Nathan Hale

Anna Marie Spackman wrote:Hi there everyone! I'm wrapping up Geoff Lawton's online PDC course (it's been amazing) and I have a practical question-
Both Bill Mollison and Geoff refer to utilizing wildlife such as pack rats and squirrels to collect food by creating a good habitat for them (involving pvc pipes, boxes, etc) to collect in, then using 85% of the seeds they collect, ensuring the animal has enough to feed itself for the winter.
Pack rats seem like a brilliant way to harvest wild rice for human consumption, as wild rice harvest can be very difficult for people.
and squirrels, too, as Geoff says the nuts and seeds they collect are high quality and can be sprouted to use as animal fodder.
So practical points here- /
Has anyone done this? What are your real world experiences with this? How do you attract the right type of rat to your habitat? How much grain/seed/nuts might a rat or squirrel collect and store? Would this work near a valuable nut tree to have a squirrel collect the good nuts for you?
Also, what about predators? Most of us have LGD's and cats to help prevent critters like this getting access to our crops... how would you keep them from killing your fuzzy little workers?
Thanks everyone!

Hello Anna! I just went through Geoff Lawton’s PDC presentation 12.39 today that mentioned this and I cannot find any additional information! I think your post is the only relevant result on the internet. I live in Tennessee within the range of the eastern woodrat(Neotoma Floridana) and it makes me so curious if I could grow seeds they would prefer, harvest, and store that I could also feed my chickens with in the winter. I imagine building an artificial pack rat nest that you could harvest seeds out of just like honey from a hive, but I can’t find a scrap of information about this strategy past the brief mention by Geoff in his PDC. I absolutely love the idea of animals having different natures, habits, and tendencies that we can keep lists of and refer to when we are in need of that work in our systems. Always leaving enough food for the animal worker, but benefiting from their work, just like honey bees. Geoff throws around the number 85% of the collection is uneaten and only 15% is used, but I can’t find those numbers anywhere either. There has to be resources he’s siting, but I can’t find them. Someone, help! This also reminds me of a story I heard about doves and dovecotes where peasants who were desperate for food would massage grain seeds back up out of the dove gizzards and mouths, wash and dry the grain, and mill it into flour for bread. I’m not willing to go that far haha, but it was so interesting that peasants would use the birds to steal the king’s wheat and passively import bread. So they had squab meat, bread, and manure for the vegetable garden, all from the dovecote.

paul wheaton wrote:13 years ago I saw my first rocket mass heater.  I took shitty video and put it on youtube because I thought people gotta learn about this.  

The whole concept is stunning.  This is a world changer.  

And the world just can't seem to be bothered.  

And when I see resistance to the idea, the resistance is psychotically dumb.  So we set about to prove they work well and focus on the points made by the dumb stuff.  Crickets.

I have hosted rocket mass heater events and we have collectively built soooooo many.   We have measured their crazy efficiency so many different ways.  

I'm exhausted.  

And now people are facing some serious, serious shit - and we still can't seem to get a spec of information in front of them.  

We did a kickstarter on "Free, earth friendly heat" and it was one of my lowest performing kickstarters ever.

13 years I have been trying to infect brains with rocket mass heaters.  

Hey Paul,

I was just listening to your recent "Oil and Water of the Mind E616-617", I hear your frustration, and every time I hear you bemoan the fact that the world isn't listening I want so bad to help. First of all, I want to encourage you. Please never give up. Never never. You are the constant and dissonant voice we all need to break through and remind us that there is a different way. For me I get re-hypnotized all the time by the status quo and social norms and I need your voice reminding me that RMHs are real and it's not just a fun idea. I've been listening to you for years. I've learned so much. I've told so many people about RHMs and permaculture and Wheaton Labs and I want more people to know about all these things and then I realize... I haven't done anything. Because I don't want my neighbors to judge me, or my parents and family to think I'm crazy, or to get in legal trouble or to screw something up and misrepresent permaculture to people who are already skeptical. I feel like I need to buy land away from judging eyes, have a blank slate, and build my permaculture paradise, but to do that I need passive income and to semi retire early so I can work on things I care about not just paying bills and making money. Then my mind goes off on that subject and so on and next thing I know years have gone by because I felt I needed to go back 100 steps to take my first permaculture step forward and got lost somewhere along the way. So, please keep trying. Keep pointing out the path. Keep trying to remember what it was like before you became you. I know that's like trying to remember a time back before you knew how to read or what pennies, nickels, and dimes were, but please stay patient with us and keep spelling it out for us. And I for one want to apologize for not letting my convictions turn into practical steps forward.

Now onto mass adoption of RHMs: I think about this all the time when you bring it up and what I come to every time is 2 things: 1) People are shallow and will dismiss the whole incredible technology because they don't want a barrel in their living room and 2) People are mesmerized by fire and love watching it and playing with it. Like the patio heaters with the glass column in the middle with the swirling flame in the middle. They are beautiful and mesmerizing as opposed to the patio heaters that just have a metal sombrero on top. I think we have an extremely practical solution with RHMs but people are shallow and impractical  and lean towards form over function. I wish it were different, but we have accept that and move on. As long as the bell on the RHM is a barrel, it will never go out to the masses. But the good news is if the burn tunnel or the bell were clear so the sideward burning flames and/or the reburn torus could be seen in action... WOW!!! That would tap into our deep, primal fascination with fire. That video of of a RMH would go viral. I really believe it.

