Merry Christmas, Everybody!

I'm doing all the cooking this year, so it's going to be simple. Roast chicken with dressing as the main entree.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Good Neighbors and Horse Wrangling

My neighbor's horse got out last night. Seems he's been out for a few days, too, going by what a neighbor Jesse told me. They had it tied up in their backyard and it got away. Chewed it's rope in half, going by the looks of the chewed end.

My neighbor's beautiful black and white stud horse.

My backyard is fully enclosed, so I caught the big, friendly stud horse and put it back there. Fed it a large box of instant oatmeal and gave it a lot of fresh water. Oatmeal makes me thirsty, too. He's been steadily grazing on the what's left of the grasses of last summer.

The owner has until tomorrow afternoon to come pick it up or I'll have to call the Animal Control cops. Can't afford to feed this easily 1000 pound horse.

Another Pallet Run Should Complete 1" x 4" Material List (items needed)

After what I picked up today should complete my need for 1" x 4" boards to frame the NaNo camper with. Wish I had taken my trailer, could have picked up some more 2" x 4" board pallets. Maybe next Sunday.

Home Depot has the plywood I need for the siding and flooring. Those two items I won't scavenge for. They will have the wood treatment to make it moisture resistant and mildew proof, too. If I can, I will keep the wood it's natural color, but if not, it's primer and paint time.

Paying off all debts this week and cruising into the new year debt free. Work on the Nano starts mid-January. Build the trailer frame and put on the flooring. Paint the flooring under belly with water resistant paint and tar over that completely. When the floor paint has dried, start on the walls. Taking my time building this camper. No hurry 'cause there's no need to.

If you believe in State's Rights over Federal Rights...

United States Governors Prepare State Militia Defenses for Federal Forces <---LINK

I wouldn't mind joining the Mississippi State Militia. The Federal government has way too much power now and needs a good come upping.

Exercise is a must when you hit 50 years old.

As our bodies age and the metabolism slows down, weight starts to creep upward. Before you know it, you are fifty pounds overweight and miserable. No stamina, no interest, nothing is fun anymore because your body is worn out just from maintaining the fat it produced. You plop in front of the TV and live your life through others out there doing what you could be if you dropped some pounds and toned up a bit.

I exercise. Thirty minutes a day on a treadmill (manual) and on the Total Gym. I have to. High blood pressure (hypertension) and diabetes runs in the family on both sides. When I'm not exercising, I try to find something to do that burns calories like yard work or the future work next month on the NaNo camper. Lifting and cutting plywood is work.

Got a lot of goals to reach next year. The kind of goals where I have to be successful at a bunch of little jobs to make the whole job successful. Getting in better shape, the NaNo camper, a small boat, enlarging the garden, ducking chemtrails, etc. Need the endurance the treadmill puts into my body and the muscle toning the Total Gym does with each workout.

The NaNo Camper --- Unique Name for the Unique Camper

Have decided to christen the tiny camper The NaNo Camper.

It's late and I'm up. I've learned with taking care of Old Mom, don't go to bed before midnight. Mom rarely rests well and usually needs something within the first few hours of going to bed. Instead of going to bed early and having to get up three or four times, I just stay up till midnight. Usually, she's asleep for the night by then.

Goodnight, Mom.

Mom's Good Dr. Report and Camper Plans Solidifying

A doctor visit for Mom. She is doing so good that the visit lasted fifteen minutes. We were in and out in an hour, too. Her blood pressure is good, her other vitals were good, and she made sure the doctor knew that she was in charge of her health care. Sometimes the doctor will ask me a question when he should be asking Mom. Makes her feel small. We both hate that sitting in the doctor's office for two hours or more, so to get out in an hour was like having the boss come out and tell us all to go home early with pay. We left quickly before they changed their minds.

Mom has a good appetite, is strong enough now to get in and out of the bathtub and bed on her own. I am there though, just in case. She is 93 years old and a bit wobbly.

