I haven’t posted in some time. I haven’t felt much like it. Well, last week on August 23rd my Dad died. He was ready to go. I was not quite ready for him to go. He was 87. I already miss him a lot. If it wasn’t for him showing me the wonders of nature, taking me hunting, camping or just laying out under the stars, I would never have developed my love of the forest. And so many other things.
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Okay. I have finally decided to develop an improved refrigeration system. Here’s what I’ve been using up until now.
Basically, it’s just a stock pot with a wet t-shirt thrown over it for evaporative cooling. And filled with well water, which is actually between 48 – 50 degrees. So it keeps it pretty decent for vegetables but it’s not good enough for long-term storage of perishables. I need to get the temperature down to about 40. Or lower
Since I want it to be off grid I’m going to have to make it 12 volts so I don’t have to run my inverter.
And using a regular compressor driven refrigeration unit just uses too much power for the solar panels I have .
So I’m going to use thermoelectric cooling devices. Peltier chips. What they do is when you apply voltage one side gets hot and the other side gets cold. They can lower the ambient temperature by anywhere from 15 to 30 degrees. So since I’m only needing to go 10 to 20 degrees, I should be able to accomplish this. I could buy thermoelectric coolers pre-made but they won’t fit what I want to do. Because they only lower the ambient temperature, if it’s 90 degrees out it will only go down to maybe 60 degrees. But if I can submerse it in my well water, and change the well water regularly, the ambient temperature would effectively be 50 degrees. Which means I could get down to 40 with no problem anytime of the year. And also during the winter I could still use the storage system and just use the temperature outside to refrigerate like I have been doing. So I have two peltier chips on order. They’re not that expensive. About six bucks a piece. One is just for backup. I’m only going to use one and I’m going to put it on top of that stock pot so the cold is on the inside and the heat dissipation is on the outside and then a fan blows the cold around inside and I will insulate the pot outside.
I could have used just a store bought cooler and cut holes in it to put the peltier unit inside but I like the idea of the metal container. I think that it will hold the cold longer when it’s not running if it’s insulated from the outside. And also I will submerse the bottom into the cold water. I may just get a round cooler and put put the pot inside the round cooler. And have the benefits of both.
In addition I plan on something that almost all of the inexpensive thermoelectric coolers for sale, don’t do. I ordered a cheap $5 temperature control module, that runs on 12 volts and very low power usage, that can sense the temperature inside and turn on the thermoelectric unit when it needs to be and turn it off when it doesn’t need to be on.
Most of the $50 – $70 thermoelectric coolers don’t have thermostat control. They just get cold or if your reverse the voltage they get hot to warm things up. They don’t get real hot, but you can keep food warm in them too. So my unit will actually be able to do that too if I want to heat it up, but I can’t imagine why I want to do that. But here’s the unit that I ordered.
It’ll be here tomorrow. So …
Okay. I’ll get a little political here.
Trump opens 1.4 million federal acres to hunters, anglers.
And this from the article:
“eliminating 7,500 regulations limiting access.’
Yay!
He’s the worst fascist ever.
Look up the actual definition of fascist. (hint: it isn’t just someone who disagrees with you). And even the linked definition twists the real meaning, as was defined by the original Italian Fascisti Party of Mussolini, to cover the socialists of Hitler’s Germany, who at least originally weren’t even considered fascist. But both the Fascist Party and the National Socialist German Workers Party were horrible as all authoritarian socialists are.
Many in the press love calling Trump fascist. But he is the farthest thing from fascist. Fascists want government controls over people’s lives. Lots of regulations. A centralized autocratic government. Severe economic and social regimentation. Who is calling for these, I wonder.
Violent suppression of the opposition. And saying “hurtful” things on Twitter is not violent suppression of the opposition.
There is no right to not being offended. What is or is not offensive is ambiguous. Defined by the person observing.
