Okay, just got done with the journey today. Got the cuvlert and spotted the appropriate structure for a storm shelter and found a good priced steel trash can from Home Depot. Turns out that Home Depot and Lowe's stock the fruit trees in these parts, and it seems they stock the ones that will grow in this area. The citrus trees (Lime, lemon, orange and
komquat) looked like the most green and luscious fruit trees there. Those and some tropical fruits would definitely give my backyard a very green and luscious feel.
It became kind of obvious to me that Conroe, TX is my "local" home-depot/lowe's connection. It's the "easiest"/"nicest" ones to get to anyway. (Get to drive by a lake, lol.)
But, I can always head into Egypt, TX during an HEB shopping day.
Also stopped by the "Urban Harvest" fruit tree sales. Apparently the trees left are the "leftovers" (Didn't see limes here but I did see a ice cream banana plant.) and the main event is in January. Kind of piddling selection compared to Home depot/Lowes, but there /was/ an ice cream banana plant - that's the banana plant that fast-growing-trees ran out of. Anyway, talked to this one vendor there of fruit trees, and I told him I won't be ready to buy trees until I get my backyard prepared, so I wanted to know if there was a place I could pick it up from, and he declined. Oh man, he's shamed of his property. Jeez, if only he knew what my property currently looked like, lol. [But, that's changing, yes.]
Looks like Home-Depot/Lowes/HEB are the local fruit trees vendors for me at this point. I'll probably import the more tropical ones from online somewhere (Macadamia,etc.).
Limes/Lemons/Oranges from Lowes/HEB, tropical snow peaches from HEB, and then possibly an apple tree. But... I don't know...
Have to call around to find out who vends Banana Ice Cream plants. Got the name of the wholesalers from the urban harvest event (Dave Wilson's nursery and Brazos Citrus), so I have to give them a ring and find out their retailers.
Also, it seems like Lowes or Home depot carries Burpee's seeds at a fairly good price, cheaper than Fedco and HEB. Burpee is one of the popular "mainstream" seed vendors online. Might get my seeds from here, but I want some particular watermelon varieties from Fedco. [This Dallas guy found out that the secret to growing watermelons is that they need an arrangement that allows them access to ample water (I'm kinding of thinking... that makes sense...yes, lol.); for "well drained dry soil", like that of Dallas, that means a depression in the ground. For some place like here, I'm guessing that means they don't need any special treatment, lol. (Maybe I'll need a mound; should look it up. There's plenty of "How to grow X in Houston" online, youtube and the such.)
Anyway, while driving around Houston (Gosh, I can't stand the highway within a 20-25 mile radius of houston center, at least not on the W/NW side. The stop-and-go environment is silly nuts.), I thought houston looked a lot like Full Metal Jacket depictions of Vietnam, lol, with the long green grass everywhere and the way the architecture looked. Maybe there's a lot of vietnamese shop owners here; I know there's a lot of vietnamese in China Town. Not that the "nice parts" of Houston looked like that, but just about everywhere but the nice parts, lol.
Where is vietnam anyway?
Looks like Hanoi, the capital, is around 21 degrees N. With Houston at 29.5 degrees N, that's very close, so that explains it, lol.
And Tokyo is 35.5 degrees N. Oh, Houston is more 'tropical' than most of Japan (I bet that Japan doesn't get arctic blasts during the winter.). I guess with Japan's 'island' nature, they don't have the kind of winter climate the inner parts of the USA have at 36 degrees N, so that explains the difference.
Anyway... step by step.... What I need to do...
1) Dig up a place to install the culvert. [Btw, if one decides to put a culvert in the van, make sure it's secured down. Someone suddenly stopped, I braked and the culvert turned into a huge missile that slammed into my windshield and gave it a nice spiderweb crack, oh man, lol. Oh well, I didn't buy this vehicle for its resale value, I bought it because of its workhorse/cargo capabilities that should last for at least another 2 years or so.]
2) Install culvert
3) Remove the tree stumps and topsoil for the rest of the driveway (making it a little longer than originally planned).
3)Get a dumptruck delivery of red clay.
