News from the Ranch House

Boy, some kind of weather we are having here in the pacific northwest this year. Rain, rain and more rain. We have had some (at least one) counties declare disaster. Our own county has had a lot of culverts blow out and roads wash away or get covered with mud slides. Ahh the life of the back country. Our own road suffered a slide, but it did not take out too much and will be repaired fairly easily once I am back on my feet.

This last sabbath was our first nice day in awhile. There have been a few days in the last couple of months, but they were one, standing alone. Not enough time to really dry things up at all and allow any kind of outside work to be done. This one was different. It promised the chance of several days of nice weather before the next storm come in. It has given us a window to work on the new garden. We live in rock and so the soil must be brought in. We had 36 yards brought in last march when it was dry and they were talking drought LOL. Could not get anything done because it turned wet soon after.

Here I am, yesterday (June 13th) I am standing next to one of my hop plants. As you can see, it has liked the rain a lot. It has gotten a little wild because I have not been able to be out there to train it. The ground was way too soft for me on crutches. I am still using the one cane to get around, but it was dry enough to get over there and look at it. You can see another one in the background. Not the clean flat ones the pros make, like I said I could not rain it, just contained it in a wire cage. These are the fast growing hops. The slow grower is just starting to make it’s appearance on the scene. I hope I can get some tubers this fall and double production. Then I will have all the hops I need for beer making, rather than buy the little buggers at a very expensive price.

We are going to plant raspberries along the fence further down and grapes along the entire front. The whole fence will end up one big hedge.

Here is my beautiful wife standing proudly by her dirt. She has been chomping at the bit to get out there and start spreading it out. You can see it is really good dirt. It is good topsoil and they added some sand to help with the clay content.

It turned out it was still a little muddy and so she eventually gave in and we got our neighbor to come up and play with the backhoe you see in the background. From outside the fence, he pushed the dirt around as much as he could. Did pretty good. Bent the fence in one spot, but got it basically spread and broken up so that today Judy and the neighbors grandson could work the soil into the beds. We have given up on raised beds for this harvest. It is too late. So, she is going to get it spread out and plant. The plants are still in pots and ready to fall over.

This fall, after we harvest, we will rake the soil up into rows the best we can, then we will build the raised beds and have more soil brought in to fill them up. That way, we will be ready next year to plant as soon as the weather allows.

I have had a 20X32 hoop greenhouse for 4 years. I plan on getting that put up this year also. It will help to extend our season and expand the garden area a lot. We feel as though we will need to eat from this garden to live well. Prices are skyrocketing at the store these days. The depression, er, I mean recovery, Will likely be many years and we have been working towards self sufficiency for a long time, first in Cascade and now here.

We have this garden. We have wild fruit trees and bushes on site and close by. We have 60 plus acres of trees. another 60 minus of grassy steep hillside. 1 cow, 1 heifer, 1 Llama, 40 rabbits, a coupled dozen chickens. Deer, Elk, pheasent, turkey, grouse all abound here.

We have 720 watts of solar and 750 amp/hr of batteries. gas and diesel charger. spring fed water system that can hold up to 2700 gallons of water and flows at aprox. 1/2 gallon per minute. I just retired when we paid the last payment on the mortgage. That happened just prior to my re-injuring of my knee. We have no electric bill, no cable bill. Just cell phone as no lines come into the property. We have turned to a more natural method of taking care of our medical needs and thus, eliminated the need for insurance and will resist the obamanation care that will finish off this country for sure.

All in all, I think we have come far. we have a long way to go and it is not an easy row to hoe. It is not for the weak or faint of heart. You must be prepared for that fact. It is not like what you read. You can, as I did, read thousands of pages of books about it, but until you get your boots muddy, you don’t know nothing…

MountainMan Mike

I have been thinking about this subject all week. Why you might ask? It is because I had my first Prolozone injection on Monday. I have been patiently sitting here wondering how well it will work in my case and how I should go about documenting my progress.

I came to the decision to try this after my last appointment with the butcher, er, I mean Doctor. She was mad at me for having second thoughts about surgery. She told me that I would get no more medicine to control the pain, unless I agreed to move forward with an MRI and surgery. I had surgery before. It helped, but in 3.5 years, I was never totally pain free. I would swell up for days at a time. I had to work through it and limp around and get my job done. I walked miles and miles and bent over in phone peds and all manner of hard on the knee functions.

