Thanks Sherry, yes, I'll keep these on hand for at least the first part of next year. Hopefully Permies explodes 100-fold into global consciousness and we will need many hands.
Dian Green wrote:If possible, you might want a few of those to have a middle option instead of just yes/no. Budget would be one. I have *some* budget!
Another big category/point of divergence would be how much they want to do. "I have a few logs", I have one small tree", "I cut down several old maples and *Wow!*, is that a lot of wood!!"
How much space they have to work with along with amounts of work they are willing/able to do, both short and long term could be other points.
Right you are. I was thinking some of these are on a continuum, or a spectrum vs binary yest/no.
Cheap path: vs Spendy path:
upside-down clear tub, sneeze-guard style vs laminar flow hood
your own substrate vs purchased substrate
clone your liquid culture vs buy all your stuff
reusable, second-hand buckets vs single-use plastic bags with vents and injection ports
I've been asked to write an article for homesteaders who wanna get started growing mushrooms at home.
Since there are so many ways one could go about it, I thought a fun part of this might be to diagram the different choices you can make and options you have.
Anyone wanna provide input as I work on this diagram?
I eat it whole, fresh picked as a leaf or flower. If I am hungry in the garden as as tiny snack. Or if I cut myself.
I used to use it for green smoothies, but I have gotten out of that habit.
If it's winter and I have a cut, I drink it as a tea.
If I have a puncture wound, I do not use it topically at all, but rather orally. That way it heals from the inside out. I once used it as a poultice on a deep cut, and the outside healed too fast, with the inside still lacerated.
I don't think it should only be taken internally, or even primarily. But it is fine unless you are pounding it relentlessly.
Doc Jones has pointed out that the studies with mice would be the equivalent of a person eating many pounds of comfrey, exclusively, daily, for weeks on end. "So don't do that and you should be fine" he says.
Evidence shows that big pharma is working to synthesize, own and monetize allantoin as a powerful healing compound. It would be in their interest to demonizediscredit undercut the use of naturally occurring allantoin, present in an incredibly useful and safe form in Comfrey. The herbalist community just about has a conniption any time you even mention the possible use of Comfrey internally, despite clearly skewed data. Even generally trustworthy sources are clearly working to advance this false narrative. Not sure if they're getting paid, they're just afraid, or they have taken the bait of ethical high ground.
Say I want to talk about Comfrey. In today's internet, Comfrey studies and data are disappearing rapidly due to dirty corporate influence and the desire of some to commandeer traditional knowledge and monetize it as intellectual property. Suppose I were to post about Comfrey on fb or (heaven forbid) reddit. In that case, I will suddenly have hundreds of focused and strategic trolls tearing it apart, or it will quietly disappear, or it will be drowned in a sea of invisibility, or it will be labeled as unsafe and dangerous. It's wild out there. Thank goodness for the Cider Press, the only place on the internet that is safe from such nastiness for public discourse about things like Comfrey.
This is no fancy pants, scripted Hollywood movie. This is raw, unscripted problem-solving with the full beauty of the English language. You will see the tactics and logic of how to harvest water and create thriving microclimates. With this World Domination Gardening bundle, you will get three movies (Ponds, Swales, and Hugelkultur) as well as a hugelkultur microdocumentary that covers 12 hugelkultur builds!
These three movies came about from a video of a 3-day workshop in hot Southern California, USA. The workshop covered the earthworks for building a pond without a liner, a swale, and a hugelkultur bed on a terrace. Then more footage was added by doing the same workshop over again in a colder climate.
A year later, the crew returned to the Southern California site and added even more footage, complete with an evaluation by Geoff Lawton, crown prince of permaculture!
PONDS MOVIE:
No plastic pond liners needed! Watch a sealed pond be created in just three days--and then see how it fills up overnight and holds that water for months!
This movie covers:
Digging and sealing a pond with just what nature provides
Directing excess water where you need it
Removing toxins and from your water supply
Storing water for long-term use
SWALES MOVIE:
Reduce irrigation needs by channeling rain water where you want it to irrigate your land, all while crafting a beneficial microclimate.
This movie covers:
both swales and ditches!
