K Eilander

The new sailor on the pirate ship was always making fun of the captain's eye patch.

Then in his very first battle, the kid lost his own eye.

Which everyone found a little eye-ronic.

In a recent video Robert Murray Smith described a different possible explanation for the "soil battery".
(I admit I tend to fall into the "probably just a galvanic reaction" camp.)


From web searching, it looks like they were just starting to hit it bigtime in 2018-2019... then, you know... "stuff" happened...

(Not in the above search results, but something else I found of note:
Here's how MIT has come up with to detect the little critters.)

A few things crossing my mind right now:
1) The weight of the soil microbiome is striking me as amazing all over again.  (As Geoff Lawton said, "It's not the soil itself - it's the soil life that is the most important element.")
2) Makes me wonder what kinds of crazy things are happening in the ground beneath high tension lines or even surrounding the grounding rod of an average home.
3) A lot of common gut bacteria are even like this, which, I'm thinking, could account for some of the mysteries of the "gut-brain axis" thing(?)

Dennis Barrow wrote:I have a pen that can write underwater.

Wow, really!

Yes, and it can write other words also.

Reminds me of:

I know karate!
(And at least three other Japanese words.)

David Baillie wrote:At the homestead level pressure canning with an instant pot comes to mind.

Good thinking.  Or similarly, run a freeze-dryer.

Peroxide is a bleaching agent, so I'd worry that might discolor the cardboard and printing you are trying to keep.

Maybe a soda blaster set on low could be used to gradually strip the layers?

I was recently watching a video where Curtis Stone was giving the specs of his off-grid solar arrangement.  He mentioned the output difference between a good day in the summer (where he is desperately scrounging for ways to use the power) and the worst day in winter (when he has to run diesel backup) is roughly 100x the power!

I guess I always expected some seasonal fluctuations, but, wow!

For the excess, there's the obvious and expensive solution of throwing more batteries at it, and some of the alternatives like pumping water uphill (which he discusses).

I remember reading an article one time (can't find it again, and google is no help) that proposed a different way of looking at excess electricity.  They proposed the idea of looking at manufacturing as an embodied store of energy.
For example, whenever the sun is shining and the batteries are full, you use the power to run a CNC and have it a make bunch of cutting boards.

There are other things, too, like you could make hydrogen or some other fuel gas...  maybe figure out a way to automatically feed a chipper to make bark chips... Ooh! Or some kind of auto-fed log splitter that splits all your firewood for you!!
(Of course, the best options are the ones that run on their own with the least possible babysitting.)

I think there are a lot of possibilities looking at things this way.  What other ideas you can think of?

Q: What do you call a person that gets extremely annoyed when you tell a joke and don't ever deliver the punchline?

@Devin Lavign Kind of a long post, but I totally love ol' Billy. :)

Also, surprised this topic hasn't mentioned it, but Joel Salatin's got a few different takes on chicken systems - mostly mobile.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:I can probably make a similar magnesium deodorant stick, I have some cardboard tubes and all my  soap ingredients ……

I went to get a list of the ingredients and it turns out there is no magnesium in the "foot and body balm" stick (as they call it) - though I think that would be a great addition. (Also, since I bought this, they've moved away from these plastic containers to black cardboard tubes as well.)

Anyway, here is's the ingredients they use, if that helps in working out your recipe:

I'm with Robin. Magnesium all the way! I've suffered with it to some degree since I was a teenager.
It all came to a head when I was in San Antonio for a conference and there was a lot of walking.  A friend took pity on me and bought be an umbrella to use as a cane, but for several days, every step was like stepping on a knife.
Ever since, when my feet start getting sore at all, it's into the epsom salt bath they go.  I've also got some magnesium supplements and a deodorant-stick concoction that our local soapmakers make.
Magnesium always helps, but I find the earlier I catch it, the easier it is to heal.