See Hes

Courtney Munson wrote:
To your other point ... it's sad that we're at a place where so much knowledge has been lost.  I can't do anything about the fact that my ancestors became disconnected from land and failed to pass down key survival wisdom.  All I can do now is learn and experiment!

As said no pun intended, it just made me giggling what people all try to imporove the soil and as you said.
It's also regional complete different. Near the beach shells are sure legal part of the nature's law, while in the middle of the jungle other requirements exist.

Wisdom is lost, is partially true and I like to add a phrase my Graddad used often.
"The money is laying on the street, but only a fraction of all humans know how to bend down to pick it up"

I put that into our modern life with the lost wisdom.
"It isn't lost, it is present all around us, but we need to know how to pick it up again.
You want to see a forest, so it's not the trees that block your sight and hide the forest"

Simple answer how farmers handle it in Thailand.

The shops struggle after a huge price increasement this year. Turnovers dropped by 85% which is of course a big hit for the shop owners.
farmers going now for alternatives like manure, molasses and haybales beside use more own produce instead burning it.

This boykott ends finally on the tables of the production companies and they have to find new ways to produce and provide cheaper.

But this has one flaw.
The big producers might have the finacial power to create new laws where farmers getting stopped using bio waste.

As kids we fed pigs with kitchen scraps and our human toilet "produce" went on the fields where they fully decompose.
That has been stopped by law called biohazard, a word which didn't exist before this law.

Its quite funny what comes up regarding new ideas, new tricks, new recipes.

I haven't seen mother nature providing any else, as what falls from the trees or decays above the soil right where the compost or lets say new fertilizer is made.

Shellfish usually doesn't fall from the trees so it might be a waste of time and money seen as a " naturally no need for"

but of course it is sure a beneficial addidtion to feed the soil life.

No bad feelings just it makes me laughing that people claim they are living by teachings of nature and try to invent the wheel again and again.

Biochar is created by regular bush fires naturally,
I agree and some snails might fall victims but I would no buy any shells to show mother nature I know better than her.

As said I write this just for the joke and not involves critics.

Funny question not applicable for people living in an apartement but when you consider yourself a PROFESSIONAL AND SUCCESSFUL farmer you will have the following:

A pile of all kind of stuff behind the shed.
This pile are items that have been used to try to improve farming related things but didn't work out or could have been done better.
This stuff has value as it could become handy when you try to develop something new.
Visit successful farmers and you will find excactly this pile

A workshop equipped with most equipment which you find also in any repair and construction company workshop

a small forge fire place including ANVIL and tools

a couple of (not a single) freezer and canning corner

a huge kitchen where you easy can ennoble your overshoot of fruits/veggies by canning, freezing, making snacks and cut all from meat to fish

If you haven't this I am sure you are living from the hand into the mouth barely making a living (at least not from your farm)

Annie Collins wrote:What a beautiful, beautiful home! So soulful!

Thank you Annie

I am working offshore and every time I felt lonely, missed my wife and life at home, I designed a little more or lets say I realistically put a little more heart into it.
This suppressed sadness and gave me a huge motivation push, not to give up a well paid job which was necessary in beforehand to fulfill this dream.

Now my arms are too short to hug the entire house every day because it has more soul, I ever could imagine all the time abroad.

Just an add to my post where I blame the AI for the breaking relationship.
But actually AI/Games/Internet/social networks comes into our lifes, when things getting slowly out of control until the point of separation is reached.

It never comes all of a sudden into our life, it sneaks in behind us because the relationship has changed bit by bit and to blame is the painful silence because words that have not been spoken are now whole stories which are very very hard to sort out in a peaceful way.

A latent present and growing stubbornness building discussions which didn't get completed/eliminated by the roots.
This sparks arguments, arguments become fights and then silence is the result and the relationship ends behind a screen or even cheating due to lack of willingness mixed with dissappearing power to fix the relationship for the better.

ALL this above needs TWO people at the beginning fully on fire, but as this fire cools down, words that that needed to be openly spoken have never been spoken or it ended the way that  blames got exchanged like gunfire.

This moment the strategical design how AI/Games/Network makes money works out, and the partner gets more acceptance behind the screen, still thinking one day it will all be better again but actually it's a slow kill.

If you want to point with your indicator finger in one direction, you need first to ask why the other three fingers are pointing towards yourself.