Utilizing laser levels to engineer a swale on contour
Constructing swales to create cool microclimates in hot regions
Preventing and utilizing erosion
Creating systems that irrigate your land with only rain water
HUGELKULTUR MOVIE:
Nature can be unpredictable, but there are ways to ensure food production by harnessing that unpredictability. Hugelkultur does this by holding in water, feeding beneficial microorganisms, and creating diverse microclimates to ensure food production. This movie will help you visualize how to quickly jumpstart your garden to create lasting systems that continue to produce food with less water, fertilizer, and work.
This movie covers:
Massive scale hugelkultur to engineer both warmer and cooler micorclimates
Sun-scoop hugelkultur to push climate boundaries
What wood and other material that can be used in a hugelkultur
How to harness unpredictability to be more resilient
HUGELKULTUR MICRODOCUMENTARY:
This is short film about hugelkultur that includes 12 different hugelkultur builds. Topics covered include:
How to shape your landscape to be warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.
Encouraging diversity inside the hugelkultur as well as outside.
Organic vs. Permaculture
While the full 3-DVD set is for urban gardeners as well as people with acreage, and the full 3-DVD set will contain far more information on hugelkultur, this micro documentary will be focused on gardening and have no focus on projects with larger acreage.
Aimee VanD wrote:Hi there, I paid for this course but it isn’t clear how to access the materials or what to do next. I didn’t receive a confirmation email. Any tips?
Hi Aimee,
It is a series of 3 videos that you can work through at your own pace. You should see the 3 videos embedded in the top post of this thread. Does that help?
Beau M. Davidson wrote:I've not been able to pull the trigger on Earthsea. I just don't feel the need for more dragons in my life, I guess. But it's on so many peoples' lists. Can someone convince me to give it a shot? Tell me why you love it.
Well, for one thing, it predates almost all the other dragon books.
She creates another universe, only different from ours in that what we call paranormal is normal, embracing so much of what mainstream USA culture denies the existence of. This is important to me personally, because I have a strong and active intuition, and like the world where intuition and insight are developed rather than suppressed.
I love the earthsea trilogy, can you tell? And Ursula K Leguin is one of my favorite authors. She started earthsea in the 70s, and wrote the first 3. Years later she added more books to “the earthsea cycle” or something like that. The original world was male centered, patriarchal, females the bit parts. In her later books, she created some authentic women.
Beyond that, Leguin’s father was the man who took Ishi home with him when he appeared out of the wilds in the early 20th century. Her mother was also remarkable, though right this minute I can’t remember how she distinguished herself. These facts don’t figure in her fiction, but if, like me, you like following the development of ideas and belief systems, and you enjoy considering authors’ work as a reflection of their lives and experiences then theres a lot available in the earthsea cycle, and all her other books.
Earthsea is for adolescent readers, but I read it aloud when mine were much younger. I thought the values and realities of that alternate universe were helpful in teaching values and character development. It’s full of adventure and the protagonist faces challenges. Not much gratification gratification gratification. Not much violence. The character mostly wrestles with himself and his own humanity. (But you can read the whole book and never notice that)
Good timing, Thekla!
I am 3/4 of the way through reading book 1 to my two children currently. I am glad I finally came around. Ursula Le Guin is a wonderful writer, so far superior to much of what exists in the genre.
In other news, I am also currently on book four of Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son series. Books 1 & 2 I thought were really solid, idea-wise. Not the caliber of writing of Le Guin, but conceptually very engaging. Books 3 & 4 have been a let-down, but I'm still trekking with it because it's just interesting enough for me to care, and just snoozy enough to usually put me to sleep after the first couple pages.
I went on another Steinbeck kick recently, reading some new ones and re-reading some old favorites.
We got the option with the bigger holes, thinking maybe it would pulverize less while being easier to clean.
I do think it's cool that you can get the big hole one and the small hole one, and use the same upper lever.
Haven't put it through the ropes yet, but dinking around with it felt pretty good. Sturdy, easy to disassemble, the top part lets you kind of scoop out the cup portion through the open top.
Paul will bring some more folks on. The question is when. 2024? Next week? The answer depends on many things, only a few of which are in my purview. My hope is that we can return to this batch of applicants and go on down the list when the time comes.
