I’ve been making pack baskets and leather shoes. I got a great video from laughing Crowe for shoes and Jill Choate has free videos for basket making. The shoes are hard, you have to be meticulous and follow all instructions- no shortcuts. Baskets were much easier to learn, I learned from the videos mentioned above about 2 years ago this last August. I started designing my own a couple weeks after buying a kit and watching videos, if you can do basic addition you can make whatever you need for a basket. Here are some photos of what I’ve done in the last few months:
Is there a good resource for researching plants that have been domesticated, specifically where in the successional sequence they naturally grow so that I can determine what kind of soil they would prefer? Some plants might be grown as annuals here but not in their native habitat. I feel like this is a giant hole in my knowledge base and keeping me from creating cohesive guilds with more conventional domesticated "veggies" interspersed with perennial shrubs and fruit/ nut trees. i feel like using the sun/ shade requirements is too broad a tool in determining where to put things when taking soil succession into account. Maybe overthinking this- help!
Since learning about the effects of ph on bacterial growth I figured that by changing the ph of my pits I would alter the environment enough to change the type of bacteria. I spritz with ACV every morning after showering, so far it seems to be working pretty well. Since kombucha vinegar is easy to make I'm planning on trying that as well.
So after reading through most of these posts I'll just add that after researching fermentation and why it works it seemed that a simple ph change in underarm environment would change the bacteria that grow there. I have begun using straight apple cider vinegar with great results. might try kombucha vinegar soon...
Has anyone thought about or tried woodchips currently growing mushroom mycelium? Could a certain fungus be "taught" to consume pee? Poo? Paul Stamets seems to be able to teach mushrooms to eat things they normally wouldn't...
At the very least you could grow mushrooms in sawdust in buckets and then when the last mushroom has been harvested, you pee on it. Mycelium containing soil is supposed to hold more water, soooo what do you think?? I know pee is used easily, so it may not be needed for that, but maybe the spent mushroom stuff could be broken up and used for the poo?
Have you heard of Rolfing? Hellerwork?
Ice and painkillers for a day or three while you get the inflammation down is a good idea if you get a doc recommending it. Then....
Finding a good structural body worker might help. When I have people in so much pain they can't move I find the affected nerves and follow them from the spine to the periphery of the body and start working the musculature there. By the time I get to the spine things have usually loosened to the point that movement with much less pain is possible. So for the cervical spine I would generally start in the hands and arms, forearms especially, ive found, to influence the upper ribs and shoulders. Pectoral or chest muscles to influence the upper back and sometimes the neck. Latisimus dorsi if there is pain lifting arms up and over the head, or mid to low back / rib pain. I find if I can create some space in an area not so inflamed it helps the stuff closer to the spine on that nerve to relax.
So now that I've said all of this- go easy and stay away from the neck and spine- let the pros handle that. And don't hammer at things for hours Little bits at a time, and then ice where you have worked.
My teacher is this guy http://www.capstonemethod.com/ he has some you tube videos up, check them out. maybe it will at least give you some alternative ideas for therapy. I've seen this type of bodywork work miracles. An osteopathic doc who does manual manipulations could also help a lot and be covered by insurance. Exploring the emotional connections to the throat chakra may be of use as well??? Wish I could be there to help out. Good luck!
I have found Paul's rule to be true in my own experience. Most often I see the truth of this rule in mixed company where general statements are being passed around as truth like: " hippies smell and smoke pot and are good for nothing" or " gun owners are right wing assholes" when I find myself in these situations- where I feel surrounded by douchebags I usually keep my mouth shut for fear of my own RELATIVE douchbaggery being realized. I think this also supports the idea that a lack of knowledge precipitates this affliction of douchbaggery. Without the ignorance of sweeping generalizations a large portion of the existing world douchbaggery would disappear. I also like the idea of this serving double duty with the rule that you should never point out the stink of another without first looking in into the source of your own stink... Or something to that effect.
Same bed as above...
Wood included- pine, locust, tree of heaven, oak, some newly cut some rotting, various vines, Japanese barberry. This bed just passed its third year of production.
This is great! I toss in a 20$ and get to be another cog in the permie wheel, crowdfunding is THE way of the future! thanks for the opportunity to support another great thing!
So I just finished reading both this thread as well as the "paid positions for 2015" and thoughts of the Hugh Howey Wayfinder series I just read came up again and again.
In this series of short books, he takes you through the various ways we give up our own free will to the instincts and default responses we carry from a time where we needed to run from danger often, and our tribe was necessary for our survival. Flight or fight is one automatic, mostly unconscious response, but one other he brought up was called theory of mind.
