PPrepper knowledge! Alternative power and solutions

[Wheel Horse 3D 3,795]

Yup guys I can tell ya from experience, it DOES get better after crap like that. Hang in there and enjoy just being you if aomeone else comes along theyll enjoy you for you and youll be stronger for it.

[DennisThornton 4,769]

24 minutes ago, posifour11 said:

You're a super ninja! I was a mechanic. I can rebuild a 6.2 diesel or a 400 turbo from memory, answer a phone and unf&@$ something one of my mechanics did. Other than that, the army taught me to endure ignorance and stupid with a straight face. Now, I just endure my life on my VA (can't be in the army anymore) welfare/disability. 

Hopefully things will look up!  For both of us!

[posifour11 723]

Just now, DennisThornton said:

Ahhh!  Foxfire!  There's an encyclopedia!

It definitely is! I bought one every payday from a tiny bookstore (when they existed) and had it read in a couple days when I was younger. 20+ years later I think I have only a couple left after loaning them out. 😞

[DennisThornton 4,769]

1 minute ago, Wheel Horse 3D said:

Yup guys I can tell ya from experience, it DOES get better after crap like that. Hang in there and enjoy just being you if aomeone else comes along theyll enjoy you for you and youll be stronger for it.

Ahhh!  That which does not kill you makes you stronger!  I hope so!

[posifour11 723]

Just now, DennisThornton said:

Hopefully things will look up!  For both of us!

I have no choice! It has to get better. 😉

[posifour11 723]

3 minutes ago, Wheel Horse 3D said:

Yup guys I can tell ya from experience, it DOES get better after crap like that. Hang in there and enjoy just being you if aomeone else comes along theyll enjoy you for you and youll be stronger for it.

It will. I already have a few chasing me. 🤣 They'll weed themselves out when they see my tiny cabin and that I'm not leaving it. 😮

[Wheel Horse 3D 3,795]

2 minutes ago, posifour11 said:

I have no choice! It has to get better. 😉

Just remember to focus on the little positives when yer feelin down, a good cup of joe, a beautiful evening, etc. Nature provides a lot of comfort and healing if ya just pay attention!

[Wheel Horse 3D 3,795]

Besides, yall are already WAY ahead of some poor city dwelling schmuck! Lol

[DennisThornton 4,769]

1 minute ago, posifour11 said:

It definitely is! I bought one every payday from a tiny bookstore (when they existed) and had it read in a couple days when I was younger. 20+ years later I think I have only a couple left after loaning them out. 😞

Absolutely a wonderful collection of knowledge!  I spent my childhood summers in southern rural KY with my grandparents, with a bit more rural areas just a notch or two higher than very rural WV coal mine regions where folks had next to nothing.  MY grandparents weren't near that poor but some around were close and with no phone or electricity.  The "old ways" were still prevelant and I loved them.  Not sure everone else did, but I still learned from them and that made a difference in my character.  Reading Foxfire took me back to my childhood AND made me realize that many today will very quickly suffer and worse without help.  Folks back then knew how to survive and they weren't called preppers OR survivalists!  Just regular people doing what everyone else around did.

[Wheel Horse 3D 3,795]

Yeah, folks who had spent any time in Appalachia say up ro the 80s or so had a chance glimpse back quite a ways to at least the 20s or earlier. Its an experience that wasnt available anywhere else. Im glad to be a born Mountaineer.

[posifour11 723]

1 minute ago, DennisThornton said:

Absolutely a wonderful collection of knowledge!  I spent my childhood summers in southern rural KY with my grandparents, with a bit more rural areas just a notch or two higher than very rural WV coal mine regions where folks had next to nothing.  MY grandparents weren't near that poor but some around were close and with no phone or electricity.  The "old ways" were still prevelant and I loved them.  Not sure everone else did, but I still learned from them and that made a difference in my character.  Reading Foxfire took me back to my childhood AND made me realize that many today will very quickly suffer and worse without help.  Folks back then knew how to survive and they weren't called preppers OR survivalists!  Just regular people doing what everyone else around did.

I won't bore with the details. But, I'm sitting in a small house within 100 feet of the cabin my great grandpa built. My grandma grew up here, my dad was born in that house. Dad didn't see indoor plumbing until he was 4 and they moved to KC after grandpa got home from WW2. Grandma is 95 and can still give me a walking tour over the phone about where things were done. 😁 She has no filter now and tells me everything. 

 

Looooots of stuff that happened were distorted by people to make others out to be saints. Grandma doesn't care. 

[DennisThornton 4,769]

4 minutes ago, posifour11 said:

It will. I already have a few chasing me. 🤣 They'll weed themselves out when they see my tiny cabin and that I'm not leaving it. 😮

No one would hire me for what I know about women based on my life experiences!  16 years down the tubes, several more years with several more then followed by 20 years down in flames!  So I certainly wouldn't call myself an expert or offer my services for hire, but I'll offer something for free.  I went to town today as a free man and I sure looked around, but I'm in NO hurry!  I'm going to do what I want to do and if someone wants to tag along, well, perhaps they can, but I'm going anyway, and alone is fine.  No intention of being unkind or uncaring, just want to spend the last few years I might have left doing what I've wanted to for years.  If I do what I like and find someone else there already then at least we have something in common to do and talk about.  Then who knows...

