Thomas Braun

I grind wheat and bake bread, have for years.  I've used wheat for feed ,and wheat for human consumption.  My family never died, and I'm still alive.  I buy the wheat in fifty pound bags at IFA (Intermountain Farmers Association).  I checked prices today:  feed wheat 18.99 for fifty pounds.  wheat for humans 36.00 for fifty pounds.  Both feed wheat and human wheat from IFA make excellent bread.    Last year I bought a bag of each, opened them, compared them, not much difference.  Both worked excellent in a hand grinder and in an electric grinder.  That's my story and I'm eatin' to it.

Twenty-four hours fasting takes approximately ninety-six hours mentally, and even fruitcake from Christmas 2012 looks edible.  

I have fasted often, mostly one to three days, and once for eleven days, whereas my bro. in law fasted for 41 days,  and my wife fasted for 40 days.

The health benefits--physically and mentally--increase each day as long as you don't go long enough to start starving (lots of youtube, etc., info of long fasts and the benefits).

A friend and I went into the desert and fasted without water and food for three days.  You could say it was a spiritual fast, or energy fast, and after three days he came out of the desert a polygamist, and I came out hungry.  I got the better deal because his wife and kids left him.

The forty day fast my wife did was to get rid of cancer.  The cancer went away for thirty-five years.  However, she did die of cancer in 2021, August.

Animals go without food (fast) when sick, and get well.  It works for the human animal too.  Best regards, gotta go, suddenly I'm hungry.  Tom

Thank you for the,  "Welcome,"  Casie Becker.   Permies is a valuable asset in so many ways.  Thank you all for being here.

NO ONE ON YOUTUBE HAS DONE IT, OR HAS POSTED IT.  I've been making, baking and ateing home made artisan bread since baking was invented, HOWEVER, I wanted to make bread without buying flour, and without using a grinding mill on wheat berries.  Sooo....I did it.  I made an artisan loaf using hard red wheat (NOT GROUND INTO FLOUR).  

WHY?  I pretended I was wandering a forest just after the world ended, and was tired of not having bread, and of course as all wanderers do, they carry a small sack of whole wheat berries around their belt, just left of the sword and to the right of a quart Tuppeware container with a lid.

HOW?  Soak the wheat in water.  Depending on temperature, one day or two days later, pour off the water, find a flat stone, put the now-soft-wheat berries on the stone (better if you use the Tupperware) and find another stone and squash the squash out of them.   Modern folks will use their plastic bowl and a tablespoon and squash them until you have a dough ball.  After you have a dough ball, let it sit for 30 minutes, do it again; sit for 30 minutes, do it again, and again, until it is actually dough.  If you've baked bread then you know what to do with the dough.  If not, well, there is youtube for working dough.  Best regards, Tom.

Howdy folks,  I'm 73, and been blessed with two hernias and a nagging right hip, and six weeks ago, before the first snow in Southern Utah/near Nevada, I hoisted by new BIG chainsaw and cautiously and slowly cut down a twenty-four inch diameter, twenty foot tall dead pinion pine, and cut it into rounds, and loaded them onto my 1990 Ford 4x4, drove five hundred yards and unloaded beneath my 12x40 foot porch.  

It may be mindlessness over matter, or just a "Damn right I can do it," attitude, but even at 73+ I've got more energy than some of my sons, and some nineteen year olds I know.  Maybe it's the coffee.  Yeah, it's definitely the coffee, well....or the rum and coke in evening as I relax in my recliner in a 12x12 shack, lined from floor to ceiling, and wall to wall with 2x6s, which heat nicely from the wood burner.  And there I am, just relaxing, watching the candle play off the mirror behind it enjoying the mellow light cascading of the wood.

For they who can, staying active is the key, real active, and splitting wood is just as much fun with a big maul now as it has been for the last thirty years.  Of course, I think it's my smoking Indian Cigarettes that help the most.

I can't wait to wake up each morning, start the fire, heat the coffee, sit and smoke, and then when I'm as fired up as the woodburner, slide that glass door open look out at the Pinions and Junipers and with great energy, turn around and have another cup of coffee, and THEN melt into the day doing whatever the hell I please.

SO WHAT'S THE POINT:  joy, fun, bliss, ecstasy living in the outback, eighty miles from uncivilization, with nature, knowing that at the end of an active day I can pull them thar smoked ribs of the smoker and lean back and suckle those ribs bare.

And of course my other point is, if yeah don't stay a doin' it ain't long before you ain't doin.  I got a good twenty years, and I AIN'T NOT spendin' 'em sittin in no rockin' chair starin' at CNN and watchin' cities implode and crime runnin' rampant.  That's my take.  And best regards to everyone. Tom

Holy Kamikaze, there's a lot lonely folks.  This is all new to me.  But it ain't gonna get old because there's a special gal, and we're gonna find each other.  And, I wish everyone  the very best.  

I can't be the only one in Southern Utah, USA lookin' fer fun in the sun outback.  

I kind of figured out how to put my picture (current) on the top right corner by my name, but haven't figured out how to put it with a post.  But I will.

Just so ya know, it's only been a few weeks since me and my chainsaw cut down a monster DEAD pinion (that's a western tree...I know that 'cause it was wearin' a cowboy hat).  Cut it into round, split, stacked, ready for snow.  Oh...My families' twenty acre campground is at 7,000 feet, but it faces south east, and the snow don't last forever.  Pinion trees (think pinenuts) and Juniper trees are everywhere.  

I figure it this way, if no one is interested, I'm gonna entertain you with words, ideas, and some of 'em will be from Pop's Wacky Wisdom, a book I don wrote before I started sippin' rum and coke.  Now don't get the wrong idea.  I only drink when I'm sober.  Wait...that sounded weird.  A little drink in the 'evening.  Anyway, I'll be BACK.