Off Grid All Organic Ice Cream-No Machine Required and Can Be Made Without Sugar

A couple years ago I purchased a really nice Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker, during one of my down times. After a month of not getting better, I returned the machine, as I could not use it. The reason I purchased the machine, was that I wanted clean ice cream that was organic only and with NO GMOs or hormones. The ice cream on the market today is NOT fit for consumption! Do NOT eat it. It is poison!
Also I use liquid stevia, in place of sugar most of the time. I wanted to do the same with my ice cream. Most the ice creams on the market are loaded with too much nasty sugar and, if they are not; they are loaded with the poisonous Aspartame.

I figured after I returned the machine that, if I started to have more consistent “up” days, I could purchase one again. Really even then, it is too big an item to store for occasional use. As time went by and I started making plans to go off the grid, with a safe low EMF 12 volt solar, it became evident that a plug in machine would not be practical. They have made ice cream long before electricity, so I began to look into the old fashioned ice cream makers. Big huge bucket machines with a crank. Bags of rock salt would have to be purchased and stored, along with bags of ice. Again not practical for so many reasons, starting with storage space.

For me I only want to make a couple servings for 2 people. I am not looking to make a tub of awesome ice cream, that I will end up having to eat all of it, and then loose 10 lbs afterwards, that is if I can loose it. Still there is nothing like good gourmet ice cream. I am not referring to the stand full of flavored chemical paste they call ice cream, that resides in the food court of every mall.

I ended up searching “How To Make Ice Cream Without A Machine” on youtube one day and I learned the truth. There is no need for a machine. People were making awesome ice cream, in cake pans, bowls and left over containers. One made it with a blender. Far cry from having to store a big tub or find room in the freezer to store the metal tub for the ice cream maker. I could just make a couple servings at a time in a small Tupperware container!

Shortly after I needed some vanilla ice cream for something and I used wonderful fresh organic ingredients and sweetened it with liquid stevia-NO sugar. It was the best vanilla ice cream I had ever had and I have had some good ones.

Now that I am trying to clean out the freezer to pare down for moving, I have to clean out all the cartons of frozen left over cream. I made 3 more flavors. Again I only wanted a couple servings of each. I also needed to use other left overs. So I made these three:

1. Couldn’t resist Chocolate Peanut-butter-I made it with organic raw cacao and substituted sunflower butter for the peanut-butter. That way I could keep it all organic.

A note on peanut-butter: After learning how carcinogenic regular organic peanut-butter is, I no longer could bring myself to eat it. The only safe peanuts to use, that do not have the carcinogenic aflatoxins, are Valencia peanuts and jungle peanuts [they are collected off the floor of the Amazon forest]. I began making my own from organic Valencia peanuts. Those have since become extinct and the jungle peanuts are quite hard to find and very pricey. If I made my own, it came to $25 per jar. I gave in and switched to organic sunflower seed butter.

I found the chocolate peanut-butter recipe to be way too dry and so I added more cream and milk. I ended up with way too much and was not able to seal the container very well. It got very crystallized! I had sweetened it with liquid stevia and no other sugar was used. Had it not been crystallized it would have been awesome.

2. I had left over cream cheese and frozen whole strawberries. So I made Strawberry Cheesecake. Sweetened with stevia again and the only sugar was the organic Graham cracker crumbs. This came out awesome.

3. The final flavor was pecan pie. I had a little leftover pecan pie filling from last year in the freezer and so I made a vanilla base sweetened with stevia and mixed in the left over filling into the vanilla. Also came out awesome.

So what does my ice cream maker consist of? A fork, a spoon and what ever Tupperware or left over container I wish to use. Easy for off grid. No electric required.

Yum!