There is only one chance.
Forget to think that a long 5 star holiday, a new house or any materialistic action will fix it. (You can't buy love with money)
The love and respect has been killed little by little so you need to be reversed it little by little, very very gentle.

Say honest that you need a neutral place to talk. Not in the house and not a Restaurant which acts as a public defense shield.
Discuss in a direct but sensible approach first how you want to speak to each other. (No topics!!! Just HOW and WHERE)

Instead of "We need to speak about our Problem" which creates already defense reactions on the other side get to the point.

"I would like to fix our both relationship but not in our house, can we buy some food, going outside building a shelter or rig up a tent and talking AND LAUGHING though the night?"

BUT avoid demands what has to be changed. Go back in time and look ahead. What wishes are includingh the strongest desire for both?

I know it will always slide off into the "You did..."  "You changed"  "you were different in the past."  arguments
And this needs an immediate "all stop" and a LAUGHING with jokingly saying someting like "sorry we slipped again into an argument."
 
No blame but gently finding the root cause and the root cause and not the partner is the enemy that needs to be fought..

This is a long and sensible progress but because the problem didn't come all of a sudden it will not be sorted to the better in all of a sudden.

Suggestion:

Go TOGETHER to a hardwarestore an buy nothing else than 2 meters ruler or tape measure and after every conversation where both can confirm that at least a tiny little progress has been made (even it was only a nice BBQ at the camp fire) you both have to decide together, if you cut one centimeter off which gets stored in a jar or any visible container.
Important is to make it a proud step for both. One opens the Glass and one drops the cut piece in.

You both need to love this container like a stamp collection worth millions and every centimeter added will lighten one little flame more in both of your hearts because this archivement has been made by using teamwork and not agression.
This Glass NEEDS to be with you the rest of you life BUT can only be used once when the 2 meters are in it.

If things slide off again TALK but NOT REPEAT adding new cuttings, because in this moment the glass became a weapon of choice and the magic of it is killed like you would scribble all over a Bible with a cheap ballpoint pen.

I hope my German mind set could bring it into imaginable English wordings otherwise read it again and again untill you get it how See is ticking ;-D

John C Daley wrote:It looks great, how is the roof constructed?

I have posted the entire progress from start till completion here:

https://permies.com/t/50/205283/permaculture/long-dream-Thailand-Part 2

Has all the properties of historical Thai Temples and German WW2 Bunkers, hence made to last for centuries ;-)

Hi all,

we finally complete our little Hobbit house, Smurf House, Baan Din and whatever the surrounding villages call it.

Sure is we made quite a story far outside our small village and people come in packs to see it with their own eyes.

The full story step by step what we did and what we do is in my post:

https://permies.com/t/50/205283/permaculture/long-dream-Thailand-Part 2

but I'll drop some pictures here  too, enjoy!

First I had no clue what you were talking about because I am using my phone the classic way and at work if necessary I use chat and messages plus the usual copy paste files.
So I checked via youtube whats all the fuzz about.

Ok its an image to chose and it learns what you put in but also what she/he answers you and so it becomes more and more a relationship build on knowing each others.

Thank you but no thank you.
How can somebody be so desperate to get depending to his telephone software?

The Image
The Voice
The Chat topics
The (fake) feelings

just everything is based on 1 and 0 lined up into combinations that builds up combinations to create this girl/boy friend and actually adds more 1 and 0 as more you chat with it.

No beautiful person of your dreams, no solutions or increasing life quality
only growing desperations based on one and zero and less cash for food and real life fun.

I guess the IT (****) has made the first generation already turned into complete remote controlled dependends living in a lost reality.

I am out of here and leave a question:
If any real life forum member here has a guide line or infos how to convert rice fields to grow cereus jamacaru (apple cactus)

Where is this world going to?

Been there, done it.

I tried about any corn, bean and squash variety where I could get hands on.

The three sisters group in our head cinema is:
Almost maintenence free bountyful yield of 3 crops from a neat looking formation.
There are beans climbing into the corn and squash crawl humble between them..

The outcome of my trials was:
A brutal massacre between 3 plants competing for food and sunlight.
Beans flattened the corn and the squash took the chance to climb on top of them and shaded lots of green.
A few squash, a meal of beans and corn, nothing special to call the neighbors in.

Lesson learned:
We found here in Thailand (and from a supplier in Taiwan) no corn which can support climbing beans.
3 sisters is a good method to whitness how merciless nature claims its territory.
Small scale like one single guild and for teaching purposes it can be fun

Good luck with your trials