Gurkan Yeniceri wrote:You prepare a calendar for Southern Hemisphere and write equinox and solstice dates as well as space for blossom and graft dates.
Because everything here is upside down
We're not upside down, all those Northerners are upside down!
Also, you can't help being a Permie when your family Coat Of Arms is ...
after reading all of the follow ups...i can honestly say i am speechless for one of the first times in my life!!! all i know for sure now is that I AM A PERMIE!!! LOL
teri morgan wrote:LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS THREAD!!! LOL
after reading all of the follow ups...i can honestly say i am speechless for one of the first times in my life!!! all i know for sure now is that I AM A PERMIE!!! LOL
...when you realize that your floss is made of just cotton and beeswax, and so can be composted or used as firestarter, and your ecstatic that you can keep the resources on your property and you don't have to add it to the landfill! (It's the little things, LOL!)
I spoke with a friend last night - we've known each other just shy of 50 years. I mentioned the term "food forest" and she asked "what's a food forest?"
And I guess I am so permie-fied that I was a bit shocked she'd never heard that term. So I explained and she got it right away though it made me quite sad for some reason. It felt like quite the chasm or divide in our friendship.
So I came here to feel better and read others' fun examples in this thread. And it helped.
I know how you feel, Jocelyn. My best friend of 55 years doesn't understand Permaculture, food forest etc, or agree with the concept of growing her own food. I just avoid the subject now.....
I had a "omg I'm such a permie" moment the other day. Was talking to my dad about the house and land I'm trying to buy, and he thought of just sbout every problem he could. I had a quick answer for each one.
Dad: the electric isn't hooked up and all the wires need replaced.
Me: I was planning on putting solar in anyways. It might cost $4000 for rewiring the whole house, but starting solar in just the addon is like $600.
D: there is cracks in the plaster in the attic, that all needs sheetrock.
M: i will just mix up some lime and hair and fine sand and patch it.
D: the oil furnace doesn't work, how are you going to heat the house?
M: rocket mass heater.
D: there is a hole in the wall, how are you gonna fix it if its rotted?
M: it's a timberframe building. The hole is not near a beam. It just needs a siding replacement in a few spots.
D: what about your equipment?
M: for what?
D: farming
M: I need a scythe and a seed drill. Other than that I don't figure on needing anything.
This back and forth continued for about an hour and a half. He would come up with some problem, and I with its sollution. I noted the contrast between the negative problem focus of my Dad and the positive sollution focus I had cultivated.
When your dad is trying to help weed your hugle bed, he asks "is this a weed?" and you respond "it's a weed with a purpose, let it get bigger for now".
Christopher LaFon wrote:When your dad is trying to help weed your hugle bed, he asks "is this a weed?" and you respond "it's a weed with a purpose, let it get bigger for now".
I got in a row once over what was and wasn't a weed. Wanting to keep lambsquarters and goldenrod is apparently a grave sin to those that like a clean and tidy garden.
A high school kid helping me looked at me weird when I said "...and don't step on this plant" "it's a weed...?" "It's monarda, I like monarda." "ok.. Is this an important weed?" "you can step there" (he steps on a plant) I said "It IS a weed I want, but there's a lot of them, so I can sacrifice that one!" He was very puzzled. He asked me at one point "what's this weed?" I tasted it. "You just eat weeds?!" "Actually I know what I'm doing, but yeah, I eat weeds."
Really different realities there. He had never looked at weeds before, and I look at them all. And eat them :D
...you go running around outside to recharge your energy!
...you realize your moods are heavily affected by the seasons and sun!
(felt pretty darn depressed and anxious during the Winter and pretty pessimistic, and I'm starting to feel much better and have a more positive outlook as the days are getting longer!)
(also, I was feeling more anxious and worried in the morning, but I'm feeling more energetic, less worried, and more excited as the sun gets higher in the sky!)
When your garden plan includes a location for the Japanesse Beetle trap because you know some of them will fall to the ground nearby and lay eggs,
That will hatch into grubs,
That will attract moles,
That will dig tunnels,
That will act as a swale.
When a hydroponic design calls for 2 liter soda bottles and you're not sure quite where to find them. Then you see your neighbor's recycling bin on Friday morning has a few in it so you develop a new routine.
Mike - we xall that 'Wombling' down our way. I do it all the time. We have community bins here so - our World is their empty fruit boxes and water bott,es.
https://youtu.be/-Ukcoc8k3OA
You believe in reusing and not wasting. You save jars, containers and other useful things to reuse. Your hubby says its like you lived through the Great Depression. You're in your early 30's.
You're just as excited about seeing the first Robins and new little green sprouts in the spring time as other people are about the newest iPhone release.
Your land feels like an extension of yourself. When you are gone for an extended length of time and you return, it feels like a part of yourself is returned to you.
A big part of your retirement and financial security plan is your food growing systems, your community network, and your skill set.
When getting your bareroot nursery order in the mail feels like the best Christmas present ever, even though you have to work your tail off instantly. Can I plant 38 plants in a day, while wrangling kids? Evidently, I can!
