Josh (The Gapper's) Photo's, Videos & More.

Hello from basecamp everyone!

It was a long journey and I documented fairly well with a decent video camera. I will be posting at least weekly updates of my gapper journal to my website and then sharing them here, either in a separate post or just this one if it makes more sense. (I'll see what Paul thinks)

Anyway, I've just uploaded a few pictures to imgur in an album and will post a few in-line here and link to the album at the bottom of the post.

Also, I wanted to experiment with something where you guys ask for pictures and I'll see what I can do to take care of capturing it and posting as quickly as I can. (Again, not sure if that should be a separate thread or not either.)

And, without further ado here are the photos!

Kai building the junk pole fence


Sara helping with the fence - this was a particularly difficult nail - she did a great job with it though


Chateau De Poo


Wofati 0.8


Rex, the excavator's bucket, poor guy broke his teeth :/


I encourage you guys to check out the rest of the pics in the Imgur album, I had a lot of fun taking them and I hope you guys enjoy them. Please feel free to makes some requests here and I'll see what I can do to fulfill them!

Hey, are those little bugs on/in the water in one of the Imgur pictures? What's that all aboot?

Folks looove pics, so this is great, Josh!

By the by, we now have two Josh's involved here at wheaton labs.

This Josh, Josh Pasholk, is a gapper and someone who helps with permies.com stuff, too (see his friendly hello and intro here).

Josh Huorn, of Josh's anty updates arrived as an ant last year.

I'm easily confused, so I thought others might be as well.

Julia Winter wrote:Hey, are those little bugs on/in the water in one of the Imgur pictures? What's that all aboot?

Hi Julia!

Those are called Snow Fleas or Spring Tails, Kai showed them to me on our walk around the lab.

Here is a wikipedia article about them.

Jocelyn Campbell wrote:Folks looove pics, so this is great, Josh!

By the by, we now have two Josh's involved here at wheaton labs.

This Josh, Josh Pasholk, is a gapper and someone who helps with permies.com stuff, too (see his friendly hello and intro here).

Josh Huron, of Josh's anty updates arrived as an ant last year.

I'm easily confused, so I thought others might be as well.

Thanks Jocelyn!

I went ahead and changed the title to help clear up any confusion as well.

Always exciting to see what folks are doing up there!

Here are some macro shots I took the other day on a short walk







































Hope you awesome guys and gals liked the pics!

Link to Imgur Album

If anyone would like to check out my journal about staying at the lab as a gapper, please check out my blog!

The pictures are cool - thanks for posting! Can't wait to see what you do up on the land.

Hey Everyone! I decided to post my gapper journal entries on here as well as my blog to make it easier for permies to read them and not have to leave the site at all! Yay, for being slightly lazier!

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Gapper Journal Day One March 11th

After a gruelingly long drive I arrive at basecamp while it was lightly raining. I was able to spot which place it was because of the rock-jacks viewable from the road. I thought to myself “this is the only place that would have them and google maps indicated I was close as well.

Kai greeted me either by happenstance or he saw my car pull in and came and made sure it was me. He took me for a short tour of basecamp and showed me all of the neat things I’ve heard about on the podcasts and read about on permies.com.

I looked upon everything with a sense of awe and bizarre surreality, I couldn’t believe that I was actually here. I saw everything from the Pee Palace and the Willow Feeder to the Berm Shed and all of the Rocket Mass Heater goodies. It’s defiantly a different thing to check things out online than to look upon them with your own eyes.

After the short tour and chatting with Kai a little bit I was invited inside to meet Jocelyn and Paul as well as Sara, another gapper who was helping Jocelyn in the kitchen making merengue . The Rocket Mass Heater in their living room was purring happily which lent a cozy vibe to the whole place.

When I was done chatting with Jocelyn and the gappers for a little bit I went in and met Paul in person. I had talked with him on the phone and in meetings with other permies.com team members before but seeing and speaking with him in real life was on another level altogether.

It was late and dark at this point and the gappers were waiting for me to be done talking with Paul to head up to the lab so we wrapped it up quickly. All I wanted to do was sit and have a long conversation with Paul about, well everything, but I saved it for another day. I thanked them for their hospitality and then followed Kai up to the lab and then Allerton Abbey, which is the name for Wafati 0.7.

I wasn’t sure if my car could make it up the muddy road to the lab but Kai assured me that it probably could. It was touch and go a bit here and there in some places but I was able to build up speed and power through the places where it was super muddy and the road was holding water.

