Joshua Myrvaagnes

A wise use of “light bulb conversation”
—let’s design a response. If it has come up, it’s an entry point to the kinds of other conversations that could be more constructive. For the average, non-engineer person, a starting point meeting them where they are or can reach to from their level of ecological scale awareness. (Use slow and small solutions).


My brainstorms:

“A clothesline will make a much larger dent.” (Simpler to start with than micro heaters conversation)

“Heating the person, not the air will make a much bigger dent.” (General concept easier to get to than specific “heat yourself with the lightbulb” or “microheaters” which sounds more obscure and unfamiliar.

“You can save more money by…” (maybe but once people are on their “virtue track” they may feel defensive and not want to talk about saving money.

“You can send less money to the electric company” maybe.

Anyone else want to brainstorm here?

I leaned some shutters against the window to my basement, to block out light, and attach a blanket with some pushpins to the door, which has a big window, so that there isn’t a whole bunch of sunlight heating up my basement in the summer.

I’d estimate that this reduces the heating of it by about 2000 W for three hours per day, so 6000 W hours of heat that I did not want. My basement is a nice and cool 50°F, and want it to stay that way.

Downside, the shutters have lead paint on them, I couldn’t think of a way to deal with that, and plastic seemed like it was even worse in a way. There’s already plenty of lead paint that has entered the soil by that wall anyway.

The blanket is out of possible rain, all, and mostly out of the wind, and I pinned the bottom up with some staples that were handy so that it wouldn’t drag and get caught in the bottom when you close the door.

This is very Yankee engineering, am open to thoughts, or pointing out where the longterm failure points are!

I imagine you get this all the time, but I can’t help it notice that you have “lye” in your last name and you posted on a laundry thread!!!

I like that there’s something with just one moving part. I will circle back to this at some point.

Edward Lye wrote:Started reading this and see early entries about aerating water.

If I needed to, I do this.

It is multi-purpose - aerate water, stir laundry, make compost tea, wash soil to separate
clay and sand, . . .  nobody at the laundry thread watched this. I am disappointed.

Only one moving part.

Only one hand needed.

No batteries required.

Just give it a few punps  whenever you pass by.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:https://youtu.be/EJs51qdCJr8?si=oyMVDgcr6jefKJs4

Wow, no metal, no masonry, I’m so curious to watch the rest of this. Thoughts?

Well there’s smoke in it all the time and it’s more of a survival thing.

Also it’s AI slop, partly accurate info and partly hallucination. Still, really beautiful images in there. And I learned of a construction style I hadn’t known about.

Anyone have a better resource on Saxon pit construction?

https://youtu.be/EJs51qdCJr8?si=oyMVDgcr6jefKJs4

Wow, no metal, no masonry, I’m so curious to watch the rest of this. Thoughts?

The article has a lot of flaws in it, from what I’ve skimmed, and it concludes hugelkultur is not viable. The reasoning makes very little sense, and goes against about everything commonsense that Redhawk said in his post.  So, the jury is still out in my book, it would take some more digging to find out if these particular references are valid. I don’t know if there are actually some listed in the description of the video itself, and this is not really a high priority for me to get to the bottom of it.  I’m just going to conduct my own tests in my landscape.

Thanks, M, to be clear I don’t know whether it is AI generated or not. And even if it is, I don’t know whether it’s scraped valid information or not.

Quick web search on research brought me this list of references, many of them are fairly new:



Adams, A. 2013. Hügelkultur Gardening Technique Does Not Result in Plant Nutrient Deficiencies and Is a Potential Source Reduction Strategy for Yard Trimmings Wastes. University of Wisconsin-Madison Student Project Report.
Beba, H., and H. Andrä. n.d. Hügelkultur—die Gartenbaumethode der Zukunft, 10th edition. Waerland-Verlagsgenossenschaft, Mannheim, Germany.
Binns, H.J., K.A. Gray, T.Y. Chen, M.E. Finster, N. Peneff, P. Schaefer, V. Ovsey, J. Fernandes, M. Brown, and B. Dunlap. 2004. Evaluation of Landscape Coverings to Reduce Soil Lead Hazards in Urban Residential Yards: The Safer Yards Project. Environmental Research 96(2): 127–138.
Chalker-Scott, L. 2013. The Science Behind Biodynamic Preparations: A Literature Review. HortTechnology 23(6): 814–819.
Chalker-Scott, L. 2021. Using Arborist Wood Chips as Landscape Mulch. Washington State University Extension Publication FS160E. Washington State University.
Cogger, C. 2017. Raised Beds—Deciding If They Benefit Your Vegetable Garden. Washington State University Extension Publication FS075E. Washington State University.
Harrison, E.Z., J. Bonhotal, M. Schwarz, and L. Wellin. 2005. Compost Fact Sheet #6: Compost Pads. Cornell Waste Management Institute.
Haspel, T. 2015. In Defense of Corn—The World’s Most Important Food Crop. The Washington Post, July 12, 2015.
Hazan, S.M., J.S. Cowan, Q. Kang, and H.C. Cartagena. 2021a. Evaluating Hügelkultur for Pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo L.) Production in Kansas. Hortscience 56(9): S89.
Hazan, S.M., J.S. Cowan, Q. Kang, and K. Fan. 2021b. Evaluating Hügelkultur for Season Extension in Lettuce Production. Hortscience 56(9): S191.
Laffoon, M. 2016. A Quantitative Analysis of Hügelkultur and Its Potential Application on Karst Rocky Desertified Areas in China. Western Kentucky University Honors Thesis Project.
Miles, C. 2013. Home Vegetable Gardening in Washington. Washington State University Extension Publication FS057E. Washington State University.

The other thing that was interesting about this was it said that a researcher had documented the origins of hugelculture in the 60s, and that it was a 500 -year-old practice. Maybe this can clear up some of the confusion of whatever’s gotten lost in translation between Sepp and America.

https://youtu.be/FKvBRtE13jw?si=6DPZInBsoE9akmqU

The algorithm sent me this very encouraging video about Hugo culture that cited some academic studies about this, but I’m wondering if it’s AI hallucination. A lot of the information was accurate, but some of it was a bit, unsure about it.

If it is all accurate, then this is a really great corroboration of a lot of things that folks and Permies have been observing.