Another comment so good, it deserved its own post. We sure attract smart, well-spoken people to this site. Rose, a millenial, provides some wisdom beyond her years.
For context, I am a Millenial. MY husband is a Gen Xer.
My husband was 16 when his dad died. His family did not have a lot of money and 6 kids to care for. Other than his dad’s social security, which was meager because his jobs were not very high pay, they did not get any outside assistance at any time. He quit school to work days. He finished high school at night and then went on to the community college night classes, while working on a farm 6 or 7 days a week, doing heavy, heavy manual labor and then coming home to study. He paid cash for his education, going when he had the money to pay for it. It took him 8 years to pull it off but he has a degree and it helped land him a managerial job on a farm, a good enough job to allow us to buy a home, own 2 cars outright and have me stay home with our child.
By all rights, when his dad passed he could have jumped on the “poor pitiful me” modern victimhood bandwagon but he is a man and real men don’t do that. I am, as you might guess, more than a little bit proud of the guy. He is a rock. I would walk through hell if he was next to me.
His story and countless others like it prove that it CAN be done. It just takes a LOT of sweat and sacrifice. Whining does not buy you anything but annoyed listeners. If carrying 70 pound cabbage boxes in the blazing sun is what it takes to get ahead, you do it. The only alternative is a lifetime of servitude and self loathing.
I will admit, it is NOT easy to get traction in this environment. We have lost a disgusting amount of money trying to invest in traditional methods as advised by my well intentioned Boomer parents. We got walloped in 2008 and have only just now regained what we lost. Which is maddening because we worked so hard to save what little we had invested. To see it all just melt away was heartbreaking. It also woke us up. Fool us once….
What worked for the Boomers doesn’t work for us. It might never work again. But what my great-grandparents did DOES work. Buy yourself some Horatio Alger and read it like a manual.
We bought a small-ish, 160 year old rural house with some acreage. It needed work but had good bones. You could build a battleship with its oak beams. We can pay the mortgage with one income, and we went for a short mortgage to get rid of it as soon as possible. We have restored it to a working farmhouse. It is clean and neat but not trendy. Screw Martha Stewart if she thinks curing sweet potatoes on racks in the living room is not tasteful.
We dug up most of the lawn and put in a huge garden and fruit trees and bushes and I can hundreds of jars of food a year. We built a chicken coop for meat and eggs. I am trying to talk him into hogs for the back pasture. The idea of homemade bacon almost has him convinced. We buy grassfed beef from a local farm and get a deal because my husband works for them on the side for a break.
I stay at home and am a traditional housewife. This means cooking from scratch, cleaning and repairing things myself and squeezing every penny until it begs for mercy. We do not have cable or dish or cell phones. We line dry laundry on all but the worst of days. Our furniture is antiques that we buy broken and restore. It will last a lifetime. We borrow our entertainment for the library and buy our books at booksales. On the side, for pin money, to keep my brain busy and to fund our homeschooling, I sell excess vintage kids books.
Life is a lot of work but we have truly good and healthy food, a warm, welcoming home, good friends of like mind and a beautiful little girl. We have what matters.
Why am I saying all of this? Because it illustrates a very important principle: you can spend time, or you can spend money. Money is hard to come by, and what you do get Uncle Sugar will steal. Time, on the other hand, if well managed, is plentiful. By raising our own, making from scratch and restoring other people’s castoffs, we use time but save money. I have a good degree and could be working outside the home, but it would be taxable. By my being a stay at home housewife providing many of our basic needs we dodge that, as well as the expenses of childcare and work clothes and mileage on the car. And it lets us homeschool, which frees our daughter from the shackles of public indoctrination. Manual labor for ourselves frees our limited money up for other things. Things like starting a business, which we are working on.
If you want to invest, invest in yourself. Build a foundation that your family can grow on. Forget the snake oil they sell you about retirement. It is nothing but a rat race to get you to forfeit money now, make it unavailable, and then go into debt for things you could have paid cash for if you’d had access to your own money. Invest in solid things, pay off your debts and raise your kids right. And by that, I mean raise them as the Amish do, to pick up where you leave off, to provide comfort to you in old age as you provide them comfort in youth. Be a tribe. Love and family are our strongest weapons. Why else do you think TPTB do their damndest to turn us away from these?
It is true, it IS hard that resources cost so much, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do it to get yourself to where you want to be. Give up what you can, do for yourself what you can, and pay the bloodmoney for what you must have.
There are more than few of us Xers and Minnies who see things this way. A lot of us rediscovering old crafts, skills and values and forgoing the i-crazes. Don’t write us all off. There is still backbone in some of us.