Evidently a very large portion of our brain exists solely for figuring out what others are thinking. "theory of mind" refers to our inner dialog of: What do I think of you, what do you think of dirty people, do dirty people like you more than jocelyn? Does everyone get offended by your use of the term magic boobies? All of this occuping our daily lives far more than I ever realized. The purpose for this reflex assessment of what the people around me are thinking is to create and maintain cohesive social groups. It seems that the structure for the transition towns works with this premise a lot- if you don't like what's happening here, you can choose to go somewhere else. The number of people for projects are dictated by whomever shows up. Therefore I'm gonna try to think of things everyone wants to do...
Not sure how this helps but it seems as though another reflex action that interrupts my free will happens when "company comes" all of a sudden I see all the dirt in the corners of the room and the clutter takes up a ridiculous amount of space. I HAVE to spend a day cleaning before I feel ok opening my door for people. It seems ok for me to have this reflex though, without that extra motivation I might descend into the depths of slothdom....
Maybe instead of hiring someone to clean your personal space for all time, you invest money to separate your personal space from the hordes of visitors? Don't allow anyone into your cave, unless you are ok with them seeing a pile of dishes. MAYBE I'm not the only one with this reflex, maybe an otherwise sloppy gapper might clean up his or her shit if Geoff Lawton was going to be eating in an area they were responsible for? Maybe you rotate who is responsible for hosting and caring for the important visitors so the pressure isn't all on you guys?
If I can stray into metaphor for a moment, I think in some ways you're a pioneer species that grows very vigorously and is creating the conditions for us slower-growing folks to thrive in our own quiet ways, with less turnover of resources physical, financial, intellectual, emotional, etc...I am reminded of K-selected and R-selected species...
Awesome! I think it is when we plug this world into metaphors like this that we harvest an understanding of the benefits diversity brings. Well said!
I have the most profound "aha" moments when I find the right perspective to hold while observing a problem.
I can only nod in agreement that the most challenging parts of my life were some of the most valuable learning times of my life, the rest came with permaculture.
Love all you guys!
Stephen harrod buhner has a couple of amazing books on treating Lyme and its coinfections. Sometimes the infections that hang out with Lyme can be just as bad. The book gives you some pretty heavy information about the how's and whys of Lyme. Amazing enough, Japanese knot weed is one of the herbs used to treat lymes and seems to grow In areas with high infection rates...
Astragalus is one of the preventative measures you can take- you can also take it when you pull a tick from you to help combat the Lyme spirochete. Get the books and read them for yourself, it's way more complex than we have been told.
Funny, just had a conversation with an herbalist friend about the cow thistle overtaking my garden bed- I ended up harvesting all of the roots and made a tincture adding in some burdock and dandelion roots for a liver tonic... I've read Milk thistle is great for liver support and all thistle has some kind of tonic effect on the liver . My friend added that she never has a problem with invasives like thistle cause she's always eating them before they can take over.... The roots didn't seem bitter so I'm thinking those could be cooked up like burdock as a root veggie as well...
I've not inoculated my hugel bed, but I have noticed mushrooms on logs extending from the bed, I did surround my hugelbed with wood chips in the hope that I would encourage colonization of mycelium in anticipation of fruit tree planting- hoping to create a connected whole between the trees and the hugel bed. When I dug the holes for the trees this spring I did see mycelium throughout the chips. I agree that if you aren't worried about harvesting shrooms or can positively identify the edibles that this is an invaluable function stack. You just can't lose. The soil I've added the chips to is mostly clay and so rocky you would think that nothing would grow but just 5 months after spreading the chips worms are abundant in the wood chip layer. My experiment continues with Chinese chestnut and Asian pear planted with no amendments.
Wow Ian, and everyone!
Great work on everything! And on a holiday weekend no less! I don't belong to any other forums, this is it and it's because of all this effort that goes into making thinks like this happen- you guys made me feel like my shit mattered ( heh heh compost reference?) just wanted to throw it back attcha ...
I didn't get the email for the digital downloads for the old RMH videos, I m not so worried about that, I have them on DVD.
Was world domination gardening videos part of the candy at the 60$ level? If so I really do want to get that download...
If not and I'm just misreading or wishful thinking- ignore this...
Sorry guys- I got no second batch o' candy, nothin in the junk folder.
Gonna try using my kids PC to see if the downloads work, it's Apple as well. I have been able to download the rocket mass heater PDFs on the iPad so at least I got some candy. I'm not so worried about the old dvd set download- got the DVDs. Will keep working on getting the album and podcasts and ebook.
