Sustainability

[Sassy(Guest)]

Hey Bart!  Who you talking about??!! Yeh, I'm one of those SUV, sorta hypocritical types... but the SUV is my TRUCK & I don't have the money or desire to go out & buy something else right now - besides, I gotta get up the steep driveway when there's snow or it's been raining...   I need that 4WD...  

I agree - home grown or organic that you buy in the store or at a Farmer's Mkt can't be compared to some of the "dead" stuff that is passed off for fruit & vegetables.  I love good, healthy food, but have to admit that I'm also somewhat of a junk food junkie... so sometimes I eat very healthy & other times I don't even like to think about it... but I'm trying to stay in "recovery" long enough to totally kick the habit..  

(I'm taking my lunch break right now - been totally bananas here in ER the past few days!!!   - so had a chance to catch up a bit on CountryPlans  )

[glenn-k]

Gosh John, I guess it probably wouldn't look good on  my resume, eh?  How come you can't keep a job, Boy?

Self employed since 1974 and always kept my business flexible enough to do anything I wanted,  --  When working for someone else if I didn't know about part of a job I learned from others or got the books - read up and did it.

I never wanted to have an employee who knew more about the job than I did so I always learned their jobs too.  Didn't want to get caught by the short hair. :-/

[jonsey/downunder]

Way to go Glenn, Never tell em you can't do the job, because by the time they find out you can't, you can.

[glenn kangiser]

That's true, Jonesy-- I never did tell the phone company I hadn't run a backhoe before - but being the maintenance person  there I got a lot of time to play with it when no one was looking.   I ran a D6, digger truck, trencher, did cable splicing, ladder truck, manlift truck and whatever they had.  Give me a couple minutes - I'll be a pro.  Yeah right, eh Jonesy?  

[jonsey/downunder]

The best way to learn is to get in and have a go, there's nothing like on the job training.

[jonsey/downunder]

Sassy, ditch the SUV and get a horse, I believe there is a saying on this forum, that the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a girl. http://www.sherrysapothecary.com/Building.html
They can go up steep driveways when there's snow or it's been raining and think what you could grow with the exhaust.  
More roofing material, now that could be a problem. Glenn will have to keep digging; you know what that means, bigger house, more room's to buy stuff for, looks like you could end up with a second job. On second thought's maybe you should just stick with the SUV, you'll be better off. :-?

[keyholefarmhouse]

I'll take a bag of organic carrotts, apples, celery, and kale.  Throw it in the juicer and have enough power to lift a 6x12 beam.

Really.  How about organic vegtables for the person who's willing to drive his gas miser vs. growing his own.  My hat is off to vegtable gardeners and organic farmers.  I'd rather be fishing for organic protein.

[bartholomew]

Sassy, I think that as long as you are aware of the gas you use, you can take the appropriate steps to reduce trips. Combining trips and planning travel to avoid congestion will probably help a lot more than getting a more fuel efficient car. But I don't think I'm telling you anything new... one of you said something about being able to go days without having to go into town. But my own vehicle probably gets about the same milage as yours, so I realize that there's not much incentive to cut back on driving with gas as cheap as it is.

Keyhole, I don't where the tradeoff would be. Obviously people who live in cities have access to farmers markets or supermarkets which stock organics, as well as mass transit to get them their and back. Trying to live green out in the country is much more difficult if it forces you to take your car for every little errand.

[PEG688]

Obviously people who live in cities have access to farmers markets or supermarkets which stock organics, as well as mass transit to get them their and back. quote]


 Which of course was trucked in MTL by a old gas guzzling lead gas burning old poor running truck , or fume spueing deisel BMW 1962 car trunk.

By some hippy who has a poor running roto tiller , gas powered,BTW.

Over highways built by what ?? More trucks , equip. etc .

You know if people , most people in fact , MTL not using this forum . Would just recycle their everyday grocery store waste , not throw out( their car window ) their fast food wrappers . and just in general picked up thier own human pig $hit   The world would be some what cleaner, a lot cleaner in fact.