I had no idea that my wife posted here.
J/K
Excellent comments and advice, all the best to this woman and her family.
Wow, true blue Americans.
Really good post, top notch. I was “wheels up” before I woke up, now the planes in the air and well, I can only do some of what Rose suggests. In business for myself, with my wife – I guess I haven’t found a long enough runway to land this thing……everything is just going to fast. But, a post like Rose’s is always welcome and appreciated. Just remember, most out there can’t just change now – that time has passed. Take care.
Excellent and wise commentary Rose,
I do not believe there are that many that would work and sacrifice as you and your husband have. So many of the young of the last two to three generations have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into the system I am afraid little will change until the system breaks. You and your husband prove that it can be done with the tried and true methods of hard work and sacrifice. I do feel it is getting harder and harder for young people these days. He had one particular advantage of working on a farm. The vast majority of young men and women these days have no, and I mean zero practical hands on experience.
I work with a church group each summer and we go to Mississippi to rebuild homes for people of little or no means. I have twice gotten a group of 8 kids where only 1 of them has used a hammer before. these are 16 to 18 year old kids.Great kids, but in today’s society very little is thought of the people who do the actual work. In my age (51) most of us had some sort of tool/work experience. It is very different now. BTW I learned to drive on a 1963 International Cub tractor. Practiced driving for my license on a 1966 International 6 wheel standard dump truck at my brother’s blueberry farm. Both provided very practical experiences.
Bob.
Bullshit. Just a boomer pretending to be a millennial. Shut the fuck up.
Calamity was a dopple by a trouble making big dog.
Calamity,
Hey girl, did we get up on the wrong side of the bed this AM?
If I had a twin sister, it would be someone like Rose.
Note from my attorney: This is a real quote.
Seriously, as I watch my beloved profession be destroyed by arrogant ignorant assholes and as I open up the latest missive from the motherfucking IRS over a 3 year old tax dispute that will cost me another $500 in attorneys fees to respond to, Rose’s lifestyle looks pretty damn appealing.
Admin is such a tattle tale.
Powerful stuff, Rose. Amazing to think that there are so many of us here on TBP, who come from very different areas, but all try to live our lives this way. Rose, you are so much like the Millies/Xers that I interact with in Indiana, and your husband’s story is like many from my Xer generation. The reason we never whine is that we grew up being told we were worthless slackers by our Boomer predecessors. We never did get a break, but it allowed us to “rediscover” the beauty of a simple life, hard work and living within our means. You Millies are taking it to another level, and it’s wonderful to watch.
Thanks for sharing your story. Hope you continue to post and share your unique perspective with us.
Not a bad writeup… but OP is preaching to the choir.
“There are more than few of us Xers and Minnies who see things this way. A lot of us rediscovering old crafts, skills and values and forgoing the i-crazes. Don’t write us all off. There is still backbone in some of us.”
Not to go off on “the wonder of ME” (since others on here have accused me of being a narcissist) but I’ve been beating the paleo-tech drum for years, elsewhere around the Interwebs… saw the way the wind was blowing years ago.
Couple things I’ve learned:
Unless you have piles of disposable income, it takes years to pull it off. Sacrifice? You have to make decisions. Triage. Do you buy your breed stock this spring, or do you opt for a new roof on the barn? Do you spend on buying ammo, heirloom seeds, fruit and nut trees, drilling a well, creating a fish pond, building a good, strong fence? You can only pick one. MAYBE two. The rest have to wait till next year, or when you have enough to afford what comes next.
When we first bought our little farm, our fields were dismal. It was a run down horse farm. Overgrazed. When cattle eat grass, they chew it off fairly short and move on. When horses eat grass, if they’re hungry enough, they’ll take out the roots, too. So, our farm was little more than dirt and weeds. We allowed the land to heal itself, thinking that would make it all better.
Wrong. The first things that grow are weeds. Invasive plants. Thistles. Stinkweed. All sorts of shit that nothing will eat and just soak up groundwater like a sponge. I know there’s members on here who have tried to eradicate thistles. Left alone, they will grow to frightening size, but they’re just hollow tubes and a deep taproot that syphons up water that other plants need. You can try to dig them out, yank them out, burn them (if you hate thistles as hard as I do, burning them is the most emotionally satisfying by far), but in the end you realize the only thing that will make a dent is chemical warfare.
