Hi Matthew and Jack!

I was the guy who asked about the firewood. Unfortunately my brother’s “compound” is not using face cords, but full cords. At the moment he has a shed that is 40′ by 20′ with the giant boiler in the middle and 8′ tall stacks of wood on all sides. The boiler can burn anything small enough to fit through the doors; so he often will dump an entire 3′ diameter round into the boiler using his tractor.

However, Jack made an excellent point – we really have no good estimate of how much wood we will be using, because so many variables are constantly changing. For example, between last year and this year we have dramatically invested in spray insulting the houses because there was absolutely no insulation between the floor of the house and the crawl space, so when it was 20 below zero F outside, the crawl space was 50-60 degrees F! That will dramatically help with wood use. However, they also had a VERY large barn built that will be heated via thousands of feet of Pex in the slab of the barn, heated by this same boiler; so that will increase the wood usage.

However, Jack’s comments definitely smacked me in the face – if we have a 100% variance in our estimate of wood use, how do we plan? So I think our plan for this winter is to very carefully monitor how much wood is used.

I also was probably wrong about “old growth forest.” Michigan was heavily logged from 1840 to 1890, so you are probably right that this is not 1,000 year old forest. But it definitely looks like “fully successed” into forest. The woods have lots of 100 foot oaks, plenty of fallen and dead 50-year old trees, not a bit of light hits the floor of the forest, the soil in there feels like a sponge when you jump on it. It is what you see when you go to a state park, and walk a thousand yards off the trail.

It’s very fun, a great resource, but also incredibly intimidating; because the only tool I have is “attack the edges.” I’m not going to go in and clear-cut an acre or two because of the environmental destruction that would cause. However, there are all kinds of areas along the edges that gets tons of sun, or I could knock down a 30′ stretch of garbage trees to start the black locust. In a lot of ways, I feel like a 40 acre fallow corn field would have been easier to start with. Because you really can’t screw it up any more than it already is. 🙂

Also, thanks for the recommendation of rocket stoves and other better uses of the wood. I am very slowly introducing them to more sustainable concepts at a rate that they don’t freak out and “kick the hippy out.” They are making huge progress, and I will be able to help them with things like a rocket stove in a greenhouse; but not in their pretty and traditional living area.

Nick – if you happen to still be in this thread, do you have any thoughts on the best way to propagate black locust? I see I can buy seed or bare roots. I don’t mind buying a start of one of those; but after the first year I would like to help them reproduce them on their own. I have both the Permaethos PDC and your plant propagation course; so I just need to know which method you would recommend and I’ll go watch those videos again.

-Eric

Jack – thanks for the advice; it does sting but now I am aware. So, a business is like making sausage?

Insidious – Thank you for Drucker’s article; he is brilliant! I don’t really know if I am ADD and OCD (I am probably Asperger’s, too). I am afraid to find out if I am any of these things as they might take my guns away if it goes on record. I have my quirks. They are very much exacerbated or mitigated by lifestyle, habits and environment. A strict Paleo, anti-inflamatory diet with intermittent fasting and ketosis helps tremendously. In fact, I was Paleo without knowing it when my symptoms alleviated. Exercise, neurofeedback, meditation, supplements and nootropics are also highly beneficial. Alcohol can degrade my performance for 1-2 days after drinking. I’ll see how I can apply your other tips. Some entrepreneurs minimize the insignificant decisions they have to make to focus on the big things – right down to wearing the same outfit and eating the same thing every day.

I sent this to Jack this morning but probably not in time for today’s show: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/case-against-full-time-employees-dave-ashton Fits perfectly with my question to John Pugliano.