Acala
Member
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2008
- Messages
- 13,421
Hey!
Way back, I started looking around at how I was going to survive when the inflationary depression hits and the food trucks stop coming to town. In a nutshell, I decided that the key in my particular neck o' the woods was the ability to harvest and process native food plants that nobody else would have the equipment or knowledge to use. That meant, among other things, acquiring a mill to grind mesquite pods into flour. Mesquite flour is nutritious and tasty and the trees they grow on are very common. BUT the seeds are hard. REAL hard. The natives of the region essentially used large tree branches to smash the pods in depressions in boulders. Hard work. Too hard.
So I bought a hammer mill and a 12hp diesel engine to power it. It has taken me a long time to finally get around to completing the project (had to get the rainwater harvesting system running first - water takes priority over food). But I finally got it running and ground my first batch of mesquite pods.
Works GREAT! The mill makes nice flour and operates very efficiently. I estimate I could grind a year's supply of flour in a day or less. I took mesquite flour muffins to Thanksgiving!
I figure I will be able to grind mesquite and other crops for the locals in exchange for a percentage of their harvest. Or a little silver.
The next step is to get my seed oil press up and running. With it I will be able to press oil out of local wild and cultivated seeds crops and use that oil to run the diesel engine. That takes my food production totally off grid.
Down the road a bit I will consider ethanol production and wood gas for fueling internal combusion engines in vehicles and to run a generator.
I have been pretty sure of my plans all along. But I must admit that producing that first bag of tasty flour helped dispel that nagging thought in the back of my mind that I might be crazy.
Of course I still MIGHT be crazy. But I won't be hungry and crazy.
Way back, I started looking around at how I was going to survive when the inflationary depression hits and the food trucks stop coming to town. In a nutshell, I decided that the key in my particular neck o' the woods was the ability to harvest and process native food plants that nobody else would have the equipment or knowledge to use. That meant, among other things, acquiring a mill to grind mesquite pods into flour. Mesquite flour is nutritious and tasty and the trees they grow on are very common. BUT the seeds are hard. REAL hard. The natives of the region essentially used large tree branches to smash the pods in depressions in boulders. Hard work. Too hard.
So I bought a hammer mill and a 12hp diesel engine to power it. It has taken me a long time to finally get around to completing the project (had to get the rainwater harvesting system running first - water takes priority over food). But I finally got it running and ground my first batch of mesquite pods.
Works GREAT! The mill makes nice flour and operates very efficiently. I estimate I could grind a year's supply of flour in a day or less. I took mesquite flour muffins to Thanksgiving!
I figure I will be able to grind mesquite and other crops for the locals in exchange for a percentage of their harvest. Or a little silver.
The next step is to get my seed oil press up and running. With it I will be able to press oil out of local wild and cultivated seeds crops and use that oil to run the diesel engine. That takes my food production totally off grid.
Down the road a bit I will consider ethanol production and wood gas for fueling internal combusion engines in vehicles and to run a generator.
I have been pretty sure of my plans all along. But I must admit that producing that first bag of tasty flour helped dispel that nagging thought in the back of my mind that I might be crazy.
Of course I still MIGHT be crazy. But I won't be hungry and crazy.
