Sustainability

Compost thermometer

Private Bathrooms At The Field School

by Tim Smith on April 14, 2011

Measuring the temperature of a thermophyllic compost pile

If you’re coming to the field school this year and want to upgrade your accomodations to include your own private bathroom, consider bringing your own toilet seat and 5 gallon bucket (or 2 buckets).  These Luggable Loo toilet seats clip onto a bucket.  You can also improvise your own seat or build a toilet box like the ones we use.

We’ll still have plenty of toilets available, but if you’re coming for an immersion program and plan to stay in a shelter you build, having your own toilet inside is a luxury, especially when it’s the middle of the night and raining buckets.

We use a thermophyllic humanure composting system, so the bucket’s contents can be emptied onto the compost pile with everything else that will rot,  then covered with a layer of hay in order to balance the carbon/nitrogen ratio so it won’t smell or attract flies.  We’ve been doing this since 1996.  It’s simple.

Being able to take care of individual and group sanitation like this is an example of learning to live without infrastructure.

 

Elderberries

Guerilla Gardening: Remote Farming With Edible Wild Plants

by Tim Smith on April 4, 2011

A project I’ve been involved in for well over a decade is something I call guerilla gardening. It consists of helping to spread the growth of edible wild (and not so wild) plants on undeveloped and vacant land. These aren’t gardens I spend hours daily or weekly weeding. Instead it’s more along the lines of finding good habitat for specific plant that’s useful to me and transplanting it or planting seeds there.  Once established the plants grow without any help from me, and I can come back and harvest them when they’re ready.

A specific example is jerusalem artichokes, a perennial sunflower with an edible, tuberous root, that I’ve  been working with for ten years. I use it on my land as part of my edible landscaping system, but I also transplant it in places where I think it will thrive. I’ve got a number of different patches I harvest now both near the field school and further afield. I’m also always looking for places for a new patch. The key is knowing the plant and being able to identify habitats where it will do well.

In addition to planting things in the field, I also harvest wild plants in the field and transplant them at the field school. Because they’re already growing wild in the area, I know these plants will do fine with the climate and soil conditions. They’re also usually much hardier than domesticated plants with regard to insects.

Gardens don’t have to be rectangular plots of land laid out in rows. This approach is another way of working with the land to increase the amount of usable flora, and is a great compement to an annual vegetable garden.

 

Surface Water Vs. Groundwater

by Tim Smith on November 18, 2010 · 3 comments

I had a friend at the field school this past summer and he and I spent some time discussing water and water systems. We collect rainwater at the field school for drinking and washing, and when it runs low we get water from a stream or the river. At the time he was in the middle of building a pond on his land in southern Maine for storing drinking water. He mentioned that our species evolved drinking surface water, which is usually lower in salts and minerals than well water that comes from deep underground. He was of the belief that while surface water was more easily contaminated, it was generally better for you than well water. It was something I had never heard of or thought about before, so it stuck with me. I don’t have any answers and don’t know if he was right or not. But he definitely believed it, and he could be right.

Humanure Composting Simplified

by Tim Smith on November 16, 2010 · 3 comments

We’ve been using the humanure composting system since 1996. At the field school, we’ve simplified it down from a sawdust toilet. Now it’s a forest duff toilet. The goal was to use only materials we could gather on site. Now we cover fresh deposits with duff; the mixture of leaves and dirt that makes up the forest floor. To cover material on the pile, we cut weeds with a scythe and put them on the pile. The water we use is rainwater. A regular sawdust toilet is sustainable. Our variation is sustainable and uses no outside inputs. Simple, effective and green.

Simple Wind Harvesting: The Windbelt

by Tim Smith on July 24, 2010 · 1 comment

I read about the Windbelt several years ago and am excited it will be coming to market soon.  It will be a great complement to our off-grid solar system.  Unlike conventional wind generating technology, the windbelt generates electricity without a turbine using aeroelastic flutter; the same process that causes a blade of grass to vibrate when you hold it under tension in your hands and blow on it.

Here’s an overview of how it works.

Check out this link to a 2007 Popular Mechanics article.

Off-Grid Solar Power Primer

by Tim Smith on July 23, 2010 · 3 comments

I field a lot of questions about our off-grid solar power system at the field school, so here’s my super-simple primer on going solar.

