Luckenbach

Out in Luckenbach, Texas, Ain’t nobody feeling no pain.

So eloquent - more about employment

By Mike at 3:10 pm on Wednesday, November 29, 2006

From Violent Acres:
How many people here have ever kept mum while your boss verbally degraded you because you really needed the job and the money?

Even worse, when you went home that night and vented to your friends and families, how many of you were congratulated for doing the mature thing by keeping your job? Perhaps you have a few kids at home and it would have been irresponsible for you to risk your employment no matter how badly you were being treated? You’re an adult and you know that sometimes people need to put their morality and dignity aside and do what’s best for their family?

While you are there, she has more very enlightening posts. Keep them in mind if having to go to work irks you in any way:
McMansions are for McIdiots

You Can Learn a Lot from a Rich Girl

Drastic Measures

Filed under: Self Sufficiency1 Comment »

Possession day

By Mike at 4:44 pm on Wednesday, October 25, 2006

We took possession of the land today. We have arranged for one of the neighbours to graze 13 cattle for a while. That should leave me with plenty of grass for haymaking. We’ll need the hay for mulch around the fruit trees when we get started on that.

Our own livestock number already in the thousands - I took a beehive nuc box onto the property yesterday. I will transfer the frames and bees to the actual hive in the morning - hopefully before the bees have started their day’s foraging.

We chose to start keeping bees for a number of reasons: the honey, the pollen, and the pollination. Bees are one of those permaculture staples.

Filed under: Permaculture, Farming, Self Sufficiency Leave A Comment »

I should have kept it

By Mike at 12:48 pm on Monday, October 16, 2006

I used to have this philosophy about keeping stuff. If I hadn’t used something in the last year then I threw it out. It was all about simplification. Now I think that one possibility is that I shouldn’t have acquired it in the first place. Could I have done without, or even borrowed it?

And some of that stuff I learnt at university? Well some of it wasn’t directly related to my major - I just turned in the assignments and attended lectures. After all, why would I ever want to analyse shear force and bending moments in beams? So I threw those notes away in one of my moves.

So when I want to turn the new house around 90 degrees where do I start? I can pay a building moving company some large amount to to it, or I can figure out how to do it myself. It wasn’t so long ago (well it was actually - before big trucks) that home owners would move across town and take their house with them. And do it themselves (with a little help from their friends, I suppose). Just how hard can it be to spin a house around? In 2006?

I don’t think that houses are built quite the same anymore. Therefore I will need to provide structural support for the building. My first idea is to put two beams along the length of the house, and sit it on them. Then move resulting load.

And to do that I’ll need to analyse the shear force and bending moments so I can specify the beams I’ll need.

Filed under: Self Sufficiency Leave A Comment »