[Wheel Horse 3D 3,795]

My dad grew up quite poor in a large family, no running water, no phone, finally electricity at some point, very much the "hard scrabble" life. He got his schoolin and went on to be a teacher, so im only one generation removed from that and remember the way it was, the way it felt, and even how it smelled. 

[DennisThornton 4,769]

6 minutes ago, posifour11 said:

I won't bore with the details. But, I'm sitting in a small house within 100 feet of the cabin my great grandpa built. My grandma grew up here, my dad was born in that house. Dad didn't see indoor plumbing until he was 4 and they moved to KC after grandpa got home from WW2. Grandma is 95 and can still give me a walking tour over the phone about where things were done. 😁 She has no filter now and tells me everything. 

 

Looooots of stuff that happened were distorted by people to make others out to be saints. Grandma doesn't care. 

Dad's dad never saw indoor plumbing!  My step-grandmother lived to see indoor running water but never a toilet.  I used the handpump and outhouse when I stayed there.  My kids were too young to remember but they were there.  Wish they could remember...

All good ole days to me!

[DennisThornton 4,769]

7 minutes ago, Wheel Horse 3D said:

My dad grew up quite poor in a large family, no running water, no phone, finally electricity at some point, very much the "hard scrabble" life. He got his schoolin and went on to be a teacher, so im only one generation removed from that and remember the way it was, the way it felt, and even how it smelled. 

Very fond memories for me and I would not be who I am today without those and the ways of almost self sufficient farm life.  I'm afraid today so many are so removed from real life that they just don't have a clue where anything comes from including the food they eat!

Edited May 12, 2021 by DennisThornton

[Wheel Horse 3D 3,795]

Woot Woot, Dennis out on the prowl enjoyin the scenery!

 

My grandparents never had plumbling either but boy the well water was good!I wish i had asked my great grand mother way more questions back then, she was born in 1900 (or so)

[posifour11 723]

3 minutes ago, DennisThornton said:

Dad's dad never saw indoor plumbing!  My step-grandmother lived to see indoor running water but never a toilet.  I used the handpump and outhouse when I stayed there.  My kids were too young to remember but they were there.  Wish they could remember...

All good ole days to me!

My great grandpa had one gasoline vehicle in his life. A model something ford. One of the younger kids touched him and it tickled him. He wrecked that truck. He went back to horse and wagon. That old man died in 49. This area was all wagon trails until the CCC in the late 30s. Wasn't paved until the 70s. There was a ferry across this arm on the lake until the late 70s. 

[posifour11 723]

4 minutes ago, DennisThornton said:

Very fond memories for me and I would not be who I am today without those and the ways of almost self sufficient farm life.  I'm afraid today so many are so removed from real life that just don't have a clue where anything comes from including the food they eat!

The town where my grandpa grew up and my grandma went to high school (an honest 6 mile walk) had a hand pump in the middle of town in 92 for sure because I was sent for water from it. 

[DennisThornton 4,769]

5 minutes ago, Wheel Horse 3D said:

Woot Woot, Dennis out on the prowl enjoyin the scenery!

 

My grandparents never had plumbling either but boy the well water was good!I wish i had asked my great grand mother way more questions back then, she was born in 1900 (or so)

Oh how I wish I had known to ask, look and listen more intently!  I mean I did but I wish I had SO much more!  Just too young to realize how limited and how important...

[Wheel Horse 3D 3,795]

Lol yep! My parents remember the inerstate goin in and taking the place of wagon trails between some of the farms. Neat thing is where dad grew up was just a few miles from the Natioal Radio Astronomical Observatory and the radio quiet zone. Strange to think of the hard acrabble just a few miles from all that tech. I used to skinny dippin in the summer out in a field within sight of the huge dishes!

Edited May 12, 2021 by Wheel Horse 3D

[Wheel Horse 3D 3,795]

Kinda sums up my life right there lol. Tech and skinny dippin! Lol probably more formative than i can imagine!

Edited May 12, 2021 by Wheel Horse 3D

[DennisThornton 4,769]

2 minutes ago, Wheel Horse 3D said:

Lol yep! My parents remember the inerstate goin in and taking the place of wagon trails between some of the farms. Neat thing is where dad grew up was just a few miles from the Natioal Radio Astronomical Observatory and the radio quiet zone. Strange to think of the hard acrabble just a few miles from all that tech.

How blessed we are with today's tech and how little time separated our grandparents!  I watched Kirk talk to a flip phone on a B&W TV when Dad's folks still didn't have running water!  And I ditched my flip phone for improved long ago!

[DennisThornton 4,769]

I think it's great that we can share some personal moments with some wonderful childhood experiences but you know we have to build a freeze drier and some sort of after the BIG EMP power source!

(I just threw that in there to keep the thread legit!  I think every page has to have a connection to the thread subject.  This took off so quickly that we might have missed Page 2.)

Any blacksmith knowledge here among us?

[posifour11 723]

12 minutes ago, DennisThornton said:

Oh how I wish I had known to ask, look and listen more intently!  I mean I did but I wish I had SO much more!  Just too young to realize how limited and how important...

Give me your questions and I'll ask grandma. I talk to her on the phone every Sunday. (Can't talk to her during the Winston cup race though.  🤣 My dad got her hooked a couple decades ago)  she tells me about all of it. The good and bad. 

[Wheel Horse 3D 3,795]

A little..by no means a master but have moved a little metal