The Magazine For Those Of Us Who Won't Just Lay Down And Die!

With ingenuity, with preparation, with creativity, with determination, with inventiveness, and with faith, we will overcome!

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Brilliant Older Farmer

I just watched this video by Kirsten Dirksen, and was really inspired to step it up.  This fellow shows that you can do all sorts of things if you set your mind to it.  It helps greatly to HAVE to do it, of course.

Enjoy!



Panchito

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Sling Bows - A Cheap Alternative to Expensive Bows For Hunting

Upon awakening this morn, I seem to have entered into a scene from Narnia. Snow!

The really funny thing is that I started this post LAST year!  Today is the 27th of December, 2012, and we're snowbound again.  Well, not really snowbound, but there is a bit of snow out there, and to Cincinnatians, that is one and the same thing.  If flakes are only coming down, let alone piling up, we're snowbound and looking right into the eyes of disaster!  Poor souls, that they are!

Anyway, I felt the need to rescue this draft, that consisted solely of the first line of this post and nothing more, from the sad fate of forever remaining a mere draft.

"What should I tell you about?" I ask.  I think the topic of this post will simply HAVE to be, not snow, but...

Sling bows!  I know, that term got you excited.  I assure you that was my goal, and with this post I think I will be able to capture your attention and motivate you to try this "invention" out.  Note the quotation marks and remember them being there - their meaning will become clear as we go along.

Sling bow.  Slingbow.  I understand that that last bit was really NOT a complete sentence, but I'm just rolling the term around in my mouth, seeing how it should best be written.  I had tried this idea out in a very simple, primitive way several times in the past myself, before ever hearing the term slingbow, even thinking of a way to center the arrow in the sling.  But I abandoned working on my idea.  Who knows whether my idea was passed on through myriad relationships before coming to rest in the fertile mind of Dave Canterbury?  I will most likely never know.  I also thought up the idea of putting sliding doors on both sides of minivans, and putting a small, backward-facing door on pickup trucks well before they ever happened, but that is another story.

Think of that great little invention, or tweak to an existing invention, the "Wrist Rocket" slingshot.  Now think of using the slingshot to sling arrows instead of 30 calibre shot balls, or rocks.  Canterbury came up with a simple way of centering the arrow directly between the two arms of the slingshot at the same level as the elastic tubes.  Then he went one further and attached a "Whisker biscuit", which is available at Walmart, or so says Dave.  Canterbury that is.

Watch his video to learn more:



Hope you enjoy it, improve it, use it for yourself.

Ciao,

Panchito

As always, if you like this post, please comment on it, pass it on, tell your friends.  I really appreciate it!

Rocket Mass Heaters

Today's post is about Rocket Mass Heaters, a somewhat modern spin on the old, proven technology from Northern Europe - Masonry Stoves, Russian Stoves, Finnish Stoves, etc.

I'm not going to write much on the topic today, but rather introduce you via a video, to Vention4wh, a YouTuber who has 221 videos on the Tube.  This is the first one I've watched, and I feel that he does a very good job of explaining, in layman's terms, how a Rocket Mass Heater works.  So without futher adieu, here's the video:



Cheers,

Panchito

P.S.  Please leave comments, and if you enjoy an article, or it at least provokes you to serious thought, spread the word!  Thanks!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

How to Build a Permaculture Vegetable Garden

Here’s a great idea that looks like it could produce quite a bit of food over a very long time with minimal investment, or even possibly NO investment.  I might build some of these on my land here in Cincinnati and see how they do.  Australians have been going hard after this since around 1978, when Bill Mollison and David Holmgren came up with the system and ideas that are now the bedrock of permaculture.  I’ve written several times about permaculture on this blog and elsewhere, and am starting to work the ideas into our life here in Cincinnati.

Being a prepper, I am working toward melding the two together into something I call Permaprepper, or Permaprepping.  I think of the whole thing as a new way of living a hunter/gatherer lifestyle in todays techno-savvy world.

As I’ve said before, if you aint preparing for hard times yet, you best get moving, because they’re here for many of us, and are bearing down on the rest at a rapid pace.

Enjoy the link...

How to Build a Permaculture Vegetable Garden

Ciao,

Panchito

Perma-Prepping Again

I met recently with a young man by the name of Braden Trauth, founder of www.this-land.org.  What the?  This Land?  What in the world could that possibly be?  Think "This land is your land, this land is my land..." but then think permaculture.  Permaculture, you might be interested in knowing, is a design system that can create super healthy, super abundant environments that can eventually replace most of your food expenditures - in theory.

