What Do U Meme, I Follow the Heard? - Introduction

Image from SportsRip: Group taking a selfie in front of a disastrous fire.

Today, I am introducing a new series that has essentially been composing itself in my little head since the early days of the last presidential campaign (ca. 2015). It will be centered around a number of intertwining subjects having to do with what I perceive as the continuous, cultural dumbing down of America. I say, "America," because I am not qualified to comment on any other country. My instincts tell me that intentionally profound unawareness is replacing what was once called, "truth seeking" in this country, and is presently running the risk of bleeding out into the rest of the world. Yet, I just don't know how impactful it really is at the planetary scale. People are using what they've heard instead of what they take the time to research in order to inform themselves. This is very very disturbing to me.

American culture has had a way of being adopted as the most progressive set of trends for other peoples, in other lands, at least in the past. However, what might be described as the current "too-cool-for-school" attitude is now passing beyond the lighthearted and humorous picket lines of mild scholarly concern, and into the empty factories of willful ignorance. That is a metaphor, by the way. I feel I need to point that out, since much of the population might be prompted to Google, "stupidity factory strike," and then call my writing "fake news" when no further links can be located. Of course I jest. But the trend away from the instructive power of abstract concepts, in favor of shallow outward observation, is worrisome to people schooled in deeper discourse, high quality literature, or true artistic effort (for example).

My objective is to bring back the requirement for objectivity, before subjectivity can change the subject. As irritating as it may be for those who desire the ease of operating simple minds (but are still interested in expanding those minds), I will also seek to use some - I think - unique literary methods of challenging readers to more carefully think for themselves. In this way, I hope to both illuminate what I see as key stumbling blocks to critical thinking--before it's too late, while also employing practical tools for strengthening the once-natural inclination to stop and think, by not being formulaic in any classical way. 

This may come in the form of the aforementioned-use of metaphor, but also word play, and poetic devices. But there will be primarily be a gentle prodding for the reader to find the meanings between the lines. I want you to improve these ideas and make them your own. 

I'm not trying to be clever or coy with this approach. Even folks who get a headache figuring out whether the glass is half empty or half full should be able to glean a thing or too, while still getting a chuckle every now and then. I fully admit that my efforts are likely to fall flat, because I myself may not be up self-assigned task, nor even understanding what I am writing. I've never written something so specifically designed to cause the questioning of one's own thinking habits, while also serving as an unconscious mechanism for improving the very act of thinking itself. Nevertheless, I feel like the time is right for attempting such frank efforts, mostly because I don't know how much time any of us really have left...

I will be using this series as the scaffolding for a book. In writing it as a public draft, there will be a necessity to go back and tighten things up occasionally. This will require revising former essays and fixing the confusing conceptual knots I will inevitably be tying myself up with. If people are unable to understand what I am talking about without a small amount of effort in restating any particular concept, I must take full responsibility for my failure. And I will, by eliminating the offending section.

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Thank you ahead of time for your energy and interest! My readership on recent posts has dropped to about a tenth of what it was during the heady days of my Journeying. It isn't difficult to understand why. My sea changes need to be more formally expressed. Those who like the survivalist aspects of my primitive homesteading will still be happy to find regular posts under the Life at SoftAcres series. Some poverty rants will still appear under the Life in the Second Class series.

Life at SoftAcres 12/08/18 - Who Sleeps in the Cold?

A Month's Worth of Heat

In my strange personal belief system, we humans are born as imperfect material beings so that we might accrue experience. If we are open minded about where we find true satisfaction within this world, we will discover that experience adds up and is never lost. It is the only permanent possession any of us will carry, forever...should we choose to go onto the next world. There is only one time frame and place to have human experience. The time is now, in the flesh, and the place (in our cases) is upon a small sin-smeared, evolutionary world. While the Gods, if there are any, are existentially perfect, we are to be experientially perfected. 

Those of us who are handed everything we need in the material world, if we are not challenged with diverse and strong experiences--both good and bad, and have never felt the crushing weight of failure in order to appreciate the stratospheric heights of success, are probably too spiritually immature to gain much from the only time we will be human. Being pampered is a form of coddling spiritual retardation.

It is not necessary to actually suffer in order to achieve a unique experience worthy of eternal value. But, because of the period our generations have been born into along the planetary timeline, suffering is more the rule than the exception. Nevertheless, my individual take on all this is that if we can even partially understand "why bad things happen," and are also able to realize (hopefully by about the age of 40) that the human-made world is a piss poor excuse for a stage upon which to start one's eternal program of perfecting, much can still be achieved toward this end even in later life.

