Jane Johnson

Dareios Alexandre wrote:Hi everyone,

I am planning  a long trip to France starting next month for the purpose of exploring different areas to see if there's a place that calls to me to move and start an permaculture homesteading project. I am hoping to focus my exploring on the less populated central regions of the country and I would like to spend some time at different homesteads and projects that are already established to learn more about the culture and increase my skill base at the same time. If anyone here has a place in France that I could come and visit for a few days or weeks ( I'm flexible) and help you with any aspect of homestead/off grid/permaculture life please contact me, I would love to meet you!

Cheers, Dareios

The village where I live also has the cachet of being known as 'the highest village in Brittany' being a Community of Communes.  Being so high up it also has the honour of being a place where, on a clear night, you can see the whole glowing Firmament in millions of glowing stars, as there are no street lights after midnight to pollute the night sky.  Owls hunt overhead and the forests beckon walkers and animals alike...

Hello Dareios
I'm a pensioner, disabled; with a garden that has seen no chemical or non organic anything for nigh on twenty five years.  Except for a few bits of dumped ironmongery, e.g. a Sitz bath on two legs with a big belly for your feet and lower legs to soak in, and a deep shelf you could sit on with hot water up to chest high or deeper.  I turned it into a raised flower bed but some enthusiastic 'helpers filled it with hedge trimmings so it became a pile of unrecognisable dead vegetation.  Then some other helpers emptied it...

There's a lot of untouched nettle plantation, a forest of rampant bamboo for the creatively minded, and beyond there is a thicket of unknown composition, erstwhile rhododendrons, various trees and undergrowth and hidden wildlife havens.. all in a small wilderness up to the mature trees at the end.  About 0.6 hectares.

If you'd like to challenge yourself with creating the bare bones of a permaculture garden that even a disabled pensioner could navigate, you would be welcome to free lodging for your couple of weeks, or at least some of that period, whilst you looked around the green and glowing permaculture efforts of the community living in the Monts d'Arrée in Western Britanny, actually North Finistère.

It's about 30 km from the coastal town of Morlaix (with its marina and port on the rivers Queffleuth and Jarlot) and the North Coast. Magnificent wild beaches and granite cliffs, or inland lakes with tiny fish that nibble your toes, and an imported silver sand beach...  Part of the National Parc Armorique which is a wilderness of forest, wildlife, and traditional building, farming and conservation.

Stone, slate, 'chaux' or lime-walled houses, some thatched long houses. A lot of the buildings use very old methods to create variety and some dwellings are heated using ecological and traditional methods.  People really do use compost loos indoors, and take the product outside to create beautifully rich manure! Some have rain water captage, as the 'nappe phréatique' (aquifer) can actually drop in weeks of hot summer weather, although the climate compensates in autumn. I have a well next to my house, and I'd love to set up a system to draw water from it!

There are virgin and plantation forests, occasional deer and infrequent wild boar; and above the treeline the land opens to wide, vast skies soaring to infinity over heather and stone crags... Buzzards, kestrels, hawks, wetlands and marsh, lakes and tundra, and beautiful views where there is very little evidence of human occupation from the heights, the Crêtes des Montagnes... like the backbone of a semi submerged sleeping dragon... They're really old mountains, and ground down like old teeth. Older than the Grampians or Stonehenge, and were once joined to Cornwall...

Inbox me if you feel inspired to visit and discover the charm of Permaculture in Brittany, and if you'd like the chance to pioneer a virgin territory in organic luxuriance !  There are chestnuts, apple trees, fig, cherry, plum, apricot, and others, all jostling for space. In harvest, only the apples and tiny figs produce, as the spreading chestnut tree hogs all the sunlight... Come and meet them, Dareios, you're welcome !    :-)  Crystal Jane

Hello Dareios
I'm a pensioner, disabled; with a garden that has seen no chemical or non organic anything for nigh on twenty five years.  Except for a few bits of dumped ironmongery, e.g. a Sitz bath on two legs with a big belly for your feet and lower legs to soak in, and a deep shelf you could sit on with hot water up to chest high or deeper.  I turned it into a raised flower bed but some enthusiastic 'helpers filled it with hedge trimmings so it became a pile of unrecognisable dead vegetation.  Then some other helpers emptied it...

