What would Pearl invent if it wasn't invented already?

Over the years our own wonderful Pearl Sutton has demonstrated her creativity so many times.  These threads are just a couple quick examples of her free thinking:  "Oh my!  Weird Pies!" and "I dreamed of a cool plant!"  There are so many others!

In the future I won't be at all surprised if everyone is using something that Pearl came up with.  That got me thinking....of the inventions that someone else beat Pearl to, which of those would she have come up with if she'd just been around first?  I could easily see her having invented ear muffs, ice skates, or unicycles first.  What else wouldn't surprise you guys?  What remaining problems should Pearl help us out with?

All in the spirit of fun Pearl....hope you don't at all mind!  :)

I'm thinking that she would invent a unicorn that blows rainbow colored seed out of it's nose in order to sew a crop of lovely Skittles.  And when the unicorn was done doing its work, it would politely curtsy in your general direction before taking a sparkly poop in your compost pile, and then leaping over the fence.

I think Pearl would invent Free health care!  Health care that focuses on curing you... (what a novel idea !)  not getting you hooked on pharmaceuticals!
Then she would invent a "transporter" so she could zip around her property finishing all those projects.
Next would be the large ray gun so those pesky people who irritate her, could be properly dealt with.

Why not Pearl for President !!!  She'll get my vote!
 

I think Pearl would take her favourite annual veggies and wave her magic wand to make them at least short-lived perennials - like 5 years maybe? I don't want to sound greedy.

I could see Pearl inventing this hammer that also dispenses nails...kind of like a stapler for nails....no more hitting your thumb :)


Hmmm....what else do we need.
(that hammer was from freelance designer Michael David Young, btw...cool, right?)

@ Greg Martin - I like that it's hand operated! It's so easy for air tools etc to get out of hand (at least get out of *my* hand!) That said, on our farm, we generally screw around - it's *much* easier to unscrew a mistake than get a nail out.

I'm honored to be the subject of silly speculation!
I need a curtsying unicorn, that would be cool. Then I could ride it, and we could fly to the homes of all the good permies, curtsy together at them, and then poop in their compost piles, leaving sparkles of magic poop that can grow the brightest flowers and the oddest colored veggies!!

There already IS free health care, it's called "Eat your organic veggies!!" :D I need a transporter, definitely, and oooh, I'm not sure I'm allowed a ray gun, I get irritated fast some days. "You have a brain, USE IT!! ZZZZAP!!!" I can see this being an issue. :D

I think all veggies need to be perennial, work on it, y'all :D I expect results! I have a ray gun!!

That's an awesome hammer! I use screws for the same reason as Jay, less damage to my fingers, and easier to do a Cntrl Z on them...

What would I want to have invented... hm... the dirigible. I want to fly around, and see everything, cruising slowly, pooping magic poop over the side...

The reason my head is like it is is a mix of weird brain damage from seizures mixed with having my nose in a book all my life. My brain runs fast, has a lot of odd data and ideas to play with, and it gets very weird in here sometimes. I found y'all a visual.... (feel free to give up after 30 secs, it doesn't improve)



Keep it up y'all, I need good ideas!! Inspire me! :)
I curtsy nicely at you all, and poop in your compost!!

:D

Pearl, I have *always* wanted a cloning machine - so I could get two jobs done at once. Want to build me one?

In fact, my usual comment to people who seem to think I can be in the back field helping with the chickens and in the kitchen making dinner is... "my cloning machine is broken - want to fix it?"

Ms Jay: I have always wanted to be one of the 8 armed Hindu goddesses, so I can hold things in the right place, and install them, and drink my tea, and type on the computer, pet the cat, fix my jewelry, and sew or fix the car all at once :D

Oh, do you think you could build me a third arm? I'd like an extra right please, but I'd make do with two lefts if I had to. I've heard of people have "two left feet". An extra left arm would be soooo.... useful.

Jay Angler wrote:Oh, do you think you could build me a third arm? I'd like an extra right please, but I'd make do with two lefts if I had to. I've heard of people have "two left feet". An extra left arm would be soooo.... useful.

I'd only do so if you learned to juggle, with two left arms, that would be cool to see!
Any objections to the third arm being built out of the metal from a clamp lamp, with motors from RC cars, and covered with pantyhose stuffed with wool so it looks right...? That would be be easy to do! Programming it, I leave as an exercise for the student. You know you want to learn to program... Don't forget to teach it to juggle... :D

Years ago I did an exercise from a book, Gay Hendricks “The Big Leap”  on what EXACTLY is your Zone of Genius? What makes your heart sing, your mind dance, what keeps you up all night in sheer excitement? This is part of my responses. The black text is the questions asked, the red is my answers (the purple text doesn't show up well here,) the bold is what I realized is my exact Zone of Genius. We all have one, learning to see it is hard. Selling my work will never be mine, creating it is.

