roasting coffee the easy way

orgone accumulator pipe for a pvc cb

heavy metal

a new column

I've been collecting parts for a new still column for a while.  Most parts came from my box of copper scraps but it was the 3/4" union, NPT adapter, and thermometer that I needed to turn my spare parts into what you see on the left.

The plan called for a 2" by 12" column pipe but I saw no need to keep a 4 inch piece of 2" copper pipe in my scrap box so it's a little taller than planed.  The 12" was just a guideline, anyway.  The important part is the 3/4" union that allows adjustment of the lyne arm coming from the column.  With this design I can include an eight foot horizontal lyne arm going to the condenser, or a vertical connection to the thumper, like the one pictured.  The angle of the lyne arm is crucial for flavor.  Horizontal will give you higher proof and less flavor, vertical will give more flavor and less proof.  Most rigs on the market have the lyne arm at a 45 degree angle for the best of both worlds.  This system is fully adjustable and for this application I chose vertical to include the thumper for maximum effect.

The addition of a thermometer is a luxury and a much needed tool.  In my previous setup I had to guess what the column temperature was by the sound of the marbles in the kettle.  Now I know the marbles start making noise around 105 degrees.  Since different alcohols vaporize at different temps, a thermometer comes in handy for making the cuts.  I should have a thermometer on the thumper, as well, to regulate the final product.  All in good time.

Before this run, I distilled a few gallons of water as a trial run and to clean out the pipes, I managed to bring down the total dissolved solids of the well water from 37 to 2.  Not bad.  Even better, it showed the system is tight and leak-proof and ready for anything.

I ran a rum wash to compare to previous runs, to see if any of these improvements would make any difference.  In my humble opinion, they sure as hell did.  After the first 150ml, which I tossed, the first jar came out 156 proof with a distinct molasses flavor.  Ordinarily, I would set this jar aside because of high alcohol and lack of flavor.  In this case, the flavor came through, as did the rest of the run.  As the temp rose close to 210F and the proof slowly dropped, I stopped collecting the good stuff at 110 proof and saved the last bit for recycling.  I managed to get a gallon of the tastiest 136 proof rum I ever made.  All it needs now is proofing it to 80 and whatever flavor I desire.

Analysis:  The shorter column hight and vertical drop to the thumper reduced any reflux that a taller column would produce, trading off proof for flavor.

The thumper acted as a secondary distill, eliminating potential off flavors and maintaining a consistent run.

The thermometer placed at the top of the column allowed me to maintain a consistent 195 - 200 degrees for the outgoing vapor.  Since ethanol vaporizes at 174 degrees, keeping it hotter carried more impurities in the form of flavor.

Once the temp reached 205 I detected a faint smell of tails, indicating I was reaching the end of the run.  The accuracy was spot on and the only unusable stuff was the very last jar that developed a slightly opaque look, indicating the presence of water and fusals.  This will go in the thumper on the next run.  A few gallons of dunder left in the boiler will be added to the next rum wash to improve flavor.

Now that the rum is out of the way, I can run that barley corn mash I've been sitting on.

I'll keep ya posted.

       

      

        

orgone wand

staff update

After working with the orgone staff for a few days, I kept thinking how I can prove this unit works.  Granted, the staff has to acclimate itself to me and the Earth but I thought three days was enough so I went on the back porch and tried a few things.

In the dim light of the back porch, I held the top orb of the staff to the dark ceiling with the bottom tip grounded, as I stared at the orb in a meditative state.

I trained my eyes on the staff orb and saw what I thought was hundreds of gnats in the background, followed by wisps of what looked like smoke oozing from the orb in all directions.  There was also this discharge from between the paracord wrap, about one inch below the base of the orb.  This was the exact place on the staff where a crystal was inserted.  According to all data I have on shapes in relation to energy discharge from orgonite, an orgone orb emits energy omni-directional and what I saw proves it.