We are both looking forward to the tiny camper I'm building this spring. Going to have electric lights (12 volt and 110 volt), a generator, comfy twin bed for her, a dinette that makes into a small bed for me, sink, stove, a flush toilet, food, water, storage, and a small wood burning heater because to burn propane all night would get really expensive very fast.

The camper can be classified in the unique category of post-modern, vintage, shabby chic rustic, fully self-contained, and WiFi capable , i.e., pecan-tinted varnish over unpainted sanded smooth pallet wood cabinets and bench seats (pallet wood is light, strong, sands well, and is FREE). Will use burlap curtains (not feed sack burlap, but hunter's burlap with a tighter weave and a nice, woodland print) to keep the weight off the axle. Clear coats of polyurethane on the 5/8" plywood floors or battleship gray porch floor paint (whichever is cheapest). The exterior walls will be of tough but flexible 1/4" plywood. Is going to be insulated with 1/2" thick 4'x8' Styrofoam panels and then covered with a tough cloth fabric (hitting Craig's list or local thrift stores for fabric I can cut and paint) glued to the back of the shiny insulation board. Trim work will be pallet wood cut, sanded, trimmed then varnished to hide the seams and such. Using the old laptop with WiFi because the desktop I had originally built for the camper is staying in the house (too heavy, too big). You can sometimes get free WiFi in parking lots of big box stores. Most of the fast food joints around here have free WiFi, too.

The exterior seams will be fiber glassed and epoxied for strength and to seal gaps before primer coating. The outer walls will be primer coated well with several coats of a new kind of water-proof primer I've never heard of before (has nano technology like the Terminator). Hmm, I wouldn't mind travelling back in time in the tiny camper.

Ought to call the camper The Nano Camper. "Nah. You can't borrow it. No. It's not for sale."

After sealing and primer painting, the hull will be painted over with a good quality house paint. Can't decide on the color scheme. Two tones of leaf green with dark gray pin stripping? Maybe a cheerful two-tone blue with brilliant white pin stripping? Or white over sea blue with silver pin stripping? How about dark primer gray splotches with light primer gray splotches with stencils of oak leaves taped to it. Flat black paint sprayed over the stencils for that "I'm a survivalist" look after the stencils are pulled off. Nah. Gun thieves would get the wrong idea if it had the survivalist look (not to mention the local law enforcement guys because it might look like a meth wagon). I'm going to stay cheerful and neutral in the final color selection.

Will be looking for affordable aluminum skin as the budget fattens back up a bit. The paint should last a few years before the temperature extremes cause the plywood to start loosening the adhesive binding the wood sections together.

All of this priming, painted, cutting, designing, and such packed under a tin roof (hail-stone resistant and scavenged off the old farm house I'm going to have to tear down before it falls in) with lots of overhead storage in the kitchenette, dinette, and bed area. Still trying to figure out how to put in a skylight of sorts that I can open to let out the excess heat from the wood stove and yet won't leak in a blowing rain storm. Those crank out plastic kind of roof vents wear out too fast and a low-lying tree branch will crack it. Hurricane Katrina's 110 MPH winds through the backyard literally ripped the roof vents off my old camper trailer. Metal roof vents rust out after a few years because of condensation or the crank mechanism seizes up or falls apart in your hand.

I'll post pictures. It won't be as ugly as it sounds, but it will be very functional. Not typical (you should see the latest design I've drawn out today in my notebook on the desk). And warm. It has to be warm. Old Mom can't take the cold at all. And Zeb, the spoiled rotten cause he's a beautiful nearly 20 pound cat. He hates cold, too.

I forgot...a cat door, too. Pilgrim's habit of waking me at 2:30 AM so she could go outside got old quick last week. I can't let Zeb go outside though at night. He picks fights with dogs. A neighbor's pit bull was on his radar last week. Oh, man. Zeb just about gave me a heart attack stalking that large dangerous confirmed cat killing dog. That dog killed Zeb's brother Abby last December. That got that dog's owner into a lot of expensive trouble, too. Now that pit bull runs around the neighborhood with all of it's back, rear end, and back legs covered in mange.

