cool device called the RipSaw is no longer in business.

This device was created such that a specific chainsaw could attach to it. Since the Stihl model is a gasoline device, I bought a milwaukee 16" battery operated model  ( I recommend a makita with two 17 volt batteries instead).

The milwuakee can do one 1.75 twelve foot continous cuts with a 12Ah battery and only a third of a 1 twelve foot cut on a 5Ah battery.

I then took this device and the battery operated chainsaw and asked for a marriage for these two from a skilled machinist.

Any shop which makes bandsaw blades will most likely also make a blade for a RipSaw

The kerf is so small when Jeff asked me for the sawdust, I couldn't offer him any of a substantial  amount even after two logs....would've used the saw dust On Narrow Pond anyways.

..if you wanted pics of the attachment and how all the adjustments work, I could do that next time I change the blade.