A little background.  Back at the farm, I would meditate as I looked out over the meadow and focused on a spot in the woods. When I reached "the state" I could see a mist over the meadow, drifting left, toward the pond.  I could feel a breeze drifting to the right, away from the pond, as this was happening.  Whatever I was seeing wasn't obeying the laws of physics.  It was drifting against the wind like it wasn't there.  I taught this technique to a half dozen people who saw the same thing.  Being skeptical, I viewed this meadow from several different locations and all of them showed this invisible mist drifting against the breeze. 

There's a reality that runs parallel to this that doesn't obey the laws of physics.  You can see it if you train your eyes to see it.  I saw this mist enveloping the staff orb on July 10th, no matter how much I told myself it was more illusion than reality.

What I want to know is, what's the relationship between the meadow and the staff?

 

        

mobius coil wand

Not satisfied with the orgone mini-wand, I set out to build something a little more traditional looking but as effective as I could get, without going too organic.  What I came up with is the amethyst wand you see to your left.  The half inch copper pipe is stuffed with nine amethyst crystals in a simple matrix of resin, brass dust, and lots of catalyst to set up fast.  The end has a copper 3/4"x1/2" reducer to accommodate the larger amethyst crystal and smaller DT quarts crystal.

After building this unit, I noticed the balance was all wrong and needed something like a pommel to center the balance of gravity.  I suppose it would've been too easy to fill a capped, larger pipe with resin and shove in the back end.  Fact is, the thought never entered my head until now.  In hindsight, that would have been the preferred method I should have taken.  As we all know, hindsight is always 20/20.

Instead of simplicity, I was pre-occupied with graduated copper cylinders that fit inside each other, ala Joe Cell.  I had all the parts in raw form.  It was just a matter of putting it all together.  I found there was just enough room around each pipe to accommodate a single wrap mobius coil from a strand of cat 5 wire.  If I wrapped a coil around the end of the wand and another around a 3/4" copper pipe, I could fit one over the other and a 1" copper pipe over that.  The result would be three copper pipes inside each other separated by insulated copper mobius cable in a zero point energy fashion, similar to a Joe Cell.

Oh Hell yeah!  That was so much easier than filling a tube with resin... NOT.  Let me tell you, it was a giant pain in my ass to build this thing.  It's not just fitting mobius cabled tubes inside each other.  There's connecting the wires that make it work.  Somehow, I had to complete the Joe Cell circuit by connecting the two mobius coils and the inner and outer pipes to the mobius leads to complete the circuit.  The mass is too great to use a soldering iron and a torch will incinerate the insulation on the wire.  Soldering the two coil wires together was easy but copper pipes are just heat sinks.  It seems aluminum tape is conductive, so I made a conductive ribbon to make an electrical contact with aluminum tape to secure it without heat.  Pure genius! 

The only place to ground the 1" tube was the cap.  I hot glued a heddeka on the end to cover the aluminum tape.  Not really happy with it, I might swap it out for a suitable stone to complete the pommel.

How does it work?  This is all theory but the coils and tubes at the end are a reasonably closed circuit, meaning there is no direct connection between the first and third tubes but the gap allows a zero point jump, accelerated by the coils.  It's the same principle I use on the PVC CB where there's a gap between cone and pipe.  Or, in automotive terms, the gap on a spark plug that makes it fire.  The separation of the tubes, with the mobius cable as insulation, makes it happen.  This pommel stimulates the rest of the wand, packed with metal, resin, and crystals, to a higher degree than just the wand alone. 

It certainly improved the performance of this wand.  Without the pommel, you could feel a slight something.  More than orgonite and less than a field generator.  The complete unit, by comparison, is night and day.  I can feel the tingle a good five inches from the crystal.  For me, that's damn good for a passive device.  There doesn't seem to be any energy discharge other than the crystal on the end, making this unit perfectly directional.  The discharge all comes thorough the end crystal.  You point it and it works.  A tool like this would be excellent to organize an aura.  It's uses may be limited to what the amethyst is capable of.  Among other things, amethyst protects it's owner from drunkenness.  It also brings forth the highest aspirations of human kind, so I guess it's not all bad.