Arriving at Allerton Abbey in the dark was pretty awesome. When I pulled up I could see the giant mound that was the Abbey as well as the Voltzwagon, which is the large solar cart that powers everything up here. I had to make about 4 trips to carry everything I wanted to have in inside that night and Kai offered to help with some of it, which was nice. Jim the Ant was sitting on the couch inside and reading a book. He greeted me and went back to reading.

After getting settled in a bit and meeting another gapper named Sean I made my bed and got ready to pass out. It took a while for me to get to sleep and I woke up a bunch of times – but I think that was just because I was sleeping in a new place and I couldn’t really believe I was actually here. I’d occasionally open my eyes and look up at the logs above that made up the rafters of the Wofati and remember how much I’d always wanted to see it for myself.

The next day was going to be the start of something I’d been wanting to do for a long time.

Gapper Journal Day Two – Saturday March 12th

After a fitful night sleep I woke up early with the light of the morning sun. I laid in bed for a while thinking of my drive, and everything that had led me to this point. I was drifting slowly back to sleep when Kai opened the back door of the Abbey to come in and make his breakfast. He made oats and carrots, or maybe it was barley flakes and carrots – I’m not sure. After that he sat down and started reading a book.

I made some coffee in the morning with my french press and it was amazing. I was surprised with how quiet everyone is in the mornings. It’s an interesting change from the fast paced life in Southern California where I’m from. I like it, but it will take some time to get used to.

After everyone was done with their morning routines Kai took me on a tour of The Lab. It was a really neat experience to see all of the things that I had been following the construction of for the past few years. We started with the Tipi that has a Rocket Mass Heater in it and moved our way toward Ant Village, stopping by Wofati 0.8 and the Lemon Tree site on the way.

After the tour, Kai, Sara – who is another Gapper – and I went and finished repairing a junk pole Rock Jack fence for the first of many paddocks at basecamp. The wind had blown over two sections of the fence after the rocks fell out of the bottom of one of the Rock Jacks. This had caused the rocks of the other one to catapult down the hill and fall all over the place.

We attempted to lift the fence up so we could repair jacks in place without having to do the additional work of taking them apart. After a few attempts we came to the conclusion that it would be better to just take the fence sections apart and fix the jacks on place.

All in all it took us about four hours that day and we finished all but one sections. We packed up our stuff, filled up our water to bring up to the lab and looked forward to the chili that Sean was making for everyone. After touring the lab and working for the rest of the day, the chili was magnificent.

We all ate merrily and had some great conversations until we headed over to Jim the Ant’s plot to watch a movie. We walked through forest in the drizzling rain to his hovel and he calls it. We ended up cycling through a few different movies before we settled on an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was projected on a white tipi tarp we hung from the wall.

When the movie was done we walked back and I almost got lost because I went ahead, thinking I could find my way on my own.

I ended up passing out pretty well that night and slept pretty well.

Gapper Journal Day Three – Sunday March 13th

We finished the junk pole fence up on Sunday morning in about two hours. It was nice to be done with a project no matter how small. The last part was mainly about insuring that the rock jacks were held in place really well and we spent a decent amount of time shoring them up with extra nails and screws.

After we finished the rest of the gappers were going to go on a hike. I ended up staying behind at basecamp to catch up on a but of online stuff and to speak with Paul about helping him with something. We spoke a bit about designing something he wanted me to make and I ended up with a rough sketch of something he drew.

Back at the Wofati we ate the left overs of chili from the night before and chatted about that day and some bounties that we might be able to collaborate on. It was a decent end to a day.

Gapper Journal Day Four – Monday March 14th

These last few journal entries have been difficult to write because I’ve been trying to remember what happened after a few days. It’s a lesson in diligence. I need to write nightly or at least every other night.

Anyway, Monday I spent a lot of time at basecamp. I needed to catch up even more on some more on online stuff and uploading some pictures to permies.com as well as continue building something from the design Paul had given me. I spent a long time on it until the Monday night feast was ready.

It was a feast indeed. There were at least 5 or 8 different things to eat with the main course being scalloped potatoes with some type of delicious sausage. After stuffing ourselves with at least two plates we had apple crisp with a coconut whipped cream topping for desert. It was probably one of the best meals of my life, and Jocelyn even sent us all back to the lab with a bunch of leftovers!

After getting all settled in for the night and starting to drift off to sleep I heard an odd snapping sound, like something fell over and broke sharply. Then, after my brain replayed the sound in my head I realized that it was a mouse trap going off.

It was one that we had dry-set, meaning we didn’t place any bait in it but just set it in an area where we knew they’d be running. After getting out of bed I saw that the mouse wasn’t dead. I felt compassion for the little guy and couldn’t let him suffer. I resolved to end his pain quickly.