An off-grid solar system where you store energy to use with regular appliances (light, radio, laptop, etc.) at night or when the sun doesn’t shine is comprised of four parts.

1. Solar panel
2. Charge controller
3. Batteries
4. Inverter

The solar panel is the part of the system you’ve heard of. It converts sunlight into electricity. We have a single 80-watt panel.

While the sun is shining you can run electrical items directly off the panel. But to store that power for nights and rainy days, you run the generated electricity through a charge controller and into batteries for storage.  We’ve got 2 deep cycle golf cart batteries (6-volts each). The charge controller regulates the energy so the batteries don’t overcharge. I have the batteries wired in a series to give me 12 volts. For a diagram on how this is set up, and great in-depth explanations of simple off-grid systems, check out otherpower.com.

I hook the inverter up to the batteries and it converts the direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC), which is what most household appliances run on. Then I plug things into it and I’ve got power.

I’ve also got a gas-powered generator I can charge the batteries with if the sun doesn’t shine for an extended period of time, or if I want to run power tools or other big-energy items.

The system can be scaled up or down depending on what you need or how much you have to invest.  More batteries hold more power.  More solar panel charges them faster.

For portable solar systems, check out Powerenz.com.

Solar Panels: Flexible And Portable

by Tim Smith on July 11, 2010 · 3 comments

I’m excited about the new flexible, adhesive PV solar panels, designed to stick to metal roofs, that are finally available.

Long-time readers know that we’ve got a small, off-grid solar system at our field school in Masardis, Maine. It consists of one 80-watt panel, a charge controller and several 6-volt golf cart batteries. The panel cost $450 when new a few years ago, and it performs well, providing the batteries with enough charge to run the few electrical items we have.

I’ve been reading about the next generation of panel, though, and am excited to try one. The one I’m looking at is 136-watt panel that is flexible and will stick right to the metal roof of the cabin, also priced at $450 (the price on our old panel seems to have come down about $35). That’s a much better price per watt, but for now I’m still doing some preliminary research. It’s got a 25-year performance warranty, which is goes a long way toward convincing me to invest in one.

I’m also still very interested in the portable solar panels offered by Brunton. I’m thinking about investing in the 26-watt folding panel this year, but will probably wait for the second generation of their 52-watt folding panel, which will hopefully be available soon.

If you’ve never experimented with solar power, now is the time. It will play a much larger role in the generation of electricity as the years go by.

Yearlong Bushcraft Immersion Program Perks

by Tim Smith on March 9, 2010 · 2 comments

There are many features that make our yearlong bushcraft immersion program unique, and to read about them you should check out the yearlong page as the purpose of this post is to list a few of the perks that go along with taking the yearlong, but aren’t a part of it.

Yearlong program graduates have an opportunity to expand their experience with our summer homesteading, sustainability and organic gardening internship.  At the end of the spring term, they’d stay on at the field school and learn all about growing food and taking care of the soil by actively doing it.

Yearlong program graduates also have an opportunity to be assistant instructors during our summer courses.  This can be combined with the homesteading internship for a busy and engaging summer of working with people, working with bushcraft and working with the land.

They can also participate in future yearlong programs as a teaching assistant, where they participate in the yearlong program again, teach what skils they’re comfortable with and continue to learn.

Another option is to join us for one or more of our guided trips as assistant guides.

Lastly, they get a lifetime discount on our courses and adventure travel trips that aren’t associated with the yearlong program.

When someone chooses to take a semester or yearlong immersion program, they’re not just taking a course; they’re joining a community of likeminded people.  We take our commitment to helping them learn and achieve their goals seriously by providing continuing learning opportunities such as these.

Does Technology Serve Us Or Do We Serve It?

by Tim Smith on October 29, 2009

I’ve been reading Eric Brende’s book Better Off: Flipping The Switch On Technology.  The book chronicles he and his wife living off the grid and with limited technology for 18 months.  With all the current talk about sustainability and the search for new technologies that will make it possible, it makes the point that the answer to our modern quandries often lies in less, not more, technology.