The world is full of different stones and crystals.  Pick one you resonate with for the purpose you want.  Maybe an all purpose wand with detachable ends could be an option.

As far as the feel... There's some weight to it but not too much.  Perfectly balanced and with a paracord wrap it feels real good in my hand.  I might make a few more of these, if the spirit moves me.  The length is exactly elbow to fingertip, proper dimensions for a traditional wand.  This won't make you fly but it could let you soar.

I'll keep ya posted on this one.

                      

staff building 3, 6, 9

Unlike most of the sites out there, showing a stick with some crystals jammed in the cracks, there are a few people out there that take pride in what they do.  I am one of those people.

I started this project because my neighbor had a staff and, after some coaxing on my part, demonstrated what a staff was and how to use it.  I now understood the whole Gandolf thing and decided to build my own staff.

We took off first thing in the morning to Fire Tower Road to look for a suitable piece of oak to turn into a staff.  What I got was a rather large piece of maple.  Close but no cigar.  Later in the day we went to a local park, where I found a standing dead piece of hawthorn that caught my eye.  This turned out to be the one.

Let me tell you a little about hawthorn.  It's a craggy tree that doesn't give up easily.  It's tough and it's main use was axles in wagons.  Standing dead, this tree wasn't giving up without a fight.  By the time I got it in the car it had sustained multiple splits but still held it's shape.  If this was oak I would've left it on the trail but being hawthorn gave it dispensation worthy of attention.

I had an idea what I wanted but felt compelled to let the wood speak to me.  I cut off the splintered ends and bark and allowed this piece of wood to take shape.  I fitted a copper ring in the base to keep it from splitting and to provide a good ground.  I filled the ring with resin and a double terminated quartz crystal.  I used shellac as an outside cover to protect it and add an extra layer of organic material.  I inserted another DT crystal in the top with an orgone orb I made years ago as a dispersing unit for my first field generator.  This was held in place by a tensor ring, 1/4 cubit, with three copper wires to secure it.  I used paracord to finish it off.

The result is a staff with an orb at the top with more hidden goodies inside to make it functional, more than a prop.  The grounding of the staff while holding it turns it into a personal spiritual battery that you can use for expression when needed.  Like a battery, it takes time to charge, to acclimate itself to you.  In the short time I worked with this staff, I could feel the energy increase.  I calculate it will be three days before I conduct my first test of this unit.

Let's recap.  I conceived the idea and secured the wood on July 4, 2017.  Using numerology, that date is reduced to 3.  I built it three days later, 6.  I plan to implement it on July 10, 2017.  That's 9.  3,6,9.

Ya think Tesla knew something we didn't?

        

orgone mini-wand

The inspiration came to me to make a small power device.  I wouldn't call it a wand but it's a rather powerful device, just the same.

The construction is simple... A 5" copper pipe with a citrine in one end and a quartz in the other.  The inside has two SP crystals pointing out, sand, key dust, and resin.  That's it.  Almost too basic to work.

Later that night, we got to playing with this cylinder with different combinations of pyramids, tensor generators, and crystals.  Some worked better than others but none of these combinations impressed me.  Even wrapping it in a mobius coil and feeding it frequency left me flat.  I got better results from the simple orgonite I made, so I treated it like a piece of orgonite and put it under my bed to see if it would affect my dreams.

That night was the best sleep I've had in months and I woke the next morning fully awake at 5am with thoughts of a new pipe design that included lapis in the center.  For three nights I slept with this pipe under the bed giving me the most outrageous orgone enhanced dreams about aliens and men in black and endlessly discussing something that would repeat a hundred times a night.  My deep REM sleep was starting to get exhausting from all the night time activity.  I removed the cylinder before bed last night and my sleep returned to normal.  At least I know this thing has some wicked, hidden power behind it.

I keep going back to that first time and the idea for a larger one with lapis.  Maybe this unit is just a primer for the wand I haven't made yet.  If this small pipe has such dramatic effects, what do you suppose a larger one with five times the volume would do?

