Liz Echeverria

Beautiful work! I'm sure this took a lot of time to make!

One thought. The way it shows now with the loggers on one side and the girl on the other is a bit divisive. We live in a world of divisions right now and this pushes a bit of the 'good guy' 'bad guy' dialogue. If instead, you had the same character and showed her exhausted and frustrated having just chainsawed too much wood, I think it would read more as 'good idea, bad idea' rather than good people vs bad people. If you demonize lumberjacks or groups of people in general, you end up preaching to the choir and not getting as many converts because defenses go up and people don't look past that. Where I live, there are lots of the 'live-off-the-land' people with chainsaws and woodstoves who would consider something like a RMH, but human nature is that if someone feels demonized, then it's an immediate shut-off to being open to something. Subtle difference but powerful.

Otherwise, I think the graphics are really great, clear, and convincing.

Thanks so much, Thomas. Those are great resources!

Hi everyone, Okay, so I've combed the Permie threads and there are tons of bits and pieces about various creative variations on the rocket stove, but I'm looking for plans for just a simple, tried-and-true, yet durable rocket stove (not rocket mass heater, just a rocket stove for cooking)---probably made with fire bricks? Most of the posts I found were retrofitting something or trying something wild, innovative, and new. But for my first foray into this, I really want to make a stationary rocket stove that doesn't have any crazy new bells or whistles but will simply help me cook efficiently off-grid, day in and day out (no tin cans, I believe, as they won't take the wear and tear). Can anyone point me in the right direction???

There is a nursery here in Northern Vermont that sells tons of fruit varieties that have been bred for like 30 years to be cold hardy strains.  I've had good success with their mulberries.  We are borderline zone 3/zone 4.  I think I remember them having paw paws?  They have a website.  Just google Elmore Roots Nursery.  Not sure if they mail order stuff.

The above post of course speaks more to the general nutrition question than it does to the B12 specifically, but I felt like tying all those thoughts together for the general nutrition view (I just found the whole thread today, so I'm lagging behind a bit!). Great thread! It's helping me wrap my head around my own nutrition planning for my food growing!

"Horticultural, pastoral, and hunter-gatherer societies did better as far as nutrition, at least as far as I can tell."

I totally agree Gilbert! How do we mimic it in our own diets? I think a good start is:

-I think an important component is to get as much as you can from varied, non traditional staples foods--both and foraged. Components I've been think of (many echoing what others have said) are:

-"Weeds" and foraged greens! Those weedy greens in everyone's garden and in abandoned placeslike chickweed, nettle, purslane, lambs quarters, etc are SO much higher in nutrition than lettuce greens from a traditional garden row. I've had a small space to grow my food for a number of years and I still can't keep up with the chickweed, and a couple local hikes get me nettle soup, a years supply of nettle tea, chickweed and miners lettuce salads, and more. Add that to plenty of Kale, arugula, spinach, etc and eating it all often. Huge boost to nutrition.

-Fruit, nuts, and berries from both forest garden and foraged in neighborhoods and forests

-mushrooms, knowledgeably and responsibly foraged when possible, otherwise cultivated onsite

-perennial vegetables are also a way to mix it up and add nutritional diversity. Toenmeyer's book (probably botched that spelling) is great on Perennial vegetables.

-sprouting seeds/micro-greens, fermenting sauerkraut, combucha, nut milk yogurt

-hunting/fishing if feasible.

-prioritizing raw, fresh, in season. Drying and root cellaring when possible as preferred methods when storing stuff for winter

-grown and foraged herbs. For example, I found out I was likely deficient in Calcium so now I forage and make tea with horsetail, nettle, and oat straw. A quart mason jar of tea a day is easy to drink. Not sure how much of the daily value it gives me, but symptoms are way better. I need to research more specifics though.

I do admit, being a small female makes it easier to get more of my caloric intake from lots of kale and mushrooms and stuff. My husband is harder to fill up without the usual staples like potatoes and rice unless we've got a lot of meat for dinner, but he can still get a lot of calories from the types of food listed above. If nothing else, it's a good start.