Nick Peihl

Dean Howard wrote:

Craig Dobbelyu wrote:NASA SMAP

Can't go wrong by getting more data into the hands of the growers.

What do you think?

Is it just me, or is this one of those Oh My Gosh moments where NSA spying never ends?
Somehow I don't think the Gov't is going to share. I hope I'm wrong!

Please don't confuse (or even equate) NASA with the NSA. NASA does an incredible service to the scientific community while the NSA just considers us all suspects.

Also, I don't see NASA hiding this information. The LandSat programs have been giving us free satellite images for decades. The LandSat 8 program has been especially helpful for monitoring large scale vegetation health with multispectral imagery. I'm incredibly excited for the SMAP program.

Finding Contour Lines

I've had good experience using the A-frame like they show on this page.. You can build it with items from around the house.

Well said, Yukkuri! Your post also reminded me of something I learned about in my PDC; the "Six Thinking Hats" decision-making tool proposed by Edward de Bono. I haven't read his book on this, but my understanding of the process is congruent with the eighth principle of permaculture you mentioned in your last paragraph. More information about the Six Thinking Hats here.

Students I met in the PDC course I took fit under a variety of the colors you mention. But I'm not going to dismiss the whimsical mycophile as he had a lot of information that the ecotopian didn't, and so on. We should use this polarization to attract to one another rather than repel. Permaculture is a broad tool and there will always be the need for specialization among its practitioners.

yukkuri kame wrote:Why stop at purple:

Purple - we all intuitively know what this means
Brown - ? ill defined in my mind, except in opposition to purple
Green - ecotopians, would rather be foraging in zone 5 than figuring out how to feed the urban billions
Blue - businessmen like Gunter Pauli, author of the "blue economy" that are trying to bring systems design up to economy of scale
Red - feel entitled to distribute the fair share on behalf of those who are obtaining a yield
Black - Doomers, Peak Oilers
Lavender - Nice ladies that like to dabble in the garden, who are happy as long as it blooms pretty and attracts butterflies.
White - mycophiles who got a vision of permaculture when communing with the 'shrooms
etc., etc.

I imagine there are as many colors of permaculture as there are permies. To me, classifying into purple and brown is unnecessarily polarizing, though perhaps appropriately thought provoking.

What happened to integrate rather than segregate? What if purple were a weed in your system? What would you do with it? I presume the preponderance of purple has a purpose and a place in permaculture. My ability to obtain a yield from purple is limited by imagination and the amount of information I have about it.

I also live in Yucaipa and I am in need of true clay soil for a cob oven project. My yard seems to only have hard-packed silt and sand. If you're still willing to part with some of your clay soil, let me know.

I tried the Crystal deodorant for a while. It worked well enough, but it started crumbling and cracking leaving fissures with sharp edges the irritated my skin. We switched to a paste made from corn starch, baking soda and coconut oil. Equal parts baking soda and corn starch and add enough coconut oil to make a paste.

Another option for cleaning agents in washing machines is Soap Nuts. Four or five nuts are stuffed into a small cloth bag or sock and a knot is tied to secure them. They contain natural saponin and can be re-used for several washes. We have been using them for our clothing for two years and my clothes have never felt better. Commercial detergents always made me itchy.

Last weekend, we installed a greywater system for the washer that drains into a mulch basin.

Every summer after the rains are gone, I put a thin layer of DE around the perimeter of my house. This is largely to deter infestations of Argentine ants here in SoCal. If we do get a summer rain the eves pretty much keep the DE from washing away. I do have to touch up some areas during the summer though.

Paul Wheaton posted an article on DE a while ago that is also worth a read. http://www.richsoil.com/diatomaceous-earth.jsp

My uncle once told me about the times before indoor plumbing. On the farm, they grew a lot of corn. Every cob would be saved in a bucket and kept by the door. On your way out to the outhouse, you'd grab three cobs from the bucket, usually two dark colored ones and one lighter color.

Essentially the cobs would replace toilet paper, and you'd use the two dark ones first then follow-up with the light one to verify the first two did the job.

http://www.cd3wd.com/

This website contains a HUGE collection of resources for developing a sustainable economy in a 3rd world country. So I'd definitely want to have this resource available. I'm currently downloading the entire 13 gigabyte collection to a local hard drive for future reference.