Our lives are filled with trinkets

Our lives are filled with trinkets. As I look around my room with my possessions I see a bunch of trinkets that I have gathered through out my life. Junk. Purging my stuff down to what I use every day and season, I don't have that much stuff anymore. All the trinkets that I bought throughout the years that basically bookmark different times in my life are gone. Pictures of our life are worth more, and in 2012 we can store thousands of "pics" in a small plastic box. The ipod replaces a closet full of records and CD's (although records sound better). T.V's are no longer the size of a oven but the size of a picture frame. Living alone in a car and tent, I learned that I really don't need a house or an apartment. I just need a place big enough to provide my basic needs and some storage. And in 2012 we have super efficient, small, and relatively cheap appliances that take up less space. And thanks to the Green movement we have better equipment and building materials. Personally I don't care about my carbon foot print or green foot print, I'm just trying to survive this economic "slump" the world is in right now, and if living simply can save me money then I'm all for that. Enter the Tiny House movement. There is a "green movement" right now of tree huggers designing and building tiny houses to live in, lowering their carbon foot print. This is all good and great for them and their green conscious, but I'm in it to save money. Building a tiny home on a 7'x20' foot trailer lets you save all that cash you would have given your mortgage bank or renter. That is A LOT of money saved. Lots of people work long hours, and some 2 jobs, and drive a looong commute every day just to spend a few minutes in their house, then they're off to bed. Your working to get money to spend on a place to sleep and rest up for work the next day, making someone else s business a success. Your house is just a really expensive hotel room at that point. And who's to say that in 30 years your home will be worth that much more? Maybe I'm just ignorant.  People like me who have an interest in wilderness self reliance and colonial period living might like the idea of living small. The pilgrims lived in small houses. They also spent most of their time outside. I'm looking at a tiny house on a 7'x20' foot trailer. This house can be moved when ever, and where ever I want. Now that is freedom. I could park it at a walmart lot close to my work for the week and save gas. I can go on vacation and not rent a room, visit friends in other States, all without a mortgage to pay. Ownership of property is real freedom but how many of us can buy out right property close enough to our work? Most of us must rent or get a 30 yr mortgage.   Count your trinkets, and then count your essentials.

CCD lessons learned

Car camping is fun at first but then the long term logistics start to make themselves very apparent.

·         Camp security- You can’t leave your stuff out in the open for critters or gluttonous people to help themselves to your stuff, and the few stuff that you do have is very important to your daily living activities. You can build a log cabin which requires time, time, more time, and more stuff. Or you can have a tent for your stuff, which can be broken into very easily. You can put your stuff in your car but your car becomes very overweight and you’re driving with that weight everyday using more gas and wearing out your shocks.

·         Tent- I used a small tent for fire wood storage (after someone stole my wood). I put a small lock on the zipper but that is more of a nuisance for any would be thief. My buckets and cooler were stored in there too.

·         Food- you can put a cooler in the ground for vegges, but most of my food was, and still is, canned meat (tuna, lots of tuna), grains, trail mix, and instant coffee, dried fruit, raw honey, coconut oil, Almond butter. I kept this in my car with no problems until summer time and the car would heat up making my perishable food parish faster. Even parked in the shade the car’s interior would quickly surpass thermal equilibrium. So a couple of coolers in the ground would have solved this.

Now that I’m back in a house I now have, in addition to the camp diet, ground coffee (what a treat!), and in the fridge I have raw milk, frozen & fresh veggies, the weekly ribeye steak and that’s it.

The can opener on my Multitool became indispensable. Nesting cups, spork, and MSR seagull pot was used everyday. Cooking while camping is fun, but when you are living in the camp and have to go to work, cooking becomes a long process and you quickly miss your quick cooking stove. I’d have to wake up even earlier in the morning to get the fire going, to cook breakfast, and get reading for work. A small propane stove would have made a big difference and cut down on cook time & fire wood.

·         Fuel/firewood-  Tinder and kindling became a longer and longer walk to gather up. Fuel too, but the camp ground sold firewood bundles and cutting down trees was a no no. This same rule also put a stop to the many shelter projects I had planned.

·         Hygiene- Small bottle of bleach did multible jobs, but a bottle of regular castile soap, or in my case Dr. Bronner’s Sal-Suds did every cleaning job that needed to be done, with just 2 tsp of the stuff in a spray bottle of water(purified water from the pond of course, ha)

·         Companionship- KJV 1611 and a radio. “music wips away the dust from the soul”

·         Containers- They are King. A couple of 5 gallon buckets w/ lids became more valuable than gold. I used them for sponge baths, dishes, extinguishing my fires before leaving for work, chairs & table, laundry, tick drowning device, Tinder and kindling storage, etc,

·         Paperwork- Where do you keep important documents, check books, etc? In your impenetrable tent? Where do you get mail? Do you open a p.o.box?

