T McKinney

I've somewhat recently been going down the climate change + excess CO2 rabbit hole. I'm trying to grasp it and am hoping that my not-quite napkin math can be doublechecked.

We've been thinking about moving closer to town, partly to drive less. I gather that the big issue with fossil fuels is that there's no sequestering in their lifecycle, at least in the present. So you burn them, but they don't get sequestered. So if we were burning wood, it should at least even out, possibly be negative depositing some carbon in the soil.

I started to wonder about the forest that we have, and that maybe maintaining this forest and keeping someone from logging it/developing it, is actually of some benefit. So I started to look into carbon sequestion figures for Idaho forests.

We have 11.5 acres of land. A lot of it is forest, but much of it isn't ideal or very dense. Maybe 7 acres equivalent? Maybe less? Let's be optimistic and say 7.

From what I've read, Idaho forests should be worth about 1.21 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year. This, if accurate, has me at 8.47 metric tons per year in the negative. Which, it could easily be less.

Our daily driver, largely dictated by road quality, has been a 1991 Landcruiser. Estimating 85% highway driving, 15% city, and 15,000 miles per year, fueleconomy.gov puts me at 10.5 metric tons of CO2 per year! Now I usually get slightly better than the EPA estimate -- 14-15 MPG instead of 13MPG highway. But sometimes there's a trailer involved. At best, it's probably about 9 metric tons of CO2.

So now we are CO2 positive with just the daily driver! Comparable vehicles that we can realistically drive will be a lot better, but still close to 7 metric tons per year.

Estimating 250 gallons of propane use per year (hot water, dryer, and stove) puts me at 1.4 metric tons of CO2. I think we use a hair more, but this is close.

Now for grid power: I see about 5,500kW/hour used in the past 12 month cycle. Our power mix is 75% hydroelectric, 13% nuclear, and 12% "nonspecified" (whatever that means?) -- I guess this is lower CO2 than others.

From this website: https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-nuclear-energy-good-for-the-climate/a-59853315

I see different esimated figures. I figure they're worth taking with a grain of salt, but here it goes.

75% hydro should be 16.5kg CO2 at 4 grams per kw/hour.
13% nuclear should be 83kg CO2 at 117 grams per kw/hour.
12%, not sure what to call it, so going to leave it out.

This is about 0.1MT CO2 per year, so a lot less than vehicles or propane.

It seems like it would be more carbon friendly to use even basic, non-heat pump hot water heater than to use propane. Is that right? Given this power blend.

Back when we were using electric for hot water, dryer, and stove, we used about 16,000kW hours per year. So maybe 0.3-0.4MT CO2/year. Really seems like propane is less carbon friendly in this case.

Now for food!

If we eat 400lbs of beef per year, on average. Using the worst case 60kg CO2 / kg of beef, is that 10.9MT CO2? It can't be right, can it? More than the Landcruiser? Lamb would cut that in less than half.

Now the beef might not be that high in terms of CO2, but it's probably not less than half, right?

My estimates don't account for grass CO2, which seems like mostly a wash. Also doesn't account for CO2 emissions due to other purchases.

Does this math look plausible? Am I thinking correctly about this?

If so, the situation looks pretty dire!

Some links I have been using:

https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator-calculations-and-references
https://extension.psu.edu/the-economic-value-of-private-forests-and-climate-change-mitigation

Thank you!

We live in North Idaho. Most people consider wildfire a "danger" up here, and while it is, I think that's somewhat the wrong perspective to have. On a long enough timeline, you have to think of wildfire as being something like a -25F winter day -- it just happens and you can't really fight it. So for the winter, you bury your pipes below frost depth and be done with it.

For fire, it's more complicated. But areas like North Idaho have always had wildfires. If you live in the wild in some regions, you should simply expect that it's going to burn at some point. Your property and home should be designed accordingly.

The best prevention of fire is... fire. If you can do controlled burns in the off season, it'll do more to remove duff and small trees than you'll ever be able to otherwise. If you burned out your property every year or two, it would help tremendously!