Anyhow...

We're going to practice camping out in the back yard in it a few times to see what else it needs before we go spending the night on my farm in it. Her comfort and safety is the #1 priority. Might put a tiny AC in there, too. My generator can handle a small AC.

Sportsman's Guide sells this little beauty of a wood stove.

This little beauty costs around $80 and comes with stove pipe.

Weighs 20 pounds and about the size of a mail box but a little taller. Item # WX2172631

(Nice looking) Homemade Ammo Box Woodburner Stove

This is more like it. Looks nice, too. Very little welding.

DIY wood stove from a surplus ammo can.

Here's another option to heating the tiny camper. This kind of wood burning heater would be very very light when compared to the weight of an empty 5-gallon propane tank. Just another idea tossed into the hat.

Weight is so critical concerning the camper. I don't want to drag a heavy camper across a muddy field and wound up getting stuck. Been there and done that. Used up a roll of roll roofing to get out. A wrecker to pull me out would have been real expensive that far out in the sticks. A roll of asphalt roofing was about $20 back then.

How To Steam Bend Wood

This is a very interesting project. I could make one of these steam benders out of PVC pipe and a piece of 1" pipe.

The Propane Tank Wood Burning Stove - DIY

I wanted to put a small wood burning heater into the tiny camper, but after pricing even the cheapest ones on the Internet, am wondering if there is a cheaper alternative that actually works. Plus the cast iron ones are really heavy, too. My goal is a 1000 pound limit when the camper is built and supplied. The lightest cast iron stove weighed in around fifty pounds.

Been living in small campers since late 1995 and have accumulated several old-style propane tanks. They are currently used as shelf supports. But, viola! I have a better use for them. And it's doable and not that hard, i.e., falls within my skill set level. A few days work at the most. Even found a YouTube video showing me the basics of how to do it, too.


jjaayypp963's YouTube site -- He's into homesteading skills, too.

I've got a small stick welder, but if necessary, I'll pay to have the pieces welded together if I can keep the price below $50. Unless I can rent a larger welder cheaper, of course. Wouldn't have to leave the parking lot because the job shouldn't take an hour at most.

Paying someone to weld it together with heavier sticks is still cheaper than the $180 Harbor Freight cast iron 100 pound wood burning stove with $100 shipping. Plus their smallest stove was too long at 30" and too wide at 24" to fit in the tiny camper I'm building. And their stove pipe would add another $100 easy with the damper (have one already) and pipe cap (can make one from tin roofing).

I'll remove the valves off the tanks with a heavy pipe wrench and six foot cheater bar and wash out the residual propane first. Will let the water soak into the steel for a couple of days before the final flush. Then take the grinder with a cutting wheel to cut out the door on one tank and stove pipe hole. Will take steel from a second washed propane bottle to make the actual door, so it seals tighter. Will buy new stove pipe, if I don't have any good used ones I can find locally dirt cheap. Maybe on Craig's List, I can find good, used stove pipe dirt cheap.

His stove doesn't have an ash collector, so I'd modify his design a bit with a cast iron grate on the bottom. Will be about three inches from the bottom, so the ashes can fall though. Too much ash build up can literally put out the fire because it will block the air vent flow. Will make a small ash rake and rake out the ashes. Would use a heavy steel hinge to put a door on it that seals tight and gives it better draft from the draft holes I'll drill into it. Will make adjustable air vent holes for better draft, too. No draft equals a fire that burns too poorly and is smokey and too much draft means the fire will burn too hot and fast and burn up the wood too fast.

After burning off the paint, the stove is painted with something called stove black so it looks better and will stop rusting. Will be mounted to a large 1979 Sportster steel brake wheel so it has a low center of gravity when fresh wood is added.

I'll flatten roofing tin and mount the pieces to the wall behind the stove so the wall doesn't heat up and catch fire. I had a cast iron wood stove roaring hot once too close to a window and it literally melted the pine pitch out of the wood framing the window.

