Charles Tarnard wrote:My snath is probably a bit small for me at 6'2", but even with that I can tell you a curved snag is going to be the way to go. It allows you to swing without doing much body twisting or bending and over the course of the job that is cumulative strain you are avoiding.
I think a straight snath would force you to use it like a rake or do a lot of bending and that's not near as efficient.
Thanks, now I need to find some instructions on how to make a curved snath, its dimensions and so on. Any ideas?
Sorry, if I were to take the time to work a new one for me it would be little better than guesswork. I can tell you you want the handles to be reasonably level, to have your arms be able to hang loosely at cutting height and the blade to be turned up just a bit in the direction of the cut, but how to get that into a shape is a bit of a mystery without the trial and error.
My snath is probably a bit small for me at 6'2", but even with that I can tell you a curved snag is going to be the way to go. It allows you to swing without doing much body twisting or bending and over the course of the job that is cumulative strain you are avoiding.
I think a straight snath would force you to use it like a rake or do a lot of bending and that's not near as efficient.
I think you'll have a hard time getting the blade sharp enough with a file, unless it is super fine. I use a hand file to retouch while I use the scythe and a stone to sharpen mine between a handful of uses, and while it's not the best it works well enough for as little as I use it. I don't have much experience with grinding wheels.
Thank you Charles. What kind of stone do you use to sharpen and how do you do it? The American Scythe Primer from Baryonix Knive mentions that a puck axe stone could also be used instead of or together with the file. Is that what you use?
No, it's just a generic two sides stone I got at an Ace hardware. I think it's 500/1000 grit. Rectangular, about 2x4x1 or so.
Boatloads of compost. That's the only long term success I've had without constant vigilant attention (which pretty much means it's the only long term success I've had).
Search electrolysis rust removal. I haven't done it, but I've seen results and it's pretty fantastic.
I think you'll have a hard time getting the blade sharp enough with a file, unless it is super fine. I use a hand file to retouch while I use the scythe and a stone to sharpen mine between a handful of uses, and while it's not the best it works well enough for as little as I use it. I don't have much experience with grinding wheels.
I should clarify that anything around 5 feet tall or taller can deal with the sun, but anything shorter than three feet seems to be living the high life in some shade. It's like many of them adapted to being short and making the most of it or something.
It's pretty sweet . It's hard to know how much of that success is due to the compost vs. the guild. Although I've noticed that most any area around my yard that gets dappled shade is pretty happy. My plum hasn't always provided a ton of shade to its guild, which I think causes those to struggle more than some other areas.
Again, I'm just making stuff up based on only a few years of experience. It's probably all untrue .
My pears have strawberry, asparagus, fennel, sunflowers, borage, chard, rhubarb, and dandelion all in pretty close proximity to each other doing really well. All the perennials are new (within the last two to three years). The pear was planted into grass and the next season I covered the whole area with finished compost.
My plum is paired with onions, tulips, and blueberries and has not ever done as well. The plum was planted into grass and the area was covered with paper then wood chips. The wood chips have mostly mulched down, and the plum is fruiting now, but nothing else is doing great.
Thanks everyone. Gives me a little more to think on. I only really need the water in the summer so diverting to sewer might be the best thing in the short term, although I am notorious for forgetting those types of things until the cursing begins.
My biggest concern about getting a gray water system going for my plants is having the water freeze up in the pipes outside causing it to back up into the house. Is there a standard methodology for mitigating this?
Lazy winter. But pretty green things are getting me off my butt.
Did a thing today. I've never thought of spirals as the most effective way to make things grow, but they look nice and I have a bunch of huge rocks that are in the way elsewhere so...
For me, it's not just the scythe, but almost any properly sharpened blade. It's satisfying to watch blades, leaves, or whatever else fall silently to the ground. After so many years busting out heavy motorized tools that needed all kinds work and maintenance to keep them going for 5 to 7 years before they were more cost effective to replace than repair - a simple, easy to maintain machine that lasts and lasts is a thing of joy.
If you're not looking for a manucured look, then a scythe can be used to keep the grass long. It takes a little practice and you'll probably scalp a few places on accident, but if the tool is properly sharpened it'll cut long. It's a little tricky to get a good cut in places where your swing will be shortened (around rocks, retaining walls, etc.).
