So they fed cow poop to cows. If the cows that pooped were eating naturally. If they were eating the finest, healthiest, most organic vegetation, would their poop be better to eat?
Do the cows, or guinea pigs, or whatever animals, have enough common sense to not eat something that might kill them? I guess if they had a choice they would eat the safe, healthy stuff.
I also read that guinea pigs keep mice and rats at bay.
I think it would make a great guild plant to use with apple trees. It wouldn't compete for light with them. Real hardy, I could plant it near the driveway. Nitrogen fixer too. Shelters wildlife. Edible fruit.
I wonder if there is any utilitarian use for sea berry? Anyone got info?
Public schools, like y'all said, suck. But I think there are some great things about public schools, at least the public schools I went to in California. One was the diversity of kids. I met people from Finland, Switzerland, Africa, and Italy. Exchange students and what not. Not to mention the hispanic kids. I learned about different cultures by making friends.
Also, when I came home from school and told my parents about all the stuff my rich friends had, it opened up opportunities for my mom and dad to teach lessons. When I asked my mom for 100 dollar shoes after seeing a buddy wearing them, she told me that it doesn't matter what shoes I wore, as long as they functioned and I was comfortable.
The other was a class I took called "Futures." THis guy, Mr. Anello, had us read Alas Babylon, Brave New World, Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5, Farenheit 451, amongst others. He really got us thinking about what life might be like in the future.
Do they learn by hitting themselves or are they told that? Can common sense be learned, or is it in our genes? Common sense DNA?
Education is the tool. If you learn the skills and practice them, I think your chances of surviving in the woods are greater than someone who goes to the mall twice a month to get their nails done.
There is something to be said for knowledge, though. If you know your wild plants you will have an upperhand in a survival situation.
That is pretty impressive. I suppose concrete's not so bad, if it's artistic like that. Have the posts for the underground house in sunken concrete, but shape a table or a stand of concrete above the ground and have them connect.
What if you were all the way underground but just dug out more earth around the house? More light getting in the house, a space for a garden, space for a greenhouse.
They do not allow dogs up here because they want to attract the wildlife. We have asked if we can get a great pyr and were shut down. What if I put a bunch of sea buckthorn around the food forest?
A bunch of bricks might be good. I think if you still want it portable, it might be nice to have one solid weight at the bottom. A nice piece of wood perhaps?
I agree. Gonzalez is awesome. Kids have "The Beginner's mind". I think that is what he called it. I am learning survival skills now. I know what you mean by the illusion. We know how to do something, so we think we can do it. "If I had to, I could do it."
This stuff takes practice. I try to start a fire by friction at least twice a week. In the Pacific Northwest, it is wet out. Very wet. It gets pretty technical starting fires out here. Tough, but it can be done.
That is just fire! Making stone tools, building shelter. Knowing wild plants and their uses is huge. Eating insects a few times a week helps too.
My roommate is a fun-guy. I will show him tomorrow. I think I have seen that before, but I am not sure. He will probably know, and if he doesn't, he'll find out.
The few I know and love are the Chantrelles (we have a few patches in our woods, we tend them) and the King Boletus. The big fat, portly things. Good eats!
The rule of threes. Now, this is an approximation. A human can survive 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without temp. regulation, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food.
If I were in a survival situation, that is the order I would go about setting up camp.
Get away from the city, then build Shelter and fire, then fetch water (fire to purify it), and finally food.
I've heard of the taste test, and I think it is a great method. Natives just asked the plants if it were okay to eat them.
I think it would reduce the moisture attacks. Could you staple that plastic to the sides of the frame as well? It might cut off all moisture to the house.
I didn't even think about the moisture on the wall. Thanks Sue.
That was great Kelda. "just wishing I were living in a time where I could feel good about having a child, like the earth actually wanted it." I love it.
The primitive skills. I am in school for just the thing now. The school's website is www.wildernesscollege.com
I am beginning to feel more at home out in the woods. We've learned some great great stuff. Making friction fires, building shelters, wrapping cordage, stone tools, etc.
A little light on the hunting and trapping, but at the end of the year we have a one week survival trip. Like our final exam.
Well, nobody that lives up here now has a diesel-run vehicle. The parking spots are not too close to the food forest zone.
I will talk up the wire mesh method with my roommates and landlord. It is hard when renting. It is a "community" we live in here. We are students of permaculture, with projects for this land. They want me to design a food forest, but the landlord wants "pretty" hedge-like plants along the driveway.
I feel like MY project and MY design are tainted a bit. Any ideas?
I think I will try a few from the pits and see how they do. My next question on this topic. WHat can I do to increase the existing peach tree's productivity and prevent peach leaf curl?
Everything that everyone else said is true. I will add a few more.
