What is your Permies ambition?

Really long answer will try to summarize.

1.  Get the house  and the shop to self heating and self cooling or with minimal energy inputs.
   
   Working towards that have added a 33" x 13 foot active air collector to augment the house which is already passive solar.  Write up here

solar collector  Runs on 30 watts of power.  Fans are 12 VDC running off an old computer power supply so easy conversion to solar panels.  This one only runs when the sun is shining so also ideal for solar PV.  Have managed 2 of the last 4 years without heating although not in total comfort.  Has saved roughly 800 gallons of propane so far.

  The next step was taken this winter adding an interior heat circulation system to pull more warm air to the basement and to pull it closer to the floor.  A long sweep was extended under the head of the bed so this system pulls within 1 inch of the floor with all air flow.

  So the ambition here is to automate the collector operation and add another 4 feet by 13 feet collector.(have the glass collected and most of the materials on hand for this.  Same control system will run everything.  On the other end of the house to add another 4 feet x 13 feet of collector running thru an HRV core hopefully thru pure convection pulling air off the basement floor up and out thru the wall and out thru the HRV core heating  the incoming fresh air coming from the air intake nearly 15 feet up running down the backside of the collector to the bottom and up thru the HRV core heating it a bit and from there into the collector and up 13 feet into the clerestory window.  So I will have one collector pushing heated fresh air into the house and another exhausting and sucking air out.

 Best guess is that this should get the house to overly warm much of the time thru the winter.  For gray days and for household hot water add next piece

 Next piece is a drain back hot water collector to preheat water for the water heater.  Involves building a 300 gallon tank in the basement for the non pressurized solar hot water.  This provides storage for several days worth.  Expect savings is 150 to 200 gallons of propane a year.  This will also provide some hot water for hydronic heating of small areas.(bathroom(16 square feet), sink and stove(20 square feet), recliner foot area(9 square feet) and finally computer area for(8 square feet).  Feed the water heater back with a circulation pump thru the hot water tank to help when solar is not available with a back up electric heating element giving 3 heat sources.

 For household summer cooling run 3 loops of pex at the crest of the ceiling.  Connect to an outside garden hose and bring it thru the house before watering yard and garden.  Should give enough surface area to nearly equal a 2 inch thick 2 foot by 2 foot 10 fins per in radiator.  Eventually hook it to an in ground set of loops for winter cooling to also letting me store more heat supporting the winter heating too.  Tapping geothermal, annualized geothermal and stored solar geothermal.  May need additional pex loops for heating and cooling but I think it is doable.  Final outcome should be a simple system capable of heating and cooling the house enough using less than 200 watts peak power and most of the time under 100 watts.  

Now for the shop the first step was this.  

Solar curtain.

Really warm winter this year and that got me only 5 days of the shop below freezing inside not running the heat.  Plan is to add 3 total additional collectors increasing heat in.  A wave of windy gray days would still be a problem so the next step planned is a series of greenhouse earth tube air type  loops to moderate the lows and provide geothermal heating and cooling.  Normally I burn 6 to 10 ton of coal a year heating the shop.  Getting it to self heating or even close would be amazing.  And I think it is reachable.

 Now for other goals

1.  Improve the tomato float.  Have about a dozen ideas to add to the current design.
2.  Cob for a retaining wall, 3 different possible greenhouse designs and 1 raised bed in staggered sizes so the greenhouse covers can all be stacked.
3.  Hugelkulture and swale project on ground that even mother nature can't grow anything on.(drains about 3/4 of an acre)
4.  Biochar addition to garden.  Turn the rows to reduce water loss and start moving to a low till/no till system.
5.  Plant a number of trees
6.  do 5 beehives.  3 top bar style lazutin deep hives in an insulated box.  2 standard Lanstroth design possibly insulated too.
7.  Water wheel driven pump reducing electric usage pumping when the neighbor is running water by.



