leila hamaya

hey, welcome, good post =)
i can totally relate, change a few genders and names and details around, and i could tell a similar story....only like twenty more run on sentences later i did start getting my hands very dirty, and even managed to find some good people and scenes that were much more functional. hang in there!

just felt like saying hi, and i think thats a great thing if you can ground out the land situation near redding. that area, and especially even further north of there into siskiyou county ( and further trinity county too) are definitely my favorite parts of califonia, the most affordable too, though remote...i lived for quite a while in siskiyou, up in the klamath knot. it's a great place for permaculture, for sure, i would love to see a bunch of homesteaders flock there....

this is something that would be good to turn over to grant writers. grant writing is pretty hard, but someone with a knack for it could try their luck at grant writing proposals to fund such projects and restorations/transformations.

but yeah in response to all the other threads of topics on this thread, some things, many things are falling down, and many things are building up. you can focus on one or the other or both, but it's happening regardless. i suppose it's best to focus on the building up part....the whole rebirth of the phoenix phase...i will call it.

but yeah so very many things are on the verge or over the edge of complete collapse, due to the weight of it's own lack of integrity and sustainability..... best just to disengage as much from those systems so that you dont fall with it

like this girl too...although this too is a bit over the folk /country line...if there even is one. but technically the folky side of country =)

ah ok...in goof off you tube mode...y'all got me looking up gillian welch and some other folksy =)

but yeah this is more country to me than folk -->

have to admit country is not usually my cup of tea, but there are definitely some artists i like who have a bit of country flavor.
i guess i like country music when its real close to the folk music line, and especially neo folk...like indigo girls, bluegrassy stuffs, and of course jonny cash is like a genre all his own =)

so yeah idk if these are real country country...but country ish enough  for me =)











this is pretty much a classic -->

that sounds good, yeah you need a bit of extra space in your dye bath, so you have room to keep turning it and mixing it every once in a while for the dye bath.
i personally would not pre boil it, because you boil it afterwards, to get the wax out. thats the real chore i guess, is once you are finished you need to remove the wax.

you want to get as much as you can out of it, you keep scooping out the wax as you turn it on to boil, and maybe repeat bringing it up to boiling again and again.  after that i would often take all the work into the shower with me. this was the easiest to really work out the rest of the wax and dye, and you can stomp on it and keep working on it while you get a shower =)

i dont know if you use a dryer at home, but you want to have worked it over and over again before putting into a dryer. drying in the sun is always a good thing too.. the wax still in there will melt in the dryer and thats not good for your dryer.

with natural dyes, or even common cheap household dyes, you will likely get subdued colors. to get the vibrant awesome colors you pretty much have to resort to good dyes, and they can get expensive, and there a bit of on the intense chemical toxic side...but thats what brings the vibrant colors.. but the more mellow dyes can be nice too...i used to do ones like that with sort of tribal african sorts of designs...you know very geometric, triangles and lines and squiggles, repetitious simple patterns...and i think those went well with more earthy tones and mellow colored dyes...

then i would often make...scarves or simple cross body messenger bags or other things like that...sometimes simple clothing. mostly i would start with the garment already made, buy blanks in bulk. sometimes i would do a thirft shop stock up...i liked doing old camisoles and petticoats and funky slips and nighties and other thrift store stuff too...you can get these super cheap at thrift store and then upcycle them...and those go well with more pastels and lighter colors.

another important beginning tip, the basic gist of batik, is to start with your light colors first. especially when you get into multilayered batik. so you work your yellow and orange tones, or pinks or baby blues...and then eventually work your way to the darkest color...which is your last dye bath and the one that ties it together.

so you may start with golds and yellows and then unto deep browns and red last...or start with light greens and blues and eventually dye the last dye bath deep midnight blue daark green, or black. thats where you get the crackling effects that looks so cool...is a bit of the darkest color coming into the bottom layers and making cracking patterns...

yeah Batik is super fun. like all craft its time consuming and slow...depending on how many layers you put on as well. you can do simple one layer batik fairly quickly.

i've done quite a bit of it, and was one of my first crafty gigs for money, making Batik clothing and fabric.

we would buy dozens of blank white tee shirts, hoodies, skirts and especially tons of baby clothes, onesies and jumpers for kids then do one layer mostly...sometimes doing more elaborate pieces for hoodies and dresses and skirts. i even made a few small tapestry design pieces...but those take a lot more time and effort to do something elaborate.

anywho ask away...if you have questions, maybe i has answers =)

for doing it i would use a crock pot ( you know an electric slow cooker) dedicated just to wax. this is much easier than messing with double boiling your wax on the stove.
i would usually blend wax, like small percent beeswax with common cheap paraffin or whatevs....candle wax or soy wax even...and there's different blends. straight beeswax is a bit thick and also pricier.....so it's good to make a good blend with thick and heavy beeswax, and something lighter to make it flow..

