Izzy Vale

Hi,
My Permies e-mail address is different from the one I used for kickstarter, so I did not get blessed for the 'inner circle' forums. If I change my current e-mail to match the kickstarter one, will it work?
I did get all the nice candy, and really enjoyed watching the Fire Science video, awesome stuff!!!

If there are any other GNU/Liunx users that use this forum it would be nice to have zsync files for any future downloads. The servers got really bogged down and I had to re download a few things ( I ended up using wget since it is more reliable than the web browser downloader). Anyhow thanks for the awesome videos, and the pdfs! I have really been enjoying this candy, though I have not had time to listen to the TONS of mp3s.

Jay Green wrote:My grandmother washed all her dishes with lye soap and then gave the dishwater to the pigs and chickens. The soap helped keep them worm free and the water was recycled into something good for the soil. Might be time to consider re-using your water in just such a manner to bring all things into a healthy balance.

I did a bit of research, and found a few reuses that could be beneficial for Permies:

/* Anhydrous sodium hydroxide can be used as a catalyst for preparing biodiesel because it is cheaper than any other alkalines
http://sodium-hydroxide.com
http://sodium-hydroxide.com/making-biodiesel-with-lye-12-foolproof-guidelines-to-follow/ */

/* Food uses

Lye is used to cure types of food, such as lutefisk, green olives, canned mandarin oranges, hominy, lye rolls, century eggs, and pretzels. It is also used as a tenderizer in the crust of baked Cantonese moon cakes, and in lye-water "zongzi" (glutenous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves), in chewy southern Chinese noodles popular in Hong Kong and southern China, and in Japanese ramen. In the United States, food-grade lye must meet the requirements outlined in the Food Chemicals Codex (FCC),[1] as prescribed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).[2] Lower grades of lye are commonly used as drain openers and oven cleaners and should not be used for food preparation.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lye */

/* recycling Paper
1. Paper industry: Lye finds the greatest usage in the pulp and paper industry worldwide. It is used in the de-inking of waste paper and water treatment during pulp and paper manufacturing process. It is also a raw material in the pulp bleaching process. Many manufacturers produce and supply lye only as an essential ingredient for this industry.

http://sodium-hydroxide.com/its-lye-all-over-9-common-and-less-known-industrial-uses-of-lye/
*/


I think water drained from dish cleaning could easily be used in paper making... since it de-inks paper, and bleaches it. But, using it as a catalyst for making bio-diesel is probably one of the more intriguing ones.... Washing dishes to make car fuel. Of course you'd need some used oil from somewhere. Oh, and of course Ramen noodles... who doesn't like Ramen from time to time?

If you are going to make a Cob shed... you don't need to make a frame for your shed. You only need to frame in your door, and you 'can' frame in windows... or you can build them into the wall. For wattle and daub you will of course want a frame.
For cob you will want a good stem wall and a good roof overhang, with a good coat of lime plaster.
Recycled anything is pretty much what permies are about! Use as much stuff as you can that will go to waste.
My Cob shed has a stem wall built from urbanite (old broken pieces of concrete). Broken concrete is plentiful in the US... not sure about the UK....

Check out the book Hand Sculpted House if you decide to build with cob
http://www.cobcottage.com/node/82
Or find someone who works with Cob.

Definitely want to avoid dishsoap made with Borax/Washing Soda/Baking Soda/ Salt.... As it has been mentioned salt buildup in soil will make your ground very unproductive. Another thought is Lye. Lye is made from ash, and seems to be incredibly powerful. I am not sure quite how you would work out using it in a situation washing dishes by hand... maybe the people with dishwashing machines (which can conserve more water than handwashing) can try it out.
http://www.countryfarm-lifestyles.com/make-lye.html

Jay C. White Cloud wrote:Hi Carly,

Just so I'm clear, if you get enough pallets of a standard size and condition to design a structured wall from those pallets and then infill with "cob," you could use pallets to build a home, or take pallets apart to use the material they contain in some traditional building method that involves "cob." In any case, when it come to recycling materials, often what seems like a good idea, often is not the case. when all the different facets are considered.

Regards,

jay

I agree with that. People have definitely used pallets for a timber frame before, and it can be done. Taking pallets apart is not an easy task, and generally destroys quite a bit of the lumber. If you are using it for a timber frame, then you have to consider if they are going to be part of the load bearing structure, and frame it accordingly. Other than a wattle and daub type setting, it almost seems like more work than benefit to use pallets in cob walls, though they might work well for a slip straw kind of application. You might actually be more interested in cordwood cobbing, or something like that, if you are trying to increase the speed of construction without sacrificing structural integrity. Cob doesn't really need a frame to stick to, it is the frame so to speak, and you 'knead' it together, so each little cob loaf it woven into the rest and 'sticks' to the other ones.

Well, you can always ask around your country some. It doesn't seem like bamboo is poisonous to other plants, but I guess it could be. If you have some room to experiment you might as well try, if you have the resources it could be good to research it, and test it out. But if you only have a few coffee plants, and need them to grow, do some research in your country and find out if anyone has tried it. I'd think the old timers would know something like that

The only thing I could think that would hinder the growing of coffee under bamboo is the intense nature of bamboo. Bamboo is incredible in how it can overtake an area. So competition might be a huge factor. It could be hard to harvest coffee in a thick bamboo forest, as well. These are just some thoughts, we have bamboo where I live, but not coffee.

If you have any cedar (juniper) you could nail that into the ground, small end down. They usually have very long branches, and are quite strong. We use that out here for fence posts, and I should think that would work quite well for your project.

I've never seen that specific kind, but reel mowers are so nice to use. A reel mower is so much nice than a push mower (as long as you get a good one).
I like mowing barefoot, I like the smell of mowing, I like the gentle sound of mowing, I like mowing with my kids playing in the yard. There is no fumes and no huge amount of grass blown into your lungs. They weigh less than a push mower. All in all I think reel mowers are easier to use. I have a very large area to mow, and I feel less tired not having an engine vibrating my arms and the noise vibrating my brain. A lot of people think it is more work... I think it is less work, but maybe because I enjoy it?

Putting sulfur down in your yard gets rid of ticks. If you can keep guineas or chickens, then you could definitely get rid of ticks.