There's a lot of untouched nettle plantation, a forest of rampant bamboo for the creatively minded, and beyond there is a thicket of unknown composition, erstwhile rhododendrons, various trees and undergrowth and hidden wildlife havens.. all in a small wilderness up to the mature trees at the end.  About 0.6 hectares.

If you'd like to challenge yourself with creating the bare bones of a permaculture garden that even a disabled pensioner could navigate, you would be welcome to free lodging for your couple of weeks, or at least some of that period, whilst you looked around the green and glowing permaculture efforts of the community living in the Monts d'Arrée in Western Britanny, actually North Finistère. It's about 30 km from Morlaix and the Coast, Part of the National Parc Armorique which is a wilderness of forest, wildlife and traditional building, farming and conservation. There are buzzards, deer, infrequent wild boar, kestrels, hawks, wetlands and marsh, lakes and tundra, and beautiful views where there is very little evidence of human occupation from the heights, the crêtes des Montagnes... they're really old and ground down like old teeth. Older than the Grampians or Stonehenge, and were once joined to Cornwall...
Inbox me if you feel inspired to visit and discover the charm of Permaculture in Brittany, and if you'd like the chance to pioneer a virgin territory in organic luxuriance, there are chestnuts, apple trees, fig, cherry, plum, apricot, only the apples and tiny figs produce as the chestnut hogs all the sunlight... come and meet them, you're welcome !    Crystal Jane

Blanche maPoule is a survivor, has outlived her three sisters, and loves gardening.  She carefully tends plants such as currant bushes, raspberry canes, flowers and deliberately planted growing things, but tears up weeds with relentless ferocity, down to bare soil.
She can't bear overgrowth or anything that might harbour unfriendly or predatory animals.

My daughter went into hospital, so Blanche went to stay at my neighbour's place, who now has three french hens (no turtle doves).
Once I got back home again, after a couple of weeks, I went to check on my chukkie friend. Now, dont get me wrong, we were the best of friends. I would only have to poke my beak out of the garage door, and wherever she was, she'd come running!

She loved wandering around the garden alongside me, companionably, scratching up seeds I'd just p!anted, or tearing into seedbeds I was preparing. We used to cluck to each orher and have pretty far out conversations.

So you can imagine the scenario... I turned up, after a couple of weeks absence, looking forward to seeing her. I'd missed her.  But I needn't have worried.  She'd made friends with one of Juliette's two little red hens. They were inspecting the grubs in the boundaries, along by the hedge.

I knew before, when she was at home, that Blanche was missing the girls back at ours. First the red was taken, then the black, and finally the grey had gone, leaving a pile of beautiful feathers.

So it was no surprise when she got chummy with the little red hen at my next but one neighbour's. She was a bit of a ringleader. But I didn't expect her reaction when i finally got back to check on her. I felt like a mum arriving to pick up my toddler from a playdate.

Blanche took one look at me and, abandoning her peaceful copine, took off running
- but in the opposite direction! She was even pretty perturbed that her friend wasn't at all fazed and carried on gardening, right next to me.

It was such a beady look, a deliberate 'Oh no I'm not!' moment of rebellion, I was shocked!
Mentioning it to my friend, her response was 'Well, what do you expect, Jane? She's a chicken, of course she's not going to remember you!  

Except that I had the disinct impression that she remembered me very well - we were best mates - but that she'd rediscovered chicken love, and wasn't about to go back to solitude and a human substitute!

She was actually ashamed of her previous chumminess, strutting in the houae, and her knee jerk rushing towards me, Pavlovian responses, whenever I appeared! Nope. Shed definitely decided the grass was greener with her new flock!

I tried a 'Baaak buk buk' and a 'Buk buuuk bukbuk?'  but she wasnt having any.
'You can Baaak buk off!' she thought, loudly.... And...
She let her feet reply.

