Douglas DeMers

I have been happy using the grain mill attachment for my Champion juicer. You can buy that from the manufacturer (championjuicer dot com) directly for $85 (plus tax, shipping etc.) If you already have a Champion juicer, this is an easy way to have a grain mill, too.

I use the grain mill attachment extensively for grinding organic brown rice, as my wife and I like homemade cream of rice cereal in winter time. I don't quite grind it to flour consistency - but close to that. Cooking the cereal is a 4:1 ratio of water to ground rice; cook time (once water is boiling) is 1 minute. Make sure you whisk constantly. Remove from heat and let sit for a minute. Yummy.

I also use the grain mill to grind whole grains - wheat (red & white), spelt, rye, kamut - for specialty baking.

I am fortunate to have a local source (Joel's Organic) for organic wheat, etc. who also mills it. He keeps a little more bran in the flours than most store-bought flour. I buy 25# bags of Bread flour directly from him, although I can find them in the local markets in Walla Walla as well. It is organic, and the price point buying directly from Joel is pretty close to what it would be for me to buy organic wheat berries and grind them myself, unless you need all the bran as well as the wheat germ.

I keep most of the flour in the freezer until needed, with only a couple pounds at a time in the pantry ready to use.

Note that the grain mill attachment for the Champion might need some adjustment at first to get a fine enough grind. I have seen many reviews of people dissatisfied that they could not get a fine enough grind. This can be adjusted, as I too had similar complaint when I first got my grain mill. The manufacturer's literature did not mention this, but being the curious and analytical person I am, I figured out what was going on and how to fix it before contacting the manufacturer.

I found I could undo the limiter set screw to allow the adjuster to bring the grinding "blade" closer to the "stone" (both are steel not stone). Once I allowed a closer - but not binding - spacing, I re-secured the set screw. You obviously do not want the metal to bind, yet you want the working pieces to be close enough to get a fine grind.

Making flour from whole berries, I start first with a coarse setting, then re-run that on a finer setting until I get the flour I want. Keep track on the number of "clicks" on the coarse/fineness knob, so the next time you can shortcut the process. I usually do one intermediary grind before the final grind.

I also use a gallon heavy duty ZipLoc bag inside the denim flour catch "sock" that snaps onto the grinder. Keeps things neater and cleaner.

The grain mill attachment comes apart for cleaning after each grind, which is a good practice.  Three Phillips head screws hold the two pieces of the casing together.

Opportunity wrote:
Anyone have any advice on how to locate suitable partners for a homesteading project?  My two basic requirements are: Vegetarians, and Non-smokers.  After years of frustration in trying to run this gig alone, I'm starting to panic because of things like the rapidly-deteriorating economy and potential for social collapse.
[...]

Opportunity-

I'm surprised nobody mentioned checking out the Intentional Community website - www.ic.org. They are the place I go to when I'm looking for intentional community. You can troll through their online Directory of communities, look at their "Community Classifieds" and their "REACHbook" -  "a public forum for people looking for community, communities forming, and communities looking for people, as well as a place to post about resources directly relevant to intentional community. Posting is free."

I often find amusement with some of the REACHbook postings, as well as the descriptions of the "forming communities."

The community directory allows searching by name, region, etc., so you could at least get a feel for what already exists and ones that are in the forming stage, like you are. If you've already got land and an idea, why not list your community on ic.org? A fair number of people intentionally oriented do look at that resource.

Good luck!

jeremiah bailey wrote:
Another, probably more practical way of moving the containers would be a semi tractor. These are far more ubiquitous than cranes. The containers have the built-in ability to have trailer wheels and landing gear mounted on their underside. Also more ubiquitous than cranes are fork lifts which can be used to mount and dismount landing gear and wheels. Forklifts can also be used to push trailer and container sections into place. One could also recycle old trailers for similar reuse. Although designated trailers are generally not as sturdy as shipping containers, they are designed to take quite a beating. They are just not designed to be stacked in addition to the requisite loading, that's the major difference. Many trailers have a wood plank or plywood floor with plastic or fiberglass laminated plywood sides in a metal frame, generally aluminum and steel.

They use special trailers with a semi tractor to move these shipping containers. LandAll is one such brand of trailer. When we bought a used 40' reefer SeaLand unit for our place in the Okanogan, we called around and found that Randy's Towing (a local tow company) had the ability to move the container for us. It was quite a process - given the tight turns on our access road - I wish I'd taken video!

The LandAll has movable wheels, which can be re-positioned as needed. A semi tractor was used to pull the trailer w/container. They had to move the trailer wheels forward to traverse a hair-pin turn, which in turn shifted the center of gravity of the load such that the tongue of the trailer (and subsequently, the driver wheels of the tractor) were significantly unweighted so he couldn't get any traction on the gravel road. They had to bring another 4x4 wrecker to help pull the tractor around the corner, after which he could move the trailer wheels back and put the weight back on the tongue/drivers and make it the rest of the way up to our place.

Our 40' container weighs around 11,000 pounds empty, so these need some significant horsepower to move. The LandAll is a tilting trailer with a solid bed and a hefty winch; there was no real "lifting" done, just a lot of pulling and sliding on the tilt bed.

I expect you'd get into a significant amount of cost if a crane is involved. I was surprised at how cheap (relatively) it was for Randy's to do the job for us. They picked up the container about a mile from our place, and delivered it to us for around $250. With the additional equipment and guys needed, and about four hours of work all told, I expected it would cost a lot more.

travisr wrote:
Most if not all "underground homes/building" are only 10 or so feet deep under ground. Does anyone know of techniques and ideas for deeper building/living? I know some mining companies dig caves for vineyards.   I would assume that type of construction would be extremely costly.  Pumping out and throwing a glazed roof on an old rock quarry would be pretty cool. Growing full size trees indoors and and such.   

Monolithic Domes (TM) (thin-shell concrete) have often been used for underground residences and buildings. They need to be engineered for the extra weight of the earth on top. If you poke around the http://www.monolithic.com website, you'll find a couple examples of Monolithic domes built completely underground.

Check out
http://www.monolithic.com/stories/the-invisible-dome-home

I'm not exactly sure why you'd want to build deeper - once you get below frostline, the ground temperature stays pretty constant; going deeper wouldn't accomplish much for energy efficiency, other than to add significantly to the cost.

Cheers!
Douglas

Hey, I've really appreciated the discussion here! Thank you Paul, Jan, Jocelyn and Diana for your insightful comments! This discussion certainly gives me good ideas of how I can better respond when this comes up again.

And, you know it will come up again That's the good news...

I am interested and appreciate what I'm hearing here regarding the use of the word "judgmental."!

Besides "judgmental", here is another phrase I've grown to dislike, and would like suggestions as to how to respond:

"Welcome to life in community," said in response to my bringing up an issue or concern I have with a member, or members in the community.  Sometimes I can detect sarcasm; sometimes perhaps resignation? I can clearly identify when the "welcome" is truly felt, and not intended as a speed bump (or brick wall?) in the conversation...

I would appreciate suggestions on how to respond and keep the dialog open and going.

Thanks for the opportunity to bring this up and to think about this!