Pearl Sutton

steward & bricolagier

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since Oct 02, 2015

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Biography

Chronic reader, creative dreamer, a LOT of hand skills to make things real, intense health issues that limit my activity, but not my creativity or dreams. Moved to southern Missouri with enough tools and junk to build a life that might work well with my health. One of god’s gigglers, I punctuate with smiley faces and exclamation points when I type, and smile and laugh a lot in real life. (Often at things no one else understands.) And I both curtsy at people (even when wearing grubby work clothes) and purr when hugged, both online and in real life. “Normal” is not a word that has ever been used for me.
Been organic gardening all my life, and bought 4 acres that I have designed from the ground up. Making it happen is being the most fun I have ever had in my life, the best 3D jigsaw puzzle ever! Reading Mollison’s Designer’s Manual was like coming home, ah, THERE I am! A reality where I can use all of my multifaceted talents and skills!
Dumpster diver, recycler, second hand store shopper, I tell people I am attracted to rust and lace. I have violated every warranty I have ever met, I’m a tool using animal, and I use my tools to modify everything in my world. And it only gets weirder...
Bricolage: something constructed or created from a diverse range of available things. Adding ier to a french word means one who does that activity. I am a bricolagier, the things I do are all made of a wide range of things that I have acquired from diverse places.

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Recent posts by Pearl Sutton

uses for soup cans

Honestly, I have done that sort of crimping with a set of large needlenose pliers and just twist.
I wanted to see what the tool looked like so if I ever see one cheap, I know what it's for.

1 day ago

upcycling

Candle frugality

Hm... I can't find pics of what I saw then. I make my collars fit tight around the shaft of the candle and have a wider part at the top, so it catches drips. Just a quick wrap it around and spread the top before lighting the candle.

1 day ago

frugality

Candle frugality

When I was young the church we went to had collars on the candles that kept them burning neatly with no drips or going off balance. I have made them with tinfoil, definitely helps. You have to keep moving it down, but that's not a deal breaker for me, I don't walk away from a burning candle for long.

Somewhere I picked up cheap or free a pack of fondue forks, and I bend one tine down into a little hook, leave the other one straight. Best wick messing with devices I have ever seen. You can push, pull, or fish it the wick up, and build little wax dams to stop off balancing.

1 day ago

frugality

uses for soup cans

Jay Angler wrote:One of my frustrations with upcycling tin cans is finding a way to crimp them

I looked them up. This is what they are used for

and a random price point off Amazon is 30.00 or so.

1 day ago

upcycling

Northern Lights alert

And that solar storm is still running. It just bounced back up as the expected coronal hole stream has hit.

The lowest latitude I heard of seeing the lights yesterday was New Mexico and Arizona, did anyone get pics? I want to see!! I'm too far south to see them.

Check again tonight, and those in Europe might have a better view, as the lights might taper down as the planet's magnetic field stabilizes after the initial shock.

3 days ago

meaningless drivel

sizing a DIY outdoor fire suppression system

Daniel Andy wrote:
Excellent idea but im not sure intelligent sprinklers or separate lines to each one with an intelligent 5 way valve are in the budget for time or money on this.

Do they have to be intelligent? Manual valves on each side of the house etc would let you adjust if you had to. So you could turn off or on an area that comes on when you cycle.

Not sure how close fire has to get to damage intelligent systems...

3 days ago

natural building

sizing a DIY outdoor fire suppression system

Daniel Andy wrote:
Half a liter per minute...low flow sprinkler heads can do 1 liter per minute...best to pulse 5mins on 5mins off

Without putting thought into it all, if you can pulse each head separately, that'll keep your pressure higher in each use. Also would let you only do the ones you need, like "on this side of the house needs more, that side is okay."

3 days ago

natural building

Electrosensitivity - Can Earth-Sheltered and/or Earthen-Walled Structures Help Us?

Steve Zoma wrote:
As an electrician every time I put in an outlet and wire up the ground part of it, I am connected to ground. Or touch a steel electrical box. But that is work, what about now that I am retired, I just live my life day to day? I mean I have an old cast iron tub with metal plumbing… surely that is grounded so when I take a shower every day I am grounding myself? But what about as I hike and I grasp trees on my way by? Or kneel to scramble up rocks? Electrons move very slowly within a conductor, but the conductivity of electrons is very fast outside of it, so wouldn’t my accumulated ions be dissipated to ground instantly with each touch to ground? So any touch, not just by bare feet to ground, would do so, right?

I am not trying to be difficult on this. I am very open-minded and know how my joints feel after being barefoot in nature, there is NO QUESTION, I feel better. And I can see people having heart attacks because of built up ions, and certainly know in working in powerhouses making megawatts of electricity how I feel in stations where electromagnetic frequency is insanely high. Certain areas of the powerplant just make me feel frazzled from the EMF I am producing through stirred electrons and ultra-high amperage and voltages.

But I have so many questions.

How much time in grounding is needed?
How many milliamps and millivolts does our bodies store up before its hazardous?
Are we really being grounded in day to day life and do not realize it?
Are we especially well conductors through bare feet instead of hands and other points of contact?
Why extra time to ground? The ground wire we are required by the NEC code to connect to earth is designed to never be used it its entire life, and if it is used in an emergency, it is instant and of short duration.

The problem here is the word "grounded." You are using it as a technical term (GROUNDED.) The people who popularized the concept simply used that term as it's familiar to people.

You are not "GROUNDING" when you ground yourself. Going a hair metaphysical here, what you are doing is connecting the energy field of your body to the energy field of the earth. Any bare skin contact does equally well, quite a few natural fabrics allow that contact through too. What does NOT let it through is things like soles of shoes and unnatural fabrics, a lot of building construction materials etc. People didn't have to ground themselves when they lived without all those factors, with them, it helps to periodically remove obstructions to allow that connection. The easiest thing to convince someone to do as far as this goes, is to take off their shoes outside and stand on the ground (on the surface of the earth, not on a parking lot or standing on a balcony.)

This is where your confusion is coming from. Instead of thinking of it as electrical grounding, think about it as just contact between your body and the ground. And yes, it has lots of great benefits, when the way we live is not natural to the human body, we react badly. Being in contact with the ground without unnatural interference helps a LOT.

:D

3 days ago

wofati and earth berm

Northern Lights alert

The impacts were late getting started, first one was at 9 ish Thursday night (central time) but they keep coming, and at this point (Friday night) the aurora charts are lit up. Check the sky tonight!!

4 days ago

meaningless drivel

Boot problem question

Kathy Gray wrote:Is it possible to “soften it by sanding it”?
You could use a foot callus remover with a longish handle.
Or an electric Dremel with a sandpaper tip.

The problem is the fabric encased padding at the back of the ankle. If it annoys me much longer, I'll take a knife to the fabric and pull out the fluff.
Still seeing if I will get used to it. Haven't worn them much yet. I'm putting them on... third time I think.

5 days ago

meaningless drivel