paul wheaton

We started with a woman talking about going back to college.    I suggested a humble home and a large garden.  I then suggest SKIP and the bootcamp (gardening gardeners)

I am then asked about health care in the bootcamp.  

I think of the bootcamp as a place where people can focus on learning gardening, natural building and homesteading.  A sort of shitty school.  

For whatever college the woman was headed to, what is the health care there?  What is the cost of the college, the cost of the housing and the cost of food?


And there was mention of people with a lot of stuff that might need to be stored for the bootcamp.   Would it need to be stored for college?

Might have to agree to disagree there. Splitting wood and peeling logs is the kind of thing I love to do, but it is still work. Especially if you have to do it to stay warm, and can’t wander off after an hour.

When a person has baseboard heaters, or natural gas heat and pay $3000 per winter, do they call that "work"?

As for "have to do it to stay warm" - we have big supplies of wood right now.  I think all of our firewood harvesting is done at an extremely easy pace.  Without any desperation to stay warm.

But how many young adults dream of retiring to that humble a home before they’ve done much else?

Dunno.  Maybe a few million?  But I can only take about 20.

do you want to see most boots come and stay forever? Or do they come and hang out, build skills and then move on?

I gotta allow the people that just wanna be here for a few months if I am eventually gonna find the people that will be here for ten years or more.

new vid with the gert card

I think there is truth to what you are saying lina:  this is a crappy school.  And if you were gonna drive to a fancy school in chicago, you probably need to get there, have a housing and food thing you can do, and a huge amount of stuff is probably not helpful.  

Is anyone going to pay you a living wage to split wood by hand, build junk pole fences, harvest rhubarb in a homestead setting?

I suppose a person could come to the bootcamp in pursuit of that sort of work.  But I don't think anybody is doing that.  And I don't recommend it.  

I think most people are getting their earliest experiences in gardening, natural building and homesteading.

To sleep in a bunkhouse and get food in exchange for 40 hrs of work per week?

Work?  I hope that nobody sees it as work.  It is a chance to grow your own food and build your own shelter.  At a pretty easy pace.  

I see communities where people gather to do this, only they end up doing very little of this.  I feel like the bootcamp adds a sort of structure.  Everybody is gonna try to get stuff done at the same time.  Learn together.  elbow-to-elbow.  

"Exchange" doesn't quite fit either.  Granted, the boots get food and a bunk, but a lot of that food came from past boots.  And all of the bunks came from past boots.  

Bootcamp doesn’t set you up for a career in our current society, and doesn’t pretend to. From my understanding of the the program, it teaches you to run a small homestead mostly by hand, with occasional use of the excavator and tractor.

I think the bootcamp is amazing for existing gardeners, natural builders and homesteaders that love to create.  Now there are people that do it with you, five days a week.

I think the bootcamp is the foundation for retiring to a gert package.  

Your words seem to be about getting a person into the workforce.  I think the bootcamp is about getting people out of the workforce and into retirement.



Another angle:  A lot of people want to get into homesteading.  They buy land, put years in, and burn out.  They then sell everything for less than they paid.  The bootcamp is a far better path:  cheaper to get into and there is no loss.  Building a style of community at a pace that dodges the burnout issues.

here is our thread about what the bootcamp works on in winter

https://permies.com/t/149839/bootcamp-winter

Stephen moved the sawmill and he has a plan for a more permanent installation.  My guess is that it will be fired up this week.

We have created a lot of winter gardens with the idea that we will harvest and eat stuff through the winter.

Of course, a lot of people want to try a few days in every cabin to see what that rocket mass heater is like.

I think this winter will have a hard push on building junk pole fence at basecamp.



Magdalane posted a few pics every day through a winter

https://permies.com/t/180/162161/Magdalene-Bootcamp-Experience

paul wheaton wrote:I think this could be something where three pieces of angle iron welded to another three pieces of angle iron could totally do the trick.   Then you just weld some loops at three corners so you can connect a chain or cable.  About 4 feet by 4 feet.

bump

The short graders do a good job of grading side-to-side.  And they do an okay job of lengthwise also, but you do end up with a road that is a little roller-coaster-esque.

The idea is to trim off the higher points of the roller coaster to fill in the lower points.   A shorter blade is carving at the peak and the valley.  A longer blade is carving on the peaks.

The runners idea is good.  A longer contraption with blades in the middle sounds better.

I like the direction of the "land plane" but I would like to see it go from three feet long to something more like ten feet long.  Or maybe even longer.

Andrés Bernal wrote:Third stretch goal reached! Woohoo!!

All backers who support at $100 dolalrs or aboove now also get:



https://permies.com/t/238910/ebooks/Natural-Small-Batch-Cheesemaking-eBook

and




https://permies.com/t/maple-syrup






https://permies.com/t/270835/EBOOK-Building-Earthbag-House-Step