Jim Garlits

You just unlocked the mystery of the universe.    Seriously, seeing those tiny sprouts full of hope for the fall harvest...that is true wealth. Savor it.

Jim

J Bentley wrote:

Yesterday I came home from work and experienced true joy as I talked with my wife and then eagerly went out into our garden to see Tennessee Valencia peanuts popping out of the soil for the very first time here.
Could that be a modern yet very old definition of wealth and prosperity?

This isn't a plug for a website though I 'm going to point you to one anyhow.

I wanted to tell you what a wonderful experience I have had so far hosting long-distance bicyclists through an app called Warmshowers. I won't link to it, it's very easy to find via phone or web browser. It connects cyclists with overnight hosts who are willing to let them take, obviously, a warm shower, to camp in your yard or sleep in a spare bedroom or on the couch. It saves them a lot of money that would have needlessly been spent on hotels, with very little sense of community.

So I think of Warmshowers as a little slice of portable intentional community. People traveling long distances under their own power, like on a bicycle, tend to be a lot like us here at permies. Gentle. Concerned about things that align very closely to permaculture and homesteading. So many of the people I"ve hosted have been "clean eaters" who are looking for better than organic, fresh veggies, grass fed/grass finished beef, ethically raised animals, and so on.

Last night, we hosted a couple from Ireland who are almost done circumnavigating the globe on bicycles. I won't give you their names but they played us a song on concertina and harmonica and their two part harmony. It was absolutely lovely, and I would not have had any of the dozen experiences like this I've had without hosting these cyclists.

We met once, shared a couple of meals, enjoyed live music, and they are now friends and welcome at our home any time.

They shared a beautiful rendition of Mike Hanrahan's "Beautiful Affair" during this gathering in Willow Acre's dining room. I thought the lyrics and spirit of the song fit well with our discussions of community and friendship. We recorded the song and while I'd love to share it with you, and as a content creator, I would want Mike Hanrahan to get paid because he created such a beautiful song and even when sung in an intimate setting, I think I would be exploiting the moment by blasting it out to the world.

Please look the song up and give it a listen, and you'll instantly know how heart touching the moment was for the four of us.

Jim

I would also recommend this. Welcome to permies!

Jim

Nancy Reading wrote:This is an old thread, so I don't suppose the seeds are still on offer. You could try going to seed - see the thread about it here

This resonates deeply with me, and I think it is close to what Permies is all about.

I've never really been money driven but everything we do these days is labeled and a price tag is put on it. An apple pie from the grocery store is $12, so the one mom makes for her family because she has a lot of apples and because she loves her family must be worth $12 too. No, it isn't. It is priceless because mom used a family recipe to make the crust flakier than anything the store sells. There's nothing but apples, sugar, butter, cinnamon, and lemon juice in it. "I made this because I love you" tastes so much better than "I bought this at the store because it was on sale."

Doing a couple dozen useful things each day for loved ones will always be the stable center of household or homestead management. Or it should be. No job I have ever had made me feel richer than I do sitting on my porch glider in the morning with a cup of hot coffee in my mug, watching the sun rise over Willow Acre.

This is a good thread. I hope the conversation continues.

Jim

I hope you'll sign up and contribute to the efforts!  Thanks for the encouragement.

Jim

Riona Abhainn wrote:I know next to nothing about substack, I think one or two people on here have it but obviously it needs more more more of what is happening here, I bet we'll see an increase in people here too as a result of cross-platform efforts

Welcome to Permies, Sue. I think you're going to be right at home here. We call those products you mentioned "toxic gick" and we know what you're talking about. There are threads inside the different forums that address all the topics you brought up. I hope you'll explore them and contribute to the conversations. Also, there are many topical herbal treatments for wound healing, and they are talked about quite a bit here. I hope to see a lot of you here in the future.

Jim

Thanks for the first few early adopters becoming trailblazers.

Jim

I am confident that will happen. We will start finding out soon.

Jim

Riona Abhainn wrote:I know next to nothing about substack, I think one or two people on here have it but obviously it needs more more more of what is happening here, I bet we'll see an increase in people here too as a result of cross-platform efforts

As I've been experimenting on Willow Acre, David the Good sent me down a path. Oh wait, that was funny. And I think he was channeling Sepp Holzer or maybe Joan Nassauer. I wanted paths in the backyard. It is a big back yard with lots of zones, and I was thinking of putting in wood chip paths around zone edges. And then really good permaculture advice came to me. Why waste all that energy and all those wood chips and then be hamstrung if you don't like them where you put them?  Electric lawn mower to the rescue.

Lowest setting. Sketch your plans out in your head. Where should the path go? Mow it low! Mow in all the paths in your head. Then admire your handiwork or your disaster. Either way, it'll grow back and you will have lots of opportunities to correct mistakes and relocate paths to better areas. Maybe create even more zones between the paths.

The rest of the yard I mowed at the highest setting, around 4 inches. Nice and lush. Weed suppressing. Except for that big area in the center that I'm going to let return to meadow and see what happens.

I've made a couple of adjustments. I've trodden some of the paths, which are just wide enough for me to run the wheelbarrow down, so often that the grass in places is pretty well trampled down. But it is turning out beautifully. I have a path all the way around the perimeter of the yard. I have one down the middle that splits and goes to the herb spiral on one side, and between the row gardens and the willow circle on the other. I have an oval around my orchard. It looks intentional. It is its own brand of "wild nice." And I didn't have to move a single stone or toss a single shovel of wood chips to build them.

Talk about coincidence. I just learned to day that the kiddie pool pond I dug in to the back edge of Willow Acre and populated with tadpoles is now a nutrient powerhouse for my garden beds.

Because duckweed.

Yep, the fastest growing flowering plant on planet earth is now doing nicely in my pond. And starting to overwhelm it. I had no idea when I put the canning jar full of duckweed into the pond that it would multiply as quickly as it does.

Completely unintentional. Absolutely function stacking. Because I'm going to be amending my soil with it from now on.

Jim