She told me that if I did not have surgery I would need a $40 thousand plus new knee in 3 years. I asked if surgery would cure the problem. She could not promise that. In fact, from research, I have found that I am very typical. They cut on you, then a few years later, they cut again. Arthritis sets in and scar tissue abounds. more tearing. Then you still need a new knee. She said she could tell my knee was worn out from the x-ray. All that and Aig is not sure they will pay.

I can easily prove that all this is related to the original injury. I can show that I had no calcium deposits on my knee at the time of surgery. I can also show that my right knee has not degenerated the way the left has. I can show case studies that I am very typical for this type of injury. I ask, does any of this help me to walk again or to heal, I mean heal the knee? Am I destined to walk this road that so many have walked, going from surgery to surgery until I go broke getting a new knee?

Enter Prolozone Therapy. I won’t go into all the details of this procedure. Basically, they inject the site with a cocktail of nutrients. Nutrients that your blood is supposed to supply to an injured site, but does not due to swelling or the lack of blood vessels, like in cartilage. Then they shoot in Ozone. Made right there in the office. It is not painful and I felt better within a few minutes. Taking into account the mild anesthetic they use, I knew that was not instant healing, but I felt pain free for the first time in a long time.

Over the course of the week since I have had good days and bad days, just like before. Well, not quite. The bad were not so bad, the good, great! I recall thinking of John Denver’s song; “Some Days are Diamonds, Some days are stone”. Then I started thinking of the song “I’m so excited” LOL I was careful to not try to walk for 72 hours. I used the crutches. I did a lot of exercises. I hurt a lot because of them, but, funny, it was more the muscles then the knee. I could bend 45 degrees almost right after the shot. There was a rough spot mid way. I still can’t get past that spot under my own power now that the anesthetic is long worn off, but, if I put my foot down and push my leg, I can get by it. I am sure this is a stretching issue as the pain is not in the joint itself.

Thursday finally go here. I laid down the crutches and picked up my two canes. I had been trying to strengthen my muscles enough to hold my weight and I was still having little pain in the knee itself. It had been 72 hours since the shot. I was ready. I know you think that two canes are like being on crutches, but it is not the same. It is much more difficult and you have to put a lot more of your weight on your legs.

Thursday went well. I had a few issues with balance, but I did ok. It felt good to  be moving forward. I noticed that I was not pre-planning when I get up and trying to accomplish all I could in one trip. I was able to move around better.  By bedtime I was pretty exhausted. I was up more often from sitting and had covered more miles. Although I asked Judy to bring them, I did not need the crutches overnight.

It is Friday now. I do not think I will be able to move to one can today. I am pretty sore and have less energy today. My feet seem to be supporting my weight ok and not all bruised up like when I tried before. The swelling I felt last night is not present today. Jus tthe “normal” that I have had lately. I will take it easy today, but will stay with the canes.

I am hoping that I can use one cane by next Tuesday. That is the day for my next shot. As bad as my condition was, they thought it would take 6 months to totally heal me. That does not mean I won’t be walking. It means they are working to heal me, rather than see how much money they can get out of me.

I forgot to mention, I noticed Wednesday an itching sensation in my knee. I talked with Judy about it. It made sense. When you have a wound, as it heals, it itches some. Same feeling, only under the skin rather than on it. I was very happy to feel that. What do you suppose it means? I think it is a healing process I am feeling. I will continue to document this as I go along. I will turn all my findings over to the insurance company. This will eventually cost me around a thousand to maybe fifteen hundred dollars. Compare that to 10 grand for surgery, 40 grand for a new knee, years of pain and therapy. I think they will like the results. Maybe in the future they will add this into the steps taken rather than just throw us to the butchers.

I am not sure how to catagorize today’s topic. It could potentially be listed under all of them. I try to keep things simple though and so I will pick the most accurate one. Since the ranch itself is not in any danger, I will not use survival etc, but homestead.

Must have rained a couple of inches last night. Kind of funny. I prayed to Yahweh and thanked him for such a beautiful day yesterday. It was truly a blessing. The weather had called for rain, but we had enough sun to not need our generator, but the solar panels provided enough power for all our needs including a couple hours of a movie!