Wonderful Progress On Trailer At New Service Location

Things were at a dead standstill for a while after moving my trailer to the new service location. Finally things got going. I had chosen Rick’s RV in Tucson to finish what had been started. Including fixing the solar panel frame, install the new heat and some other things I needed like a real deadbolt on the door. One real big issue that came up is emptying the black water tank. On my good days I can only pull the handle half the way required to empty it. On my bad days, I cannot make it out to the handle. Bad days can last up to a span of 3 months, so greasing the handle will not help. In the beginning I thought  “no problem”. I would just higher one of those services that go around and empty RV tanks. Boy was I off! I know people in New Mexico that use those services, not cheap, but the cost is manageable. In Arizona, no such services exist. The only option would be a septic pumping service. Very costly! So Rick will also be installing and electric black-water valve, that will have a button I can press from inside to empty the tank.

I made a trip to Arizona to look at spaces and see the progress made on my trailer.

The heat is mostly installed.

The solar frame is fixed and can be adjusted anywhere from flat to about 45 degrees. Notice the pieces that were sticking up to shade the panels are now gone, along with the hanging “cat toy” wires.

Everything else should be done by Tuesday. I hope….

Space Search Roller Coaster

Being electrosensitive one thing that is necessary is landline/DSL. Ok if you are healthy and can get around maybe not. You can just drive to where-ever and get what you need. You don’t need help, as you do it yourself. But, when you are in poor health and homebound most the time, landline/DSL are requirements to meet basic survival needs.

The best of the places seen so far, still had too much RF radiation to be safe, but better than where I am now. I had confirmed with centurylink twice before going to see it and twice after going to see it, giving them the exact space numbers the last 2 times. They confirmed the space had landline and DSL, but the DSL was the slowest out there. OK with me, as it would allow me my basic needs. With not finding anything else and time going by I rented it. I set up all the services and spent days of time to prepare for my move to that spot. When I placed the order for phone/DSL with centurylink, they informed me there was no service there and that the first 4 reps had lied. I asked for a supervisor and was refused the request, as what happened was no big deal. “No big deal”. I had rented the space and spent a great deal of money and time for travel to go see it to begin with. I then asked them if they could set up phone service at another address, where the reps had previously told me there was 12 mbs of DSL. You guessed it: again there was no service.

I knew how lucky I was to get my money back for that space I had rented. Not so lucky in that I was left scrambling for something else with time to move running short. I had gotten some calls from people with spaces, but they were all false leads. The people did not have spaces they could rent, though they said they did, but they did have a wild goose chase to go on.

I learned my lesson with the previous space I rented and, am no longer willing to travel to see any space, if I do not already have an active phone/DSL order placed for that exact address. When you place the order they also do a loop or line test to see exactly what DSL speed is there. I set up accounts with Frontier in N. Arizona, Windstream in NM and even placed an order with Valley Telecom. The Valley Telecom one had to be cancelled without considering what probably would have been an awesome space, as they refused to make reasonable accommodation, in allowing me to use my own DSL modem for DSL service, instead of their modem that could easily blast me with wifi and that I can not have. Also my modem can plug into the low EMF solar that I require for my living space. Theirs can not. My solution there seems easy. Just file a case with the ADA for denying reasonable accommodation. I did that but it could take 4 to 6 months or more to resolve. To long to have to wait, when I need a place now. This is now new. Many businesses and organizations in New Mexico feel they do not have to follow the ADA laws.

The following weekend, I went again to Arizona to see the progress on my RV at the new shop and space hunt. The best thing I found was and overpriced space that is about the same in RFs as where I am now, but everything else was a huge improvement. Warmth, space and a great environment and NO 24 loud train. I had already set up phone service and the centurylink box was nearby. It was far more than I wanted to spend and would be a stretch each month, but great while I wait till the hot season and find something cheaper. So I went with that. My big mistake there was asking if I could pay 3 months in advance and get a reduction in rates. Two days later they called, they were not going to do a 3 months reduced rate or rent to me at all.

I had already done research into some of the other places that centurylink did not serve to see if I could get services through a cable company and that did not work out either. I did find a modem by zoom that can plug into 12 volt DC and does NOT have wireless capability. This zoom modem was compatible with the companies I spoke to had they had service.

The other spaces I was looking into either turned out to be too close to towers or had a large power company transformer by the property or had very high RF readings-too much to tolerate. So my only option left was a space in New Mexico, in the dreaded “Resurrection ” county. I had already asked centurylink to do line/loop tests at all the spaces I was considering and had an order for service at one of them.