I'll keep ya posted.     

naturharmoniestation part 2

Well, hells bells, that was easy.
When I modified the PCV CB to fit a 4" stovepipe, I totally forgot I left all the hardware for the original 2" exhaust pipe in the PVC housing.  No major surgery needed.  It was just a matter of swapping pipes and adding a PVC cap to accommodate the NHS pipe.

Looks like a shotgun with a big ass silencer.

Hopefully, it's more than just good looks.  The field generator base might add some balls to the passive orgone accumulator NHS pipe, making it better than before.  Or not.  I added this modification when the weather was picture perfect.  How can you improve on perfect?  Um... how bout continued perfect weather?  We're supposed to have a dry day for the 22nd and rain for the 23rd.  I'll let it go for a few days to see if there's any demonstrable changes.  Either way, I'll end up setting this unit in a grounded bucket of water, the way it was designed, and note the observations.

About this setup...  The NHS pipe terminates about six inches from the base of the PVC pipe by nesting in a pipe connector in a ring of medium density orgonite.  The field generator at the base is connected to a solar powered frequency generator set at 14Hz.  I removed the three foot, insulated orgonite stuffed copper pipe, used as a central core, to fit the new pipe.  Without it, there's nothing in the center of the ring generator to resonate with, and this thing has little chance to take off properly.
 
I forgot to put the core back in, ok?  We all make mistakes but the beauty of this design is any mistake can be easily corrected.  Any part on this device can be swapped out easily and even a complete breakdown and rebuild can be performed in a matter of minutes.  Also, any off-the-wall modification can be installed just as quickly.

One such modification, that comes to mind, is the addition of a water core, housed in the PVC base and connected to ground.  This can satisfy the NHS pipe requirements as well as provide a neutral core for the field generator to resonate with.  Three inch PVC pipe should do nicely for this mod.

I'll keep ya posted.  

naturharmoniestation

The Naturharmoniestation, or NHS, is a device built by a company in Germany that claims it will clear electro-smog and chemtrails from the air in a radius of 14km and an altitude as high as 17km. That means it would take three of these units to clean the air in lower Manhattan. You know I had to try and build one.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVfNLLCTdAY
The video is in German without subtitles, but the materials and methods were fairly easy to understand.  It's basically an orgone accumulator wrapped around a pipe using layers of felt and steel wool with heavy paper as a layering medium.  An orgone accumulator functions through layers of steel wool and an organic material in separate layers.  Separation of the layers is critical and even a single steel wool hair making contact with another layer can short the system and drastically reduce it's effectiveness.  By folding the steel wool and organic material in an envelope of heavy paper and wrapping it around the pipe eliminates that risk entirely.  Multiple wrappings in construction grade plastic produces a very effective three layer orgone accumulator that looks like the resonator on a car, and just as weatherproof.

The NHS website will sell you a unit, just like the pic, for about $550.  That got my attention!  I'll bet I could build one just as good for a fraction of that cost.  An online search got me all the parts I needed for less than fifty bucks but building the damn thing was a different story.  Unless you have a helper or two and a large working area, this project could get the better of you.  If you choose to do it outside, in the wind, pray you have the patience and eye-hand coordination to successfully put it together. 

I managed to build this one solo but there were times during this project I nearly lost my shit.  Building that IKEA home work station/gym is falling off a log simple, by comparison.  Working with steel wool, cutting felt to fit, and measuring and cutting paper envelopes in the wind made me wish I had three arms.  The first layer took an hour to assemble and 45min into it I was ready to throw the whole thing in the ditch. 

There's a layer of paper over the pipe, followed by felt, then a layer of steel wool, both wrapped in an envelope of brown paper exactly 60cm wide.  This is then tied up like a salami before the next set of layers.  There's three sets of layers making this a three frequency orgone accumulator.

I had to take a few liberties with the design.  Finding 2" shrink tube can only be found online and the steel pipe has a tendency to rust.  Packing tape will have to do to seal it, for now, and a coat of shellac on the exposed metal parts should retard oxidation.  This thing is designed to stand in grounded water, exposed to the elements for an extended period of time and I want this unit to last.  Since this unit is closely associated with water, I included a triskelion on the pipe before the first layer.

