Sweet Success!

Yesterday, I knocked over four more of my sweet potato sky scrapers. The experiment went well enough for me to know that next year I will do the experiment again. I filled about half a 5 gallon bucket from the tires I have already pulled down with sweet potatoes. From talking to other farmers this year I have learned it was terrible for sweet potatoes. The weather didn't get hot till september and then was only hot for two weeks.
The experiment worked! The sweet potatoes grew the way I wanted them to, up. The only reason I ended up with smaller ones is cause I didn't have enough heat. I need to in the future do the same thing and hope for more heat.

Deep Freezer! Bee Keeper!

I have know for a few weeks that for my birthday I wanted to get money so that I could put it towards a deep freeze. Having a freezer, that I could store a good deal of meat in, could save me a lot of money every year. I looked up deep freezes online, the ones that suited my purposes were about $230. The money I got for my birthday and some extra I had from dog sitting totaled $340 (it was a good year). On Friday, I went pricing deep freezes with Moe and Colin. Dispite Colin's protests hardwears stores are just toy stores for adults. I went to "home depot" and "aplliance mart" that both had units simular to what I had seen online and simular prices. However, at "Lowes" they had almost the exact same unit for $179 even with the 3 year wanrty and taxes it was still $224. I am very happy with my purchas.
I spent the rest of the day Friday and most of Saturday preparing my house for the deep freeze.
My house was built in 1895 and no where is that more apparent than the basement. There are cobwebs down there dating back to the houses construction. Moe and I removed two paper grocery bags worth of dust from the crumbling walls. I could spend another 2 weeks down there cleaning and it would still be a mess, ( I may just do that). That said it does look infinitely better. There is a large hatch in the floor of our back porch with steps that lead to a door in the basement under it. My family and I have never had the hatch open since moving into this house almost 15 years ago. Moe and I got it open and cleaned it out too.
The Freezer was delivered this morning and the workmen took it down that back way. It is now in place in the basement and just needs some palates to stand on and an extension cord to reach the nearest outlet. I just had a really cool moment where I noticed that this dream I have had for a while, owning a deep freeze, is a reality. It was very simple to make that happen too. Now I can keep 7 cubic feet worth of meat. I don't even know that is, but its exciting!
My other big birthday present was a beekeepers hat, gloves, and when it comes into the store, jacket. About half an hour ago I used them to get into one of my hives and put a sugar water feeder on them. I need to do the other one soon but I ran out of sugar.

Gently into That Good Night

On my birthday I went into an isolation tank. I will not talk here about the revelations I had in it or visions I saw. I will instead talk about the more visceral experience of being in that environment. It's an 8x4x4 foot box, sound proof and "light proof." The bottom of this box is filled with about one foot of water with 1000 lbs of Epsom salt dissolved in it. I wore ear plugs cause I didn't want that in my ears. This solution is extremely buoyant, I have never been a "natural floater. " Some people float some sink, I sink. Being able to float in this environment without difficulty was a completely new experience. The thing I did not anticipate was what that would actually feel like. When I sleep on my back I need a firm bed. This is because of several years of slouching before I learned about better posture. On a soft enough mattress I am forced into a "horizontal slouch." In this liquid solution the same thing happened but to an extreme degree. My shoulders rounded forward, putting my neck in a bad place. Also my low back arched in a way it shouldn't, max deadlifting the day before didn't help this situation.  I found if I laced my fingers behind my head the shoulders and neck worked out better, but I could do nothing about the low back. When you have no visual or auditory input you do start thinking about this stuff as much as I am here.
All that said I would like to do it again. I think to do it again I would need to do some serious work. First, I need to start meditating more and working on "letting go." Second I would need to get a massage before going into the tank. However, the kind of massage I would need to be relaxed in that tank is not the kind of massage I really need. The massage I need for the tank is the sort of relaxing rub down that I think I could actually get at a place that calls its self a spa. The massage I need cause of the sort of things I put my body through on a regular basis, is the kind where a big Swedish man named Sven digs elbows into me as I scream. I don't have the money to start doing both of these massages and floating regularly. The third thing I would need to do is find some way to keep my lower back in "the hallow back position." I think if I had a small flotation device I could place under my butt it would do the trick.
Finally, I do think the experience was worth it in the end. I did come to some revelation about what I am doing with my life. Both in my recent past and near future. I came to the conclusion that I am happy with where I am and where I am going. I don't really want to discuss the details of what that means, but I am pretty excited about it.
Namasta Y'all

What has being #Bulletproof done for your sense of purpose in life?