·         Weather- I hung a 10x12 tarp 15 ft up above my firepit and table, which worked well in a down pour.

·         What do you do when winter comes back? Lol

·         Basic Needs-  I had all my basic needs met, shelter, fire, clean water, food, companionship. But I soon found myself wanting more. More fire wood, more space, more tent interior square footage, a toilet seat would be good, a quicker way of fire would be more efficient, etc, etc. With all my needs met my human nature quickly wanted more, more efficiency, more ease. Justifying this by telling myself “I just need to figure out how to be more efficient, so I have more time to do more stuff” In other words, more time left over in the day to do more work. 

But I thought I was doing this car camping thing to learn to live more simply, to have more time to muse about life. Human nature of a funny thing.

In the Army they strip you of everything, even your identity. You quickly learn that you can live with barely anything. I got quite comfortable living out of a rucksack in the woods. But back then I didn’t have a cell phone bill, car loan & insurance payments, etc. which made living out of a car in the woods a tricky deal.

I’m sure there is a way to combine the modern and simple life, Cody Lundin does it every day. He set up his whole life to live simply and cheaply. I’m sure with more time I would figure out how to blend the two worlds, and I still plan to. In fact my journey to the minimalist life will be the topic of future Pilgrim videos. I’ll share my success and failures so you can learn from my mistakes.

As of this writing I’ve been housesitting a friend’s house for about a month now, while they are away for the summer. It’s a summer beach house that was converted into a 4 season house, a stone throws away from the beach. Nothing in the house makes sense, the clothes washer drains into the bathtub, and the scalding hot water only lasts 10mins. My roommate is a Norwegian Forest cat who could easily tip the scales at 20 lbs. He talks alot making all kinds of vocal sounds. He also is a great hunter and proves his skills daily with protein on the doorstep to pay his rent. We’ve gotten very close.

I joined Planet Fitness too. You can’t beat $10 bucks a month! I do my workout around 4pm after work. My workouts last no longer than 50 mins, after which I drink my protein shake (Garden of Life- Raw Meal) and then take advantage of the gyms free showers, just don’t make eye contact with anyone and you’ll be fine. After that I drive home and cook up my dinner of canned tuna and frozen corn, peas, and broccoli with an avocado. Before bed I’ll drink another shake.

My plan now is to work and save money. I’m researching other simple, self-reliant ways of living and small houses. I’ve been looking at TinyHouses.com and exploring that option, even looking at Yurts and big toolsheds. Whatever the future brings me it will be a learning experience. It will be fun to see what God has planned for me.

I want to thank you for watching my videos and joining me on this journey. I’ll continue to make videos on topics that I think should be covered and discussed, and God willing, they won’t be as boring.

Thank you,

Jim

15May12
Drove down to Camp Faria for an overnight stay. Derek was there when I arrived and we spent the day making stuff in the woods, I made a Australian Cooking Crane for the camps community fire pit. Sorry no pic. Joe arrived and we started doing finish work on the cabin. They tried cutting up a tree that was blown over this past winter by heavy winds, and they cut the chain saw stuck. Some wedges later they got the saw out but it needed to be fixed now, the draw cord busted. Some birds, not yet I.D.ed, made a nest in the rafters of the cabin, with two baby birds in there. We tried to stay out of the cabin as to not interfere with the parents feeding the baby's, but the rain made it tough to stay out. While the rain helded off we sat around the fire for a break. I cooked some steaks for a late lunch. We sat and bullcrapped for a while and got caught up on each others lives.
A few hours later Joe's awesome wife Tina arrived with a traditional Portuguese soup with rolls. We threw it on the crane to heat up. I forget what it was called but it was some spicy soup. Me, being Irish, I'm not use to spicy food like that. It had elbow pasta, onions, herbs, potatoes, and 3 different types of big sausages in there, one being more spicy than the next. But it was still good. Even better coming out ha ha.  The rain started heavy again and forced us to retreat into the cabin. Momma and papa bird didn't like that and verbally protested outside the cabin door the rest of the night while we got to listen to baby's cry until about 8 o'clock at night. Joe and I decided to take a drive into town and grab some tasty beverages to help pass the rainy night. I broke my 3 week record of not smoking and bought a pack of smokes for the night.
We got back to  the cabin and had a great time, telling stories and joking. At around midnight we had seconds of the soup. When it was finally time to retire I ran to my hammock in the rain, and said to myself "I think I'll smooth it a bit and hang this sucker in the cabin". I unclipped the two caribiners on the tree and rolled up the hammock and ran back in the cabin, leaving the tarp behind hanging. As I'm setting up the hammock, Joe sees me and says "hey thats a good idea, I think I'll do the same thing" and he claimed the other corner of the cabin leaving Derek to sleep on the dirt.
I must have been pretty tired because Joe's notorious snoring didn't wake me up once during the night.
Stay turned for Part 2

Are we getting enough DIRT in our diet?