Times are going to get tougher before they get better, folks. Time to use what you got, if it's cheaper to build it than buy it. "USE WHAT YOU GOT" is a motto around here. Propane keeps getting more expensive every year. Cost $6 to fill a 5-gallon propane tank in 1995. Cost $14 in 2010 to fill a 5-gallon propane tank. I have access to free firewood in the form of small, thick oak tree branches from a neighbor who cuts down trees for a living and dumps the branches from cleaning up nearby. Also have access to free pallets, too.

I'm making all kinds of plans for the tiny camper. Writing them down and saving them. Ideas like taut wall curtain made of camo burlap. Or using polyurethane to glue the camo burlap to the wall for a very light wall covering over the insulation board. Must keep it in mind at all times, less than 1000 pounds on the tires. After building the hull of the camper, the plan that works the most efficiently and keeps the weight low (below 1000 pounds) gets built into the camper. It's a bug out camper and not a behemoth RV with the works.

Small, light, and fast. That's a bug out camper.

I can tell now that 2012 is going to be one very busy year for me.

In Other Words, We're Screwed.

Chemtrail analysis and other crap being put into the world's drinking water. The planet and all of it's inhabitants are being made into something else unnatural.

I see chemtrails so often now over Jackson, MS that today when I didn't see any I thought it was odd. A beautiful, blue sky day. A bit chilly with light breezes. Great day to do anything outside. Had I been down on my farm, I would have gone deer hunting or started the fence work at the back of the place.

No chemtrails. Odd.

Sometimes to know something new makes you wish for your old troubles.

Redneck Outdoor Furniture --- $1 per bench

Here's a quick video on how to make a discarded pallet into a comfy bench.

Actually, if you have a camp where the security is not that great, you could spend an afternoon making a few of these benches and leave them at your camp. If they wound up stolen, all you lost was an afternoon. But, you gained a valuable skill in furniture making...well, sort of.

Single-sheet Plywood Tiny Boat

Here is a cute video on how to make a tiny boat out of a single sheet of plywood. Would weigh around forty pounds, more or less. Keep it painted with a good latex exterior paint and store out of the weather when not in use and it should last a while.

I would take a sheet of roofing tin and flatten it out. Would epoxy it to the bottom of the tiny boat and fill in any gaps with silicone sealant. Would carefully bend the tin's edges upward to close in the bottom of the hull to the sides and use rust proof screws to hold in place. Lots of epoxy or silicone sealant to stop leaks in seams and in between the tin and wooden hull.

Where I fish in the Pearl River, there are large rip rap stones just below the surface of the water all around the boat landing. These jagged rocks are tough on plastic kayak hulls, I know this first hand. Had to take JB Weld epoxy and fill in the nicks and cuts many a time after a day's fishing on the Rez in the kayak.

The tin bottom on the wooden boat would stop deep cuts and give the boat a little protection when you have to drag it up a sandy, rocky river bank. If a hail storm comes up, you can flip the boat over and have a fairly hail-proof cover over your body after you crawl under it. A piece of tin necessary to cover the lower hull wouldn't add that much weight either.

Hmm, I might be on to something here in the summer project planned after the garden gets settled and doesn't need me as much.

A 16 Brick Stove & A Denatured Alcohol Stove

Keep the fire going for a while and the bricks get very warm and make a good heater. In a tipi or wide area under canvas, this would work well at providing a cooking fire and a source of slowly released radiant heat.

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An easy to make denatured alcohol stove. Denatured alcohol is sold in the paint thinner section of a hardware store. YouTube has a lot of videos on how to make the stove from two aluminum soft drink cans and a larger metal can. And you'll need a penny or metal slug knock out.

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Better video showing how to make an alcohol stove and using a fuel additive called Heet.

S 1867 Bill - part 1032 - Who gets imprisoned and who doesn't.

It's lengthy, but it's worth the time it takes to read it.

Reading it now. Will try to find part 1031 because it keeps alluding to it. See ya later.

