This is awesome. Thanks for sharing! My girls have been extremely vocal the last few days with the weather being so nice. I plan to go home and take some recordings today after work!
This is very sad news indeed. After reading the $50 underground house I started plans for my own semi-underground home. Much of the inspiration for my design comes directly from Mike's book and his videos. He was truly an innovative man who knew how to infect minds with good information. I'll be eternally grateful for his work and experience and I'm glad that I learned about him through my wonderful Permies community.
I remember not too long ago I signed up for updates about a Bitcoin backed project called permacredits. It was a project intended to mirror timebank using hours and Bitcoin money as credits I think. It must have bombed because I haven't had any updates in over a year.
I belong to my local timebank, which is a great idea but doesn't get a lot of traction locally because of the lack of participation. Folks are so busy with their own business and projects that they don't volunteer to help others. I'm included in that group. I need to learn to ask for help more often!!
Anyway, the permacredits idea seemed like a promising one to me. Being able to get lodging and other accommodation when traveling by working or storing up credits with Bitcoin on one big network would be very helpful to a lot of people in this community. Maybe the Permies forum could have its own system for this, considering the size and spread of the site...
I feel like I heard about using legumes as nitrogen fixers from my PDC with Geoff Lawton. Don't hold me to this, as it has been a couple of years now, but I feel like it was expressed to us that legumes hold Nitrogen on the ends of tiny root fibers until the plant fruits. Then the plant takes up that Nitrogen to produce fruit.
Therefore, if you cut the plant at half flower, the nitrogen it is holding underground remains there to be moved and delivered by the microorganisms in the soil to adjacent plants.
I've heard a lot recently about Nitrogen release from fresh hugel mounds because of the green wood used to build them. I'm not sure if there is much science in that though.
"The principal reasons people usually have for seeking to avoid using using flush toilets are typically summarised as follows:
They are very wasteful of clean water resources;
They are typically polluting of fresh water in the receiving environment;
They waste nutrient rich organic matter and high-fertiliser value urine, which could otherwise be reintroduced into the soil."
I love the points you have just made, thank you! I recently read an article on the Permaculture News site that had similar sentiments. The idea that we take clean water and flush our waste away with it makes little sense and, even worse, is terribly wasteful when you think about developing nations where people are dying from a lack of clean, potable water. And, of course using the stuff that comes out of our bodies and cycling it back into the system is of high priority to return nutrients to the soil.
We have been looking into the humanure method instead of a septic system for a little while now. My father likes to tell me that septic is totally safe, and there is no reason to go any other way. I have read about humanure and the many benefits of using that method and I disagree with my dad that septic is better, but I'm not entirely sure why I disagree. I mean, the septic is a waste of material that could otherwise be cycled back into a well designed system, but there is a lot more maintenance involved, as well as the labor of removing the catchment regularly and making sure everything gets up to temp so it is no longer harmful. Am I crazy for arguing for the more sustainable humanure system over septic without a lot of reason? I just feel like, growing up with a septic tank and leech field, septic is a waste of space, waste of water and unnatural due to the giant plastic tank being buried in the ground. Please someone tell me I haven't lost my marbles! Give me some extra reasons to be on the compost toilet side of the argument. Or tell me why septic may actually be better! Thanks!
I'm jumping on board for this one too. The reed bed system is what I have in mind for our greywater setup, but I'm not sure I can make it work with a frost line at 18+ inches deep. Maybe a greenhouse will be a better option, but I won't know until I get the site established. Any info would be great! Thanks!
My wife has been having issues with the whole greywater/compost toilet/no fridge setup I'm working on as well. I have been moderately successful in convincing her and getting her over the eww factor by showing her videos of systems in use where people are handling the waste and it isn't so bad. I guess you could call it "wearing her down" because I'm constantly pushing the idea and finding articles and videos about it that contradict the "eww" reaction. Good luck to you!
I too live in an urban environment. I would love to build a gasifier for extra security. I also have questions about the possibility of combining a biochar retort with other elements to capture and use the gasses that are released from the charcoal production. Is this possible? What are the safety concerns we urbanites would be facing in building a gasifier and living in such close quarters? Thanks so much!!
Thanks for info Ollie! I'll go get registered there.
Bob, it's not that I want to "get bogged down" with the institute label and all of the steps to get there. I love to read as much as I love to design. My goal in attempting to get the PRI stamp of approval is mostly to establish recognition among the larger community of designers.
It's just a credential, but it could help make us more successful. The plan currently is to build up the best system we can with what we have available. Once we have a few dwellings and some food system established, we will take on interns and WWOOFERs who can learn while they work. I've heard of several PDCs in Michigan, all who get very good reviews by former students. But if you are looking for a school and you haven't heard anything about them, the PRI school is going to look a little better, right?
Thank you Rosemary! That is wonderful advice. I only ask because, as we all know, permaculture is growing and evolving all the time. Like many other disciplines, eventually there will be specific standards that hold more weight (especially where education is concerned) than others.
