Sunday, January 21, 2007 5:30 PM
Windy, unexpectedly wind. Today I rode my motor bicycle for many miles into the dust and wind, and now my nose won't stop dripping. Dust, a magician's dust. Grit when I bite down. Better news, we have a mountain lion wandering around here and in my prime hiking area (around the petroglyphs). Campers, grab little foo foo, honey bun, don't forget the Charter Arms 44 Special if you're headed out to take a leak and don't shake that thing too long. I
I'm going to go find him tomorrow and offer my humble DDT riddled carcass up for lunch. Just the cat and I, pussy a mano. Right. I'd be happy to find a paw print to photograph. Anyway, it appears that the folks over at Rainbow Acres (where ED lives, about 3 miles from me as the panther prowls) have been putting out meat scraps to attract the cute coyotes. Coyotes are not the top dog, if you'll forgive me, around here. Mountain lions are. Sightings say he is a young male, probably not too good at the hunting thing yet. So he stops by for take out. I'd like to ask him about Barsik, and exactly where was he 13 months ago on December 23rd.
I've been chewing on a letter I got from Evalyn, as there is a thinking tack, a belief system in there that is different than mine, less chicken-little than my tone, and a clear thinking idea that the confidence that you are of value, the knowing what you know makes you valuable, and weasely whiners won't be chosen for the big game against Empire. Here it is, see what you think.

Read you thoughts on alternative power other than solar. While I understand the advantage of hydro power as being more efficient and reliable than wind and more available in some areas than solar, I see one issue that you haven't mentioned. Having enough stream under your control that you can set up a hydro system for power and/or water is a wonderful thing. However, you must take into account what happens up-stream. As soon as your up-stream neighbor, who is either a more dedicated survivalist than you or decides he wants his own private bass pond, dams or diverts that stream, your access to hydro is gone or at the very least, changes. To build a system without understanding that unlike the wind or the sun, your neighbor can deprive you of you energy source, would be foolhardy. This is where the tribe comes in, make everyone on your water-shed part of your tribe. Another thread that disturbs me is the over-all flavor of "goal". If we just figure out what the future will be, we can prepare for it. Our entire society - maybe civilization as a whole - is married to the idea that we will reach some point in time when nothing changes, where we are all safe (or those of us that deserve to be safe will be), where everyone loves everyone or at least gets along, everyone gets the same education and reaps the same benefits of everyone's work. -Hello?- It's where the concept of Heaven comes from. If I may just dip into my bag-of-well-worn-phrases: "Success is not a destination, it's the quality of the journey." Life IS a test. How we get anywhere is more important that whether or not we EVER arrive. Whether you believe in God (I don't) or Goddess (just a different suffix) Devine (gotta love a big hairy transvestite) or just Creation, you must know that the purpose of life is to be the best you can be - wait ! that's the Army. But it's the same: focus on the process. Or maybe the Boy Scouts: Be prepared. If you have a hobby or interest outside work you have a skill. If you can cook, you have a skill. If you have a flexible mind and an adaptable attitude, you have a skill. Knowing you have skills and feeling confident that you are useful will make you a useful tribe member. Not knowing your skill set, not having confidence that you are useful will make you a burden on the tribe, if any tribe will have you. Where you are going/may end up is less important than your ability to make the voyage. I like the image of being at sea with a thousand islands any one of which may or may not be the future. Like Battlestar Galactica, we could be afloat for a long time. But fixating on what you want the end to be is a mistake. In looking for another Planet Earth, you may miss something just as habitable - or worse - miss out on the experience of living on ship-board TODAY. Having a goal should not keep us from living today. Believe in Heaven, but live in the world. Trust in Allah, but tie up you camel. Had enough? None of this is offered as argument, just mulling. Turning over the compost.