I'm back. Seems the bill's wording is a bit muddy and hard to understand. But I did find an interesting page that commented how such muddying of understanding could be manipulated to the US government's benefit. Double speak (as in 1984, the novel).

Intelligent comments about the bill 1867.

Excerpt of comments from above link:

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[–]hanahou 6 points 7 days ago
You left other relative parts of Section 1032 out. Post it as not to cause confusion.
SEC. 1032. REQUIREMENT FOR MILITARY CUSTODY.
(a) Custody Pending Disposition Under Law of War-
(1) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in paragraph (4), the Armed Forces of the United States shall hold a person described in paragraph (2) who is captured in the course of hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40) in military custody pending disposition under the law of war.
(2) COVERED PERSONS- The requirement in paragraph (1) shall apply to any person whose detention is authorized under section 1031 who is determined--
(A) to be a member of, or part of, al-Qaeda or an associated force that acts in coordination with or pursuant to the direction of al-Qaeda; and
(B) to have participated in the course of planning or carrying out an attack or attempted attack against the United States or its coalition partners.
(3) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR- For purposes of this subsection, the disposition of a person under the law of war has the meaning given in section 1031(c), except that no transfer otherwise described in paragraph (4) of that section shall be made unless consistent with the requirements of section 1033.
(4) WAIVER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY- The Secretary of Defense may, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, waive the requirement of paragraph (1) if the Secretary submits to Congress a certification in writing that such a waiver is in the national security interests of the United States.
(b) Applicability to United States Citizens and Lawful Resident Aliens-
(1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.
(2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under
this section does not extend to a lawful resident alien of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.
IMO I think the article is misinterpreting this as application to American citizens on American soil. I don't believe OWS is in Paragraph 2 section B as an organization to do a terroist attack on US soil.
EDIT: FYI this is the annual Defense bill for appropriation of your tax money and authorization for future actions. Title xvii might be an interesting read on what our military action will continue
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[–]avengingturnip 3 points 7 days ago
Section 1032(b)(1) and (2) while not requiring citizens or lawful resident aliens from being detained extra-judicially does not proscribe doing so either. In other words, subjecting citizens or resident aliens to the provisions of this section is ALLOWED by this section even considering the text of subsection (b)(1) and (2).
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[–]Routerbox 2 points 6 days ago
Here is Lindsey Graham, laying it all out: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/appearance/600840428
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[–][deleted] 6 points 7 days ago
Whoops.
(4) WAIVER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY- The Secretary of Defense may, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, waive the requirement of paragraph (1) if the Secretary submits to Congress a certification in writing that such a waiver is in the national security interests of the United States.
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[–]Skeptic14 8 points 7 days ago
Just because they are not REQUIRED to detain US Citizens, does not mean that they CAN'T do it. This country is DONE.
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[–]sickpharaoh 2 points 6 days ago
There's a subsection in there which allows for agency heads to petition Congress for the right to detain someone as an exception.
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[–]Willravel 6 points 7 days ago
Did anyone even bother to read S. 1867, subsections 1031 and 1032, the bill that allegedly permits military to arrest U.S. Citizens?
Did you read the first comment of the front page submission on this? For the really lazy.
For the really lazy.
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Okay, after reading I have to agree that S. 1867 has the seriously possible potential of being a segue into having an amendment of sorts that would allow for the detaining of private American citizens, if the government thinks you are a home grown terrorist or Al Qaeda supporter. Granted, the US would have to be experiencing something like Bosnia back in the 1990s for that to happen though. The bill has a history of obscure language that had bright, lawyer-minded political folks asking something like, "You guys sure about what you just voted on here? Did you actually read what you voted on?"

Just to know that something like this is actually being voted on is kind of weird. Such laws and bills should have been passed decades ago after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. What's so special about Al Qaeda that they get a specific mention? Al Qaeda isn't the first terrorist organization the USA has confronted. South American drug cartels and their criminal influence of their local governments are a good example.

The US Bill of Rights has been screwed with severely. S.1867

"Dear brothers and sisters. Now is the time to open your eyes!