At a recent outdoor event nearby I picked up a copy of Edible Ohio Valley, a local magazine that had a booth at the fair.  In the latest issue, Braden had an article published about permaculture.  I read the article.  It was good.

I checked out the This Land website and ended up contacting Braden, who came over to meet me and take a little tour of my property.  We had some great discussions, ate some grapes that were close to being ripe that I picked from our Niagara vines, and discussed potential workshops that I might want to host and/or lead here on our land.

I found Braden to be an intelligent young man, full of knowledge, and very concerned about the welfare of others.  Hailing from a well-to-do family of Cincinnati, at a fairly young age he seems to have had a bit of an epiphany regarding life, faith, and how to live that faith out in a tangible manner.  In his case, helping others to create healthy, productive, natural environments via permaculture.

I'm all for that notion.   I've been studying, researching, and trying to put into effect similar ideas here on my own bit of land in the Cincinnati area.  My main problem is that I have neighbors, and those neighbors desire that my land look much like their land, dead, grassy, dandelion-less desert.  To do such a thing is sort of anathema for the likes of me.

So, I'm hoping for a good year of business from here on out, to be able to sell this place and purchase a place with copious amounts of land, build a better house, and start creating a permaculture inspired system.  I think it may be the only way into the future for humanity, although I also believe that we're approaching the final hour, before apocalyptic events kick in.

So if you stumble upon this blog post, and find that you’d like to know more, do more, give more, and potentially create such a living situation for yourself and/or others, contact me, via a comment on this post, Google +, or some other manner.

Ciao,

Panchito

Break Down Armament

Today’s post deals with the topic of break-down archery equipment.  I’m including a clip from wilderness outfitters that shows a great demonstration of 3-piece arrows.  They are basically a regular carbon fiber arrow with a male and female screw together section between each part of the arrow, just like the screw in broad-heads/target points.  The question regarding their use is whether they would fly straight, or whether the joints in them would cause the arrow to fly erratically.

Watch the video and you’ll get a good idea what the facts are…



At the moment, in the USA, where I reside, guns are still legal.  At least a good number of varieties of guns.  Day after day, the liberal (actually, they are NOT liberal, but are really just corrupt, mislead, immoral hoards of people with little or no connection to reality) elements in our society are chipping away at the public’s right to keep and bear arms.  The notion that this right exists to enable us to hunt game is not at all correct, that right exists to enable the public to take out those elements of government that are corrupt and have subverted, or otherwise perverted our Constitution.  The author of those thoughts was none other than one of our most beloved presidents, Abraham Lincoln.  I suspect he’d have a thing or two to say to the elected officials of today, were he here to speak today, don’t you?

At any rate, the reason for my post today is to turn you all on to another option for discreet armament, albeit primitive.  Archery still works, even today.  We may be one day reduced to only this…  if things continue to deteriorate in the USA, if Obama gets his way.

Ciao,

Panchito

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Raised Bed Production

This Spring I came up with a great new source of free lumber.  There is a company nearby that purchases glass in bulk, making windows and doors for industrial situations.  They set the crates and skids outside their building with a sign saying "Free Lumber".  I avail myself of their lumber as needed, and have been able to build several nice raised beds as a result!

There are surely similar situations near where you live as well.  I obtained some great lumber from a sign company last year for the building of three other raised beds.  My thinking is that if there is lumber and other building materials to be had for free, why o why would anyone spend money on new lumber?  Why would us "Greenies" not do all we can to reuse, re-purpose, and recycle existing materials, instead of adding to the problem, enabling the lumber companies to continue making huge profits at the expense of our environment?

Anyway, here are a few shots of our raised beds for your personal enjoyment...




Wofati

So I'm wending my way through the permies.com website, and I cam across an article by Paul Wheaton titled "Wofati Eco Building".  What the...  So I read the article.  Paul is a guy who is very interested in building techniques that are really cheap, really cheap.  He is also one who desires to create structures that are made from local materials, preferably from your own land, or nearby, eco-friendly, quickly constructed, extremely durable.

I HAD a book by the name of "The $50 and Up How to Build an Underground House Book", by Mike Oehler.  I leant it to a friend, who decided he didn't want me building such a structure on his property, so he "lost" it.  Book?  What book?

