Sandra Graham

Jay Clayton wrote:Hay Jeremy,

Thanks for the info.  I will be posting pics of the crane, the transforming/articulated log hauler, and the multi-headed sawmill sometime later this month.

Cheers!

Jay

I am really looking forward to seeing that, old time manual cranes (and any type of force multiplier really) are an interest of mine. I know they were used extensively in shipyards in centuries past, but I’ve never come across any real information on them. Even pictures are rare.

Hi Aida — also in NOVA and would love to connect with a group of permies in this area. Also looking at areas in the western parts of Virginia for a future move and would love to be near a permie community when I do. (Not sure my SO is ready to dive into living inside an intentional community, though that may become a possibility at some point.) If anyone on this thread knows about areas near the Virginia mountains where permies are setting up shop, I would be extremely interested in hearing about them so that I can focus my search in those areas. I know there are some in the Louisa area, but I don’t know if I could handle the heat in that part of the state.

Renee Puvvada wrote:Hi Cécile,

Author Renee Dang here. Your request has been duly noted! Thank you for that suggestion.

I have received several requests from others in colder climates looking to build these systems either underground or heated. I plan to make this the 3rd book in the series very likely (the 2nd one being about rainwater treatment and purification), but in the meantime, please check out the amazing "Essential Rainwater Harvesting" by Michelle and Rob Avis.

They live in Canada and their book goes through the details for the design details of a system that can withstand freezing temperatures. The only downside of the book may be that there aren't as many details to build a cold-weather rainwater system on a DIY basis, and the book is rather technical, but it is a great starting place nonetheless. They really know what they're talking about.

Hi Renee, I’m especially interested in the book on treatment and purification, any thoughts on when that might hit the shelves? My situation is a little trickier, in that the water collected might sit for six months or so before being used, so safety (and lack of growing things) is of keen interest to me. I know the general principle is to run it through sand and charcoal but I feel like I need to know more about the specifics of a practical system. (And designs that I can copy [with info on possible modifications] would be my dream, as it would allow me to buy and preplan everything before expeditions to the remote site.)

You mentioned you grow pepper plants. I don’t know if this will be a permanent state, but nursery prices for plants have skyrocketed this year. A six pack of vegetable seedlings has jumped from 2$ and change, to $7 here. Tiny 2”-3” pots of herbs are now $7 to $10. Ornamental and native plants in 10” pots have more than doubled as well to $38 and up. It seems to me that someone could make a lot of bank this year just offering garden variety vegetable seedlings on Craigslist at a significant discount off the nurseries. Same with herbs, though that will take a bit longer to get them to marketable size. Ornamentals would be a multi-year project, but worth it if these prices are the new norm.

Sit down and actually read “Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual”. Time to remind myself of the fundamentals of permie design and I think most of my garden decisions for this year will flow from that. Have started on chapter 1 and I already feel re-energized and determined.

paul wheaton wrote:About three weeks later, the US shipped and sold a full winters worth of natural gas to europe at 10x the regular price.  Sounds like an extreme profit motivation.  If people learned about rocket mass heaters and started building them, then it could have had a dramatic cut in the profits of the shippers.

By US I’m guessing you mean a U.S. corporation? Would love to know which one but I guess these forums are too too public for that.

David Wieland wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:
I start with the thought of "why don't more people know about rocket mass heaters?"  And now it is clear.  It is a threat to the profits of ...  somebody.  Somebody really big.

The trolling blowout you described is disturbing. Do you know of others who have experienced such a thing? It certainly sounds organized -- but by whom?

It doesn't seem plausible to me that any corporate "competition" would feel threatened enough to bother. It's puzzling, but I wonder if the troll storm was a test of a nefarious tactic for disrupting a social media platform and you were just a random target.

My reaction was similar to yours. While I’m normally extremely impatient with conspiracy theories, what Paul described sounded clearly organized, and I find that quite disturbing. And confusing. Who would really feel threatened by a conversation about RMH? In any case, whether the thread was targeted as a demonstration or because of the topic, the fact that someone had a team (or an algorithm) primed and ready for that attack is, again, really disturbing. But probably useful to know.

So, it’s hard to know how much impact this had, but I was the president of our neighborhood civic association for quite a few years. (I only took the role because it would have been disbanded otherwise, and around here civic associations are your best defense against ugly land use decisions  by the county or local businesses. ) Four times a year I had to write a newsy article for a newsletter that went to 800 households. I regret to say I usually wrote them in a hurry, as I worked long hours at my job, but occasionally I would try and slip in a nudge about resilient landscaping, the advantages of preserving mature trees in the yard, the problems with letting your yard be hosed with chemicals to kill mosquitoes and spiders, mowing your leaves under instead bagging them at the curb, etc. I used the term “your sanctuary” a lot when nudging in the direction of a bio diverse garden, and often focused on the cost savings of doing the right thing. Still, every time a young family moves in, I see lovely mature trees get chopped down and Chemlawn trucks seem to be as numerous as ever. But it was a good opportunity to subtly change minds, and if folks here get the opportunity for something like that I would recommend it.

Jonathan Hodges wrote:

Sandra Graham wrote:My tubers rarely seem to be near the plant, and this is true for all the varieties I grow. I think the tubers must be deep underground because I can dig a whole area over and find few or no tubers, even though it was teeming with medium to huge sun root plants. I know the tubers are there somewhere because the plants will spring up again thickly the next season. It’s incredibly frustrating and I haven’t heard anyone else mention this problem.

Have you tried gently loosening the soil around the plant then pulling the entire stalk out of the ground? Even if some of the tubers break away from the root stolons, you'll be able to see where they were leading as you pull, helping you to find the tubers.

I have tried pulling the stalks gently out of the ground, though I haven’t loosened the soil first. Rarely is there a tuber attached. The broken roots head off in all directions. I usually dig throughout the whole bed, down to about 4 or 5 inches, without finding very much. It’s hard to dig much deeper than that as the soil becomes dense clay. The first year I had planted them, I found plenty of large tubers near the surface. Since then though, I have lots of fat healthy stalks, but the tubers are eluding me.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Yesterday I dug a bushel of sunroots. Used some of them to start a batch of sauerkraut. I really, really liked digging the plant that had super-short stolons. All the tubers were right next to the stalk, so it made digging really easy. I expanded my patch by planting more of that variety...

My tubers rarely seem to be near the plant, and this is true for all the varieties I grow. I think the tubers must be deep underground because I can dig a whole area over and find few or no tubers, even though it was teeming with medium to huge sun root plants. I know the tubers are there somewhere because the plants will spring up again thickly the next season. It’s incredibly frustrating and I haven’t heard anyone else mention this problem.