Glimpses of the Future

It is ironic that I am using this language since I am a professional Psychic Tarot Reader online and off. I look into the future on a retail,personal level rather than the larger,wholesale trends I will be discussing.

My girlfriend's furnace quit on her after about 30 years of work. It only needs a thermocouple to get it to work again, but she refuses to buy one since she is taking the entire furnace out and replacing it with a newer,high efficient one. The furnace quit while we had a warm period in the spring and the temperature has not gone below freezing, but we had a cold snap and the house was cold (and still is as we speak). She dealt with this by wearing more clothes indoors and she spent more time at friend's houses that had heat and would use my little electric heater in the bathroom when she wanted to take a bath or shower. She has several blankets on her bed and uses an electric blanket to warm it up before she goes to sleep. She is saving some money on her gas bill but she also says she does not want to do anything around the house since it is so cold. She has been doing a lot of baking to heat up the house. This week it is supposed to be getting warmer, so it will not be as much of an issue.

That got me thinking about what we will be doing this winter or next when we can not afford the gas to heat our homes. My main concern is to make sure my pipes do not freeze. I have heating strips plugged in to help and I did not have a problem this year. I am building a candle driven heater using stacked ceramic pots, small to large to sit suspended above the candle and radiate the heat outward. I have created Huri-Can Candles that can be lit and provide emergency heat and light. These are only short term solutions but they are better than nothing. My personal long term solution is to move to a farm in less than 5 years. The farm I want will have some wooded area and I will also be growing hemp. Hemp hurds make excellent fuel in corn stoves. The other change I will make is to have composting toilets so that will cut down on the amount of water being consumed. Less pipes means less worries of burst pipes.

If I need to build the house from scratch it will be a passive solar and be fairly small. I will have a large building that will house some animals a forge/workshop an area for canning and dealing with the harvest and an area just for bikes and bike parts. The entire site will be off grid and as self supporting as possible.

That is a longer glimpse into my future. What will be happening in the short term? My guess is that many people will be found dead due to doing something stupid like using a BBQ in the house and not let any air in to try and heat the house. Others may burn the house down doing something stupid trying to keep warm. Many will ruin their stove by turning it on and leaving the oven door open. The thermostat will not work properly after that kind of abuse. Other will end up with huge electric bills since the only form of heat for them will be electric. That will put pressure on the grid in 2 ways. If these people have these huge bills they can not pay,they will end up defaulting and the other users will have to pay the price. That is one of the main reasons why I want to get off grid. Then there will be the people found dead due to freezing. Another aspect of this is friends will be moving in with other friends to cut expenses or family moving back together. Abuse, Incest, Malnutrition and rage murders will go up. On the positive side families, neighbours and communities will learn to live together again. Many people will be forced to walk or ride bikes that will do them some good. For others who are not in any shape will not be able to get around. Again many will die of over exertion. Crime will increase due to desperation.

Am I painting a bleak picture. Yes! I am sugar coating what I am really seeing. I am purposely minimizing how bad it is going to be since panic and fear are not going to help the situation. You need to be warned but also you need to prepare NOW!

Let me know what you are doing to prep, short term and long term.

Michael J. Kaer – copyright 2008

mikesworms.com, mjk-private-income.com, myhemp.blogspot.com

and survival-list.blogspot.com

More about Pop Bottles

I did an experiment to see if I could make a solar still from a clear bottle with 1/2 covered in the back with mylar and a hole in the cap and a tube running to a new bottle the is shaded. I was hoping the mylar would act like a concentrator and heat the water enough to get it to evapourate and the shaded bottle would be cool enough to catch the drops. My experiment is a partial failure. I did not get it to do what I wanted it to do, but I may still be able to use the bottle( at least 1/2 of it) to see if the mylar can produce a concentration of the sun to heat something up. The shape of the bottle is round, so if I cut it in half I should have 2 areas where the sun is concentratedabove them or in front of them, depending on the angle of the sun. Another idea is to use it to heat copper tubes by cutting a hole in the bottom and placing a string of them on the tube and connecting the tubes to produce heated air. If the tube fits the hole enough to seal (almost) you should get a build up of hot air in the bottle (like a greenhouse) that should heat up the tube and heat the air in the tube. Those are two experiments that I can do very cheaply. The bottles are free for the most part and the shiny mylar was from a pack of cookies. A bit of tape to keep it in place and I was done. The copper tubeing will not be cheap, but I have a few bits and pieces laying around, big enough to do this experiment. I will let you know how it goes.

Michael J. Kaer, copyright 2008