the first pic is of the farm spring over the hill . i have carved a fish over there jumping in the water. anyhow would get pic but under a time crunch to get this out in day i was supposed to, but also because it is new years eve and i have chosen to be w/ the bloggers , not consuming alcohol, but burning the heck out of the lamps. anyhow one of my resolutions i decided was actually the blog. i intend to post every day of year. it only takes a few minutes and i can go back and edit as we go along. i quit smoking, drinking , and only cuss when it makes a joke , or when i hit my thumb. oh hell just about all the time sometimes. well rarely get mad and stay mad, but i am thankful i cant remember much about how mad i get and  now that i am getting into those golden years.i call it selective memory. i know there is room for only so much at this point and dont want to crowd it.

    so i guess i can say the relevance of the first pic is one, it has to do w/ water storage. and it was a pretty shot. and two being its over the hill( like me). destiny brings us to this point. here we are,  but where the hell are we? 

    the second pic is me about 2years ago when i had just carved this pesky bird which kept sticking its nose in the shot. really think i carved a lot more animals but they just walked off. no wonder i dont make no money. and i always have a friend. well i wish everyone a happy new year. check back things are always a changing on the farm.-kevin

clum westwood

     today was a day for learning, o a few pics of newest starving farmer. i have done 5 of these guys and clum is the fifth. i have orphy, cecil( who is gone now to greener pastures in new york. then there is clodette, and her husband clod. hard times have fell on them all, letting them all look for a new line of work. because literally they were starving. these sculptures are unique and part of series i have set a self imposed limit on. not unlike me they are reflective of my own ambitions of trying to make something from nothing. i was a t a low point in my life and i was tired of cutting firewood and trying to make a go of farming. had to sell cows, and was looking at my resources to see what was next .

     i had plenty of wood and chainsaws and being in new mexico and seeing how unbelievably easy it was to carve bears , figured i was a shoe in for carving wood. i failed terribly , but had perseverance to continue. at first i just put out on a hay wagon to see what everyones response was going to be. people travelling up and down the road began gawking and hitting brakes , rubbernecking my sculptures on wagon. i took one large carving out and placed alongside road. weighed at least 600 lbs, and it was gone in a couple of days. actually the first carving to be stolen from my watch. and not the last either. i put it down there with  a tractor and i am sure it took 2 guys to snatch. where and when i dont know.

     but one good thing came out of it. i knew i had something. and the selling began , and i became better at what i do.  http://www.network54.com/Forum/675303/thread/1325200374/last-1325345972/getting+some+work+done   - anyhow this is a link to a chainsaw carving forum where they discuss my carving. i thought it was cool. - added 12/31/11.

                      

         its a bear day                                

  so anyhow there was this alaskan and a texan pissing off golden gate bridge and the texan looks over at the alaskan and says 'man that water is cold,' and of course the alaskan returns , 'yes and it is deep too!' to say the least people can say a lot of things. some are better at it than others .
    at this point i intend to bring about one of my dads favorite nonsensical sayings or utterances. and as we knew it when we were kids , his grunting s. after having said 'shit' at the supper table and immediately feeling like shit as the glares all looked at this fat ten year old with a mouth problem( didn't know when to keep it shut) , dad in his own way and without missing a beat, immediately seized on the moment and says,' i wouldn't have in my hand what you just had in your mouth. '
   it seemed he had a saying for just about everything imaginable and some not. and when they wouldn't work or he couldn't think of them then it was pull my finger time. oh how many times i imagined his finger was actually tied to his butt hole and if i pulled hard enough and ran fast enough , he would not only lose his finger but would shit himself. it would only serve him right in my mind than to humiliate a kid into smelling his god awful farts.
           and if dad was here he would say at this point:
                                   beans , beans , magical fruit
                                   the more you eat the more you toot.
                                   the more you toot,
                                   the better you feel .
                                   eat your beans with every meal.


   so there was this alaskan and this texan and they were in alaska both working on the alaska pipeline and were drinking after work in this eskimo bar, and this texan was going on about how big the state of texas was and how everything was big in texas. well the eskimo didnt fall out of the igloo yesterday and was just about fed up with the texans ranting , so he says to the texan " we have had just about enough of you going on about texas , if you are going to stay here need you to perform an initiation us eskimos do all the time to show manhood. just drink 2 bottles of vodka straight down and kill a bear and screw an eskimo lady".
        well the texan replied " nothing to it" . he grabs the first bottle of vodka up and downs it and grabs the second bottle up and chugs it down and staggers to the door. and says "which way is that bear " drunkenly.
       a couple of days go by and here is this knock on the bar door . they open the door and here is this frozen texan ,  his parka tore to shreds and can bearly speak , and he says " now where that eskimo lady you wanted killed?'
       life is like that , somedays you get the bear and somedays the bear gets you.

