“She said: Two healthy strong adults if they truly busted theirs all day, could pound three tires in 8 hours. That you had to put over 3 wheelbarrows of dirt into that tire and pound pound pound it in (15" car tire) with sledge hammers and it worked best if two were working on the same one, hitting alternating blows. Cost overruns, yes. Even though they scrounged most of the wood, lights, wiring, fixtures; it wasn't $5 a square foot.“
A few points, I’m building an earthship right now. I’m doing it myself. No help. Just me. I’m 54 years old a d not an athlete.
I can pound up to 12 tires a day. They never take more than 1 and 1/2 wheel barrows of clay/dirt (that I use) and I use the larger tires. It would be better to have two people per tire. Things would go way faster.
What I know, if you have professionals with all the right tools, skills and logistics, things go very fast and end up working very well. If you do things yourself and prototype ideas, it takes longer, there are changes, repairs and it costs more.
Every time I go to Earthship Biotechture in Taos, we spend the night in one of the earthships. They are amazing and they work. Every climate in the world is a little to a lot different, so the earthships are adjusted to that climate.
At the end of the day, people seem to be lying or very inept and that is hurting the opinions of the uninitiated to technologies that are potentially the most important ones.
I hope that people go learn from those that know what’s being built and like permacukture, take special care to learn how to make the adjustments for specific climate conditions. Learn how to do this most efficiently and least expensively.
Jocelyn Campbell wrote:Reviving this thread because it's awesome! Have you made a similar Christmas tree in the years since this post, Alex?
Great to hear from you again! Yes, we continue to use this same tree. It doesn't seem to have a shelf-life. Still trucking along just as good as day one. We just pull it out from being a chair where it stays year-'round, hook it to the ceiling, plug it in and voila. Christmas!
All of our Christmas presents use Christmas bags from years gone by, so there's very minimal waste. Running the LED lights (since it's in the 80F temps here in December and we don't need extra heat) off of solar (nickel Iron batteries) helps with that too ;)
If there's a movie that belongs on this list, please let us know.
How about:
Dawn of the dead 1978 (not just a zombie movie)
Day of the triffids (British versions from the 90s or the 2000s)
Five (1951)
Glen and Randa
Mad max
Malevil (French language only :(
Miracle mile
Panic in year zero
Road warrior (80s)
Survival zone
The world the flesh and the devil
Target earth
Terminator
Testament
Threads (dark, but realistic)
War of the worlds (50s version)
Where have all the people Gone (freaked me out when I was a kid)
Michael Buck wrote:I am an off grid lifer, been here 17 years won't ever, willingly, choose to go back. We electrified 11-12 years ago with 24v Trojan L-16HC. I was quite careful with my maintenance and that bank lasted me nine years of daily cycling. However, the last 6 months were dismal at best. Anyway, I mention the history as it is my only defense against ignorance about batteries. No science understanding, just seat of the pants daily charge and discharge.
A couple years ago, when replacement was needed, we decide on Iron Nickel and on Iron Edison as the dealer. I cannot say enough positive things about Brandon and Maggie Williams (owners of Iron Edison). Stellar individuals that really have there customers in mind and do ALL they can to help and ensure the product is understood and performing properly. I do love my batteries and I think the payoff will come but, obviously, that is along time from now. I have a neighbor with IN cells and we have fiddled and think we have found the sweet spot for DOD cycling parameters and it requires a more detailed description about what happens when you pass ~40-50% discharge. We have noticed that the cells discharged below 50% all the way to 80% discharge behave in line with the literature. That is, they will recharge and show no damage. They will fully recharge, however, the amount of energy to recharge the the 50-80% portion of the deep discharge is much greater than the energy required to recharge 30% on the top 40-50%. That is the only qualification I feel that the literature/information needs. You can deep discharge without damage but it will cost you to smile at the e-meter again.
Since we have backed off to a 40% discharge we are seeing stronger performance easier charging cycles and with an occasional overcharge the performance is fantastic. Water consumption is higher but even that has been largely mitigated with a slightly more gentle treatment.
Hey, do you know what would happen if you let the batteries run low on water? Anyone?
Alex Ojeda wrote:Was this supposed to come in as an email? I seem to have missed it. What do I do to get my stuff
You were sent one email for each item.
Further, there are some instructions earlier about alternative ways to find the stuff that you now have access to: I just went to your ledger and saw the list of all your things - so you definitely have access.
What email was it sent from? I'm doing searches my emailer and I'm not finding anything. Thank you for the help
I am not certain. I think it comes from something at permies.com.
