Malek Beitinjan

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since Apr 06, 2021
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forest garden fungi foraging cooking
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SF Bay, California Zone 10b
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Recent posts by Malek Beitinjan

Wheaton Labs is located in Montana and they have a lot of events focused on homesteading. If you went there for a visit you'd probably pick up some good tips.

https://wheaton-labs.com/events/
6 months ago
Start a fire with flint/tinder

Make a snow shelter

Cook something in a pit

Split a log using only nonpowered hand tools

A lot of the natural building PEP badges would apply here as well

9 months ago
Welcome to Permies! If you're interested in developing your skills for a permaculture lifestyle, consider doing the SKIP program. It features a list of specific tasks organized into categories like gardening, woodworking, commerce, community, and more. By doing the tasks you can learn some stuff and demonstrate to others here your permaculture skills!
1 year ago
If you click the button with an ellipsis (3 dots) at the top right of the post, that should give you an option to edit.
1 year ago
pep
The videos of tadpoles I had seen had them much bigger than these guys, so what you're saying makes sense. I didn't realize that's what mosquito larvae look like. Thanks Permies!
1 year ago

Bell Cedar Farm wrote:Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but after watching your video, those are 100% NOT tadpoles.  Those are mosquito larvae.



Ah, that is some good information to have! If they are mosquitoes, they'll be turning into adults relatively soon, so I'll just wait and see.
1 year ago
I live near a couple different nature preserves. In these preserves, they have the California red-legged frog, which is threatened (primarily in the Sierra Nevadas - they're quite plentiful by the coast).

I have a bucket on my deck that I use to collect rainwater, which I can then use to water plants. It's been sitting out there for quite some time. One day, I looked in the bucket, and I saw that there are a bunch of tadpoles in it! I've heard frogs out there at night, I guess they made good use of the water. Everything's been rather dry out here since all the rain comes in a few big events rather than consistently.

Youtube has made changes recently that seem to have broken embedding videos below a certain length on Permies. You can view a video of the tadpoles as I first discovered them here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HyJVLMlf8TI

They seemed a bit stressed in the bucket with a dwindling supply of water and zero cover. I added some pinecones, sticks, and green fodder to the bucket to make more of a habitat for them. I also added a bunch of water, although I made sure to let it sit first to allow the chlorine and fluoride to evaporate from it. City water!

I've been checking on them every day and they seem to be fine. Now that I added places for them to hide they are harder to spot, but when my shadow passes over the bucket that freaks them out and lets me see them.

Based on my research it takes ~7 months for them to become frogs. They also are expected to go dormant during the summer due to lack of water, but I'm not sure how that will work in a bucket. Furthermore, I know that my bucket will be an increasingly accessed water source by birds as the summer goes on and the puddles and wallows dry up. Once they reach adulthood they can hop out to the forest with the next rainfall, but until then I'm just checking on them once a day and adding water if needed.

1 year ago

Rachel Lindsay wrote: Everything is mowed mowed mowed here, eight months out of the year. (Even the long grass patches by the railroad tracks crossing lengthwise through the town!)



Anything that is visible from a road is likely to get mowed. But there are often ignored spots lurking nearby. Areas with steep slopes, vacant lots, etc. You can use google maps to look for places that seem to have a lot of green in your town, then go check them out in person. You might find some neglected spots that will have a chance to grow things.

There's often a contradiction where the areas that get mowed a lot can only host fast growing pioneer species, but the areas that never get mowed are choked and overgrown to the point where doing some chop and drop would actually benefit the plants there. Simply scattering seeds in an area where they won't have space to grow has a low chance of success.
1 year ago