Kaiten Rivers

It seems to me, having experimented with different clothes hanging options that the air circulation is more important than heat. I can dry things fairly quickly in the winter especially if the air is moving

Although most days I hang things on the covered part of the deck.

I have a laundry spinner. It's electric. But it does extract a lot of water. I use it before I put things in a dryer or hang outside. Less time in drier and it seems like less wrinkles in the hung up clothes. It's like the wind irons them. And it seems things dry pretty quick outside.

Hi Daniel. My name is Kaiten.  Recently back from a business risk in China and looking for the next place to call home. I'm in Napa, CA right now, by happenstance.  No kids. 5ft 7in height weight porportional. Fairly fit.
Well, shall I start with the urban permaculture things I did in the 'do what you can where you are with what you have right now' vein?  Container gardening and food preservation-canning, drying, fermenting (I'm a fairly good cook), raised and processed chickens and  4 turkeys in my friends backyard, guerilla gardened the ally for looks and community service, took a PDC, learned about the soil food web from Elaine Ingham, went to a rocket mass heater workshop at wheaton labs, took a pork butchering class.....didn't live anywhere  where trees where an option, although I did 'adopt' an apple tree at an orchard turned park one year.

It was satisfying to grow all the tomatoes I would use in the year and most of the eggplant and sweet peppers (I don't like spicy hot food-wasabi and horseradish are ok).
I'm dabbling at learning to make shoes.
Many things I'd like to try but with someone. For instance, making biogas and using it for cooking.
I have used my bike for most of my commuting and errand for about 18 years now-was something I could do after 9/11.  I am soon to get a electric bike I ordered off of indiegogo.   That should be fun.

At first, I liked the idea that permaculture had no religion or politics. But as I discovered solution after solution in the pc world and it's tangents, I think it's only going to be possible to 'save' the world with political changes-as radical as permaculture is from conventional agriculture.  So looking for those who are putting together alternatives to the way we do things so they can be the examples of how to do things differently.

I gave up my naturopathic practice to move to China to be the main practitioner of Advanced BioStructural Correction in Shenzhen. The guy who created the ABC technique live in Harrisburg NC currently. I would like to keep practicing. Are you in/near an area where that seems feasible? It's popular with the Amish, but they are learning to be practitioners like crazy.

What are some influences on the way you live and try to be outside of sustainable agriculture?
I am writing this on a computer in the library so I don't have any photos to send. If you would like to continue talking Perhaps through email or text later.

Well, at least you'll get  one response from your post
Cheers

I've been volunteering at HUG-Hilltop Urban Garden, which is in a black neighborhood and I am white.  They would like it if I grasped white privilege/white culture better. One of the cultural or perhaps mythological things for the white male is the 'rugged individual.'  Or in libertarian parlance self sufficiency.

I posit that farming started as and should be a community event. Not that everyone should be a farmer and live on a farm, but most other jobs/professions could work their schedules to help out those that produce our food. For instance, Yakima is a agricultural area that brings in workers to harvest. I don't understand why the schools can't coordinate with the farmers so that the kids and teachers can help harvest. Or why can't the insurance broker have reduced office hours to go help th farmer at certain times of the year.

I guess as an urban dweller I have a wish to adopt a farmer and have working on the farm be part of the traditions of the year. Yes, I'd want something in return, not necessarily money but part of the harvest. Or I could be a venture capitalist for the turkey flock. And come take care of the place so the farmer can get a weekend away. And I'm not talking about a paying to volunteer and the farmer calls it a workshop.

http://www.sustainability-centre.org/south-downs-natural-burial-site.html this is what they are doing in the UK-Maddy Harlan gave a talk in PV2 in which she mentioned this

A Swedish? company was developing a way to grind up and freeze dry bodies, making them 'shelf stable' until you could get around to the final disposal.

I think some of the national parks or other conservation areas could use the green burial idea for fund raising. Perhaps it would tie more folks into preserving big patches of nature.

I've been doing a lot of producing more and consuming less in the what-can-I-do-right-now-with-what-I-have-know,etc right-now.

I also have been thinking lots about the things Toby said about returning to the commons, anarchy,and the like(Read Sacred Economics, The More Beutiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible and The Breakdown of Nations)
It's seems clear that we won't make much impact until feeding the ecomony isn't the first answer for everything. Current dogma-people need jobs and you get them from a use it up as fast as you can and turn it into money economy(our country(colony) was set up to exploit the resources and make Europe richer-independace only changed who kept the profits)). People really need food, shelter, etc-and this crowd knows money isn't the only waqy to get those things. Perhaps if we returned to the commons......

Another point I've been struggling with, animal nature of human verses human spirit(if you will allow the terms)-I listened to a nun talk about talking with CEO's-the CEO's wanted a raise from 10 million to 11 million. She questioned them as to whether they were having a hard time making ends meet on 10 million. The answer was -We are very competitive. We like to win and money is how we keep score. HOW DO WE CHANGE THE DIFINITION OF WINNING. I really want to find ways to do that.

I just read about a pioneer woman in computer programming-her thoughts were-the most dangerous phrase, the phrase that kills of a lot of ideas is 'but we've always done it this way'-So Paul, I see no way to get things to change in the way you/we want them to without changing how we run things in the political and social realms.

I still think often about Toby's lecture at PV2-about returning to the commons, permaculture anarchy or peaceful sedition, if you prefer Mollison's term(I'd never seen Toby look so masculine as when he was giving that lecture) Lead me to read Charles Eisensteins books-Sacred Economics and The more Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible. Is there anybody out there working on the civilization redesigning?

You might look into Colin Seis and his 'pasturecropping technique for some clues. To the best of my understanding he grows annual crops in his fields-or paddocks as they say downunder after the grass has been grazed.
Colin now sows commercial crops into the dominant
pasture by direct drilling to minimise soil disturbance.
Sheep are used to prepare paddocks to pasture crop and
crops are sown, usually with no herbicide and 70% less
fertiliser than conventional methods. Only relatively small
amounts of liquid organic fertiliser are added at the time of
sowing, using the same machine, so that tractor costs and
soil compaction are minimised.

Hi Erica,

Not pictures, but other venues for raising pigs 'in' civilization.

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/08/4-h-pig-oakland-We walk our pigs in Oakland-is the title-Oakland CA
Novella Capenter's book-Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer-in a vacant lot on in Oakland, CA she raised turkeys and ducks and chickens AND PIGS, which she turned into prosciutto. She talks of dumpster diving in the middle of the night to forage for pig food from upscale restaurants.

If I needed a thesis subject I think I would go with linking the fur industry back in the 17th century to the current drought situations we are experiencing.