So many times when I first started the long distance wallking, I was called "crazy." That doesn't happen as much anymore. People still think I'm crazy of course, but few people are secure enough in their own supposedly well thought out lifestyle choices to put that label on me anymore--at least to my face.

All the while, I know with absolute certainty just how fickle, shallow, and primitive American conventionalism is. Large houses, gas guzzling SUV's, mass electric power, water, and sewage grids... Hate to tell those who value these THINGS, but the future is not going to be filled with three car garages, endless fossil fuel reserves to exploit, 300 horsepower engines, rusty transmission power poles, fluoride infused water reservoirs, and waste treatment plants. There are not enough natural resources left in the ground to provide these things to every individual. I'm not trying to get all NPRish. My point is simply this... All that we consider to be our innovative, "convenience" based mechanisms are already ancient missteps now that our culture is capable of moving beyond them, while having no will to do so. When viewed from the perspective of our great grandchildren, looking back from the year 2100, we should be blushingly embarrassed.

Now, for God sake, what does any of this have to do with sleeping in the extreme cold? Well, really only one thing. It is a challenge. It is uncomfortable. It is potentially dangerous. Is this what we have evolved to do? Humans invent a thousand ways to stay warm, just to end up in the woods, sleeping in the cold? YES! But why?

The longer I live outside the norms, the wider my perceptions of human civilization stretch. I observe most of society as would a biologist studying the behavior of some kind of wild animal in its own habitat. Not the best analogy, since for the most part, no animal cruelly hurts members of its own species just for the fun of it. No animal makes a common habit out off fouling its own nest so fully that it must then move on to fouling the nests of others. No other animal has the means to completely examine and carefully scrutinize both its environment and its own motives, onky to ignore its own facts findings, in order to preserve the false security of wishful thinking. Only choosing to push one's  way out of the willfully constructed stupidity bubble and then seeing one's own behavior and ignorance for what it is, affords the opportunity for gaining real wisdom. In general, although people seem to care, in a lazy, superstitious, anti-intellectual way, no one cares enough to even have a glimpse for themself, of themself, from the other side of the veil. But that's where I live now.

For example: To walk where I need to go, eliminates the limitations of owning a vehicle. What do I mean? whenever I have the ability to use a car, I cannot stop myself from doing so. It's a viral infection. The "convenience" of such a means of transit makes the option of walking laughable, by comparison--"crazy." But the joke is on all of us. We have jobs 50 miles away from our homes, because we have cars to get us there by 9:00 am. We don't grow gardens, because we have cars to bring us to the store. Our complacency in the face of information telling us that we need to change NOW, makes society look to me like a bunch of mentally disabled people stopping to look for shiny things as the madhouse burns down around them. Meanwhile, this convenience is changing the environment in ways our wishful thinking blinders keep us from even processing.

Our addiction to stuff is just another strain of this virus. If you live in a house so large that there are rooms you don't use, or have so much stuff that you need to pay the equivalent of extra apartment rent to provide a space for it (maybe also 50 miles away?), AND YOU KNOW IT, then I'm sorry my friend, but you are a big-assed part of the problem.

Would one of you walk in to town one day a week instead of driving? Would one of you downsize to a place where every room is useful? Would one of you who complain about paying taxes eliminate the money-sucking storage space filled with all the shit you never use and have even forgotten you own? Would you do these things just because a "crazy" fool on the hill told you there is peace of mind in such simplification? Not a fucking chance. I know, because I would not have changed unless I was forced to, because the hypocrisy of knowing I was terminally buying into the cult of Wasteful First Worldism, and my heart was literally unable to handle the contradictions between knowing what was True, versus following the herd's wishful thinking denials of that Truth.

Isn't sleeping in the extreme cold, in order to use only what I need, a great metaphor for being what one does when one can't stand the fake, ideologically driven, mindless conformity? Okay, you can't see it... I guarantee that if you see yourself in my admonitions, you have probably been trying to think of arguments against what I have been saying. It makes you feel better. I get it. And doubtless, it is probable that the person next to you would also defend your doing things that are fuzzy and not rational, against my sharp paring blades of need over want (aka wishful thinking). "But I might need it someday!" Take it from the son of the worst hoarder on the planet... "Someday" isn't ever going to come. Sometimes just hearing the details of the metaphor is much more useful...

