Ned Harr

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

Just a quick note to Jay Angler about those baseboard heaters. If I'm understanding correctly, the solution to the issue you describe should be as simple as figuring out which breakers are carrying their load and then swapping the wires to the appropriate breaker. To figure out which breakers to deal with, all you need is a friend and a hot stick a.k.a. tick tester a.k.a. voltage sniffer. Unscrew the cover of the baseboard heater to where you can see the wires feeding it. Have your friend hold the voltage sniffer up to one of the hot wires while you flip breakers. When the sniffer stops reporting any voltage, you have found one of the breakers. Note it, turn it back on, and proceed until you've found the other breaker. No destruction of your walls needed.

One of the things that has impressed me deeply since I entered the trades a year ago, that wasn't as obvious as the aesthetic/health/FIYable* differences between "conventional" and so-called "natural" building materials/techniques, is the modularity of the former.

*fabricate it yourself

The way everything in the big box hardware store is designed more or less to fit together into the same "grid" is quietly brilliant. On top of the general ease of combining ingredients, it also provides the flexibility to allow structures to keep being built or renovated to codes and other standards that are continually updated.

Today I was picturing in my mind's eye some kind of permie-paradise house where all the walls and built-ins are artisinally sculpted out of locally-sourced logs or cob or whatever, with a green roof and earthen floors, mycelial insulation, etc. etc. Then this pleasant scene was disrupted when I had a thought like "what if I want to add an outlet there?" or "What if I need to reroute a plumbing line over here?"

These thoughts might send a dreamer with less fortitude running to Big Construction Supply on the day of his breaking ground, but I am resolved to resist that temptation. I know that to successfully resist it, I will have to build modularity into whatever dream home I one day assemble, so that the back-of-house of my house can still play nicely with the common products (pipes, wires, electrical boxes, lumber, and other materials possibly even including sheet goods) inevitably required to make it function as a comfortable (and in most places, legal) 21st century home.

And then it occurred to me: many of you here have made natural buildings for yourselves; how have you addressed this issue?

Elle, I would describe your hair as wavy, not curly. Not sure if that makes a difference to those with actually curly hair, but it might.

I've found that avoiding ALL hair products, but brushing my (very curly) hair in the shower, shaking it out and then giving a quick light final rinse, and then letting it air dry every day, is a sure way to have it looking shiny and frizz-free within a few days after shampooing, which I do only once every 2-3 months after a haircut.

For reference, I found this image online; it isn't me. My hair looks basically the same as this guy's but less frizzy (and right now it isn't as long):

My wife and I already use the smaller plates with the kids and serve them way less food than we would serve to ourselves. I suppose one might then say "Well at least you're not throwing out a ton of food", which would be correct. It's the principle of the thing though, the general complacency with waste. Which, as I said, is also evident in other forms of waste (energy, water, etc.) perpetrated often by the kids.

At a certain point, I think unless you and your spouse are both 100% on the same page and have really inculcated the kids from birth with saintlike consistency, this is "just the way kids are". I find it super frustrating. (When I was a kid I'm sure I wasted lots of energy and water, though I was too hungry all the time to leave food on my plate.)

Josh Hoffman wrote:

Ned Harr wrote:What do you do when you and your spouse aren't on the same page about this? I've talked to mine about it and the conclusion is always that I just have to let it go. But I can't ever seem to.

Would it be possible for you to ask the kids to scrape the leftovers in a separate designated container? You could compost it if you do not have chickens or worms to feed it to.

I am sorry that there is not a consensus for you in your household on these things. The Wheaton eco scale has been helpful in my conversations with family and neighbors. His observation is that it is good to start the discussion just one step above where you think someone is.

Maybe saving the food scraps will lead to something else. I know nothing about your situation but I do hope you all end up close to the same page eventually.

Our compost bins always get filled, no issue there. It's not where the trash goes that kills me, it's watching my groceries go from plates into waste receptacles instead of into bellies.

As I said, that's just one kind of waste. There's also the lights left on, the thermostat clandestinely and thoughtlessly turned up in winter/down in summer instead of putting on a sweater or whatever, AC turned on without windows being closed in the summer, standing in front of the open fridge for minutes at a time, etc. etc.

Not enough scarcity mindset!

I've talked to my kids so much about it they can probably recite my speeches back to me from memory. They know exactly where food and electricity comes from and how it's distributed and how I work hard to afford it and how precious it is because others in the world lack it, etc. It's not the information/knowledge that they don't have, it's internalizing it and turning it into habits. It's attitude too: in their minds, all that info is just part of the nag, not part of a reason to change behavior.

I wish my kids weren't so wasteful. Especially with food. It kills me all the leftover food they scrape off their plates into the trash or beverages they dump down the sink.

And then there's the electricity...

What do you do when you and your spouse aren't on the same page about this? I've talked to mine about it and the conclusion is always that I just have to let it go. But I can't ever seem to.

Nina Surya wrote:You can also try adding dried figs to your mix, they're sticky and munchy as well.
Good luck!

Yeah, figs would work well, only they are terribly expensive at least where I live. One day I hope to grow them myself, but then I would surely eat them raw; no way I could resist raw figs long enough to dry them.

William Wallace wrote:Could you use peanut powder, or nut powder of your choice?

As I said above, I like peanuts by themselves but find their flavor too overpowering to be an ingredient in anything else. As for other nuts, I already use almonds and walnuts a lot of the time. This week I had cashews so I used those.

I don't usually have powdered versions of these and I'm not sure of the cost differences (I suspect they are pricey?), but I run them through the food processor pretty thoroughly, sometimes even prechopping them, so just buying the whole nuts isn't an issue.

Thanks for clearing up my remaining questions! Suggestion: add that info to the pages that explain about pie.

r ranson wrote:One slice of pie lasts one month.  
Looks like the last pie slice you got was at 5/22/2024 6:02:49 PM.  

I think this link should tell more about the pie system https://permies.com/forums/pie/list

Thanks. When I follow that link, I land on a page that explains about pie. Some of the links on that page are circular--they land me back at that same page--but never mind, finally after clicking around I found a page where I could acquire pie. (https://permies.com/forums/pie/list#my)

But I'm confused again, because first, on that page you linked me to, I was told "Or, earn enough Apples to get pie." Then, on that page I just linked to above, I learned that I had earned pie by getting 20 apples. I now have over 100 apples, but no pie. Shouldn't I have 5 pies? Can I set up a slow release of pie, one per month for 5 months?

(And that's assuming I earn no more apples over that time, though surely I will earn more...at which point what I'd like is to continue the automatic conversion into pie. Is that possible?)

(By the way, if 20 apples = 1 pie, is converting apples to pie like spending, where the apples go away, or is it accumulative?)

And, this is the first time I am comprehending that pie only lasts a month, though I'm sure I've been told that already. What I haven't been told is, does this mean during that month I can post in Cider Press as much as I want, or do I need one pie for each comment I write?

Pie sounds really nice. I want to share it. But is it zero sum? If I have pie and I give someone pie, do I lose my pie? If I don't have pie, does that mean I lose applies by giving pie? Or can I only give pie if I already have some?

I don't see answers to any of that.

Not sure what the deal is. Honestly I don't understand the apples/pie system very well. I'm sure there's a post somewhere laying it all out, and I probably read it once or twice, but I have failed to absorb it.

Nevertheless, I've often wanted to comment on threads in Cider Press and been frustrated after typing up my most eloquent response to see that I don't have those privileges, and confused about how to obtain them.

What am I missing?