Bj Murrey

Amber Michello wrote:My bff and longest relationship was with a pup who made it 18 years. He also trained up a younger girl. It was fun to watch them passing wisdom and him pushing her to me before he passed. They are the best! They are tiny, but their best and favorite friends were shepherds. Such amazing critters. I just said that if I ever found a man that loved me the way Duke did I would be a lucky girl! The loyalty, dedication, forgiveness, and unconditional nature that they share is everything that seems to make relationships work. That and the communication that they develop to say exactly what they need and respect what we need and find perfect balance helps as well! Looks like you are making great progress out there. Texas seems like an interesting place although I have never seen more than the Dallas airport during layovers. Love their rocking chairs. Is there a winter where you are?

18 wow I knew it was a little dog - is that the one in your other posts? Big dogs dont live nearly as long. That is certain. Its fascinating to me to watch dogs teach each other or discipline each other etc. The pack instinct and order is so cool.

I'm convinced God made dogs for humans. And I am grateful.

What state did you wind up in? I'm in TX. I recommend it! All the best to you.

Caitlin Steve wrote:Turns out it wasn’t my huckleberry and I’m open to exploring new connections again oh hai

Lord have mercy! The odds are terrible these days!

Cameron, I live near Terrell on I-20, about 60 mins from Tyler.

Where are you at these days with your plans? Personally, I found a single acre in the woods in a country area out in the county, and things have been pretty dandy! The further east you go, the more trees, fewer people and regulations!

Message me if you need any help, want to trade plants or animals, or resources, or need to ask a question of a local with experience. I have been off grid for 11 years now.

All the best to you!

BJ Murrey

George Yacus wrote:

Bj Murrey wrote:
This "pattern" would drive me nuts. It's a hassle to get to the office at the center... nothing in nature works like this... it will take care to preserve this shape and layout...

We are probably more alike than we realize! I love the explanation! I could tell there was a lot of thought in it, and it was beautiful. Reminds me of chaco culture  city layouts from above.

One of the structures I'm building now on my place is a stone chapel facing west, with an outdoor roman style bath house (open above, surrounded by garden and stone) behind it under some very large oaks. Its aligned to the sun/ moon rise and set points, during the fall, when i use it for my hot tub. There is zero utility to any of that. Its pure joy and aesthetic with permaculture added in and around.

All the best to you friend.

The largest pattern you see is obviously the spiral.  So, why a spiral other than the beauty of it?  

Well, each pattern in nature solves a problem, right?  Patterns resolve tension. ...

This "pattern" would drive me nuts. It's a hassle to get to the office at the center... nothing in nature works like this... it will take care to preserve this shape and layout...
I would only use this if I had a full time gardener and the office was some sort of local attraction people came to see...
I'd never use this at my home! Think about bringing a wheelbarrow to the center... PAIN IN THE....
Wasted walking, and once it's filled in with plants you can't see any spirals but from the air... and I can't fly.

Instead of these labor intensive designs, spirals, just use "comma" (like the punctuation) shapes... simpler, same principles, none of the obstacles or annoyance...

UNLESS of course you designing it all for the airplane passengers who might fly over and look someday

I knew of "agro-froestry" before learning of permaculture. Agro-forests are planting tall native hardwoods, shorter fruit trees, fruit bushes, the perennial short plants, then annuals, then reverse on the other side.
The PATTERN can be conceived as 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....  like a "waveform" up and down up and down... that's the CONCEPT

The Concept repeats in a pattern because of its effective nature, which mimics nature. The edge of a forest where it opens to a pasture of native grasses will look like this.

Some like to add more "style" and "decoration" to it all, but I focus on the plants / food. There will always be a "pattern" that emerges  anyway, because it's nature and then nurture.

If your priority is beauty, focus on style. If your priority is food, focus on the plants. If you want BOTH, start with focus on the plants, and then go back through adding style to it all.

I find that the longer I wait to "decorate" the more useful and natural ideas seem to come to me, because I am using the space (functionality) after I have seen it (beauty) in every season, and I can work with nature, instead of trying to make it obey me.