I knew the temps at night would be brutal when I got back to the shelter two nights ago, the temperature was dropping from about 20 F, and would settle in at about 5 F. I clicked on the little propane heater, and through a routine of then switching it on off at 65 F at on again at 40 F, I cooked my meal, worked on some technical design innovations I'd been thinking about...

Working out plans for a modular alternative electrical system, based around the old concept of using

interchangeable stereo audio components. Possible commercial appeal?

...and watched a Youtube video. Around 9:00 pm I took off my pants and put on my pajama pants. I left my t-shirt and sweater on and crawled into bed. Bed consists of a cot, with a military sleeping bag on it, covered by a large queen-sized comforter, folded up, covered by a fitted sheet, covered by a 40 F minimum sleeping bag, into which I have stuffed my old IWALLK sleeping bag (with the failed zipper cut off). This is plenty of layering for temperature preservation.

The issue then is exposed skin. I hate to breath in warm air from within the sleeping bag. So, that means sticking my dumbassed face out into the cold. People don't realize that if the head is exposed, the rest of the body will heat up to make up for the difference. This makes you sweat. and, there is nothing more dangerous that being wet AND cold. This combined with the fact that your breath accumulates as moisture on the inside of the room. This will eventually cover the entire inner surface of a small shelter with frost. In my case, much of the moisture is exuded out into the surrounding outer shelter. That's a good thing, eliminating moisture in the living space. It is truly odd to turn on the heat in the morning and hearing the melted frost drip like rain upon the outside of my tent. Wearing a hat - as long as it stays on my head - stops the night sweats (although angina can extend them sometimes).

There really is no big difference between sleeping in my shelter and sleeping in your cozy heated bedroom, while in bed. The nice thing is that I don't waste heat when I don't need it. Others can afford to apparently. I also have no pipes that will freeze. Food and drink in the tent never needs a refrigerator, and usually does not freeze, because just not enough time goes by in between my heating (even if I'm gone all day). Given a second chance, I would have rigged up a small room for the water barrel (connected to the air on the inside of the inner tent). Because water freezes from the top down, the environment around the barrel can be so manipulated as to prevent a solid freeze.

Another thing that makes some aspects of living in the winter a bit easier than living in the summer, is that there is no need to harvest rainwater. The water (in the form of snow) basically harvests itself by sitting on top of the ground instead of sinking into it. There is always water available as long as there is heat available to melt snow. And, I will say that it is the freshest, cleanest, most refreshing water possible.

Just as with any circumstance where extreme environmental conditions are to be taken into account, much of the processes of survival are still available. They just need tweaking.

Here are some extra pictures from the last couple weeks...

Eighth snow storm, a month before the start of winter.

The quarter mile path I shovel.

A strange day right before this latest cold streak, I never see fog in this town.

One of the largest coyote prints I've seen.

Life at SoftAcres 12/04/18 - The Angina Monologues

Google Images

As most people who have wallked along with me over the years know, I have had heart issues. In the last two months I seem to have moved onto another stage. Up until recently, I had really only felt angina (heart pain due to constriction of the vessels - or spasms/cramps - supplying oxygenated blood to the heart muscle) right before my two last heart attacks. Yes, occasionally it would hit when I was under anxiety of one form or another. But my “normal” state was a mostly painless existence. Apparently, that has changed.

I kind of freaked out one of the first recent nights when the pain hit hard. I really thought it was going to be strike three. But with deep breaths and relaxation techniques I was able to chase it away. Subsequently, it has happened about twice per day for the last few weeks. I knew that it was common for advanced heart disease patients to have regular pain when doing certain things. My new pain matched all these criteria. It has now gotten to the point where I do still get concerned when the signs begin, but I am no longer afraid of having to check myself into the medical system immediately. After learning that it can be chased away, I don't panic anymore.  It is the new normal.

I have found other ways to manage the pain to some extent. Nitroglycerin tablets are incredibly helpful when I can't relax my way out of the growing ache. Another simple solution is to just slow down. When walking up my huge hill each day, I simply go at about half speed. I know I look weird and I feel awkward, but it keeps the pain at bay. When I am in between houses and no one can see me, I will often just stand for a minute and breathe deeply. This helps a lot. Carrying heavy loads, or chopping wood seems to trigger the pain. Anything that puts my upper torso under stress can result in discomfort. All the while, my biggest issue as always has to do with anxiety. So, much of this is psychosomatic (as was the reason for the heart issues in first place).

