Hello from Jim Costa

Homesteading & Country Living Forum

Help Support Homesteading & Country Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Jim Costa

Awesome Friend
Neighbor
HCL Supporter
Joined
Dec 6, 2021
Messages
1,327
Location
Milton, Fla
Age 75; married, live near Pensacola, Florida; 30 acres; Heavy into prepping.
Prepared to be totally off grid and support 60 persons.

Background: Born an avid reader; was C- student in grade school & High School.
In the middle of 9 kids. Been working since age 10.

I feel I was a rotten student because I couldn’t compete with older siblings and I read their high school & later college texts books out of boredom. The only books the family had was a set of World Book Encyclopedias. I read them several times, but I refused to read my assigned school books. So perhaps that is why I was a poor student. Strange though. When I went to night college it was like I found my home, as I was weaned on college texts. I was an A / B student there.

At 22 I was diagnosed with a rare genetic eye disease, Keratoconus. My eyes were bulging out of their sockets and I was told I was going blind. All I could do was wear hard contacts designed to push them back in ( slicing my lumpy eyes in the process.)

I had to change the size of the lenses every few months as my eyes shifted shape. One day the doctor said “Jim. This is the worst reaction to mini skirts I have ever seen.” I told my wife and she didn’t believe it was a joke; almost had to sleep on the couch.

I am sharing all this for a reason. I never thought about going blind because I didn’t think I would live long enough for it. When I researched the disease, I discovered only boys get it and that Is just before puberty. Well, at 22, I was horny as heck with a tired wife and 2 kids. If I was just starting to reach puberty I was sure I was going to screw myself to death first, so why worry?
____________________________________

I doubled my reading, took speed reading and doubled again. I was packing my brain with information. Business was my passion. 15 years of night school got me a CPA, Masters in Computer Science and Paralegal. I specialized in business turn arounds.

I never went blind. Started with experimental cornea grafts and 20 years later got another set.
___________________________________

At age 50 I dropped out. I had a near death experience and started getting hunches/premonitions.
After two years of this I took a sabbatical and focused on opening up as a psychic as such (I hate the term). Once opened to it, every other night I dreamed I was alone in a college class on Economics and saw the coming Collapse and Reset globally.

I never went back to work and dedicated myself to helping others prepare for what I saw coming.
Everything was paid for and I knew how to make big money quick if I needed it. Besides, money never meant anything to me.

___________________________________

My wife later told me to prepare the family. We eventually locked up our home and moved temporally to the hobby farm. Betty purchased a two year old portable 2 room school house (900 Sq Ft) for $200 and moved it to the farm. We turned it into a cottage and lived there happily for 8 years. We let her cousin live in our old home so we could assist her, she was feeble from a child hood illness and her husband recently passed.

Here is the big twist. When I prepared the family, I began searching for a How To book but found nothing for a large group. Being a Systems Analyst, I designed our place as a retreat for a maximum of 60 persons.

For Novices in your extended family, start with Family Prepping.
For all others, look at Group Survival.

I have several websites that may be of interest to you, but start with:

Pensacola Preppers (30 Minute Read, Indexed)
ResetUs.us (1 Hour read, Indexed)
It is a free news blog that only focuses on the global Collapse and Reset news.
I write daily editorials titled ”Jim’s Daily Rant”. This is where I interject my personal feelings on what I see coming. This site is for persons with family and cannot speed read the daily new stories for hours like I can. I make no money on all of my sites.

Hope I didn’t bore you. Look forward to learning from you.
 
Last edited:
Welcome! from SE Texas. Don't tell anybody, but I was actually raised Florida. I always say you aren't really in Florida unless you turn the corner and head south.. lol.

Again, welcome.
 
It may be a few days before I figure out where to put things, but just wanted to share this with you from the other day.

Lessons learned this week from a tornado.

The County got ripped up Thursday night. We lost ten power poles a half mile away.
I thought we were prepared. I was wrong as mistakes were made. We were off grid for 3 days.

My son next door has the big solar system on his house that also powers his well.

We added a well as well as a backup. We added a hand pump too. I then merged our two water lines with a ball valve always in the off position.

Mistake 1: I never told anyone how to use the ball valve if needed. I have prepared some notes that will now tell the world that if the valve is open to merge the two lines, the ball valve leading out of my personal well must be turned off. Otherwise, his will will suck up water from the aquifer and pour it down my well back into the same aquifer.

Mistake 2: Two years ago we purchased a pre-manufactured home and moved it to the retreat. It had a space in the utility room just large enough for a freezer. There was an outlet behind it. I installed a freezer. The kitchen has a two door refrigerator, with the outlet behind it. We recently built a covered back porch and we added another freezer. I installed alarms on bot the freezers that looses a small light at the kitchen sink if a door is ajar or the power goes off to them.

We own two portable generators to maintain those freezers of power grid is down. If long term, we will jerk the meat.

The problem with the freezer in the utility room was as a 99 year old I had to pull the freezer out by myself in a cramped wash room the get the power cord. I also realized the outlet is a 15 amp shared outlet that is bad on appliance motors.

So I purchased a 15 foot heavy duty extension cord so now the cord will always be in front of the freezer. Today I ran a 20 amp dedicated circuit to the power pole 15 feet away. Now the cord can hang out the window for generator power. Problem solved.

Mistake 3. The kitchen freezer/frig combo could not be pulled out to get to the cord. I discovered straps on the top for moving the double wide. I removed them but still could not move it. After two heart attacks I found a metal plate bolting it to the floor. The wall outlet was 4 feet high. It now has a pull string tied to it with the other end screwed into the wall in case the cord is dropped in the future.

Mistake 4. We own two mid-sized generators with the manuals lost. I am not a machine person. I could not crank either machine. Half a day later my son showed me a fuel line cut-off valve.

I now have a laminated list of instructions for myself and anyone who borrows one of the generators.

On the back are emergency details one in our clan need to know if a generator is needed, such as the water wells.

Mistake 5. We have a small office in a bedroom with 3 computer systems. We also have Starlink on the roof with radio equipment freely sharing the 100 MBS service with two there buildings here.

To hook up to the generator took time and patience to trace all the required wires tangled under desks and coffee tables. I now have starlink, router and one full computer system all wired together. That plug in under the window and color coded in orange. It will plug into the generator cord slipped into the window.

Mistake 6. I tried to use a friends computer to post to my website. I could not remember my password.
I now have certain passwords on the front of my computer monitor. If I am dead the family can get into all systems.

The good news is I only needed one generator. If parked behind the back door, 4 long extension cords can all end up at the generator. The generator runs (2) 20 Amp independent circuits. So I can run the office and one freezer. Then remove those plugs and run a bedroom A/C unit and another freezer.
 
Mistake 1: I never told anyone how to use the ball valve if needed. I have prepared some notes that will now tell the world that if the valve is open to merge the two lines, the ball valve leading out of my personal well must be turned off. Otherwise, his will will suck up water from the aquifer and pour it down my well back into the same aquifer.
Jim, glad for your modesty! I make mistakes big and small all the time and TRY to learn from them, but I never seem to attempt any project without screwing some part of it up! I try to involve others when making really big decisions, but unfortunately, people often assume I know what I'm doing, aren't critical enough, and "group-thinking" gets us back into making a dumb decision. I will say that that big dumb decisions happen less often because I make sure and comedically roast myself by telling at least one embarrassing story about how I screwed up some big decision and that seems to open people up to insert thoughts and possibilities we might not otherwise have considered.
“Every person that you meet knows something you don't; learn from them.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr.
 
Welcome from Alaska!
 
Back
Top