Not expecting the most beautiful weekend ever but I’m happy to be back in the wilderness after so long home. It’s been mild, not much wind and damp so the fire risk is low.
It rained part of the way north, just showers but still enough for the windshield wipers. It would be the start of a rainy weekend, still I was desperate to get away. There was just so much to burn and I was just desperate to get away for a while. Every other weekend was either icy, rainy or windy with a high fire risk. Regardless I kept the fire relatively small.
I was driving on up to camp and I passed an old pickup full of framing lumber, you know probably soon to be used to build a hunting cabin or maybe a small retreat somewhere up in the wilderness. Some day these trips won’t just be trips but a way of life. A life based on reality rather than escape.
Had a nice fire last night watched all those burnables become carbon dioxide as I kicked off the summer camping season giggling and getting high. It was fun watching those wrappers melt and shrink. Got listening to Malcom Gladwell’s Revenge of the Tipping Point.
Pigs! Lately I’ve been watching or actually more like listening to YouTube videos while at work including North Country Off-Grid and jnull0 and Our Wyoming Life. I also sometimes listen to the NRA’s Cam Edwards 40 acres and a Fool podcast, where one of livestock he raises in tammaworth heritage hogs.
Growing up my neighbors raised hogs besides other livestock. Some of my friends from high school still have them. Pigs are kind of smelly, they root around in grain and food scraps that ferments when they rot. They can be rough on fences too and can tear up a landscape rooting around in the mud, seeking a good wallow to cool themselves out. Wild hogs, which have long escaped shooting preserves and farms can be incredibly destructive to farms and forest alike.
I’m not that much of a fan of store-bought bacon, especially after I let some bacon spoil and then try to cook it, but there are many cuts of pork that are incredibly delicious. Definitely need a strong fence, truck and a cage to move the hogs around, although I guess I would be better to shoot and process the animal on my own land. I’m not much of a meat cutter but I could learn, burying the guts on my own land so they rot away in a few years rather than sit in a landfill for a million years, compacted next to plastic bags and crushed television sets.
When I own my off grid cabin, my hope is to live as close to zero landfill as possible, putting waste to as high of use as possible.I don’t generate that much in food waste, keeping it out of the garbage keeps it drier so anything I end up ultimately burning out back will burn hotter and cleaner. Turning food scraps into feed and ultimately food is even better. Sure, I can and will compost but feed us a higher use. Likewise paper trash like shredded junk mail can be used for bedding, one more thing to keep out of landfills and out my burn pit, as most paper products don’t really burn that well, especially if they are wet.
Owning hogs might mean that I’m more strapped to my land, but when I’m at the point of having an off grid cabin I don’t think I’ll be as interested in traveling and camping, as I’ll have much of the same adventures on my land.
For twelve years now I’ve used Linux as my primary desktop operating system. I can’t imagine using any other operating system on my computer. Here’s why:
It’s totally free with easy updates via apt-get. Distribution upgrades sometimes requires a bit of tweaking of files but are relatively easy to use. No fancy installers that block what you are doing or lots of windows to click through.
Software all comes through the apt-get mechanism, you don’t have to go to risky websites to download software.
Standard Unix programs and functions are easy to script in bash and pipe their output between processes.
Most things nowadays are done on the web and the Linux web browsers are in most ways the same as the commercial platforms.
OpenOffice is a fully functional and stable office platform for all my office software needs.
QGIS as somebody who enjoys mapping and exploring land has become a killer geographic information system, especially in recent years. It takes full advantage of the GRASS platform and various Unix based GIS software.
Great professional web development tools that are running in their native environment
I am not a fan of overly glossy things, so I use the fast and simple XCFE desktop environment which is great because it never changes. Even Linux itself pretty much stays the same, although little things evolve over the years.
It would be the start of a rainy weekend, still I was desperate to get away. 
There was just so much to burn and I was just desperate to get away for a while. Every other weekend was either icy, rainy or windy with a high fire risk. Regardless I kept the fire relatively small.
you know probably soon to be used to build a hunting cabin or maybe a small retreat somewhere up in the wilderness. 
Some day these trips won’t just be trips but a way of life. 
A life based on reality rather than escape.
watched all those burnables become carbon dioxide as I kicked off the summer camping season giggling 
and getting high. It was fun watching those wrappers melt and shrink. Got listening to Malcom Gladwell’s Revenge of the Tipping Point. 