you need a jaunting tool, and it's nice to have a few sizes...a big one for bold lines, and a thin one for detailing. the jaunting tool is a bit like a pen, with a hollow in it to scoop up wax into it to draw with. it's easy to make designs with that than  just a paint brush, though you will want to have a few brushes around and try that way.

i would do repeat designs on a light table. so once you have a good design, make a copy with sharpie and real thick, then use it on a light table to light up and trace your design onto fabric. this is how i did quick production type work. you can obviously do it free hand, but it's good to at least have a nice sketch to stick under your fabric and the light table make it easy to trace out the main elements.

you can also use stamps, any kind of stamp, or even objects...like an object that already is shaped enough like a stamp, or make mold from objects.
you can even make simple potato stamps, or some other available soft sculpty stuff...where you can engrave stamps with something. then keep dipping them in the hot wax and stamping out on your fabric.

well google isnt cooperative today, or i dont have the right keywords...but i did find one link i was thinking of --->

https://permies.com/t/49057/bricks-easy-adobe-home

from here...but yeah this is pretty sensible anyway, to form the bricks in place, and then keep moving the forms, a lot like slipstraw (LSC) or slipform stone.

you can make your forms so that there's a space between them for a layer of mortar in between each block, or do it with with sections of your bricks with no mortar in between (so infill, or load bearing with mortar). if you form them in place you can also make them really big.

and youve probably looked into soil crete of some kind, but a simple way to do soil crete on floors...is to get the dirt/subfloor or whatevers prepared....

once its prepared and level ish...throw around a lot of dry sand and cement right on the floor...then go through with a small tiller or other earth mixer gadget...doesnt need to be a jackhammer, but just a small tiller to mix up the dry ingredients you threw around with your local subsoil/subfloor materials. then moisten it as you go and tamp it down/smooth it at the end.

hey  this is cool =) good work. i love a good photo documenting =)

as for some of the things you are asking, my two cents is to to build the floor you are visioning, and then later after the basics are in, or if it doesnt work as intended, build another floor on top.
potentially thick sand with tile set on top, in this way you could consider adding a hot water loop under the floor for some gentle heating of the floor. but all this on top of your earth floor, or in a pinch -a good rug.

but anywho your plan for the floor sounds good, adding in a lot more sand and gravel if you can score it.

seems like you are working out some good recipes, and just to throw out one potential idea is you might look into a way to do movable forms. i guess a bit like LSC in that it's a slipform, but more along the lines of making the bricks in place. and inch by inch building upward, where you keep moving the forms . do as few or dozen in a day, wait for mostly dry ish, and keep on keeping on. i have seen some neat examples of this...i will see if i can round you up some links.

when i did some building with hempcrete, which yeah is very similar to what you are doing, we were doing bricks with a mortar matrix, which is good way to go.

SOME seeds can be put in the freezer, some even i find like it /are at least ok with it. with others, you run the risk of ruining the seed ( i think most nuts are too sensitive to make it ok).

a simple way to think about it is anything that is cold tolerant to zone 3-4 will probably be ok in the freezer. i disagree with the above saying freezing is not stratification, stratification can be accomplished by using the freezing, but again only for SOME seeds of very cold tolerant species. roses in particular, very tolerant of cold and quite tricky to start, i have experimented with using the freezer with good results.

all that said (and also adding here this is my opinion based on my experiences, so YMMV) my understanding is that if you are going to freeze seed, it is best to freeze dry seeds, this being the more questionable iffy ones, they should be dry before freezing. thats not stratification which should be cold and wet/damp really. the advantages to putting dry seeds in the freezer is that you can kill bugs, theres some seed eating bugs that can wreck a whole seed harvest, so 2-4 days in the freezer - DRY- can kill the bugs too. length of time matters. freezing seeds briefly for a days is different than freezing the seeds for months on end.

i suppose the way i think about it is that the benefits of stratification mainly come from the thaw cycle...so idk if the freezing is actually a good way to stratify, technically as i said above, but thawing. its the freeze/thaw cycle that does the trick, of swelling the seeds, breaking down the shells or other inhbitors, and breaking dormancy.... and making them ready to pop once it's warm enough.

but i have experimented with it - i find its ok for SOME things ...mainly trees. most of the time this is because i find it easy to harvest things and put direct into the freezer fresh, cherries and berries and plums are what i have tried. in this way i had a lot of success starting seeds that had been frozen right in the fruit...not stored as seeds...but just coincidentally because that was the easiest to preserve them for later. the cherry seeds i did this with i got more that way then cleaning them, partially drying them and doing the stratification the proper way either outside or in fridge. so yeah my own experiences says it is ok for plum, cherry and roses...i have probably tried it with more than that but thats all i can think of right now.

wowie, you all have some serious game when it comes to identification and photo skills =)
i am more in the camp of follow them around and end up with blurry pics =)

but...
i can add a few here...
butterfly on pomegranate
butterfly on lily

and bee on chicory and calendula