Anyway, Mike Oehler has created some great, super-cheap houses from materials found on his own property, mostly.  Paul thought through Mike's ideas, visited Mike, visited other experts in the field, and made some interesting modifications, which you can read about here:

http://www.richsoil.com/wofati.jsp

I am very interested in this sort of thing, as I find that the housing industry is a joke.  Overpriced, under-built, low-quality housing without an iota of ecological leaning.  I say, "Go for broke"!  Under-price it, over-build it, max out the quality, and max out the eco!  Forget about building 2x4 houses completely.  There is absolutely NO reason to build the crap we've been building for the last 100 years or more.  There exists designs to tackle ALL aspects of green building TODAY, eliminating the need to order lumber from a lumber yard, order flooring from another store, order roofing from a roofing supplier, etc.  I'm interested in knowing your thoughts, whoever you are, so please leave a comment when you read this post.

Thanks,

Ciao,

Panchito

Monday, July 9, 2012

My Astounding Trip

Ah, Canada!  Or, Oh, Canada!

I've recently returned from an amazing trip to some of the most astounding fishing I've ever heard of.  Imagine catching one five pound Smallmouth bass after another till your arms ache! That was the scene for our entire party of five, for eight days!  Not only bass, both Large and Small-mouth, but lunker Walleyes, Northern Pike, and Lake Trout.  It was a trip to remember forever.

I'll be posting pics of some of our catch when the files arive.  You'll be amazed.  Unfortunately, I've been sworn to secrecy regarding our whereabouts.  Canada is a huge place, no?

Cheers,

Panchito

Monday, February 27, 2012

The World Bank and Greed

The following is an article written by Brandon Smith, founder of Alt-market, which as they say is "an organization designed to help you find like-minded activists and preppers in your local area so that you can network and construct communities for mutual aid and defense".


This article pretty much says it all, so follow the link below to the source.


http://networkedblogs.com/utVPg


Ciao,


Panchito



Friday, February 24, 2012

Cops These Days! What Are They Thinking?

I'm reposting this post from Alt-market.com regarding the liberties and extremism that some cops, and it seems like a large percentage of them, are taking these days.  Let's hope that more of them join Oathkeepers soon!

http://goo.gl/R1yje

Cheers!

Panchito

Red Skelton's Pledge

On the Ohio Minutemen Militia's website I found this video.



For those of you who are newer to this life than I, Red Skelton was a comedian from years gone by.  Crazy, funny, good guy.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Ron Paul - The Likely Winner in the Maine GOP Caucus

This post was originally posted as a comment to the article link in the last blog post I posted, which I read at www.alt-market.com, an excellent source of news, great ideas, community, and help for those who are preparing for the worst.  


Can you spell V-O-T-E-R F-R-A-U-D? I can. 

I just went to their website at http://www.mainegop.com/2012/0...e-caucus/. I scrolled to the bottom of the page to leave a comment. Guess what I discovered? Yep, that's right, the following: Comments are closed. You will not be able to post a comment in this post. 

What a surprise! I'm surprised, aren't you? Liars. Cheats! I'm calling for a full-out investigation into this obvious voter fraud case! This is just one more outrage perpetrated against Ron Paul, a good, honest man. 

I'm outraged over this. This kind of crap has got to stop. 

How about an honest election for a change?

The Latest GOP Voter Fraud Case - Maine!

So first it's Iowa, as far as we know.  Voter fraud, oh, did they say a miss-count?  Well, anyway, it looks like the same disease has spread to Maine, but this time, all the shtuff has come out and is visible to all.  VOTER FRAUD!!!!!

Check out this article from Brad Friedman, originally published on www.BradBlog.com, and republished on www.Alt-Market.com, a website that "promotes decentralization, localism, and the de-globalization of human economic systems."  


http://www.alt-market.com/articles/577-neocons-caught-red-handed-stealing-maine-state-primaries


Part of his report includes a video by Rachel Maddow that includes some very good reporting, whatever her motives might have been for digging into this voter fraud perpetrated seemingly by Maine GOP Party Chairman Charlie Webster.  Webster seems to have a history of committing voter fraud, though I hope that's not true.  This indictment doesn't seem to be "just" a case of the liberal media trying to sour things for Mitt Romney, although that might be their ultimate goal, who knows?  It rather, seems to be a genuine case of fraud.  It is also NOT being carried by hardly ANY other members of the "mainstream" media.  Hmm!!!!