Then it hit. Started sometime after dark. Any time I woke up, I could hear it. Nice sound. We have a mobile home and even with the three inches of extra solid insulation on the roof, we can hear it. No biggie. It does that here. Means we will have mud in the am, so mud boots for Judy for chores because I am not walking yet.

I woke up and I could hear what sounded like a vibration. Like maybe the gennie was on, but it was not. Judy confirmed the sound because I have pretty bad tinnitus. I went out to the living room, let the dog out and I knew what it was. It was the sound of the creek being muffled through the walls. Our creek is considered a year round creek. However, most of the year, it is dry on the surface. You can find pockets of water here and there where it momentarily resurfaces, then, back down it goes. Springs add to it as it comes downstream and by the time it gets to the mid point of the ranch, it is always on the surface, the rest of the way to the river.

Ahh, the sound of the creek. Odd, because it is a rarity. Peaceful though. Not real gentle, but it soothes the soul. Well, it is louder than before. It is really running because of all the rain. “Glad we didn’t build on the flood plane” I tell the wife.

Little bit later we get a call from our neighbors downstream. Little bit of trouble. I figured we had a downed tree or maybe a mud slide that we were going to have to deal with. Note to self: should try to remember to always keep shovel, axe and chain saw in vehicles this time of year to avoid having to back up a half mile to get them.

It was not our trouble, it was theirs. They wanted to know if we wanted to buy some firewood. He likes to build out on the edge of the hill. Mostly it works fine. This spring, he built a woodshed on the edge, along the road where it splits between their drive and ours. Wide spot. nice, No problem. I didn’t even think about it. The edge is of course fill, but it was done 20 years ago and he has had logs in that location for several years.

Well, not this time. We had enough rain, the weight was concentrated enough and the culvert he was going to put in didn’t get done , so there is a stream coming down from his house along the ditchbank right into that area.  You guessed it. He is losing it as we speak. He had already lost about a cord of wood when the call came. We told them that we could take some of it, though we don’t need it. I would over to go help because he is probably in a fierce fight to get the wood before it goes over the edge. Because I am not ambulatory, other than on crutches, I can not help. Judy has a friend coming over in a bit and depending on what she sees, I may try to call a few friends I know to come help him out.

To live self sufficiently we labor daily. It is not an easy life. Many people think simple means easy. I don’t think I can even call it simple. Things like what my dear neighbor is dealing with is far from simple or easy. A cow having trouble at 2 am in a blizzard, giving birth, is far from simple and easy.

We need to shuck off the old way of thinking and doing things and reclaim the very old ways. The ways of the ancients. We need to love it. The easy thing is to stay in or return to the city and sit in your little cracker box and wait to be fed. We need to relearn our roots and our connection to the earth. Yahweh is our creator and giver of life. He told Adam the following:

When you least expect it. Even the greenest, youngest and most naive, know that things are not like they were ten years ago. Things are getting more extreme and happening more often in more places around the world. At first, I even thought that perhaps it was because we had faster news and wider spread availability etc. Well, in a way it helped us as a society awaken to problems in the world, but the facts speak for themselves. The Earth is going through changes, regardless of the cause. I am not a believer in global warming. It you think back to the 70’s, they claimed a mini ice age. Although I believe a thousand percent in Yahweh, Science has it’s place and I have a pretty scientific mind. It is the sun. Real scientists have known forever that the sun has way more to do with our climate than people. This is not the place for a political debate however, so I will move on and perhaps address that in an article under the category of political.

So, what can a person do you say? Well, you can be a victim. That is easy enough. Just go about your day as always. Don’t think about the environment around you (even the Gov says you should do this due to terrorist activity). Don’t think about anything except your next date or that football game coming up or your career or whatever your god is. OR, you can think about saving your life. The life of those you love and perhaps even some people you don’t even know. Choice is yours.