I will say something I'd never known until now - and I am aware of how bizarre this sounds - when the pain subsides, it is like getting a narcotic buzz. I'm supposing that endorphins are released in great amounts, so that when the pain is gone I actually get a buzz! (Rarely discussed aspects, ha!)

I never feel secure with my finances. I need so little, but I ride the razor's edge in order to maintain a simple life. If I didn't get jabbed by my heart, life would be pretty damn easy to maintain. However, this kind of existence (one that requires daily physical work) is something I've waited my whole life for. That this life would have to end with me rotting in a hospital, unable to be outdoors, is simply...not gonna happen.

I need to find a way to still live on my land, right up to the moment. And if that means never seeking any medical help, or seeking limited help, or whatever, I will not give up the quality of life for quantity. I simply don't care about stretching my life out, with the tubes and machines I'd be hitched up to. I do not trust the medical system to do what is best for me. It takes care of itself first. Although I am willing to USE it for what I know is best for me, I must be vigilant not to be sucked in by it.

As I have chosen the unconventional life, so shall I choose the unconventional death. If things come down for me. I plan to use my decline and death to highlight a point--to leave a powerful message. I will “not go quiet into that good night.”

There is reason to be hopeful that in Maine, as a well-off state in the wealthiest nation that has ever graced the face of the planet, some modest health care compassion might be coming. Gasp! Our governor elect will finally allow Medicaid expansion to occur in this state. So after the first of the year, I may actually be able to afford some basic health care. Being saddled with unpayable debt is worse to me than dying, because I already walk the financial tightrope and cannot handle even one more expense. Having debt on my shoulders to treat something that isn't my fault, is sure to make my physical situation as stressful and deadly as it possibly could be anyway. I would be beholden to someone else for the rest of my life. That is absolutely unacceptable.

So, the plan is to hold out and manage the pain until I can afford the financial help I need to treat myself. I fully know how most people handle these kinds of health issues. The habit is to simply go to the doctor and do everything that he/she tells you without question; get tangled up in appointments and their drug experiments. And every bit of it costs more and more money as the trap tightens. No more for me. The two stents in my heart were each medical mistakes. They were unnecessary and have likely shortened my life by thirty years. There is no legal recourse. There is no going back. The medical system GAVE me heart disease. Now I am an experiment for their databases. "Does he live? Does he die?" Either way it's good for them, because they can gather data about how their error affected just another civilian lab rat. I won't put myself on their butcher block again...

As for the concerned people who can't help assuming they know what is better for me than my own plan? I need them to NOT do that. I am not a problem to be solved. Instead, I am an event to be observed and reported upon. I am not just a living magazine. I am a life story. And, this story will eventually be seen as such. I have no desire that it be instructional. I'd rather just have it be entertaining, and possibly inspiring. There are tragedies in the real world, just like in the literary world. There are triumphs too. I love a happy ending. But honestly, I never forget a sad one. I don't want to be forgotten. The king I was named after believed way back in the Fourth Century BC, that eternal life had nothing to do with survival after death. He was motivated by fame in the material world. Now his name will live on throughout the remote ages of the future here on earth. Just being remembered for a few years after I'm gone - with an undeniable lesson attached for the greedy, selfish, ignorant, ideologically poisoned society that killed me about WHY I couldn't live to be old enough to even receive Social Security - would be good enough for me.

Other Sources About My Heart History

Blog accounts account of the premature end to my Journeys, because of the second heart attacks...

Part I - http://iwallk.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-living-magazine-grounded-in-maine-day_9.html

Narrated video - http://ubron.org/groupdocs/Day%2039%20Audio.mp3

Part II - http://iwallk.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-living-magazine-grounded-in-maine-day.html

Interview with me about having medical issues without insurance...

Part I - https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/iwallk/episodes/2017-02-26T14_44_51-08_00

Part II - https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/iwallk/episodes/2017-03-02T19_46_51-08_00

Part III - https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/iwallk/episodes/2017-03-12T14_00_46-07_00

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This post was added to the blog as a supplemental essay. It will serve as a place to cite whenever this issue sticks its ugly face into my project. Should be back to the normal struggle of simply trying to survive out in the Maine woods on donations alone.

Life at SoftAcres 11/23/18 - Shelter and Thanksgiving

After disassembling the green house, consolidating the things in there down to a strong (meaning, able to hold a winter's worth of accumulated snow) three foot high level, all finally appeared to be completely stowed.