In a stunning move that has civil libertarians stuttering with disbelief, the U.S. Senate has just passed a bill that effectively ends the Bill of Rights in America.

The National Defense Authorization Act is being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn't apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill, it essentially says it can apply to Americans "if we want it to.

Bill Summary & Status, 112th Congress (2011 -- 2012) | S.1867 | Latest Title: National Defense Authorization Act for.

This bill, passed late last night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a "battleground" upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity."

love, Anonymous



Now, I don't normally take Anonymous seriously. Hey, they threatened to take down Facebook and I like Facebook. Have met some wonderful people there. But, this is freaking scary. I'm checking into this a bit deeper. If this is even remotely true, I'm no longer a free American private citizen, but unknowingly a soldier on a battlefield, an enemy combatant of sorts. The military can swoop in and haul me off without a trial or even letting me know why I was carried off. This sounds so unreal and needs investigating.

Later...

Okay. It's legit. It is a real bill and it passed.
Source: Goodbye Bill of Rights

Still looking...

Okay. It's a wide spread bill that includes the Secretary of Agriculture.
Source: Branched out support for Bill 1867 links page. It's got to be voted on by the House and then signed by the President. If Obama votes for this, he is a Marxist without doubt and he hates America to the bottom of his closet Muslim heart.

Obama will be able to arrest whomever he wants and whenever he wants and hold them indefinitely. An interesting article about S.1867.

Geesh. Is this what the Germans felt prior to Hitler taking over? Concerned and not knowing what to do about it except pray and cache the weapons and valuables or leave the country? It's like Hitler's SS is being reinvented or something with the passing of this bill. What the blue blazes is going on here? What kind of false flag event does the world government got planned now?

The US government will be giving itself too much power with S. 1867, if Obama signs it. Will still keep looking into this a bit more. These are very interesting times we're living in, folks. Very interesting.

Greek Savings Deposits Getting Dangerously Lower

Article on dwindling Greek bank accounts.

The fall of the Euro has to start somewhere. As it falls, so goes Europe and then down goes the US dollar. In the wings, the one world currency to the rescue. Might not happen this year or within the next couple of years, but if this kind of news keeps happening, it is going to happen and probably within five to six years.

Greek Savings History

As for me, I'm prepping as best as I can. Buying homesteading tools and investing in things like the small, sturdy camper to make life cheaper, easier, and less problematic. Being as computers are so important to us now a days, took a computer course in building and maintaining them. Doing as much of my own truck maintenance and tune up as possible. I sense dark financial clouds on the horizon with blazing flashes of lightning blinding folks to what's really coming. Now is not the time to go into debt, even little debts you have to pay off monthly. Unless it is an emergency, stay clear of debt for the next five years.

Cold, Rainy Day with Possible Snow Tomorrow

I have lived in Mississippi for most of my life, except for a brief stint in Alaska working offshore. I don't ever recall snow flurries this far south and this early. Snow came in January to early April. In 2009 and 2010, there was so much snow, it was affecting the going out for the day plans.

Starkville, MS snowfall

Gone years without seeing appreciable snow and now it's snow every winter. Granted, we only get about an inch or two, but it's on the ground snow none the less. The bridges ice up quickly and it's a wrecker driver's dream. Cars by the dozen off in the median or flipped upside in the middle of the road in curves kind of dream. Moderate snowfall can literally shut down the state, too. Us born and bred and lived here all our lives Mississippians just aren't use to driving on snow or ice. I'll do it, but I don't like it.

Mom had a doctor's appointment today, but it's too cold and wet for her to get out. We scheduled it for next week when the highs should be in the upper 50s to low 60s. At 93, she stresses easy and old folk's stress can lead to pneumonia quick. I've noticed she coughs more after laying down for a few hours.

Mom's gotta live one more year because she wants to use the tiny camper I'm building for our day trips to Vicksburg or Natchez for lunch. We use to do that a lot ten years ago. Go out to my farm and check on things then ride to Vicksburg for lunch and do a little shopping. It made for such a pleasant day getting out of the house for a while. With the tiny camper, she can rest when she wants and use the toilet without being concerned of germs or fungi.

