Natalie Schluter

Hi folks,

This free huge conference is going on from today for the next 3 days, early till late:
https://exarc.net/meetings/eac12

All kinds of presentations that might be of interest to Permies.
There is also a discord chat room where people can exchange & ask questions. There are about 50% practitioners.

Happy watching!
 

We're in Leipzig, Saxony. Both native English speakers.
Been running our little garden for 3 years now. Yes, the other people in the allotment are mostly old folks with traditional views (e.g. rows of potatoes on bare soil), but we're trying to slowly educate them! Last year they marveled at our Rye cover crop...
We'd be keen for a meet-up!

jacque greenleaf wrote:I think there are many things to love about peeing outside. But privacy is an issue, and so is snow. I don't mind squatting, but then I don't have knee issues.

For me, the biggest problem is lack of washing facilities near my favorite bushes. Unfortunately, for women, drip drying is just not a great option, as you eventually start to smell like a substandard nursing home. I refuse to leave bits of toilet paper lying around, even buried. And I really don't want to carry used toilet paper back to a collecting receptacle, where it can develop a fine, nasty aroma before said receptacle is emptied. I am thinking of carrying a jar of water with me as I depart for the thickets, but haven't actually tried it out yet. Should work...

(We don't have any enclosed facilities right now- compost toilet is on this year's list.)

Hey Jacquie,
Your water-jar idea is great. Whenever I have to pee outside, I always rinse myself with a jar of water. It gets me very clean, and no need for toilet paper (I wipe dry with a handful of leaves, pre-gathered nearby - this works more or less, depending on the quality of the local leaves).  

I didn't read the whole thread yet; sorry if this was already posted.

The Viking system might be good for you. I learned it when I stayed at the Viking Village at  Lejre Land of Legends:

We passed the dishes through 3 basins of water in order: (1) a warm water basin with a scrubber, to remove the food stuck on; (2) a cold water basin where you rinse off the rest; (3)  a hot water basin to disinfect it. Then we let them drip-dry on a rack.
The dishes and spoones were all wooden, so maybe this method only works for wooden items.
The stew was cooked in a big metal cauldron hung below a tripod over a fire, and I didn't see how they cleaned that.

For dessert we ate raspberries with cream (which had been hand-churned). The dish washing system cleaned the grease off perfectly.

Oh, and before going into the first basin, I would try to scrub off stuck food particles with a handful of plants (such as a comfrey leaf).  

Leigh Tate wrote:

Kenneth Elwell wrote:My grandmother, who I only know from my mother's childhood stories, would save the slivers of bath soap in a mesh bag at the kitchen sink (in days before dishwashing detergent). The bag would get swished in the wash water to make it soapy.

I was looking back over some old blog posts and found this photo.



It's soap saver, similar to what Kenneth describes. This one was manufactured by the Matthai-Ingram Company. The stamp indicates that the patent was granted September 14, 1875.

Surely, there's something modern but similar we could use (???)

An old friend of mine told me that her family used to put the soap pieces into a can, with holes punched into the bottom, and hang the can below the tap. They would wash their hands that way.