A question that popped up in my Facebook news feed this morning. Most of you know how I eat and live is consistent with "a paleo lifestyle". However, in several ways I adhere to the bulletproof diet and lifestyle as well. Over the past year as I have thought more critically about all the things that I consume. Not just the food I put in my body, but the information I expose myself to, the thoughts I have, the people I surround myself with, even the sun on my skin. As I think about these things more and more I use the approach of Bruce Lee "Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own." If a food or a person in my life is not something that makes me feel more awesome, Then it is removed. The result of this is that 99.9% of the time I feel great. I am happier than I have ever been, I am more productive, I am stronger, I even have better hair. 
The result of this effort is a knowledge that I can accomplish anything. There is nothing I can't do if I set my mind to it. I know that the next few years are going to be hard, possibly the hardest yet. I know that the life that I have ahead of me is going to be nothing like I have imagined or could have imagined a year ago. I know all this, and I say, let's do it!

Milestones.

Today I am reaching a couple of milestones in this blog and in life. I started this blog on my half birthday, March 17th, exactly 6 months ago. That also means its my birthday today, I am turning 25. Which is sort of a big one. This post will also be my 100th post published on this blog. Also, if I am luck, I will crest over 2500 page views today. I would really like that cause I am on a 25 theme today.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time looking at some of the earlier entries in this blog. Trying to see where I had come from in just the last 6 months. Looking back I have achieved a lot. I am eating much more locally than I was then. I have a job, which was a much bigger task than I thought it would be at the time. I was in a class at Columbus State, when I started this blog. I am now finally at a mental place where I have started thinking about going back to school. 

Earlier last week I was starting to get really depressed about my birthday. I tend to do this a lot around my birthday every year, but this duldrom was worse. I was depressed because I am not where I would like to be as a 25 year old man. I am still living with my parents. I have been in school for 6 years with no degree to show for it. However, I think being able to look back over this blog yesterday and today have reinvigorated me. In just the last six months I have accomplished so much. I have become a bee keeper, I have had one successful season in my garden. I have learned a lot and grown a lot and that isn't going to stop. 

I now want to ask you my readers for a birthday present. I want you to share this blog with some one. I am still thinking of trying to hit that 2500 page views. I still need about 80 views to do it. I think its possible to get there by the end of the day, but I need your help!

A Great Plan!

I don't want to do this today. I have been saying for a week now, that though I would fail at my 25th year challenges today, I was going to attempt them. I think that was a younger man's notion. I think that If I were to attempt all those things today I would end up hurt. I think doing that would also result in my being distracted in the isolation tank tomorrow. If the point is not to feel anything in the tank and all I can feel so muscle soreness...
I still have today off from work. I can spend the day on other presuits. It's a wonderful idea to suddenly have nothing planned for myself today. I can't remember the last time I did that. Maybe I will garden, maybe I will go for a long walk, maybe I will spend the day with my girlfriend and her kids, maybe I will spend all day on youtube, or napping. I don't have plans and that is a great plan!

Garden Update 9-14-2013

Today I stopped in my garden to do a little harvest. I got some tomatoes, some dead flowers that I will seed and a butternut squash. I was only down there for a few minutes but it was a good recharge. Reminded me what is important. I want to get in there tomorrow morning and plant a final crop of lettuce.

So much to do so little time

My birthday draws near; I am feeling overwhelmed. I have been working hard to prepare myself for the Sensory Deprivation Tank. I am still doing the sensory deprivation meditation. I didn't try and lucid dream last night. I have not been making sleep a priority. I work everyday between now and my birthday. I have not been concentrated at all on the physical preparation I want to achieve for my birthday. I am complaining. Sorry I will do push ups to repent.

My Journey Inward.