When looking at bushes makes you inordinately happy. But, really, how can I NOT be happy when looking at 5 current bushes, 4 honey berry bushes, 10 blueberry bushes, 1 gooseberry and a crazy amount of native red huckleberries? There's food in them thar bushes!
When you accidentally bought too many seed potatoes, which means you now "need" to make another garden bed. Now where to put the garden bed...?
When you keep having to make more garden beds, because you keep turning your old ones into perennial garden beds and so need places to grow tomatoes, squash, peas and all those other annual garden munchies!
...the mud room is full of baby chickens & the living room is full of baby plants ... and you are preparing for more.
... you dedicate the entire best garden area to corn because you sense this is a year for excellent corn. Then plant half of it in fast growing beets because it's not warm enough for corn yet.
... the new neighborhood lake caused by flooding isn't receding. So you think it would make a nice fishing lake if you can convince the local hatchery to stock it. The ducks & geese have already moved in.
... the comfrey finally reappears after winter. Now the sweet potato hugelhole can be completed.
...when your birthday trip to the mountains results in bringing two trash bags full of pine needles home, because their acidity counteracts the alkalinity of the desert soil and that was the whole reason you wanted to go to the mountains in the first place.
...when your boyfriend looks up and can't find you, he immediately goes outside to look for patches of "weeds" or dumpsters.
...when your smartphone is full of science/research and plant/fungus identification apps.
...when you are the only person who knows the "paths" around your property.
...when you make a special "blood tea" fertilizer for your plants every 28 days or so.
...when people just drop off random plants they picked up or every kind of injured animal they find.
...when your pregnant coworker looks at you one day and says, "You know, I don't know why, but I would trust you to deliver my child."
Your index finger are stained by dirt from pulling up weeds from lawn. Pulling up purple dead nettle, hairy bittercrest, and dandelion and violet flowers.
When a trip to town includes:
--4 community members traveling together to save resources (me, Fred, Jeremy and Robbie)
--going to a seed and houseplant swap
--taking as much recycling as will fit and dropping it off at four different places because that's what it takes in the smallish town of Missoula
--a stop at the hardware store (what homesteading trip to town would be complete without that?)
--the three other community members pop out of the car while you get an oil change (not getting a small oil barrel for an RMH here today, but you have in the past) to spend time in the spring sun at the river
--Fred brings back cottonwood branches from some bits that were chopped down by a beaver so we can plant them at home and no one cares that the red sap might get all over the car and that Fred's hands now look bloody!
When your son invents a pretend laser that takes your husband's "hot wheels money" and your son proceeds to go on an imaginary shopping trip with said money to buy "green carrots for me, purple radishes for Mama and purple pansies for sister." Then he plants his pretend seeds, watches them grow, and then harvests them to make into a soup, which he then serves to all of us :D.
I want to see the wild onion grass that grows here bloom and collect seeds, it's always getting mowed down before it does. So I moved some from the rental to the property, to a place it won't get mowed.
You know you a are a permie when you transplant the weeds :D
When you have a conversation with a random stranger in town about the different species of locust trees and all their uses, and have an immediate connection and are both thoroughly enjoying the conversation.
...when you see a (homeless?) man in your front yard. He's standing under your tree eating an apple. So, you take a cutting, graft a tree, and plant it where you have seen him walking. Because guerrilla gardeners and homeless people occupy the same ecological niche.
You know your a permie, when your kids won't eat any veggies from the store " cause they are icky". But strip a broccoli plant in the garden.
Child logic,
Where dose food come from?
Our garden, teacher said the proper answer was the store. Had to explain to my son why people don't have gardens.
His answer so how do they eat. The things you never thought to explain to a child.
I've found myself thinking that very same thing, especially since I haven't taken a PDC, woops. But back to the topic!:
... when you go running at night just to get a wiff of the native plants from the local neighborhood park :)
... when you walk around the neighborhood looking for more "resources" such as leaves, cardboard, and empty containers.
... when people visit you at home and start asking why in the world you have sand, dirt and sawdust in buckets.
... when you have plants growing in every nook and cranny in your home
When your children pick flowers and bring them to you to feed you. When they drop inedible flowers, because--in their little minds--what good are they if they can't eat them?
thought of this thread the other day as I was inspecting my plants in the front yard right before going out to run some errands...... I managed to knock a hanging planter with my head and spill a whole mess of rabbit manure compost water on my head and down my shirt. Did a quick towel off of the worst part and went out anyway, figuring I only really respect the people who like the smell of fertilizer/planting/gardens anyway.
When you go outside and pick licorice jelly beans for your family....and you feel embarrassed about the fact that you couldn't find your metal bowls to harvest the Sweet Cicily seed pods and used an old rubbermaid container...
When you read Nicole's post and say "tastes like licorice jelly beans?! How did I miss that one?!" And put it on your seed want list :D
Thanks Nicole! I LIKE licorice!
You know you're a permie when you think rubber gardening boots go with everything; capris, shorts, skirts... and you wear them everywhere, including shopping, because they are so easy to slip on and you don't have to change when you get back home.
Post by:autobot
Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger, now he's dead, that tiny ad sure bled
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