Ted Crowder

David,

Thank you for the advice. I don't think I've ever considered partnering up with a local beekeeper to learn.

One of my co-workers has a hive. I don't know if she is a "low intervention natural type" but I think she'd be willing to teach me and my wife. My co-worker and I are both here on permies and we went poo-less at the same time.

thanks again for the suggestions. I'll check out the Warre hives too.

So I heard about this Flow hive last night for the first time.

Thank you all for your comments on www.permies.com. I always research here before going forward. I do not have bees. My wife really wants us to have bees, so much so that she painted our dining room table using a bee stencil. We love honey. I was thinking last night after reading about the flow hive that we could buy one and then we'd have a honey machine with very little maintenance. I was very excited!

I've always been skeptical about getting bees because of the work associated with harvesting the honey. I never thought about how stressful that whole process is on the bees. I am still learning how to be a good steward.

Now I've read all the posts on this forum and am once again skeptical.

In today's daily-ish email Cassie mentions Jacqueline Freeman will be here answering questions. I wonder what she has to say about this in relation to "her brand new book The Song of Increase: Returning to Our Sacred Partnership with Honeybees!"

Looks like they are up to 4.3 million raised.

Ted

Update yet again!

My Hugel is currently growing potatoes and broccoflower! I did not plant anything. I thought more weeds were growing, but to my surprise, food is growing! So exciting! this thing may not have been a complete waste of time and effort... Yahoo!!!

Well It's been a year since I made my gigantic hugel in the desert. The soil has been blown down and settled nicely. It's only about 5 feet tall now.

I and my spade have made attempts to route water from the roof to the hugel and let it work like a sponge. I don't think it has worked yet. I had some plants growing on there during and after the monsoon season. I transplanted 3 trees around it. 1 may make it. 2 other are dead.

To be completely honest, Once I had everything set up for it to work except for installing a sprinkler system on the thing, I gave up on it. I let my kids go to town using it as a hill to climb and jump off and play with. They love it. (multipurpose use?)

Plans for the future include:
1. letting it sit and rot more.
2. keep watering it with whatever it soaks up from roof runoff.
3. throwing all leftover seed on it. (who knows, it may surprise me and actually grow something. )
4. keep it around even though my wife hates it. (I still hope it will bring some agricultural goodness.)

The best method for processing Mesquite pods is a Hammer mill (for large quantities) or a mortar and pestle (for small one meal batches). After processing you need to sift out the chaff. The pod actually makes the meal not the seeds.
The best resource is at desertharvesters.com
2nd best is bajaaz.org

Personally I am new to permaculture thinking and over the past 8 months I have been doing a ton of reading and studying on the subject.
I have introduced permies.com and the subject to my family members. Some are interested. Some are not. One bro and sis in law are so interested and have read everything I told them. My family has invited them to move from the big city and build their own home on our land. They accepted.
We have 4.3 acres down in the high desert in southeastern Arizona. We have given them 1.3 acres. They are supposed to start building this fall. We want to eventually buy the additional 67 acres across the street from us and get a whole community of permies here. I admit I haven't listened to all of Paul's podcasts but I have spent many hours listening. Don't care for the bad language but love the ideas introduced.

I went poo-less a couple months back. I had been convinced as a young man that pert-plus was the best. I had used it for about 15 years. I also used american crew firm hair gel everyday to style my hair. I no longer need any shampoo or hair gel. I like Paul, as he states on the podcast, never had any weird transition stage. My wife says my hair is thicker now, but becomes greasy if I don't rinse at least every 3rd day. I shower everyday for about 60 to 90 seconds so this is not a problem. No one else has noticed anything with my hair. I still style my hair, I just do it with water now and it stays every bit as good as it did with hair gel. If I don't push it up in the front to do a wave thing, then it just lays flat against my head and looks okay.

I love being poo-less. My wife wants to join me on this adventure but isn't quite sure about doing it with the kids. We'll see. Does anyone have any suggestions of keeping kids hair clean without shampoo? My kids love to play outside in the sand and dirt and think it is extremely funny to plop a big handful of sand on one another's heads.

How might one go about helping your community become interested in a community garden/permaculture project?

How do you create/peak someone's interest in permaculture?

I'd love to have people in my area become interested in permaculture/community gardening. I'd love some feedback from folks on how to create some interest. I know there has to be people in my area (Willcox, AZ) as there are several books in the local library on the subject.

Thank you for your input. I am hoping there are many replies and good ideas presented. I know nothing of marketing.

Come to Willcox, AZ! Your family looks very cool and I'd be super excited to have some more like minded folk around here. Willcox is in the middle of the high desert! Gardening is a challenge. Even if you don't wanna move here, you ought to stop by and visit. I thought I was the only Mormon interested in Permaculture. My wife's blog is www.lifewithtedandkelly.blogspot.com. We attempt to live sustainably and have recently purchased a home on 4.5 acres and have started to make improvements. We have a hugelbed and a keyhole garden and a herb spiral. Our land is primarily what I like to call "an unpruned native velvet mesquite orchard." We are planning on harvesting, milling and selling mesquite flour to fund capital purchases on our spot.

Noah and Miles,

Thank you for your replies. Yes it has been planted from seed for over a month now. I've been watering it every 2 -3 days and about 20 plants as well as many weeds and grass have come up. Before I learned about this in previous years if I didn't water 1-2 times a day every day. Nothing would grow. This is simply outstanding. I can't wait for it to become mature.