I wanted to keep this to myself and make a business of it, but I have to be honest with myself. I'll never do anything with it so I might as well throw it out there so someone might solve this. There has to be a clear material that can withstand these temps and allow people to witness the beauty of what is going on in the heart of the RHM. Like this but not in the heat riser section. I imagine the wall of the J-tube facing the room would be glass on the wood feeder and the horizontal part of the J but the other 3 sides with be made of standard materials. I imagine the heat riser needs to stay standard to allow high temperatures to build and the standard riser could be seen in the center of the clear bell. Or maybe keep the 4th wall of the entire J-tube facing the room could be clear to see the entire process. Maybe directly above the heat riser the bell would need to be protected or be a different material, but if you were sitting down and looking from the side you could still see the flames coming out of the heat riser and the reburn torus in action. I also imagine this clear bell would have more of a curved top than a steel barrel with vertical sides and horizontal top meeting at a 90 degree angle. I imagine the clear bell would still have vertical side walls and a horizontal piece directly above the heat riser but the top and sides would connect in a curve and not a 90 degree angle. Would this aid the torus and the reburn or is the harsh 90 degree angle necessary to form some turbulence to mix the gases and smoke still needing to combust? Does anyone have a visual breakdown of temperature ranges inside aRHM tip to tale to see what materials could be used in different areas. I forget which part is the hottest but I assume its the heat riser or right above the heat riser on the bell.

The reason I started researching this was because I was thinking of how big Oxiclean became seemingly overnight and it seems to outlasted the fad timeline. They say it cleans with oxygen, so I thought, "Hmmm, I wonder if I could buy the machine the makes the thing instead of buying the product over and over". The machines I'm looking at run about $300 and I've heard over and over these are just domestic versions of commercial units. They say almost all hospitals and hotels use these systems to clean and disinfect their linens. Do you think they would use this method if it is chewing through their sheets and ruining them prematurely?

I have an old, almost square, but slightly rectangular house. I want to install a rocket mass heater in the center of it to distribute heat evenly. I feel confident putting a hole in the drywall ceiling to put the exhaust pipe through and into the attic, but I do not feel confident cutting a hole in the roof and sealing it correctly. If the exhaust is just co2 and steam, can I just vent the exhaust into the attic and not cut through wood and asphalt shingles to get it outside? My attic has two vents to the outside in the eves. Do you think there would be enough steam to cause a real moisture problem?

Anyone else have experience with Ozone Laundry? How long does the ozone stay in the air before it dissipates?

Yes, they do recommend staying out of the laundry room when the device is in use because it may make people cough, opening a window, and/or keeping the HVAC on to circulate air while in use. I have read a few reviews from customers that reported similar experiences of coughing.

Does Paul have an opinion on Ozone Generators used for the laundry? Anyone on here used one of these products? Do they work? What are the downsides that make this an unattractive option?

How they claim to work:
The generator mounts to the wall behind your washer.
You hook the cold water line to the device. Cold water comes in, the device generates ozone and infuses it into the water, and the ozone water goes on to the washing machine.
The ozone reacts to stains, oils, and dirt on the laundry, oxidizing them, and cleaning the laundry.
The colder the water the better because colder water can hold more oxygen.


Implications:
No buying soaps and detergents. No recycling empty plastic bottles. No shipping bottles or driving to the store.
Cold water is preferred. Savings on hot water and energy.
Nothing toxic on your clothes or your skin or for children to get into.
Should be compatible with greywater systems since the O3 breaks down into O2 as it cleans and reacts to laundry


Here's a review of one of the devices on the market
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASKuui8EOx8

What about rental property? And use a management company to truly make it as passive as possible. Or does that not jive with the mission around here?

When is it best to feed the sprouts. In other words, I see someone above say that they feed the sprouts at day 3, but why not let the sprouts actually grow up into grass blades? I've read somewhere that with barley it's best to soak the seed for 12+ hours, lay it one inch think in a try, let it grow up to ~6 inches tall and that's the best time to harvest because the protein content will start to fall after 6 inches(I think that was the number). Has anyone else read that 6" is the best time to harvest? Another question I have though is whether it adds nutrient value for the water to have nutrient in it and have it in sunlight so it can photosynthesize. I used aquaponic water in my trays and some of the root mats started to get slimy and the sheep and chickens would steer clear of those mats. I think the next thing I'll try is to put a little bleach in the water when I soak them, put them in the trays, water them with clean water until I see green shoots around day 4-5, then start watering with aquaponic water until the mat is harvest height. Anyone see any holes in that approach? I'd love some feedback.

M Foti wrote:depending on what you want to spend, a gas chromatograph really isn't terribly expensive in the grander scheme of things... I have seen them on par with the cost of a used tractor... however, I'm not sure that this alone will get "those" people to buy your product. A marketing approach would possibly be a wiser investment of your time. There are still going to be the folks who feel like macaroni and cheese is a vegetable, and i don't know what it would take to win them over to our side haha

I would use the information to to try to sway the customers, but I want it more to test the difference between an aquaponicly grown tomato and a raised bed tomato. I'd like to compare to fruit of different growing methods and let it steer our decision making as we plant and start new beds, etc.