William Egan

That’s ok, I understand and I wish you the best of luck and I hope you find a good man to treat you right.

Hello May, I know I’m a bit older but I’m about ten years fitter than most men my age, you can check out my recent post on here, I’m a widower. I’m pretty handy I built our homestead from the ground up, truely the definition of a homestead. We ( my son and Daughter in law) live here with a solar system for all our electrical needs and gravity fed spring water from a very small spring that hasn’t let us down in eight years even through a tough drought, I might be willing to relocated for the right lady and turn things over to my son.

I’m a 64 yr old man ready to move on after two years of being robbed by cancer of my precious wife. I have 60 acres off grid in the Missouri Ozarks, I’m healthy and very fit and active for my age, a Marine, Christian and a gentleman, loving and kind. I am very much into alternative and natural substanabity and I love animals even though I only have dogs right now. Looking for a loving compatible help mate. Kinda hoping for a younger or at least an active lady with average build and a sweet disposition. One who likes to garden, make maple syrup, do woodwork or just simply love hiking, kayaking or horseback riding. Feel free to message me.

I do not currently own one but we do use composting buckets on occasion. I do know a few things on keeping the stinky down, one would be a good vent pipe from the pit, if it could be put behind a glass in the sun to give it some heat it would work really well, paint it black. Hot air rises. The major thing I would do is separate the S from the P by putting two seats, one for#1 and two for#2. The pee I would pipe out to a underground lateral and let it soak in and poop to go in the pit. This may not work so well if rain water gets in the pit, it's moist wet poo that makes the pee-yew. The addition of lime also helps a lot too or even a little dirt or sawdust. In the Marines we had barrels cut in half in the latreen and every day they would drag them out and burn them, a detail I'm so glad to have never been a part of.

Last spring I thinned the sweet corn when it was a little over a ft. tall. I washed it roots and all and juiced it for my wife and I along with other wild edibles and grape leaves. We are still alive and well.
  On a side note, I had some ears that I left for seed, I took some dried hard corn kernels and put them in a greased skillet on the stovetop and made parched corn. Leave it on medium heat and they will swell up instead of being all wrinkled and they become round. As a survival food it lasts a long time and can easily be eaten like that or ground up (a lot easier to grind) and put in soups or stews or just water and seasonings and sweetener to make a tasty mush. It alone has enough nutrition to live on for several months. The Indians used this extensively for winter survival or long journeys.

Hey Paul I am wanting to build some cob structures soon but not sure when I'll be able to start, I'm no expert but it is a pretty straight forward process. What I plan to to do is a post and beam with wood pallets stuffed with straw and about 4 inches of cob on each side. If you use post and beam you don't have to worry so much about your walls crumbling in an earth quake or such. I plan to char some cedar post for the beams to prevent rot and fungus. If you have any questions I'll try to answer but keep in mind, I'm not expert but I have built a lot of things. I am near Ava Mo. so maybe we could give each other a hand if I can ever retire. Have a great day.

Phil Gardener wrote:They've even made ships out of concrete (but they float by a different principle)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_ship

Aircrete is nifty stuff!  Have fun with it!  Happy New Year!

Right Phil, I didn't read the whole thing but I have known for a long time and even used Ferrocement. I used it to build a few septic tanks and even my cement pond
https://youtu.be/9JR-PLUxTME

I think they sunk most of those ferrocement ships off the coast of Florida to build the reefs.
Thanks for watching and God bless.

  I just wanted to wish everyone hear a Happy New Year. I love Permies and all the good people I have met here and I love being able to exchange thoughts ideas with a lot of great minds.
  I also wanted to show what I'm getting done with the sun room I'm building and how an aircrete block (foam and cement mixed) is so lightweight it floats. It is a lot softer than regular concrete, for those of you who have never heard of it, but it has a lot of practical applications. In fact I think it will revolutionize the building industry. It can be made harder or softer, light or heavy but it main virtue is its insulation value. I know it has a carbon footprint but its cheaper than blue foam and lasts forever. Its has been used a lot in housing, lots of people make blocks and cement them into walls of any shape, commonly domes and then covered with an outer layer of wire or fabric and a harder cement. I plan to use it under a concrete floor for insulation. And as you can see in the video, it floats.
 This is my New Years Video, I hope you like it and thanks for watching.

 I sincerely hope everyone has a happy, healthy prosperous new year and God Bless you one and all.

bruce Fine wrote:I saw something somewhere and 55 gal drums were painted black, filled with water and used as thermal mass with great success in a greenhouse. adding a solar water heater panel and small circulating pump could help keep the heat up.

 Bruce I'm just speaking from my experience. Here in the midwest I have seen weeks with no sun and my drum was painted black. I'm no expert and may have been able to do something to get it to work better but I think its safe to say your not going to successfully heat a greenhouse where I live anyway, with barrels full of water. What I will say is it will help keep it warmer longer if you can have a heat source. Your solar water heater may work in some climates but if you have a lot of cold and no sun you get little heat. One big factor is how well your greenhouse is insulated too, an underground greenhouse may do pretty well even here with just solar. My thoughts are as Thomas said, a rocket mass heater. They use little wood as compared to a wood stove, you can heat up a lot of mass well into the night or on a cold day with just sticks you clean up out of your yard or a few busted up pallets. You could even set your warm loving potted plants on the thermal mass.
 Oh, you could set up a thermal syphon with a rocket stove or something but it will take you all day to get you barrel hot, I know this one from experience too. And if you have more than one barrel you have a job on your hands.
 I hope this helps, just my two cents.