You know you're a permie when...

Roberto pokachinni wrote:...when you go to search for aquaponics on youtube and end up via some bizarre web surfing looking at some obscure research paper looking at a two person shovel from ancient Bolivia, and it suddenly occurs to you as hilarious and you stop and just try to figure out the chain of amazing places you 'visited' both on the web and in your mind in the last hour to get there.  And you consider all of it quality entertainment.

I know that one, though I started on yurts and ended on the magna grecia hoe.

when it's christmas day but you just have to catch up on the permies forum

...you walk out to your field in subfreezing temperatures just to see your hot compost steaming, because it makes you happy.

...when you have to apologize to all of your friends for invariably tracking shit, soil, and plant material into their homes.

...when the neighbors tell you what you're doing isn't farming, and then you laugh (politely) when they ask you for produce because drought killed theirs. (And then you give it to them, and discuss regenerative agriculture.)

...when you realize the blank stares you give people who discuss pop culture is the same as the one they give you when talking about permaculture.

... you watch permaculture youtube videos to try to understand how to create food systems
... the chickens rototill the vegetable garden areas off season,
...while if you have access to acreage, you systematically graze sections, rather than let goat or sheep become maggots stripping the bones off the land, so that you can to create better grassland fodder over time (Geoff Lawton livestock as land maggots)
...you think through how to make food abundance from as little space as possible.  Edible landscaping anyone? Stacking of functions is always considered. Such as recycling gray water into the environment, the concept of using less to make more.

Jeff Stainthorp wrote:
...when you realize the blank stares you give people who discuss pop culture is the same as the one they give you when talking about permaculture.

Boy, I can relate to this one! I'm often asked about some recent TV show, and since I haven't had a TV for the last 15 years, I'm the one with the blank face. I haven't a clue about the current shows and actors. So in response I took to asking things like, whatcha think about those new veggie varieties Johnney's Seeds are introducing this year? Now, people who know me don't even bother.

Su Ba wrote:Boy, I can relate to this one! I'm often asked about some recent TV show, and since I haven't had a TV for the last 15 years, I'm the one with the blank face. I haven't a clue about the current shows and actors. So in response I took to asking things like, whatcha think about those new veggie varieties Johnney's Seeds are introducing this year? Now, people who know me don't even bother.

Haha I'm glad I'm not alone, I too could talk about veggies and trees all day!

.... when you answer every question with, "Well, it depends on your goals..."

.... when ChickenTV is your favorite channel

.... when you find the spot on the lawn where your neighbors can't see you peeing

....when you wake up from a dream where you were posting on permies and living at Wheaton Labs

You know you're a permie when:

You have a few delicate houseplants hiding in the bathroom under growlights (so you look at them several times a day while taking care of business) and you hide your pee jug with six drops of blue food coloring in it and marker on it "organic plant fertilizer" so in case you forget to move it because of guests, they don't question it.

... when you repurpose old materials to make a play woodstove for your three-year old, because he sees you cook on your woodstove more than any appliance, and wants to make his own fire and cook, too!

You find yourself saying "that there's some good mulch" a whole lot to yourself, even in beautiful old growth forests.

When you stop using soap and shampoo.

Been a few months now, amazingly better. When I sweat it doesn't smell, even when we had a 49degree C day here a few weeks back and I was 5m up in a scissor lift lining the ceiling of our shed. No desire for a moisturiser on my face, and hair just feels great

Showers take no time at all now (water saving - tick).....I just comb my hair to get any rubbish (dirt etc) out of it

Peter Kalokerinos wrote:When you stop using soap and shampoo.

Been a few months now, amazingly better. When I sweat it doesn't smell, even when we had a 49degree C day here a few weeks back and I was 5m up in a scissor lift lining the ceiling of our shed. No desire for a moisturiser on my face, and hair just feels great

Showers take no time at all now (water saving - tick).....I just comb my hair to get any rubbish (dirt etc) out of it

This works for awhile. And if you keep your hair short, you can melt your 'funk' right off with judicious application of clean hot water to dermis along with wet de-imbrasion tool (wet washcloth) and same for hair. I can wash 3" (7 to 8 cm) of hair in less than a 20 oz (0.6 liter) cup of warm water (total water used).  

You might be a permie if: you consider the best purchase of the last two years was the RMH digital/DVD 8 disc set, and you still think Paul Wheaton should earn a special Oscar or Emmy just because he's one really hot handsome personable older hunk that the camera loves and he makes a GREAT narrator (besides the DVD's being just chock full of good info and worth at least 10 times their price and 12 of 10 acorns for content, one for Paul, and one for 'totally worth eating ramen and rice and dumpster dives and scrap soup for a whole month so can afford the deluxe 8 DVD set.)

The 104 Homestead did a similar series, here: You might be a #homesteader if...

You're going through a break up, and what you'll miss most when you leave is the garden . . .

Tracy Wandling wrote:You're going through a break up, and what you'll miss most when you leave is the garden . . .

Oh no!

You know you're a permie when you look at your kids' play equipment and think about all the plants you could trellis on it when they're done playing with it.


Honestly, look at this thing. Think of the possibilities!

Nicole Alderman wrote:You know you're a permie when you look at your kids' play equipment and think about all the plants you could trellis on it when they're done playing with it.

Honestly, look at this thing. Think of the possibilities!

Trellis?  I'm wondering about the radius.  Would it be big enough for a greenhouse?

It's sadly not that big. It's only about 4 feet tall and 8 feet wide.  My father in law bought it off of Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Outdoor-Space-Dome-Climber/dp/B001C81DO6). It's a lot of fun to play on, though!

