This is a good book about how to sculpt your own dirt cheap house– The Cob Builders Handbook, and now it’s offered for free, online.
If I ever stay home for a summer this is the kind of home I want to make for myself.
Buyers remorse from the Sawyer ‘Just Drink’ water purifier.
I bought the Sawyer Just Drink Water Purifier. Someone on the Yahoo group, “PCT 2007”, was big on it. It was supposed to be lightweight and purify–not just filter, but purify– out all bacteria and viruses for 3000 gallons and then you backflush it and it’s good again. I liked the idea because sometimes I run out of Aqua Mira and it’s hard to find along the way.
Sawyer advertises this as something to not only camp with but to have on hand for emergency water purification in case of the municipal water source becoming polluted. Their big thing is all you do is “Just Drink.”
But the instructions call for you to have a safe source of tap water to prime it with. Why would someone who had a safe source of tap water, need a water purifier? They say not every faucet will work with it and if you can’t get it to work on one faucet find another. My only faucet is a gravity feed system from a 55 gallon barrel up in my loft; it didn’t work. I took it into town and tried the library’s faucet and that didn’t work either. Once it quits freezing, the town will have the community facet turned on; maybe I will try it there. I don’t know if once it is primed then it stays that way or if you need to keep finding faucets that work with it to prime it.
I do know that is heavy. With what water I have managed to get in it, it already weighs 9.5 ounces(269 grams), then you have to add a ring, a cap, some hose, and a big plastic bottle ( it won’t fit into a regular wide mouth Nalgene).
Also the instructions warn against it freezing and they say you need to drain the water out of it to store it… but I can’t get what water I have managed to get into it, to drain out, so I’m guessing mold will be a problem. Probably, I should just toss it.
Maybe I’m missing something here; there is a video on justdrink.com. If I find some high speed internet, I’ll watch it and then maybe it will all become clear to me. I see a problem with requiring a safe source of tap water and high speed internet to get a water purifier to work.
I would warn you not to buy this unless you hear from people who actually used it and had a good experience with it.
Mcflurry spoon doubles as long handled spoon and tent stake holder.
I’m thinking that this Mcflurry* spoon would double as a tent stake holder and a spoon. 
I like my tent stakes immediately accessible for quick tent setups. I also don’t want them to be poking a hole in my tent. This set up fits nicely in the inside pocket of my pack for immediate accessibility of my spoon and my tent stakes. The tent stakes fit snugly in the spoon so I don’t foresee a problem using the spoon while the tent stakes remain in the handle. It weighs .20 ounces or 6 grams.
*A Mcflurry is an ice cream and candy dessert at Mcdonalds.
Califorina fire permit
If you want to use a stove or have a fire in California you need a permit. It looks like in some areas, alcohol stoves, wood burning stoves, and fires are prohibited even if you have a permit. Here is a link to the permit. You just print it out; it’s already signed.
I don’t need one, because I won’t be bringing my stove. I carried my stove for awhile last year, but couldn’t find any food that was so good that it was worth carrying a stove plus fuel and a pot for, so I sent it all home. Having a stove also eats up a lot of time. I use to lay in my bag until I had drank 3 hot beverages in the mornings; last year I got earlier starts–and early starts are key if I want to get some good mileage in. There were a few times that I missed having a hot beverage.
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Staking your tent
One really windy night in the Sierras, I was camping with Just Dave. He gave me this staking advice.
1. Brush the surface duff away so that you are staking in as solid ground as you can.
2. Put your stakes in at an angle towards the tent.
After those two things failed me, I went searching for some big rocks to anchor my tent with. Only able to find two rocks, I decided it wasn’t going to rain, took down my tent and slept under the stars. Just Dave was afraid that the wind was going to rip his tarp so he did the same.
No-lose ’em Tent Stakes
I bought some red reflective tape at Wallmart and wrapped very thin pieces of it around my tent stakes in hopes that when the wind blows hard in the night and rips out my tent stakes, I can find them.
The little ones are orange titanium stakes from backpackinglight.com. They weigh 6 grams or .20 of an ounce a piece. A big wind can pull them out easily. They are painted orange because if they weren’t, there would be little chance of not losing them–I know this from first hand experience. Still, orange may as well be black, at night, so I have improved them by taping the red reflective tape on them.
The bigger ones, I believe, are Kelty’s Hexagonal aluminum stakes. They weigh 14 grams or .50 of an ounce each. I like the bigger ones because the wind doesn’t pull them out as easily and because they aren’t as easy to lose. They also are stronger.
In a comprise of light weight verses function–and because it’s what I have and I don’t want to buy anymore gear–I’m going to carry 3 of the big ones and 3 of the little ones.
Haitian Woodstock on the Appalachian Trail
There is a monastery on the Appalachian Trail. The guide book said that the monks allow thru-hikers to camp there. I was going to stop there and take a couple half days off to meditate and enjoy monastic life while I waited for another hiker to catch up with me.
First clue that this wasn’t going to be the retreat I had hoped for was the used diaper and the empty half rack of beer laying on the trail. As I tried to find my way to the place where the hikers were allowed to stay, I was met with loud live music and about 10,000 Haitians. I kept asking people where the ball field was but no one spoke English. There was trash everywhere.
