recent progress

Jack Spirko asked me to record a bit of an update once a week and he would stick it into his podcast.

Maybe folks could make links to the podcasts from here. That would be a nice thing.

But Jack's stuff has a bit of a time limitation. And he wants me to do the very thing I have a really hard time with: turn on a microphone and talk - all by myself. Ug. For some reason this is a bit of a struggle for me. But it works for Jack - and I figure getting more airtime in his empire is always a good thing.

Each time I record something, I write some notes. I keep thinking that I should go into a bit more detail and make my own podcast. But the idea of that has gotten put off about 20 times. And ideas of nearly all podcasts have been repeatedly put off. So, until I get some time to put this stuff into my podcasts, here are the notes of the micro-podcasts I've been making for Jack.

last week I told you that I was going out to test to see if we have hot water with the shower shack. We don't! New skiddable shed - focus on lots more roundwood, less milled wood planting seeds. Living fence? replacing hydraulic ram in the dump trailer considering renting a dozer for a week: build some new roads, mend current roads - building a road through an area of solid rock - people here for the week before the pdc get a chance to drive the dozer - people here during the pdc get to drive the excavator and the tractor pooper 2 upgrades - ongoing improvements to transition from "better than a porta potty" to "better than the house" - now with - more privacy - improved door that - latches with magnets - locks from the inside only - sliding barricade - from the outside reads "open" or "occupied" evan's ant village plot - debris hut second ant! PDC prep - six seats left at $400 per seat guests coming - Thomas Elpel - Helen Atthowe - Jacqueline Freeman - Josho Somine bone yard both wofatis have had major cleanup tracks off of excavator - need to put a checklist in the cab - how the track tensioner works upgrade rmh at tipi michael buyer, props guy with penn and teller released a new podcast about "alone in the wilderness" - "proenneke" is a verb swarm; trying to seduce the swarm into a hive - - - - heat to the pile - previous piles were scalding hot in 48 hours. - this one is slower - now we just need lots of people to pee on it! - melons are now planted in the pile highest colorie per acre: sunchokes - we planted a few last year and they are up in spades all over the place New sink in the pooper. Water is moved into the basin with a foot pump. We have a PDC that starts in a few weeks and the instructor was asking for projects. - I think a good one is to route the water from the two sinks and the urine from the urine diverter to a smale swale full of "poop beast" plants: willows, cottonwoods and maybe even nettles Ernie and Erica Wisner, the rocket mass heater experts, will be here in a couple of days. - some of ernie's experiments this year have led to a rocket mass heater that might be touching 4000 degrees F. At that temperature plastics break down rather completely. So I hope that we will do some tests with burning garbage. We also have an experimental super small rocket mass heater that we will try out in "the love shack" - a tiny house we have here. - our rocket mass heater innovators event will be this october. Ernie, erica and I will nail down the final details and we should start selling tickets in the next week or two. We are starting to gather logs to build a berm shed. We hope that this will be a 1000 square foot shed with less than $200 in materials cost. Plus, it will be invisible from two sides and invisible from space. Earth integrated. Once the materials are gathered, we are hoping that it will be built in four days. I hope to report progress on that next time! -------------- jean pain style hot water for the showers - nearly scalding hot, but does not last very long - last year it was scalding hot for infinite time - more pee! ernie and erica wisner were here - wofati 0.7 design change - rather than just a second wall - a pseudo-solarium junkpole fence - evan the ant - pig fence - wood that is typically thrown in a slashpile and burned PDC is now two days away - there are about a dozen people here helping with projects in preparation berm shed is going up! - yesterday the vertical poles went in - today the berm wall is going in idea for people with dogs ten skiddable structures (not including chicken pens) - good for changing your mind - good for animals that poop in their structure - good for paddock shift systems - can be built in one place and positioned in another - two pig shelters - two bee huts - two poopers - one shower with multiple shower stalls - one wood shed - one poop sled - and a little sled that holds a battery and the electric fence stuff - moving to a lot more round wood - thus, less milled wood ------ showers are hot! PDC is on! dave hunter on mason bees jacqueline freeman on honey bees got the pebbles into the rmh in the house berm shed - great progress for three days. Two of the 12 bays are now done. - somebody stopped on the road and asked "are you forming a militia? Is that a bomb shelter?" stone stuff? my theories on compost forest fires? - fire truck solar leviathan is deployed! ------- PDC finishes up tomorrow. Thomas Elpel, author of "Botany in a Day" was here. He is also the author of several books and DVDs on primitive skills and building structures from stone using a slip form. During the PDC, a herbal school class came out for a day. staying cool - lots of stuff I'm sure all of your peeps already know, so I'm gonna stick to just the permie stuff - wofati is uber cool. 100 outside and 75 inside. - trees - the bigger, the better - thermal mass - rocket mass heater - people sit on ours in the summer because they seem to hold the cold from the night before - layers of shade - over walls and roof as well as windows - burlap - bamboo or reed blinds - haybox cooking

Here is the latest "expert council podcast" in which paul gives his update.