As technology develops at an ever-faster rate, I often wonder if it’s serves a need or if the need is just to develop more.  At the end of the book the author wrote the following passage:

There really is no end to the possible uses of technology, nor are there limits to finding a way around it; but in all cases it must serve our needs, not the reverse, and we must determine these needs before considering the needs for technology.  The willingness and the wisdom to do so may be the hardest ingredients to come by in this frenetic age.

The question of whether technology serves us or do we serve it is worth considering.  I spend large chunks of time living a low-tech life at the field school or in the woods.  It agrees with me because of its simplicity, but it requires much more physical work than the modern lifestyle I’m living right now.  But while the technologies that align with each lifestyle are different, I don’t see one as more advanced than the other.  One costs more, and has more moving parts, and is harder to fix, but this doesn’t make it better to me.  Maybe even the reverse is true; the simpler the technology, the fewer moving parts, the easier to maintain and fix makes it more advanced in my mind.  Better technology for me, then, has much to do with minimum inputs into the system and little to do with physical labor involved.

I’m in complete agreement with the author that the first step is to determine your needs, and the second step is to find ways to meet them.  For me, things that initially seemed like needs became superfluous upon further inspection, and were thus discarded.

For a list of the simple, rural technologies we use at the field school, visit the bushcraft and sustainability field school background information page.

Recession And Disaster Preparedness Tips

by Tim Smith on April 13, 2009

There has been a lot of interest in simplifying and preparedness recently as a result of the economic circumstances many are facing.  Knowing how to take care of your family, even if the modern conveniences stop working for a while, is something at least one person in each household should know.  The good news is that humans are intelligent and adaptable.  We made it through all of history without  the modern “necessities” such as running water and flush toilets, and living without them now need not be a huge hardship.  Many people enjoy camping, which is doing without modern conveniences by choice.

I’ve never liked the term preparedness, so instead I usually describe it as what it takes to keep a person healthy and reasonably happy regardless of their location or circumstances.  These ideas have been developed over ten years of running semester courses in remote locations and watching people deal with the stresses of cold, hunger, lack of sleep, etc.

What It Takes To Survive

Basic survival knowledge consists of what it takes to maintain your body temperature, stay hydrated, and get enough sleep.  If you can accomplish these three things, you’ll live a minimum of 40 days.

Survival Equation: body temperature + sleep + hydration = 40 days

For the long term, you’ll need to have food stored or learn how to grow-raise-gather-fish-hunt-trap your own.

Wants Vs. Needs And The Inertia Of The Human Mind

One of the intangible qualities of survivors is that they are able to recognize when a situation is different than the norm, and when then need to change their behavior by adapting to the new circumstances.  In the case of fatal accidents, I don’t think most people are afraid – I think they’re surprised.  They weren’t aware of the numerous small things that contributed to the deadly situation that developed.  Being unaware, they continued operating with their ordinary behavior.  Not adapting to the changed circumstances is what initiated their downfall.

We’re up against the inertia of the mind.  It is difficult to change your thinking, but in many cases that’s what needs to be done.  The good news is that once you get your head wrapped around a problem it isn’t quite so frightening.

We have a lot of wants in the modern world, but our needs are the same as they were 100 or 1000 years ago.  Once you know what your needs are, you can set about procuring them.

Step 1:  Identify your needs.  I believe our needs are limited to:

  1. Warm microclimate
  2. Enough sleep
  3. Enough food and water
  4. Sanitation
  5. Companionship

Step 2: Learn how to procure them with minimal, locally-produced inputs

Specific Technologies And Strategies

Our modern lives and lifestyles in this country (USA) are predicated on cheap oil, cheap electricity, and the availability of countless other inputs.  As the availability of one or more of these factors is reduced, we need to adapt.  One way to do this is to design alternate systems with minimal inputs.  For the short term, such as during a natural disaster, it’s analogous to camping in your home.  When the plumbing stops working, the furnace shuts down, and there’s no electricity, what will you do?

A.  Microclimate.  Staying Warm In The Cold.
We design big houses and live rather luxuriously, but there are numerous inputs required to keep them working such as oil, gas and/or electricity.  Yet I’ve managed to live comfortably in the bush of Quebec, New Brunswick and Northern Maine at – 40 F in comfortably warm conditions.  How?  By heating a small area with a locally available material.  In my case, I heated a canvas tent with a small wood stove.  The lesson is to have a small space you can heat with a small stove.  The space can be a tent, shelter, or room in your house.  You can also cook on a woodstove.  Think small.  10 x 12 or so is plenty.  You should be able to sit, sleep the whole family, and have a little extra space for some pots and water.  The smaller space you have to heat, the less material it takes to heat it.

