Hello Permies!

I stumbled into Paul Wheaton's videos while doing research on a waste oil burning stove. I'm really interested in the boot camp program.

What is the application procedure?

A little about me: I am a recent graduate in Environmental Science from UW - Madison. I am an engineer at heart however. I have some work experience in pulp and paper, art studios, and chemical engineering.

I am new to the forums. I see the deadline for application is coming up. I will scour the forums for more information in the mean time. Thanks! Looking forward to hearing back from someone.

Jimmy

Jim,

Are you thinking of coming out right away, or are you thinking of coming out the beginning of february?

The application process is very simple:   send $100 via paypal to paul at richsoil.com.   We will then get you out here and put you to work.  Some people come for just a few weeks, and some people are shooting for deep roots.

Start time would depend on a few things.

What kind of work/experimentation are you doing right now? I watched the boot camp videos and understand the workload (40 hours + general cleanup).

I have some obligations that keep me in WI until Nov. 28th.

So the beginning of february.  And I'm not sure what will be getting worked on then.

Right now I can say that there is some rocket mass heater work going on.  And some straw bale wall work.   We're getting the sawmill back online.   And junkpole fence is coming up.  There might be some tractor time for mending roads and snow plowing time is coming soon.

Ok!

I'll check back in closer to then.

Heya Paul, looks like early January, say the second to third week, I can come out if that works well. If there is any particular project or workshop around then I can aim for that particular time. Email sent to Jocelyn and Fred to confirm as well, so I can look at plane tickets and car rentals.

We're not taking in any new boots from nov 15 to jan 31 this season.   So, perhaps you would like to come by February 1?

You can rent a car if you like, but you probably won't need one.  In fact, I think you would be the first person to do so.

OK I'll aim for early February, the car rental is for going over to the Spokane area to look at property for sale for a couple days and get a feel for Stevens county over there. Thanks!

Hi Paul,

First time posting on the forums, but I've been listening to your podcast and reading the forums for a while now, they've been an invaluable source of information and inspiration and I want to thank you for making that freely accessible to others.

I'd love to get involved in the permaculture bootcamp to learn and work together with other folks interested sharing their knowledge and experience. Before I send over my application fee I just wanted to ask, do you have a preference for either bitcoin or paypal for payment? I haven't yet dipped my toes into the bitcoin waters, but I thought this might well be a good time to start!

Thanks,

Joshua

I think that if you are already bonkers about bitcoin and have oodles of bitcoin, then SURE, send bitcoin! 

But if you haven't started, then I think good ole paypal is best.

Hey Paul,

I'm interested in coming out this February, and am about to send in the money via paypal. I've been watching your videos for years, and am particularly interested in the rocket mass heaters.

I know it's been asked before in this forum, but just wanted to touch base about the possibility of bringing out my wife and daughter (age 2). It sounds like a case by case basis in terms of bringing family, so thought I'd check in before all is said and done. We're feeling the call to homestead, so this feels like the right timing and necessary step in the process. Let me know how it could work to bring family or if it's best to come alone. Many thanks! Dane

Have you read the stuff about kids in this thread?  What do you propose?

Paul, I followed the link and it was on thread boosting, nothing on kids. Did you mean a different one? Thnx

I think he means the thread we are in now, all five pages of it.

If there is one person that comes, then that one person provides one unit of work and consumes one unit of resources.  I think some people have this idea that a family of 3 will provide one unity of work and consume three units of resources and think that is awesome.   It seems like not a fit to me - I can't make that work.

We had a family of 5 here before where they said they would be self feeding.  So we would provide zero food to them.   They came and were awesome.   The three boys were very respectful and the mom really knew how to keep things clean.  It ended up being a really good thing and I was sorry to see them go.  If they were here now I would task those boys with "keep the turkeys away!" and maybe a bit of "fill your pockets with these seeds and stick them in the ground where there is a lot of sun."  It seems that if I cam up with little tasks like that for the boys they would always say "yes, sir, Mr. Wheaton" and then later, at dinner, they would have an hour to say about the adventures in doing these tasks.

And we had a family of 3 here where the kid was just fucking mean.  He just stared at all people like they were cockroaches.   He seemed to hate his own parents.   And the parents seemed glad to get away from him as much as possible.  They treated my home as "unsupervised child storage" which the kid would then destroy.   My house is not toddler proof.  At one point I saw the kid sitting on my couch with his face covered in my favorite jam - he then stared me down with his evil little stare as he wiped his jammy face on my couch. 

So there is some discussion of this sort of thing in this thread, and there is more throughout this forum. 

I am comfortable with somebody coming and they consume one unit of resources and provide one unit of work.   Or if there is a way to provide two units of work and they consume two units of resources. 

At the same time Katelin cooks for some of our events and she had her 3-year-old tristan here.  Often while her husband was here working.   Sometimes Katelin would watch tristan while cooking and sometimes weston would watch tristan while working.   It seems that the both would take 16 hours to put in an 8 hour day.  And then they would gladly work through the weekends, but they would usually be here for just two weeks - so that would be easier to pull off than if it was for months. 


So the question is:   what do you propose.   I'm open to ideas and trying stuff.  I would very much like to move projects forward.  At the same time, I want the units of work to equal the units of resources.

