Brian Walker

Hello All,

We're located in rural central NY State, zone 5a.  We are preparing to rehabilitate a mowed field of approx. 165' x 165' into five paddock spaces divided by swales on contour.  The field was originally a hop yard, has clay-rich subsoil and is somewhat compacted due too having been driven over with heavy machinery in the past.  The slope averages at about five degrees and faces south-southeast.   In addition to planning fruit and nut trees to be planted along swale burns and dappled in the paddock spaces between swales, we hope to introduce a polyculture of perennial food and soil-improving crops throughout the paddock spaces.

The field has been kept mowed for the past several years and, if left to its own devices, quickly reverts to goldenrod, mugwort, thistle and other competitive ruderal species.  After installing deer fencing, we hope to introduce a variety of ground cover, including white clover, dynamic accumulators such as comfrey, and food crops accessible to both chickens and humans such as sun chokes.

Basically, we are wondering how best to prepare the soil for sewing our desired polycultures.  Is is worth a shallow till if only done once and immediately followed by polyculture plantings?  Would ja year of mulch-application that would block light to grass and goldenrod roots be preferable?  We are hoping very much to avoid the use of plastic ground covering or chemicals, but are also hoping not to need to turn the soil over all at once via tilling.

We are very new to all of this and thank you in advance for your patience with our lack of experience, and for whatever advice or suggestions you might have!

Brian

Hello,



By Renaissance, I mean multi-dimensional and open-minded.  I am working toward a homestead and Permaculture education center on my family's 160-acre plot and need some more femininity on board.  I also own a small acupuncture and Chinese medicine clinic in a nearby town and am considering hiring an assistant to help with paperwork.  I am visually-impaired (Legalluy blind) and could use a spare pair of eyes in clinic and while gardenning and foraging.

I love to cook, absorb good literature, go adventuring outdoors and in psychonaught space, practice noncompetative martial arts--especially Capoeira, play chess & Go, write, play with Permaculture design, study herbology and folk medicine, sing and play guitar--Spanish, Celtic, North African & Delta Blues fusion, plait & crack whips, throw knives, enjoy medicinal wines, work outdoors with others & enjoy good conversation with wholesome people.

I'm 39, healthy and settling into what promisses to be a stable, fruitful career in holistic medicine and possibly teaching.  In addition to being a bit eccentric on my own, I am also involved with an older woman whose relationship is hard to define.  We are partners, but are interested in finding a woman who is closer to my age and with whom the possibility of children might still be an open one.  I suppose we're a loyal but flexible couple seeking another female friend and sexual partner.  We are both very comfortable communicating our wants and needs directly.  At the very least, I'd like to make a new female friend who's interested in some of the paths I'm travelling and might like to share the work and play along the way to whatever extent seems fun, healthy and productive for her.

I live in rural New York State.  Our land is almost all southern-facing, gently sloped upland and seems ideally suited for Permaculture development with pods and swales.  I am also involved with local non-profit efforts to restore an historic building as a community center, high-quality soup kitchen and education space in our town.  Our region has vewry clean water, plenty of tree coverage, a moderate climate and a few large universities witin a short drive.

If any of this sounds like fun, I would love to hear from you!  Please feel free to email if you'd prefer:
brianrisleywalker@gmail.com

Happy Lunar New Year

Hi Michelle,

What sort of holistic medicine do you work with?  I am an acupuncturist / herbalist.  I have a small clinic in town and am bulding a homestead and eventual retreat on a large swath of land in rural NY State.  I've decided to try this section to search for friends / companions to do homesteading with, but am also in search of an holistic medicine assistant.

Happy Valentine's.

Brian

Thank you, Anne!  I'll try to contact the library.  If it's already recorded, it would merely be an issue of getting it legally reformatted to digital audio.

Brian

Indeed.  There is also the challenge of interpreting all of the graphical content and tables into an aural delivery.  No simple task from any perspective, but I do feel that demand for this book will revive as Permaculture continues to demonstrate solutions for heretofore insoluble problems.  One can dream.

I concur!

This would be the kind of project I think we'd need to crowd fund.  Perhaps we could contact the publisher with a copyright proposal.  I'm legally blind and any visual input is tedious, to say the least and heavily dependent on fickle text-to-speech software.  Good to know there might already be a support base for such an endeavor.

Brian

Thank you, Paul.

I, too, have land that's in need of construction and hope to develop along parallel or convergent lines with Wheaton Labs.  I'd like to keep horizons open and would enjoy sustaining a casual dialogue.  I hope to demonstrate how ecological health directly and explicitly substantiates individual and social health.  Hopefully, I'll make it to one of your events in the near future.

For the nonce,
Thank you for such inspirational work!
Brian

Hello Paul, Jocelyn, or whomsoever might be disposed to respond,

I'm approaching the end of a graduate program in Chinese medicine.  I am currently brainstorming prospective initial practice models and am curious if you might approve of a small, board-certified acupuncture, body work and herbal medicine practice in the context of the lab sites.
I am also an accomplished cook, and could offer a "form meets function" cuisine that is resource-adaptive, of gourmet standards and is adjustable anywhere from nutritionally excellent to directly medicinal.  What are your prospective interests in hiring kitchen help in 2019?

I shall be certified and licensed to work by summer of 2019.
My program title is masters of science in traditional Oriental Medicine, or MSTOM, at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, NY.

Thank you for any thoughts you may have,
Brian

Hi Jeremy,

I don't know how quickly Geoff's tank would heat up.  It seems that all the hot air from the heat riser goes directly into circulation around the hot water tank.  Geoff seems to imply that positioning the tank horizontalally

forces the hot air in a spiral around the tank.  I wonder how re-positioning it vertically would influence this airflow.

I know little about welding.  I'm trying to resolve the design, first, then I'll approach some friends or family that weld (I'm legally blind or I'd learn :)
As for materials, I've got a tank and will probably purchase the 4" dragon heater precast core.

I'll do a modified design plan drawing and post it soon.
I'm thinking of Geoff's system, only vertical so it will siphon.  This will, however, require my elevating the tank significantly, or sinking the stove in order to establish the vertical siphon gradient.

Thanks, Jeremy,

I was, in fact, worried about coil flow...it does make more sense to keep cooler water at the bottom!

If I were to use Geoff Lawton's design per his youtube video (link below), and if I kept the coil horizontal as his is, would the thermal siphon still function?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oDpmmsqHwQ&t=628s
There's a diagram at 10:31 position.

That is to say, if I still elevated my tank above a horizontal coil and used an open hot out line flowing back up and over the rim of the tank, would the hot water still siphon as effectively along a horizontal coil?

Here's a drawing:

Also, because Geoff's system is essentially a "double boiler," is it safe to assume the water therein will not flash to steam?  In a system where the coil makes direct contact with the barrel, is there any chance of it flashing to steam beyond the speed at which hot water can be propelled out of an open-ended coil outlet?
I should probably make a miniature, too, to see what works best

Thanks!
Brian