I wandered a little farther after reading this. Having a skill set is only one half of the component that results in action, that actually sails the boat, to persist with the metaphor. The other half is the courage to act. The courage to be different and recognize that as free chickens you will not get support for learning to start a fire with a stick or weave, or cobble together wind and solar systems. Often the long term free chickens I meet here in the desert seem to be here not because of courage to act on a belief, but rather more because they are fucked up in spectacular ways that don't permit them the comfort of daily discourse with "normal society," nor the ability to be around "normal people" for any length of time, holding a job for instance. I call these people "fringe" not free chickens. I may be more fringe than fowl. Time will tell.
However, fringe or fowl, people here, full timers, boondockers, year round residents, all have many of the skill sets that will insulate or empower them in times of change. Never a dull moment outside the asteroid belt (suburbia). Enough for now. mcnalan

Saturday, January 20, 2007 7:33 PM

Oh, are you here? I'm just finishing a letter to Rick, hold on a second,
"On our fathers - I was thinking the exact same thing while I was listening to the old guys. Was it a generation or just a general bad habit of old people - thinking they are done when there is so much to do. I brought this up to Mark when he came by this afternoon and his is angry at society of course, but also at our fathers for accepting that role, of the superior sermon from the mount bullshit. But really they just quit contributing when they retired. They felt owed. I think they were right. We did and do owe them. However it wasn't a great way to end that "greatest generation life", mowing the fucking lawn and talking with other old geezers about how every young person is a fucking incompetent. If they thought we owed them something why didn't they hold out for a sixteen year old virgin delivered to their door once a month? Why settle for coffee at the Burger King. Who said they had to live that life ending???"
I'm back, thanks for waiting. There is a dynamite essay from Phil Churchill on personal, sustainable technology just below, then pictures from the desert this morning.

Since Alan and I last talked about appropriate technology, I've been doing a lot of research into possible scenarios that Peak Oil could create. As I've mentioned in previous writings, it is difficult to decide what scenario to prepare for because there are so many of them. As I did my research, I began to notice some common themes emerging. First, most writers, including Alan, seem to be concerned with retaining as much of our current technology and civilization as possible. Yet they all say that our technology and civilization are what's causing the problem. (I have to admit Alan is not as concerned with retaining civilization as he is with technology. Of course, he is dependent on medication that requires refrigeration so I do understand his position.) Second, most writers seem concerned with getting as many like-minded people together as possible, either as a group or network. As I noticed these two themes I began to compare them with my own training. . . Continue Reading

The rain stopped late yesterday afternoon and today dawned a deep turquoise blue. The sand had been smoothed by the pouring rain, erasing the tracks and making the desert look like a cleaning crew had come through. I took my camera, a piece of bread, my hatchet (well, what did you expect?) and headed out for a little walk to the mountains. Here are a few pictures.

Count to ten. oops too fast . But a great shot of my good boots. I'm always in a quandary. Should you tuck your pants into the boots so the rattlesnakes know how far up they have to go to get you, or should you hide the boot, and thus encourage a smaller snake to take a shot? Apparently I'm hoping for snakes that can't get it up. Or no snakes at all..	ON the way to the mountain behind me I came across a double foundation about 40 feet long. It has no hint of it's reason for existence. I wonder if our bones will be so cryptic?
Sorry for the fuzzy focus, but this is a little butterfly who just came out of a chrysalis in front of me had taken it's first flight to the sunlight to dry his wings. I think I remember what that felt like. Right: ironwood (actually an Acadia) and saguaro cactus, but really an excuse to show you the un photoshoped blue of the desert sky in the morning.
Here you see the three trees that define the "skyline" of the northern Sonoran desert. Close on the right is a creosote bush, then the tallest is an Ironwood, and on the left a little farther up the small wash is a Palo verde which has no leaves but branches that are green. Pretty much the whole tree does photosynthesis. It was named by the Spanish and means "green tree."	I got back in the afternoon and made a fire for another project that shall go unmentioned for now, no I'm not branding myself, yet. There is that draw of the smoke and the flame, that atavistic urge to huddle close and be warmed. A fire warms more than the body. I try to get that out of my propane catalytic heater and baby, it ain't the same.

Friday, January 19, 2007 8:07 PM
Hey, did you notice the new photo in the upper LH corner? When Mike, Ed and Phil were over a few days ago, Mike had brought several cameras with him. Being that my trailer is only 22 feet long, and only 19 feet long inside, and I was making and serving coffee for four (it was too cold to be out in la Casa Blanca) Mike was about 20 inches from my nose when he took this. He sent it to me today. Thank you Mike! You can click on it for a larger shot of this free chicken. What? Oh, Kirkland coffee from Costco, made in a big French Press.