We hired a guy and brought him on. He seems really great, and I'm sure he would have done wonderfully. But he quit on the first day, so . . . back to the drawing board. Maybe we should have stressed the 6-month-commitment part a little more?
Then someone who is already Permies volunteer staff inquired about the gig, so it is pretty easy to shift him into the roll without a heavy lift from Paul, since he already knows quite a bit about Paul and how Permies works. He just started today.
There is a chance that Paul will be able to bring on some more folks in the coming months.
But back-tracking from that, of all the people that have filled out the survey:
First, we crossed off the folks who couldn't do full-time.
Then, we crossed off folks who didn't answer a lot of the questions, or folks for whom it took a lot of energy to figure out what their answers meant.
If someone has a lot of posts on Permies, and/or has a handful of threads in the Digital Market, they'd probably be pretty near the top of the list.
Judy J Johnston wrote:beast ...pressing down ...does it crush .... some don't press tight enough and half the clove just sits there uncrushed
I don't have firsthand experience with it, and I don't put a lot of stock in most online reviews. It looks like it fits snugly, so I would hope that it is akin with most tightly-fitting stainless ones, where there remains a thin smashed bit behind. I would be interested to hear from someone with firsthand experience.
Welcome to permies, Scott! A few things your post makes me think about. The main thing:
Scotttt Davis wrote:I would opt for a soy based spray foam type if you can afford it.
I think developments in biologically grown blown insulation are promising, but it's hard to work with soy without dealing with some things that many ecologically-minded folks tend to avoid. For a better alternative, consider mycelium insulation.
even if it is cleaned if it gets wet it can cause more problems plus it does breakdown over time.
This is true of all insulation.
I would also think that the cleaning process to remove all the potential insects/their eggs, harmful bacterias and so on would be rather expensive today.
Lots of good options out there if I didn't find aluminum to be unacceptable. I have seen the garject doohickey, and it's beyond me why they wouldn't make it in stainless at that price. Additionally, I suspect the plastic mechanisms will wear out.
L Gudgel, the one you suggest is perhaps the most promising I have seen. Thank you!
Jay Angler wrote:I use a micro-planer specifically because my hands are too small to get decent pressure on any garlic press I've tried to use.
I like microplaners, too, Jay. They clearly won't meet my wife's criteria, but for my own curiosity: what do you do with the nubby bit of garlic left that you can't shave without giving yourself an overly aggressive manicure?
If you find one that works with tiny hands, please let us know!
I certainly will.
This one is a slightly different take, and might work for small hands. It sits on your counter and lets you press down with your body weight.
Our LGD, Emmer, is a 4-year-old male Pyrenees/Anatolian/Akbash mix. He is great. Incredibly well-trained, great with all our animals, responds well to our direction.
The situation is that he gets the typical in-grown claw on his dew claw. He used to let me trim it, but now he won't. I think it's a trauma response at this point - he'll run away if I am holding the trimmers and I try to hold his foot. I may try some skull cap and valerian to see if it will calm him down.
I'd like to avoid a veterinary visit and hardcore tranquilizers.
I use raw wool in all my outbuildings, and sometimes even in our home.
I say raw, but I actually ferment it in a large trough of water for a few weeks, rinse it in rainwater or the creek, and let it sun-dry on a concrete slab. It is my understanding that this cleans some, but not all the lanolin off, removing grime, and leaving an even protective coating.
It started as an experiment 5 years ago, and I have been pleasantly surprised to have zero problems. No pest, no odor, just an incredibly high-performing loose-fill insulation material.
Disclaimer: I don't use a garlic press. I'm a side-of-the-chef's-knife crusher person, but my wife (who is hands-down the superior chef) likes to use a press for various reasons.
I'm looking for a stainless steel press with good leverage, good overall design and build quality, and an integrated cleaner-thing on the back. I've talked through the possibilities with her of straying from these metrics, but this is where we are.
The closest might be this Gourmet Easy one, because of simplicity, materials, and design. But it lacks an integrated cleaner mechanism.