Pretty trailer spot in Tucson includes view of stars

So minutes after getting the rejection call from Tucson I headed off to Deming, New Mexico…To be continued in part 2

Off Grid Cooling – DC 12 Volt

One requirement for living in an RV is cooling. RVs get much hotter than a stick building. For the last several years I have been using an evaporative cooler. These are good for cooling in a dry climate only. I have been pretty comfortable with what the cooler has provided, but I have broken 2 of the major rules for using an evaporative cooler. I get away with it because I am so sensitive to cold and cannot tolerate any cold. I must have it warm to begin with. First I cannot crack a window, where I live. Cracking a window is a requirement, to get the cooler to work properly. There is a level of train noise, that is downright painful, with the windows closed, so open is not an option. This can go on for hours at a time. It can go on not at all, or all day depending. Second: It is very humid where I live. Often it is 48% to 60% humidity. On average about like NYC. New York may be worse one week and we are worse the next. I live in the kind of place where spices, such as garlic and onion salt must be refrigerated or they will soak and clump to a solid in a week. Any clothes on hangers will take 2 days to dry, not one. My plants are soaked and rotting-haven’t watered them in weeks. You get the picture. Still I am usually OK with the swamp cooler, but the temps do stay under 100 degrees.

Things will be different in my RV. I will not move where there is train noise. I can open a window. Arizona is dry, not humid. Perfect set up for a swamp cooler! The temps can go over 100 degrees. I have to figure the worst days will not be any worse than what I have now, running the cooler in poor conditions.

First I had to figure out what to do for a cooler. Most swamp coolers are AC powered. I did find some DC powered ones on the market. I sort of worry about them as DC motors put out more EMFs. Of course things are relative and a DC cooler is going to be far less EMFs than an AC one using an inverter or an AC one tied to the smart grid. It’s the lesser of evils. It will effect how I use the unit. I will probably have it on for shorter periods on high and use the windows for cooling during the cooler times of the day. Or the seasons it’s not so hot. So having a unit with a high and low setting helps.

Southwest Solar 12 volt coolers. Several sizes.

The first unit I found was made by Southwest Solar. So far it’s got the most gas of any of them out there. They are galvanized steel units and some have placed them successfully on the roofs of their RVs. When compared, they give the most cooling. There is a down side: They are overpriced! Over $1,000 for the smallest unit and well over $3,000 for the large one. For those that can not tolerate any heat, this may be worth the money.

Western Harmonics MiniCooler

I found another unit last spring, by a company called Western Harmonics. This was the MiniCooler. I have yet to see them actually be in stock, but I have been told they are planning to get more someday. They use the least amount of power, but they will also be the least amount of cooling. They are also under $300. I do not need a lot of cooling and this unit would have been perfect for me had it been made to mount on the roof and had been in stock. They do have bigger units in stock, at around $500, but they too do not have a roof mount kit. If you are wanting to mount through the wall or in the window this might be a good find. I have not seen any reviews or heard any feedback from anyone who has owned one, but they look good.

TurboKool RV roof top cooler

The one I finally went with, the TurboKool, is also made in the USA, just like the ones above, but it is available in stock and made to mount on the roof of an RV. It has more cooling power than the MiniCooler, but not as much as the Southwest Solar. It has a better price tag than the Southwest Solar, coming in at under $600 if you shop around. That in itself was a job. I found that the 2 cheapest places to buy it, were not trustworthy places to buy from. The key is to google and bing the “company name, complaints”. I ended up ordering mine from Pacific RV parts and everything went OK. Amazon also has them and you can also order direct from TurboKool.

It is installed now, where the RV refrigerated air used to be and I traded the old AC unit for the install labor of the TurboKool. Tried the buttons and seems to work OK, but have not yet used it for real. The unit looks and feels good so far. I look forward to seeing how it works when put to the test. It’s a little late this season, but in Arizona there still may be a need for it the first couple of weeks before it gets to winter. The unit uses about 27 watts on low and about 39 watts on medium and about 60 watts on high. I do not have much solar so my high will probably be medium to start.

