COMMENTS ON "What to Bring to the Gulch"
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~~"Above all, conduct drills in which you behave as if you had no access to public utilities, such as electricity, natural gas and water. This is a great way to find potentially fatal gaps in your preparations."
~~"And for heaven's sake, if you want to raise chickens, practice raising chickens before you relocate to the gulch. Don't just plan on learning from a book once you get there."
Yes! YES!! I cannot over-emphasize the importance of "real-life" testing of your theories! In 1973 I saw the coming economic crunch, so I trundled my little motor home up into the Wind River Mountains of central Wyoming. Only after several months of trying to live a totally independent life did I realize the utter inadequacy of my preparations. If I had not been able to come back down to civilization, with its hardware and building supply stores, I would be DEAD (yeah, that's DEAD, as in NONLIVING) today!
The biggest mistake you can make is in thinking that, having read a few books and given the subject a bit of thought, you KNOW what to do - that you KNOW how to live independently. In fact, you don't really KNOW much of anything at all until you have actually DONE it! Only the hard facts of reality can teach you what reality is. In spite of everything I had read, and all the many years of camping experience I had accumulated, (and, I might add, a rather large IQ - which made my incompetence all the more unjustifiable) I was not really prepared at all to live independently. Simply because I had never actually DONE it before.
Comments from David B. King http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/7695
~~"And don't forget, winter in some climates is a fair backup for modern refrigerators or freezers."
Yes, indeed! I have jiggered up my frige to take advantage of the climate of central Wyoming. During the winter months my frige draws only 1/50th of the power it needs during the summer. You will find that an electric frige draws more power over time than any other appliance in your house. During the summer my frige runs 50% of the time. Without the frige, I would need a power system only about half as large as it is.
A propane frige can also run on alcohol which you can distill, or methane, or any other gas or liquid fuel. I jiggered up a propane frige and ran it on alcohol for a while. It worked just fine.
Comments from David B. King http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/7695
~~"Older cars that can be repaired on site (without all the fancy and vulnerable electronic equipment)"
Yeah, really! I used to be a good auto mechanic, but today I don't do that work at all anymore. I can't even adjust the timing on a new car without several thousand dollars of electronic testing equipment. If you want me to fix your car, it had better be at least 20 years old!
Comments from David B. King http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/7695
~~"Remember too, that clothing gets dirty and must be washed."
I built a very nice little washing machine that uses a windshield wiper motor as its power source. This gives me clean clothes with 12 volts.
Comments from David B. King http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/7695
~~"What if your best friend has no respect for privacy? Then he's not your best friend."
Yeah, I have abandoned several people for exactly this reason. People with no appreciation or care for privacy are a REAL danger!
Comments from David B. King http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/7695
~~"So will the creative-minded or mechanically-inclined guy who can figure out how to make a power generator out of two tin cans and a length of pig intestine."
OK, Ok, gimme a couple weeks to think about this and I'll come up with something.
Later..... Let's see now. You build a cam-shaped treadmill, put an armadillo on it, and he will apply a peristaltic effect to water inside the intestine, thus raising it from the lower tin can to its upper mate. Then, using this pressure differential, you can operate a tiny generator to produce a picowatt or two of useful power.
As Rube Goldberg often said: "One's creativity should never be needlessly hampered by the restraints of responsible engineering."
In designing your wilderness homesite, plan to use 12volt appliances wherever possible. The auto junkyards of America are a gold mine of electrical appliances and other good stuff such as: alternators pulleys starter motors pumps windshield wiper motors lubricating oil light bulbs
There is enough useful stuff in old cars to keep a comfortable civilization running for several generations.
See the Whitney catalog for a lot of 12volt appliances: J.C. Whitney Co Box 8410 Chicago IL 60680
Comments from David B. King http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/7695
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