BB clarification thread

Mike Haasl wrote:I'd also like to mention that this thread is to get clarification on the requirements, scope, scale and proof needed for a BB.  Not for debating why a BB was approved/rejected/unfair/etc.

Hi Mike,

My apologies for putting my question in the wrong thread. I had another staff member direct me (via purple mooseage) to this thread to ask my question about the application of the plastic requirement.

I'd also like to thank Paul for his response so I can get more clarification into why my BB was rejected.

This situation brings up a question on the clarity of the instructions - the instructions state "Plastic touching the food, including cooking utensils and zip lock bags" is forbidden. If your goal is to completely remove plastic from every photo, then the instructions should read something like "plastic of any kind is forbidden, even if it is not directly touching food."

What are your thoughts?

Hello everyone!

For the "Harvest and Store Grain - food.straw.storegrain PEP BB" I wonder if I could so some combination of oats, wheat, barley, rice, rye, and corn?

For example, 50% of each type:

1 gal of buckwheat
2.5 gals of corn

This could also be 60/40 or some other ratio. This would be similar to what is done for [url=https://permies.com/wiki/111859/pep-foraging/Fresh-harvest-list-PEP-BB]Fresh harvest list - PEP BB foraging.sand.fresh
BBforaging - sand badge[/url]

Clarifications:
- The 1 lb list or the 2 lb list can comprise any combination of the foraged foods listed to add up to the required weight (ie one pound of chokecherries and a pound of mulberries satisfies the 2 lb list)

Thank you for considering!

Ahh, I initially thought your question was: Could you do 2 gallons of oats and wheat.  IE things within the same bullet point.  I would say that you can't split your effort between the two (corn and non-corn), as the BB is written.

In that foraging BB, the example is for things at the same quantity.  2 lbs of choke cherries or 2 lbs of mulberries or a combo

Mike Haasl wrote:Ahh, I initially thought your question was: Could you do 2 gallons of oats and wheat.  IE things within the same bullet point.  I would say that you can't split your effort between the two (corn and non-corn), as the BB is written.

In that foraging BB, the example is for things at the same quantity.  2 lbs of choke cherries or 2 lbs of mulberries or a combo

Ok, would it be possible to do 1 gal of oats and 1 gal of wheat or some other split?

I'd say so since it seems harder than just doing two gallons of one thing.

Still trying to obtain a sense of results vs. methodology with BBs. For re-using shower water, I have an outdoor shower station where the water drains directly over plants I would like to water. Would a picture of the area with the plants and ones of the water reservoir before and after a shower qualify for the BB?

This is the proper link to that shower BB.

A stated minimum requirement is that a bucket be placed in the shower to collect the water. However, since this is an outdoors shower I think having a collection bucket outside the actual shower would be acceptable. I think the point is to reuse shower water, not so much about how it is collected.

Howdy, I was thinking about this Commerce BB: https://permies.com/wiki/118748/pep-commerce/Perform-sort-labor-internet-paid#960741 and it occurred to me that if I list an item for sale online and get paid electronically for a porch pick-up, then this counts?

If so, then I've completed it already, otherwise I have something in the works.

Edit: honestly, I go back and forth because on one hand the internet labor could be the contact and negotiation. yet the actual labor of the product sold isn't *just* your manual effort. However, I saw a few skippers undertake the sale of some kind of card series and the card themselves are the product but the Skippers did have to process the order and fill envelopes.

reference 1: https://permies.com/wiki/70/118748/pep-commerce/Perform-sort-labor-internet-paid#1572530

reference 2: https://permies.com/wiki/70/118748/pep-commerce/Perform-sort-labor-internet-paid#1784373

Mike Barkley wrote:This is the proper link to that shower BB.

A stated minimum requirement is that a bucket be placed in the shower to collect the water. However, since this is an outdoors shower I think having a collection bucket outside the actual shower would be acceptable. I think the point is to reuse shower water, not so much about how it is collected.

Apologies, I'm currently coming to terms with my too-many-tabs-itis and have corrected the link.

I'd say my situation is that I'm starting with the container before showering instead of collecting the water after. Essentially 100% of the water goes to watering the plants. Is it okay to show that I've used 3 gallons of water during the shower with pictures of the source container (before and after) plus a picture showing that the shower location directly waters the plants (~1 foot uphill from a grape vine)?

