On Narrow Pond in Ant Village

Nicole Alderman wrote:I think the Boot to Ant or Deep Roots is a big improvement on Ant Village. It allows people to get a feel for Paul's personality and management style before they commit. And more importantly, it also allows people who don't have the skills to build a house or rocket stove, etc, the opportunity to learn those skills. I know I couldn't build a house right now. But, I think I would learn a LOT through Bootcamp that would teach me how to do just that, especially if I did the SKIP and Permaculture Design Course and Permaculture Technology Jamboree, that you can do as a work-trade through Bootcamp. There's a lot of opportunities for people to gain the skills they need. And, there's a huge opportunity for someone like Orin who's already got a bunch of skills to get an acre of land without any money spent.

Bootcamp isn't an option for me--we already have property and kids and are pretty well rooted. But, I really think it's a great opportunity for many people!

Bootcamp IMO is going to be a much more impactful thing. People are more likely to learn more, and move on when the time is right for them, either to a longer term Lab opportunity, or elsewhere. Kind of like WWOOFing on steroids. Would have found it pretty tempting if it was around when I was still drifting.

And, things are getting done on long term projects managed by long term people; as we've just read, it sounds like a large portion of the hard work done by the first-gen ants is pretty well wasted, for a variety of reasons.



And ya, hopefully a byproduct of a successful boot-stream is a trickle of ants, skilled up and pre-calibrated to withstand the lab/paul environs.. A village needs villagers!

D Nikolls wrote:
...Neat to hear about how things have aged. The village seemed like it was off to a great start when I saw it in 2015, but man, community is hard.. getting set up fast enough to overwinter is hard... and the assorted Paul Rules definitely add to the challenge!

If I remember correctly, one of the previous ants had hand-drilled a well; what became of this?

Good luck!

The assorted rules from Paul are about creating a place of environmental purity; since the current mainstream culture uses toxic materials and crazy high energy manufacturing materials like concrete to build with, yes, those rules require a person to be clever to address the needs the lack of those toxic materials present. For those who see no harm in poison building materials, it really goes against the grain not to be able to use plywood for those people with that mind set. Many of the previous inhabitants of Ant Village were clever enough to build within those purity guidelines; the person who built Hilly Billy Mansion failed to, in spite of being capable of doing slip straw. There are other rules too about community which I have no intent of discussing with the general permies. Obviously, I like Paul's general view of community otherwise I wouldn't have put four months of work in the Boot Camp in.

There are two hand drilled wells on Upper Wheaton Labs. The most successful one was modded which caused issues by a person who is no longer here. Fred, Josiah, and Jen were looking to get a bit of water out of that one but haven't gotten it working yet (more of a lack of funds than a lack of knowing what to do). This well, if working, is much too far from On Narrow Pond. This well seems to provide a gallon or two per hour. Notice I typed "per hour" and not per minute.

The second one doesn't work at all; there seems to be a plug down the water pipe or clay/silt has plugged it up.  When it did work, it only provided a gallon or maybe two for every quart that was used to prime it. Given the second well can only give about a gallon or so when it did work, it is only good for drinking water (assuming the water was drinking quality) for one person really. Notice I typed "per quart" and not per hour. It could be the water table has dropped below the second well's depth.

D Nikolls wrote:....
And, things are getting done on long term projects managed by long term people; as we've just read, it sounds like a large portion of the hard work done by the first-gen ants is pretty well wasted, for a variety of reasons.

And ya, hopefully a byproduct of a successful boot-stream is a trickle of ants, skilled up and pre-calibrated to withstand the lab/paul environs.. A village needs villagers!

IMO the work done by Evan and Kai is wasn't wasted. A person moving on to that lot will have some perennials already growing on earthworks that really seem to be more green than places without the hugels. Evan's structure, while small and not rodent proof, with a few modifications in the short summer would be a great place to overwinter the first three winters. While I really like the skill that Kai put into his building and his roof water collection, his building is just too small for a Montana winter. Both Evan and Kai wintered outside in tents, so they really did see buildings as just a place to sleep and the outdoors as their living room and kitchen even in winter.

I'm not sure about Jesse's structure. It wasn't solar south oriented (none of the Ant's buildings were, I suspect magnetic south was used instead). I'm also not sure about his earthworks to shed water away from his structure because I've never seen the kind of water run off Kai and Evan saw on Upper Wheaton Labs. The spring I witnessed didn't even have the creek flowing a little through Ant Village; I suspect the clear cut forest above Wheaton Labs had something to do with that.

Return To Ant Village

just finding tools and getting organized...

assembled a gorrilla cart;
assembled a 400W solar system except for one missing 1/4" stud connector.

...will get missing connector tomorrow; test 400W solar system; charge a few items; and maybe test the slow well solar pump.