Photo by Flickr/aquamechanical
Water: the elixir of life. Don’t waste it, and appreciate it always. This mantra will really come into focus when you live in town serviced by city water, but find yourself in a disaster situation of going without for a couple days. Imagine the faucet of your bathtub wears out and starts streaming water non-stop and your only option is to turn off the water at the city meter to cease the endless money from flowing down the drain.
You check for parts for the faucet, but it is old and can’t be repaired. The only plan is to tear the wall apart to replace the faucet. Not having the knowledge or tools to solder copper pipe, you call your plumber. Because it is after 5:00pm, you get the answering service saying they will call you back. After not getting a call back for 15 hours (it s now 9:00am), you call again, moving the plumber to assure you that they will get someone there by the end of the day. $1,700 later, the issue is repaired but the plumbe
Sand and clay mixture tests by Tom Keeling. Fazenda Tomati Portugal Permaculture Design Certificate 2019
In the video below, I cover some basic tests you can do to analyse your earth for rendering…
It is important to do as many tests as you can before applying an earthen finish. For me the main reason for doing this at every job is that the earth is always going to be a little bit different, even if in this case the earth was mined from the same site as a previous job.
We knew from before that this particular mine gave earth with a very nice percentage of clay to sand (25:75) which was ideal to work with, but even so we still carried out the basic tests to see how the mixtures fared in our particular conditions.
Get Nutrient Dense Soil
If you are fortunate enough to be able to find a rich, earthworm filled soil source that you can dig up, then that is the way to go. I live near salt water, so the soil is a bit sandy and likely high in salinity. I generally have to rely on purchased potting soil for my containers. This is usually not very nutritious for my plants.
If you have to purchase potting soil, look for organic soil that doesn’t have any chemical fertilizers or additives in it. You can mix in an all natural plant food of either your own composted vegetable matter, seaweed, free range animal manure, or even fish emulsion, depending on what you are growing.
Clean Power
Grid power is what’s called “alternating current” or AC. This means that the voltage moves from positive to negative rapidly and repeatedly. In the case of most modern power systems this flip-flop from positive to negative and back again happens 60 times each second. The smoothness of this polarity flip-flop is referred to as purity of the power or its cleanliness, and this matters when it comes to powering sensitive electronics. The best generators for outdoor living put out power that’s a clean, smooth sine wave pattern, without spikes or jagged edges on those sine waves. Without this level of refinement sound systems can have a loud hum, computers can be damaged, and electronics may operate strangely or not at all. The best way to ensure perfectly clean power is with something called an inverter generator. These always produce perfectly clean power that’s at least as clean as grid power. Inverter generators are coming down in price, too. The best value o
Painted rocks in hand by Kristen Tool
The soil at our farm in Western Massachusetts is full of stones. We spend hours digging and sifting new garden beds each year to prevent crooked carrots and stunted radishes. But what to do with all the stones once they are dug up? Having piles of stones laying around the farm creates a tripping hazard, and is serious trouble for the weed whacker and lawn mower.
Large stones are great for edging garden beds or building stone walls- the small stuff gets tossed in the dirt driveway to fill potholes. Smooth, flat or round stones are collected, and painted on.