Rioting to stop people who you disagree with from speaking on college campuses and attacking them if they show up. Attacking peaceful gatherings of people you disagree with while wearing a mask to keep from being identified committing assault. These are violent suppression of the opposition. If you look honestly at the situation in the country it is clear who is really much closer to fascism. The only thing these modern day fascists, who use the Orwellian name Anti-fascist, are missing, instead of nationalism they hate this nation and want forced globalism. Hell, even Hitler gave up on Nationalism when he started taking over lots of non-Germanic countries. He wanted globalism too, with him leading the way.
Teddy Roosevelt didn’t set aside public land to keep the public out. It was to let the public get out and enjoy the land.
It is great to see a president who does things for the people. Not against the people.
I looked forward to retirement at a young enough age to spend a year or two travelling from National Forest to the next National Forest camping. They always had the regulation that you can only camp in one spot for up to two weeks then you need to move like two hundred yards. That made sense to keep people from setting up permanent camps. But then, just when I was finally able to reach my dream of travelling the National Forests, President Obama decided that that was just too much freedom for the people. He dictated that you can only camp for a maximum of 30 days a year in any and all National forests. That means if I travel from Forest to Forest and spend just one week in each, I could only visit 4 National Forests a year. That is out of 155 National Forests.
Again, Woody Guthrie was wrong. This land wasn’t made for you and me.
And, of course, this is almost impossible to enforce. But the point is to force people to break the law.
As Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged;
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for me to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that …
Just a couple hundred yards away I found a nice, big patch of Indian Cucumbers.
The tiny roots are edible and taste somewhat like a cucumber. Or I compare it to the white part of a Day Lily or Cattail shoot.
I need a more convenient way to heat water for showers and laundry, and also to cook outdoors. I have started to piece together a fire pit. I’m sure the design will change a lot before I mortar it together.
I took Lily for a walk today down to a branch of Pithole Creek. It is the closest creek to my cabin, maybe 15 or 20 minute walk, but I have never been to this spot before. When we reached the creek I was surprised how large it was. I’ll be going back to go fishing. We worked our way downstream and it suddenly got wider. Then much wider.
It was a beaver pond.
This huge tree was a favorite target of the beavers.
The dam looks pretty old, but solid. And no freshly chewed trees seems to indicate the beavers are gone.…
My plans for making siding boards for the shed fell through when I was unable to get the tools and the hand tools I have didn’t work well. Also, since my jeep’s suspension is pretty well shot I don’t want to haul too much weight, so buying boards was out. So I used plastic sheeting.
Won’t last long but at least it keeps the tools inside dry.…
It was very nice weather today so I thought that I could finally get some things done. But everything I tried seemed to go wrong. Wrong tools, no materials, injuries etc. So I looked over at Lily laying patiently in the sun and said “let’s go for a trip”. She jumped up and began her celebration run.
We didn’t go very far. Just a couple miles down the road to the Pithole City ghost town. It was the first place I let Lily run off the leash when I got her a year and a half ago. Unfortunately there were other people there (a rare occurrence since the “museum” there is rarely open) so I had to keep her on the leash. It was still a nice walk.
Then we went down to Pithole Creek by the old cemetery where she could run free. The old cemetery has been a favorite place of mine for over 40 years. But it is the 21st century so of course someone bought the land and posted it. Sad. Nothing uglier than land with posted signs all over it. Anyway, we could walk down to the creek. There are still some land owners who aren’t completely selfish. Not many.
So, you may be asking yourself, “Where does someone who lives in a cabin in the woods go to get away?”. Well, I go further back in the woods and setup a camp.
It’s down by the growing pond, so soon there will be lots of frogs when the tadpoles leave the water. And probably mosquitos.…
So I started using the Alaskan Sawmill. Sorry, no video. I snapped a couple pictures. Worked okay. I’ll use it mainly for small logs. I would have set up for video but the chainsaw wouldn’t start and I had to tear it down so by the time I was cutting I didn’t feel like filming.
For the first cut you are supposed to put a flat board on top. Since I was just checking it out, and the log was pretty straight, I didn’t bother.…