Since I don't have enough on my plate in preparation for my birthday, I am also doing a session in a  sensory deprivation tank on my birthday. I am at the moment only signed up for an hour in the tank. I may change it to an hour and a half appointment, depending on how the preparation goes. Thus far on the internet I have not found much information about how to prepare yourself for the tank. The only thing people seem to say is not to shave before hand cause the salt will irritate the skin. I am, therefore, developing some of my own preparation methods. I am doing three things.
Everyday I am doing a "sensory deprivation meditation" I put on a sleep mask and ear plugs and lay on my bed and try to "let go." Yesterday and today, I got about 30 minutes in before I started feeling anxious and stopped. It's very weird doing this, I seem to go somewhere, but I can't say where. I don't try to go "no mind" or anything. I do sometimes try and visualize something, like walking in nature. For the most part my mind just wanders. Time seems to become non-existent, when I stop and come out of the darkness, I have no idea how much time has passed until I check the clock. It's a very interesting space to enter.
I am also trying to become more familiar with the sensation of floating. I try to take cold baths as often as possible. Yesterday in the bath, I spent most of the time trying to feel normal with earplugs in and my head floating around the level it will be in the tank. I also try and float my arms or legs. I have to do one or the other at a time cause my bath tub is so small.
Finally, I am working on lucid dreaming. There are noortropics out there that are said to enhance lucid dreaming, I am trying to explore everything I can in this realm with out drugs before I venture into the world of noortropics. I am writing before bed (all long hand) preparing my mind for remembering dreams in the night. Then as I lay down to fall asleep I try to focus on remembering my dreams. Then when I wake up I grab the same notebook and as fast as I can write down all that I can remember from my dreams.
I hope that these practices will help me in my adventure inward in the sensory deprivation tank. I will keep you updated.

Goals For My 25th Year.

Today is Tuesday September 10th. One week from my birthday. Every year for the past several years I have set myself a goal to complete on or before the next year’s birthday. When I turned 23 I did a 2300-meter cat crawl. A few months before my 24th birthday I hurt my foot and lost sight of that year’s goal. This past year I wrote down the following goals, Hand-stand press-ups, One arm hand-stand (free standing), Run 5 miles in 30 minutes,  5 minute breath hold, One arm chin-up, Muscle-up. I have achieved none of the goals.

I think my big problem was that I gave myself too much to concentrate on. When I did the 2300-meter cat crawl that was my only goal. For several months that was all I concentrated on. I would crawl home from class everyday. If I crawled to class I would get sweat all over my notes.  I built myself up to crawling 40 minutes or more every day. I crawled so much the school paper wrote an article about me. However, with 6 goals over the past several months I couldn’t concentrate on any one of them hard enough to make a real dent in any of them. I am much fitter now than at this time last year. So, in some ways that is a success. But I have not passed any of my milestones. Over the next week I will focus all my energy on these goals. In a weeks time I will test myself. I know some of them I will not be able to do in that time. However, I will give it a solid try!

Mystery Squash: Solved!

Its late but I need to share. Yesterday I cooked up some of the "mystery butternut squash." I grew this squash from seeds that I harvested from a squash I got in a conventional grocery store. One of the other plants from that same batch of seeds grew this little green pumpkin looking gourd. The other plants that came out of this have all been growing things that look like butternut squash. I have been worried though that they would look like butternut, but taste like an old shoe. However, yesterday I made some into squash fries, cut into long wedges and fried in oil. They were delicious. I am so excited I saved more seeds from this new squash so next year I can have another fun guessing game.

Sprinting For Ice Cream

This ice cream recipe is adapted from Dave Aspery's "Get Some Ice Cream."
Ingredient
1 tbs MCT oil
1 tbs coconut oil
3 tbs butter
1 raw egg
1 tbs coco powder
1 tbs honey
1/4 tbs cinnamon
1/4 tbs Cayenne powder (if you are into that sort of thing)
a few drops of apple cider vinegar.
Just enough water to fill in the cracks around all this stuff once in the blender
Combine all ingredients into a blender. I use an immersion blender, but a full sized one would work much better.
Blend until smooth. Then pour mixture into a small jar with a lid that seals tight. Place that jar in a gallon ziplock with a bunch of ice and about 1/2 tbs salt.
Ok, this is the fun part!
place that whole thing in a backpack. Put the back pack on. Go out side and do sprints. Ideally 30 seconds on (as fast as you can) 30 seconds off. For total ten minutes sprinting. Should be about 20 minutes of work.
Enjoy the bounty of your labor. You have earned it.