Flick Johnston

This thread is gold... Literally.

My relatively simple solution to peeing outdoors literally took just a hammer, a few nails and a plank of wood.

I have one of the conventional three bay compost systems made with posts and tin already on the property I'm living on. It's nicely out of view of the house shielded by the chook house.

I took a sturdy plank of wood, and nailed it along the back side of the compost bay to the existing posts. Then I took a leftover piece of fake floorboard that was lying around and nailed it on top of the sturdy plank.

What I ended up with is a little platform that is very easy to use. Just sit on the back of the compost bay with your booty over the edge and pee direct into the compost. No squatting, no shaking, just sit and wait for drips to fall. The edge of the tin is covered so doesn't dig into my legs. The fake floorboard is smooth so no splinters. So far it's working pretty well. Not sure how it will hold up in the rain over winter, but for now it works just fine.

Still working on convincing the bloke to pee on the compost instead of wasting it elsewhere.

Has anyone mentioned the tiny fern Azolla? It's supposed to be very good chicken food, fast and easy to grow in small container of water near the chook house, just scoop out handfuls and throw it over the fence for them.

Hi there, I too am looking at doing something along these lines.

In geoff lawtons Urban Permaculture DVD there is an example of using a pool as an aquaponics set up and they have the water circulating through only 3 bathtubs as grow beds and silver perch. It's possible.

I think if you are following aquaponics systems to the letter, then yeah you should probably have a one to one ratio like he says in that video you posted. But the problem is the solution, which means I can do a permaculture twist on aquaponics if I want to.

I'm looking at maybe having grow beds down 2 sides of the pool, of whatever containers I can find. I'm thinking if I add in an additional biological filter, like one of the home DIY ones you can build into boxes or blue barrels, then that should pick up any extra waste and put it into the nitrogen cycle if there isn't enough volume in the beds. Plus recirculating through a waterfall feature for aeration and only stocking with minimal fish, as there is only me and my partner. I'm hoping to keep the water clean enough for swimming in summer as well.

I suppose the difference is that in most aquaponics setups they want to get as much kilo per L of fish as they possibly can which requires having enough plants to soak all that nutrient up. I'm not interested in pushing the system that hard. My aim is to try to get what is an eyesore currently usable again.

And if it really comes down to it, do water changes regularly and siphon the nutrient rich water over the rest of your veggie patch

I really want to do this. Don't give up! Cause I haven't yet

Thank you everyone for your advice and experiences. We've decided to go ahead and move in, and have started doing things around the place already. We're pretty motivated and the owner is comfortable with us generally tidying up and demolishing things around the place that need to go. I think it will get more complicated when materials are required to fix things and create new spaces. I can see lots of possibilities having now finished my PDC, but matching them with the owners vision may prove challenging.

We've discussed turning half the piggery into a house which we could have access to, but it's a long way down the track yet. I have potentially found some part time work in the area as well which works out great.

We are taking lots of photos of things and changes as we go, and are also keeping a short diary on what is accomplished on a weekly basis, as a way of keeping track of the amount of work that's put in.

The finances may cause dramas. Trying to find a solution to who pays, as when we need something the owner isn't always available to go get it and bring it to the property as she lives an hour away and works full time. At the moment we are holding receipts as there are things we need done quickly that are pretty cheap fix it jobs but need to be done before we can move in.

Here's to hoping the next 12 months works out for the best. Thanks!!

Hello there all, I am looking for some input into an opportunity that has presented itself to me. All critiques, ideas, opinions and thoughts appreciated. I am located in Western Australia, so will be generalising about climate etc.

I have been approached by a friend who has a property sitting idle she would like to see lived in and for the work to begin on turning it into a self sufficient retreat for herself and friends. It is a 27 acre property that was a piggery and then a riding school in a previous life. It has a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house, with scheme water, connected to the electric grid and cook tops running off bottled natural gas. It is un-lived in and been empty awhile, and was bought out of a liquidation auction. As you would expect it needs work.

The idea was that myself and my partner could potentially move in and live rent free and pay our own utility bills, in exchange for us starting to fix the place up. We're exploring the idea as the idea of living rent free for even 6 to 12 months is very appealing.