Without air, you die in three minutes. Without water 3 days or so, without food, about 3 weeks. Shelter needs to fit in there somewhere depending on your environment. Do you have any water stored? It is pretty easy to do. Spring water in gallon jugs are about 1 a gallon. Buy a case next time you are at the store. Take empty jugs and fill them up. If you want to, add a drop or two of bleach. Rotate once in awhile. Easy to do. Could mean your life. They say you need a gallon per day per person. I live offline, off grid and use spring water. I have 1100 gallons back up. I believe you would use more than a gallon. If for no other reason, than the fact you are under stress and not thinking and not rationing it. So, a week of water for the family of four is as simple as 9 or ten cases of water in the garage. Left alone in the dark, will last a long time and takes up little room.

If the weather is bad. To hot, to cold, too much rain, no rain. You need shelter of some sort. Even a little tent or something. I will talk more on that when we talk about Bug out Bags.You may very well be in your house waiting out a blizzard and for the power to come back on.

Food is nice. helps morale, keeps you alive. When you go to the store, instead of one can of green beans, buy two, or better yet a case. You can keep a case of each kind you like and rotate them to keep them fresh. easy to do and now you have lots of veggies. Meat can be a problem. Kept in the freezer will take a few days to melt, if you stay out of the freezer. After that, you gotta do something with it. Make jerky, cook it up and eat it. Something to keep it from going bad. I will talk later also about bulk purchasing of staple, hard core storage, or perhaps invite Judy, my wife to do an article or two on it. Easy to do. Not expensive if you do it over time.

First aid. Face it. Easy way to die. Many times if you are close to the emergency, you are involved and will need some help. The basic first aid kit is ok for scrapes. Spend as much as you can. Get that kit, then start adding to it. Get a roll of gauze. Get some kotex. put it on the shelf.

hygiene. No one thinks much about this. Bad situation if you run out of toilet paper. Of course, it could be bad anyway if the water stops flowing won’t it? Here is my solution for that. Go to Costco, or even Walmart or Sams. Buy a case, plus one package. Never open the case. If you run out and open it, replace the stored plus one (or two) so that you always have a case. AS far as the toilet. You can buy a thing called a “Luggable Loo” at most sporting goods stores. It is a 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat for a lid. Like 20 bucks. Another option is to build your own  sawdust toilet. Go to this website: http://www.humanurehandbook.com/index.html and learn about this. We use this method full time year round and can attest to the fact that it works. You can even buy one from the guy if you don’t have time to build it yourself.

Shalom

It is early summer here in the northwest (most call it spring). It is an amazing time of year. You can have everything all the same week. Snow, hail, rain, wind, sun, hot, etc. I like this time of year though because it is, for the most part, the most moderate time of year as far as the temperature goes. Not to many frosts or to many days over 75. The air is fresh and clean.

Problem is trying to get enough sun to charge your batteries. You can count on running the generator in the winter, but in early and late summer, it is a crap shoot. Especially here in the northwest. We have a lot of cloudy days. Mono and Poly crystaline panels may be more efficient, requiring a smaller space, but they do not like shade.

After A LOT of research, I decided to go with Amorphous panels. I bought the Kaneka 60 volt, 60 watt ones. I like these panels. They are really designed to be used with an on grid system I think, however, I have found them perfect for me.  I have long runs of wire and the 60 volt panels require a smaller gauge wire than the 12 volt. I used an outback charge controller that does not care what voltage comes in, for the most part and adjusts everything for what is best for the battery system, mine being a 24 volt one.

I use a dozen panels on the roof. That gave me 720 watts of juice per hour of sun. In the real world, I have rarely seen it above about 600, but I am sure it gets there and if I had them pointed exactly correct it would be higher. the system I have also includes an outback 2500 watt inverter. I have never gone over that in need. I run lights, a normal fridge, computers, tv, washer, even a furnace (which is gas, but has a big fan). I think the system is pretty well balanced with 12 batteries. 220 amp, 6 volt golf cart. in series / parallel to give me 660 amps at 24 volts. Cost was around 8 grand. I have been looking to double the system. Everyone does once they figure out how much they use etc. If I double it, I likely won’t need the gennie except winter. Cost now will be lower. I am finding these panels for 1.21 a watt now. I paid 4.50 just 4 years ago.

Now, I am not saying you have to spend that kind of money. I was fortunate to have it at the time. My recommendation is that you start small and build up. I mean it. If things go down the toilet, they will probably go fast. When the grid goes down, it will go down hard and people are going to die. If you have a little power available, it might just make a difference in your quality of life. You need a lot more than that, but it is a start. It is a beginning to your freedom from the tyranny of the power company.

