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Since we aren’t naturally born with all the knowledge (and experience) we’ll ever need, we have to learn. Hopefully we are learning something new everyday, whether it’s something we are interested in for ourselves, or something we have to learn for work or our lives, learning is one of the cornerstones of what makes us human.

We used to do much of our learning by reading, going to the library was one of my very special treats, I loved reading, I still do, but today I read much more digital (and audio based) content. Books are a huge source of knowledge, you can still go to the library and find a wealth of information sitting on those dusty shelves. Presumably you even own some books yourself, these are great backups as there is always the chance that an EMP, whether natural or man made, could wipe out our digital sources of knowledge.

Speaking of digital, with the internet, places like YouTube, Instructables, eHow and the such, you can research and learn just about anything you are interested in. I personally find YouTube to be a huge source of information for me, from art related, crafts, DIY, building, cooking, the list I could make would practically be endless. When I needed to do some work on my tablet, an item that is not supposed to have end-user changeable parts, I went to YouTube and found out that first, I can change out these parts, and second, how to do it. This completely free source of information saved me from having to buy a new tablet, saved me money and time. For just a few dollars, I was able to fix the problem and I was able to see HOW to do it.

Just go to YouTube, you don’t HAVE to have an account with them, but it makes things much easier since you can “like” and save videos as well as subscribe to channels you enjoy. Go there and do a search for the subject you are wanting to learn about. There are many ways to filter your search, some of my most used filters are by date and length. Don’t forget you can also include negative search terms, that is simply inserting the minus sign then the word (without a space between the minus sign and the word), use words you do not want to show up in your search term, for example, if I wanted to look up dog videos, but didn’t want puppy videos, I could do a search for “dog -puppy”…

Now go through the search results, I personally prefer right clicking on the video in the list and opening in a new tab, that way I can just close the new tab and immediately go back to the search list without having to wait for the search to happen again, I can also open …

We had our first wood fire this evening, it’s not really cold, not as cold as it will get, but it was one of those chilly, grey, damp, rainy days that just begged for a nice wood fire. Of course there is the fantasy of sitting in front of a nice toasty wood fire and the reality of having to clean off a summer’s worth of junk, dust and dog hair from the wood stove, none of which smell very good when they get hot :)

Once I had it all cleared off, I almost didn’t want the fire anymore, but it didn’t take much cajoling to get PB to go outside and grab a few pieces of damp wood, almost too damp to burn. A handful of paper trash later and we had a nice toasty small fire going, it was nice to hear the crackle of the flames and smell of the burning wood.

The wood stove is now nicely warm as I sit in my winter configuration, having my laptop inside the SkyCastle, at the table, just behind the wood stove. I’m looking forward to not fighting the bugs that are attracted to the light of my laptop, not worrying about what may climb up my leg outside.

PB has been working on updating the kitchen. Earlier this summer, one of our neighbors gave us an interesting stove/oven that came out of an RV. It’s the same size as the blue one I’ve used from the beginning, but instead of a turquoise blue, it’s a dark cherry red, I tried to find another one like it online, but couldn’t find another in the same color, rare. We have spent the summer wondering which one to keep inside and which one to leave outside for the outdoor kitchen area. PB decided on a third option, keeping them both inside.

I wasn’t sure I liked that idea, that meant having to lose some of my precious storage, and honestly I don’t see myself cooking on BOTH at the same time. I wanted the red one inside. But once PB got everything mocked up, the two stoves side by side look pretty sharp. I also like the arrangement of the burners on top, the blue one has 2 burners in front and 1 in back, the red one has 1 in front and 2 in back, they look like they were made for each other.

The red one has a thermostat for the oven, something the blue one doesn’t have, though I have been able to cook and bake in it just fine, having a thermostat will come in handy. I did lose some of my storage, but I think I’ll be able to live with it, things have been condensed in another area and will probably end up working better. PB is planning on building a vent-a-hood over the …

I love looking at alternative type housing, even if it’s a bit of a fantasy, I do live in a SkyCastle after all :) I watched this video a few days ago in pure fascination. I was a bit disappointed to discover it’s really the set from one of the Hobbit movies, I am glad it was saved from destruction and is being kept around as a tourist attraction.

I do know there are those who do live this way, people with whimsical ideas about how to live, those who don’t listen to what polite society has to say about how to live.

Watch this short video and tell me you wouldn’t want to live like this :)

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Sometimes, you just have to shut up and let the photos do the talking :)

This is how the SkyCastle looks currently.

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The following pictures are PB’s version of photoshop, trying to decide how to make the SkyCastle look…

I think I prefer the old shield we had, will have to talk to PB about this :)

Some of my photography

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Fear (from Google)
noun: fear; plural noun: fears

1.
an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.
“drivers are threatening to quit their jobs in fear after a cabby’s murder”
synonyms: terror, fright, fearfulness, horror, alarm, panic, agitation, trepidation, dread, consternation, dismay, distress; anxiety, worry, angst, unease, uneasiness, apprehension, apprehensiveness, nervousness, nerves, perturbation, foreboding;
informal the creeps, the shivers, the willies, the heebie-jeebies, jitteriness, twitchiness, butterflies (in the stomach)
“he felt fear at entering the house”
phobia, aversion, antipathy, dread, bugbear, nightmare, horror, terror;
anxiety, neurosis;

verb: fear; 3rd person present: fears; past tense: feared; past participle: feared; gerund or present participle: fearing

1.
be afraid of (someone or something) as likely to be dangerous, painful, or threatening.
“he said he didn’t care about life so why should he fear death?”
synonyms: be afraid of, be fearful of, be scared of, be apprehensive of, dread, live in fear of, be terrified of; be anxious about, worry about, feel apprehensive about
“she feared her husband”
have a phobia about, have a horror of, take fright at
“he fears heights”

Fear is a natural reaction to things that could cause us harm, it is perfectly normal and necessary, without it, many of us wouldn’t be here reading this today. But all too often, we allow fear to rule our lives, we let fear hold us back from living our dreams, it’s the “what if” syndrome, the biggest one being “what if I fail?” or even worse, the fear of succeeding… yes that can be a fear as well.

PB and I have lived off-grid since Dec ’07, we are still here, living and loving our life. Not all of it was an easy ride, but we are still going forward, making things better and better, still very much on a budget. It was scary to walk away from our previous lives, previous jobs, friends and family to move some 500 miles to the west, to an area where we knew no one and nothing lined up except the raw property and a dream.

We could have allowed our fear to freeze us in place where we used to live, I shudder to think of how we would be living if we were still there, we could have taken the “safe” route, we could have done things much slower, but we wouldn’t be where we are now if we had done that.

Our only path was forward, we had to let go of our old life to start our new one.

What is your dream? I hear and read people bemoaning their current life, wishing to live a different one, yet not taking the steps necessary to move toward their dream. What is holding you back? Are you waiting for someone or something to change? Why not be the change? …