Let me switch gears for a minute…
Rediscovering, learning and getting good at old tech is fun. Well, I think it’s fun anyways. Especially toolmaking. Make the tools to make the machines that make the things you need… one of the first machines I tried my hand at making was a rope maker. Then a card weaving loom. Then a stitching horse. Wooden-geared 24 hour clocks. More…
Old tech often means ‘Do it yourself’. Which means planning ahead. Unless you have a blacksmith’s forge or a machine shop handy, when TSHTF, you WILL need things like screws, nails, nuts and bolts, rivets, etc.. so, lay in a supply of nails. A few 50lb bags of nails doesn’t really cost that much, and seems stupid when you can just go down to Tractor Supply or Southern States and buy what you want…
Cut off that supply? All of a sudden those nails, etc, that you set aside? That’s ALL you’re gonna get… for the foreseeable future. Same with pig lead. With the last lead smelter in the US shut down (THANKS A FUCKING LOT, YOU EPA GOONS!), expect the price of pure lead to rise. Lead makes bullets and shot. If you don’t have any, good luck in obtaining any post-SHTF…
Meh.. I’ve rambled enough.
It’s good to see Millennials thinking like this. I expect my fellow 13ers to think this way, so no surprise there. We should be encouraging Millennials to follow us along this path, forewarning them of what to expect so they don’t refight the same fights we did…
By the way. Anyone who is interested, including you Mr. Admin, I have quite a collection of paleo-tech and retro-tech books that not only study the way the ancients did things (engineering, toolmaking, gunpowder, etc) but also how to replicate those things. If you want a complete list, let me know and I’ll go through the trouble of listing them all, including authors, etc.
One of the coolest books I have was one given to me on Christmas by my wife. Called “Stepping Through Time”, it chronicles the history of shoes and boots from prehistoric times all the way to about 1800. Not only what the shoes and boots looked like, but PATTERNS and how they were made.
If you got the pattern and how they were assembled (including stitch patterns, nails, etc), then you can duplicate the work. Fancy making your own boots when all around you have none?
You are all too kind:)
I am not anything remarkable, just the result of a the fact that my husband and I think lemonade tastes a damn sight better than sucking on lemons.
Calamity, I hate to break it to you, but I am not a Boomer. Surprised you even said that because my mentality is much more like a Lost or Silent than a Boomer. And largely, this is due to the fact that I had a very wise grandpa who took the time to listen to me, who had his ear to the ground and who saw what was coming and helped wise me up. He was a first generation immigrant and lived according to the tenets of his Irish born parents. Tough people, those west of Ireland farmers.
I think that we have all been done a grave disservice by the propaganda that life in the USA has always been easy and prosperous. In almost every generation there has been a great deal of struggle and unfairness. I look at what happened to the miners in Appalachia during the 1920s and 30s, for example, and my life looks pretty dang easy. In fact, I don’t think I work that horribly hard, and the fact that many people are impressed by what my family does scares me. At one time our lifestyle was the norm. Hell, I don’t even have to hand wash our clothes and we have central heat and hot water. We are pikers compared to what once was. So many have so far to fall and I don’t know how they will cope with it. THAT keeps me up at night sometimes.
Hoeing, canning, cooking, building and fixing are not rocket science. Anybody with half a functional brain can pick up a reference book and figure it out fairly quickly. Neither my husband nor I have a rural background. He is a city boy and I am from the burbs, but here we are, full on American Gothic. There is a boatload of work on farms and precious few willing to do it. Farmers are getting old and for the most part are a great group of people willing to pass on what they know if you show a desire to absorb their wisdom. My husband seized that opportunity and it has been the making of him. As for me, I like nature and I don’t like crowds so it was an obvious career path.
The Boomer years were an anomaly, we are now regressing back to the mean, which is a lot of poor, a few middles, and a very few rich. This was the reality even here in the USA until post WWII, and IMHO, the only reason the Boomer years existed is because the rest of the developed world was bombed into submission and we were the last man standing with functional resources.
One thing that does need to change is the way in which gov’t tries to force people of limited means to live to higher class standards. People of limited resources need the opportunity to make the most of what they have. Regulations on business and zoning stifle that opportunity. If people in the ghetto want to raise chickens and goats, let ’em. A lot more people have risen from poverty via the black market than gov’t assistance. It’s a pity we force it to be black market, instead it should be embraced and promoted as free enterprise. It is insane, for example, that I cannot sell homemade baked goods to willing customers from my squeaky clean farm kitchen without approval from a health inspector, and that I cannot sell excess raw milk. The ability to do so would allow us to afford a cow, and without it, we cannot. This type of stymie rouses my Irish temper. Too much of our energy and innovation goes to finding ways around asinine gov’t regs.