After the snow had settled for good, the property was now barren of all color. The numerous thin living trees fit right in with the stick gates and bare maple arches that I had created. Everything except the blue tarps covering the shelter was in an overcast of monochrome. It didn't take long for me to crave something beyond black and white. The fire pit that I had really only used for burning trash over the summer stepped up to play that color role quite nicely. 

I've sought to do a fire each evening now. With their orange glowing, these sunset fires of early winter seemed to channel the colors of a future spring through their flames. Or, maybe that was just me? All the sunrises and sunsets to come flickered through the fire of the present moment, like they do through every light source. You just need to blur your eyes a bit and look into the distance of the flame. By that, I mean all things of value exist on the insides of each light source--it's all the same light. As one closes one's eyes to block the outside world and peer within, so does light share that inner space. The perfection potentials of Reality are almost entirely within consciousness. I know naturally now that as I view the material world around me I am staring out into the thin membrane that separates all things from nothingness. I know this outer place completely now; the darkly imperfect realm of mostly physical existence. There isn't much left for me here/there anymore.

That there had not been a proper fall before this permanent snow pack made the lingering days of November even darker. Apparently, my "lucky" piece of personal global climate change now includes sustained winds of over 30 mph, at least three times a week, starting the moment the clock turns 12:00 am, on October 1. Moreover, while green leaves remain on some of the trees, I need to expect a permanent snow pack by the end of the second week of October. Judging by last year's admittedly mercurial patterns, December should include weeks of below zero temperatures, dipping to -30 on the longest nights.

I mentioned last time that I quickly covered the shelter in time for the heavy rains and then snow that swept over My part of Perham Hill this last October. There is much more that I need do, but my physical situation is limiting the extent to which I can accomplish all that I want each day. I believe the next post is going to be about some of these new heart-related developments. Nevertheless, I do all I possibly can, even when that wicked succubus, Angina, chooses to have her way with me...now, a few times a day.

I installed a wind breaking tarp along the west side of the shelter instead of making a full doorway. I just could not do the construction right now. It will also save me some lumber for more additions to the structure of the shelter. The breaker works very effectively on its own, with the wind sealing it against the entire west side of the shelter. It is a pain in the ass to get in and out once the breaker is down, so I try to make damn sure I remember what I need to take with me into town, or bring in for the night.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I had gone shopping the night before. I didn't have enough to buy more than that night's and next day's food. Checking out at Tranten's I was proud to have gotten as much as I did. There was no brand turkey stuffing for $0.99, a family pack of chicken thighs for $1.39 that I joked about at check out, "pretending to be turkey," four little potatoes, two small white onions, and a beer for another dollar. The plan was to eat two thighs that night, and save all the rest for my Thanksgiving dinner the next afternoon.

Besides, I didn't want to carry too much, lest the heart stab me at each step up my mile long hill. I woke on Thanksgiving at about 3:00 am to the now familiar ache in my chest. I've been using deep breathing techniques to fight it off. I discovered that I had been sweating--this, in the 15 degree temperatures. The heart pain--something alternating between the feeling of swallowing a large bone, or having barbed wire implanted from one wrist, up across the chest and into the next wrist, then pulling it from side to side; the shivering cold sweat risking hypothermia, the nausea of anxiety about not having money, being cold, feeling like I'm fading away from this life... None of it helps an already dangerous and unpredictable lifestyle. The mild frustration I have with trying to descriptively put you into my bootliners, while noticing how utterly I fail when I reread my efforts, seems sometimes like an additional slap in my face each day.

I drank some water that hadn't frozen yet, and when I felt better, must have slipped back off to sleep. It is with a little bit of satisfaction that I can report that I never feel the heart pain while I'm asleep. Even my dreams seem to completely separate me from it. Sleep has become a place of supreme respite. Perhaps it is a hint about the relief that death will eventually bring--resurrection, or not. Sorry if that is too morbid for people's conventionally blissful denial.

Waking again, I felt much more rested. The sun was leaking in through the window on the shelter, and thence projecting a shadowed image of the window upon the inner tent wall. It was about 9:30 am. The temperature in the tent had risen to a balmy 20 degrees. I slipped out of my double sleeping bag and clicked on the the little heater. I stood there in what I usually wear to bed: a sweater over a long sleeve shirt, over a t-shirt, underwear and pajama pants from Reny's. I've been wearing my boot liners as slippers inside. I'm not sure why, but I still check out my reflection in my little mirror each morning. On this day I saw my matted hair, now dry after its cold sweat bath the night before. My beard has completely invaded my face and neck. There was an old man looking at me. They say age is psychological. Guess that's why I'm old now. Makes perfect sense. I feel so close to the end that I'm almost wondering if my tapping on that door is...voluntary?