What do I most love to do? Design something interesting that fits odd parameters.
What work do I do that doesn't seem like work? Design stuff. Secondary is make neat things that exist only in my head before that. Designing is the best part, but seeing it happen is fun too.
In my work, what creates the highest ratio of abundance and satisfaction to time spent? There is the problem. “in my work” the things I get the highest satisfaction from are NOT the things that produce the most abundance. THAT’S what needs to change.
What is my unique ability? To see possibilities, to fit things together in nonstandard ways. I look at the world differently than most people.
I can both see the concrete reality of what the parameters and resources are, and can visualize what solution can be made from those resources that fit the parameters.

I’m at my best when I’m: working out a nonstandard solution to a nonstandard problem.
When I’m at my best the exact thing I’m doing is: looking at the problem, investigating the resources, thinking on it, researching it, drawing it out if needed. (Although drawing limits me too much, that’s really a last stage thing on most designs.)
When I’m doing that the thing I love most about it is: the challenge, can you DO that with this stuff? Seeing the possibilities expand, not only can I do THAT, I can do THIS too! And THAT!! Whee!!


A story of a project. I have two best friends, one died after a year of hospitals, I was his power of attorney, did everything. The group I run with does a 3 day Halloween party every year, I did decorations for 20 years until I moved, and we were making it sort a wake for him that year. At one stage in things he had said the party needs to be held at the Prancing Pony Inn, from Lord of the Rings, so in his honor, I made the Prancing Pony Inn at the party that year.

Parameters of the project: I had Eric's front yard, $50.00 budget I could work with, 2 people to help paint, 1 person to help install it, and any junk I had or could scavenge. I borrowed the Lord of the Rings movies and looked at the scenes, as that's what other people were expecting, I'm a reader had not seen them (didn't watch the movie, just found the right scenes, I don't like other people's visuals contaminating my brain, what I see in my head is SO much better, but seeing video etc overwrites my cool stuff.) I don't like doing anything based off what someone else did before, but it mattered to other people that I did so, as they wanted it the way they visualize it, from the movie.

Started with a bare sand yard, some stumps in the area (they got used for seating along the edges), rock wall, a couple of T posts.



I got huge cardboard boxes, and designed it, dumped it all over my driveway, and got a couple of puzzled ladies to help paint it. I tried to tell them "here are walls, this the fireplace, these are windows. One of them said "I see a pile of boxes. I see no walls, no windows, no fireplace. Just tell me what to paint." Ok then. from here to here, put a brown stripe... and paint blobs of these colors all over this area...



I made a sign for it, sort of matching the one from the movie, I'm not good at faces, that pony went through looking psychotic, constipated, and about to throw up before I got him to this expression and quit while I was ahead.



I made a fire, it was multiple layers of this sort of cut paper and hologram stuff. The layers were installed with flicker flame lights between them, and it looked really neat. Didn't photo well, because you can't see the aliveness of it.



Installed in the yard it looked like this before the fire was put in:





Once all that was up, I ran  VERY well grounded wire, buried so no one tripped on it, and installed the fire.



We added things like tablecloths and a bit more random decor people brought, tables, chairs. The fireplace hearth was made to be structural, and I actually tiled it with real tile. That made it so people could sit on it, lots of pictures were taken in front of the fireplace that year.

My favorite quotes I heard at the party about this: The lady who I quoted above about the pile of boxes "She said it was going to be a fireplace, and that I just had to paint blobs, and then she painted a bit more, and LOOK! I made a fireplace! I didn't know I was doing that!!"   Someone walking into the party "Oh cool, Eric built a fireplace! WAIT!! PEARL built a fireplace!! Oh NEAT!" A man I didn't know, who had married one of our ladies "You must be the Pearl. I was told you were making something cool for this, you MADE all this?" uummm yeah, I guess I'm THE Pearl :) I DID make it !

So the best part to me of doing it all was the tight constraints: Tight budget, I bought lights, and the battery candles that are pretending to reflect in the "glass" of the windows (all cardboard, paint, and electricians tape); tight space; needed to be safe and comfortable; able to hold for 5 days (3 days plus installation and removal time); and look like what people would recognize to a point, but still be my style.

This is how my brain thrives, when it got weird with odd constraints, and something cool bubbled up. To me, designing and building it was more fun than the party. I was asked one year "if you could costume and decorate for the party OR attend it, which would you do?" No question at all for me, costume and decorate.


A random chunk of my weird designs :) Welcome to the Prancing Pony Inn in my head.
Imagine what I could have done with a higher budget and more help!

So how does the Prancing Pony Inn fit into permaculture?  The part that matters from all of that is the part I put in bold above: I can both see the concrete reality of what the parameters and resources are, and can visualize what solution can be made from those resources that fit the parameters.