If you want it to look really tight and uniform, I'd go with the Fiskars. I think you can learn to get that look with a scythe, but the learning curve is pretty steep and I'm certainly not there yet.
If you're super lazy like me and mow once every decade or so you can do both and top the longer bits with a scythe and then go over the whole thing with a reel mover to get a super even look without having the problem of the weeds laying down without getting cut.
EDIT::: I don't have any experience selecting a scythe. I purchased a used one that I presume is American (a little heavy, straight tang) for $15 and it's working for me just fine. I don't have a bunch of grass or wheat to cut so that isn't much of a consideration for me, but for my small space the American does fine.
One thing about this that is very important, is you never know how resourceful you are until you have to make something work.
I work in service and maintenance, and a joke my coworker says when we're trying to weigh the costs of time to get a tool vs time to fenegel it in, "Anybody can do it with tools!" It's a joke, but there's truth to it.
Anyone can do great things with money and time, but what can you do when those resources are strained? What can you learn? It's one of the most rewarding things to discover.
I really do think through what the worst thing that will happen is. I can get pretty outlandish trying to figure what will go wrong and how I would go about fixing it, but if I've gone that far and figured out THE WORST THING, I've never had a project go worse than planned for.
Edit::: It's the reason I haven't retrofitted my fireplace or installed my gray water yet; I don't think I can handle the worst case of those situations.
I like to ask myself, "What's the worst thing that's going to happen?" If the answer isn't that bad I'll go for it and see what happens. That hasn't failed me so far.
David Livingston wrote:Could it be that they are unhappy you are not playing the game ?
You are not following them into unhappyness and being conventional therefore you must be a bad person for rejecting what they see as the norms of society.
Keep up the good work I say
David
I saw this quote months ago and it kind of stuck in my craw then, but I wasn't able to put my discomfort into words. I think it can be somewhat dangerous to assume petty motives when there could be legitimate concerns.
Just because you don't possess the skills to separate a dangerous situation from an unfamiliar situation doesn't mean your motives are impure. While the following link does not represent the OP in any way it shows that sometimes there is reason to be concerned for the safety of children when their family has chosen to live a little differently.
What if you put casters on the door so the hinges didn't support the whole of the weight? The hinges hold the door vertical and allow rotation and the casters let it glide.
Edit::: or perhaps add a glide track of some sort.
More edit::: with a door as big as you're describing you could build said caster right into the door, leaving only an inch or so below the door. With a frame built to accommodate this it should seal right up. For wheel maintenance you could build a decorative access panel that just looks like woodwork.
Everything said above is correct, so if you understand those posts but not this post, then ignore this post.
Voltage is a measure of potential, or differential. With each 12v cell you have a difference of 12v from terminal to terminal.
When you put the terminals in series, you are increasing the differential from the most negative point to the most positive point (in other words, adding them up). In this case the cell with the lowest current capacity (the panel with the least sunlight, the battery that is weakest) limits the whole set in amount of current they can deliver.
When you put the cells in parallel, all the positive terminals are on the same point and all the negative terminals are on the same point so the difference across all the cells has to be the same as the difference across any one cell. In this case each cell can deliver current across the terminals in the same way so current capacity can be added up.
I think it is consumerism, or it is directly tied to consumerism. For most, everything in our society is something you buy finished. At most it's ready to assemble. And if you're willing to pay enough you can have anything right now.
So people work longer hours at their job so they can get that money and because they don't know how to live without that job, they don't know how to budget the time to learn how to do these things for themselves. Then when you tell them they'll need to practice for the rest of the season to get to a basic level of competence, you get the blank stare of desperation.
Anecdotally, I am relatively new to permaculture and I am having a real difficult time figuring out how to step away from my job with a wife that isn't really on board with the ideas of simplifying and reducing the need for grids and those kinds of support. I know that my current gardening, craft, and woodworking skills are such that I will most likely die if I just move to the middle of nowhere and try to live off the land. I can only imagine someone really idealizing the whole thing coming to the realization that living can be hard.
I think until you jump ship your best bet is to rally local support as best you can. Booting oil companies has been done in a few communities, it may yet be done in yours.
Do any of your neighbors share your view of the situation? Then snatch 'em up and get down to the county and let the officials know that you want to see the county pursue investment in water catchment.