At one time, America offered little more than a promise at a shot at success. Now it seems to want to coddle us from cradle to grave. That isn’t reality and it will end. Better learn fast how to make gravy for yourself, because the train that delivers it is headed off a cliff.
Rose – we are not too kind. You will see that first time you step in it. You are treading safely so far!
Second, calamity was not calamity above, but rather some low life doppelganger. You need to stay alert to those tricks around here. You are a gullible newbie and some asshole will take advantage of that fact. Especially watch out for that guy Stucky – I suspect it was him pretending to be calamity above. He is wont to do that. Hell, nothing is beneath him when it comes to dirty tricks.
Be careful. This place is full of rabid monkeys. First impressions can be deceiving.
For anyone interested in some snowy-day reading, here’s a fascinating profile of an older Silent-gen man. I would categorize him as a “Rogue Silent.”
The Congressman Who Went Off the Grid
Roscoe Bartlett spent 20 years on Capitol Hill. Now he lives in a remote cabin in the woods, prepping for doomsday.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/roscoe-bartlett-congressman-off-the-grid-101720.html#ixzz2pYBl6dIc
By the way, your comment above “The Boomer years were an anomaly, we are now regressing back to the mean, which is a lot of poor, a few middles, and a very few rich. This was the reality even here in the USA until post WWII, and IMHO, the only reason the Boomer years existed is because the rest of the developed world was bombed into submission and we were the last man standing with functional resources.” is something I have said frequently.
Generally, it catches a lot of flack. You see, there are those, even here on this site, that believe the collapse of the middle class can be prevented. And that by doing things differently, the middle class can be saved. I do not believe that is so, and I believe global competition is the reason why.
There is an article on the side bar about the middle class getting screwed. I do not see it that way. I see it as you have described – the middle class is and has been an anomaly. Paying folks middle class incomes to do low skilled work was never something that was going to be sustainable.
I believe there will be the working poor, a small band of lower middle class, a reasonably large band of professionals, small businessmen, etc. at high middle class or low well to do, and then a smattering of rich. It is not a popular opinion to voice.
Fact is, the US consumes about a quarter of the world’s resources with five per cent of its population. The world will not stand for it. I hear constantly about the unequal distribution of wealth in the US – but it pales in comparison with the unequal wealth distribution, and consumption, across the globe.
Low skilled, service sector Americans will not be able to command a middle class lifestyle. It is that simple.
Rose
I’m thinking I’m starting to like you.
You are correct that our farmer population is aging. Most of the time, their kids bail out and head for greener pastures (oh, the irony) and there is nobody left to run the farm once they get old…
I knew diddly about farming when we bought this place. Like yours, it’s over 100 years old, built like a bunker from hardwoods – not sprawling. Small and well designed. Our house faces north, so the porch is always in shade. The windows are large to take advantage of the breezes that come from the southwest and to provide light. There are what I originally called “mystery grates” in the floors and ceilings… unknown as to purpose, until I realized that they were there to allow heat to flow upwards into the bedrooms. Thick walls of plaster that provide good insulation. Easy to heat and cool, our energy bill is pitifully small (and I like it that way).
I hooked up with our neighbor, a long time farmer and had him teach me everything he knew about farming. Still learning. I expect to be learning until I croak.
This might sound defeatist, but I’ve given up on trying to change anything in this country. What I am focusing on now is triage before The Fall. Saving who and what I can, while I can. This farm will pass to my son (and his family, hopefully) with the only caveat that he never sell it and can only increase our holdings, if possible (I’d love personal, private access to the river that flows nearby, but the folks behind us have that piece of land… someday, I will buy them out).
You are doing well, Rose. You and your husband keep on keeping on. Do what you can to save who and what you can, while you can.
I’ve cited this book elsewhere on TBP, but you should obtain and read “A Failure Of Civility”. You’ll see why when you start reading about the book… forming up with your neighbors for common defense and support…
Oh, a word about this:
” It is insane, for example, that I cannot sell homemade baked goods to willing customers from my squeaky clean farm kitchen without approval from a health inspector, and that I cannot sell excess raw milk. The ability to do so would allow us to afford a cow, and without it, we cannot. This type of stymie rouses my Irish temper. Too much of our energy and innovation goes to finding ways around asinine gov’t regs.”