Now there's other things you can do to help. Eliminate ladder fuels, so no branches touching the ground. If you have a clump of trees, some living and dead, maybe thin them out beforehand. Some tree species are better in fire than others. Lodgepole Pine, for instance, requires fire for seeding. It makes for a nice firewood and nice lumber. However, it dies easily in a fire. Ponderosa Pine is terrific in a fire.

Fire burns slower through "tinder litter" than grass. Shade also helps a lot -- fire is much more active with the sun on it. So forests can actually be very safe places in a fire, depending on the tree species and terrain. Now slopes, especially steep ones, can be very dangerous. To prevent crowning (fire going from one tree top to another) you need wider spacing on slopes than you would otherwise.

I think it's good to be aware both of how hard it can be to start a fire, or for it to progress, and for how easy it can be. Conditions are key, but materials are also important. I think the 5 foot non-combustible barrier around a house is a good idea. As is keeping trees 100 feet from the house. I don't like the idea of vines in an area prone to wildfires. I would also not recommend a cedar shake roof. Steel roofs are nice unless the house catches on fire, but usually the recommended option.

Now let's say you have a vented attic. We do, and I'm not highly concerned about attic fires. It's definitely possible, but the eaves have a metal mesh on them to keep embers out. If one did get in, it's covered with Rockwool which will practically never burn. And you can't ignite dimensional lumber very easily, if an ember happens to land there.

If we had a vented attic without mesh and with boxes of old newspapers, I would be very concerned!

Keeping grass trimmed with sheep, goats, or a mower is a good idea. Shorter grass will lower flame heights, which will slow spread and is easier to fight.

I don't think that houses need to be all stone. If they are right up next to an unmanaged forest, then that would certainly help. But wood doesn't burn easily. For most wood sided houses, could you light it with a match? What about a whole match box? Probably not! Now even in construction there's lots you can do to help with fire resistance to buy you more time. Lightweight materials and trusses with gusset plates are not helpful. Bigger timber is harder to catch on fire and will maintain strength longer in a fire. Closing doors at night is the most helpful thing to slow fire spread.

Back to controlled burns. Let's say that you have a lot of Spruce. You burn your land. If the Spruce doesn't die right away, it doesn't have tap roots. If there's a lot less duff on the ground, it can be more prone to falling over in a windstorm. So something to keep in mind.

I've been writing for a while now. I'll wrap it up here. Don't be afraid of wood houses! But I wouldn't put ladder fuels around my house, either. Not all Permaculture concepts are going to be appropriate in all regions. And not every chunk of land is suitable for homes! I helped put out a fire on a mountain side home not long ago. Not a single accomodation for fire was done. There was hardly any access and it was on a steep slope. Pretty much a worst case scenario. In the end, though, it seems that their generator (right next to the house!) caught fire. But too dangerous of a place to live, in my opinion.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this or not. Please feel free to move it!

We acquired some pretty nice land, and built (but did not finish) a very efficient house. But as they say, location, location, location! We reconnected with wife's side of the family and my family moved to town. Now we'd like to be a lot closer.

This property is in Benewah county near Emida, which is not even really a town. Very remote, but on a county maintained road. Not one that people normally use snowmobiles on in the winter.

Ideally, we would trade for a place on 1/4+ acre in Moscow, or 1+ acre within about 10 miles of Moscow. It'll be a setback in terms of homesteading, but proximity to family is more important at this point.

Now we'd have to get pretty lucky for such a trade, so it might end up being a sale. We have a realtor in mind, but with the compost toilets thought that Craigslist and Permies would be a good first attempt.

And regardless, as far as timing goes, we'd probably want till spring. We've had a moisture issue in the basement (which is the living area with bedrooms) that we're hoping may be resolved now after significant grading + drainage work, but we're not confident yet and want to put it through the test with spring rains. Maybe you're particularly adventurous and feel willing to tackle the property regardless, though.

We've been in contact with a realtor who suggested listing the property for $600k, IF we finished the house, installed a septic, and converted to flushing toilets. But I would rather not go down that road and have someone more permaculture minded take it over.

I feel that this property can easily meet its own lumber+firewood needs. Has a pond and a creek. The well head is even a Bison hand pump. Over 1 acre is fenced for our goats. 20x30 pole barn (with a loft) for them.