Baneberry is deadly poisonous as well as False Hellebore. Hellebore can be medicinal when treated. Also, almost all of the buttercups around here (Ranunculus spp) are poisonous. The Nightshade thing... I've seen a plant in the forest behind our house called European Bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara). This is a relative to deadly nightshade. Beautiful flowers and berries. From what I have read, one berry won't kill you (as with most poisonous plants) but many probably will.
Another plant to avoid is Snowberry. Little white snowball fruits are poisonous, though one or two are said to settle the stomach.
There are more. I went through each page of Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, by Jim Pojar and Andy Mackinnon, and wrote down nearly every species (minus grasses). Time consuming, but now I have an organized list of wild plants and their uses/drawbacks.
I made a basket, my first basket, a few weeks ago. It is subtle, but works really well. I used the inner bark of western red cedar, and twined it with sweetgrass (coastal rush species). There is one strip of cherry bark in it for some pizazz. Willows supposedly are awesome too.
Have babies really been aborted from evergreen tea? I would hope my professor would tell me that while telling me all the great things about doug fir infused water.
I wonder if the evergreen tea drunk that resulted in baby death was a decoction?
Regardless, I will keep that info. in mind, and only drink it occasionally.
That is an excellent idea with the garbage cans. After I posted yesterday, my brand new roommate walked in. I learned that his job is installing gutters! He is working for a woman getting new gutters, and she has a huge pile of the old ones. My fingers are crossed.
Has anyone heard of using limestone or marble in the bottom of a tank to purify water? That is different than distillation, right? Would that be more beneficial than distillation?
Wow. That does sound simple. I think its worth a try.
I didn't think to say it on my last post, but the garden is right next to the driveway. I was thinking that I could plant something that would also buffer the emissions from vehicles to the edibles in the garden bed. Stacking functions ya know. 1) emissions buffer 2) deer deterrant/feed 3) utility plant or coppice? 4) Dynamic accumulator 5) N2 fixer?
However, this is great information, Sue. I appreciate it.
My next question is: are there any ways of doing a water sample to see what kind of neat matter is floating in our rain water?
We have a big forest to the east of our property. Do those trees evapotranspire any good stuff into the atmosphere which might fall on our land as rain?
I am creating a guild for a food forest right next to our driveway. Fencing is probably not an option. I was wondering if there were any thick perennials that either deter or feed deer and successfully keep them out of gardens?
It probably needs to be tall and thick, maybe thorny?
Our cook has been experimenting. We would rather not have a ton of cane sugar in our breakfast bakes. He used apple sauce today and was disappointed when the bread finished cooking. It was more of a flan than bread. It tasted fan-dam-tastic, but for textures sake, are there any other dry sweeteners to use? Anything anyone has grown themselves?
I've read that natives in the PNW used the resin of white birch as a teeth cleaning gum. It contains zylitol, a disinfectant found in many toothpastes nowadays. It is also used widely in Finland as a natural teeth cleaner.
It might be good to have some white birch on your property for dental hygeine. But that's not all... the resin reportedly has some terpenes in it, which may give you a buzz.
Stack those functions: get wasted and brush your teeth all at the same time!
I haven't heard of anyone using the blossoms medicinally. I would assume some of the medicinal qualities found in the roots and leaves are found in the flowers, but I am not sure.
Has anyone used oregon grape root as a footwash for athlete's foot?
So there are these packets available nowadays in grocery stores. They are called emergen-C. Basically sugar with a ton of vitamin c in it. They sell for 8.99 per box!
I've been studying up on medicinal herbs and such. I learned that a handful of douglas fir needles has the equivalent in vitamin C to 7 navel oranges! We have a few doug firs outside the house. I have been stripping the needles, putting them in water fresh of the boiler, and letting them sit for a few hours (even overnight). The result is great tasting, vitamin C packed water.
Pine trees like white pine and shore pine also have loads of vitamin C.
I just moved to Western Washington from California a few months ago, and haven't gotten a cold yet (knock on fir-wood)
I have not read collapse. It sounds interesting. A book I have read on this topic is Thomas Berry's The Dream of the Earth. It's verbose, but full of excellent insights and observations. He talks about business, and the "heart and soul" of a particular company. He goes on to say that the sole purpose of a business is to manipulate someone into buying their product. It is very interesting, especially in the food industry. I work for a grocery store and witness this phenomenon often.
I thought about that too. The big trees near the trailer. How big does Pecan get to be? The Locusts can get big. THere is another question. How do you regulate how large a tree grows? Will simple pruning do the trick?
We don't get a lot of wind here, and locust is pretty sturdy. I doubt it would fall, but it might not be worth chancing it.
Does anyone have a dripline on the side of their house (or trailer)? I rent, and the landlord is not going to pay for gutters. Neither am I. Has anyone caught rainwater dripping off the length of their roof line?
An even better question, does anyone have their own water collection, storage, and purification system set up?
It seems to me that this is an important issue in creating a PERMAculture site. Mollison's chapter on water is amazing.
