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Bryan's PEP Journey

Bryan Tran

Posts: 64

Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

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posted 4 years ago

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"Each of us have a unique and necessary gift to the world. The purpose of life is to express our gifts. We are all here to contribute our gifts toward something greater than ourselves, and will never be content unless we are." - Charles Eisenstein

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Bryan Tran

Posts: 64

Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

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posted 4 years ago

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I've been thinking about using this thread as a journal to document my permaculture/PEP journey. Taking part in PEP has really opened up my mind to all the things I can do to "build a better world in my backyard instead of being mad at the bad guys". It's been quite a learning experience, as I'm someone who has a pattern of "learning" by reading and acquiring knowledge, and not actually putting that knowledge into practice. It's like my brain is satisfied with simply knowing things, and skips the doing part because it's lazy. But, my brain also likes rewards! And recognition! And, possibly, a chance to inherit property. So a big thanks to everyone involved with organizing and running the whole PEP thing! It's given me a lot of motivation to get off my ass and do stuff, and at first I scoffed at the whole take a picture at every step thing, but I'm starting the like that part too! It has the effect of me taking a little extra pride and care in the work I do.

Also, I'd like to be a bit more active in this awesome community. I lean towards being a lurker online, but my PEP journey is slowly opening me up to engage more. Reading through the BRKs has been really inspiring (one day I'll make it out to bootcamp), and I have found myself spending hours on end browsing through the forums not knowing where the time has gone.

Not sure how this journal will progress, but I do want to work on a PEP badge everyday, so I could report on that. Today I built an adjustable shelf for my seedlings for my first oddball submission, and also built a birdhouse for black capped chickadees. I'm enjoying the building projects a lot. As I was building the birdhouse my dad came out and started asking questions about it. Then he suggested a build a birdbath as well. Not sure if that's a badge or not but I can always submit that to the oddball section if not.

One of the future projects I'm planning is building an outdoor rocket oven. I have been doing a lot of baking in the past couple of months and it's great to see so many resources online about rocket ovens. The rocket heat technology is really captivating for me and I want to implement it as much as possible.

Perhaps in future posts I can include more little tidbits about who I am and personal type things, but for now see ya later!

Bryan Tran

Posts: 64

Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

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posted 4 years ago

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I started my natural medicine journal today. I used an app called "OrganizEat" (used by others in the thread), which is designed as a recipe book. The functionality seems great, and I actually see myself using it for both natural medicine journaling and recipe tracking. I'm eager to learn more about natural medicine, as modern day pharmaceuticals/health care leave a bad impression on me. Profiteering, treating the symptoms instead of the root causes, creating lifelong dependencies on medications, causing further health complications in the future, viewing the human body like a machine with isolated and replaceable parts rather than a complex vibrant interconnected ecosystem that is host to billions of other living beings (all of our glorious bacteria and other microbes). It's sort of like where we ended up with modern day chem-ag. In trying to solve one problem, the "solution" of that one problem creates another problem, and on and on it goes, more and more problems created by the solution prior, and society calling it progress! (paraphrased from Masanobu Fukuoka's book One Straw Revolution). So it's awesome that we can take matters into our own hands, grow our own food and medicine, and live a healthier life in more connection with nature.

I'm excited for the upcoming free permaculture "summit" (https://permies.com/t/159045/Building-Permaculture-Property-Free-Permaculture) hosted by verge permaculture. I wouldn't have seen it if it wasn't for the dailyish, which I love receiving and looking through. Sometimes I'll spend an hour and catch up on a few of them at once, and sometimes they get left by the wayside. But it's great to get curated content around a topic, and I love receiving the little freebies (even if I don't have an immediate use for them). I'm currently taking Geoff Lawton's online PDC (my first) so it will be cool to see him and other speakers talk about their permaculture journey. Seeing others that are established in a permaculture way of life and having them share their journey and story gives me a lot of inspiration and confidence in the path. When I read the story of Gert (https://permies.com/t/gert) in building a better world, I felt a deep sense of resonance. My brain was like YES! FINALLY! A life path full of meaning and purpose and connection and abundance; of healing and growing and helping others. A life path that doesn't rely (and insist) on the exploitation of the planet and all of it's living beings in pursuit of an endlessly growing economy, just because we are born into this worldview and are bombarded daily with advertising and news and tv shows and movies and music that think the way things are is normal and healthy.

So, I want to be a permaculture millionaire. Thanks for helping me and others on this path. <3

Bryan Tran

Posts: 64

Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

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posted 4 years ago

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We found a little baby mouse in the basement yesterday. There were some mouse droppings on one of our shelves maybe a month ago or so but we didn't find further evidence of mice so we thought it was a one off. Guess they've been busy. Hoping there is no significant damage. So we made some live mouse traps, the first prototype got some visitors but didn't manage to keep em, so we are trying out version 2 tonight.

It also snowed last night and most of the day today! It was around 15cm of snow which is rare this time of year. We covered up our growies outside with some blankets and tarps, hopefully they'll survive the light frost tonight. Some weird weather patterns recently, and seem to be happening more often as time goes on.

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Bryan Tran

Posts: 64

Location: Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

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posted 4 years ago

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It's possible that weekly posts might be more of a manageable expectation... I have a habit of getting excited about projects and expecting that motivation and excitement to carry through ad infinitum. So setting more realistic expectations is better for me.

We ended up watching most of the permaculture summit on our living room TV (that hardly gets used). It was really cool to hear about all the different paths and journeys people travelled with permaculture. The resounding message was to simply start. Regardless of your income, location, knowledge, living conditions, etc., just starting will build momentum and then opportunities will come up as you become more engaged in the process and life itself. So a funny thing happened today that was a small example of that. My dad is looking for 1 kg or 2 of organic garlic to ferment. He suggested we ask a couple of our farmer friends to see if they have any in stock from last year. Highly doubtful, so we thought to check kijiji (like craigslist but in Canada). There was only one ad that popped up for garlic in our area, and it's an organic farm looking for some help to weed the garlic rows in exchange for garlic harvested in July. The farm is about 30 mins away, and for about 20 hours of work he'll trade 50 lbs of garlic (~$10/lb so $500). This opportunity checks off a lot of boxes for me. Getting organic garlic, meeting local farmers, finding work related to growing, and simply getting more exercise and time outside. Also if things go well there may be more opportunities on the farm, both in work and in learning.

We also found a neighbour (~7 min drive) who is raising chickens in their backyard as an organic egg source. We had previously been buying them from Costco, so it's nice to be able to get eggs produced locally and super fresh. After establishing a stronger relationship might offer to provide some care for them to knock off some animal care BBs!

Have a bunch of BBs lined up to do in the near future/in progress: cast iron restart/cook, rainwater collection, wood burned sign, ruth stout composting, cleaning shop, organize closet, install permanent clothes line, do laundry by hand, document electrical usage... so many little ones to knock off. Also have a couple I haven't submitted yet. Sometimes I like to submit right away, and sometimes I like to let them stack up a bit and submit a bunch all at once.

Oh, I also backed the Kickstarter! Amazing to see the support behind it. I started out as a $1 backer, then up to $10, then I went for the $65 this morning. Too much awesome stuff to pass up on, and learning about how the annual kickstarter is like a fundraiser for permies helped influence me as well. Keep up the good work!

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