 

C. Letellier wrote: 3.  Hugelkulture and swale project on ground that even mother nature can't grow anything on.(drains about 3/4 of an acre)

I worry a little when "swale" and "Hugel" are in the same sentence. Just a reminder to people that wood floats. Thus a hugel with wood underground, or right below a swale has potential to destabilize under some conditions. (particularly on sloped land) I bury wood myself, and I know people in very dry environments do so successfully. Ecosystem is everything, along with size, weather extremes, amount and type of wood etc.) My understanding is that both Wheaton Lab's hugels and Sepp Holzer's hugels have the wood above grade and don't involve swales, but I won't guarantee there are no exceptions.

and wrote:

6.  do 5 beehives.  3 top bar style lazutin deep hives in an insulated box.  2 standard Lanstroth design possibly insulated too.

Please, oh, please, keep good records and do a thread comparing how these two systems work in your ecosystem. I've been told that the top bar style won't work in my ecosystem due to our high humidity, but I keep hearing about how many bees are being lost every winter using the Lanstroth design, so I'm sure not convinced that it's the way to go. Having someone try both systems on the same land would be wonderful data.

Jay Angler wrote:

C. Letellier wrote: 3.  Hugelkulture and swale project on ground that even mother nature can't grow anything on.(drains about 3/4 of an acre)

I worry a little when "swale" and "Hugel" are in the same sentence. Just a reminder to people that wood floats. Thus a hugel with wood underground, or right below a swale has potential to destabilize under some conditions. (particularly on sloped land) I bury wood myself, and I know people in very dry environments do so successfully. Ecosystem is everything, along with size, weather extremes, amount and type of wood etc.) My understanding is that both Wheaton Lab's hugels and Sepp Holzer's hugels have the wood above grade and don't involve swales, but I won't guarantee there are no exceptions.

and wrote:

6.  do 5 beehives.  3 top bar style lazutin deep hives in an insulated box.  2 standard Lanstroth design possibly insulated too.

Please, oh, please, keep good records and do a thread comparing how these two systems work in your ecosystem. I've been told that the top bar style won't work in my ecosystem due to our high humidity, but I keep hearing about how many bees are being lost every winter using the Lanstroth design, so I'm sure not convinced that it's the way to go. Having someone try both systems on the same land would be wonderful data.

As for swale with hugelkulture being a problem this one concern me too.  But I am on a high hill side that is without any obstructions for miles and I am in one of the driest places on earth.  Normal precipitation where I am is 4 to 6 inches a year.(last year was roughly 14 inches but that was an amazing year and certainly not the norm.)  The big trouble is that regularly reached winds are in the 60 mph to 70 mph with no obstructions for miles in the prevailing wind direction.   And in a normal summer we have afternoon wind storms in the 20 and 30 mph range most days.  With ground temps in the 100 to 120 degree F range this makes for a convection oven of amazing potential.  So I am almost certain I need to get the water down into the ground to protect it some.  Plan is to do the backhoe trench just wide enough to drop 2 32 inch cottonwood logs into(each about 11 foot long)  Then before the log is dropped in about 3 feet down take an "eL" shaped rebar and drive the horizontal part back into the shale rock by say a foot or so.  Drop the log in and fold the ends over on top and weld them together creating a giant staple with the ends held by 3 feet of rock to hold the main log down.  Guessing 3 "staples" per log will be enough to fight flotation long enough for the log to get wet.  The rock is nearly water proof so once the log soaks up it should be good is the hope, as it should never dry out.(the anaerobic conditions of it is the other concern.  Have wondered if I need to build an air pipe in too?)  Then for the rest that might float weld some more rebars to long lag screws to screw into the big logs and add some cross bar to hold the rest of the wood down.  Then when the pile has soaked up and started to rot simply unscrew them from the top and remove them.  This location is literally one of the worst potential locations for hugelkulture.  If it will work here it should work anywhere.  Soil depth is less than an inch before the shale rock starts.  The slope of the hill matches the slope of the bedding of the shale rock making it nearly waterproof.  Soil pH in the 8.5 to 8.8 range, with high salt content.  High winds with NO obstructions with massive summer heat and super dry.

As for documenting the hives nearly everything done and even some of the stupid thinking has been documented here so that would be the plan.  