The method NHS uses to activate these pipes is mounted to a grounded bucket of water, which I intend to do, but I can't help wondering how this device would react with a cranked up field generator at it's base.  Like maybe as the pipe on the PVC CB or with a submerged field generator in the bucket of grounded water. 

I'll keep ya posted.


 

  

            

structured rum

I've been sitting on this rum wash for a few months and finally decided to run it.  Not so much because I needed rum or because I wanted to try out a new column but more like I wanted the fast fermenter for other projects and this stuff had to be dealt with.  Procrastination is one thing but sloth is a whole nuther level of ugly inefficiency and I ran out of excuses for not doing the distill.  That, and I wanted more rum to play with.

I'm glad I did because it turned out to be the best rum I ever made, demoting Captain Morgan to cabin boy.

I ran this batch in the usual way with a short column and thumper.  Past experience told me after the first 100ml, that I threw out, came a pint of high potency stuff with little flavor, which I set aside.  I used a gallon jar for collecting the hearts with close monitoring after the third quart.  When the tails started to make it's ugly appearance, I collected that in a separate jar, effectively segregating it from the primo stuff.  The result was short of a gallon of 150 proof rum with a clean taste and smell that's perfect for working with.

I started with a half pint and reduced the proof to 80 with reverse osmosis, magnetized vortex, structured water.  I tried samples using just the reverse osmosis water as well as well water and the difference was clear.  Where the spring water and reverse osmosis water gave the rum a decent taste, it was the structured water that gave the rum a clean, refreshing flavor without a bit of harshness.  The spring water has a total dissolved solids of 38 but the other two are chemically identical.  There should be no difference between the structured water and the unstructured... but there is.

The naturalist Viktor Schauberger called water a living organism, insisting that in its various forms, as blood, sap or biological water, it is the basis of all life.
In order to maintain its quality, water needs to behave like it does in a natural stream, dancing and cavorting in spirals and vortices, or in the ground, constantly moving sinuously in capillaries or circulating within its storage chambers. In a youthful stream, water is most active, producing vortices down the stream length, which act like the river’s immune system.

The system I used for making the structured water is similar to the vortices below the surface of any stream or river.  The only difference is the placement of four rare earth magnets where the vortex reaches the narrowest point.  I can only assume the pure, dead water structured in this way turns it into what the old moonshiners called branch water, natural stream water from the boonies, where they used to set up their operations.  I read somewhere that moonshiners insisted on branch water over any other water, including the stuff from a well, no matter how clean it was.  They knew it was the difference between so so corn liker and the real good stuff you save for company.  Now I know why.

Not terribly satisfied with making only real good rum, I decided to try some flavor to fill in the gap and make something truly dynamic.
I added orange and lime zest to a pint of rum and let it sit for a couple days and then added some almond extract.  Holy crap!  This shit is damn good but it's missing something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

As I sat on the patio in a state of rum contemplation, the Sound of Music ran through my memory banks in the form of "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."  That's it!  I put a teaspoon of white sugar in my mason jar of spiced rum and shook it til it dissolved and took a taste.  This is it!  A perfect balance of flavor on a pallet of deliciousness.  The orange and lime merged beautifully with the almond that complemented the delicate rum background with just enough sweet to bring it all together.

That night my neighbor came by to visit and the two of us drained a fifth, neat, one small glass at a time.  No shot shooting, no mixing with Coke.  Just sipping with the conversation revolving around how wonderful this stuff is.

To be sure, I'll be repeating this experiment in future distillations.  Do you think structured water will have a positive effect on plants or coffee?  I intend to find out.    

he broke me

some more orgone stuff

What you see to the left is part of a larger unit I'm putting together.  This is only the beginning stages and the whole project is far from total conceptualization.  What the finished project will look like is anybody's guess and what it's supposed to do is just as vague but the parts are small and easy to make, which means I can mix and pour something on my way through the garage to check on the wine I have on it's second ferment.