Search for "gir bot"
Thank you Paul! OK, I've looked and I find a few things that did come in. The Rocket canning forge, the Sepp Holzer podcast and the PDC notes. I had already gotten those. Nothing else. Is there a way to get a re-send of the links?
Alex Ojeda wrote:Was this supposed to come in as an email? I seem to have missed it. What do I do to get my stuff
You were sent one email for each item.
Further, there are some instructions earlier about alternative ways to find the stuff that you now have access to: I just went to your ledger and saw the list of all your things - so you definitely have access.
What email was it sent from? I'm doing searches my emailer and I'm not finding anything. Thank you for the help
r ranson wrote:A few weeks ago, some people on the internet really pissed me off. I went to a forum (not permies) to ask a very specific question about a project I wanted to make. In response, I got hammered with a crap-load of everything I'm doing wrong and how my whole project is impossible.
This kind of behaviour in public really bothers me. It's not just that the poor poster will turn around and give up on their dream, but the hundreds or thousands of people reading that thread won't ever try it. They will warn their friends about how impossible it is. That it can't be done.
The funny thing is, humans, have been doing exactly this thing I wanted to do since... well you know that whole agriculture thing that someone thought up; take that day and go back three times as far, and you're almost there. We've been doing this thing since then all the way through to the 1970s when suddenly - poof! - it is now impossible and everyone stopped doing it. Everyone except the rest of the world who didn't know any better and kept on doing it.
Thanks to the internet, I now know that it is impossible. So what do I do about it? Do I scream? Do I stalk these people online and tell the world how horrible they are? Do I sit and sulk?
Nope.
I turn off my computer.
It's been off for about two weeks now. Every night, for about 4 hours a night, I do the impossible.
I go to my sheep and ask him for some wool.
I take this wool and spin it into yarn.
The yarn I make is handspun singles (which means it is unplyed). This is the type of yarn that cannot be used for weaving because it is too sticky and weak. The internet is animate on this "known fact".
I take this yarn and I put it on my loom. I abuse it in every way, putting impossibly tight tension on it, beating it harshly, all the things that must never be done to non-commercial non-synthetic yarn.
I have less problem with my handspun yarn than I've ever had with any commercial yarn.
It's turned into beautiful fabric and I can't wait to make clothing with it.
My anger at these people is now transformed into proving them wrong. By now, I've forgotten who it was I was so angry at. I'm not even angry at them anymore because I have a beautiful fabric and I have loads of photos and I know at least two magazines that like my writing style and may be interested in publishing my story which will inspire people to stop believing the 'truth' about handspun yarn and start making their own beautiful clothing.
All this because of what I learned on permies: How to make the world a better place instead of being angry at bad guys.
Thank you everyone here for being so awesome!
Wow! All I can say is that this post, that wool and that super sweet little lamb is just the best thing that I've read and seen for a long time. Thank you for sharing R Ranson! I would LOVE to have some wool like that. Maybe one day I'll get a little sheep that super sweet loom and support your Natural Wool Cloth Making 101 Kickstarter video. Hint, hint. Love to you from "Southest" Georgia.
brandon gross wrote:Thank you sir. Sorry to ask, but how would one find his contact info? I see he is part of your amazon store, and his name pops up a hunderd times on the forum search but contact info.
Brandon, I think I have one left. Contact me here for info. Thanks for the heads up Paul. alex@starwalkerproject.com
I'm building a tiny house Earthship and am planning the floor. What materials have you guys made your floors with? I'm thinking I have to do a layer of cement because here, anything, and I mean anything that is out in the ground will either have a root up in it, but especially some insect burrowing through it. I'm thinking of trying to put a layer I've cob over this to make it more human friendly.
Wow, thank you Erica. Great info! Is there anywhere that all of this is shown in photos? I'd love to see how you professionals do the whole system. I see videos, but the details of everything are obscured. I always have questions like, "what would you call that" and "how did they do that?"
I really appreciate this and any other help in my building of my first RMH.
P.S. I built the double chamber cob oven from your plans and it's been fantastic!
Hey, could someone help me to figure out the safest way to connect two barrels together. I see the use of a manifold in many rocket mass heaters, where a second barrel is cut down and connected to the bottom of the riser barrel. I'd love to know what is done to make this happen safely. A fire-proof gasket? A special strap? What would these things be called?
Thanks to Paul Wheaton (like a lot of things), I was introduced to Mike while we were making the Permaculture Playing Cards. Mike was a character. He was so easy going. Later, Mike asked me to help him to do his next two book covers. He asked me what I would charge him. I told him I'd do them for free (the secret Super cool guy/senior citizen/awesome permie discount). He was very thankful. We did the covers and he was very happy. That made me very happy too. I was thrilled to be able to help Mike. It had been a while since I heard back from him. I'm under the impression that the books are being printed. I only hope that someone gets them out. They would be another two great pieces of Mike's legacy. He's an indelible part of so many of our lives. Like the super-cool, crazy uncle that we all should have!