So, starting with a piece of property, I can see both what IS there, and what CAN be there, within the parameters of the resources. I wouldn't design a $400,000 house if the person can only spend 60,000. I don't design a lush tropical forest if it freezes. I look at where they will want and need to be in their lives 20 years from now, and design for it to still work for them then.

What I'm doing for me and my mom is exactly that, exactly what we want, within all of our parameters. and THAT to be is FUN!! The parts I'm not liking are the interactions with the rest of the world, intruding their parameters into my design. My links in my signature file are bits of the designs for our reality here. There's a LOT more that I just haven't drawn and written up, it takes longer to do that than to just do the task, sometimes.

The business cards I currently carry say "Creative and Unique Mind for Hire! What Can I Dream Up for You?"  That's a direction I'd like to be going in, figuring out how to market my weird  head. Or better yet, finding someone to market it for me, as I am not fond of that part, that feels like work to me.

Pearl Sutton wrote:

The reason my head is like it is is a mix of weird brain damage from seizures mixed with having my nose in a book all my life. My brain runs fast, has a lot of odd data and ideas to play with, and it gets very weird in here sometimes. I found y'all a visual.... (feel free to give up after 30 secs, it doesn't improve)

Wow, that video pretty well describes the way my brain is, too. No wonder people think I'm weird!!!

(Never had seizures, but I am on the autistic spectrum. Basically, I don't have the rulebook that everyone else seems to have been born knowing. It's not that I think outside the box, it's that I have no idea where the box is. Sometimes a solution seems obvious to me, but people act like it's a huge deal. I gave up understanding people.)

Ellendra Nauriel wrote:

Wow, that video pretty well describes the way my brain is, too. No wonder people think I'm weird!!!

(Never had seizures, but I am on the autistic spectrum. Basically, I don't have the rulebook that everyone else seems to have been born knowing. It's not that I think outside the box, it's that I have no idea where the box is. Sometimes a solution seems obvious to me, but people act like it's a huge deal. I gave up understanding people.)

I'm probably on the spectrum, not in any of the normal slots. No one ever has tried to figure it out, I'm old enough that it wasn't a thing when I was young, never even heard the word autism till I was in my 30s. From something I wrote elsewhere:

I took brain damage in two areas, one has to do with being able to see other people’s emotions on their face (like being deaf to emotional communication,) the other, as far as we can tell my brain took “burn damage” which leaves no damper on my thoughts as they slam back and forth across my brain.

The part of the brain that took damage is part that keeps the thoughts in your head somewhat orderly.  People who have this type of damage as adults tend to suicide, due to the sheer overwhelming amount of thoughts that cannot be stopped. The noise drives them crazy. I grew up thinking the noise in my head was normal, and that everyone else was just better at being polite about it all. Your brain does something called an association tree, starting with a word like “apple” you think things like: I like apples, Mark likes apples, Mark married Amy, Amy was from New York... etc. Normal brains usually peter out about 10-12 associations. People who have had this type of damage do 200 or more, and a lot of those spawn other association trees. So when I hear a sentence spoken at normal speaking pace by the time the end of it is reached, I’ve gone about 7000 associations down the line, due to new ones triggered by almost every word, and the cascade of more associations hooked to the first ones, and have a VERY hard time dragging my brain back to what the sentence was. Makes communicating hard. I tell people “it echoes when you speak to me.” Some days I have a VERY hard time blocking echoes, some days it’s not too bad.

Box? What box? I cut it up and made something cool out of it, you wanted that box? :D
And yeah I am baffled by "I would have never thought of that!" (and they seriously wouldn't have!) when it's not a hard thought at all... I still try to understand people, I just fail quite often.

Good to meet another weird mind! :D
I curtsy nicely at you! (as does my unicorn Marco gave me above!!)

1. A device that enables people to hear what colors sound like.

2. Shoes that automatically dance to those sounds. Then everyone could have happy feet.

3. Catapults & trebuchets specifically designed to launch massive herds of dehydrated magical buffaloes. Then when they landed near water or it rained they would rehydrate & start reviving the plains. It would be mounted on her tractor or truck. Powered by sparkly compost making unicorns naturally.

4. Building codes suitable for a permie lifestyle.

Mike Barkley wrote:1. A device that enables people to hear what colors sound like.

2. Shoes that automatically dance to those sounds. Then everyone could have happy feet.

I was at Disney World  in Florida, years ago. In the Hall of Imagination they had floor tiles that made colors and sounds, I figured out the pattern, and was dancing on them, to make the songs and lights I wanted. People thought I worked there. The guy I was with left and got coffee, knew he wasn't going to drag me out very fast. I loved it, I didn't quit till I was too tired to dance anymore :)

3. Catapults & trebuchets specifically designed to launch massive herds of dehydrated magical buffaloes. Then when they landed near water or it rained they would rehydrate & start reviving the plains. It would be mounted on her tractor or truck. Powered by sparkly compost making unicorns naturally.