I got an excellent letter from Evalyn about no final goal state, but only the journey, and I'm digesting it and working on a reply. This morning, on the way to Ed's and in between a propane run (before you go off about the propane - remember I'm working on getting rid of it, AND I only use 25 gallons a YEAR. Want to check your heating bill? I'll wait....hmmn), anyway, I stopped and had coffee at the Burger King ($1.92 again) and tried to write an essay about my little TV/VCR combo which died yesterday. It was unexpected, it hadn't been ill, we are going to miss it, BUT maybe it is time to act and let even the old VCR tapes go away. I hardly have time to ever watch, but it was my pacifier. . . Anyway, I'm trying to figure out a way to write how hard change is, especially in the small habits, when these old farts two tables over were loud talking and guffawing and generally being old males around the fire.

In disgust I gave up the essay and got my free refill and settled back to listen. Isn't it odd that the lessons and the stories don't come from where I think they should. In fifteen minutes they danced the old man's dance of being able to do everything better than anyone coming up behind them, and how taking a test don't make you no goddamn electrician, etc. Then one got up and said to the others with a superior air, that he had to get to work. Conversation halted. Jaws dropped. Work? "Yea, I got to go fix my daughter's water connection, onaccountof the freeze, her useless dickhead husband wouldn't know a wrench from a socket."

They all agreed and watched him go, quietly, wistfully. He was needed. They were not. You know, we often throw away the best part of people just when they have something to give. It sucks. But I watched them. They are unknowingly waiting for the collapse, because goddamn, they do know a wrench from a socket and they were born and conditioned to help. Look to the edges people when the time comes, look to the edges, the fringe, the old and those that don't fit, because they are already where you will need to be, and they have the skills. Nite chickies. (if you're new here read this to understand the chicklet, freechickens, chickies comments)

This morning I picked up this dead battery from out behind Ed's shed. It has been sitting for a year I think. I'm going to try to resurrect it for the little solar array and for the second battery in a simple DC welding kit I'm assembling, but more on that much later. First step in any battery resurrection is to wash it. I put it out on the porous sand and flooded the outside of the battery. Before you get bored because I'm not saying fuck, remember in a low energy future batteries will make all the difference to your nighttime behavior. So unless you fall asleep at 5pm and sleep until 9am in the winter, pay attention!

Here I 'have pried up the caps and you can see the six holes that every wet cell 12V battery will have. Because the battery has been exposed to the heat above 120 F I expected to find it largely dry, and it was.. I took a starting voltage reading of 3.84 Volts. Normally I would discard any battery reading less than 11.4 volts as a voltage lower than that can indicate a shorted cell which cannot be recovered (by me anyway). However I wanted to demonstrate the process, so I continued.

I heated enough distilled water, about 2 cups to bring the battery up to full - I guessed, that's how - and I added a chemical that puts crystalline lead sulfate back into solution. When battery sits uncharged it is mostly water and lead sulfate in solution. The solution can easily begin to grow crystals of lead sulfate on the battery which cracks the cells and covers them. Any covered cells can never be part of the process of charge and discharge. Therefore I am assuming, but cannot see through the opaque case, that this battery is sulfated. You can remove (sometimes) crystalline sulfate by sending high frequency alternating pulses through the battery. This is called conditioning and is often included in new chargers. However it takes a very long time and I need to know if this battery is worth working with. So I chose to use the chemical EDTA which is a non toxic organic acid used to remove heavy metal contamination. It hates cyrstalline lead sulfate. I bought a pound of it several years ago. It is a white powder. I heated the distilled watered and added 12 tablespoons of EDTA to the mix. Here is a link to all you every wanted to know about battery desulfation (maybe more than you wanted to know).

I filled the cells and let the chemical work. I also put the charge leads on from the little 3 panels we tested yesterday. IT was pouring rain (yes, weird, in the desert) and there was less than 1/2 amp coming off the panels, so I connected it more as a token of what is to come when the sun comes out. You remember from above that the battery read only 3.84 V when I started. By 5pm I was reading 11.94V. So we will see tomorrow. There are many steps if it is saveable. We'll see. Enough tech stuff.
Friday, January 19, 2007 7:02 AM
Good morning chickies! I'm up early, headed to town with many things to do. I've been working on my busy-ness. Trying to slow it down. But there are so many projects I want to try and things I want to build. Today is picking up propane if any is available, and then over to Ed's to pick up a battery that has been sitting outside his shed to see if I can resurrect it. I'll take pictures as I go, and teach you how to bring back the batteries (not all but some of them) from the discarded pile and thus get your small battery bank for very little money. In the afternoon there is a Datastorm (satellite) users group get together here in the desert that I'll attend and return the cellular hot spot in a box back to Scott.