Most of all, for the first time in months, I peered deeply into my own eyes. There were the irises I knew so well. These were the eyes of the new baby, the hopeful child, the disappointed kid, the unhappy teen, the self destroying young man, the foolish adult, and now...just a sad old man. I watched them get red and water...blue eyes...I closed them and turned away.

I've been trying to make up for my battery overcharges by only charging my phone, letting the panel charge the battery banks for the rest of each day. Overcast and snow are washout days for charging. Still, in more than a month, the only full charge I had was the very first day I installed them. They rest now at about 11.88 volts. I am ruining them by not being able to fully charge them, but I have no choice.

The heavy gust buffeted the west wall of the shelter, slapping any loose part of the tarps like little gun shots, while fine crystalline snow dust made a fizzing sound as it continuously blasted the outside of my only home. When my phone was charged enough I turned on Maine Public Radio for the news, while I made coffee. The gas camp stove needs to be run with the tent vented, which kicks the overall temperature down. 

I began cooking at about 2:00 pm, boiling the potatoes, some carrots and onions. I removed the potatoes and carrots to have separately. To the boiled water, now with butter and the soften carrots I added the stuffing mix. Discovering a can of smoked mussels, I delightfully cracked it open and added them. Then it was a matter of frying up the last two chicken thighs. When I was finally done, I had an enormous mound of food to munch on. Settling in, I felt some actual satisfaction creeping into my consciousness.

Just as I began to eat, I heard voices out on the snow covered road. Then there was yelling, "Alex!? Hey, Alex Wall!?? Hello!". I'd spent the whole morning warming up the inside of the shelter and now I had to open it? I was displeased.

When I finally was able to get out, I saw my neighbors (abutting land owners). They were on their cross country skis blabbing questions about whether I knew someone had dragged a couple deer out of our common right of way. I had no idea what they were talking about. They told me I needed to "be careful, people don't know you're out here!" Beside finding it extraordinarily rude to interrupt me as I ate my Thanksgiving dinner, that they were accusatory and completely clueless about how disruptive they were being. Before they left they said, "stay warm!" That was going to be a lot more difficult now that I had let out all my heat. I will say, folks, that people who are poor and don't have the front yard, or front door to keep their privacy sacred, still deserve to be treated with dignity. These people see me as the fool on the hill, something less than deserving of respect. Does that help my struggling lifestyle or broken heart? Nah...Not so much.

It ruined my day. I couldn't even finish my meal, because I was so pissed off. Trying to get my mind off of things I worked on a writing project that is nearing completion. Sometime after the 3:45 pm sunset, I began to get another feeling I have gotten used to over the years...food poisoning. It was a mild case, and after filling my toilet bucket, I felt a bit better.

I was trying especially hard to feel thankful. At this point in my life, it is only lowest common denominators that I can thank God for. Thanks for allowing me to live in a freezing place, on one meal a day, rather than on the street. Thanks for letting me have only a few pangs of angina each day and night, rather than continuously. Oh, and by the way, thanks for the emotional numbness that is slow replacing the hopelessness that I have tried to beat back.

Are these things to be thankful for?, I asked out into the ether, and maybe to the Spark. Going through each day, loving life less, and feeling nothing at all when I should be happy...or sad...is a kind of hell with its own special torments. I am not unaware that the longtime reader is likely to be fatigued by the lack of happy endings in my story. But please don't give up yet. I'll leave you a definite note when it is time to give up on me, if I can.

For now, here are more pretty pictures, mostly showing how nice the shelter looks on my land. Maybe tomorrow will bring some uplift for us both...

Devil in the rising sun.

From the first snow storm.

Cold turkeys.

My pond, soon-to-be itsy bitsy ice rink.

The solar batteries could not keep up with the four effective hours of daily light. I needed to hold smaller expectations for using my devices. Like any debt, the debt of over loaded batteries charge interest of a certain kind. Adding knife switches to toggle between battery banks allowed me to squeak out a bit more energy each day...

Two bi-polar (appropriate!) switches. the first toggles between my old and new battery banks.

The lower one let's me decide which bank powers the inverter to give me AC.