The bottom orb is the one I made a few weeks ago followed by two smaller orbs of a lessor density than the first.  The three smaller units are six halves from left over resin, three medium density and three high density.  The close proximity of medium and high density puts out an energy field even I can feel, which made a natural choice to mount them on top.  The whole thing is held in place with copper pipe to satisfy the principal of metal on the inside.  When the time comes I'll complete it with organic material on the outside to satisfy the other half of that rule.
This has been running on 7.83Hz since I made the first orb.   

I still have to play with the order to find out what combination works best.  At this point, there's a gentle buzz flowing through the top.  I know I can do better but like I say, it's not even a concept yet.  The thought occurred to me that I might be able to boost that ring generator by pre-forming some medium to low density tiles to fit the perimeter.  That would be quick, easy, and painless.  At this stage I can't say if I'll be using this ring or opt for something completely different.  My money's on something completely different.    

after the rum

As promised, I ran the rum and although it came out pretty good, I'm just a little more impressed with the way these greens are coming up.

Believe it or not, I've been harvesting from this system for weeks and it just keeps on growing.  Compared to the lettuce in a pot that I used as a control, these things dwarf them by 100%  I had no choice but to put the control group in the garden to share company with the ordinary plants.  I think it's time I plucked the big ones and start some new seedlings.  Hell, the season just started and I'm just now getting up to speed. 

One thing I noticed in one of the raised beds was the Jerusalem artichokes.  Bugs don't bother them, rabbits don't nibble them, and weather changes don't effect them in the least.  They just keep growing and they do it better than any other cultivated plant.  Probably because Jerusalem artichokes are used to growing in roadside ditches and places full of other weeds and really crappy soil.  Give them a decent environment and they thrive better than any "cultivated" flora.  They're weeds but they're damn tasty weeds and you can't find them in the supermarkets.  Only roadside ditches and my raised bed.   When was the last time you saw weeds with a bug problem?  They seem to repel bugs and rodents as nature's way to keep the species going.  I wish someone would teach this trick to eggplant.

hydroponic update

Update on the bucket plant.

It's been nine days since I took the first pic of the hydroponic tomato plant and it looks like we got some growth going on.

This unit is so self contained I don't have to do anything outside of look at it once a day.  Even the water is at acceptable levels.  Root growth is impressive but not excessive, which tells me the nutrient solution is perfect for this plant.  The growth has doubled since I set this up and I'm already developing blossoms.  Compared to the tomato plants I see in neighborhood gardens, this one has them beat by a few weeks.  Granted, it's been a chilly May and garden soil isn't as warm as it should be but this bucket has been outside with an ambient water temperature equivalent to the garden soil where other plants are growing at a somewhat slower pace.  I guess they're doing fine but not phenomenal, and phenomenal is what I expect from my vegetative, earth-bound friends.

The same rate of growth holds true for the PVC hydroponic system.  I've already replaced one third of the plants that were growing out of control with seedlings that quickly adapted to the new environment.  I guess plants like a lot of water.  Go figure.

All this positive reinforcement is getting me to think of building something a little bigger, maybe sixteen feet of PVC with 2" cups for the plants.  Everything else will be the same as the first PVC system.  With a little engineering I can make it fit in a 2' by 4' space that can hold 30 plants or more.

I spent enough on this for one day.  It's time to make some rum.              

it's not all bad

For many people, politics is a sport where you root for your team to win.  Democrats and Republicans are like Army and Navy football teams.  Cheer for your side and gloat when your team wins or take a spanking from the winning opposition for a year.
This last presidential election was a bit different.  Trump won and the Trump haters can't stand it and the cry babies have been bitching since November, calling for an impeachment that will never happen.

Trump ran on the foundation of draining the swamp.  In other words, destroying the established status quo that's been screwing this country and the world for 50 years.  I mean, isn't that what we all want?  Or do we want business as usual?  Make up your minds.  Police state or freedom?  The same old same old or something better?

