Graham Elliott

Hello There!

My name is Graham and I recently moved to Bull Head City / Laughlin from Florida. I am mostly looking for female company but have no qualms if you are a guy and looking to network or be friends. If you would make time for me, I would be happy to make time for you - the trust and companionship that come from genuine relationships with all range of intimate connections - and maintaining those relationships - are how I conduct my 'love life'. My friends are my family and my love life! It follows then that I would try to maximize these connections with people like you and do not want to exercise any kind of emotional or physical ownership over others. Please, be free to grow in your own life too! I'm very accepting of alternative lifestyles and completely different viewpoints: combining our differences with respect and love and dedication is worth trying to work over any misunderstandings or disagreements for me. I hope you too spend time thinking about things in their bigger context too, even if thinking or acting like this isn't your style!

You should know that I self identify as heterosexual but also as demisexual. It essentially means that as the main population of sexual people often experience sexual attraction based on immediate interactions, and sometimes later based on relationship bonds and depth, a demisexual person only experiences sexual attraction based on the latter dynamic: we don't, for instance, respond with sexual interest to people we don't know - strip clubs are not as exciting for a demisexual person. We are 'half sexuals' in a sense.

We - you and me - should be whatever we can be is my philosophy! We can be casual friends, mates of the soul or mind, of mission or cause, we can be responsibly loving adult partners focused on our bigger ambitions, and hopefully above all we can be heartfelt friends for a very long time. If you do want a physical side of a relationship with me, you will please need to be direct and talk about it openly with me - if you try to honor gender roles and wait or be coy or drop subtle hints to test my response, I will all the same not take initiative and you will be left frustrated. I am comfortable making some compromises with my sexuality in the right conditions, with the right people or peoples, but we should communicate about wants and expectations (and lack of) first.

If you want to know more about me or my personality, you can ask openly here or feel free to email me at atelerix@gmail.com and please mention the permies.com forum in the subject line. Because I really want to meet you, I would also appreciate a 'moosage' letting me know you emailed me (I get spam a bit)

Looking forwards to meeting YOU!
- Graham Elliott

I'm going to give some of this a try around a residence. I just moved to Bullhead City / Laughlin.

Seeds arrive on the 5th! Corn (which I'm hoping will help me branch out from shaded to unshaded areas as sun cover until I can get some shade cloth), melons, peas and broad (lima) beans, some amaranth, a desert hardy wild cherry tomato, and I'll hopefully have sprouted dates and a chayote soon.

One of the trees down the street is dropping seeds and I need to collect some as well. Wish my digital camera worked and I could photo and ID it.

noted about the dog manure

Perhaps I won't use it or where it could transfer worms. Zone 4 mulching or some such.

There is also a fair amount of donkey manure in the area that seems it would be valuable for mixed nutrients. I believe I can recall Mollison or Lawton mentioning in a lecture that running wood and manure through a wood chipper makes a fine mulch in desert environments and rocky deserts.

Are you on sand or caliche or do you have some other soil type?

I'm not sure how the locals would describe it, just moved here - its a rocky desert, lots of different sizes of rocks where development is. Instead of lawns people have rock lawns or gravel yards. Fine sand and dirt lies just under it - well compacted but i need to look again for caliche. Above ground I haven't found a whole lot of rocks that resemble this, only a few. I don't recall seeing anything like this in the cliff layers.

you need to be continually adding biomass all year long

That is something I'm interested in doing.

Desert soil are normally very fertile and dont need much compost, They do benefit from an over-story.

Yes I am going to use shadecloth on hoops and otherwise migrate out from shade heavy areas. I'm interested to see how the sun here differs in its effects vs in Florida.

I mostly want the compost so that I can have a way into cycling nutrients as well as adding them, and between the animal and kitchen waste produced about everywhere here, I think there is an untapped valuable resource if I can manage to include certain amounts of wetter items into a low evaporation environment with the worms and not need to add water.

Inside seems the most reasonable if I really want worms.

By hand.

If I can get my hands on an old wooden barrel it should serve nicely as a worm tower, I'm thinking. And it wouldn't look bad either!

A lot of teachers grow a disdain for institutionalized learning, I've noticed.

Hello Everyone!

I am about to start working on a series of projects out here in the rather harsh arizona desert.

Composting is probably going to be a bit different out here than what I'm used to, and if I am going to construct anything it needs to have some innate fire proofing capabilities.

I've seen a few of the methane-digester canisters out here so I know those probably won't catch fire, but I'm hoping to find a better and quicker way of creating good and ready plant food to add to the soil. A worm tower of a sort seems like it might be ideal - I should be able to access a steady stream of organic waste in the form of dried manure (dog, donkey) and some kitchen scraps. Possibly even from a small restaurant as well.

Unfortunately a worm tower stands up and into the hot air. I'm afraid one would dry up quickly and constantly, though burying it slightly and excavating a small area next to it to scoop out and into might work...

Besides this, I'm considering simply digging a small pit and covering it well to combat evaporation, then digging it up later.

Do you have any tips or tried methods for composting in extremely dry and hot climates? thanks!

- Graham

Hello there!

I'd like to introduce myself - I study and practice permaculture as a hobby and inevitably have found my way here. I heard about permies.com probably a year and a half ago, but beyond skimming and lurking a few times just didn't get around to joining.

Well that has changed! I have recently relocated to a city called Bullhead City in the state of Arizona, nestled neatly into probably the warmest place I have ever been before - the Mohave Valley.

I am looking to bridge the gap from self educated hobbyist to practicing consultant - and hopefully bring food into a 'food desert' in an intelligent and sustainable manner, as well as network with others in the area/who have worked in climate like this before.

Thank you for having me. I'm always grateful for useful sources of information and the ability to network around a meaningful passion, and I hope to contribute to the community by writing about my projects and including enough information and step-by-step to help others adopt what I hope to show them are fruitful, functional, frugal, and sustainable approaches to what is otherwise understood as a dead and extreme environment.

- Graham Elliott