I'm reading the book The Makers Diet by Jordan Rubin. This poor guy got Crohn's disease in college and battled it with conventional and non-conventional treatments for years with no success. His body wasted away untill he came across SBO's or soil based organisms. Long story short, he introduced this friendly bactieria into his diet and regained his health. Copied from his book is an except with some health benifits scientists attribute to the consumption of SBO's:

• Pool new RNA/DNA in the cells. SBOs provide a rich source of coded instructions for the cells to reactivate their own repair called DNA and RNA. SBOs appear to work in a symbiotic ( mutually beneficial) relationship with body tissues by creating a pool of extra DNA/RNA raw materials. This reserve is immediatly avilable upon demand, accelerating the healing process when cells are damaged by wounds, burns, surgical incisions, and infections.
• Quench free radicals by creating superoxcide dismutase (SOD), apowerful antioxidant. Unless extinguished at once, free radicals attack any physiological molecule, causing cancers and other tissue damage. SOD works enzymatically as a firstline defense against free radicals, stopping them cold before they can cause organ damage. 
• Stimulate alpha interferon production. SBOs seem to stimulate the production of the polypeptide alpha interferon (a molecular protein and a key immume system regulator). The scientific community long ago recognized the virus-fighting ability of alpha interferon. They synthesized the alpha interferon to treat a veriety of illness, including hepatitis. (unfortunately, it is extremely costly, inefficient, and has many adverse side effects.)
• Stimulate the production of human lactoferrin. A substance present in homeostatic soil organisms stimulates the formation of human lactoferrin, one of the body's iron carrying protiens. The iron carried by the lactoferrin protein is released to healthy cells and not available to feed pathogenic microorganisms or contribute to iron overload.

Most people who begin SBO supplementation in concert with healthy dietary choices see a rapid and overall improvment in bodily functions and natural immunity to disease and infection.


Cholesterol levels tend to drop while energy levels increase; many notice an enhanced resistance to disease-causing organisms such as colds and flu. We have even seen increases in serum enzymes and normalization of serum albumin, indicating improved lymphatic flow and removal of lymphatic blockages.


Soil organisms also produce substances called bacteriocins, which act as natural antibiotics to kill almost any kind of pathogenic microorganisms and to set up a protective shield in the gut.


Hardy SBOs survive the harsh enviroment of the gut. unlike traditional probiotics, SBOs seem to be much hardier and better able to survive the harsh enviroment of the intestine until they reach the location where they are most needed in the gut.

Soil organisms seem to be especially well equipped to establish colonies in the entire digestive system, starting in the esophagus and ending in the colon. they attach themselves to the walls of the digestive tract and burrow behind any putrefaction lining the intestional walls where they consume or destroy unfriendly microorganisms. The waste products are then dislodged and flushed out of the body in the normal evacuation process.

SBOs also seem to act aggressively against protoza, worms, and other parasites within the intestines and related organs and tissues. Even Candida albicans, along with other yeast and molds, is obliterated.

How to know if you have Dysbiosis:
Dysbiosis is a health condition of living with intestinal flora that has harmful effects, due to putrefaction, fermentation(carbohydrate intolerance), deficiency, or sensitization. The following list include many symptoms and major causes of dysbiosis.
Common symptom:

• abdominal pain or cramps
• colon cancer
• constipation or diarrhea
• distention/bloating
• fatigue/fatigue after eating
• flatulence (excessive gas)
• bad breath
• body odor
• food allergy
• hypoglycemia
• inability to lose weight
• irregular bowel syndrome
• itchy anus
• leaky gut syndrome
• poor complexion
• poor digestion
• rheumatiod arthritis
• spastic colon

Major Causes:

• decreased immune function
• decreased intestinal motility (constipation)
• drugs- especially antibiotics, oral contraceptives, and cortisone-like medications
• intestinal infection
• maldigestion and malabsorption
• poor diet- excessive carbohydrates, sugar, and trans fats
• stress- including long-term emotional stress

Common man weight training 1

Picked up a pull up bar made to be put in a door way. Made by the same people who make the perfect push-up. This is the better of the brands I looked at. This modle allows you to use a wider hand hold. You can also do Hammer pull-ups. with it. Got a 5 gallon bucket w/ cover to fill with sand to put in backpack for sqauts and hiking.