One thing I'd like to say. I hope that we all can take his example and create something that really works and that anyone, anywhere can do. That we will spread the word about what Mike and others like him are sharing. In this way, they live on...
Mike, show the good folks in the afterlife how to do it right
Polly Oz wrote:What fun, love your designs. The candy skull is seems to be a popular motif at the moment and should get the wearer a second look.
It's winter here, anything long sleeved? I'd really, really love one of your designs on one of their aprons; they seem to have a large, useful pocket.
I can actually order from Spreadshirt as their shipping for international is very reasonable, which isn't often the case.
Polly, I have some warm stuff in there now. Sorry about the apron, but I can't get this particular item to work. It won't let me print them. Still trying though.
Support Permies.com and help promote to word of Permaculture! Here are some better shots of the tees. You can change the shirt color. The design comes in white and tan (including the slogan on the back). One will look better on different color tees and the other will look better on others. Check them out to see what works for you. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
Everything about this thread is sexy and exciting! I mean WOOD! Hopefully, in the future, you'd have coppice trees to use to build more and more. In the meantime, the trees that you wish to remove make great building materials! It's really looking great. Looking forward to hearing about the temp differences in hot and cold weather. Humidity inside compared to outside. It really does look awesome!
I really appreciate the logo discussion here. Being the artist, I'm kinda the last word on what I do. Anyone is welcome to do what they want to do and Paul can use what he wants. I've included what I think works best for what Paul and I have discussed and a few of the suggestions in the thread.
Some notes, the skin of the person is the same as the background. I already have too many colors in there as it is. I think the font of the P is exactly what we were looking for. I like the permies.com to be written out completely and by itself under the logo. It keeps the branding simple and solid. Oh, and I really liked the old logos with the sickle, RMH and others too. They were my attempt to have lots of different cool things in the logo and revolve like the Google logo does. The branding would be the distressed typewriter font of permies.com.
Hey everyone, This is Alexander. I was thinking that there's got to be a way to get the message of Permaculture's awesomeness out to people via your chest If I could get some cool designs that inspire people to say, "what is that?" when they see your tee, I'd have done my job. So, I've signed up with a service that allows me to design tees, upload them, choose the kind of tee that they are printed on (Organic is an option... more expensive and only two or three colors) and offer them for sale. I don't make very much per shirt, but I don't have to lose my mind like the last time we tried this. Some of you may remember the Weeds tees days. Well, if they sell like hot cakes, I'll be able to dig my pond and finish my Earthship "tiny house" Hut!
I hope that you like them and I also dream about your sharing them far and wide with as many people as you can.
Here's what it's like with the arms free. I like this one better.
The fists on the hips is nothing more than representing determination and an understanding that we have a lot of work to do. I see no violence in this at all. When Paul asked me to work up this idea it was with the idea that this was a superhero, that's what superheros seem to do. I hope you like it.
Originally this was more of a graphic for the website with logo potential. It was supposed to embellish the social media logo that we all worked on. I've been doing logos for decades and purposefully did what I did due to the circumstances. That's on me. I hope that we can work on this together to make it perfect like we did the social media logo. I hope you like it.
We have used it to seal the tops of jars. Just to store in the fridge. I'd like to see what would happen with hot liquids like a canning process. Need to try that next time.
So, I wear my clothes for many days before washing ( don't use deodorant, soap nor shampoo and nobody smells me... I ask... even my wife ), my mother hangs her clothes in her garage with the doors open for a cross breeze, I live in Florida! What I was thinking about was putting up a greenhouse to dry my clothes because in Florida, it could be a bright and sunny day and while you were inside, it rained! Another great Idea I had was to take the Solar Dehydrator from the 3 of Diamonds in the permaculture deck and make it a water-proof solar clothes dryer. I noticed that Scott Patrik mentioned this above (props Scott).
Here's a quickie drawing of what that would look like. I hope that more of us can find better ways to clean clothes and dry them. Happy New Year!!!
If I could get some cool designs that inspire people to say, "what is that?" when they see your tee, I'd have done my job. So, I've signed up with a service that allows me to design tees, upload them, choose the kind of tee that they are printed on (Organic is an option... more expensive and only two or three colors) and offer them for sale. I don't make very much per shirt, but I don't have to lose my mind like the last time we tried this. Some of you may remember the Weeds tees days. Well, if they sell like hot cakes, I'll be able to dig my pond and finish my Earthship "tiny house" Hut!