Bethany Nicole

Hello!

My name is Elizabeth. I grew up on a farm in the Midwest, and through a series of events, I find myself in the middle of the concrete jungle of Los Angeles. Santa Monica area to be exact.

I am 30 years old. I'm looking for a man that's older than 28 and younger than 45ish. I am tall (5'11) and I like men that are taller than me (ideal height is 6'2). I'm looking for a man that is kind, a good conversationalist, and loves to throw ideas back and forth about permaculture, homesteading and gardening, and doesn't give a hoot about what the celebrities are doing!

I am by no means a barbie doll, but I am not morbidly obese. I love animals (bonus points if you have pets!), coffee and reading. I'm not a fan of smoking, drinking or clubbing and I'm NOT 420 friendly. First and foremost I'm looking for a friend. If there is chemistry, we'll see what happens, but mostly, I'm just curious to see if anyone is out there!

Send me an email with the word "Permies" in the subject line! englishgarden2003 at yahoo dot com. Talk to you soon!

Andrew, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that ANYTHING can fail spectacularly when you're talking about burying it and not taking proper precautions! ("The best laid plans of mice and men" and all that.) I do believe i saw that Dr. Who episode! =) I've always liked the idea of living underground, I blame Laura Ingalls Wilder "On the Banks of Plum Creek" I think that was the one where they lived in a dug out. The house that i grew up in had a walk out basement and the part of the basement that was underground was always so cool and I always felt safe down there when it stormed. Now that I'm older, I want that feeling again. Right now i live in a 3rd floor apartment in Los Angeles. No basements here! HA! I would give anything to move back to the Ozarks. I can find cheap land ('cheap' in every way. Inexpensive, crappy soil, newly logged etc.) but the housing is what's so discouraging! I wouldn't mind living in a trailer/van, but there's no tornado protection there, heating/cooling would be troublesome, and it doesn't seem like it would be terribly theft proof either, and that's important to me. I'm just trying to think outside the traditional house box and find something that I can call home/store my small amount of stuff in for 5-7 years until I can save up enough to maybe build a monolithic dome or something. And no, I don't think that concrete is evil, i think that it's a very useful tool!! Any concrete that I've interacted with, has served at least two purposes. The original purpose, lets say a sidewalk, and then after it's lived its life as a sidewalk, it gets broken up and either used as filler in another project or used a little more creatively as stepping stones or chunks to build a retaining wall or something like that. Concrete may not be the nicest thing for the environment, but since it isn't, I always try to reuse and recycle it as much as possible instead of bringing more in! Yep, I like concrete! =)

Aman I have read that book. Loved it! It gave me all sorts of ideas! However, it also solidified in my mind that I need a preexisting structure... I'm simply incapable of construction! Seriously, it's bad. I tried to make a frame for a solar dehydrator and i couldn't even do that. Lol!! While I'm living in my apartment, I'm trying to hone some skills and simple construction is one of them. =)

Frank Thank you for those thoughts! I hadn't thought of the moat idea! I'm still not a fan of shipping containers. My Dad, until recently (they fired him right before he retired. Jerks...) was doing manufacturing work on shipping containers and my brother is with a trucking/shipping company that utilizes shipping containers. From what I've been told and from what I've seen with my own eyes, the strength of a shipping container is in the frame, but not really the sides. My brother buried one on his property as a bunker and for the first year-ish it was great, but then everything really started settling and the sides bowed in, and it got pretty dangerous, pretty quickly. I don't know what kind of shipping container he used, and I'm sure that there's some kind of super-reinforced kind that can be buried no problem, but for me, (not everyone, just me) =) shipping containers aren't an option just yet. I could be completely wrong, but geometrically speaking isn't a circle/cylinder stronger than a rectangle anyway?? Please understand that I'm not trying to start anything, I know that people can get in very heated discussions about this stuff. Please know that I appreciate all comments, they give me things to think about while I'm living in inner city hell... LOL!! =)

Here you go Frank http://www.crestwoodtubulars.com/culvert-pipe.html That's the first site that came up on Google. It has some pretty good info.

John, that's pretty close to what I'm thinking. This pic was really my inspiration. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tlGqYLK5mXU/Suzia4pqGZI/AAAAAAAAAXs/NA1O3gZoP8g/s400/culvert_house_door.jpg but I'd bury it at least 3-4 feet deep so i could grow some shallow-ish rooted things above it. but somehow (remember how this is a daydream right now?) I'd want the front door to look kind of like that pic and have it sticking out like a hobbit house, but the rest buried. so it would kind of have to be in the side of a hill. I agree with the 'harder than the back of God's head' comment! it's true!!

Wow John! You were quick! =)

I highly doubt I would be placing this thing under a road, but you're right, i think it could get echo-y in there. In my daydreams, I've got an 18' diameter pipe about 25'long buried in the side of a medium sized hill somewhere in the midwest. I have family in Missouri and the Ozarks have always felt like 'home'. Anyway, the thing is, I'm drained of funds and I was trying to think of some outside the box ways to get the heck out of Southern California! Underground living appeals to me for it's tornado protection, heating/cooling ease, and i like it really dark when i sleep. =) and I'm not so great with construction, which is why burying an already intact structure appealed to me as well.

Hello everyone! I've been enjoying reading everything on Permies for about a year now, and I figure it's about time to ask a few questions! I would love to build an underground home someday (I'm am unfortunately an apartment dweller at the moment, but hopefully that will change sooner than later) I've heard people suggesting using buried shipping containers, which would be really neat, but I'm not convinced that a shipping container would hold up under 3 or 4 feet of wet soil... Maybe I just need to be convinced by the right people. =) I had a thought the other day though. What about those metal drain culvert things? You know, the ones that they put under roads/driveways for drainage? I looked it up and apparently they come as big as 18ft in diameter and they're created to be buried! They also come in concrete I think. Maybe something like this? http://webecoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hobbit-houses-hidden-hobbit-hole.jpg