Trip To Arizona To See My Trailer And Look At Parking Spaces

Last Tuesday I went to Arizona and saw my trailer for the first time, since July when I bought it. It was a very long trip and a very long day. I cannot stay in any hotels, as they all have wifi, so I must make a straight round trip. On the way I pulled over at my favorite rest stop and shot this video. I cannot walk well enough to use any of the facilities at this rest stop, as they are quite far from the car.

My first stop was to see the progress on the trailer. It was a big disappointment.  One of the exterior repairs on the corner was only half done and the solar is going to have to be redone. The installer had agreed to make the frame per my design and I confirmed this with him 3 times.

My Solar Stand Design

I ended up getting something else. The manufacturer of these panels informed me that this frame would cost me about 10% efficiency!  The installer was angry that I could not have the panels, on the roof, due to the fact, I can NOT take the emissions, and I guess this is my punishment.  There are more options on the ground: tilting them for the sun and being able to get solar, while parking in the shade. I deducted the frame from the bill and will be taking it elsewhere to have the adjustment bars changed to something that does not shade any of the solar cells. A few other things are going to have to be redone elsewhere, as well. Renogy gave me a name of someone they recommend.

Pieces sticking up will cast shade on panels!

Those wires will be the perfect play and chew toy for the first cat that comes along!

After that I felt kind of down. I then traveled 3 1/2 hours away to look at spaces in another area. My mouth stayed numb for a couple hours: there was a lot of RF radiation at the shop where the trailer was, though their wifi was off, the neighbors’ wifi was still going.

I had picked three very rural half empty parks to see, but only actually was able to consider one.  The other 2 had no wired internet service available period. This is a requirement, when I can’t get to stores or even go in them, if I did. My food comes by fed-ex and UPS and so does every other necessity. Homebound people need some internet access.  I drove for what seemed like eternity to see this park. It is out there. It felt calming to be away from the sprawl.  The spaces I looked at were far from neighbors and would have been perfection had the power lines in the park not been hooked to the smart grid and were now RF antennas.  After checking the most remote spaces, I tried some of the ones closer in. They were further from the lines, but still not good. The best one is about the same or better, than where I am now.

I am seriously considering it, in case my current landlords do not agree to give me more time. If they do not then I will go with this to avoid ending up in something worse, as it’s hard to find a place as good as the unsafe place I have now. Over time I can pay off the bills and continue to look for something further away from frequencies. It will be easier to find something if I am living in the state and do not have to drive a day each way to see these spaces. My goal is to get my own land to park on. This is also a bad time to find parking in Southern Arizona, as fall is, when all the snowbirds are after spaces. People tend to stay one last winter and give up their great long-term spaces in the spring.

After leaving the park, one of the other parks that had no internet service was on the way, so I stopped and checked it out. That way I would know about it, if the phone company ever expands their DSL area. This second park was far worse.  There were smart meters on each post, pulsing away.  The park itself was less densely populated and further away from anything. It was a very nice park.  Too bad it was blasted by the smart meters.

So I will have to see if I can have till spring or if I will have to make a lateral move, as far as RFs go and take the best of what I saw today so I can be out in October. Outside of RFs it’s a big improvement: No blasting train, a nicer area, more peaceful and a better environment.

What I Am Doing For DC Power Cords

The AC appliances that most people use can sometimes be integrated into a low EMF 12volt DC solar system. Most the things that are plugged into the wall have an adapter that converts the AC wall power to DC. These DC appliances are quite compatible with a DC only system.

Back in April I figured, I should start getting together the DC adapters, I would need, as it looked like I would have to get moved sooner than later. I was not up and around so I shopped on line for the items that would make my existing appliances run.  I started with my Mac-book. I called Apple and they did not carry anything that could be used.  The closest thing they had was a car adapter that had an AC inverter and then would switch it back to DC. This would be a very high EMF device that would have extreme negative effects. I do not think it is safe for anyone to use something that high EMF in a car, where the waves can bounce around and become intensified by the metal car.