I'm beginning to think I may be on the wrong side.  If everyone hates Trump, who am I to disagree?  Maybe the left is right or the right is left.  What part of the picture am I missing?  Maybe importing lots of Muslims is a good thing.  Maybe Sharia law is the way to go.  Maybe an open door policy for all nations is the best way for the world to come together as one nation under one flag.  As westerners, we really don't know much about Islamic culture.  Maybe Islam IS better.

I mean, check it out.  You're a guy walking down the street and you get a little horny.  Just grab a female and rape her.  You can do that and have the right because women are less than equal to men.  Her testimony won't count in court and as an Islamic guy the law will always side with you.  Your wife or girlfriend gets out of line, slap her around a bit and make her blow you.  It's cool.  You can do that if she disrespects you.  If she gets totally out of line, like not wearing a bag over her head like you order her to, you can honor kill her and replace her.  You can also have multiple wives so things never get boring.  Your wives know they're expendable so you can count on them to submit whenever you want.  Send them all to work in head to toe black polyester while you stay home and rape Christian virgins with your friends.  Infidel Christians aren't even human and have less rights than a dog.  Once Sharia is the law of the land, you can blame it on a sexual emergency and report the Christan women as infidels if they cause trouble.  The courts will even let you have conjugal visits while they languish in prison, whether they like it or not.

I'm tellin ya, this Sharia stuff is made for us guys and it will keep women obedient and submissive, like they're supposed to be.  I say, BRING IT ON!

The only problem is Trump wants to build a wall and stop Muslims from coming here to add diversity to our culture and prevent women from covering themselves with polyester to keep them from getting raped.  Polyester protects women's rights.

Write your congressman and tell him you want Sharia law and the religion of peace to show us the way.

MR. TRUMP, TEAR DOWN THAT WALL!

       

hydroponic observations

I've come to realize no matter how well something can grow in soil, it can grow much better in a hydroponic solution.

If that's true, why do people still garden in soil?  Probably for the same reason I still have raised garden beds.  Soil is still the only acceptable medium for growing fruits and vegetables, at this time.  Industry is geared up for soil gardening with cultivators, hoes, hoses, fertilizers, pesticides, and bagged soil of every kind, creating sub-industries that rely on the warmer months to keep their businesses going.  The cost to convert hundreds of acres of farmland to greenhouses is out of the reach for the small family farms and the giant corporate farms are run by ADM, Monsanto, and a few other corporations, heavily invested in GMOs and chemical farming, who aren't about to cut their own economic throats.

Not so in other parts of the world.  Ontario, Canada has massive greenhouses a mile long that can grow anything, year round, with climate controlled efficiency.  Sure, it costs millions to build one of these greenhouses but they pay for themselves in a few years.  After that, it's all net.  And they do it hydroponically.

Compare that system to earth farming that requires a million dollars worth of farming equipment before you break soil.  Not to mention dealing with Monsanto as a business partner, intensive labor, irrigation, storage, weather concerns, equipment malfunctions, and the risk that your whole crop could go bust.  Any soil agribusiness could lose it all without a hedge fund to counter potential losses, further reducing profits.  Not to mention, all that GMO food laced with glyphosate costs more, has little to no food value, and will keep you sick for the rest of your life.

In my limited experiments with hydroponics I learned a few things that could radically increase my bottom line, if I was in the food producing business.

This hydroponic system has been running a little more than a month and I began harvesting greens within a couple weeks of planting.  No weeds, insects, or rabbits.  It's all at waist level so there's no back breaking work.  Startup cost is extremely cheap and easy.  Daily maintenance takes minutes and only requires mixing a solution once a week as the major duty.  It's portable and can be run indoors.  With lights and a timer you can produce just about anything, year round.  Exposure to soil bound bacteria and parasites is a non-issue.

But what about larger plants like tomatoes and asparagus?

I'm working on it.

The five gallon bucket to the left has a nutrient solution with an air stone to oxygenate the water that feeds the tomato plant in a perforated cup filled with an inert growing medium.

