Dave Way

We have a somewhat similar issue as we live in a very small French village with very little diversity and little tolerance for any diversity (overwhelmingly they vote ‘extreme right’).

Solutions will depend on your geographic setting. If you have a reasonable sized city nearby, there would be lots of organizations that have people of diverse backgrounds/origins/ethnicities/orientations/worldviews.
I grew up in a Unitarian Church (Vancouver Canada). I did not become a believer in God; that wasn’t a necessary aspect of that (very liberal) community. There were hard core atheists, Buddhists, Baha’i, every religion and every shading. What they all shared was a commitment to a more just world and respect for the choices of others. That upbringing made me who I am: a feminist, lifelong gay ally, fighter for social justice and the environment.
I’m not saying that specific community is the solution; just that there are groups, organizations and communities who have diverse members and diverse values. Go visit them instead of asking them to visit you. Your kids (and you) will see more range instead of one token representative of a certain ‘other’.

The problem with using trees as accounting for removal of carbon is that eventually, nearly all that carbon is released into the atmosphere; there’s a reason they call it the ‘carbon cycle’.

So many trees that are planted to ‘cancel’ emissions (mainly of fossil carbon which had been safely sequestered deep in the Earth) don’t survive long after planting ( a very rough process as usually done; bang! Bang! Bang!). Many others don’t survive to maturity. Others will be consumed by forest fires and go up into the atmosphere. And even those that become 100-300 year old trees will eventually die and decompose, releasing about 80% of their carbon into the atmosphere.
Climate change must be tackled through (1) increasing living plants beyond what currently exists but mainly (2) leaving the fossil carbon in the ground and transforming the way we live.

Great work, you’ve overcome so many little issues that invariably crop up.
It’s probably too for this structure but I would have slathered the pallets with boiled linseed oil to give a bit more resistance to water and rotting.

Someone mentioned Lee Valley tools. I haven’t bought anything from there but as a Canadian I have repeatedly heard friends and family raving about some high quality, durable tool bought there ( it may sell online too but was a bricks and mortar operation first and still is.

I have gone through so many garlic presses over the years, often broken because I also pressed slices of ginger for my ginger tea (for illness).
Zyliss makes a good one but I don’t think it will meet several of the author’s criteria.
Maybe someone here should put all this together and design and sell an ‘ultimate garlic press’.

On a side note, several people have mentioned wanting to avoid aluminum. I’m guessing that this is due to the perceived link with Alzheimer’s disease that dominated about 30 years ago.
I was a biomedical researcher at the time (neurology and moliecular genetics) so I’d like to point out there was a tenuous correlation of aluminum in sticky plaques in brains of Alzheimer’s patients but absolutely no proof that the aluminum caused the condition; it was more probable that the sticky plaques accumulated the aluminum normal circulating in all of us (along with iron, copper, manganese, etc.) Thirty more years of targeted research and experts now do NOT believe aluminum exposure leads to Alzheimer’s. But feel free to avoid aluminum for any reason 🙂

Hi, does anyone know of any existing RMHs in northern France area ( we are just north of Paris)?
I’d like to see one in operation and discuss real life results before building one at our place.
Thanks,
Dave
Chacrise France

Just for information for anyone here interested in property in Europe.
I think this sort of arrangement is not impossible here but less likely. Space being a lot more limited, every bit of land is more valuable, and over a longer history, land has been divided up for many reasons (division among several heirs, political gifting of land between lords and the like) into small parcels which are hard to re-combine. Behind my .93 hectares (four parcels together), there is a hodgepodge of rectangular parcels of about 100 square metres each. One would have to track down every one of these families and convince them to sell, with the pain of Notary papers and fees, which are high here regardless of size of the parcel.

Big farms are very valuable AND there is actually an association called Terre de Liens ( roughly ‘land of links’) which does pretty well what SKIP does:
“Terre de Liens relies on an associative and civic dynamic which makes it possible to acquire agricultural land, to install a new generation of farmers on organic farms. These places recreate the link between farmers and citizens, while promoting biodiversity and respect for the soil.”

So, older farmers contact TdL and they arrange a match. Some things are done well here in Europe!
One’s best bet over here is look at groups on Facebook etc and property ads for abandoned properties in the middle of nowhere ( if it is close to nice spots, coast, etc, then expats will snap them up at higher costs).

I loved ´My Side of the Mountain’, ans stored the book (over 20+ moves and three continents) until I read it this past Fall to my 9 year old son. One evening, I am reading outdoors about him hunting and processing deer hide, and my son suddenly says ‘deer!’. Right below us in the wild garden, 40 feet away.

That said, the reviews of the film are terrible and the clip looked pretty cheesy.

For those who have mentioned Lord of the Flies, why not inspire yourself and your kids on the real human nature, and watch the short documentary about the boys from a small South Pacific Island who ran away, sank the boat they were on and survived together in harmony for months on an uninhabited island. They were the inspiration for LOTF but the reality was much more positive!

I see that this is a very old thread but in case anyone else arrives here while looking for info on horsetail control and uses...
I have a large property in northern France and being in the valley bottom, is clay soil and quite damp (springs, ponds, boggy woods, etc.). So horsetails are everywhere (as well as nettles). My wife and I have been chopping or ripping wheelbarrow loads of horsetailis and using them as mulch on all our vegetable and flower beds, as it is very hot and dry for months now. Works well. In addition, it seems to be unappealing to slugs to cross; I used horsetails around freshly planted sunflower seedlings. Normally these are delicious to slugs and are devoured immediately but it has been days and not one has been touched. I'll have to do a side-by-side controlled experiment to see if it is better than other mulches or barriers.
But, the take home message is that rather than be a problem, something can be a renewable resource; I've got horsetails for the rest of my gardening life!

Two years further on; any news? I think we’re all rooting for you and this project.