4) Create the driveway from the red clay and also create a pad for the shed. [Install RV shortly after]
5) Empty what I have to from the van into the RV (temporarily), get a can and purchase some suitable soil to put onto the red clay base for the shed. (Gravel?) (Or maybe I don't need anything special with the "foundation" kit that comes with the shed. I'll find out eventually.)
6) Buy and install the shed. Start storing in the shed.
6) Get some trash cans and put into the van, with the recovered room in my van.
7) Purchase and place bull/septic(1"-2" stones) rock at the mouth of the culvert to protect against erosion.
8) Purchase crushed-concrete/crushed-granite and install for the driveable portion of the driveway (For parking the van). (I might delay the situating of the RV until here.)
And, the other high priority item that needs to get done soon is the storm shelter. I think I'll crystallize the plans today and hopefully get it executed tomorrow or "soon". Seems like the 66 gallon trash cans suffice and the 96 gallon trash can looks ideal. Also trying to come up with a workable idea for the 8x16" cement blocks. I can imagine putting the cement blocks so that it protects a prone position, but I'm not quite sure what to put inside the void to keep it isolated from the ground/bugs/rotten-leaves/dirt. It doesn't seem like "body buckets" are particularly common, and putting in a bathtub seems kind of ridiculous.
I keep reading about this "Squirrels/birds love the fruit". If my backyard attracts a lot of those suckers, I'm going to have some fun honing in my shooting skills, lol. I've heard laying fishing line across the yard is effective for protecting the chickens from hawks. I've been seeing a few hawks flying around here. It makes sense, since I've seen rabbits jumping around the forest here. I'm thinking hawks hunt rabbits.
I've been eyeballing this airgun shotgun. But, I probably wouldn't want to be using my shotgun in the garden, lol. (But, up in the air, fair game. An effective range of 20 yards though... 60 feet.... back yard is 100 feet long... hmm.... probably want to stick to my rifle. And no "up in the air" pidgeon shooting, I guess. I definitely wouldn't use a regular shotgun in these parts, lol.
Okay, if I were to surmise the main shopping demographics of people in "these parts", I'd guess a combination of medical/guns/cars. Seeing lots of armories, seeing lots of car-repair/detail/paint shops, and plenty of specialized medical facilities (Vision,etc.). I think houston "proper" is a little different. Standard wide array of city stores.
Update: Thought about it, I'll probably just temporarily empty the van into the RV, get a few trashcans and pick up the rocks. The shed will come after I get everything on the property, getting the RV on the property is a somewhat higher priority.
And, still need to figure out that storm shelter. Gahhh... and a thunderstorm coming monday... "A few may be severe", goddamn.
Man, that last tornado storm was /way/ more severe than the typical rainstorm here. The typical one is "pitter patter pitter patter", that was like a constant torrent like a waterfall was falling on my RV or something, lol. And, do I want to bet my phone picks up NOAA weather alerts? lol. I got an app, and it says it "pushes a message thru the messenger" when an alert comes through, lol. No, I want that thing to blare like a foghorn, lol. But, I honestly don't know what it will do, because I haven't tested it out on a real storm. And, I don't really want to test it out should it 'fail' during a serious storm, lol.
The girl interviewed down in SW houston said she got an tornado warning alert on her phone several minutes before the tornado took out her home. I want to make sure I get those alerts before I get a tornado, lol.
Ok, think I have the design down.
It goes like...
-Attach some kind of base at the bottom of the han making sure it is secure.
-Create hole slightly wider than the can.
-Place can inside the hole.
-Lay heavy material surrounding the can down onto the base, thus securing the can in the ground. {Necessary in this area because water will start filling the void, causing the can to lift up.) Perhaps, the material just excavated to create the hole.
So, just need to find a suitable can and a way to attach a base securely to it. I could probably get away with not having a base attached as long as the void is filled in.
Anyway, would probably want to add a vent to the can. And would probably want to ensure water didn't leak in. And, make the lid securable from the inside. Don't want a tornado ripping the lid off and sucking me out, lol. (Not that I think it would, but I don't want to find out, either, lol.)
Now I need to figure out what personal defense firearm I should get.
I think I'm working with hostile neighbors here. Aggressive dog breed choices, aggressive dog leash policy (or lack thereof), aggressive incursions into the immediate area with repeated firearm shooting. Granted, I'm thinking, "Well, maybe he's hunting at dusk. Seems like it's common enough.", but why the hell would he have been venturing into my area 2x, within the span of 3 days, with all the forest out there?
