Charles ABatey

I'll check it out, thanks for the heads up!

My name is Charles Batey and I am an aspiring forestry student at UC Berkeley. I am looking for some hands on experience in permaculture based agroforestry techniques (alley cropping, silvopasture, and other permaculture based techniques of harvesting from woodlands).

I will have two segments of roughly one month long in which I could work this coming summer (2011). I will be available from June 20-July22 or from July 25-Aug 19. I realize these are somewhat shorter than may be typical for work trade situations, however I already am obligated for the weekends before, after, and in between those dates.

I am a hard and smart worker and am approaching this situation with knowledge gained as a much higher priority than money made, so assuming adequate learning opportunities are available, i will require minimal if any pay. I am aware that within the WWOOF organization, room and board with a very minor stipend if any is pretty typical and i would be willing discuss something of that like.

I live in the north bay of San Francisco and thus anything around there would be extremely convenient, however I am quite willing to travel pretty much anywhere in English speaking North America if the educational opportunity presents itself.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post, and if you or anyone you know sounds compatible, please let me know.

Charles Batey

Howdy, I am interested in the opportunity to get some hands on training in the wide variety of applications of agroforestry and permaculture minded woodland management. I live in the San Francisco Bay area and was wondering if anyone knew of any organizations or farms or individuals with expertise that might offer some sort of formal hands on training. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Charles Batey

I started a thread in a different topic of this forum, however I felt it was relevant to this section as well. Please follow the link below. Thank you very much for your time.

https://permies.com/permaculture-forums/4553_0/wwoof-organic-farm-volunteersinternsjobs/looking-for-san-fran-area-wwoofwork-exchange

I started a thread in a different section of a site, however I felt it was relevant to this topic as well. Please follow the link below. Thank you.

https://permies.com/permaculture-forums/4553_0/wwoof-organic-farm-volunteersinternsjobs/looking-for-san-fran-area-wwoofwork-exchange

My partner, Cori Ann, and I are moving to the San Francisco area in August for work and school respectively. I will be attending the Regenerative Design Institute and will thus only be in school 2 days a week. I would like to fill my free time by continuing my permaculture education in a hands on environment and am looking to trade work for a room for the two of us. I must insist on a private room, however shared bathrooms are not a problem.

I recognize that typical WWOOF stays are only a few weeks or months, however I am looking for lodging from Mid-august to at least the end of May. I am a very hard and smart worker and would be very happy to help with any wintertime projects since the harvest season will be over as well as planting in the spring. I know that typically WWOOFers get room and board in exchange for their stay but I am somewhat picky with diet and intend to buy a decent portion of my food, and thus do not expect to factor food in as a significant portion of the work exchange.

Due to working a full time job Cori will not be able to commit any set amount of hourly work per week, however she can be expected to fill in where she can, and I ought to have enough free time to work some of her work hours. Due to this, I would be willing to discuss paying some sort of rent, however I would greatly prefer a work based exchange.

Also, we have an extremely well behaved 2.5 year old golden retriever who lives very well indoors and out, is very friendly with people (especially children), other dogs, and other animals of all sorts. He can be kept in a room while we are not there if it is thought he might be a problem, but sadly his presence is not negotiable.

I know this may seem like a lot of terms, however I hope that I can appeal to someone who might be looking for PDC trained, able bodied, enthusiastic help. We are clean, friendly, and quiet people who would really like to get to know you and your farm and help out wherever we can. As mentioned above, I am quite open to negotiation of necessary hours and possible monetary supplementation, also we aren't looking for anything fancy, simply some privacy, a roof over our head, and the opportunity to learn and increase our social capital in a time when it matters most.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration. Feel free to directly message me if you have any questions of a less public nature (dunno what those would be, but just in case)

I am in the process of designing my own earth sheltered/underground house and I have been considering a variety of methods. The wofati design detailed by Paul Wheaton http://www.richsoil.com/wofati.jsp has helped greatly in refining my design. However, I am curious as to how design and evaluate the structural needs of the roof. I would like to do all the work myself with minimal modern materials, sticking with on site lumber and dirt as much as possible. So if anyone has any expertise on structural geometry, or knows of any good publications, i would appreciate the input. Thanks

there are some studies that have been linked elsewhere on this site that talk about how sand of a certain size (16grit) can be a barrier to termites because it is too big for the termites to easily haul away, and not big enough to support tunnel structures spontaneously on its own. This technique is supposedly used in surrounding foundations, or other areas where wood is in contact with soil. I forget the suggested thickness, but basically since you would want these areas to be as dry as possible anyway to prevent rotting, you would have to engineer a dry space via hill slow, ditches, french drains, or what have you. then surround your buried wood with this 16 grit sand , and the termites, according to this study, wouldn't be able to get through. i will try to find the link that i saw earlier and repost it on this thread.

so my thought was that if you mixed some diatomaceous earth with this sand barrier, it would be an added safeguard. so if the termites do find a weak spot where they could haul away sand or get it to form tunnels, they would also find DE in that spot, further limiting their expansion. And with regard to the wetness issue, as i mentioned before, you are going to want these areas to be as dry as possible anyway, so hopefully there will be limited moisture to mess with them. also since the sand would naturally drain well, it ought to dry out quickly.

i dont know if becoming wet then re-drying affects the effectiveness of DE but it seems to me since the stuff is formed by little ocean creatures in the first place, that even if water while present limits their effectiveness, once the water is gone (dried up) it shouldnt have permanently altered their structure. (of course the possibility exists that due to their microscopic structure, and water's incredible attractive strength at such scale that once wet it may take a very long time for the individual diatoms to become dry, even if the surrounding environment is. This is only speculation, i have no expertise in this matter, just trying to think of all angles)

So anyway, I have not tried this, nor have I tested the sand barrier method alone, simply read about it. However it just seemed to me that it might be a good fit. All just theoretical, any refinement would be welcome. and if anyone is in a position to test this theory, i would love to hear how it worked out, because alas i am not currently able to test it myself.

this seems like it would be particularly good against termites. possibly combined with the sand barrier tactic as an added precaution, any thoughts