Well pump is solar powered, cistern pump is solar+battery powered, hot water is propane. Wood stove for heat. We used less than one cord last season! Granted, it was a mild winter, but we think we'd never be over 2 cords, at least with the heat level we find comfortable.

Vented attict, R45 Rockwool batts in the ceiling. R23 Rockwool in the walls. 8' on center post frame (dry set brackets) without studs. We designed the house around the principle that power shouldn't be essential. It is convenient being on-grid with Clearwater power, though. We've only been billed 9 cents per kw/hour. It does go down from time to time, so you have to be prepared out here.

Some negotiable things that might help make this more of a turn-key homestead of sorts: 1991 Ford F-150 4x4 4 speed manual, Suzuki 4-wheeler with snow plow and water sprayer, Ferguson TO-30 tractor, goats, chickens, temporary fence panels (as seen in photos), IBC tote(s,) rough cut lumber, and other building supplies.

Anyway, many more details are available. Have a small selection of photos to share here.

On our remote 11.5 acres in North Idaho, I'm starting to realize that not everything about our lifestyle is particularly permaculture friendly. The biggest thing is the distance and being dependent on driving, especially a far distance. Walmart, for example, is a bit over 40 miles away, and 10 of those are gravel.

We do have our goats on about 1.5 acre fenced, chickens, and our garden is looking decent this year (other than what the late frost killed.) Surrounded by trees that seem like an absolute wildfire liability (even with some reasonable spacing from the house.) I'm realizing that to cleanup this much timber and burn it out regularly, it's going to be a ton of work.

We also now have both sides of our family about 40 miles away (in the region of the Walmart) and though we'll probably always have to drive, if we were at least close to something (ideally, walking or bike riding distance) not burning fossil fuels seems like an improvement.

One thing that I like about this setup is that I have all of the fuel and timber I could ever need on the property. I don't have to go anywhere for it. Other than fuel/timber, we could have what we have on 2-3 acres. It'd be less private, but a lot less to maintain and less fire concern. Coming from a die-hard freedom background, I'm ironically starting to have some appreciation for zoned counties.

I stumbled across a new development that describes itself as "new urbanism." Everything is designed to be walkable, including cafe, stores, etc, with houses around it. In some ways it seems like a step in the right direction. To me, it looks very crowded and like it lacks a lot of independence capability.

A common model, the one we have employed, seems to be that everyone buys 5-10 acres and tries to duplicate a lot of the effort. Now I have a friend about 7 miles away (practically a neighbor!) who's done well with pigs. And we've finally started selling some of our goat milk.

Ideally, we'd have some kind of regenerative setup with the goats, rotating from pasture/browse to another. We could do this with enough fencing work. And it might be possible to feed them year round on this size acreage, which would be great. Probably an acre or two would be set aside for haying, though I'm not 100% sure that's even enough.

I know this is a bit of a ramble. I remember my grandma's place. It was a few acres, I think. Very narrow strip of land that eventually went up the mountain. Seemed very usable and practical. Neighbors could still be close, but you still had a good bit of land. These 1:2 or so rectangular 5 acre lots are nice for privacy, but not practical for walking to neighbors. Of course some notion of a trail or sidewalk would help a lot, and not an active, gravel logging road...

I think there have been a few attempts at eco-village models. I guess we're thinking about moving into something smaller to be closer to family, while retaining some capabilities. I absolutely love being able to have my water solar powered and off grid, but I can do that on an acre with a well. The wood for fuel... maybe if the land is near state ground.

I guess I'm wondering both what makes sense for us, and what sort of model an intentional community might develop. Obviously, land shape impacts a lot, and causes some limitations. I just feel like I have been investing a lot into something that doesn't fully make sense. I think I'm not the only one.

Anyway, thank you for reading my ramble!

(Speaking of, if you want 11.5 acres with a not fully finished house, somewhat of a shop, a barn, and fencing mostly good enough for goats, let me know...)

Wow, thank you all for your replies!

Seems like I can't easily quote multiple messages.

My parents did a cold frame once and it worked pretty well. I think it's a good option for lettuce, but would be hard to make one big enough for squash, right?