Bank 1.

Bank 2.

Second snow storm.

See how the sides puff out with about 500 pounds of dry leaf insulation.

Ah, the rink emergeth!

Color! Look into the flame...

Third snow storm.

From my walk back home. The sore loser didn't even pick up his trash.

Fourth snow storm. I used ashes to cover my paths to prevent slipping.

When I'm gone, don't let them
take down my totem pole!

Fifth snow storm.

I'd like to thank the reader for walking up and down through the heights and pitfalls of this story. There won't be an awful lot more to it, I think. I just want you to understand that as long as I am still willing to grasp the handholds of hope occasionally, that there may still be a surprise ending to all of this. If there isn't it will become plain enough. 

Life at SoftAcres 11/01/18 - Building the Winter Shelter

Today I'd like to make a more technical post. I may have several of these posts focusing exclusively on each of my Five Basics for Modern Human Survival. The usual order is based upon the importance of each to immediate survival. The idea is that you can only survive for a few days without 1. Water, a few weeks without 2. Food, maybe a few months without 3. Shelter (at least in states like Maine where up to five months), and similar amount of time without 4. Heat (or the opposite--mitigating against extreme heat in some regions or seasons), and finally 5. Electricity, being what puts the "modern" in Modern Survival. Relative to the other four basics, survival is of course possible without electricity--as millions of people do get by in such a primitive condition. But, electric power is so much more useful to survival in a world of global communication, as well as one with electrical devices that can save human beings from slavish labor. The washing machine clothes comes to mind.

This was my long way of letting you know that I am not going to post these in order. Specifically, I'm focusing on shelter first, because you may be aware aware that it is my most limiting aspect. 

I have excellent means for harvesting and filtering water. Though I am usually able to buy enough food, I would never starve to death (theoretically) here in the richest nation in human history. Thankfully, the natural environment fed me well over this last summer, with plentifully forageable plants, and a modestly successful growing regime. Heat - until I can build a radiant heating system - is provided very effectively by propane. And, of course even my electricity is nearly adequate for my simple lifestyle. Only shelter has been the question mark. 

Last winter was anomalous, as I was able to rent a cabin from my very generous and supportive neighbors. This year though, I have built what I am quite sure will be able to protect me well enough from the harsh Maine winter. Unlike last year, when I couldn't even afford lumber to make a frame and instead relied on large branches or small trees that I'd cut down, combined with Walmart tarps. Due to not being regularly present on the land, the "shelter" simply ended up being a flimsy way to protect my stuff. As bad as it ended up being (many of my cordless and battery operated tools were encased in 4 inch thick ice, for example), amazingly, nothing valuable was ruined. It is a bullet I don't believe I could dodge for a second winter... Besides I want to prove to myself that I can rough it through a Maine winter.

So the following should give some idea about how the new structure was constructed. Many folks have asked about it. I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. It was a much large challenge to build than I had anticipated; not because I didn't know what I was doing, but because I built it entirely alone, with no power saws. 

I will say that I ran into so many seemingly project-ending puzzles (i.e. how do you span a 10 foot  2 x 4 length roof with a spine 8 feet off the ground without someone to hold one end while you secure the other, while keeping it level and straight?). Still, often after carpet bombing the forest with F-bombs and sometimes reaching impasses that seemed impossible to ford, I came up with some fairly creative solutions, if I don't say so myself. Mostly, it came down to using a tacking method with screws and/or finishing nails that I could later remove the ends of and readjust as needed, finally pounding in some 16 penny nails to hold it for good. Or I would sink the holding nails the rest of the way once things were aligned. Let's take a look...

Hammond Lumber delivered all the way out to my site!

The author coffee-ed up and ready to go.

Building around the tent was not easy.

Hot dog time.

I made a point to ride my bike down and back up the 1/2 mile private, each night after working,

or took it into town and back--trips that took two hours by foot took 20 minutes by motorized bike.

When rain and snow was suddenly the forecast, I left the spaces in between the rafters, 

just to get the tarp, up over and surrounding.

I installed more supporting joists and other wall studs after tarping the structure.

Good enough to keep the rain off! Later, I would disassemble the green house in back to consolidate my storage space, and then I removed the front wind screen that had served as my out door pantry.