Alexandra Malecki wrote:Howdy, I was thinking about this Commerce BB: https://permies.com/wiki/118748/pep-commerce/Perform-sort-labor-internet-paid#960741 and it occurred to me that if I list an item for sale online and get paid electronically for a porch pick-up, then this counts?

There's grey areas between the commerce BBs and not every creative way people make money is covered by a BB.  For this, I'd say that selling something physical that people pick up off your porch is closer to a cottage industry than an internet labor item.  The intent (as I understand it) is to do work over the internet and get paid for it.

Coydon Wallham wrote:Still trying to obtain a sense of results vs. methodology with BBs. For re-using shower water, I have an outdoor shower station where the water drains directly over plants I would like to water. Would a picture of the area with the plants and ones of the water reservoir before and after a shower qualify for the BB?

Not all BBs fit every way people live in the world and this one is aiming to get indoor plumbing people to dip their toes in greywater.  Going by how the BB is written, you could achieve it by collecting your outdoor shower water in a bucket and watering something (even very nearby) with it.

Howdy, referencing: https://permies.com/wiki/102493/PEP-BB-naturalbuilding-sand-claypaint

I don’t have precisely a 4by 8 wall but I do have a wall that exceeds 32sq ft. I presume that this is acceptable but would like to confirm. Thanks!

Yes, you're good to go as long as it's 32 square feet

super! thanks! I already got that BB submitted but I'm not able to hit a "BB submission" post when editing:

Alexandra Malecki wrote:update: I could hit convert to a BB but then I get an error message

Link to the post would help? The BB you mentioned above?

Weird.  I hit the button to convert it to a BB submission and got the same error.  When you hit reply to the thread, does it give you the button then?  If so, just copy paste it all and try again?  Not sure cuz it looks correct behind the curtain....

I originally used quote (which I do every time so that I can retain the BB requirements ----which makes it easier for reviewers) but that didn't work like it usually does.

With Mike's suggestion, I tried reply and was successful. Thanks for the help with the workaround! Though, this seems to be unusual still.

In case you'd like to review: https://permies.com/wiki/102493/PEP-BB-naturalbuilding-sand-claypaint#3079284 ;)

Best

Alexandra Malecki wrote:With Mike's suggestion, I tried reply and was successful. Thanks for the help with the workaround! Though, this seems to be unusual still.

I'm glad that Mike's workaround was successful. It looks like a nice project.

Generally, permie's computer imps work reliably, but when there is a glitch, I find it crazy difficult to figure out, let alone fix!

For the food prep sand-badge, you have to cook rice on a rocket stove but that BB specifically calls out that it can be done on a Dakota Pit. For the straw-badge, you have to roast things and bake things, and some of each need to be done in a rocket oven. Those BBs don't really provide any sort of minimum definitions for what equipment counts. Can I, for instance, build a cob oven over the hot side of a Dakota pit and cook in that? It seems like there's at least a little bit of support for that because the frying things BB at the straw level does specifically permit a Dakota pit -- which implies that the Dakota pit isn't considered inferior.

I'll say that I think the Food Prep badge considers rocket j tubes (rocket engines?) to often be synonymous with a Dakota fire pit.  But I think that's where the options for the Dakota ends.  

A Rocket Oven is a fairly well defined contraption using a rocket j tube (engine) with an attached oven.  I think if you put a cob oven, or broken kitchen range, on top of a rocket engine it would likely meet the concept of a rocket oven.  It would also be worth running it past Paul for to confirm before building it just for the BB.

The foraging straw badge requirements start off with this:

New items from the sand fresh list - ½ point each
New items from the sand dry list - ½ point each
New items from the sand tea list - ½ point each
New items from the sand dish list - ½ point each

I'm wondering about the definition of "new item". I think it's pretty clear in the first three options -- you can't repeat something from the list. (Once you've dried rosehips, drying more rosehips doesn't prove anything.) But with the dish list, you can do a lot of pretty different things with one plant. If I made salad of young dandelion greens, can I make dandelion blossom wine for a second dish? If I made a mess of greens from lambsquarters, can I steam the seeds like quinoa as a second dish? Are those "new items?"

(My guess is they are not new items -- not because they shouldn't be in an ideal world, but because it introduces too much grey area for judging and incentivizes pixel-bitching by participants.)

On the other hand, maybe I'm misinterpreting and putting too much emphasis on the "new" in new item. After all, duplicates explicitly called out as being OK for the 'pick two' part of the sand badge.