Trade. If you trade with others who need what you have, you can leave the government goons out of the loop. We’re going to be running sheep. Cotswolds. Both for wool and meat. Also, my shop is being built and our orchard is being expanded. Our neighbors to the north, they run cattle and chickens. To the east, he runs horses and cattle… and has a few milkers. Just within our little triangle, we have beef, lamb, eggs, fresh fruit and veggies, milk (and also butter, cheese, etc), all sorts of stuff… one guy I know of, about a mile from here, he has honeybees. Which means honey. And wax for candles (I taught myself how to make beeswax candles). I already buy my wax from him now…
So long as you don’t SELL your goods, to the best of my knowledge the goons can’t touch you… and after TSHTF, the goons won’t be around anyway, so you won’t have to pay attention to their stupid regs…
Billy – good luck with your caveat. Fool’s errand thinking you can control anything from the grave. Your son, and his after him, will do as he sees fit with his property. Unless you bind it in a trust. Then maybe you can rest peacefully.
I love hearing about the back to farming stories here on TBP. The problem is that I’ve always sucked at growing anything and I’m in no hurry to try my hand at it now. Of course, I’d like to be useful in some kind of collapse so I’ve stockpiled away a wide collection of vacuum tubes, resistors, capacitors, etc and I’ve learned how to make communication equipment out of these old things which are pretty much impervious to an EMP.
I’ve also been studying like mad in an attempt to convert common household electronics to run directly off of a solar panel or battery. Frankly, most items in your home run off off 5V, 9V, or 12V DC.
I’d like to believe that an understanding of basic electronics will be very useful should the grid ever go down. The people that have never lived without their gadgets will probably do whatever is necessary to keep those gadgets running a bit longer.
@ Llpoh
A trust is exactly what I was thinking of. I will rest easier knowing that my progeny, and his after him, will have someplace safe to call home. Someplace that will produce, so at least they will be able to feed themselves and take care of business… not rich, but landowners. And like my old daddy said “Buy land, cause God sure ain’t makin’ any more of it”…
@ NickelthroweR
I was out on the porch, pacing (which is where I do my best thinking) and I was struck by the idea of “Why isn’t anyone in this country making small, well built pony steam engines hooked to a generator?”
You can’t get the rpms necessary to make sufficient power out of a modern genny in a direct-drive setup, but if you put in a simple transmission, then yeah, you can. It would be enough to run a household during the day, a shop, recharge battery banks, etc..
If one is any good at reading blueprints and has access to a machine shop, you can build one. But why not make a very simple, robust steam engine, connect it to an equally simple transmission and then connect that to an equally simple generator? I mean for sale to the public? I bet you could design one that would fit comfortably in the back of a modern pickup truck- small footprint. Put it on a concrete slab, wire it to a power inverter that’s hooked into the mains… you wouldn’t have 24-hour on-demand power like we have now, but I bet it would kick the shit out of a bank of solar panels… plus, you can hook it up to a cool old school steam train whistle…
Oh, a word about steam engine durability and longevity. I remember reading somewhere about a Russian guy who is still operating a steam engine built by the Germans, and left behind in Russia during the long retreat in WWII. Still kicking after 70 years. If THEY can do it, then WE can do it.
Hey! Lookie what I found!
I believe Rose has posted sporadically here in the past. I’m glad she is “coming out” now. As I commented in another thread, her posts will balance out some of my idiocy.
Keep posting Rose and don’t ever let any of us shit throwing monkeys get you down.
I_S
Administrator says:
“Calamity was a dopple by a trouble making big dog.”
that’s the definition of what ‘big dog’ means.
IndenturedServant says:
“I believe Rose has posted sporadically here in the past.”
there were a couple of roses back in May, methinks this is one of them
Billy I would like to have your book list
Wow, so much anti-calamity sentiment even when I am not posting. I can tell so many yankees are shut in their houses because of the weather. Cabin fever of the feral monkeys this week is funny.
sensetti
You’ll have to give me a bit of time to get everything together and write it all down… my books are organized by geological strata… plus, I probably have 5 or 6 cartons of books that have been cycled down to the basement (I NEVER throw books away… ever).
I’ll post it here on this thread, unless Herr Admin would like to post it for the benefit of all.
Oh, in addition to the books, there is one video that I KNOW you will love to watch… the secret of crucible steel. Also known as wootz. The best viking swords were made of it, and marked “Ulfberht”. The guy in the video, following the ancient method of making crucible steel in a blacksmith’s shop, basically throws together a bunch of scraps and the resulting steel is given high marks – it is literally comparable to what a big, modern foundry can produce… yeah, it’s THAT good. Good stuff to know…
Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXbLyVpWsVM
Most man caves are inhabited by fatties that have more circulating estrogen than testosterone, since their blubber converts what little testosterone they have into estrogen. Obese men (2/3 of the USSA population) have been estrogenified; they are women with non-functioning testicles. Since they aren’t hormonally men anymore, they somehow try to prove their manhood by imitating cavemen. Hilarious.