The basic structure took two full 12 hour days for me to have ready for a freakishly bizarre mid October snow-wind-rain storm. Unfortunately, since that day, no further outside work has been possible. We went from sunny summer harvest to winter without the normal expanse of fall to cushion the shock. Since that day there has been either continuous rain, hellacious wind gusts (some exceeding 60 mph!), a combination of both kinds of weather, or other activities that were more important to being able to afford to eat--like writing and other income generators. So, I compromised a bit and laid the tarp covers over the frame, before installing more roof trusses and other strengthening studs. If I had done all that before covering the structure, it would have been a big-assed, wet, slushy/muddy mess that would have remained wet within the structure (with no more warm days to dry it out). 

A DIGRESSION INTO THERMODYNAMICS

It has always been my hypothesis that the ability to retain heat has less to do with insulating, and more to do with stopping air flow. Air flow under 40 degrees Fahrenheit sets up a catalyst, where micro-evaporation sucks energy out of the air. Heat is simply radiant energy (inferred light, in fact). It is sapped from humid air just like with air conditioning. Except, unlike A/C, the air never gets drier, since it is fed by the outdoors. That is why there are "wind chills" that make us "feel" colder than the surrounding ambient temperature. Cut out the air flow, and you can reverse the process by heating from within. The mostly sealed inside environment then dries slightly as the objects around the heat source literally begin storing excess heat on their own. 

I should mention though that since I'd be using propane to heat and cook with, the risk of carbon monoxide buildup needed to be factored in. Knowing that CO sinks to the floor, I left noticeably present air vents at the corners of the inner tent. On my first night using the heater (which is technically safe to run indoors, as it is exhaustless), and even with the openings allowing floor level circulation with outside air, the inside of the tent easily reached 70 degrees F within 10 minutes while the temperature outside was 30. And it took nearly a half hour after shutting off the heater to coast back to just under 50. That is a good ratio. It means (at least with the known variables I've just accounted for), that for every hour of heater use allows five hours of relative warmth. The trick is to immediately turn off the heater at 70 and get used to the dropping temperature enough to not be tempted into turning the damn thing back on prematurely. A furnace would do this automatically, via thermostat. In my tent I am the thermostat. 

Folks interested in thermodynamics, could have a ball analyzing how various factors affect the differentials of heat gain and loss. For example, it took reading at three different levels (6 feet, 3 feet, and floor level). It confirmed with a fairly high degree of accuracy that there is a rough range of about 15-20 degrees between ceiling and floor. Heat to 70 degrees at the ceiling, sit at a 60 degree desk, with thick socks resting on the 50 degree floor. Average temperature = 70 + 60 + 50 divided by 3 ~ 60. While this formula seems obvious, the mean (which in this case is also 60) is not always also the average. If one were to graph different scenarios, integrals describing the combined functions of multilevel temperature gains and losses can be fascinating from a scientific stand point. My life is going to be too short to study these in detail, me thinks. I just want be warm. But my German brain can't help being fascinated by za numbuws, herr reader. There are so many variables that can be adjusted, that an entire paper could be written just about how structure affects the behavior of energy at that one 30 degree example.

So, just one tarp layer, sealed at the top, that allows for ventilation at floor level goes some way toward stabilizing the system. The other experiment I dreamed up was a bit more outside the box. Surely, if one tarp layer was fairly effective, two (one on the outside of the shelter's frame and one on the inside (at a parallel plane) must be even better. Then while lying in bed mentally planning the inner layer, it occurred to me that when the snow melted I should try stuffing the spaces in between these two tarp layers with clean dry leaves, as I mentioned. I did exactly that. I had no idea if there would be issues I could anticipate. But I tested the lower angled part of the shelter by stuffing it first. It took fifty 30 gallon tote trips (!) just to fill it--a lot more effort than I thought. However, the result was extremely good. As I've been able to work on reinforcing the inner parts of the structure, I am filling them with anything I can for insulation. But I'm running out of time. The sky dumped a second storm's worth of 3 inches of wet heavy snow last night (I write this from over a month in the future).

I will have a follow up post showing just how well the shelter is doing now, after more snow, and an unreal number of extreme wind events. One major wind storm (I'd call it more like a tempest!) slammed the little house with 60 mph gusts, and sustained wind speeds of over 30 mph. The rounded edges where the tarp is pulled over sharp areas helps tremendously. It is like a kind of shrink wrapping. Still, that first major storm? I was genuinely frightened, and it takes an enormously dangerous situation to actually scare me. Now I trust my construction, but I have to admit to saying my prayers a few times in the last two weeks!

Thanks again so much for reading and donating your monetary and moral support.

LOVE!