Moving away isn't going to solve the problem in the area and if you run every time your local government does something you don't like you'll be running forever.
It's easy for me to say this as a guy who is terrible at networking and pursuing these kinds of changes, but the truth is the only way to change things is to get a large group of people together and lean.
3d printers are great for putting together things with precise measurements, especially in quantity. Amazing, in fact. They are not so good for fitting one off projects with hard to calibrate dimensions together, IMO.
Cj Verde wrote:Judith, have you never seen it before? Oy!
I have not...I am a little backwards that way, many years off grid with no screens at all.....and the movie at the drive in had to be extra special for us to make the trip to see something there. I know what you mean though, I've since caught up on many old movies and I know there are plenty of stereotypes perpetuated in them....and in many books...that are excellent reads with many passe stereotypes.
I guess that is what I am wondering...if there is so much that we notice in hindsight that was stupid thinking what will our labels and such look like several generations down the road?
Without having a magic 8 ball I'm guessing the 'All Muslims are terrorists' will be our most obvious gaffe.
Cassie Langstraat wrote:I guess I am not really scared of robots taking over the world, although I'm not saying the thought didn't cross my mind. It's more about the fact that it feels like the idea of factories building themselves sort of takes away the need for any humans. That kind of scares me.
We barely need humans without that setup. That's why everyone has a crappy service job dealing with your ineffective phone service or updating programming that still works flawlessly. If we had to build all the things we have by hand the labor shortage would be unimaginable.
I don't know that I'm ever happier than when I'm approaching the end of a project that I designed crafted and built myself. People that avoid those kinds of jobs/ projects are missing out.
I'm working them out. Like Leila, I've been quick to lump people that didn't vote like me into a big category with labels like dumb, uninformed, sheeple and the like.
When I started to notice people calling my side by the same names the epiphany hit me: we're not all that different from each other. We both see issues differently and we're both manipulated by our officials to draw these huge lines in the sand.
Ever since my goal has been to argue my beliefs and tell people to be nice to each other while staying away from blaming sides. I haven't convinced anyone yet .
I have other prejudices I'm not proud of, but I'm working as best as I know how to keep them in check and not pass them onto my children.
My back yard was replaced with Fleur De Lawn, which is a lawn mixture of grass, clover, yarrow, chamomile, and some other stuff I can't remember. I scythe it occasionally. When there's water it's the greenest lawn around, when there's drought it dries out. It's pretty hardy.
If I swing it right there will be no lawn in my front yard by this spring. It's really better this way.
Lawns are for space, the jungle is where you feed the neighborhood in the most beautiful way possible.
He has a chicken school where his chickens are trained in seven different disciplines. It's difficult to ascertain the effectiveness of the training, though, as the results are all obtained via standardized testing.
[/joke]
I'm of the belief that with rare exception people can learn most anything they need. People can also teach anything they know. Unfortunately, the right people need to be together for one to be able to teach the other worth a darn. It's very difficult to isolate genius, because it's not extracted the same from each person which can lead to it being overlooked.
Also, very often the genius meal comes with a pretty hefty side dish of crazy.
I have places where some crab grass is coming up, but mostly it's been smothered in the area where I put the compost. It's so fertile there that the grass really doesn't stand a chance.
I have kind of let it go a little (a lot). I've been stupid busy lately with kids soccer and before that just kind of whiny about the heat from endless summer. I tried soooooo hard to not need to water and all things considered did OK, but it's a little ugly right now . Even so, I'm not losing the battle to crab grass, just to a few quinoa and fennel that look thirsty.
If there is a low voltage system inside the unit, there will be a transformer inside changing voltage at all times. This is always going to be an inductive load.
100VA seems a little high for that, but I don't know much about your fridge or the Kill-a-Watt device. It's possible the resolution on the KAW isn't small enough to see a 20VA load; it could just report as 100VA. It's also possible there's enough stuff going on that it's actually drawing 100VA. 100VA isn't THAT much power when compared to most refrigeration circuits, so it's difficult to know.
. It's hard to know how much of that success is due to the compost vs. the guild. Although I've noticed that most any area around my yard that gets dappled shade is pretty happy. My plum hasn't always provided a ton of shade to its guild, which I think causes those to struggle more than some other areas.