As for humidity being a problem maybe my stupidity might help you, part of the thinking in mine is to do a tall hinged lid so I can put a shallow hive body under it letting me do honey both horizontally and vertically.  This would also give me room in other parts of the year to add feeders if needed or a large version of the ware hive blanket body which is supposed to deal with moisture well while insulating the hive too, under my lids.

C. Letellier wrote:

As for humidity being a problem maybe my stupidity might help you, part of the thinking in mine is to do a tall hinged lid so I can put a shallow hive body under it letting me do honey both horizontally and vertically.  

With that much wind, and that little amount of rainfall, I can't imagine humidity being your problem, C!  I, on the other hand live close to the ocean! Ecosystem makes a difference.

Your ideas for keeping the wood from floating and destabilizing sounds workable. It at least sounds sufficiently cautious that tragedy won't be the risk. Hopefully disappointment won't happen either!  

Well designed above ground hugels may have a place for slowing and deflecting the wind around plants that need a little help getting established. I've seen plenty of coastline with stunted trees protecting much healthier trees from storms.

We are going to see if a Grocery Row Garden will fit in my small space in the back I used to use as a square foot garden.   I was very intrigued by the videos by David the Good about this planting method so bought his book and reading it just made me want to try this method even more...  next week we will lay out the new garden and decide how we are going to treat this weedy area.  It should be interesting

Jay Angler wrote:C. Letellier wrote:

As for humidity being a problem maybe my stupidity might help you, part of the thinking in mine is to do a tall hinged lid so I can put a shallow hive body under it letting me do honey both horizontally and vertically.  

With that much wind, and that little amount of rainfall, I can't imagine humidity being your problem, C!  I, on the other hand live close to the ocean! Ecosystem makes a difference.

Your ideas for keeping the wood from floating and destabilizing sounds workable. It at least sounds sufficiently cautious that tragedy won't be the risk. Hopefully disappointment won't happen either!  

Well designed above ground hugels may have a place for slowing and deflecting the wind around plants that need a little help getting established. I've seen plenty of coastline with stunted trees protecting much healthier trees from storms.

Jay suggest  reading up on Warre hives.  The lid includes a cloth supported sawdust insulator box that is supposed to deal with humidity by absorbing it and holding it while still basically freeze drying to the outside so it never drips inside and is from the UK with serious moisture problems.  The name for this section is a quilt(proper) or a blanket(sometimes).  There is no reason it couldn't be scaled to any type of hive with minor design changes.   Now there were a few discussion of moisture being a problem in super cold weather even in dry climates which is why I wanted it in my options

The other one I tripped over is the mobile hives the eastern european gypsies used  All the hives are built into a wagon with doors to open to access the frames from the side rather than top down.  One video showed an arched frame that fit under an arched roof that the water was supposed to condense on the arched roof and run down the roof to the sides rather than dripping on the bees.  The other part of that is the hives were tall and narrow and supposedly packed tight in the wagon allowed the bees to share the heat they generated so each hive helped heat its neighbors.  That one video was showing really long frames that sort of looked like a tombstone.  I think they were calling it a bee chapel(maybe bee church?) because of all the arches.  At any rate the starter there is look up Slovenian hives.  Can't find that video quickly or I would link to it.  Most of them were rectangular boxes(some modern ones set up to use standard Langstroth frames) but this one video had the arched tall frames that fit into an arched case.  And moisture control was the reason given for the shape.  And the tall frames would give the same long uninterrupted comb for the bee ball to work up in cold weather that double deep Lazutin hives do so tall frames make sense.

Also suggest looking at house building Perfect Wall construction.  It should be ideal to aid in moisture control in insulated hives.  It is the core of my thinking for the Lazutin part.

As for the hugels the eventual goal is 2 at right angles that support some trees creating snow fence and wind break to improve down wind conditions.(probably chinese elm as it is the most durable of the trees that grow in this area in bad conditions).  With the point of the hugels acting as the primary wind break.  This is intended to be my crappy one to support better future ones down wind in the dream world.  Lets see if the first one works before the dream gets too extreme though.  :)

Hey Permies! thanks to all for the welcomes and likes and apples!