B.  Sleep
You need a certain amount of sleep to remain rational.  Even if you don’t have a hot room, you should have a warm nest to curl up in at the end of the day.  A restful night of warm, dry, sleep allows us to put up with a lot during the day.  It makes camping in difficult conditions tolerable.  Investing in a good sleeping bag, several marginal sleeping bags, a bunch of blankets, or some other way to keep warm when it’s cold pays off on the first night of sleeping in the cold.

C.  Water
Drinking adequate amounts of pure water is a prerequisite for survival and general health.  When the tap stops working, there are several options.  First, you can purify locally available water sources such as streams and lakes.  There are countless water purification devices commercially available.  If you don’t have one, bring the water to a rolling boil.  This will kill any pathogens, but won’t filter out chemicals, etc.  For that, you have to distill the water.  There are plans on the internet for simple distillation rigs which can be made to run on solar power or on a stove-top.  Second, you’ll want to catch any precipitation that falls, as this is purer than groundwater.  You don’t need a fancy system to do it.  At our field school we set up trash cans under the drip line of the roof of our only building because we don’t have a gutter.  It works great.

D.  Food Storage
Having enough food stored to last a few months isn’t difficult or expensive.  We store whole grains, beans, and sunflower seeds in food grade five gallon buckets with Gamma Seal lids.  These screw on and keep bugs, critters and water out.  It’s much cheaper to buy foods in bulk than it is buy them a pound at a time.  For long term rural living with no electricity, traditional food storage methods include drying, freezing (in winter), canning, fermenting, and salting.  You can also grow your own fresh vegetables by sprouting seeds and beans, even if you don’t have any land for a garden.

E.  Cooking
Cooking can be accomplished in an open fire, on a wood stove, on a propane stove, or in a solar oven.  Solar ovens are great because once you have it the only input is sunshine.  For grains and beans, more of the food will be digested by your body if you soak it overnight before cooking it.  This will also decrease cooking time, saving you fuel.

F.  Sanitation
During hurricane Katrina I read that toilets were overflowing because they wouldn’t flush but people were still using them.  There’s the inertia of the human mind in action.  But other than flushing it, what other options do we have?  I’ve been composting it since 1995.  It’s simple, cheap, and the only inputs to the system are sawdust(or dead leaves, shredded newspaper, or other dead plant material), hay (or weeds, or other fibrous dead plant material) and rainwater.  I use the system described in the Humanure Handbook (available online for free) with a toilet box and a five-gallon bucket.  After you use the bucket, cover your deposit with sawdust or some other high-carbon material.  When it’s full, dump it on an outdoor compost pile and cover it with hay, weeds, or whatever you’ve got available.  Everything (pee, poop, toilet paper) goes into the bucket.  We also add food scraps, including meat and bones and other things the compost gurus tell you will ruin your pile.  Our rule:  If it smells it goes in the compost.  For more on this, watch Jack Mountain Bushcraft Journal – Episode 3 on youtube.

For more information on these topics there are numerous books and courses available.  If you have questions post them in our online community, the Jack Mountain Bushcraft Network.

Sustainability Field School Technologies

February 5, 2009

In addition to being the base for our programs, our Bushcraft And Sustainability Field School is also where we experiment with different technologies in order to achieve a simple, comfortable, rural life.  It’s a demonstration site, but not in the sense that we create alternative ways of doing things and then revert back to the [...]

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Freeplay Weza Review – Remote Camp Power Supply

July 23, 2008

Knowing we’d be far from the power lines this past semester, and knowing I’d want something to use as a generator to charge camera/camcorder/cell phone batteries, I bought a Freeplay Weza before the start of the course. I’ve had great luck with one of their other products, a hand-cranked LED lantern, and the way the [...]

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Long-Term Camping Foods

July 22, 2008

One of the challenges of an extended stay in the bush during the warm (no snow or ice) seasons is planning meals that don’t require refrigeration. Of course, there is always the option of storing food in a cooler with store-bought ice, but this is a hassle as well as being expensive. There is also [...]

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