I finally found the ball field. One of the monks showed up and welcomed me. He seemed totally oblivious that 10,000 Haitians had just trashed his monastery. He said that they usually would leave some food for the hikers, and sure enough a woman pointed at a barrel of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a bag of rolls. A couple hours later everyone was gone and I pushed some trash aside and put up my tent.
The next morning the sun that I had seen little of, came out. I woke to looking out at the trash strewn ball-field. I had some time to kill because I was waiting for another hiker to catch up, so I started to pick up the trash. As I was picking up the trash, one of the monastery people drove up and waving his arm out at the trash covered field shouted, “Did you do this!” and then laughed.
It felt so good to be walking without a pack, in the morning sun, and doing something useful after all those months of doing nothing but hiking, that I just kept going and in a few hours I had the whole field cleaned up.
Hey, from a cheap motel next door to the laundromat.
Well it’s that time of year again–time to wash out the down bag I have been sleeping in all year. And since I have been wanting a bath and some high speed internet and I don’t like to hang out in a laundromat for 8 hours, I got a room. And since my bag still wasn’t dry come checkout time, I got the room for another day.
My cabin–the complete tour.
A reader of this blog has been asking for a tour of my cabin. I was going it do a you-tube video but decided it would take to long to upload with a dial-up connection. The cabin measures 19’X 11″. I didn’t build it. I talk about two different cabins, one in Coastal BC and one in North Central Washington. This is the one in Washington– the one from which I blog from.
This is the outside. The cooler on the porch is where I keep my food cold–probably not a good idea because a bear might come and find it and then I would have troubles.
Two couches–good idea if you ever have company or if you just want a change.
This couch is a chest that my brother-in-law and I made out of tongue and grove pine. Inside the couch/chest are the batteries and the the regulator for my solar system and some clothes.
This is the kitchen.
This is the wood stove. The pot holds my hot water. The tub next to the wood stove is used to bring wood in, wash my clothes and sometimes I take a bath in it.
This is the loft. There is a bed up there and a 55 gallon drum of water that gravity feeds to the sink below it.
This is what I cook on. Sometimes I also cook on the wood stove. There is a small propane grill out on the porch if I want to grill or bake something.
This is my composting toilet.
I also have this outside toilet that sits out in the woods. It is a plywood box with a toilet seat lid that sits over a hole in the ground.
The basin hanging on the wall is usually full of water. I use the same water over and over to wash my hands during the day. When the water looks dirty, I start over with new water. I can keep clean (enough for a person who lives alone and seldom sees anyone) with just this basin.
Here is the solar panel soaking up the rays so I can use my laptop.
That’s the whole complete tour.
Tent floors
Tent floors are not really necessary. I like one to keep bugs and rodents from bothering me. It’s sometimes nice to feel cut off from the world and be left un-harassed while I sleep.
I don’t need a tent floor to protect me from the wet ground I have a full length Z-Rest for that. Tent floors do a poor job at protecting you from the wet anyway because what happens is condensation rolls down the walls and puddles on the floor.
I was thinking, it might be best to make tent floors out of breathable nylon instead, so the water doesn’t puddle in the tent.
I have this travel tent that fits on the a single size bed. I use it when traveling to foreign countries. It has a breathable nylon floor. It weighs 1.9lbs (.86 kilograms) with aluminum poles but it doesn’t have a rain fly. I was thinking if a person rebuilt one of these with carbon fiber poles and lighter weight materials and made a fly for it, you would have this great light tent that would do for wherever you go. If the tent fly was also a rain cape that would be even better.
That’s what I’m always looking for–the ultimate gear. The gear package that you can walk out your door and away from your home, travel the world, and never come back to change gear.
My garden.
Spring is coming. I know this not because it usually does around this time of year, but because the cabbage I bought at the Barter Fair in October is starting to sprout. From the looks of things, I should have many cabbages. Then I can trade them at the Barter Fair for something I eat.
Humanure handbook– now free and downloadable!
Think you need a 3000 dollar system to compost your poo? No. All you need is bucket with a toilet seat lid, and this free downloadable book.
A link to the site: http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure.html
And here is a link directly to the PDF.
Thanks to Richard for finding the links.
Related Post: Simple composting toilet
Happy man on the road.
When I walk on the main road, there is a happy man who stops in the middle of the paved road and talks to me. Last time I talked to him was last year. I was in the laundromat for about 6 hours washing and drying my down bag and I told him about the hike that I was washing my bag for.
Today he stopped me on the road and asked if I made it. I said, “Yeah, and it was my best hike ever. I stayed happy and strong the whole way.” He said “I would love to do something like that but I’m working on my earthen house.”
He showed me some pictures of it and he told me how he is going even further below ground to pipe 50 degree air into his house year round. So it will be warm in winter and cool in the summer. He did a lot of stone work. He said he built it all with just a wheel barrow and hand tools.
When I bought this land it was so I could build a small cob cottage on it. A cob cottage is a dwelling sculpted out of clay, sand, and straw. So far, I have been more interested in hiking then building when spring rolls around, though. Someday.
I told him that I would be really interested in seeing his earthen dwelling and he told me to give him a call.
End of February woodpile
The snow is receding and my woodpile appears again. It hard to tell how much wood you have if it’s covered in snow. Now I see I have plenty of wood. I had my doubts. Look, there is my ax. I haven’t seen that in awhile.