Hi Pauls team I'd like a ref code, please,  for the Kickstarter campaign so I can promote it all over the internet!
Can you please send me one? Thanks 😊🙏🙌🍀

Leigh Tate wrote:My journey into baking without baking powder started with a simple question - what did cooks do before baking powder was invented? When I read the Little House on the Prairie series, I read that they used "saleratus," but what was that? I started to research historical recipes online, but discovered that most of them had been updated with modern ingredients and techniques. I finally found some answers in historical cookbooks, plus videos by historical reenactors.

Here are links to many of those wonderful resources, so that you can experiment too. All of the cookbooks are public domain, and are either online versions or PDF downloads.

The American Frugal Housewife by Lydia Child

Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book

Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management

The Practice of Cookery by Mrs. Dalgairns

Dr. Chace's Complete Receipt Book and Household Physician

The American Frugal Housewife by Lydia M. Child

MSU's online collection of 76 historical cookbooks

TWU's cookbook digital archive

Dr. Chace's Receipt Book and Household Physician

I have more on my other computer, which I'll try to add later today.

Definitely found tje Mrs Beetons household management and recipes useful to adapt wjen my kids were small.
These days i use yeast to make raised cakes, buns, brioches, puddings, breads with grains and nuts, seeds and dried fruit.  I preferto use honey over sugar as its bery healtjy in terms of antiviral anyiseptic and if selected can be organic. I avoid sugar for health reasons.
There are other ways of creating a 'fizz' using eg very bubbly yogurt or fermented jam, and for tjose wvo use eggs, making stiff dough or thick batterpancales will create a lifted bubbly texture.
Classic acid /alkali mix (vinegar pie/cake mix with fermented soya yogurt, carob, or cinnamon and spice mixwith raisins, honey cake with ginger, all can be raised with eg sourdough, using buckwheat or ryeflour, or spelt.
If anyone's interested, i could post some experimental recipes , but mostly I would 'make it up as i went along' with balancing acid alkali and mixing, particularly with rich fruit cakes for Christmas, Easter Simnel cake with marzipan, family celebrations, Christenings or birthdays.

Just for a bit of fun...
To user. First....
Last:
Find User
Subject
'I am the Alpha and the Omega'
(famous first/last words)
Or in 'contemporary' English 'I am the A to Z'
So, User 'First', 'Last',
Before anything else, Time was established

Time needed to happen for Space to happen IN.

Thereafter, once Consciousness had awoken,
Then and Now became the A and Z Timeline of the First Dimension (Line AZ)
From which, as soon as awareness of that happens (Almost simultaneously) the Point of Power or of Observation perceives AZ  (one, two) becoming B, Beta (three).
B or Beta is also aware of Then and Now in terms of perspective, (was, is and shall be, where Is is Intersection of Observation upon Timeline AZ)
Thus an infinitely extending cross is established with unending axes or arms A, Z, (Alpha, Omega) and B, T (Before, Then) with the point of Intersection, where they cross, being ION Intersection Observation Now

Which brings us nicely on to the first ION + o r
Positively Charged Particle

So,

Time + Space = Matter or Mater ial. World

Did i say Matter, Mater? Er, Mummy?
What does it matter?
(I, you, We) Begin (become aware) in Mater,
Mater is Matter (stuff, whirled, and sky, firmament)
Heaven and Earth
(Are Full Of Thy Glory)
Matter, Flesh is Birthed, breath-ed breathed... (Positive IONs)
And begins
Living (conscious)

Perm -a- Culture

Love from PeemaGreenGro  (Google it)
permagreengro@gmail.com
Jane, ceo

Adrien Lapointe wrote:

Miles Flansburg wrote:Adrien, so when I quote someone it will copy and paste their whole post in the composition  box, then i reply from there?

That's right. The whole post will be in between the quote code.

What if I only want to quote one sentence out of a paragraph? Do I just delete everything but that sentence or is there a way to just quote that sentence?

You can put anything between the quotes. So yes, you can delete the parts you don't want.

I see people quoting several different posters or several different sentences in one reply box. How is that done?

This is an example!

Santa Claus wrote:Ho ho ho

Below is the code for this post.