My advice- ignore the "rules" of permaculture, and pay attention to the "patterns" that emerge from any "system". If you look at successful pictures of others projects, you will see how layers are in every pic. Elevation changes are in every pic. variety and close planting in every pic, etc. The other thing to do which will make this clearer to you, is to visit a local state park or wildnerness area and spend time sitting on the edge of the forest. Note that nothing is flat, nothing in a straight line, nothing is monocropped, etc. Nature will show you how to lay it out. People will show you how to "style" it afterward.

As for your outhouse, build a rock wall around it to catch the water off the roof, or dig a hole and line it with a billboard liner (craigslist) for storing water in the ground, a wildlife pond, etc...

I dont even like the "zones" idea of permaculture, around a central structure, as I prefer to have MULTIPLE zones around multiple points of interest, and repeat plantings of the same things (redundancy)

The very first thing I let the land tell me about how it is to be laid out, is water drainage. Water is the biggest threat to any home. It can steal your soil, rot your structures, drown your food, etc. So if you handle the channeling, dispersal and storage of water first (based on terrain of your land), everything you do after that will "make sense" and "mirror nature" because water is the primary force shaping any landscape, followed by sun/shade/temps. Even the soil does not matter as much (you can raise a bed, dig out a bed, amend a bed, or just use in ground as-is). My soil was sand when I moved to my land, and now it's all rich black humus full of organics, 10 years later, and I dont buy any soil. All mulch and composted stuff changed my soil rapidly and to root-depth, with zero digging.

This is your dream to build, you will learn by failure, but no failure is a catastrophe. It's leveling up.

My advice:

make a list of things you enjoy eating, which grow in your region readily.
sort them by height, low medium, tall...
sort those into "part sun/sun" and "part shade/ shade"

use some paint on the grass to mark the sunny and shady areas so you can "see" where things will be growing before you plant.

Draw that onto some paper, and then sort your plants above into the areas on your "garden map"

If this were my place, I'd make a little path down the "middle" of the triangle area with a place to sit, maybe with a small fountain, surrounded by your mini food forest.

Here in Texas, I plant  tropical fruit trees pretty close together (lime, pomegranate, loquat, barbados cherry, guava), and keep them pruned short (helps them stay warm over winter and easier to cover if needed). Around those I plant bushes like Rosemary, Sage, etc... which are perennial and I can take cuttings from them to make new plants elsewhere. These perennials also help protect the trees from cold in winter and dont block any sunlight. Below that I have strawberries and blackberries ("dew-berries" which crawl on the ground, instead of climbing up).

Use a goji or wolf berry along the street fence, perhaps, for some food for humans and birds, but thorns for security to keep people out.


Another thing that may be helpful for you is to put all the plants you want in pots, and space the pots out where you want to plant them. And then paint lines around the pots to establish your "shape" of garden.

You make the rules. There are principles you can follow, but few rules. You're the king, and this is your castle. :)

Ivar, are you Orthodox, by chance? Just making an informed guess...

If so, and you're looking for the USA to find a nice Christian hippie girl, looking in the far north, and mostly east. There are almost zero Orthodox Christians in the USA, even today. It's a growing branch of Christianity here, but the minority. California is probably the largest young people who are Orthodox (which I find ironic), and Alaska is the OLDEST population of Orthodox Christians in the USA.

For what it's worth.

I have found , as a Christian myself, that most women in the USA are no longer Christian, really, but in name only. Further, almost NONE of those women want to live in a farm, or permaculture lifestyle. You are looking in a very Niche market for love! Most of the women I meet who are "permies" are very liberal, often agnostic, if not outright atheist. It's strange to have more in common (lifestyle) with a liberal atheist than whatever flavor of Christian... which is really bizarre to me, since we were created in a Garden, and the book ends with the Garden restored... I think most of this is due to conservative women being more identified with culture than the church, and the liberal women being more counter-culture, which Christians ought to really be (it seems to me).

What a time to be alive!  Just thinking out loud and maybe this will bring more eyes to your post, as well.

All the best!