Shahar Goldin

If you want a tree that’s legal for lumber and you want to use that lumber for the structure of a permitted building (say for example, you want to use it for a building that has electrical or hvac or occupants) and you’re in a place that uses the international residential code, I’m almost sure you’re limited to trees that suck for firewood- fir, pine, spruce, and cedar. This is because structural timbers must be graded and stamped, and there are only structural grading standards for fast growing softwoods that are grown by forestry companies.

What’s the hottest you can get a cavity for one of these things? I did a cursory search for rocket mass kiln and got no results!

I made my first starter following the advice of the wild yeast blog. The one I have now is from a fancy restaurant (I admired their bread, they said I could have some starter if I want).

I basically wouldn’t be too precious/stressed about it. Most of the time mine is in the fridge, I feed it 1:1:1 the day before I want to bake and leave it out after feeding. Sometimes I make crumpets out of the discard.

I bake sourdough about as often as I’d like, especially since I developed a process around a countertop version of the Estella dough mixer (specifically I have a vevor knockoff of it that cost about 450 dollars). Process is: feed starter the night before, weigh starter and water in a bowl, pour into mixer, weigh flour in a dry bowl, put in mixer, turn on mixer, go do other things for 5-8 minutes, turn off mixer, wait 20 minutes, add salt and a bit more water, turn on mixer, watch until dough is cohesive, turn off mixer, set a timer for 20 minutes, when the timer goes off turn on the mixer for 30 seconds or so. Repeat 6-8 times, then shape loaves into baskets and let rise for 90-120 minutes. Then bake in my countertop steam oven (20 minutes at 490° at 100% humidity, 10 minutes at 400° at 0% humidity)

I would pay, I dunno, probably 600 dollars, for a version of this mixer with an integrated scale and a way to remotely turn it on and off (or even program a schedule/recipe). The steam oven is quite a luxury, the people who made it got bought by Electrolux and discontinued the version that cost 500 dollars to release a new version that has AI Slop (tm) and costs 1100 dollars and has a 10 dollar subscription fee. It’s notoriously prone to failure and difficult to repair. If it breaks I’m very likely to buy a commercial combi steam oven for my home kitchen.


I got the mixer to make brioche. I still don’t make brioche as often as I’d like because I have to make a poolish, and wait for 4 hours, and then rising/stretching/folding/shaping brioche takes like, 6ish hours, and if I don’t start right when I wake up, or forget to do a step on time, or if it looks like it needs more rising time, then I have to bake it after bedtime or I have to make it slow down enough to bake the next morning, which is a hassle. So basically if I don’t have poolish ready by noon I don’t make brioche anymore, same goes for baguettes.

Aside from these quite silly technical challenges, my biggest obstacle to baking more is that my partner keeps complaining about “simple sugars” and “cholesterol tests” and other nonsense. My mother also complains endlessly about how many bread calories she eats when she visits because the bread tastes so good.

Who would be interested in having PEP/PEX done on their land?

This is a wiki page that anyone can edit. If you would like your site to be included in any of the following categories, or to make a category of your own, please edit this post.

People Who Want Full PEP/PEX on Their Land:
Paul Wheaton - Missoula MT
JT Lamb - BonCarbo, CO (see comments below for details)
Michael Chicoine II - New Hampshire (see comments below for details)
Jonathan Leonard - WV
Leaf Bailey - Southern Oregon, USA
Tranqvillium, Sustainable Living Educational and Research Community, Tecopa, CA - erik@tranqvillium.org
Amanda Wright- Dawsonville, GA snookerflyfarms@icloud.com
Shahar Goldin- Greenbank, WA

People Who Want PEP/PEX on Their Land BUT Are Currently Full:
To Be Announced

People Who Think Some Badges Could Possibly Be Done at Their Place:
Mike Haasl - Northern WI, USA
Lina J - Annapolis, Md, USA
Skandi Rogers - Northern Denmark
Ash Jackson - Denver, CO, USA
Trish Beebe  -  Gabrovo, Bulgaria
Bonnie Farrell - Upstate, NY
Lex Eastwood - Rural NV
Hans Quistorff - near  Pierce, Mason, Kitsap counties WA  Swale improvement.
James Sullivan - north of Toronto CA
Sondee Grande - Southern WI, USA
Raphael Blais - Qc, Canada
Nautilus Guild Jennifer Markestad  in Tacoma WA
Chris Vee - Upstate South Carolina
Liam Hession - Missouri Ozarks (near Alton, MO)
Jarrett Hadorn - Etowah, TN (SE TN) - I think most of the full PEP projects are probably doable here
Lynne McIntyre - South East MI
Carmen Carrion (Pierce County, WA state)
Katia LeMone (northern Mexico)
Carmen Rose (Pierce County, WA)


People Who Are Just Thinking About PEP/PEX on Their Land:
Joshua Myrvaagnes (non-profit I've been involved in, I don't make the decisions myself) -- Capital District, NY State, USA



People Who Might Be Open to PEP/PEX On Their Land Given Some Time:
Shawn Klassen-Koop - Somewhere in a flat part of Canada
Michael Holtman - Tennessippi
Matrim Schmidt - Central WI, USA

I have 2.7 acres on Whidbey Island that I'd love to add to this list. If this message is sufficient to do so, yay! otherwise please let me know what I'd need to do to add my land.

