Off The Grid

Pay your Farmer... or Pay your pharmacist. Next time you're eating that soy milk in your latte, eating soybean oil in food, or anything else that that has it. Remember that these weeds dying amongst the soybeans, aren't dying of natural causes. These are "round-up ready" GMO soybeans. They have been genetically modified to tolerate application after application of glyphosate without dying. That goes into all that food you eat. I took this picture on a bike ride right down the road the from where we live. Yet we wonder why cancer rates are through the roof in rural areas and digestive system cancers (especially colon) have dramatically increased over the beast few years even more so for young adults under 40. You are what you and your food eats.... Look for local farmers thats don't use this stuff.

https://youtu.be/swrez2ZA0cc

So last night this 100year old pecan tree fell. Just happen to have a borrowed manlift to help cutting it up.

I spoke with a guy in a nearby town who does solar and hydro power. He told me for hydro he uses 3phase generators, feeds them into a rectifier pack and then into an ordinary solar MPPT. He said he's even done systems that have two mppt inputs and so one is solar and the other is used for hydro. What a great use for an unused MPPT input if you happen to have flowing water.

Ever wonder what goes into running a small regenerative farm that feeds your local community while still working a day job? That means leaving to go get feed at 5:30 after work yesterday and making a 4 hour round trip (getting home at 10pm) because its the only local non-GMO feed provider. It then means getting up before going to work today to get the feed unloaded and put up before some potential rain moves in. Smaller pickup this time with only 4,000 lbs. It makes for a long day from 5am to midnight working two jobs, but we love serving our community. If you want to see the full picture of what that entails, check out the video below of a typical feed run for us.👇 https://youtu.be/vKXX0L77_MA

Converting a Telecom DC Generator for Off-Grid Lithium Charging https://youtube.com/watch?v=CrUkFKLXUk0&is=ThxX2jqtCSLk7oVa

Well 56 bags of concrete done today. Got a nice rhythm…. A 2gallon bucket from Lowe’s filled almost to the top, 120lbs concrete and mixes perfectly in about 60 sec. Since I was going to be dumping out of the concrete mixer and it usually hits the post, I cut a plastic 55 gallon drum in half lengthwise and then cut off one end cap completely. This made a horizontal funnel for me. I could dump out of the mixer into my “funnel” and then slosh that in the hole around the post.

I wanted this pole barn to face south broadside. So I looked online for when the sun would be dead east. That time changes from day to day. So I marked it using the shadow of an existing post. We laid out the building and fast forward to today and solar noon was 13:26. I took this picture at 13:27. As you can seee the trusses make a straight shadow to the posts on the north wall. I got it right!

We have a toilet and grinder pump in the basement. In the past year it has failed 3 times. Each time I take it out (what a mess) and inspect the pump for something blocking the grinder head and find nothing wrong. Today I heard it humming and decided to see if it was the start capacitor instead. We have a spare unit, so I got the start cap from that one and it works. $14 part... will have two on hand from now on. The best part is the cap is in a dry part of the assembly, I don't have to suck the water out. Two is one and one is none. *does not work for wives.

Moved the cattle to a new paddock yesterday (like every day) and it just amazes me at how much the regenerative approach changes things. The first picture is from a video I made a couple years ago on how to connect hard fencing. Look at the ground and the grass in the back ground. Thats the same pasture (just viewed from outside the fence vs inside) as the second picture. No fertilizer. No herbicides. Just regenerative agriculture practices with animals on it for only 2 years. Wow!