Clammy
People like Rose, a millennial. She has respect for her elders. There is a respectful way to condemn and disagree, then there is being a thin-skin shrill bitch. And, she is not filled with anger and hatred. You might take a hint.
The Aromatase enzyme, turning obese men into women….And yes, moobs are hypertrophied breast tissue, which grow under the influence of estrogen.
Aromatase, also called estrogen synthetase or estrogen synthase, is an enzyme responsible for a key step in the biosynthesis of estrogens. It is a member of the cytochrome P450 superfamily (EC 1.14.14.1), which are monooxygenases that catalyze many reactions involved in steroidogenesis. In particular, aromatase is responsible for the aromatization of androgens (testosterone) into estrogens. Factors known to increase aromatase activity include age, obesity, insulin, and alcohol.
Billy: I have two crucible steel knives. ZT 0560 and Fallknifen F1 3G. Would highly recommend either, or both. Rose: excellent post and you are wise beyond your years.
Re Roscoe Bartlett: I have always admired this guy as he was the ONE congress critter who recognized the reality of Peak Oil. Read the speeches he delivered on the topic to Congress back in 2005.
To Rose: This boomer wishes you well, and I believe you’ve chosen a good path.
@ ragman
“Billy: I have two crucible steel knives. ZT 0560 and Fallknifen F1 3G. Would highly recommend either, or both”
If you watch the video, somewhere around the 30:00 minute mark, one of the tech guys for ArcelorMittal steel (biggest steel producer in the world) tests the crucible steel Ric Furrer (the blacksmith) made in his shop with little more than scraps, some clay, sand and a chunk of glass… and you can see the disbelief on his face as he compares the quality of the blacksmith’s steel to the modern equivalent… says it’s “not bad”, but the expression on his face says “Some podunk blacksmith made THIS? In his SHOP?”…
Knowing how to make the stuff, for me, is important, since anything made from forged crucible steel is just fucking WIN and unicorn farts… if Ric can make it, then I can, too… and that means anything you need good steel for (firearms, knives, tools, blades, machine parts, high-strength screws, nuts and bolts, etc) you can make yourself if you have to…
Hopefully, we will have a blacksmith’s shop and a tiny foundry on the property… my shop comes first, though…
LLPOH said:
“Generally, it catches a lot of flack. You see, there are those, even here on this site, that believe the collapse of the middle class can be prevented.”
N o t. G o n n a. H a p p e n. Name any other time in history when there was retirement for the masses and a massive middle class. It was all an anomaly made possible but thin air printing of fiat wampum. Even after the reset there will be no widespread middle class and retirement will be a memory receding into to sands of time. Embrace The Walton’s v2.0
I_S
Billy, I love reciprocating steam engines. However they are relics of the past and always will be. They are extremely inefficient in that most of the energy is lost as radiated heat and labor intensive to operate. They are bulky and heavy. The best way to generate electricity is through hydropower. Another good way to do it is to build a wood gas generator and use it to power an internal combustion engine…then you can direct couple it to a generator. Other than routine maintenance, the only attention it requires is periodically refilling the chip hopper.
IS – you know the truth of it. Some folks are gonna get a very rude awakening. They prefer to hope than prepare. It is somewhat understandable. But non-productive.
Zara
“I love reciprocating steam engines. However they are relics of the past and always will be. They are extremely inefficient in that most of the energy is lost as radiated heat and labor intensive to operate. They are bulky and heavy. The best way to generate electricity is through hydropower. Another good way to do it is to build a wood gas generator and use it to power an internal combustion engine…then you can direct couple it to a generator.”
Of course they are relics of the past. That’s the whole point – when a SHTF event happens, top tier tech will be the first to fail. Meaning retro and paleo tech will be all you got to work with.
Is a heat pump more efficient than a woodburning stove? Yep. Sure is. But if the grid is down and it’s cold outside, I’m not gonna give much of a shit about “efficiency”.. I’ll be more concerned with keeping that fire banked, being able to heat food and water, etc..
Running a gassifier? Possibly. If you can find a generator that is carburetted and can get the pipes to seal properly around the carburetor, it can be done. Was done with cars and trucks back in the 40’s, so the tech is sound.
But come ON!! It’s a steam engine!! HOW COOL IS THAT?!? Bulky and heavy? Yep. But I’m not gonna be carrying it around in a backpack… it’s gonna be a dedicated system on a concrete slab with a roof over it and at least partial walls to shield from the winds that come from the south and west…
Labor intensive… well, I’ve never run a steam engine, so it might or might not… keep the fire up, keep the water up, watch your pressure… toot the whistle a few times…. bring a thermos of hot coffee with you or soup…
So long as the house and the shop have power, I’m in business… besides, my son can run it while I do more important shit. 🙂 And come on, who DOESN’T want a steam engine?