The Resilient Garden: We pretty much can't grow corn where we are at. If we move nearby, we might be able to, but I'm not quite sure. I think on our very best summer, corn might be possible but it'd be a big gamble. I'll look for that book though, thank you!

We know a family who has a very impressive in-earth greenhouse. It's giant and has a wood stove for the very coldest nights of winter. I'd love something like that, but it's a big undertaking.

Interesting about brix content acting as an anti-freeze! I could see raised beds working well with portable coverings that can be deployed on clear nights, I guess before July.

It sounds like hugelkulture (if I spelled it correctly!) would help raise temperatures some, though I'd be surprised if it made the difference of a 27F frost or not. 30-32F, probably.

I thought we were off to a good start this year. Last year, we ditched the giant, unyieldy garden space for a smaller, tighter spot. I had an exceptional harvest of potatoes with the Ruth Stout method, using goat bedding.

This year, we doubled the size and added zuchini, tomatoes, and melons.

The garden was all planted a few weeks ago, which seemed reasonable for our North Idaho climate. Unfortunately, a few days ago it got down to 27F and the frost killed everything that was poking up. I'm assuming the potatoes might survive (the potatoes coming up were actually regrown from last year -- I didn't pick them all, which may have been a mistake.) I have a lot of seed potatoes planted as well, that I'm not worried about.

A lot of people in the area seemed to have the same struggle. From what we know, people less than an hour away didn't have any frost, or at least not a hard frost.

This is pretty discouraging to have a 27F frost in June. It seems like every other year, we have something like that.

It's just making me rethink if this a good location for having a productive garden. I love potatoes, but it's not the only thing I want to grow!

I know that hoop houses would work, but I'd prefer to not be dependent on them. It's a heck of a lot of plastic.

How does Wheaton Labs do it, over near Missoula? Maybe that microclimate is better than ours? Our zone 5 fruit trees died, but most of our zone 4 stuff has survived.

Is there a way to plant or arrange the garden to make it more frost tolerant? I'm okay if we can't grow tomatoes, but it'd be a real bummer to not even be able to grow zuchini!

We've been starting to think about leaving our 11 acres for a few acres closer to town, possibly in a warmer climate that might be more forgiving.

Historically, this area was just used for logging and there was very little homesteading in the area. Just a bit southwest of here, there's a lot more farming/agriculture, even at roughly the same elevation. We're in a bit of a snow and cold belt.

Thank you!

Hi everyone!

I'd like to be more active here, but as a lot of you probably feel, I've been pretty busy.

I ended up building one other toilet, and having another built with the same design. I wanted to describe what I did, to warn prospective compost toileters.

I made it larger, including a plywood box with a hinged lid for the sawdust. The was convenient and looked pretty nice. But boy, was it stupid!

The sawdust, which might be fine if you were using dust from kiln dried lumber, created a bunch of mold, even going down through the plywood and into my floor!

I much prefer the original design. The hinged top is nice, too. I had a "fitted" top on these (only hinges were on the sawdust bins) and they're just not as nice to work with.

I should post pictures sometime.

Paul, I see you mention how AI robots will take the place of humans. I see both impressive AI takeovers and AI abysmalism. I think both are possible -- incredible feats and incredible stupidity. Both have certainly been demonstrated.

In time, though, I think AI will grow more and more powerful... possibly. Either way, I think it's very unhealthy, and a path of our own replacement. It's true that some of the jobs AI replaces maybe shouldn't have existed in the first place. I also think that even the most mediocre mid-level manager jobs are slightly more meaningful than a language model crafted by every scrapable book, and donated to by anyone writing online without a paywall. Our creativity has created our replacements. Our generousity to mankind has trained it.

Anyway, I guess you could say I'm a software engineer. I've had that title before. Not sharing this to gloat, but I am very good at what I do. I did not go to college. I started my own online business that pretty much runs itself, and I live off of it. But I worked at a few different companies and got to experience a range of what's out there.

I've known, aside from AI, that the tech market is a bubble. There's too many white collar jobs already. But AI does facilitate the shrinking even more, perhaps smaller than it ought to be, for how the market is. People are replaced by newly started nuclear reactors powering GPU farms. It's pretty crazy.