And for the amazing and inspiring ambition lists shared here ---

I have updates to plans and information, although building work on the land is still in the observation stage, watching the springtime water flow, mud, plants and animal signs --

I found I don’t need a permit for structures under 144 sq ft, so my first build will be an 8x16’ shed that will let me move stuff to the site and keep it safe and dry

I realized that since I don’t need a machine to move myself, just to help with heavy stuff, I got a battery powered cart (like a four-wheeled wheelbarrow) that costs nowhere near a used UTV and will help get more done with a day’s energy --

I believe I have found that my little rill that dries up periodically is considered a “class D waterway” by NY state, so it seems I can put a bridge or culvert -- experience and advice appreciated --- I am considering a culvert for cost and simplicity (the span is about the size of a typical driveway drainage ditch), but I understand a bridge would be much better for the waterway --

I’m trying to do this without hiring big equipment, and need to start with some hand tools to see if that is possible -- have done some materials pricing and plan to at least get out there with a shovel and small chainsaw this week --

best wishes to everyone with their lists!

My goals seem small and simple when I read what other people are planning on doing but here they are:
1. Grow more food.
2. Reduce the lawn size (see no. 1).
3. Create a pond (Mr Ara has agreed to help here but I need to decide where it is to be placed).
4. When plastic-derived clothing in my wardrobe wears out, replace it with items made from natural fibres.

It's been fun reading these replies!
My main ambition has been the same for the last few years:

1. Plant and harvest the entire 1/6 acre garden area.

There have been unexpected obstacles, but that's possibly a good thing, since my plan for the area is continually changing as I learn more. It would have looked very different if I had been successful before now. I don't expect to garden the entire area this year, either, but maybe I'll get closer.

I'd also like to:
2. Increase my herbal knowledge. Grow and preserve more herbs to use with my apothecary.

3. Have a home-based business selling things I grow and make (such as baked goods under our Cottage Food Law).

Gir has a big, big dream! It’s all about making the world greener and yummier! Here’s my super-duper permaculture ambition:

I wanna make the whole planet a garden! Then there'll be lots of yummy snacks and tacos and bacon. Snacks for everyone!

Gir will plant taco trees, pizza bushes, and waffle flowers everywhere! And,  I’ll build an army of robot friends to help take care of all the plants. And then, we’ll do the rain dance every day to water the plants with style!

So at the end of the summer the garden has done well in parts - I've got a good harvest of seed from the parsnip and Swede and am still hopeful for the peas, beans and grains. My potato are looking rather dodgy - with yellow leaf splodges I think may be virus- related, so I'm going to try and clean them up next spring. My post:apple ratio has improved slightly (2.06....) I'm now thinking I want to finish my current scavenger hunt, so you may see a few book reviews from me in the next few months!

I like the Gir the Bot`s answer.  Lets all work to make the world greener and yummy, especially the yummy part!

I like Nancy`s suggestion about finishing her scavenger Hunts.  Mine are all done to the best of my abilities ...

I like Nikki`s wanting to learn about herbal.    That was my goal several years ago.

I like everyone's goals and ambitions ...

My ambition is to just take everything one day at a time and do the best I can.

I'd like to do one or more of the following:

- Get back to my journey towards vegetable self-sufficiency.
- Incorporate permaculture and a more future-friendly life outlook into the courses and lessons I teach to a greater degree.
- Convert my cafe space into a permaculture cafe/tavern.

Short term goal:  Figure out how to make this dappled shady not-as-much-sun-as-I-want balcony work for me to grow plants.  I felt like I was really getting the swing of it on my sunny patio, but we moved apartment so its different now.

Longterm goal:  Acquire a house with a yard so I can really get serious about producing enough for us to notably supplament our food, and do composting here, and maybe get some rain barrels going, and have enough room for a couple of tinyhouses so friends can move here and we can have sort of a micro community.  And have an honour stand out in the front of the house where we can sell whatever we want, whether from the garden or anything else, how about a vintage stand where we sell things instead of me having to pay for my booth at the antique mall.  We don't need a huge lot, just something, maybe a quarter acre?  Oh and a forge so my husband can learn blacksmithing and make things.