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skills to inherit property

Alexandra Malecki's 3 BB Countdown to PEP2

Alexandra Malecki

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Location: 6a; BSk; Suburbia; 0.35 acres

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posted 1 month ago

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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!

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I'm pursuing SKIP to inherit property, check it out for yourself: SKIP book or maybe you're my Otis/Otessa match?
I created a thread dedicated to my countdown to PEP2, please come visit and ask a question!
I love that Rocket Mass Heaters are Carbon-Nuetral. In Erica's and Ernies Art of Fire Presentation, Erica explains the chemistry of how that's possible!
I attended Helen's Garden Master Course in January 2022 and give the lectures 10/10 acorns! Fortunately for you, you can also see the Garden Master recordings but unfortunately you'll miss out on the fruit Helen grew and shared. It was the tastiest fruit I've ever had!

Jeremy VanGelder

gardener

Posts: 1606

Location: Proebstel, Washington, USDA Zone 6B

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posted 1 month ago

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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.

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

Alexandra Malecki

gardener

Posts: 569

Location: 6a; BSk; Suburbia; 0.35 acres

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posted 1 month ago

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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!

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Alexandra Malecki

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Location: 6a; BSk; Suburbia; 0.35 acres

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posted 3 weeks ago

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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.

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I love the new plastic shield that my husband mounted for me!

Alexandra Malecki

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Location: 6a; BSk; Suburbia; 0.35 acres

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posted 2 weeks ago

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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!

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Alexandra Malecki

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Location: 6a; BSk; Suburbia; 0.35 acres

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posted 2 weeks ago

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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.

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Alexandra Malecki

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posted 2 weeks ago

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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.

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Rebekah Harmon

Apprentice Rocket Scientist

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Location: 4a, high mountain dessert

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posted 1 week ago

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Go ALEX!! Woot woot!

Being weird is easy. Making it mainstream is hard. Be brave! https://www.youtube.com/@healthygreenbrave

Food Prep and Preservation - sand badge (verified skill)
Skill verified by Mike Haasl

Alexandra Malecki

gardener

Posts: 569

Location: 6a; BSk; Suburbia; 0.35 acres

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posted 1 week ago

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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!

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Alexandra Malecki

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Location: 6a; BSk; Suburbia; 0.35 acres

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posted 1 week ago

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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.

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Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

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Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

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posted 1 week ago

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

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

Alexandra Malecki

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Location: 6a; BSk; Suburbia; 0.35 acres

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posted 1 week ago

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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.

Alexandra Malecki

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posted 1 week ago

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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.

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Alexandra Malecki

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posted 6 days ago

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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.

Alexandra Malecki

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posted 5 days ago

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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!

Alexandra Malecki

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posted 2 days ago

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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.

Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. Check the tiny ad.

Learn Permaculture through a little hard work

https://wheaton-labs.com/bootcamp