Llpoh, Provided I survive the initial collapse and don’t end up with the STM in Camp FEMA, I’m looking forward to returning to simpler times. We may be poorer in material things but I expect quality of life to improve dramatically.
I_S
Billy, a steam engine would be cool but I’m sure the novelty will wear off quickly once the drudgery of maintaining it kicks in. You sure won’t have to worry about anyone stealing it though! I’d love to have a property on one of the old mill ponds in SC. I think Sensetti is right about hydro power.
A friend of mine lives on a little jewel of a property that his family originally homesteaded well over a hundred years ago. Some distant relative built a neat water pump that feeds water from an ice cold artesian well to the house. That pump has been working for over a hundred years.
I_S
I_S
I can’t ever imagine something as retro and cool and SteamPunk as a genuine steam engine – hissing and spitting with gauges and whirling things and spinning things, and with a 5 chime steam whistle? No man, that can never get old… just too fucking cool… Besides, we wouldn’t run it all day. Enough to warm the house, do some cooking, maybe some work in the shop, run a load of laundry… then shut it down and run on batteries, lamp oil, the woodstove and candles… we’d make do.
A hundred year old piece of tech and an artesian well? See, now that’s the kind of cool retro tech I’m talking about.. Shit like that never breaks… just keeps chugging. There’s a water wheel running a mill over in the middle east somewhere. It’s something like 600 years old and still doing it’s job.
However, we have a distinct lack of anything “hydro” around here. Oh sure, our fish pond is fed by an underground stream, but the flow isn’t nearly enough to power anything. Plus, we’re on the high ground, so there you go…
As far as a well? I’ve given it serious thought. Problem is, we’re way up on top of this hill. The fish pond is down the hill from us, and is VERY deep. A well would be a serious investment. The workaround I’ve come up with is a windmill. See, we got this windmill project planned. Mechanical aerator to increase the O2 levels in the pond so we can stock more fish. My idea is to have another windmill, but run the aerator in reverse and pump water from the pond up the hill to a reservoir near the house and gravity feed it through a filter. Not perfect, but it’s a start. Same trick for the greenhouse – have an elevated reservoir of several hundred gallons to water the veggies in the greenhouse.
Of course, drilling a well would solve a LOT of problems… the good news is that we don’t need permits to do anything. Want to dig a hole? Then you dig you a hole. Want a well? Drill one, if you can afford it. Nobody says shit. A perfect world would be a well in the basement.
When it gets to be a perfect world, let me know…
(PS It’s a STEAM ENGINE!!! Come ON dude! You know you want to hear that 5 chime whistle howling out over the snowy hills, like a ghost come out of history…)
Billy, I won’t argue. As long as your son wants to be a full time “engineer,” I’m down with that. When I was in Jr. High, I worked on a farm. It still had one of those old steam traction engines. The state wouldn’t allow us to run it at it’s design pressure, so it had to have a safety valve installed set at 50 PSIG, but it still worked. Run a belt to a portable sawmill and you could make enough timbers for a barn in a day or two.
” There is a respectful way to condemn and disagree, then there is being a thin-skin shrill bitch. ”
Than I will fill the role to the best of my capability because my elders deserve no respect.
Out west here there a many large stem engine collections I know of. The climate out here is fairly kind to old iron unlike the SE USSA. You can probaly find any type or size of stem driven equipment out here. There is a huge steam collection just north of Malmstrom AFB and just west of Great Falls, MT. Guy even has his own steam train.
I_S
We have discovered that Soly the Evil Puppy From A Parallel Universe does not like being left alone……at all. She sings sad country songs at full volume! She should have a double album out by next Friday. However, she is not the least bit disturbed by pounding hammers.
I_S
Give it a rest Calamity. We have a new favorite Minnie now! 🙂
I_S
You guys waxing poetic about steam power brought to mind a friend of ours, who not only lives on a mill trace, but the family has run a cider mill, commercial kitchen and various other things off steam power for generations. They’re Mennonite, and the father even rigged up a little train track up near the ceiling that is powered off the main steam engine, whistles and all.