That would be fun! Can we dehydrate some wolves, badgers, and prairie dogs to help too? Mix it all with seedballs of well chosen plants... I have truck, who's gonna dehydrate the buffaloes? My dehydrators burn out too fast, and I don't have a solar one up yet.
(Wait, Badgers? We don't need no steeenking badgers!!)

4. Building codes suitable for a permie lifestyle.

That one gets it's own apple. THAT would be cool. I have been studying codes for a couple of years, and could probably write some good alt-codes for people who don't live a tract house suburban lifestyle, which is what codes is designed for. Do you know they require the kitchen counters to have 2 separate 20 amp circuits with nothing else on them? Just for the countertop receptacles. That still doesn't cover the fridge, the lights, any wall outlets on non-countertop walls. And where the washer is has to be separate circuits too JUST for that. (And all of these outlets are all ground fault interrupt.) If you have a house with a big utility room, I can sort of see this. If you have a tiny house, or a small older house, and don't run a microwave, tv in the kitchen, and an espresso maker all at the same time, you have no need for all of this. But it's required. Just in case. How about "just in case" you have to have a heated place you can put sick animals in? Not required? I need that a LOT more than I need excess outlet circuits.
I'd LOVE to be part of writing better codes....
Thank you for awesome ideas, sir :D You rock!!!

This topic really made me laugh because I really think outside of the box myself. I would never take Pearl's thunder on this, but in reading through the responses I feel the same way. In talking to my Career Advisor the other day he was utterly amazed at something I said. I still cannot figure it out...it really was basic stuff, figuring out patterns.

To me that statement is an oxy-moron...LIFE IS PATTERNS, why have more people not figured that out?

But I also feel pretty dumb sometimes. Apparently some artist in Florida duct taped a banana to a blank canvas inside a frame and got $125,000 for it. The second one went for $135,000 and the third one went for $152,000. Here I am trying to figure out a low cost thresher homesteaders can afford, and this guy is duct taping bananas to blank canvas.

Mmmmm...duct tape bananas, or try to feed a hungry world? I still say we are in a more noble fight Pearl!

Travis Johnson wrote: Mmmmm...duct tape bananas, or try to feed a hungry world? I still say we are in a more noble fight Pearl!

I will happily fight the good fight with you, my friend :) I think we have a lot more sense on our side. What kind of moron pays that for a piece of bad art? Can we find them and shake them down for money for good projects?

Pearl, just wanted to say, I love you! That's all.

Pearl Sutton wrote: At one stage in things he had said the party needs to be held at the Prancing Pony Inn, from Lord of the Rings, so in his honor, I made the Prancing Pony Inn at the party that year.

Oh my gosh, Pearl, that is one of the most impressive sets I have ever seen come to life- and from such minimal resources! Truly IMPRESSIVE!

Marco Banks wrote:I'm thinking that she would invent a unicorn that blows rainbow colored seed out of it's nose in order to sow a crop of lovely Skittles.  And when the unicorn was done doing its work, it would politely curtsy in your general direction before taking a sparkly poop in your compost pile, and then leaping over the fence.

Marco!! My unicorn arrived!! She landed a few doors down but she's here, and brought her own penguin! I gave her a purple garland to wear, and named her Marguerite :D

My unicorn!!

So cute! I name you Marguerite!

I asked her permission to ride her, she agreed!

May I ride you?

I can? YAY!

Look for us in the sky, coming to fertilize your compost!

Look for us in the skies above you, as we fly to the homes of all the good Permies, and come to enrich your compost with magic sparkly unicorn poop and plant multicolored flowers and skittles everywhere! We both curtsy nicely at you! :D  

I have a goose named Marguerite - excellent taste in names!

BEST UNICORN EVER!!!

That made my day . . . month . . . year.  Perhaps my life.

And what's more, next year at harvest time . . . SKITTLES!!!

Thats too great, Pearl!

Someone just reminded me of this thread... Right now I'm fighting with some annoyingly painful health issues, and I want to invent a USB type cable that hooks to me AND to a doctor, so they can feel what this feels like, and make good suggestions about how to help me.

The other night when I couldn't sleep I thought about these things that were posted on permies... The Strandbeests of Theo Jansen from Holland.



I have land with plants all over it, not nice smooth sand, so the feet aren't useful to me, but what about putting wide ski shaped things, and let the wind move them over the surface of the plants!? Can I make them the right size to slide on my paths? Can I make them carry produce places? They want to do more than just look cool, they want to work and dance!

You are a special lady Pearl.. I loved reading this thread! I hope you get to feeling better.