Theoretically, adding a light and keeping it indoors during the colder months, this system could produce indefinitely, year after year.

And it all comes back to growing indoors for a reason.  In a SHTF scenario, there's a very real possibility that air and soil contamination could threaten the food supply.  Rather than prepping by stocking up on canned food that will be gone in a few months, why not grow your own, indefinitely?  A few solar collectors and a little technology could easily turn any system totally off-grid.  An unheated basement with a little floor space is all you'll need for perpetual, food sustainability and independence.    

Just think what you could do with cannabis.              

label contast

I know gin is supposed to be water clear.  But this is no ordinary gin.  Let me explain.

I went through my alcohols and got together all the stuff that wasn't worth drinking but not bad enough to throw away.  Stuff like heads, tails,  low wines, and other stuff that I knew had a purpose other than drain cleaner.

I got all this stuff in a five gallon bucket where it proofed out to 130.  I then added a sachet of juniper berries, coriander, lemon zest, and a few other things and let it set for 53 hours.  I then reduced the alcohol content to 60 proof and ran it through a pot still.

After bringing the proof down to 86 I gave it a taste, then another taste.    Not bad for a gin, and I hate gin.
I hated gin ever since I stole a half gallon of the stuff from my fathers liquor cabinet and slept half the afternoon off in my neighbors back yard, only to wake up half way to the hospital to get my stomach pumped.  It inebriated me to another dimension but scared the shit out of my father when the neighbor called to say I was in his back yard, not moving.

Well, all thats behind me, and outside of a few interludes with Guinevere and a few cases of frozen Doornkart, I figured it's time to make something better than average gin.

Anyway... what makes this gin so excellent is a few dashes of bitters.  That's it.  Just a few dashes turned this rather hot tasting gin into something worthy of sipping ice cold.

After sipping a small bottle of this stuff, the idea came to me to market some hip flasks to extol the virtues of imbibation.  And this is where I'm stuck.  I need a decent copy for the labels I plan on putting on these flasks I intend to market and I'm looking for some ideas.  You don't have to go all photoshop over this.  Just an outline, a pic, or a slogan will do.  I suggest you get drunk before you start and send it out before you sober up.  Even if it's a rambling email suggesting what goes where with lots of misspellings.  Trust me, that's the copy I'm looking for.  Bring out your inner drunkard and create something to be proud of. 

The first person to send me copy of a label that I use will receive a free flask with the approved label.  Not only that, but they'll receive the FIRST flask I produce.  I'll even mark it as 00001, as proof this is the first in production.  I'll even put your likeness on the label, If I really flip over it and if you're ok with your likeness on a hooch hip flask.

So, take a shot, put on your thinking caps and be famous.        

hydroponics structured water

 It's been sixteen days since my last posting of the greens.  No disappointment here.  Once I got past the learning curve, the system evened out and every plant is doing pretty good, even the weak ones.  Fact is, I can no longer tell which ones were the runts.

It took a while for the root mass to develop properly but after that, they stabilized and took off.

I've been harvesting leaves from all of these plants on a regular basis with no slow down in growth.  It seems periodical trimming only makes them grow all the more. 

It's pretty much maintenance free and my only chore is checking on them once in a while and replenishing the nutrient water supply about once a week.  That's it. 

In comparison with the raised beds, it's no contest.  The greens in the raised beds are doing ok but nothing like the hydroponics.  Don't get me going on the increased rabbit population with an appetite for swiss chard.   Rodents is one problem this system doesn't have.

All that aside, today I introduced structured water to the mix and I want a before picture to see what effect it has on the plants.  Before I provide a detailed account on how I made the structured water, I want to see if it's worth the effort.  I figure I'll do an update sixteen days from now and we'll see the changes, if any.

It was never my intention to do anything with this unit outside of growing a few greens for the summer but it'll do just as well inside during the winter months with the help of a grow light.  A unit twice this size would take up the same square footage and be able to support about thirty small plants.  Growing larger plants is just a matter of controlling the root mass and providing support.

Something to think about in a SHTF scenario.