We would appreciate any opinions or input into the situation, or if anyone has done something similar previously, how it went for them, any problems they encountered and the like.

Thank you in advance

I would warn against over supplementation with Selenium as it is possible to over supplement and cause toxicity. A broad mineral supplement with trace elements should cover everything. How long does the injectable selenium give them cover for? They can be short or long acting injections.

What are the clear "raisins" you are referring to? Something you saw on the faecal egg count? Also did you look for coccidial cysts and any other Protozoa like giardia? You wouldn't see bacteria like Salmonella on a faecal egg count either.

CAE or caprine arthritis encephalitis virus sounds possible, as does Johne's. You would need to test the entire herd though for these diseases and decide on a course of action.

How old is the goat that is skinny and what condition are her teeth and feet in? Chronic foot pain or poor dentition won't help in trying to put weight back on. Also is she actually getting access to enough feed or she now at the point where her food is being taken off her by the younger goats?

Tagasaste is good forage for goats and cattle, hope you get those growing quickly. Any way you can collect browse from the local area to support their diet?

Oh thank you so much! I have been playing around with bricks trying to get dimensions and lengths right and it's been driving me nuts. Using cob and that bucket form to create the rocket stove seems like a great solution to that problem.

I think I will still try to put it under a drum laid on its side. The drum I have has a lid that I will make into the door. I also have a piece of solid steel that was an old barbecue plate that fits in the drum to form a nice shelf to cook on. Debating weather or not to find a piece of fireboard to put under the steel to deflect the heat around it a bit.

This project is slowly coming together in my head, and with getting materials together, hopefully will start to get onto the doing it in the next few weeks.

I need to get a infra red thermometer and an oven thermometer to stick in the side of the oven. I wasn't game to stick my mercury one at the top of the stack when I fired it, it seemed way hotter than 100 degrees C.

I believe in one of the DVDs they talk about this, Erica's suggestion was along the lines of sticking a pocket rocket into a solid mass. The solid mass contacts the water and acts to insulate the fire keeping it more efficient burning and also transferring the heat to the water. being a comfortable not to hot temperature you could also cuddle up to the mass like a regular RMH.

Might be worth a look, makes me wanna go back and watch the DVD again...

Can I ask why you decided to speed up the portable rocket stove Shippable core section? I had to slow mo the DVD to get a good look at the new core. It looks really cool - no pressure but how long til we can get the magic boxes?

Finding all the DVDs very interesting, but I'm now chasing the specifics and technical details. We have some details but not others and every time I run through these forums I find a new tidbit of information. Is there going to be a Erica and Ernie book soon with all these useful pieces of information in it?

Hi all. First posting so I'll start by saying yes I already have Iantos book and yes I have the DVDs (just need to get around to watching all of them). And this forum seems pretty active so I'm hoping for a bit of help

My goal is to build my Mum a rocket stove powered pizza oven before Christmas as a thank you for helping me finish my 6 year degree.

So far the design is a bit rough in my head, but the idea was to run a J tube rocket stove into the bottom of a cut down 55 gallon drum to act as the oven. Insulate the hell out of the chimney and the oven, make it look pretty, and I'm hoping it will get hot enough to cook a pizza - please tell me it's going to work??? I still have a few doubts. And a few questions I could use some advice about.

So, regarding a rocket stove chimney. Does the requirement for the cross sectional area being constant the whole way through apply like in a RMH? Only I have a piece of flue left over from replacing the inside chimney that's about the right height, but it goes from 6inch to 4inch diameter that would be convienient to use. It burned alright when I set a test fire in the mock up J tube, but I want to get it going as hot as possible.

Is cement a good insulator? Again there are a few bags in the shed that could do with using up, and was thinking I could use it up around the chimney and as a base to support the oven.

Better to have a chimney out of the top of the oven or use the door as an exit for gases like a regular cob oven? Was thinking a chimney on top would create more of a draw through the oven which would be beneficial to the rocket? Was planning to put a diffuser plate of some sort on the rocket chimney entrance and chimney exit as well.

That's all for now I think... Thank you kindly

This picture was my first trial run of a J tube using the things I had on hand. The stone on top got too hot to touch. Theory proved to mum, so i got the go ahead to play some more