The Bateau Boat - One sheet of tin boat

Tin roof boating ---LINK

I am so cheap...er... thrifty. Been looking for a small 8' foot metal boat on the Internet. Man, they are so expensive to only be eight feet long. Well, I got to asking myself, "What exactly is a metal boat made of and where can I get the material to make one myself?" I wondered if there really was a way to make a boat out of old roofing tin. There is and it's called a Bateau Boat.

Got a piece of tin roofing? You gotta a boat.

This looks like a summer project after the garden gets going and the camper is finished. My boat, though, will be a bit wider for stability and about eight to nine feet long. After a bit more research on the Internet, a materials list should be formed on exactly what is needed to build a safe, small, and very cheap boat.

Red necks in Oz sailing about a bay their tin sheet boats. LINK---



A personal story of fond memories and a homemade sheet of tin boat. Fond memories of a homemade sheet of tin boat. LINK---

This is more like it. This is what I'm going to try and build. LINK---

If I could find a 12' metal boat for dirt cheap, I could cut it down to 8', too. When the camper is finished, having a little boat available would make camping a whole lot more fun. Besides, boaters can go in a river or pond where bank fishers can't. Just because I live cheap doesn't mean I have to give up better hunting or fishing opportunities.

Household Maintenance Day...i.e. Laundry Day

It's going to be a non-glamorous day today. Several loads of clothes to wash, a kitchen to clean up, and taking care of my 93-year old mother. A Domestic Day, as I call them. I'm going to turn off the PC and stay outside as much as I can today. There are leaves all over the backyard, so the lawnmower with it's mulch attachment will be dragged out and fired up. The garden gets the mulch and we'll get fat, juicy tomatoes and cucumbers next summer. Victory is paid for in advance, so I'll be working the soil and preparing the garden this December for a good crop of canning tomatoes in July. And cucumbers, peas, beans, squash, okra, onions, radishes, beets, etc.

See y'all Monday. Take care.

Surviving the Urban Forest

There have been times, when fishing on the Pearl River, that I've met homeless folks. Men and women. They have a tendency to fish much harder than folks with homes and good incomes. Losing a fish means a lost source of much needed nutrition, which, over time, leads to malnutrition which can cause a terrible disease called pellagra. -- Pellagra -- LINK-- It's one of the reasons why I give away a part of my catch to those who don't own a small boat like I do. Folks who fish from boats can get out to channels where the fish schools are and have better opportunities to catch larger fish. What goes around, comes around. Cast your bread upon the waters...

If I were suddenly homeless, just me and the truck with the tiny camper, the first thing loaded into the camper would be all my survival books on plant identification, how to survive off the land with traps and snares, survival hunting and fishing, how to make primitive but effective hunting and fishing gear, and then the store bought gear I've accumulated through years of hunting and fishing. What cash is available will be saved for tags, taxes, licenses, and emergencies. Signing up with several temp job agencies is next on my list. The wider the job cast net, the greater your chances of getting a job. Even a crappy cash job working in the sweltering heat or freezing cold beats no job and no money. Boy, I know that for a fact.

You gotta eat and sleep. Pee and poop. Keep clean and brush your teeth. Take vitamins. Security. Safety and street smarts. Running for cover or standing your ground. Beating the crap out of some dumb ass who was stupid enough to get you riled up. You'll feel so good afterward, too, even if your hand does hurt something fierce. Help those around you. Smile and wave at folks. A big hand grabbing and shaking Mississippi thank you when someone is kind to you. These things you must have and do to live the nomadic Freegan life style.