Cover it with chicken wire and hang a waterer in there.  I bet that thing will still be light enough to move around as a chicken tractor.

When a neighbor refuses to give you a cut down tree because it's so rotten (I'm salivating just remembering this), and you watch for him to return from the dump so you can drive out and truck back everything he didn't want to give you.

When you are driving around town and you start to notice all the woody debris that people are not using and can't help but think about all the hugelkultur beds you could make with them all. Honestly, this has started to become a form of torture for me...

When spring has sprung, you have built a number of greenhouses that your spouse has convinced you to take down so this year you're at it in the house and your kitchen looks like this:

You might be a permie when...

Your suffering better half concedes defeat and goes outside to start digging the foundation hole for your in-ground greenhouse because today the kitchen looks like this: *and some of Joseph Lofthouse's landrace tomatoes are in the shot*

When you see roadkill and think "hmmmm..... I bet I could compost that".

Nicole, I'd plant beans around the base so they'd have a shady place to play this summer.

You know you're a permie when...

A decade ago you had a legendary arachnidophobia. However you are sitting on a dirty floor in your shorts late at night, potting plants, and a half grown brown recluse comes crawling along. A) you can locate a squishing device and B) before you give it a funeral with extreme prejudice you did C) "Name that Spider" and D) gave it a funeral with extreme prejudice. All without E) a cardio workout from the whole endeavor, and F) you killed it less than a foot from you. G) you have learned how to "Name that Spider" and if it's a good kind you will relent and get a catching device set (jar and cardboard) to catch and release. Even for one large enough it needs a widemouth quart jar to fit without squishing it's legs.

You have a huge brightly colored Orb Spider you leave at the front of your tomato patch and you know how to chase it away and where it goes to hide, when you want to pick. Best patch 'watchdog' ever. Adding a sign near it's web saying (beware of spider) with an arrow is just icing on that.

From one arachnaphobe to another:


 THAT'S IMPRESSIVE!!!

Deb Rebel wrote:
You have a huge brightly colored Orb Spider you leave at the front of your tomato patch and you know how to chase it away and where it goes to hide, when you want to pick. Best patch 'watchdog' ever. Adding a sign near it's web saying (beware of spider) with an arrow is just icing on that.

Do share! How do you scare it away? We often have them trying to move in our garden. To date, I have evicted them. I'd like to be their landlord too.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:

Deb Rebel wrote:
You have a huge brightly colored Orb Spider you leave at the front of your tomato patch and you know how to chase it away and where it goes to hide, when you want to pick. Best patch 'watchdog' ever. Adding a sign near it's web saying (beware of spider) with an arrow is just icing on that.

Do share! How do you scare it away? We often have them trying to move in our garden. To date, I have evicted them. I'd like to be their landlord too.

You have to figure out which way they will run to hide and where their hide spot is. Plan accordingly. Break some web free on the opposite side. Something big enough to break a large piece of the web free is something they don't want to mess with. Don't take the silk, that is a lot of protein they have to replace (web spinners redo their web and eat the old web to recycle those proteins). Get in there and pick. Keep an eye on where they were as they will come back out and start to fix/replace the web... after all that is their livelihood and food source.  Garden hose and water will make them hide but not for as long as breaking the web.

Edit to add: This won't make the spider pack up and leave your patch. However if it is over an inch long of body and it's between you and your favorite tomato plant that's full of big fat orbs, you can make it move so you can go pick. Only way to make them leave is to catch them and relocate them. (end of edit)

You will probably still have to relocate some, if it is 'prime real estate' for them to get lunch you will have a LOT show up.

You know you're a permie when, your other half soaped a spider in the sink with dish soap and you scold him and give it a good careful rinsing because it's a jumping spider and you take it outside and release it.

OK.  Off to Youtube soes I don't have nightmares.

...your toothbrush is worn out, and you go cut another one off your neem tree.

... your anniversary is coming up and your spouse asks you if you'd like a) a cruise, b) an eternity band, and you vote for c) a gift certificate to TSC (farm and ranch supply). AND you do get C!!!

You know you're a permie when you ask your better half for a truly righteous cool tool and he lets you get it:

(all the calf panels had better cringe, this bad boy will cut them)

You know you're a permie when you see a weed tree that keeps regrowing despite your best attempts to kill it... and then gleefully realize it's perfect material for making that wattle fence you'd been wanting to build!

You also know you're a permie when, on Mother's Day, you're ecstatic because your husband volunteered to watch your two kids while you gleefully erect said wattle fence

You know you're a permie when you get a load of tree trimmings from the power company, and you feel like a kid on Christmas morning. I seriously never thought I would feel so merry hauling wheelbarrows of woodchips around, but I do. I'm like Oprah saying to my plants, "And you get free mulch and you get free mulch and you get free mulch!"



And, you know you're a permie when you have to fight with your three year old over who gets to use your new "toy"...a fiskars reel mower! Seriously, the moment I try to mow with it, he runs over and insists on mowing. That thing weighs over 50 pounds, but it doesn't stop him! He mowed for like an hour today    

.... when you go to a restraunt, and "the chicken guy" gets all of the kitchen scraps

When you learn (from a permie) that an 'invasive' weed is edible so you harvest it and then water it.  

When you are showing off your RGGS (rain gutter grow system or basically self watering grow pots) and have to explain that the three foot tall majestic Lambs Quarter is NOT a "weed" but actually salad greens. It's SUPPOSED to be in that pail. Then pick some for the lunch salad you'll be serving soon to the guest...

You know you're a permie when you're envious of those with lambs quarters because your property has none, and are really tempted to take some off of a roadside to introduce to plant in your garden!