So I went to work on finding cords to work with my other items. The DSL modem takes .5 amps and the keyboard takes 1.7 amps. So I ordered a 2 amp adapter from Parts Express. It never showed up, though they shipped it.  The postal service in my area is way past broken and if I have a package sent through them, I most likely will not receive it. I finally did get this adapter after it was resent UPS. My helper tested this item in the car. First with my 3 volt CD player and then with my 12V DSL modem. This adapter has variable voltage choices from 3 volts up to 12 volts. It also comes with the different tips to use with different plugs. It is important to set the plugs to the polarity noted on the device.  It will power my keyboard or the little 6 volt sewing machine [it’s so good on AA batteries, why bother to plug it in] and other odds and ends.

Parts Express 2 Amp, variable voltage, regulated DC adapter

I figured it would be good to have an extra to fall back on, so when I placed an order that amazon said would be UPS, I added on one of a different brand. That one was a Philmore 1 amp with variable voltage choices and a few common plug tips. I went with the 1 amp, as the modem is .5 amps and it would be a good match. I was able to get to the car the day it arrived and it tested fine with the modem. It is cheaply made compared to the Parts Express unit and the plug tip for the modem was about impossible to get in. It took a hammer and 2 sets of pliers. That plug will never be coming out! I would return it for the cheap plugs, but I am just as happy using the 1 amp for the modem exclusively and using the Parts Express as the back up and for other appliances that need over 1 amp.

Philmore 1 Amp DC adapter

Now that I think about it, I would really like one more Parts Express one. That is not an option, as it will never reach me here if I order it. So I am going to wait till after I move and can depend on it showing up in the post.

The first DC Mac-book charger never came either. I did find one by GPK products on amazon. It was tough, as there were many, like the Wee Charger that had lots of reviews claiming it burned up people’s Mac’s. They say it’s compatible, but it’s not. Put in too many amps and the Mac-book will heat and fry. Mac is hard because they
have special plugs. There is no buying any old charger and plugging in the pin. The plug on the Mac has to match your model and the charger has to be the same amps and watts, as the AC one that comes with the Mac. I ordered the GPK charger, as none of the others would ship anything, but USPS and GPK promised to have it “hold for delivery” so maybe I would have a chance of it reaching me.  The first one did and I had to pay a helper to drive an hour to the post office to get it. The post office that is closer does not service me and the one that does is way across the valley.

GPK Mac-book charger

The battery on my Mac was 33%, when my helper plugged it into my car and went to refill my water jugs.  By the time she returned the Mac had already charged to 66%. So I figured I would go for and encore. I want to have a back up, as if I cannot plug in my Mac, I cannot order another one in a pinch. Online is the only way to get these things. The second one was sent “hold for delivery” as well, but when my helper drove the hour over, they had lost it. Luckily it eventually turned up in my mailbox. My local post office has instructions, from higher up to hold my packages for pick up, as they have mismanaged delivery so much. They do not follow the orders their superiors give.

It was April when I started this and is now Aug 28th and it has taken all this time and lots of phone calls and chasing around to get these 4 adapters. Some say that I am building my solar system backwards. Most start with the panels and go to the wires and cords. My DC plugs are installed  and wired in the trailer already. It’s a good thing I began with the adapters first, as it’s been the hardest part of my system to get.

One thing that is still of concern is the “dirty electricity” that these kind of DC adapters put out. I checked before purchase, that there were no built in inverters and that it was straight DC to DC. There are still going to be fields from the switching power supply. Usually ferrite beads help dampen the fields that power cords put out. Not in this case. The beads do not work at frequencies that are as low as these adapters.  I did get some ferrite cores that are not useable, as they do not snap on. It would make a mess of the adapters to have an electrician cut the cords and slide them on. It would also be very costly.  I will  eventually work with Less EMF to find some shielding for the power supplies and maybe copper tape the cord.  I will of course be wanting to run the Mac-book on battery more and keep other things unplugged to conserve my battery power. That will help too.

I am so glad that the rest of my system was easier to bring together than this was.