Thunderbird Disco

01/22/2026

Big storm coming, so just gonna leave this here.

Is your home ready for winter? Prepare your home and gather necessary snow storm supplies using our ultimate winter preparedness checklist.

11/29/2024

As we head into the winter season of power outages, consider these options for portable backup power, most of which are on substantial Black Friday sale this weekend:

How we use our Jackery Explorer 1000 solar portable power station, gas generator, and solar power banks for off-grid adventures and emergency backup power.

07/18/2024

Just a few spots left for my talk tomorrow (free) with CreativeMornings/Charlottesville, register at the link below and I’ll wake you up with a highly caffeinated chat about music education, climate fiction, and progressive homesteading.

CreativeMornings is a breakfast lecture series for the creative community. Join us at one of our free monthly events around the world or watch the talks online!

07/16/2021

*GROWING TOMATOES (FROM SEED)*
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Last year our starts did well, so this year we tried growing 'maters from seed. It's cheaper to plant seeds than buy starts, but the main point is to get a jumpstart indoors and plant out once the threat of frost has passed.
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Results were mixed. But here's some more stuff we learned.
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1) On March 20, we used seed starter trays to plant five varieties from Some big fellas (Mortgage Lifter, Yellow Brandywine, Big Rainbow) and some little cherries (Matt's Wild, Dr. Carolyn).
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2) Like a do**us, I didn't use grow lights, just put 'em next to a sunny glass door. Also like a do**us, I covered them with a clear plastic top, which made the popsicle stick plant labels nice and hairy. I'm sure I gave them too much water, not enough light. Just general do**usness.
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3) I finally invested in a cheap LED grow light, and promptly continued to murder most of our seedlings. But plants are fighters, and a couple dozen survived enough to transplant into larger pots.
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4) My killing spree knew no bounds. Still, I gave away a bunch of starts to better homes, and had about a dozen viable plants left over. I got them in the beds and grow bags on May 23, well after our Zone 7 last frost date.
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5) To plant out, i added a little compost and some Garden Tone fertilizer. Again, plant the seedlings as deep as possible (you can potentially remove lower nodes of leaves to bury deeper). Those little hairs on the stem turn into roots! Life is a wonder.
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6) Learning from last year, I'm watering sporadically, stressing the plant so its roots stretch deeper in search of water. They're in a polyculture bed alongside companions like oregano, onions, basil, marigolds and some lavender, modeled loosely after the marinara garden idea by A few little tomatoes starting to fruit. Let's see!

06/28/2021

We made our Base, Sun and Sector Maps early in the pandemic, and to cap our first year of attempted permaculture design we completed our Zone Map and Master Plan. The Zone Map looks at our property from the standpoint of use and accessibility. After creating a family Wish List, the Master Plan becomes our flexible, sketchy vision of what we want to do at Thunderbird Disco over the next 3-5 years...

The Zone Map looks at our property in terms of use and accessibility. Our Master Plan is a flexible, sketchy vision of what we want to do at Thunderbird Disco.

05/31/2021

I wrote this piece for Rolling Stone about the last prepper expo before the pandemic and our collaborative homesteading experiment, check it out.

What happens when a homesteading experiment collides with a global pandemic?

05/15/2021

The weekend before the pandemic hit, I attended the Louisville Survival Expo, and over the past year I've been working on this feature article chronicling the modern prepper movement and my family's experiment in collaborative homesteading. So honored to see it land at Rolling Stone. Have a read!

What happens when a homesteading experiment collides with a global pandemic?

05/14/2021

What happens when a homesteading experiment collides with a global pandemic?

02/28/2021

This was hopefully the last of this year’s snow dayz at Thunderbird Disco. A little dusting last night but some beautiful spring weather around the corner, we can feel it. Ready to get seeds started...

10/20/2020

*GROWING TOMATOES--SOME THINGS WE LEARNED*

Tomatoes ended up being one of our most successful crops this season and here are a few things we learned:

1) There are determinate and indeterminate varieties. Determinate grow to about 4 feet and produce all at once. Indeterminate grow to 8 or 10 feet and produce all season. We went with indeterminate and planted six plants in mid-May.

2) The plants took off quickly. You need cages or stakes to keep them upright. We got Ultomato cages with 5-foot stakes and movable arms that can adjust as the plant grows and needs support in different areas.

3) Our plants quickly outgrew their cages and flopped over onto their pepper neighbors. There are great videos on how to prune tomatoes so they put as much energy and sugar into producing fruit rather than stems and foliage. Pull as many of the "suckers" that form in the "crotch" between the leaves and main stem.

4) After our squash got decimated by bugs, we planted basil and marigolds as companion plants. The marigolds repel nematodes and the basil is supposed to make the tomatoes taste better, which is definitely true if you just, like, eat the tomatoes WITH the basil.

5) Water deeply but infrequently. I was watering every day until a friend told me the trick is to neglect them. If the plants think they're in distress, the roots go deeper and they put more energy into producing fruit.

6) You can harvest after they start showing color and let them fully ripen indoors. Sit 'em on the counter stem side down.

7) To save seeds (only heirlooms) scoop the seeds of a ripe tomato into a glass, add a little water, cover with a paper towel and ferment for 3-5 days, swirling once a day. This breaks down the gel around each seed. Strain and then dry on a plate for a couple weeks. Save in a mason jar or envelope to plant next year. MATERS!