Ryan Tollmann

Get a horse trough and mix up some mortar in it, make it very wet then dip each post in it..this will jump start the petrification effect, dip and dry several times to get full effect, alternatively you could wet the post and roll it in a bucket of mortar and let sit. The lime in mortar will start the petrification effect...plus insects don't like lime. Motar oil will leach into the ground...Florida ban that practice with a fine of 500$ per drop.

If you wish to keep deer and rabbits as well as other herivores plant a ring of wormwood around your small garden, and for very large gardens includ a row or three evenly spaced as well as a border.  As for fencing in larger property consider thornbushes as a hedge for humans and a row of wormwood for fourlegged pests.
Deer rabbits and wildpigs in florida avoided wormwood to such a degree that we no longer even had them 'visit' our 7.5 acre property cause a small area of it (the garden) was ringed with wormwood..mom said it was overkill cause,she liked watching deer walk through... Deer and rabbit will steer well away from wormwood, pigs avoid it but less so..we did have one rabbit dig under and eat some veggies in the center of the garden briefly...but only once.

Big fan of DPH, ironically discovered both DPI and permies.com independent of each other...it's a small world.

"
Ryan,

Solar sounds like a good off grid solution too. But then the problem would be the maintenance of the battery. Maybe that 'charge controller' would take care of things like over charge and over discharge prevention??"

Yeah charge controllers are for that very purpose, I have an swm charge controller. There are pros and and cons to both types.  but I've seen elaborate systems that don't use a batterty bank as storage, instead they use hho generator to convert solar electricity into gas and store the gas separately as hydrogen and oxygen then burn it in a generator setup....but my budject so far doesn't allow me that luxury.  Working on a small weedwacker moter to run hho gasfor a generator head but that's backburner (pun intended) to my project to use hho for a replacement in propane campstoves/heaters etc.  When I have finished with the proof of concept projects I'll upgrade to a solar hho factory to produce and store hho for all my rv needs eventually even driving.

João Carneiro wrote:Devaka, there are many useful contributions on this thread. Wise words have been spoken.

Please do understand that you can get things off the shelf that offer diferent solutions to diferent problems. But diferent things will be present on diferent shelfs around the world. Maybe your problem can be solved with a simple voltage regulator, maybe not. Maybe you can solve it using a managed UPS and configuring it properly. But it could be in such way that your input is so dirty/unstable that you have to resort to turn it to DC and back to clean sine AC...

There are also other considerations on energy efficiency, because energy transformations have an energetic price, so there is loss at every step of the way, this can make your electricity bills increase.

DIY at this level is cool for people who know what they are doing. VERY EXPENSIVE errors can occour... even to people that know what they are doing.

But consider your budget and options. You may even get to realize that since you are investing you can go offgrid with just a bit more.
.

I agree, I think you should look into setting up a solar system with some fed/state rebates to zero out the cost...MLsolar in California deals in used solar panels...I got ( 8 ) 6.5 volt 3? Amp panels for 20$ each( 10 yrs old)...for my RV wired in series and parrelel for 13 volt ? Amps more then enough for my 81$ Wal-Mart marine 109amp hr batteries..they even sold me the 50' wiring and 30 amp charge controller for a total of 200$... ebay sells full-sine 5000w/10000watt inverters for about 300-500$ ... depending on the maker...though they can go as high as several thousand... but remember you may on some states get a 100% rebate... In  NJ some people were getting 110% rebate.

Kirk Schonfeldt wrote:New Mexico AES released a cultivar of Trebizond Date 'King Red' some decades ago that would be worth locating. Also, look for Carpathian Walnut 'Mesa' which was released in NM and is more adapted to high desert sun than most cultivars. And, as I recall, Eleagnus sp. are resistant to the allelopathic chemicals walnuts produce (and fix N).

Thanks Kirk, I'll check that out.

Pete Casanova wrote:Ryan, I just tried to do a homestead thing. I crashed and burned for various and Sundry reasons. I think I'm tough enough to try again and I would really love to do it on a piece of ground next to someone else who is of like mind. I'm older than dirt but very healthy and I am hoping that this ground that you were talking about has no dirt bikes. on my piece of ground I have built solar panels by soldering together solar cells and I dug a hole 22 feet deep hoping to hit water with a post hole digger. I build rammed-earth walls out of discarded tires. I would like to know more about you and would like to let you know more about me. My wife wants me to let you know she is an artist and we love peace and quiet. one of the things I did on my piece of ground was create ponds with tarps and I was able to collect water from the rain. and yes we hauled our  water and know how to conserve.


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Its a big area. Just talked an inspector today seems some people are building without permits, I get the impression the drawback is it you want to sell the property. The county is lad back it seems.

You dont need my permission,  i dont sell the land, contact the treasurer or vist in person, flagstaff is a tolerant nice community...from what ive seen so far. But then im a middle-aged white male, i wouldnt know prejudice if it bit me on my ass.

In coconino county if the treasurer sells you the land its yours. I believe I've left a link previously so you xan see its location and the innumerable tax defaults, it may take a little research to find which are under three years , and thus reclaimable by its original owner, and which are for sale by treasurer..but given its undesirable nature id think it rare someone would pay up to reclaim it. (Considering it a popluar landscam area, 121$down and 121$/mon till the 7k is paid off at 10% int, yeah not sering someone coming back to grab it) I met someone,who was born in the Grand canyon...and he informed me there is a clay layer about 3-5'down. He says the biggest 'whiteman'blunder is they try to dig a well too deep, puncturing the clay layer which allows the trapped water to drain. (Yes he is a local indian) There are hundreds of acres at about an acre and a qtr available. Most in tax deliquientcy. Due dilligemce should yield you a property in the 300-700$/1.25 acre range. Thats fairly cheap...and i am really looking forward to shareing this with likeminded people. Especially since i have this nagging feeling that the country and the world are reaching ctitical mass... far enough away to be safe and close enough to enjoy city life occasionally. I cant find a better suited area for permaculturists talants
.not yet. Lol....btw law enforcement responds only to neighbor complaints or extreme dumbasses...so if enough permies are there i think it could be awesome