So, debating a defense firearm. Thinking maybe an Ak-47. Or maybe AR-15.
Everytime he lets one loose in the immediate area, get my ak47, empty a clip, and run out towards the back and reload. Sometimes I forget, I'm in Somalia! lol
Oh, 30 round clips. Well, emptying a clip would probably be a little foolish, lol.
Anyway, I found an article that was talking about "The one food you can live indefinitely off of", and they stated milk. Then mammal mlik was a close second.
Ummm... hey... I have an idea... what about egg whites? Because... egg whites are all the nutrition a little birdie gets in the egg, so obviously it's enough to keep it alive. It's a harder connection to justify the same for human consuming it(A bird's nutrient requirements might be different than a mammal's), but I think it's pretty compelling, especially since those people who've lived to 120 or so apparently lived off of raw eggs and chicken, little else. Makes me think eggs have "all that you need" (Well, you could supplement with a little salt.)
Oh, and if the cheese's lack of affect on serum cholesterol wasn't compelling enough to prove that dietary cholesterol doesn't drive serum cholesterol, here's one more study, except it's about eggs, which are high in cholesterol.
The Framingham Study has investigated the effect of host and environmental factors on the development of coronary heart disease since 1949. Serum cholesterol level was determined to the one of the risk factors for coronary heart disease. The nutrient intake, in a subsample of the study population, was determined in 1957. A review of this material has permitted an estimate of egg consumption on each of 912 subjects. The serum cholesterol distribution curves of the subjects according to tertile of egg intake were almost identical, and no relationship between egg intake and coronary heart disease incidence was found. It is concluded that within the range of egg intake of this population differences in egg consumption were unrelated to blood cholesterol level or to coronary heart disease incidence.
See, no relationship between cholesterol consumed and cholesterol levels(serum cholesterol).
What was cholesterol caused by?
Well... let's see... I thought I knew this not too long ago... but I think I have two different theories on this now.
-The liver produces cholesterol as an end byproduct of galactose/fructose metabolism.
-Bacteria drives LDL cholesterol levels, and thus cholesterol.
So, to figure out which one was the likely candidate... I googled apples and cholesterol.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23271615
he intervention significantly affected serum total and LDL-cholesterol. Trends towards a lower serum LDL-concentration were observed after whole apple (6.7%), pomace (7.9%) and cloudy juice (2.2%) intake. On the other hand, LDL-cholesterol concentrations increased by 6.9% with clear juice compared to whole apples and pomace. There was no effect on HDL-cholesterol, TAG, weight, waist-to-hip ratio, blood pressure, inflammation (hs-CRP), composition of the gut microbiota or markers of glucose metabolism (insulin, IGF1 and IGFBP3).
This result strongly suggests that bacteria, not necessarily fructose consumption from whole fruits(But definitely consumption from processed foods, including juices), drives LDL cholesterol. If bacteria causes liver disease... and the liver produces cholesterol... I wonder... if the bacteria somehow causes the liver to produce LDL cholesterol? I don't know how, but it seems plausible.
This research also suggests that whatever "whole apple" they used in this research had strong antibacterial properties.
To get my sodium intake normal again, I decided to eat 2 cans of vegetables a day, about 2000 mg of sodium. I picked up a bunch of libby french green beans for 60 cents each (I cleared them out), a steal.
The idea that bacteria causes heart disease and liver disease just seems so straightforward. Bacteria causes disease, right? That's like the definition of disease, I think.
Seems these guys are starting to figure out that bacteria causes diabetes. Granted, they haven't figured out the bacteria->immune system->cortisol->diabetes connection like I have, but they
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170217161013.htm
The community of microorganisms that resides in the gut, known as the microbiome, has been shown to work in tandem with the genes of a host organism to regulate insulin secretion, a key variable in the onset of the metabolic disease diabetes.
They figure it's some complicated mystery of genes/insulin-regulation interplay they just have to apply their genius superbrains to figure out... when the truth is much simpler.
And, am I just about to pull an einstein quote? lol.
Einstein said:
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.