Hey Paul.
Im Bo, 22, but not a kid.
About to start a crowdfunding campaign to get me exactly there from Europe. I`ve read and listened to a hell load of the quality information available. I`m doing what I can to learn hands/on knowledge in europe, funding myself and traveling around various communities in europe. There is two scenarios that generally occur here
or the community does not have the necessary foundation to provide quality education in exchange of working hours
or they have the foundation, rescources and networking - and they offer it in exchange of very serous prices. (for my budget at least)

Im a hardworker, living a very intense life on travel for the last five years, and was looking for the perfect education system available for my interest - and in your booter project I`d found it. Sounds like the perfect training at the perfect time of my life.

Getting a proper Visa might take some time... Is there anybody here on the forums who could tell me what sort of US Visa is the best to apply for to stay in the USA contributing to this project? Can I overstay with a simple traveling visa and catch a boat back to Europe when the time is ripe?
I`m looking for the easiest solution available, if the community would be in this continent, I`d be there already. Maybe we can kickstart something here with the very same foundation?
Greetings, Bo

  looking for the perfect education system available for my interest - and in your booter project I`d found it. Sounds like the perfect training at the perfect time of my life.

Yay!

Can I overstay with a simple traveling visa and catch a boat back to Europe when the time is ripe? 

Visa stuff is stuff I know nothing about.

Maybe we can kickstart something here with the very same foundation?

Do you mean something using the kickstarter.com crowd funding stuff?

Is all I need to apply for this to send my 100USD to the PayPal account? Because, if so, I'm going to figure that out quickly. Save a little space for me!!

Send the $100 via paypal.   We will then start the process which includes stuff like asking if you need a ride from the airport/bus or will you be parking here, etc. 

We had a couple of openings and a no-show.   So there are currently openings in the bootcamp!

I am definitely interested in this opportunity.

I am 41, hard worker , background in construction, art, and been in culinary field most of my life .

I closed my two tattoo shops due to stress and having 19 years sober , trying to find sober tattoo artists was near impossiable.

I would like to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life . And living in the most dangerous City in n the USA. Saint Louis .

I am looking at a 24 month program , or longer , if I fit what you are looking for. I have a small car with good gas mileage. I do come with two amazing dogs though.

Please feel free to contact me at darthhodge@yahoo.com

Jason, once you are sure you want to do this, send in the hundred bucks and we will start talking about driving directions and dates and stuff.

My lease is up March 1st , is that ok time period ?

Sounds fine to me!

A podcast with three of the boots from last year:

https://permies.com/t/76725/Permaculture-Smackdown-Kickstarters

Boot to Ant Program

A four month program.   At the end of the first month, select your plot.  In your spare time, you can work on your plot.  At the end of the four months, your ant rent is covered through 2019.  After 2019, you might wish to participate in the bootcamp program from time to time to cover future rent.   Or even make a big push to get deep roots.

This is really something I want to do. I'm not the average 19 year old, I'm full of ambition and I want to be a part of this community. I love the outdoors and have been telling friends and family how I have been planning to be self sufficient. I was on the way to becoming a botanist but had decided to drop out to pursue this lifestyle. I have a lot to offer. This place seems like an eden. If you could either reply back or give me a call 573-836-3272. I want to be a part of this community. I have backgrounds in construction, electrician work, and extremely ingenuitive. I was admitted in engineering school but decided against it. Hopefully I'm not overdoing this plea, but this is something I've been wanting for a long time. I've been watching your videos on your establishment and I agree with your ideals and more naturalistic approach. The ecoconcious approach to this community is what attracts me the most. Sorry if this is a lot, but I know this is something I'd want.

Alex, there are openings now.  Send in the hundred smackers, come on out and try it on for size.  Within a couple of weeks you should have a better idea if this is your cup of tea or not.

I failed to mention that I have a girlfriend, is she okay also? Would there be any way we would be able to speak so you and I could have a better grasp of the others intentions.

Alex Naeger wrote:I failed to mention that I have a girlfriend, is she okay also?

The gapper fee is $100 for the first person and $20 for each person after that.  Send over $120 for the both of you.  We will then get started on the details for getting the two of you out here.

Where do I send the fee because in willing to start selling everything today.

Alex Naeger wrote:Where do I send the fee because in willing to start selling everything today.

Most people do paypal (paul at richsoil.com), but we can do bitcoin, zelle, amazon and probably some other stuff.

Is there anyway we would be able to speak on the phone?

Alex Naeger wrote:Is there anyway we would be able to speak on the phone?

Yup.   Once you are signed up for the bootcamp program, Fred will be taking care of all the particulars.  Which sometimes includes talking to people on the phone.

We prefer to answer most questions in this thread because we already get so many questions via email that we are not able to answer all of them.

The cool thing about the gapper fee is that once people pay it, there is a 20 times better chance that they will actually show up.  And if they don't then we just made an easy hundred bucks.   Before we did that, we were drowning in emails (and phone calls) from people that mostly didn't show up.

I completely understand, you will hear from me tonight.

I made a bunch of changes to the first page and the FAQ.  What did I leave out?

Hi there!  I've been listening to the podcasts and tying up loose ends, and I'm finally ready to be a boot and see where things go from there!  (I have visions of ant-hood, deep roots, and Gert-itude, but I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. ) I just sent $100 your way via PayPal. I look forward to hearing from you.

Also, happy belated pi day!

Megan McElhaney wrote:Hi there!  I've been listening to the podcasts and tying up loose ends, and I'm finally ready to be a boot and see where things go from there!  (I have visions of ant-hood, deep roots, and Gert-itude, but I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. ) I just sent $100 your way via PayPal. I look forward to hearing from you.

Also, happy belated pi day!

Got the hundred smackers.   I did the required evil cackle as I received it.  I then sent an email to fred so he can talk to you about the particulars of you arriving.