I forgot to mention in my casual review of the 3 panel Harbor Freight Chinese thin film panels (see below) yesterday to mention a very important irritation. The charge controller - the light grey box you see in the pictures below, has a chips that screeches, whines and beeps at various times. As the battery neared full charge yesterday it kept going off every time it tried to reduce the charge current or voltage. I bypassed it for my amp testing so that I didn't have to listen to it. TJ has found a guy on the internet that wants $5 to tell you how to modify the circuitry to shut off the sound. I'm going to see if I can get that, and if so I'll let you know how to do it. That's it for now. No its not. Hah! I know some purist would never used mixed batteries in a group and never would use car starting batteries as deep cycle use - like powering my satellite. Well, here what I say, its all BUMPF. (I had to look that up, thanks Scott). Any free battery that is heavy enough to make you take a stance when you pick it up is a good battery. Any battery that holds a charge is a wonderful sweet and beautiful battery and deserves to be used. Just look for heavy, big, cheap or free. That's how you start building a home energy system. Buying new batteries takes old skills, like being in debt. Dealing with mismatched parts, old batteries, broken jumper cables for the copper, and salvaged 30 year old panels teaches you to make electricity. I've been turning on my lights with my electricity for over 6 years. It feels damn good.


Thursday, January 18, 2007 6:13 PM
Hands on day for testing. I tested the amperage of the 3 panel solar set, our little emergency set, for amperage throughout the day. Also, I rode the bicycle over to Scott's and picked up a unit that will be in the big show tent on Saturday. It is called a Surftrek. I'm writing to you on this little cellular suitcase right now!

This is my messy testing system. A battery, the black inverter and the fan made sure that all the amperage would be measured. A each reading I tilted and aimed the panels at the sun until I got the highest reading on the ammeter (yellow at the bottom) I did this many times throughout the day. Here is what I learned. Sold as a 45 watt panel which should mean almost 4 amps 45/12 but of course they all choose not 12Volts but rate the panels at the highest Voltage the panel can put out. So say 16.5 V. So 45/16.5 gives us 2.9 amps approximate. What did I get. Starting at 8:00am .08 amps 10:00am 2.1 amps high noon 2.76 amps 4pm 2.1 amps 5pm ..8 amps So, they didn't lie too much, highest is 2.76amps not too far away from their 2.9 theoretical.	Mark has just purchased a couple of the Unisolar panels 64 Watts that I have mentioned before in the blog. This is to give you a size comparison. The Unisolar looks like fiberglass, with a textured weave on the top surface. Note Poly crystalline "normal" panels to the left. The silicon crystal panels are 80 watts and the larger Unisolar is 64 watts. The triple film panels are not as efficient so thus the greater size. However they make power in cloudy light when the crystalline panels are sound asleep. The film panels are flexible even in the frame, and not bothered by things falling on them. So for a mobile person who might encounter hail, or for someone who lives where it is sometimes cloudy, the unisolar appear a good choice. I will try to get Mark to hook up my ammeter and give you a reading at high noon.
	I bicycled/motored over to Scott (spokes holding up fine, thank you) and picked up a demo of his latest project for RV people who want all the time internet, even while in motion. IT is called Surftrek.
	Left: Here it is in use. The orange does not come with it, it is there as a size indicator. The advantage of this over my satellite is that you can motor down the road with your maps online and music playing through a streaming radio website and be receiving email, and browsing the net without stopping (well a passenger can). It is a complete wireless network that uses a cellular modem card to keep you connected to the internet. All you do is open the box, as above, take out the antenna and the 12V cigarette lighter power plug. Plug it into your dash, set the antenna on top of the case or on the roof of your vehicle, start up the computer and you have created your very own wireless hotspot! You can talk to Scott about the innards by clicking here and jumping to his website. Inside there is a wireless router with cellular card, a Wilson signal booster for cellular, the magnetic antenna and a little 12V splitter unit. The case has a fan and LEDs out the front.

I guess because I have that sort of picture of Mark above he just moved his RV far away. I think it is part of some witness protection program. Actually he was a quiet neighbor and now some hard living hard drinking big tent party people are probably going to move in next to me. (150 ft away). I could move too, but then I would have to move La Casa Blanca and that seems like a lot of work. There is always more to say, but I'm going to cook pork chops and prepare a salad. Then a movie from the stack and I'll finish the night with a Tom Robbins novel that I'm in the middle of.

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