Cody Greene

Thanks for the author hunt, shunted me down some other rigging rabbit trails too.

Pine does get a bad rap, these would have been great timber trees if I had a mill ready to rock after a storm. That said, and not to totally derail the subject, but I wonder if pine would run in a gassifier well with all the extra volatiles? Got to get it small enough to use for that, though usually I would want to make something from large diameter trees given the time and equipment.

Greetings all,

 Does anyone have a solid recommendation for a book (other training material also welcome but I have a learning preference for books and then more) on setting up rigging for using in the felling of trees and moving logs? There is a fair bit of discussion on the topic here, but I don't see a lot of basic "how to set up rigging" and could use some help in that sphere. As it is I'm not entirely unversed in tree felling and a great deal more of it is in my future as I live on badly overgrown wooded average that I would like to return to a useful savannah type environment. That and we do get a lot of fallen trees during hurricanes and sometimes moving them is needed, usually that's just a matter of a ton of sawing to get them into hand-moving sized logs, but that tends to waste a Lot of timber since pine doesn't make for good fuel wood and we don't currently have a setup able to make use of the pine via turpintine or pitch production.

Thanks in advance.

For those of us unable to currently do any welding, would those that have this book say it is still valuable information? I ask as someone that is looking to purchase a gasifier for my first one, rather than do a full build out the first go around. The remarks concerning a lack of theory have me wondering if I should throw the funds I would otherwise spend on the book, at the initial gassifier instead.

Getting off propane would be ideal, especially with slowly converting the woods around me into a coppice and silvopasture landscape.

Does anyone have a recommendation for bare foot like, soft soled shoes that would pass as 'dress shoes' in a professional environment? I know there are some famous wearers of vibrums out there, but they own those businesses so they can do as they like. I have to be 'presentable' in the eyes of my superiors. Three piece suits aren't expected but business casual is a minimum and I spend most of my life in dress shoes.

As someone else in the hot and humid south (lower Alabama actually) this is something I've looked into. Earthbag would be great...if it weren't for the fact it is no longer anything like affordable as it was when the major Earthbag books were written. I would strongly advice against straw bale, my understanding about cob's molding issues is that it primarily comes from the straw mixed in and the high humidity here almost garuntees heavy molding in strawbale construction. Moldering strawbale are going to rot away and cause some unpleasant health issues in the process...unless someone out there knows how to keep this from happening in which case I'm all ears.

Cordwood construction looked promising but due to construction delays we've lost most of our building supplies...they will make some healthy garden soil but little else.  I wish you the best of luck.

Thank you Peter your answers are giving me someplace to go with this line of thought.

A question on locating potentially suitable endophytes, outside of those endophytes that act as saprophytes (and mushroom forming) after the demise of their host, what sort of techniques are used to locate them in the field? I was thinking that looking amongst the plants that grow sea-side would possibly yield both a salt-tolerant and potentially plastic eating variety of endophyte. On rocky shores I'd also be looking for lichens to study, though I don't recall having seen any here where the beaches are white sand.

"not a lot of people are looking into it" sounds like a great reason to set up some experiments around here and see what I get!

These are a set of questions mostly aimed at Peter McCoy but any feedback would be helpful, I hope!

First are there any known salt loving mushrooms, mushrooms that grow in maritime environments for folk that are struggling to grow food near the seaside just seems like an understudied aspect of mycology. Considering what mushrooms can do for other gardens, I imagine they could really boost plant growth in such harsh environments...if they were resilient enough to survive themselves.

Secondly I've heard of some studies done using fungi to break down such nasty things as Styrofoam having some success, but has there been any promising research into using fungi to break down plastics in general? Any suggestions on species that one could potentially 'train' to break down plastics into less harmful or non-harmful component parts?

Ultimately either of the above questions getting solid answers (and lots of experimentation and propagation behind those answers) could make some potentially amazing things happen, more food-producing land, and way to break down persistent pollution sources respectively, but what I'm really after is combining the two. While my initial idea of a Glorious Myco-Armada to Save the Sea(!) is a bit naïve, now that I've at least studied a bit more about the problems the world Ocean faces with all of the plastic polluting it, I'm still of a mind to try and partner with fungi in a way to filter out and break down said plastics. Sure, there aren't literal islands of plastic to launch the 'Myco-Armada' into via major ocean currents, but floating islands with some form of filtering matrix of fungi beneath the surface anchored off shore of major river outlets might be doable. Yes anchoring artificial islands off shore is going to run into all kinds of human-based problems, but those can be dealt with when/if there are a battery of fungi developed/discovered that can do the work.

There, I've gone ahead and thrown my crazy out there for all to see...have at it.