SHEP – As Good As Wooffing, Or Maybe Even Better?

in shep-heard •  7 years ago 
My name is David, and I’ve been a traveler for most of my life. At some points I’ve stayed at places longer than at others, even long enough to set up a sort-of homestead. But ultimately, I’ve been constantly on the move, if not physically, in thought and spirit for sure. Traveling opens up the mind, you constantly learn new things, and it exposes you to many wonderful opportunities to exchange goods, services, and information with others.

At the moment I am staying in Victoria, BC volunteering at a bike-shop. I will be here until May. Then I’m going up island to my friend’s property who’s building an Earthship home, and I will be  helping with that build over the Summer. This project is well prepared, so for the coming four months my plans are pretty set. I’m excited about the learning experiences, and I’m looking forward to getting to know and making connections with other volunteers.

Once September rolls around, I’ll be moving on as well. My plan is to bike down the Pacific Coast towards the US and Mexico. I’ll be moving slowly (at bicycle pace) with the objective to see beautiful places, meet lovely people, and during this time I’m open to helping out with any projects that may come my way. The only restriction I have (this time around) is that I should leave the US by the end of November. But I live in Mexico, so should we really connect, I can always come back again! 

Why I want to help? Because I believe that with the food, lodging, practical experience, and personal connections, I am getting much more in return than the time, skills, and energy I offer. What I do is the more complicated question. I love nature, wilderness as well as domesticated nature. All aspects of farming and gardening have always caused me great pleasure, especially the ones that are in accordance to the principles of Permaculture. 

My personal passion is composting, especially vermicomposting, including urban wormbins and treatment of humanure (wet and dry). I also enjoy construction projects of all kinds, especially the sustainable types, such as cob, straw-bale, earthship, yurt etc. Plus, I’m a big fan of probiotics, such as kefir, kombucha, tibicos, and spirulina, all of which I have grown and turned into delicious foods and drinks. Please feel free to visit the links to my previous posts to these activities I am passionate about. 

However, I wouldn’t mind doing something that I haven’t done at all, to be exposed to new skills, knowledge and understanding. Generally I like to work together with someone, not only for the exchange of information, but for company in general. Though it all depends: give me something to do that’s straight forward, or something that I can do by myself, and I can get it done without anyone hanging around. I am physically and mentally fit, don’t have any restrictions on the type of work I can do, though I like to stay out of hazardous situations. I am a complete omnivore, and always enjoy trying new tastes. My health insurance is valid for the rest of the year, and gives me coverage in all of the world. 

You can contact me here, on Discord, or should I fail to notice, send me an e-mail at [email protected]. I’m curious to get to know your place, and if we connect in place, time, and interests, I’m super excited to make my way to your place. Hopefully, with S-H-E-P we can connect and make it possible!

Please check out these great communities I'm contributing to: 


#homesteadersonline | Website | Discord Community

#ecotrain | What is EcoTrain | Discord Community

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Fantastic! Love to see a fellow traveler’s soul shining 🌞 sounds like you have a wonderful, connected, adventurous year ahead!! Disfrutaté!

Thank you so much! I wish you the same, as I can see that you are doing pretty much the same thing: traveling and staying in places in between, doing awesome things!

I agree!!! So kewl brother! Vermiculture dork here!!! We eat fruit, we feed worms, we fling poo!!! That's our motto! Love all the wonderful pics your shared. I look forward to following your adventures!!!

Thank you so much! I love getting these kinds of comments, especially form fellow poo-flingers. :-) As you'd probably guess, the pics were accumulated over a number of years. And my adventures.... well, they'll take some time as well. For example, today's plan was to witness bike-polo, which I was gonna write about tomorrow. But the weather cut across it, so it'll have to wait another week. But that's how it is. Thanks for bearing with me. Much appreciated!

Nice skillset my friend. Your way of life is my dream and your generosity is to strive for. We need a few more like you in this world, brother...

Thanks @notconvinced. I sure hope to expand on my skillset. For example your autonomous electrical skills would be nice. But we'll get there...

From what I get from your blogs, you will never stop learning new skills. The internet is a great resource for that.

You live a life to envy. To help give your post more exposure and to keep it fresh in the feeds, @shep will reblog this, this afternnoon, @notconvinced will reblog it tomorrow morning and I will reblog it tomorrow afternoon.

I wish you happiness, good health and the best of luck in your travels, brother.

Thank you! That's a great idea: reblogging things at different times. More exposure, I guess.

Very cool! Never felt lonely in your journey?

Loneliness (and the lack thereof) comes from within. I have wonderful friends and family all over the world that I keep in touch with in various ways, and there are wonderful people surrounding me wherever I go. Plus, I'm not constantly on the road. Last year for example I stayed at home with my wife all year. And honestly, you can feel pretty lonely being pressed together into a metro-train with hundreds of other commuters. So no, I don't feel more lonely than when I'm "at home".