This for some reason shook me up a but and woke my tired brain up in a way that I couldn’t go back to sleep. Sara, another gapper and I ended up chatting about a whole bunch of stuff that night ranging from spirality to a lot of our beliefs about this world and the next.

Gapper Journal Day Five – Tuesday March 15th

Tuesday was the day that my body started to realize that I needed to get some rest. I arrived with a little cold and it took a small turn for the worst. Nonetheless I powered through finishing half of what Paul was having me build for him and then made a trip in to Missoula for some supplies.

It was a trip to see how different Missoula is to all the cities in California, everything is so spread out! It’s refreshing in a way but it does take a bit longer to drive to all of your destinations. My main stop was the Good Food store. It’s like a Whole Foods but way better in my humble opinion. I was shopping for me and another gapper and wanted to get back in good time so I didn’t get to spend much time there.

The next time I go I’ll allot for more time to explore what they have, it’s probably the largest organic food store I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen at least twelve or so Whole Foods Markets in Los Angeles. I stocked up on some simple breakfast fixings as well as other basic ingredients such as onions, potatoes, garlic and eggs. After that I made my way to a gas station to throw a few bucks in before heading back.

When I arrived back at basecamp a decent headache started to set in and I was almost completely losing my voice. I knew that I wasn’t out of the woods yet with this cold. Luckily I could look forward to heading back to a nice and warm Wofati and get some rest.

I made some eggs in a cast iron frying pan over the propane stove and threw in the left over potatoes from feast night. The simple-ness of the meal was very comforting and delicious. The other gappers decided it was game night and Kai and Sara played a bunch of really awesome songs together on the guitars.

We played a game call Tok Tok Woodman where you build a small tree out of these plastic pieces and try to knock only certain ones that resemble the bark off without knocking over the core of the tree. It sounds kind of odd when you explain it over text but it’s incredibly fun and you don’t really know who’s going to win until the end.

We also played a game where someone hums a song and everyone tries to guess what the song is. We went a few rounds until Jim – one of the Ants – just started singing Bohemian Rhapsody and everyone had to start singing along. It ended the game but was really fun to watch. I couldn’t sing along because I was losing my voice but it was really nice anyway.

I ended up making my bed not to long after this and trying to get a good night sleep and to try and beat this cold.

Gapper Journal Day Six – Wednesday March 16th

I am finally catching up with all of journaling tonight after taking the afternoon off and resting. I woke up earlier in the morning that I have been to make some coffee and get down to basecamp to finish up my project for Paul.

He wanted me to be finished by 10 but I was delayed by my need for sleep and my aching body, I however needed to power through it and complete the job. Sara rode a bike down shortly after I drove and helped me finish up the project. I helped set it all up and made sure Sara had what she needed to help Paul make notes about editing some DVD’s and then I headed back up to The Lab.

Sean and I had talked about making some dinner for that night in the slow cooker I bought the day before in Missoula. When I arrived at the Abbey it was already smelling amazing and I thanked him profusely for doing basically all the work of prep and getting it all in the cooker.

With everything ready in the cooker Sean and I made some coffee and visited for a while before him, Kai and I went for a short slow walk. I wanted to get some pictures and a little bit of exercise as well. Kai and Sean took a bunch of pea’s to plant along the way.

By the time we got back the food was almost ready but Sean and I decided it would be smart to whip up some rice and lentils to add some more protein and filler so everyone could get their fill for the night.

We went through all of the pictures and videos I took after dinner and talked about what else I should take pictures of next.

Gapper Journal Day Seven – Thursday March 17th

I woke up in the morning feeling not so well from my cold I was trying to kick. My throat was a little sore and I still had a bit of a cough. When I rolled over to look out the window I saw a deer cruising through the trees for just a second before it disappeared. The sight was majestic.

I proceeded to get up and start some water boiling for coffee before heading to Chateau De Poo. I was starting to feel a little bummed that this cold was kicking my butt so much and causing me to not get very much done around the lab. I guess no one ever plans to get sick and there’s never a good time for it.

When I finished having coffee and a little breakfast that Sara shared with me I followed Kai out into the trees surrounding the Abbey to get some footage of him harvesting junk poles and a few other things. He has agreed to help me get some footage of a bunch of different stuff while I’m at The Lab.

After that I headed down to Basecamp so I could get some pictures and videos uploaded. It took me a little longer than I had planned because I had so many photos I wanted to get up. I created separate blog posts for all of these journals, I figured it would make for easier reading than one large week long post.