   green solar wind house- is a conceptual design drawing i just did today in an effort to move along. other drawings and design considerations will be taken into account as i go along. i the author of the blog will take you along with me as i begin to design this house. first thing the name sucks , and i would be interested in input from who ever as to what a suitable name would be.
    what you are looking at is a side view of house. the sails of the windmill isn't as pronounced as you are looking at the end of them. the sails are reversible as well as the house will align with the sun to maximize electrical output when periods of no or low wind exist and computer makes the decision to maximize out put of solar panels. this is done by computer program and will take into account a lot of variables in an effort to increase electrical generation from multiple sources. the top of the house or the turret or round part of house attached to the windmill sails will revolve and face the sun as needed and sails become solar panels at that point. at times of high end the sails may be turned out of wind to add a safety factor by reducing the ability of the sails to catch wind and reducing the stress on the wind mill  overall.excess power will be utilized by storing in batteries till batteries are at optimum charge at this point excess electric will be used to pump water to top of hill and fill a large pond. at some point pond will fill and all systems will be at optimum capacity. at this point may sell power to local electric company. generator would be located at bottom of hill and water would be released from pond and would course down hill and run generator. the system actually uses stored water and hydro power as well as solar , and wind will be used to provide all the power needed to operate the house , and power the local utility if necessary. heat for the house would be through the beneficial reuse of wood waste. which may be by pellets.
    i see wood pellets as way to add fuel to a fire by an auger drop system that could be thermostatically controlled only allowing as much wood as is necessary to provide even heat in house. as this house rotates it also will be used to entertain people as is necessary. it could be set on a slow rotation providing you and your guests with an ever changing panorama. how many houses can do this? having water available in large quantities at the top of the hill would allow to develop gardens , features, at a fraction of the cost most homes would face.

today was one of those days. 

       well that is a pic of me carving at the log cabin day we had at local fund raising event. the bear in the background is a bear i donated to the organization to place outside cabin and is still there today. the chicken reminds of a story dad told of a tornado in west virginia that was so powerful it plucked the feathers out of the chickens and they went around featherless . and that one of those plucked feathers was propelled through the wind so hard that it embedded itself into a telephone pole an inch deep and so far it was hard to pull out without damaging feather. course dad also told me that if they layed west Virginia  out flat it would be bigger than texas. far surpassing anything a good texas bullshitter might comprehend.

     today is the comedy the tragedy is me getting back on subject w/ boring talk about windmills. all though the pics are somewhat related to subject as it gives you an idea of what it takes me to carve and what i use. that little chainsaw is the second one i use and maybe third. first saw cuts log, second blocks it out generally putting parts where they belong and then fine tuning is accomplished w/ the carving saw. short and bar is narrow at the tip allowing me to carve more detail into each carving. and the old rooster is a symbol of what can happen when wind gets out of hand. well words hardly convey my feelings about the lower pic. 

new years resolutions

      well christmas is over and we are heading to the new years holiday. a time to reinvent yourself to make amends for past failings and to make resolutions to change yourself for the better. a lot of people will make resolutions , very few will follow through on them.well those of you who are flawless have my permission to leave the room now.
      wow since they are gone , now we can get down to reality. reality is those that just left are full of shit, as we all can stand some self improvement on a daily basis, and not just on one day of the year as a passive way of justifying getting inebriated and then swearing off a lot things including alcohol with no meaning to any of it.
  i think it is more a way of life if you want to improve yourself, or your environment, or your way of life and being. you just have to do it, and no excuses. much like writing on here for me now. i have a lot to say but need a forum to say it. the blog is nice. in the privacy of my home, which i share with that dog at the top of page. her name is babe. babe just kinda lies around and does a lot of nothing but get me up once in awhile to let her out or feed her. but when i am writing on here she kind of leaves me alone. which is nice to have no reason whatever to not put my thoughts down and expand this blog. this is a form of my self improvement i try to do on a daily basis. its been 2 weeks since i have wrote, didnt say i was good at writing , just said what i would like to do  so briefly i touched on rmo technology , and will now discuss windmill technology as i know it and what is practical to me. maybe i should at this point try to give you an overview of what i am trying to convey to you the reader in a realistic no non sense way of describing. i am looking for a holistic approach to energy conservation, general agricultural practices, soil conservation and an overwhelming goal in todays time that would be admirable. to prove that i can effectively capture the energy that comes to the farm in terms of solar , hydro, and wind can benefit each other and harness these sources to provide enough energy to maximize farming operations on a small scale basis. in the process i intend to lock up carbons in the form of lignin and forestation, to improve the marginal areas of the farm. i am a fourth generation farmer , and have studied agriculture as well as civil engineering, and of which i never received any degree, but if its any consolation i did retain alot. and have read extensively and have been doing my best to keep up with latest technology.
    it is important to know where we are going with this blog. i have to remind myself often to stay the course. i mentioned a lot i was trying to tie together and will now break down into their individual components and how they relate to the other subjects.and also in what i am trying to implement on the farm here. i had mentioned the windmill and will relate it to the civil engineering part of my blog. i would like to design and build a movable windmill house . one that would rotate about its axis and be able to read the wind and achieve the full potential of the wind at any given moment. it would not only serve as a generating station for electricity but would also be a residence for myself. this windmill would incorporate solar panels on the exterior of house taking advantage of sun on a 360degree basis as solar panels would surround house and installed at maximum angle to achieve the suns full potential. these panels would be intermingled with glass and will give house a modern look. the beauty or major feature of the house is that it will be turning on its axis smoothly with the use of electric motors powered by solar power and controlled by computer monitoring a variety of factors including sun output and wind speed . this computer would then decide optimum power generating ability of house at any given time. it would then issue commands to house to move every fifteen minutes to that optimum positon it should be in to produce the most power from windmill sails. if there is no wind sails flip over and house is corrected to position of sun and sails become solar collectors as well as sides of house. override of the system allows you to rotate the house for viewing of the panorama around the house. from our vantage point at top of hill where house is one can almost look into three counties here in ohio. this will take into account considerable amount of engineering to accomplish this task but it is crucial to an overall holistic approach.

