Homesteading with an Engineering Mindset – Epi-3802
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:23:00 — 23.7MB)
Today Abraham Pittman joins us to discuss how to apply engineering (particularly field service engineering) to homesteading and prepping, so examples include:
- Triaging problems, ie, make sure your chickens have reliable water systems before building a roll away nesting box.
- Developing systems and procedures, ie, maintenance regimes, and things similar to the documentation package you talk about.
- Calculating risk/cost benefit analysis, ie, is it best to just let a lawn mower run until it dies, compared to letting a generator run until it dies
`
Abraham Pitman is a field service engineer, homesteader, and practical prepper based in North Queensland, Australia. He spends most of the year traveling to remote industrial sites across the globe and on the open ocean as a specialist in large turbocompressors and turbines, often working solo, solving problems on the fly, and keeping critical infrastructure running. When he’s not on the tools at a power station or gas plant, he’s back at his homestead in the Australian tropics, Bluewater Barnyard, where they breed Nigerian Dwarf Goats.
Abraham’s approach to preparedness is shaped by both engineering discipline and the realities of tropical living. He raises goats, poultry, and pigs; grows a wide range of tropical plants; and builds much of his own equipment and performing his own maintenance. His outlook leans strongly toward self-reliance: making what he can, repairing what he has, and testing ideas in real conditions rather than theory.
He has recently started The Tropical Homesteading Podcast, where he focuses on actionable skills, resilience in hot and humid climates, food production, and practical systems that actually work for semi-experienced homesteaders.
With more than a decade in hands-on engineering and a lifestyle built around self reliance, Abraham brings a grounded perspective on resilience. His philosophy is simple: stay curious, stay capable, and build systems that hold up when things don’t go to plan.
Resources for today’s show…
- Find Me on Nostr
- Article Explaining the GrowNostr Initiative
- Join the Members Brigade
- TspAz.com
- Follow Me on Nostr
- Follow Me on Facebook
- Follow me on X
- TSPC on Discord
- TSPC Group on Telegram (group chat)
- TSPC Telegram Channel (just messages from me)
- Jack on MeWe
- All My Recommend Bitcoin Tools and Resources
`
Sponsors of the Day
- Join the MSB Here
- Law of Life – My Book on Amazon
- Items of the Day for this Week
- Suggested Bitcoin Stacking Resources
- Start9 Private Servers
- Knife Kits
`
Abraham’s Links
Video Version of Today’s Show
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon.
Join the MSB Today
Want all the Early TSP Episodes?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 80 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Loved this episode. I’m an engineer and a homesteader. My grandfather was a dairy farmer and built structures for the farm. He also built houses for people and maintained HVAC equipment, was an Army engineer, and was a pilot of his own small plane too, so he had a pretty broad skillset and had to know when to be very particular about what he was doing. In the context of building and measuring and planning out a project or a job around the farm, Pop used to have a saying that we still reference, sometimes as a joke, when the family gets together to build or work on something. “It’s only a barn.” It was his way of saying some of what you guys talked about here – don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, and don’t waste time on exactness and fine details where it isn’t a design requirement.