When I was finished with my online stuff at Basecamp I headed up to The Lab to eat some lunch and finish some stuff I planned to do for the night. I needed to clean out the burn chamber of the rocket mass heater in the Abbey so it would burn cleaner as well as pull some lumber out of a scrap pile and stack it on the porch or the Abbey so it would dry. I had planned on making a ladder for one of the bunks.

After dinner Kai, Sara and I jammed a little bit on the guitars. We ended up having a great little groove on Cortez Cortez by Neil Young. It was cathartic to play some music and jive with the other gappers in this way. I was playing a bit of lead as best as I could even though I’m not much of a lead guitar player.

I went to bed with a smile on my face and started to look forward to the next day.

Gapper Journal Day Eight – Friday March 18th

Evan and Sharla arrived the night before and stopped by the Wofati to say hello and share some stories of their trip to the grand canyon. It was really cool to finally meet Evan, I’d heard so much about him from the forums and from the people who were staying here that I didn’t know what to expect. He’s just another guy trying to make the best of living out in the wilderness in Montana. He’s very humble and down to earth.

After waking up in the morning and having my coffee and making a few eggs for breakfast, Evan, Kai and the rest of us started talking about ‘Survival Weekend’, which was originally called Spirko weekend as suggested by Paul to potentially draw more people in but it ended up being just us gappers- which was fine by us. It entails a bunch of different survival skills including but not limited to, primitive fire making, Archery, debris hut construction and many other things.

We started with bow and drill fire making, I began with getting a little bit of footage of everyone making their bow and drill. After a little bit I thought it would be a good idea to make my own. Everyone else was making theirs a little bit too small so I thought I’d make mine a bit bigger. The end result was something that was a lot easier to use than the smaller ones but still pretty difficult to actually get a fire going with. It’s a lot harder to make a friction fire than they portray in the movies.

When we got tired of failing to make fire we decide to have some lunch. I took the opportunity to make some rice and beans for dinner as well, eating a little bit of the rice for lunch. It took a bit longer than I had planned but was well worth it because I was getting work done that I wouldn’t have to later on in the evening when I would be tired.

After lunch I caught up to everyone one in Evans plot at the makeshift archery range. They had set up a hay bale with a target on it and marked out fifteen, thirty, forty-five, and sixty foot markers to shoot from. We had to get four out of four at fifteen, three out of four at thirty, two out of four at forty-five and one out of four at sixty to achieve your goal for the archery range.

I did surprisingly well and made all the shots relatively quickly. We had a few other gapper that were still trying to get all of their goals when Kai spotted a Weasel running around on the berm that borders Evans plot. Evan was quick to grab the bow and arrow from whoever was holding it at the time and him and Kai went to investigate. I was almost as quick on the draw with the video camera and started to get some footage.

Evan and Kai were looking for it for a little bit when I spotted it run away and yelled at them to check it out. I was so excited that I didn’t get very good footage of it but did that best I could considering the circumstances. Evan spotted it and lined up for the shot, he took the shot and missed. The Weasel ducked down in the stump it was hiding in and popped his head up after a second or two as if to say “ did you just shoot at me?”

It then disappeared into the thicket of the Douglas Firs. We were all talking about what happened when Sara saw the Weasel again and told Evan where it was. He grabbed the bow again and lined up the shot while I quickly grabbed the video camera, I just managed to start recording when he released the arrow and took the Weasel just below the lung section. It was still scurrying around when I ran over there.

My adrenaline and compassion for it’s suffering took over and I crashed through the small trees and underbrush to end its suffering. When I came down upon it with my hatchet I swung a few mighty blows only to miss here and there, thats when it’s musk hit me. It was one of the worst smells I’ve even encountered, it’s like a combination of burning plastic and a pungent urine. Even so, I endeavored to ends its suffering so I was frantically trying to catch it under my foot to stop it to I could make the killing blow.

“Step on it’s neck!!”, Sean yelled to me and I tried to do just that but it didn’t seem to be working. So he ended up rushing in to finish the job, I was almost gagging on the stench by now while I was trying to get away from it and recuperate. By the time I came back to get some footage of it he had it out of it’s misery and was getting ready to start skinning it.

He took it to the clearing where we were shooting the bow and began to skin and butcher it. I got as much as I could on video before I headed back to the Wofati to prepare for dinner around the campfire.

We had some organic hotdogs and beer as we told stories about our journeys in life and played some campfire songs on the guitars. It was one of the best campfires I’ve ever sat around. Eventually it got way too cold and I retired back to the Wofati where I heated up some rice and beans and begun to write the rest of this journal entry.

I was a little heady from the day’s experience when I went to bed, so I had to read a bit of the Simarillian to convince my mind that I was tired. I slept like a baby in the large bunk in the Abbey.