George Yacus

"Whom do you admire?"

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.

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.

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/

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.

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

I know magpies are different from pigeons, but had to share this fun video of a magpie recycling for food.

I just re-read this 37 page e-book, in which Paul builds his case for why the Pastured Poultry Paddocks method of raising birds offers perhaps the best quality of life for both chickens and permies alike.

Here are few more free codes for Paul Wheaton's - 6 Ways to Keep Chickens. Enjoy!

https://permies.com/g/2wu7nv9w95

https://permies.com/g/guxhnvff43

https://permies.com/g/nyr26ktpyo

https://permies.com/g/76r2outjq7

Serena Hartwell wrote:So, my question is, if you were in my situation, how would you proceed?

If I were in your situation, I would sit down with my daughter and take a couple pens and paper, and make a mind map together. I'd write down aspects and elements of the kind of life we want to live. We'd put it on the refrigerator and revisit it and make it grow. Maybe add some colorful doodles, too.

Then I would go to the following website to explore intentional communities:

https://www.ic.org/

I'd do a search geographically, and also do a general search of keywords that jive with the mind map. We'd check out their websites and social media.

We'd pick a handful of these intentional communities to contact and visit. Eventually we might find one we really like that is looking for someone with the awesome skills we have.