There are easy to identify basic plants and tree in the woods all over the USA that you probably have easy access to. Pine trees. Pine needles and candles are rich in vitamin A and C and have protein in them. Brew up a weak tea and get use to the mildly fruity flavor. Brew the next cup stronger and get more good stuff in your body. Goldenrod is easy to recognize. Brew up a tea from the flowers and leaves (fresh or dried). Great for a mildly running nose or light sinus condition and has a wee bit of a pick me up, too. Persimmon trees. Pick the leaves and let dry for a week. Leaves will have a supple yet brittle around the edges texture. Brew up a cup of tea that is beneficial for your blood.

Any decent library with an Internet connection can take you to web sites that will teach you about herbs, bushes, trees and such that can be made into nutritious food or warming teas. And it's all free. Just growing there in an abandoned parking lots or along a fence line. Just make sure no one has sprayed poison recently to kill weeds.

Acorns, too, are a nutritious food. Acorns contain an acid called tannin. You boil them in several changes of water to remove it. Last time I did it, it took five changes, but these acorns around here are very bitter. Acorns taste like peanuts when properly prepared.

Over at Eat The Weeds . com --LINK, you can learn many varieties of plants and how to process them for food. Altnature . com --LINK is another good plant identification website.

If you learn wild foods, you won't go hungry. Learn how to fish and hunt and how to use a dutch oven or bake foods in the ground, and you will never go hungry.

UP and Running: Been a while since this old PC has been on the Internet

Happy me. Found the COA number and loaded the Windows 2000 Update software. This old late 1990s PC is now back on the Internet with a brand new hard drive and floppy drive and good used keyboard and monitor. That little Penn Foster computer maintenance and repair course has now saved me about $600 easy.The course costs $850. Knowing how to build PCs and repair them in this job market will look good on my resume once I hit the job market again. With what I learned from Penn Foster, an old scanner from early 2000s was repaired and put back in service. Learned how to network all my PCs, too.

This old computer was manufactured on June 25th, 1998. With the 3 gig hard drive, I can't load it up like I can the other two, but that's okay. This PC goes into the tiny camper I'm building in 2012. Still looking for a way to get it hooked up to send and receive WiFi signals. That won't be so easy, but if it is doable, it'll be done. Burger King, Sonic, and McDonald restaurants have free WiFi.

Woo hoo! I feel lucky tonight. Going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Continued working on updating the new old PC. It's all networked now with the other PCs. Trying to find a particular file online to download so I can update the security while online.

Got the Windows 98 SE Software Loaded Up...

That 1997 white box PC runs like a brand new one now. Put in a new hard drive, floppy drive,and had to take out the new DVD ROM drive. Re-installed the old CD ROM. The old CD ROM had the drivers needed for the motherboard and the new DVD ROM didn't.

No, mine doesn't look like that poor desktop PC. Poor PC. Needs a hug.

The original network card isn't recognizing Comcast's network connections, but the error message told me the drivers I needed to solve that problem though as I went through the set up an Internet connection program. Will try to find them on the 'Net and download them to a floppy and load them into the old PC.

Want to network the old PC with the Dell and laptop. This rebuilt PC goes into the camper after I can get a WiFi card installed as well as a cable network card. Main question is can I find a WiFi card for such an old motherboard?

Brother Geobook Spreadsheet is pretty good.

Installed Brother's 1998 Geobook software into the old PC to have a spreadsheet program and Geobook's version of Microsoft Word. I'm glad I don't throw out old CDs and floppy disks, because to find the old stuff is getting harder and harder. If I find any old software or OS software at yard sales or Craig's list, I'm buying it if it's dirt cheap. I'm taking the '98 and upgrading to Windows 2000 just as soon as I find the 25-digit COA (certificate of authenticity) number for the upgrade software. I lost it. I will find it. Windows 2000 has better networking features.

Bought this game back in 1999. A good first person shooter without all the cussing and sexual innuendo these games are loaded with today.

Don't have speakers for the old PC, so I didn't load the game up. If I can find a pair of speakers dirt cheap, I'd hook them up and reload the game. It's a lot of fun. The book that came with the software didn't match the game at the higher levels (there are 15), so those final levels were a challenge. With PC games like Rainbow Six, patience, knowing your surroundings, and watching your back gets you further along the game levels.