Side Note:
For years I was a "home" bodybuilder. I had my own equipment; a cage, bench, leg ext & curl machine and 300 lbs. of olympic weights. And that was enough for me to reach my personal natural limit of +/-220lbs. Then the recession (depression) hit and hit my family. I gave up my hobby because I couldn't afford my own food and my families food. So I sold my equipment. The only other hobby I had left that was free was camping and hiking. I did things differently and because of that I was always 'alone in the wilderness', but I preferred it that way. Later I learned what I was doing was called Bushcraft. But anyway, 2 years later I'm tried of being skinny and am going to start training again, but in a different method. I know Cody Lundin likes to weight train and he's also a cheap bastard. I'm planning on finding out his nutrition and training routine and use that to design my own that will fit me. If I was living in the 18th centery, bushcrafting and hunting would just be a daily routine and a hard one at that, and weight training would be the last thing on my mind. I would like to try and come up with exercises and equipment to go with the 'self reliance' and bushcraft way of life. What I mean by that is how can people weight train with no money but plenty of mother nature. For example, cutting out two handles in a log for a barbell, latching a pole high in between two trees for pull ups, putting a 5 gallon bucket of sand in your backpack for squats, etc. It will be a fun and interesting learning project. Hope you'll join me.

8MAY12
Been working odd shifts, day day eve day day eve eve eve off off eve day etc.
Just been hanging out at my camp site during off time adjusting to this kind of life and doing family things too.
Today I worked the 3pm-12am shift. I went to my camp site throw up the hammock in the rain (been raining 2 weeks now) and just hung the tarp to 2 trees, didn't even stake out the corners. Settled in the fartsack and read the Bible for a few minutes. Dozed off.

9MAY12
0610 Woke up to the gentle sound of rain again. Had to go pee but fell asleep again anyways. 0630 Alarm goes "crap! time to get up". Broke camp in the rain and drove to Starbucks. Breakfast was a med Bold with 2 raw sugars and a cinnamon roll. ha ha very healthy, oh well. Got to work at 0730 and got off at 1600. Went to Trader Joes grocery store and got some food stuffs. 8 cans of tuna, Trail mix, instant coffee, canned soup and clam chowda, and a ribeye steak for tomorrows night dinner, yum. Went to 5 guys burger joint and had a burger for dinner. left there feeling bloated and sluggish. Drove to church for 7pm Bible study, and learned a lot, as usual. Got back to camp around 9pm'ish and set up camp, again, in the rain. Read Bible till 11pm'ish and fell asleep.

10MAY12
WAKE UP!!! the alarm screams to me. I get my lazy ass up and walked to the nearest tree that needed water'n, even though it was raining...still. Brushed my teeth and went to a mom and pop coffee place. They were just as expensive as Starbucks! and had worse bagels. Went to work and got off at 4pm. Looking up in the sky I saw a blazing ball of fire heading toward earth! oh, the Sun is finally out. Drove to campsite and started a fire and cooked my steak. I dicided if I'm gonna be doing this car camping thing, I might as well video tape it for Youtube. Made intro video. Ate my steak with nothing on the side, but it didn't need anything!. Collected some more wood for the fire. Made video of my hammock and gear.Watched the fire and read the rest of the night. Got visited by Eastern Coyote around 2200hrs. Raccoon walks by sometime after that. Good night to you sir. I walked around to "mark my camp" and went to bed. The night was cold so I put my space blanket in between the bottom layers of my hammock again.

11MAY12
Slept in. Don't have to be at work till 1500. Got up to water the same tree. That tree is getting to much special attention. After wetting the penis I started on the fire.  30 min later I got the fire going. It took me that long because I refused to use my man-made tinder resources. I used the magnifying glass on my Tobacco tin to lite the charcoal. Then gave that CPR till it ignited the tinder bundle of Cedar bark. That's thuja occidentialis in the Latin. By the way, penis is Latin for Pine tree. ha ha.
Made a crane for the SS water bottle and heated up the water for the coffee and oatmeal, I also had mix nutz for breakfast. Read for the rest of the morning. Broke camp around 1100 and went to the house to visit and grab some stuff.

•  bar of soap
• hand towel
•  deodorant
• jute twine

Got to work for the 4pm-midnight shift and after that made camp in the dark and quickly fell asleep.

12MAY13
Spent the day with my son. We went to the beach and climbed the rocks and harassed seagulls. Got alittle sunburn too. Then went to work for the 4pm-midnight shift again. Dinner was tune straight out of the can, yummy. Got off work and made camp, fell right to sleep.

13MAY13
Woke up to alarm again. Went to work at 0730 till 4pm. Lunch was canned tuna again and some mixed nutz. Left there and went home.

14MAY12
Home for 2 days.

15MAY12
Slept in and had breakfast. Nice to have eggs and fresh coffee. Packed up and drove out to Camp Faria for an overnight. Will try and make video for ya.

Stay tuned for more dull adventures of Pilgrims Car Camping!