I can't begin to predict what will happen in the future, but I do know that if our future institute has been endorsed by one of the biggest and original institutes, it will be received better and by more students than others.
More importantly, it has always been part of my permaculture dream to build such an amazing system that people like Geoff Lawton, Paul Wheaton and Sepp Holzer, among others, come all the way to Michigan to visit and provide praise and advice! Lol
Does anyone know how heavy the requirements are to obtain a PRI certification on your own school? I have these big dreams to meet Geoff and have him out to my farm one day. I want to build a whole education center that teaches the way the PRI does and (in a decade or two) offer a PDC with the oval stamp on it.
I know I read somewhere that the set of required elements is pretty hefty and quite strict, as it should be. My goal is to have housing and food available for long term interns. We are in a temperate climate, which seems to be ideally suited for a well rounded permaculture educational environment.
Getting a partner to study with can be an invaluable resource. Please feel free to PM me if you ever want help studying. I've read Fukuoka and I own several permaculture manuals.
Yes, excellent answer. Incredibly helpful, thank you! Does this same method apply to tree identification? Or is that more memorization of leaves and fruit?
Thank you so much for your prompt and thorough response!
I'm very new to plant identification. This is a good question. I would also like to know if there are any specific methods or techniques to getting started with identification. I've been trying to learn to ID the plants that grow closest to me (I.e. My back yard, my neighborhood) but they vary somewhat and there are a few pioneers that look alike. Any advice would be much appreciated!
Doesn't Geoff Lawton talk about using coppice as the primary source of fuel for RMH? It seems to be the best option since it stores easily and dries quickly. It also fits right into the feed tube and can be cut long to feed over time.
That looks AWESOME! I'm starting a very small scale fruit forest on my urban lot this year, but I'm hoping to go full scale on our family farm in the next few years. I may just use some of these designs as inspiration!
I may be mistaken, but from what I have witnessed, read, and learned monogamous relationships also include sexuality. Just to be clear, you are mistaken, polyamory is not a form of sexuality any more that monogamy, these are both relationship lifestyles. Polyamory, as noted in one of the previous posts comes from two words, one Greek and one Latin. Poly, from the Greek means many. Amor, from the Latin meaning love. Combined, they embraces the concept of having the capacity to love more than one individual. Now, I am confident you have no desire to listen to me carry on about polyamory, but at the very least, please take away that polyamory is not a form of sexuality. Here is a link to a site where you and anyone else that cares to genuinely educate themselves about polyamory can learn. http://www.morethantwo.com/
I am not attempting to jump into this thread too deeply since I am a long way from being able to take part in an endeavor such as this. I would one day like to retire to a large farm and have several other couples there to work together to build something greater than ourselves, but the polyamory element does not appeal to me personally.
I randomly came across this thread, and while it has been entertaining and informative, I must point out a small potential error in your attempt to describe your lifestyle Christopher. You dropped the link to that site here to help add information without the sexuality aspect. The problem I am seeing is that the very first definition of polyamory on this site says this: "The fact of having simultaneous close emotional relationships with two or more other individuals, viewed as an alternative to monogamy, esp. in regard to matters of sexual fidelity; the custom or practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the knowledge and consent of all partners concerned." If I'm not mistaken, that says very explicitly that polyamory involves engaging with more than one sexual partner.
I know this is not part of what you are promoting, so I wanted to point this out to you and let you know that you may want to seek a different source to spread your message in the future. This site specifically does not seem to disseminate your message very well.
Good luck with everything in the future! I look forward to reading about your progress.
Here's a question pertaining to bees and permaculture practices. My friend who keeps a hive had a very large death toll this winter. He isn't sure if it was the unusually long harsh Michigan winter, or if the bees got some sort of bacteria in their guts and died off. His hive is still active and he has a queen that survived, but he is now considering antibiotic application to the hive to prevent this in the future.
I told him there has to be a better solution. Perhaps some sort of flowers or plants he can grow nearby to help encourage stronger immune systems and digestive health? I don't know anything about bee keeping, but I do know that permaculture has a principle that says "the problem is the solution". And I realize that his solution may be that his hive is a "wrong element, wrong situation" type of thing. Any advice would be great!
Well, after seeing the pictures of the indoor plaster from the Natural Plasters film, I know that I am definitely interested in finishing the inside. So I guess my question is geared at exterior plastering. Like I said, I saw a cob building being finished and I always assumed that the final troweling made the surface smooth and beautiful. But this series of before/after shots showed a rough, straw and clay exterior wall that was not smooth or pretty. Then they covered that with some thick plastering and viola! Beautiful!
Hello everyone! I am very new to the cob building method and I recently saw some articles and images online that show a cob house or building being finished with some sort of plaster coating. I kind of assumed that the cob would be enough when smoothed, but these folks had very rough finished cob structures and the smooth texture of the walls came from a finishing plaster of some sort. I imagine the natural plaster threads will explain how this works, but I was wondering what others, who have used cob or have experience with the substance, think about finished vs. unfinished.