Lol, exactly what I was going to reply about New York City for example... I think it's one of those places where ypu can find some of the loneliest people on earth! Wild stuff.

Awesome post and so happy to see the @s-h-e-p community being used! Many blessings on finding fantastic connections. We’ve resteemed you @the-hearth, @mountainjewel’s earth-centered creation account.

Happy Journeys!

Thank you for resteeming! :-)

What a great way to live, learning so much and getting to meet amazing people and be inspired. I do like to move myself, for me it is where most of my valuable learning had come from and it is definitely very important for my kids. I wish you a lot of luck on your future travels.

Thank you very much! Wishing you the same. And I'd say traveling is probably just as important as staying in one place. Gotta do both things the right way of course! Thanx for the positive comment!

U are really skilled! Its awesome u make ur own spirilina! Because I found out most commercial stuff is heavily contaminated so making ur own is a way to avoid that, I'd be intrigued to find out how u do it as well as all those other skills u have to offer.

Hey @celestialcow, growing Spirulina is super easy. Especially if you are in a warm climate. If not, you can maintain a water temp. of 20 degrees C (68 F) artificially with only a bit of paying attention to it. Check out my links, and with any questions I'm happy to assist.

I read that spirilina absorbs heavy metal, I also read that water cam take pollutants from air tbh I'd be a bit concerned to do it were I am because of chem trails.(I must sound like a hyper condriact) I'm also concerned about these wild ferments used for kambucha etc I consume them sometimes but not often because of my sensitivity to sugar and yeast. It be cool if u checkout this post and let me know solutions or counter arguments to the stuff on their https://steemit.com/ecotrain/@celestialcow/5-health-foods-that-we-think-are-good-for-us-but-can-be-harmful

Well, the truth is, I don't know. So I won't pretend to have a definite answer to either of your questions. We all keep learning, sometimes acquiring contradictory information, which we have to evaluate and reconcile with what we already (think we) know.

I wasn't familiar with the heavy-metal absorbing properties of spirulina, but knew that mushrooms do the same thing, so I'm not surprised. About kombucha, I knew it had alcohol, comparable to any bread or yogurt. That's what I also tell my customers. But the amount is so minute that children and pregnant mothers can drink it without adverse affects of child development.

Of course it's up to each one of us what we want to put into our bodies and what we don't, but in my belief (not founded on research) there is something that can be just as bad as lead, strontium, phosphoric acid etc. which is the worry. I think even if we go to the most remote part of the world, we can't escape the micro and macro-toxins that are pretty much everywhere by now. So let's not let the worry bother us!

Instead of escaping the many poisons, we could just accept the fact that the air we breathe has tire-dust in it, the water we drink is not unleaded, and the food we eat is laced with chemical weaponry. What we can strive for, which is what I do and recommend, is to keep these things as low as possible by keeping things diverse without going into excess. With this I'm not saying you are wrong for being selective and exclusive, it's just my own way of seeing things.

By the way, as far as I know, spirulina IS a cyanobacteria, which commonly is called a "blue-green alga," similarly how the kombucha culture is often referred to as a fungus, even though it's mostly bacterial, with yeast being the only fungal part in it.

Thank u for your informative reply! its quite a sad thing to accept all that, i hope all of these poisons might one day be reversable. ✌️

Thank u for your informative reply! its quite a sad thing to accept all that, i hope all of these poisons might one day be reversable. ✌️

I am interested in hearing how the build goes on the island this summer. I really like the idea of being able to get help with projects from folks here on steemit. I'll keep my eye on this space to see what is happening.

Oh yeah, my friend even asked me to blog extensively about the build (not just for myself, but for his blog... I mean, I don't mind posting the same entry in both places). But that has nothing to do with SHEP. I've known him and his plans way before I even discovered Steemit.

Amazing way to exist.

I'm loving seeing these posts popping up. I'd love to see it take hold in Aus.

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Great job! Your post was featured in this week's @the-hearth curation digest featuring stunning earth-centered content on the blockchain.

Thank you, I appreciate it a lot!

So sorry it took me this long to read... I can't upvote now! Nice post though. One year of you decide to come through the east coast I would love to meet you and exchange some skills in Natural Building.

5 or 6 weeks left for us till we become more homesteaders and a little less travelers!!! Ahh Scary!

Enjoy your trip south

Talk to you later...

Seems like many exciting things are happening this Summer! For me it's also 5-6 weeks before the actual project starts. The trip South is happening afterwards, in September. But lots of posts will follow before that.

Yeah busy busy summer. We already started this weekend, a bit of a spring cleanup for the property. We ended up working like horses clearing a spot for a bigger motorhome ( something we can put a woodstove in, for winter).