The Kuhn Rikon Epicurean (and all its rip-offs) looks decent, except it doesn't have an integrated cleaner.
The Rösle is overengineered, and not in a good way - the roller mechanism is completely unnecessary. And it doesn't have a cleaner.
The OXO (which my mom uses) has a pretty functional cleaner mechanism, but it is a zinc alloy and the chrome plating flakes off, which makes it a non-option for us. Also the soft plastic handles are cringe. All the 100 others I've looked at are either not stainless, or don't have an attached cleaner.
Yes, I think the twisty things and the graters and the dishes are interesting-looking, but the Mrs. wants a press.
Honestly, I think if I could take the design of the Gourmet Easy and add tiny stainless studs on the back that could poke through the holes when you flip the lever around, that would be potentially perfect. But as far as I can tell, such a thing does not exist. I'm hoping y'all can prove me wrong.
Do you have a press you really like? Particularly one that is all stainless, with an attached cleaning mechanism?
a movie about free heat Some call it "carbon neutral," others "carbon negative." Heat your home with yard waste and cardboard while reducing global problems.
Watch the trailer here:
Rocket Mass Heaters are possibly the most powerful solution to many of the problems confronting individuals and the global population today. For individuals, Rocket Mass Heaters can save thousands of dollars and bring greater comfort. Around our world, if a billion people used Rocket Mass Heaters as their primary source of heat, it would solve a list of global issues. The only barrier to this solution is . . . knowledge.
Last fall, I hosted an event called the Rocket Mass Heater Jamboree, intended to offer this revolutionary and accessible home heating technology to the the world and cause massive positive global change. The event was a smashing success. The cameras were rolling. We collected gobs of high-quality video of many different kinds of Rocket Mass Heaters and other Rockety contraptions.
viewers will get a front row seat for all of the following builds:
-A standard, 8 inch, pebble style j-tube rocket mass heater. This is a basic, yet incredibly high performing system.
-A 6 inch cob style j-tube rocket mass heater in a tiny house. Great heat in a smaller footprint.
-Lorena style rocket cooktop - heats a flame-embedded pot super fast, then heats the cook surface.
-A cottage-style rocket heater (with no mass) for a rocket sauna.
-A solar food dehydrator with a rocket assist for when the sun goes down.
-Installed the Liberator, a commercial product from the USA.
-Installed the Gamera, a commercial product from Bulgaria.
Other activities captured for the film:
-The basics of RMH design, build, safety, function, and maintenance.
-5-minute riser - a cheap & fast, readily available heat riser solution.
-Juice box stratification - a scheme to squeeze out a little more efficiency from the already breathtakingly efficient 8-inch system.
-An attempt at a rocket kiln/forge. We fired some clay and melted some aluminum - a step toward more sustainable ceramics and metal-working.
Nahara Radu wrote:Hello, how much wood did it take to build allergen abbey wofati? Anyone has any idea?
Lots.
Extraneous trees are one of the Lab's primary renewable resources. I hate to say limitless, but at the current scale of operations, limitless would not be inaccurate. Further, thinning and removal is a key for wildfire mitigation.
I'm guessing we could make some calculations based on the design drawings. I'm not sure if anyone has done that work yet.
MiaSherwood Landau wrote:I did not realize the form required writing samples, so I saved before completing it. How can I access it again? I tried going to Google Forms and didn’t see it there. Is it because I’m on my phone? Thanks for your help!
I think you can edit your response. Or you can submit a second one someone will use some brain to smush the two together.
The gig will involve lots of use of all the bells and whistles around permies.
The folks who will look at the questionnaire responses will be likely to see someone with lots of permies activity and say "Hey! Look at that. They already know a lot about how stuff works around here."
Which will translate to many hours and effort saved bringing an active permies users up to speed, versus someone with a very low post count.
There is no possible answer to the question "how heavy does it weigh?". Just a suggestion that folks with DM listings, folks who are already pollinators (or better yet, volunteer staff), folks who have a high post-count and perhaps a high apple-to-post ratio are going to look mighty appealing.
There is always the pathway for the eager person with a slim permies history to spend a short chunk of time trying to be more active around here. That might be a nice look.
Its not stainless but it is sturdy.