Talk about prepared for off-grid living…
Oh fucking-A. I happen to like Calamity. She didn’t have the benefit of an Ivy League education, give the girl a fucking break. I have never cared for her grammar, syntax, or writing style — but the girl has a knack for subject matter. She sees a hot topic before it hits, like a modern little Cassandra. The main issue so many of you old farts have with Calamity is that you all popped boners for her when she first showed up here… and she made 2 rookie mistakes: 1. She let you all know immediately that she was a young girl 2. She had her picture on her blog which was looked at and I believe even posted in comments here? So then you all made fools of yourselves fawning all over her for a couple weeks. Once you got blue balls and got tired of Calamity’s technical writing issues, you turned hostile like the bunch of sexually frustrated, rabbid old farts that you are. Having had the sanity (and lack of penis) to treat Calamity according to her merits from day one, I can afford to like her. I told her from the get-go that her writing was lazy (spell and grammar check please) and that although she is cute, she isn’t cute enough to get away with being retarded. The girl can still pick a topic, and break a story, and stir a shit storm with ease, the babe has talent – plus she’s been implacable in the face of hateful ad hominem attacks. I like the girl, I forgive her her foibles.
Now, as for me, I never announced my gender in the beginning… So you all treated me like shit, thinking I was some young opinionated, thumb ring wearing west coast dude ala Colma. Then when some of my posts revealed I was female, I got accused of pulling a “reverse Zara”, and then when everyone finally believed I am in fact a woman — there was nonstop slut-shaming and cunt calling etc… Nonstop sexist ad hominem attacks for about a year. Finally it’s died down, because I got shit on and beat down and called such horrible things in the beginning, it’s pretty much all been said.
Now, sweet Rose is experiencing some sort of honeymoon period, different than Calamity’s but similarly fake. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. You farts seem to be quite consistently nice to the peri-menopausal / menopausal aged women around here, but Rose has announced herself to be in the still fertile/fuckable millennial female category… Whore, cunt, slut, shrill hateful bitch, and other lovely pet monikers likely loom in her future…if she has any inclination to ever challenge or disagree with any of you. We will see if she has the intestinal fortitude to tough it out with you dickwads once she is on the receiving end of your true personalities and proclivities for misogyny… Something that Calamity has certainly proven she can do.
Anyway, welcome Rose, but don’t let the warm welcome fool you, the big dogs are woman haters… Actually, even some of the women are women haters (I, for example, believe women’s suffrage ruined America). Welcome. Watch your back.
SAH, I’ve got plenty of respect for women. Dad made sure of that. I even married one 25+ years ago. I don’t think I’ve ever had an issue with any women on the site except for Clammy due to the way she revels in ignorance and arrogance. Today she is just being a bitch. As for the rest of the regular TBP ladies, I admire them all and look forward to their input here.
How any man can stand the bubble headed, vacuous bimbos of the world I’ll never understand. Give me an intelligent woman that can grasp esoteric concepts and carry on a conversation any day!
I_S
SAH, I loved you from the beginning and defended you when others were giving you shit. Not because I’m some blue balls over the hill boomer who flirts with chicks over the internet but because I recognized you right off for what you are. My sword is yours, madam.
I do like Clammy as well. I suspect many parents feel the same as I do about Clammy when they see their own children traveling the hard road unnecessarily. Makes me want to grab her by the fucking neck and force her to see an easier path. Like I’ve said before, Clammy reminds me of me when I was her age. I had the world by the balls……couldn’t tell me a damn thing. That’s why I know she will eventually be just fine. She just needs the world of hard knocks like I did. Truth is she’ll be better for it but behind the curve by a decade or so.
I_S
Aside from the occasional comment over the last few years, I’ve only been active here for a week or so. I didn’t know Calamity was a woman or a young woman. I just saw a post from someone named Calamity who basically argued that young people should skip college and become self-employed at age 18. I took issue with that – respectfully, I thought – and was basically told, “shut up old man, everything’s now way worse than in the halcyon days of your youth”. Then we were off to the insult races. A lot of wise young people might give a little credence to someone who lived through and remembers the ’70’s and ’80’s, rather than gleaning all knowledge about that era by googling “Greenspan Put”. It’s an odd way to learn about a bygone era by refusing to listen to anyone who actually remembers it. I’ve never seen Calamity’s picture.
SAH said:
“Now, sweet Rose is experiencing some sort of honeymoon period”
Can’t be! We haven’t even had the chivaree yet!
I_S
“Especially watch out for that guy Stucky – I suspect it was him pretending to be calamity above.”
———— llpoh
Kiss my fat ass! I’ve been gone all day. It wasn’t me …. although I loved it.
I will bet $1,000, right now, to any takers that the doppleganger was ……….. llpoh himself. Dirty fuckin’ rat bastard.
That SAH likes Calamity is really shocking. Shocking, I tell you! Then again … birds of a feather flock together ….