confessions of a chainsaw carver

confessions of a chainsaw carver

https://www.google.com/confessions of a chainsaw carver

by kevscarvings. 

     well the christmas rush really wasnt a rush for me. just dont have that many people in my life that close to me of whom i buy presents for . help people all year around , but it certainly seems more evident that people need their christmas so much they will pepper spray the first x-box snatching bitch or bastard who comes close to her snotty little xbox grabbing kids. if anything life here on the farm is a lot more low tech. we kinda like it that way. besides if i want santa to come i just head down to garage grab , a hunk of wood , mount it on table , grab a chainsaw, and start cutting away.

     after a couple hours and occasionally bitching and moments of shear  disgust , a crooked smile begins at one side of my face to the other as the carving emerges. is it how i envisioned it ? sometimes it is . is it close ? by and far it would come closer than anything. and that is to be expected . mistakes are always a chance. i try to limit to 2 or 3 , but understandably have suffered plenty more than that and still come out close. imagination is having eyes and seeing with your eyes closed , as if it what ever you had imagined is in front of your eyes. 

    a carving goes quick ,and once you become familiar with a chainsaw can and is used as a tool to create fine art objects out wood. i am a sculptor, carver , artist , cartoonist ,wannabe famous, literally jack of all trades , master of none. worked a variety of jobs in my lifetime , rode a garbage truck a couple of days in my life. cooked garbage in a mental institution, and have had the opportunity to do a variety of work in my lifetime.was born and raised by a herd of mad cows , my mom and my sisters, never was quite right after that experience. 

    anyhow back to the subject at hand , 

        well it is time to talk about the windmill house as i have some new technology that i would like to share with you. it will include rainwater collection systems and a series of ponds down over hillside below house a distanceof 150 feet vertical at  least i would say. i was reading about this system called an rmo where by waste water flowing is used as a means of pumping water to reservoir or faucet. this is when it is used in conjunction w/ a fresh water source you are filtering with reverse osmosis system to remove pollutants and avoid smells associaterd w/ fresh drinking water. 

      the rmo (reverse motor orientation?) acts like a turbocharger as it takes advantage of waste water stream from a five stage fresh water system . full pressure waste water is ejected as part of screen cleaning process. it removes contaminants and acts like a turbo charger , on other side picking up clean water and transporting under pressure to tap or storage unit. this idea combined w/ rainwater collection and storage systems would allow you to reclaim power from rainwater when used as system to collect or harness energy for generator or electrical production , to irrigate crops ramping up yields . reducing off site erosion . 

     ohio is blesssed with 40 inches plus of rainfall each year. , my idea is to pump all runoff into pond at top of hill and when needing electric or water , gates are opened and water is directed to area in need. whether it is to penstock of a generator, house hold uses , or agricultural purposes. maintaining control of rainwater and managing its use would lead to more beneficial use of land. eliminating the need or reducing the need for fuel or nuclear or coal  fired generators and reducing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

        so when you combine rmo's with solar energy and wind power, you assure a more constant supply of electricity. the collection of rainfall can be likened as the pull or push needed to achieve perpetual motion.where by you get as much energy out as you are putting in. in reality there is no perpetual motion as friction and other factors tend to erase any mechanical advantage you might generate.a rainwater collection system used in conjunction with natural elevation differences and taking into account any engineering  modifications one might use to increase head pressure. one could possibly contour the terrain of property and divert to water holding reservoirs at convenient elevations . this is also taken into account the unification of the system to allow it to work in unison or separately to perform the task at hand.due to the fact that rmo's require no electricity to operate would allow their use in remote areas. and as you build these rainwater collection systems , and keeping in mind not only energy production but also maintain  livestock and ultimately supplying yourself w/ all your nutritional` needs.