I've always been on the conservative side, fiscally. I got out of the system way earlier than most. Part of it was luck, and part a deep rooted mistrust in the system. I'm now picking up skills that don't involve typing. Some tech people fantasize about this, and some worship tech. I think a lot of people in tech feel like a lot of it is a big lie. Or maybe some of it is good, like early internet days when people mostly just communicated on Usenet and shared ideas/experiences. But now the personal element is gone. The commercial-free element is gone. It's no longer sharing and collaborating with humans. It's sharing and collaborating to train your replacements. The Internet and modern computing are probably much worse for humanity than they are good, on the whole. There's certainly less-bad, and even good ways to use it, though. And avoiding sponsorship of the bad things is a good way to be. Taking the easy road for a quick AI answer helps us tumble down the mountain just a little faster.

I wish exiting the system were easier for most. It's such a shame how hard it is to get decent land and build something to live in. Paul, I really appreciate what you're doing. Some day I'll try to get out there. In the mean while I'm trying to make sure my family is taken care of here in a way that is as dependency free as possible.

I've been meaning to make a new chicken coop and run for a while. We have one, but the coop isn't well designed and the run "runs" north, which leaves it damper and colder than it needs to be a lot of the year.

My building skills could use some work though and I've been curious to try out a chicken tractor. Decided to "just do it" and build a tractor. Didn't really follow any existing design. It's 4 feet by 8 feet.

Wanted to share the build, what worked well, what didn't, and what I'm planning to change. I used a lot of old materials, so there's some random colors and such throughout. I also made some mistakes on fitment, my tolerances were poor, and ended up adding more materials here and there to cover holes.

The chicken egress door ended up turning out really well. It's the door on the side that rotates. Very simple and problem free so far.

I wanted to be able to catch rain water and protect chickens from the elements a little better. It ends up being pretty dark, although no problems laying yet. The rain catch does work and would work better with a cap on the end of the black pipe. Unfortunately, the "clean-out" cap on the side of the black pipe with the chicken nipple leaks. I haven't taken the time to put some kind of thread sealant on it. I did the math and a 4x8 roof is actually plenty of rain water for chickens in a year, if you didn't lose any, etc. For us it'd be something like 500 gallons a year at a minimum.

I wanted to maximize open ground space and elevated the nesting boxes. Of course, they only use one of them. One notable problem is that the chickens roost on top of the boxes. The boxes should be lower than the roosts and the top of the boxes should be covered.

It is very sturdy. No chickens have escaped while it was closed up. The rope going under the bottom was mostly just laziness and will wear out over time. The rope actually broke, but not down there.

Which brings me to the biggest issue. It's too heavy! I knew I'd have to keep weight in mind. I used 3-ply plywood for a lot of it, once I thought of it. I still have some half inch plywood which is overkill and heavy.

When the black pipe has water in it, it's even more. Even without, it adds too much weight. And isn't a reliable enough source of water to be worth using. The roof also adds a lot of weight.

I've been able to pull it with about all of my might. My back went out, so my wife tried to pull it. She couldn't pull it at all.

I'm going to ditch the rain catch and try to lose weight on it however I can. Planning on having a pipe style setup for food and water, to be very easy to refill.

I should've made the door open exposing the eggs first, rather than last. A chicken did get out once through that big door.

Another issue is that especially for these smaller, active birds, it's not much space to run in. But it makes an okay coop otherwise. I've had 8 birds in it for a while which is about the most I'd want.

It did run over a bird once when pulling, but the bird was thankfully okay. A lot of that is because it's so heavy I end up having to yank it to get going over a little mound, etc (our ground is not very flat.) When it's moving slowly and steadily the birds do a good job staying out of the way.

Hopefully this helps someone else on their build, or deciding whether to build/not build one in the first place.

We bought a property with old garden beds that were lined with black plastic, I assume HDPE. They have not aged well at all.

Replacing wood every so often isn't the biggest deal. Sometimes a 20 year product is a better option environmentally than a 30 year product. Especially with cedar or black locust, you should do pretty well.

Almost everything good for the environment will rust/rot away at some point.