George Yacus

pollinator
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since Sep 27, 2018
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Biography
Navy veteran turned farmsteader and Permaculture Designer at Revival Permaculture LLC.
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Mid-Atlantic, USDA zone 7
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Recent posts by George Yacus

Step 1: Join tacoies forum.
Step 2: Talk about bacon, pie, and tacos ALL THE TIME.
Step 3: Apply 8th permaculture principle to integrate, rather than segregate bacon, pie, and tacos. (see photo of B.P.T.).
Step 4: Return to permies forum to design a permaculture homestead to make Gir Bot's culinary dreams come true. 🤤
1 week ago
Hi Judith!

There are still about three dozen links that are fresh and unused. And the thread has about 250 views. Maybe the table view isn't as helpful as simple links. But I'm satisfied.

Feel free to tag along and post your own codes if you'd like!

Note: my table above is most easily viewed in "desktop mode". If one scrolls down one can find a link to swap between mobile and desktop views.
1 month ago
Hi Liam, just following up to see how your proposed project went.

Were you able to design and build something to meet your needs?
2 months ago
My best guess would have to be the ingredients in an American hot dog. They're "all natural" right?

I jest.

I'm of the "not random" camp. The implications and design opportunities are both tremendous and exciting.

Zoom in really close to a single celled bacteria. Its flagellum mechanism has all the complexity and brilliance of an electric motor, complete with rotor and stator, battery system, pressure hull like a submarine, sensors...



Zoom out really far, looking at the moon and stars. At first glance they seem chaotic, and changing every day. But look long enough and you begin to see the patterns of constellations. Even longer still and there is enough clock-like precision in their arrangement and motion that ancient and modern skilled mariners (and yes, even current military ballistic missiles) use them for jam-proof precision navigation.
2 months ago
This east facing wall is free from paint/stain/oil, and is made without treated wood.

It uses lumber milled on site, with minimal (if any) air drying. The top is from one of a series of pine trees gifted by local arborists who would have otherwise disposed of them. The bottom siding comes from a tree or two I cut down on site.

The siding on the bottom shows weathering over the course of about 8 months exposure to the elements.

The siding is screwed into the studwork, but it first goes through four vertical furring strips. These strips help give a smoother face to the wall while providing an air gap to help with moisture and airflow behind the milled siding. It also lessons contact with the radiant bubble foil moisture barrier.

The bottom boards are about 3/8ths thick, and exhibit a fair amount of curling as they dry, while these upper boards are about one half inch thick to improve rigidity (and safety) on the upper level.

I chose to do horizontal siding in order to make use of smaller logs while increasing lateral rigidity, plus the look is nice I think.
Fixing screw holes to re-hang a door hinge.

I had some wood screws in a door hinge that had stripped out the holes they were drilled in.

I used a chopstick and snapped it off inside the holes, thus giving the screws something to bite against.
3 months ago
Take a gander at Pinuphouses.com.

I purchased one of their plan sets on discount, and am about 85% complete with construction. They have a nice e-book that I enjoyed reading which came with the plans and helped me think more about how buildings are made. In the end I heavily modified the plans (mostly on the fly) because I wanted to mill the lumber from scratch and adapt to materials (like windows and doors) I had available.  I also changed the roof style. So I mostly used the plans for inspiration, but it was helpful nevertheless.

Here's a freebie from their site:

https://www.pinuphouses.com/wp-content/uploads/free-cabin-plans.pdf

The architect / site owner is a pretty responsive guy. I found some pages or drawings missing from my plans and he drafted them up and sent them out pretty quickly. Best wishes!

Edit: Just discovered they have more free plans here...

https://www.pinuphouses.com/free-plans/
3 months ago
Since it has an ASTM standard listed, one can look it up here:

https://store.astm.org/d5526-12.html

Of note, they use an anaerobic testing, and the percentage on the box simply shows how much carbon escaped/degraded into gas by the end of the test.

1.3 This test method is designed to produce partially degraded mixtures of municipal solid waste and plastics that can be used to assess the ecotoxicological risks associated with the anaerobic degradation of plastics after various stages of anaerobic biodegradation in a landfill.



1.2 This test method is designed to yield a percentage of conversion of carbon in the sample to carbon in the gaseous form under conditions that resemble landfill conditions.




Edit to add: So your proposed definition "Restoring carbon compounds to molecular components utilizable by living organisms in their life processes" probably works in this case if the material degrades to CO2. At least 82% of the glove.
3 months ago
One of the teachers from my local permaculture institute (SPI) just shared this fun resource from ATTRA.  It is the "periodic table of cover crops" developed by Cody Brown.  Enjoy!

Source: https://attra.ncat.org/publication/the-periodic-table-of-cover-crops/

Full size: https://attra.ncat.org/publication/periodic-table-of-cover-crops-full-size/

Image: https://attra.ncat.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/periodic-table-of-cover-crops_table_12192025-scaled.jpg



3 months ago