As I read it, you can't do two salads with dandelion leaves.  But you can do a different dish with dandelions.  Here's the BB text:

Prepare a dish (soup, salad, entree, side, etc.) that uses at least a cup of one of:
- dandelion (blossoms or leaves)
- wild mushrooms (must be cooked)
- nettles
- miner's lettuce
- lambs quarter
- purslane
- acorns (must be prepared properly)
- burdock root (must be cooked)
- chickweed
- wild sorrel
- red-root amaranth (pigweed)
- watercress
- rose hips  

Side note: I personally wouldn't consider dandelion blossom wine a "dish"

Sorry for all the questions -- I'm looking over what it will take to get as many air badges converted to sand as is reasonable.

The next one is about the Greywater and Willow Feeders aspect.

The sand badge requires two items from the Jenkins list. And it appears the Jenkins list is meant to require a Willow Feeder. There are some items like the flytrap where the trap is "for" a willow feeder and doesn't explicitly require you to install it in a willow feeder, but I have the sense that that's just a verbiage oversight. So it looks like, in order to get the *sand* badge, I have to first build a willow feeder which is 2/9 of the *wood* badge requirements. It's a little counterintuitive and so I just wanted to check if I'm reading everything right.

It might be assumed that the jenkins list would have to be done at wheaton labs since... where else is there an official "willow feeder".

However, add coat hooks to a willow feeder is also in the jenkins list and there's currently precedent for someone doing this in a place that maybe could be a willow feeder but not officially? who knows. The BB doesn't require you to prove that it's a willow feeder. I recall looking at this BB submission and passing up on it to allow someone more qualified to evaluate:  https://permies.com/wiki/156725/pep-greywater-willow-feeders/Add-Coat-Hooks-Willow-Feeder#2932468

Yep, the Greywater and Willowfeeder badge is probably very hard to do anywhere but at Wheaton Labs.  For the fly trap, the wording (as I read it), would allow you to do it anywhere as long as you can prove it works.

Mike Haasl wrote:Yep, the Greywater and Willowfeeder badge is probably very hard to do anywhere but at Wheaton Labs.  For the fly trap, the wording (as I read it), would allow you to do it anywhere as long as you can prove it works.

I can think of a number of places where a fly trap would be useful. Our chicken feed storage shed would be one of them. So it seems reasonable to me that this BB can be earned without a Willowfeeder.

Hey staff friends! I am wondering how we feel about mylar as a food packaging in the food prep badges? It isn't specifically called out in the requirements as being unacceptable. I'm not a chemist and I didn't understand a quick google about what its made of.
Thanks for your help!

It’s plastic.

Oh man! Thank you, Christopher. I'll make adjustments.

Out of curiosity, what food comes wrapped in mylar? I've gotten mylar(ish) seed packets but I can't think of a mylar food wrapper off hand. (I suspect once you say what it is, I'll have bought it a million times.)

Christopher Weeks wrote:Out of curiosity, what food comes wrapped in mylar?

It's definitely  used in freeze-dry situations. I don't know if I've seen it in other places or not.

My freezer dryer came with mylar bags. At first, I just used glass jars, but ran out and thought mylar was more like the metal lining in milk cartons and stuff. They set off metal detectors, (I tried to take freeze dried apples through TSA...)so thats why I leaned that direction. I've also bought a lot of long-term food storage items in mylar bags, like MREs, peanut butter, instant potatoes etc.

They're more prevalent in the prepper world.

Jay Angler wrote:

Christopher Weeks wrote:Out of curiosity, what food comes wrapped in mylar?

It's definitely  used in freeze-dry situations. I don't know if I've seen it in other places or not.

Some nuts and candies are wrapped in it, too - particularly the kind of snacks in boxes of 6 our 8, meant for kids lunches or "100calorie" pack type things. We keep a few in the car as an emergency stash, in case my blood sugar bottoms out or if we're out & about longer than we intended, won't get home quickly, and don't want to eat out.

Hello, skip team! I have another question for yall. Can dry beans count towards my 1 million calories of preservation? For the wood level BB:

https://permies.com/wiki/150417/pep-food-prep-preservation/Preserve-Million-Calories-food-wood

Rebekah Harmon wrote:Hello, skip team! I have another question for yall. Can dry beans count towards my 1 million calories of preservation?

Yes, that's my understanding

Thank you, Mike!