You can buy one solar panel, a 180 watt 12 volt for less than 400 dollars. Buy a deep cell marine battery or two, or if you can afford it, 2 6 volt golf cart batteries. They run about 100 dollars each. A charge controller will add 50 bucks so you don’t blow up your batteries. Add a simple inverter for 50 dollars, or keep things simple and use 12 volts, just like your car plug in. So, for 700 dollars you have power and can recharge it and then you can watch a portable DVD, use your laptop, charge your cell phone, run some led or compact fluorescent lights.

If you can afford the batteries, a Generator and an inverter, but not the other stuff, get that! I ran that way for the first year here. From April 07 till Maybe May of 08. We sipped power and ran the gennie when we got low. IT was nice though, once we hooked the panels up and the gas / diesel bill all but disappeared.

Anyway, just my thoughts on our system. your mileage may vary. I would appreciate opinions though, just leave your comments.

until next time…

Shalom

This subject could bring fear to the mightiest of men. If you lose a knee you are screwed. Even if you can afford to get it all fixed up, if you are over about 30 it will take time and more time. If you live on a retreat it is even worse. I am currently suffering from a torn meniscus. This has been a long process, but the current episode started about 5 weeks ago.

Imagine, if you will, getting up in the morning at your ranch/ farm/ retreat. You generally will have animals to take care of (after coffee of course). You get up and put the crutches under your arms and make your way outside. First obstacle, how to get up and down steps. Ever try that on crutches? Balance gets a whole new meaning here. Forget about if the weather is inclement! I slipped in the rain the other day and was stuck there until Judy came to my aid!

Ok, you have made it to the corral, fence, whatever, and need to throw a bale or many over to the cows, horses, goats etc. Good luck. You see, when you lose a leg, you lose both arms, while walking. I had stationed bales next to the fence and was going to try to stand on one leg and toss it over as needed. I got lucky, we have the blessing of some great friends that did the chores for me until the wife got back from a trip.

Ok, so you got through that. How about feeding the chickens etc. Oh, you mean all that feed is in the feed shed? How do I climb in there, much less get the feed out and to the pen and scattered or in the feeder. Everything takes longer and more trips and you have to balance while holding the crutch with your armpit while trying to hold onto a bucket.

I am trying to show you how important it is to stay healthy. Trying to show you how it is so very hard to function it really is. I did some things after the last incident to help.

I built a ramp first of all. It is too steep. I thought it was, but until I had to climb in on crutches (while needing them) that I fully understood why it should be 1/12 not 2/12. That will get fixed.

I set up easier walkways as a temporary fix until I can build nice ones that will have a wider path. Crutches and wheelchairs are wider than a person obviously, so I will be making wider walks than a normal retreat would have.

Future plans include a small deck entry and ramp for the power house as I can not even hope to get in there. Same for the feed shed. no go. If alone, I would have had to crawl in there and drag the feed bins outside to feed the chickens.

I am sure there is more, but you get the idea. Even going to the bathroom was a true challenge. I will be doing some articles on my progress with this issue. I have learned through research that I am fairly typical and the Dr’s reaction and treatment plan has been typical. I hate Dr’s and once I relate all the info, you will understand why.

Shalom and Yahweh Bless and keep you.

MountainMan

Shabbat Shalom to you,

Peaceful, wholesome complete Sabbath. I am not really supposed to work on this day. We are asked by Yahweh to rest from our work. One of the amazing things about Yahweh is his giving us this day off. With the birth, life, death and resurrection of Messiah Yeshua, we have been given the gift of eternal life. This does not mean that we ignore the instructions in Yahweh’s word. It means that if we love Yeshua we will keep his commandments. (John 14:15). The word Law replaced the word Torah in most of the bible when the king changed it. Torah can mean law, but also instruction. Yahweh loves us and wants to see us all do well, be healthy. Have a good life. His Instructions help us do just that. We are not to go pick and choose what we want to do, but, as we learn the Torah, try to follow the instructions contained. The Sabbath is Saturday, the last day of the week, not the first. We are supposed to rest. Any articles I write on the sabbath, will be geared to understanding of Yahweh and his word.

I pray that you all have a blessed shabbat today. I will.