Aaron Tusmith

So... it's been quite a while since I have been on Permies, for a whole list of reasons but here I am. I have worked on this cabin a tremendous amount since my last post. In a way, I am done, or I could call it finished. But I know that is not true and doubt I will ever be "done" with this project. Still, I did manage to get it to a place where animals or weather couldn't get a foothold on it. I kept getting birds trying to make nests in the walls so I encased the whole thing in corrugated metal roofing. I improved the interior, built a loft and crammed a queen mattress up there. I got to putting a finish natural plaster on the interior, which actually turned out pretty well but was so much work. The floor ended up being capped with a thin layer of concrete, (also a ton of work by myself. I bought 2nd hand cabinets and installed them. It's a relatively livable little shack now but turns out I don't live in the area anymore. Being about 5 hours away it serves as a getaway cabin now. I could go on and on but I'll just wrap it up and field any questions as they come in if there happens to be any. Best of luck on all of your projects out there!

Thanks for the input! I definitely agree that making my own apple cider vinegar is the best route and would result in the most nutritional product, but that is just not an option for me right now for many reasons. I do have some questions regarding the vinegar; What is the additional food that microbes are feeding on in a bottle of raw, organic, unfiltered ACV? and if that food source would be absent in a bottle of cheap conventional filtered ACV then could a food source be added along with the mother?
I assume the food source is a sugar of some kind. So, does that mean sugars are present in a bottle of Braggs that the mother survives on?

With the prices sky high, and even higher in remote mountain communities, I wanted to know if this would be a viable option to save some money. My question is if one could add the mother from a bottle of Braggs apple cider vinegar for example, to a large gallon jug of much cheaper, conventional, filtered apple cider vinegar and enjoy the same benefits as Braggs?

That's a nice looking J tube you got there, I wonder if you could line the inside of the feeding tube and burn tunnel with firebrick splits, pretty cool though way to go on scoring the insulation, I know that is expensive!

I've been working on a hobby cabin that is perched at a slope, you can find it under "cabin project first pic" in the tiny house forum. Not sure if it will help you brainstorm or not but it is 200 square feet on a rubble trench/gabion foundation, the lumber order at the time was 750$ at the time of purchase (july 2018) so I'm sure that the same order would cost a lot more the days.

I can say that these seeds had just been washed in warm water. I had collected a bag full and crushed the pods in order to separate them from the seeds by removing the material that floated to the top, (the seeds sink). I suspect this saturation brought out their unique colors and varieties as opposed to the usual shiny black seeds found in a typical pod.

As for processing the seeds for food? I've never researched and methods with black locust seeds so I'm very curious.

I have harvested a couple small batches of chicory this summer and fall. Both times it turned out really good. In my experience, I learned that after washing, chopping the roots in to very small pieces helps in the grinding process after the roasting. At least MY chicory is super tough and woody stuff and extremely difficult to grind, (I actually used a meat grinder). But the second round I chopped the roots in to small uniform pieces for even roasting, and ease in grinding. One thing I did notice about the structure of the roots themselves is that there tends to be a very tough inner core surrounded by a much softer, fleshy type material on the outside of the root. I processed and roasted both parts but was unable to find anything online about which part of the roots might be more valuable in this application. Still, I found the whole process to be rather easy and intuitive. It has a great flavor, totally worth doing!

I'm currently reading the Humanure Handbook and the methodology is best explained towards the end of the book in the "Tao of Compost" chapter.
I have found the entire book interesting but if one were in a rush and wanted to understand the author's approach to composting humanure, reading the last chapter would probably cover everything. Read the whole book though!

Hey thanks for your input, I have never attempted this before so it will all be new to me. I do have one question that came up in some research. I noticed that in one recipe it said it was extremely important to sterilize the containers very well beforehand. I am just curious why this would be so important actually. Of course everything would be clean, but sterile?

so I have a couple different varieties of apples to chose from including crab apples. I have already ordered the cider press and I plan on ordering champagne yeast today... my goal is to make some type of alcohol-containing drink from the juice of the apples I have available on the property. I have done a little research and it seems pretty simple but wanted to see if anyone had some tips or info. Does anyone have any experience in using crab apples for this type of thing? Thanks in advance!