[code=css]

Miles Flansburg wrote:Adrien,

Not Miles, just an example, using Miles' post
Sorry,

Jane, ceo permagreengro, wrote :

,

Jane Johnson wrote:[Ha Haha Cosmic Laughter]

Just for a bit of fun...
To user. First....
Last:
Find User
Subject
'I am the Alpha and the Omega'
(famous first/last words)
Or in 'contemporary' English 'I am the A to Z'
So, User 'First', 'Last',
Before anything else, Time was established

Time needed to happen for Space to happen IN.

Thereafter, once Consciousness had awoken,
Then and Now became the A and Z Timeline of the First Dimension (Line AZ)
From which, as soon as awareness of that happens (Almost simultaneously) the Point of Power or of Observation perceives AZ  (one, two) so becoming B, Beta (three).
B or Beta is also aware of Then and Now in terms of perspective, (was, is and shall be, where IS is Intersection of Observation upon Timeline AZ)
(Hence ISIS )
Thus an infinitely extending cross is established with unending axes or arms A, Z, (Alpha, Omega) and B, T (Before, Then) with the point of Intersection, where they cross, being ION Intersection Observation Now

Which brings us nicely on to the first ION + o r
Positively Charged Particle

So,

Time + Space = Matter or Mater ial. World

Did i say Matter, Mater? Er, Mummy?
What does it matter?
(I, you, We) Begin (become aware) in Mater,
Mater is Matter (stuff, whirled, and sky, firmament)
Heaven and Earth
(Are Full Of Thy Glory)
Matter, Flesh is Birthed, breath-ed breathed... (Positive IONs)
And begins
Living (conscious)

Perm -a- Culture

Love from PermaGreenGro  (Google it)
permagreengro@gmail.com
Jane, ceo

This is a great idea, using bases as support for the fence g in between, as rocky soil would discourage burrowing, and cleared rocks from the soil could be placed at the base of the fencing, wire or whatever material. Growing sturdy thorn or similar against the fencing could provide useful deterrent, if it wasn't eaten, or quick growing woody shrubs to eventually harvest some for a small rocket stove, depending on rainfall and abundance of water. Haven't needed this for myself as my neighbours already put up side fencing, and my ground is soft. I tried using upended bamboo (inherited a huge clump of it, at least 100m² - any ideas?) Some of which I used for fenceposts, but it still took off, so I don't recommend it.

Judith Browning wrote:Thanks Jacob,  My problem digging is my sixty two year old back...The potatoes are all grouped right at the main base of the plant so a potato fork works fine to lift them I just like the leverage of my broadfork so I am trying it again just to lift enough to loosen and then I am able to pull up the whole mass of roots at once...they are fist size and larger so no problem finding them.  The smaller ones that have formed along the vine in my path might  work well with your idea.  We usually shovel the path onto the raised bed in the fall so sifting for more potatoes could happen then. Now that the weather here has cooled I feel like I am catching up on a whole summers work.

Judith my 70 year old arthritis scolioses ostéo porosis back is also a complication
Has anyone tried growing sweet potatoes in a raised strawbale bed? Or in general, creating raised mounds in a circuit ? For disabled gardening?

I found all of these infos fascinating, wondering if it's cool to send this to a friend off site, or provide them with a link to join the immediately be redirected here...
What do you think?
Looking for
Power solutions
Water solutions (running submersible pump to push water from a pond uphill to use for grey water purposes, washing, laundry etc)
Capturing rainwater for drinking, purifying same
Building rocket stove for use in a caravan
Building a simple living structure from locally sourced renewable materials - on a budget
Getting help for planting fast growing wood eg willow, hazel, etc for hedging, boundaries, coppicing for rocket stove firewood (twigs etc) and for useful utensils eh containers, mats, to mark seed rows, fire starter.
Batteries - what's the ethics?
What about embedded plastic bottles in the ceiling, with mild bleach in,  used as solar lamps?
Powering up a caravan or small earth bender or wofati
Solar showers
Compost loo
The lo consommation of this simple home energy solution is equivalent to 6 amp. I have that running at home, in a standard house, runs fridge microwave, led lights, phone charger and a TV/ video player. What's the next step for warm showers?
Thanks for all the info, great post