Recent Gardening Videos, Vlog Style, FPG, First Person Gardening

Here are a couple of recent videos I did vlogging style, just working on stuff and touring the garden. I want to do more gardening content, since the recent events around COVID 19 virus pandemic should have people thinking about vulnerabilities in our material needs related to the supply stream of industrial goods that keep most of us going. in particular, I think that Self Reliant Gardening (SRG), is an important skill.

It is very different to garden as much as possible with what is free and easily available in your immediate environment than it is to purchase a lot of stuff in. Gardening can not only get expensive when purchasing a lot of fertilizers, starts, seeds, soil mixes and amendments, but if those become expensive, hard to get or just unavailable, it will put a real wrench in the gears of a dependent gardener. Self Reliant Gardeners can take advantage of those resources when needed and available, but we don’t need them.

When I first moved here, I decided to use very little from the outside. I bought oystershell for the acid soil, and the very first year of each bed I used steer manure because it was cheap and I needed something to get beds started right away since I had not even made any compost. After that, for the following 10 years I brought in minimal stuff; just oyster shell and waste coffee grounds from my neighbors and some places in town. For me to switch back now to using no imports is very easy. I have some holes in my game, but mostly related to more advanced seed saving.

Look forward to more gardening content and consider learning to grow some food if you don’t already. You can start small, even a few plants in pots, but the time to learn self reliance skills is definitely not when you suddenly need them. Our communities are ridiculously vulnerable to interruptions in the supply lines. Even in rural areas like mine, the agriculture is not at all geared toward being able to feed the local populace. In case of emergency, we’d have a lot of pot and a lot of wine, but not a lot else! As I’ve said for so long, FOOD NOT BONGS! This is a a very, very bad situation, and we should start living in a direction that begins to remedy it, or it will eventually be a serious problem. It’s not a matter of if, just when. The party is winding down folks. It’s time to invest in our own abilities and resilience, as well as that of our communities.

Stay safe and healthy out there, and plant something in the ground.

When it Rains it Pours, Minor Rain Emergencies, Tree Down, Creek Blockage and Overflowing Ditches, La Vida Homestead

When it rains a lot, stuff goes wrong. I had three issues to deal with at the same time and shot some go pro video. I manage to squeeze in some talking points about road design. Working it the rain is kind of fun, at least for a while. It could have been much worse timing, but having a tree fall in the road over an hour period when I was out was not super convenient.

2017 Video Retrospective With Stiff Dead Cat

A second video retrospective of 2017, with music from my friends in Stiff Dead Cat.  Homestead stuff, chickens, projects, nature, mushrooms and some really cool time lapse landscapes.

Axe Only Firewood Processing, Felling, Limbing, Lopping, Bucking for a Splitting Video

I released a video a couple days ago on processing my last tree for the cordwood challenge.  This was a tree I chose as not particular easy to split for a splitting video I'm still waiting to record.  The question of how you split wood with an axe if it's cut with an axe instead of a saw vies with "what do you do with the chips" as the most common question regarding processing wood with an axe.  The footage I shot for the front of that video seemed like a good stand alone video, so I edited it and posted it with some commentary.

Be aware that there is a lot going on when I'm processing this tree that is invisible to the uninitiated.  If I were watching someone else do it, I could spot some of that "invisible" technique and safety stuff, but not all of it as it is very subtle and personal.  The lopping operation is especially dangerous, but I'm using several things to stay as safe as possible.  The most important might be the direction of cut, which means in what direction the force is pointed, the obvious reference point being the cutting edge.  A close second is probably body positioning to decrease the likelihood of a stray edge contacting my body.  Moderation of the force used is also extremely important.  Axe work requires constant adaptation and a certain level of humility where you have to say to yourself "I can hit this really hard, but I'm not going to!"  Finally, you really have to be able to hit what you're aiming at.  Anyway, it's mostly a lot of chopping, but some people really seem to like that.  There are some really good pointers though too.  You can count on some very detailed tutorials in the future.

Homestead Video Retrospective 2016 Part 3

Third and final installment of my look back at 2016

Homestead Video Retrospective 2016 Part 2

Part two of three.

The Homestead Year, 2016 in Retrospect, Part One

Here is my homestead year in retrospect, or half of it.  Part two should follow any day.  A lot happened in 2016 I guess.  It was a pretty good year, much better than other recent years in many ways.

How to Clean Out a Horizonatally Drilled Spring or Well

This under 4 minute video is about cleaning my horizontally drilled spring.  The spring was drilled into the hillside at least 30 feet at a slight upward angle long before I moved here.  The first ten feet of pipe are solid and the rest is perforated to allow water to seep in.  When I moved here, it only ran about 1/2 gallon per minute all year, but the owner said he thought it used to run more in the winter time.  I called the local driller and he told me how to clean it.  Once cleaned, the spring gushed 10 gallons a minute for hours as it let off the built up pressure, which it does now every time I clean it.  They often will slow down over a long period of time.  One of our neighbors actually drilled a new well because they thought their horizontally drilled spring was just drying up and didn't know that it could be cleaned out.  Mine needs to be cleaned about once every year or two.  This time it was nearly clogged to the point of going dry while the previous two years it didn't need cleaning at all, maybe because of the drought?  With all the rain we're getting this year, the drought, worst in most people's memory, is over.  Yay for water!  If this spring wasn't here, I probably wouldn't be either.

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The first time I cleaned the spring.  I was surprised and pretty happy!

Homestead Life Episode 2: A day on the Homestead

Just a day on the homestead running around doing stuff.  It is basically spring here already this year and I had a lot going on, so I thought I'd try this experiment out.  The pace is less frantic than some of my other videos, on purpose.  It's still cut fairly tight with some good bits of information here and there, though that isn't really isn't why I made it.

After receiving some comments referencing reality shows, I'm kind of thinking in that direction a little bit.  I'm the type of person they contact for reality or re-enactment type shows and some of my friends have been on them or contacted about it like George Michaud, Cody Lundin and Tom Oar.  My ex and I were approached about being on Wifeswap a couple of times, ha!  I'm not likely to be interested as those are often very skewed and the subject may have little control over how it's all done once the footage is shot and it hits the editing room.  When we shot a brain tanning segment for Modern Marvels (season 13 episode 9) their whole attitude was basically "is it good TV?" accuracy was not really much of a consideration.  A lot can be done in editing and even an awesome and authentic person, like Cody Lundin on Dual Survival, can be diluted by the fake drama and manipulation of directors, producers and editors.  My other homie Wylie Woods has been trying to get something together for a while with various producers and keeps getting jerked around and cancelled and told he can do it how he wants, but then maybe not so much.  Screw that.  I have potential access to millions of people who are hungry for something authentic and I can do it any way I want.  Someone commented that I could have my own reality TV show.  Well I do, and here it is!  I'm sure I'll get better at it, but I think the production and even some of the content is secondary to authenticity in this type of thing.  So, basically I'll interject some lifestyle/day in the life stuff sprinkled in with the down to the nitty gritty how to stuff and projects and all with occasional thought viruses, the transmission of which is why I'm here as much as anything... to influence the way people think about and perceive the world and what is possible.