I'm just saying...


I'll say it again, Ron Paul is the only guy I consider worthy of my vote.


Ciao,


Panchito



Sunday, February 12, 2012

What about that guy, Ron Paul?

What's up with this?  I couldn't count on both hands, plus my toes, how many times the stinking, rotten, lying, completely biased media has blacked Ron Paul out during debates, failed to say that he's in third place ahead of Michele Bachmann, in second place behind someone else, or in first place in front of everyone else.  The guy has been blackballed by the blotted out time and time again.  Is that what we call democracy?  I don't think so!  We, Americans, whether we agree with someone or not, have an OBLIGATION to give each candidate EQUAL time and EQUAL press coverage.

To illustrate my point, watch this short video on this very topic.  What needs to happen is, we must force justice to occur, and force the networks to do what is right.  They are very obviously NOT going to do what is right on their own.  The left is scared stiff that Ron Paul is going to win, the right is either equally scared he'll win, or just using the opportunity to negate him as a candidate to help their own butts get elected.

Even Santorum and Perry are letting this happen.  Michelle Bachmann didn't say a word in defense of Ron Paul when he was getting blacked out by the media.  Great Christian testimonies folks!  Shame on you!  You should have insisted during every debate that all candidates get equal time, every time!  Shame on you.

I have made my decision.  Ron Paul is the ONLY candidate worth voting for, the only candidate worthy of my vote.



Ciao,

Panchito

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Patagonian EcoAldeas

In Argentina, in Patagonia, there is what they call an "EcoAldea", or Eco-village.  I know, hippies, Earth-firsters, granola crunchers.  BUT, what they have on the rest of us is that they are going hard after ways to do things that work really well, are super-cheap or free, can be done with materials on hand, look beautiful (if unconventional), and only add life to the environment around them, not damage it.  Nothing wrong with that, after all, we were commanded to steward the Earth, not destroy it.  Anything else is probably viewed as disobedience to the one we call God, and thus, sin.

So check out this video.  Forgive me the Spanish headers, but you'll still be able to understand what's going on.  There's no dialogue, just pictures and videos.  It's a beautiful vision of what can be done when many hands belonging to like-minded people work toward common goals.



I hope you enjoyed the video.  It's food for thought, and action.  Please understand that even now, it is entirely possible to build a wonderful, comfortable habitation that uses NO outside electricity, water, gas, heating, and recycles all wastes completely.  These houses may turn out to look NOTHING like what you are used to seeing, but they are every bit as comfortable and enjoyable as any house you may be aware of right now, or more so.  More about that in another post.

Ciao,

Panchito

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Oscar Perone of Argentina and his PermApiculture

Oscar Perone is a growing figure worldwide in the realm of apiculture, or bee keeping.  His methods are quite different from the typical european/american style of apiculture.  The following is a short series of video clips that highlight a few aspects of his method.  Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUXFbem6FMo&feature=colike

If you would like to discuss this in more depth, in English, or Spanish, please feel free to contact me via the comments section.

Ciao,

Panchito

Friday, January 6, 2012

Brace Yourself, America is Tanking!

This is a very long program, at almost 3 hours in length, but is very enlightening.  I don't hold all the same views as Chris Hedges, the well-known journalist and author, but the guy is super sharp and a fount of information.

Take a gander, when you have time.  It is really worth listening to/watching.



Ciao,

Panchito

Thursday, January 5, 2012

A Commentary on Irresponsible Spending

So I joined a site named Alt-market.com.  There I found this video, which says it all.



If this doesn't get your gander up, you're probably comatose, or worse.

Ciao,

Panchito

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Aquaculture Video

Here's an interesting video on raising marine fish inside the country and using plant-based feeds, not animal proteins.  I would like to set up an aquaponics system and use mostly duckweed as the protein source.  Duckweed is very  high in excellent quality protein and grows at astounding rates.  The difficulty is that it also requires large surface areas to produce rapidly, and optimum temperatures.

Hmm...



Let me know what you think.

Ciao,

Panchito

Sunday, January 1, 2012

New Year!

We're here in Fairfield with our good friends celebrating the new year.  Good food and good conversations while the Bengals struggle to catch up to the Ravens.

My friend wants to go to that island that I wrote about earlier.  He needs to get away from it all.  That place IS away from it all.

I, however, have to come up with a financial miracle to make something like that happen.

Happy New Year to all my readers!