I'm hoping spring is inching along for you guys- can't imagine dealing with all this and planting and baby everything's popping out...
*** update
Looks like my candy was meant to be on my kids pc- got the music downloaded and the podcasts seem to be coming along. Happy Easter!
Eva Taylor wrote:
Still can't get anything but the PDF files of the RMH's, help? I'm on my iPad anyone have success downloading onto theirs?
Tell me the exact file size (in bytes) for each problem file you have.
When I click on the link in the email it shifts to safari, looks like it's gonna load and then nothing. everything stops and I just have a window open with nothing in it.
Or
I click on the link and it loads for a while and says the server has stopped responding.
So I'm not getting the chance to see what the file size is...( or I don't know how to get that info cause I know more about dirt than my iPad)
Wish I could do more to help figure out my end. I will add though that I have very slow high speed internet.
Hey guys, having problems downloading the podcasts,music, and ebook. Got the RMH plans fine. Will try again in the early am? Seemed to work better last time, thanks for all the work- you guys rock!
I thought you guys were pretty clear on what you were doing and why on the kickstarter page, and are being so gracious about helping the people who didn't understand now. Good job guys, keep the good stuff going!
And I thought Easter was mostly about the candy anyway.....
I'm designing my own home and want to incorporate earthbag, cob, strawbale, slip straw, passive solar, living roof, with a rocket mass heater, balah blah blah- I wanna stack function in this house like a deck'O cards. Is there some kind of magical number for square footage that goldilocks ( me) can go for that will maximize efficiency of all these things? Been thinking about the edge effect and how it has an optimal size range to get the best result, and wonder since I'm creating edge with the walls of my home- can I go too small? Too big? If I build a small cabin to try out some of the methods I want to use does it need to be a certain size to see benefits? I live in eastern WV and so we see temps get below zero-50F in winter and 80 to over 100 in the summer with high humidity. The slope of the land faces east but gets good southern exposure, almost no western sun.
So I feel like crazy would or could be defined as a difference of perspective directly related to how far down the permi rabbit hole you have traveled. It's very difficult not to overwhelm those folks still just poking around the entrance ( wow that's crazy you don't know this already),and sometimes hard to relate to those that have passed through the event horizon ( wow I have no idea what you just said and it might be because you are crazy)...
Lately I think the natural world has begun to speak through those of us with the patience to observe, investigate, and understand the complexity that is mother nature. The language of this communication has come in the tireless work of people like Timothy Lee Scott. In his book Invasive Plant Medicine, he provides the validation that invasives like the mustard plant have a vital function in the ecology of forests. He points out that Indian Mustard "has been found in laboratory and field studies to have the potential to remediate heavy metals like nickel, zinc, cadmium, chromium and mercury in toxic soils." (I.P.M. pg. 312) The Garlic mustard, a dynamic accumulator, was found to leave soil "consistently and significantly higher in N, P, Ca, and Mg availability… the soil nutrients that present conditions for optimal plant growth." It was also mentioned that "garlic mustard was found not to release volatile compounds from the roots to affect other plants"( I.P.M. pg. 214) often a big argument for its large-scale removal.
Now this doesn’t even touch on the fact that mustards are edible and medicinal as well. Its a hot plant and so is good for congested type problems. It is an anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, anti-hyperglycemic, and can be used as a food preservative, the seed protecting against ecoli! The leaves and flowers can be used in salads, the seed dried and ground just like mustard you find in the store.
All this from one type of plant that so many consider an enemy of the forest, and organize to eradicate. Timothy reintroduces us to a bunch of these vilified plants that do so much to rehabilitate and help us to read the status of forests and fields, as well as heal and nourish us. This book is a necessary read for everyone, especially those ready to head out for the day to pull wild mustard from the floor of their local forest. Buy several copies of this book and give it to your friends, family, and any Sierra club big wigs that you may know- this book is a game changer!
I give this book 9/10 acorns...
Ok so I gave a 9 because I think eric could have made this soooo much bigger. That being said this book is great and turned me on to many plants that I wouldn't have paid attention to. At a glance you can tell if it will grow in your region and what you can do with it when it grows. It was invaluable as I made my permiculture design, it tells you how big things get and how aggressive they are, different varieties of the same thing that will grow in a colder/warmer climate, recipies, history, ecology, uses, storage- the list goes on and is probably why the book only goes as far as it does- we probably would have had to wait years for a more comprehensive version. There is a tremendous amount of information in this book and I can only hope that this leads to several books specific to each climate zone, but don't worry there is plenty in this book to give everyone a bunch of things to experiment with.