Any suggestions? I want to start working on a RMH design this summer as well as maybe building a small cob shed to get some practice before we go full tilt on a house one day. Thanks!
Like the many people using a different word than permaculture because of the negative baggage that comes along with it, I am a vegan who is looking for a different word for what I'm doing. I, like Paul, have found that being vegan often equates to being a total jerk who wants to preach on a soapbox about how much better you are then everyone else and how you wish anyone who ate meat was dead or suffering.
Personally, I have been working away from the word VEGAN for some time now because without some flexibility, there is very little point to life! We live in a city that allows chicken raising now. I plan to have a few hens. We plan to eat the eggs that we don't give away and our vegan friends are ALL against the idea. I tell them, what about the fact that you will be able to come over and pet and kiss the chickens and thank them for the eggs? They all say "No, that's not vegan!!!" Uggghhh. So I'm done. I'm thinking about calling what we do the farming lifestyle. Or maybe we are "eat what we growers". I don't know, I just need a better term that doesn't insinuate a$$hole.
I have often wondered the same thing myself. When we first attempted to remove teflon and plastic from our kitchen, we had several silicone baking pans and spatulas. Switching to all cast iron for stovetop cooking fixed the spatula issue since metal spatulas work much better in cast. The bakeware we eventually ditched for a cast iron dutch oven, cast pizza pan, pyrex bread pan as well as casseroles, and baking stones for other stuff. The only thing we still use occasionally is a non-stick muffin pan, but I'm always on the lookout for a cast one of those as well.
We currently use silicone or cloth trivets and silicone gloves for removing hot objects. My wife does use a silicone cup, so that is definitely of interest to us, especially since she has a family history of cervical issues…
I will be following this thread closely to be sure.
They may not offer the price break on the manual this time. It was something he had to talk to the institute about when we took it last year.
One new note though. I just got an email from Geoff this morning that said all of the alumni will have full access to the course this year as well to keep studying and to help mentor the new students. There will be a forum where old students and new students can communicate and alumni will also have access to extra supplemental materials as they become available. SO, if you had any reservations about how much this course costs and if you will get the maximum value out of it, rest assured, Geoff takes VERY good care of his students!
I took it last summer online. I think he mentioned something like 1200 students from all over the world. I found it to be intense and informative. There wasn't really much feedback on the final project and he made it sound as if very few people didn't pass, but it was still nerve-racking waiting for the mail!
The only thing I wish I had done a bit differently was to get a specific notebook to fill with notes. I ended up all over the place at first. The nice part is that I have it all on DVD so I can go back and watch it whenever I want!
Good luck to anyone who takes it this summer! You will love Geoff's style of teaching, I'm sure of it!
Nicole Alderman wrote:I think part of it can also be the aspect. I live on a northern facing slope, and face my hugels to the south. The south facing side really heats up faster because of the direct sunlight.
Using this logic, wouldn't it make sense to lay your mounds out from south to north so that the whole bed gets the southern sun instead of just one side? Unless you are working on contour and you HAD to face one side of the mound to the south. I am VERY new to using hugelkultur and I built a very small bed in the fall. It has been covered with snow for about more than 3 months solid and I'm excited to experiment with my planting in it this year. When I laid mine out, I didn't give much thought to the aspect because I was limited on where I could set it, so the mound runs north and south and will most likely get full sun for about 8 or more hours a day in summer.
I always thought wood ash was acidic. Huh. In regards to the xylem filter using the inside of a tree, does anyone know how many gallons one of these filters would be good for? I see one gallon per hour as a rate, but how many can you run through it before it is no longer usable?
Nope. They are all in mp3 form as far as I can tell. It may be easier to drag and drop all the files into an iTunes playlist than to open them one at a time, but either way will work!
I just plugged mine into my MacBook last night to try the videos. They all work, but I need to warn anyone using a Mac that you may need to install VLC player to watch Paul's videos because they are in .wmv (windows) format and may not play using QuickTime. Mine all pulled and played fine on my VLC player though!
william paulson wrote:Did these ship via ups or usps? Still waiting on mine. I dont suppose you did trackjng for all the packages that were sent out to check the status?
Mine came in a small flat rate box from USPS. It was small enough to fit inside the mailbox. Be patient, it will get to you! Trust me, it's worth the wait!
Sam Barber wrote:Yeah just came here to see if the strange looking axe was on here I kinda want to try it out!
Would you be referring to the chopper? I've heard good and bad about those. Mostly indifference I guess. They work, but they are kind of ridiculous and the springs break quite easily from what I've heard. Here is an image if this is what you are talking about.
Here ya go Paul. The files all seem to be fine on the one I got. It pulled right up and everything is organized and works. I haven't tried the videos yet, but I'll be sure to post when I do!
