Douglas Alpenstock

The challenge is that essentially everything is an electronic device now. Everything has printed circuits. My car, my phone, my flashlights, my power tools, my battery chargers, my Linux laptops that let me log into Permies. I can't choose -- I need all this stuff!

However: I don't have a pacemaker, but if I did that would be the one device I would prefer to keep.

My spring planting was late, dodging the weather. I just finished yesterday! There's still planting clutter everywhere.

So I'm deferring Spring Cleaning and instead going straight to Summer Chaos Control. Or at least the illusion of control

Interesting, but food preservation is sort of a different topic.

For those of us who use grocery stores, I think one of the big takeaways from the "bitchesgetriches" blogs is how retailers use applied psychology to make us spend more and get less for our money. It's all very carefully engineered.

A sign it's going to rain? When hordes of mosquitoes suddenly appear, looking for my blood.

Heaven preserve us from descending into the car buying snake pit! It's freaking Mad Max.

The biggest shenanigan around here is financing. Sure, you can negotiate a price on a vehicle. But then they insist/pressure you to take financing. Often they will hold up the sale unless you sign on. They will require you to sign a document that requires you to pay a big fee if you pay off the financing early. Guess where they make their money! Bloody scoundrels.

Ned Harr wrote:... or basil leaves if I've got'em

Adding savoury herbs is something I never would have imagined. Hm!

To answer the OP: if I can't jog out to the compost heap or a friendly tree, I deposit my Vitamin P in a container 2/3 full of dry char. This not only inoculates the char, but the increased pH and the absorption qualities of the char means there is no smell.

Mike Farmer wrote:And here I've been running out to the compost pile every three beers like a dope!

No no, that's a brilliant way to burn off the extra calories!

How long is a piece of string? As noted above, there is no simple answer to the OP's question.

My answer is something along these lines: when you hit a sort of equilibrium, where the land is able to give you what you need -- and you are able to give the land what it needs. Ideally, there is a sense of partnership. If there is an imbalance, where the land overwhelmingly owns you, a change of method is needed.

(I know, I know, this never quite works in practice. But I think the philosophy is sound.)