Hi my name is Shahar, what's yours

I live in Seattle (in Ballard. Free Ballard! with the purchase of any Ballard of equal or lesser value) with my partner and their pets. I work from home at a terrible (small) tech company.

I bought some land on Whidbey Island, near the Greenbank post office, with the original intention of restoring a boat, and/or having workshop space. I've since developed a thought that permaculturing it would be a great idea/plan, but found that the timber was thick as the hair on the back of a dog, and for two years I chopped and I loggered, but I never got down to the soil. (that's a reference it's not true to reality)

I have had a driveway put in and had Professionals do site prep for a workshop building, and I bought one of those steel building kits (it's a nightmare, it's almost definitely not worth it, please ask me about it if you're thinking of buying one of these things) which exhausted all of my savings.

My near term plans for my property are to buy some kind of earth mover and use it to clear a bunch of space for gardens, septic systems, and a road to where the county is insisting my well has to be. If the land clearing goes well and I accumulate more savings, I will want to build a house, animal housing, fences, and possibly buy some of the neighbor's lands.

I've had a thought percolating that I feel like should be posted on here, hopefully someone can direct me to the correct forum, or maybe just tell me that I'm completely insane. Basically I was watching this guy on youtube -  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB00JHoTw1TeX82Qw8hoFLRJI89Us_jMw

He gets someone to give him a rotting pile of wood that used to be a boat, and he persuaded, I think, the same people to pay to truck the boat to his friend's yard where there's a workshop.
And then he cleans out the workshop and builds a shed for the boat and buys at least a hundred thousand dollars worth of lumber, I think mostly with patreon money, and films the whole process of rebuilding the boat, with some volunteers and some permablitz/barn raising type parties. And it's not super clear what the arrangement is with the friend who's yard and workshop this is, but definitely part of it is that he watches their animals when they're away and he does some small woodworking projects for them, and I suspect that the major insane cleanout/cleanup of the workshop was part of the deal.
And the thing is that I have some land and a workshop, and like, I would happily buy more tools for my workshop for someone who wanted to come work on some crazy project on my land, in exchange for like, doing some clearing on the land and watching my animals when I'm away (I don't have animals because I don't have anyone to watch them when I'm away, and also because I don't have enough cleared land to put up a fence) and maybe helping with some of my permaculture projects.

And I'm wondering if there's like, a matchmaking service/forum for people who have resources that could be used to complete projects and people who have the time/energy/drive/projects/desire to speedrun some SKIP badges. Does this belong in the landshares forum? Sort of?

If you have a van build out or a car restoration or a boat restoration or a boat you want to build from scratch or a bb that you'd really like to complete that requires like, a bunch of space, or a workshop, on Whidbey Island (the best place on earth), let me know! Especially if you want to like, help me build a cabin or a road or a septic system to make your projecting more comfortable/easier.

All the best anyway, happy to be here where I can get envious of all y'alls permaculture projects and installations.

In practical reality, I have plenty of under 200sqft (ergo not needing permits) buildings to build to use most/all of whatever alder I don't want to use for furniture, cabinets, moulding, floors, hugels, woodchip paths, etc

I was just very annoyed to read that specific bit of the code - I generally have very little libertarianism in me but being told I can't build what I want on my land out of my trees brought all of it out of me at once

black walnut's allelopathy is a myth.
https://pubs.extension.wsu.edu/do-black-walnut-trees-have-allelopathic-effects-on-other-plants-home-garden-series

I've done a bit of research into this in Island County. I think Whidbey Island might be the best place in the world, especially if the aging hippies in Ebey's Reserve get their way and shut down the naval base, which seems pretty likely.
It is, as far as I can tell, basically impossible to get around the requirement for a septic system. Even if you never use it, and have composting toilets or whatever else, you must have the correct amount of drainfield for your bedrooms. Ditto wells, you can have as much rainwater collection as you want and it doesn't matter because you must have a well to legally live in a place and get an occupancy permit, and there are neighbors who will be assholes about it.
Another thing that's making me insane - as far as I can tell, it's illegal for me to build any permitted structure out of the dying alder trees on my property. For a structure to be within code, it must be made of graded and stamped lumber. It is possible to hire a grader to come out to your property and stamp your fir, or ceder, or pine, or hemlock, but no "hardwoods".

I suspect that there are a lot more of these little tidbits that I'm not thinking of but might come to mind if you want me to look at any land you're thinking of buying. Particularly if you're cool and want to buy land near mine on Whidbey. 🙂