This is a case of to few doing to much , while to many are doing NOTHING , or more BAD,   than the few can over come  


 So ya what you said ,

   

Trying to live green

 As best we can , while educating who ever we come in contact with , family , kids , etc , go to a game a local field soccer , softball etc , and just look at the crap people leave behind    If any teaching goes on in school most kids must not go to basic "Be a good neighbor " class

 End of rant
PEG

[Daddymem]

Here's a FireFox plugin that converts dollars to barrels of oil....
http://turbulence.org/Works/oilstandard/
have fun...I think

[John Raabe]

Hello gang (and Seth!!)

Sorry that I haven't stuck my head into this thread in a few days. Much has been going on here.

I do have to say (on a personal note) that I am quite proud of my son. And so is Miriam his mom (who I finally got to read a thread here!!  ). Keep it up Seth... write it and she will come.

Seth is walking his talk. The community he is involved with in HI is really trying to live lightly on the land. Seth is often out in the garden for several hours after working all day in the bamboo forest. This small community eats by far the largest portion of its daily diet from that garden.  And, I have never eaten better or fresher food.

I don't always know what is sustainable and what is not in modern American culture. However, I know it when I see it. And I see it at Ola Hanua at Kipaheulu.

This is the kitchen yurt for shared meals (always lunch and often dinner). The greenhouse is to the right and next to a huge garden just out of the picture.



Here is a picture from the deck of the yurt looking into the garden.



The private houses are simple versions of the post & pier Little Houses without bathroom or kitchen. There is a solar powered hot water bath house and solar electricity to the yurt. The farm machinery and truck run on biodiesel.

The community has the most handsome outhouse I've ever seen. (It has a modified "sawdust-style" composting toilet.)




and... Just for fun, here is John and Miriam with Seth and his friend Erica.

[glenn kangiser]

Really a neat looking place and project Seth is working on, John.  Thanks to you and Seth for sharing the pictures and project information.  I have thought about doing things like this in a family setting over the years - each one helping the other to get ahead and survive just a bit better-- Seems its a bit hard to get together but this type of mentality used even with community neighbors and friends as we do in the mountains helps to improve things not just for us but for our friends, family and community too.

[benevolance]

Simply put..urban sprawl and the advancement of suburbia across America is killing the nation.

It costs too much to  pipe city water and sewer across every inch of America.  We need to get more people per say back into large cities and stop this out of control urban sprawl...what land there is in America can be efficiently used for recreation, agriculture, aquaculture...Nature preserves, national parks, wildlife refuges etc...

for those that want to truly live in the boonies let them....Let them drive 30 miles to  the grocery store or 50 miles to wal mart. Let them have farms with cows and Just ban massive sub divisions....

the more suburbia htrives the more fuel we burn to get to and fro work...the more roads we need...the more money time and resources we waste uncessesarily (sp?)

Okay it is 2 am and I have a long day ahead in the morning.. been wanting to post here for a while...Could not fight the bug off any longer...Going outside to wave goodnight to the helicopter pilot and then it is off to dreamland

-Peter

[seth raabe]

Man, I don't get online for a few days and I gotta catch up on three pages of posts!
It'll take me a while to catch up, but it's great the information sharing that's going on here.
Glenn, I hope those post he provided helped you with your bamboo questions.
They call them "tropical clumping bamboos", but many species can do quite well in mild temperate zones like Cali, Oregon, and Washington. Many species can hold there own above 20 degrees F.
These are sympodial bamboos (clumpers) as opposed to monopodial ones (runners). The clump spreads outward though much more slowly as the rhizome structure is completely different. I like to compare it to a tree in the way it functions in an environment, establishing it's space more upward than outward, whereas running bamboos fuction like a giant running grass and can create a dense monotypic stand pretty quickly. We don't plant or recommend planting any running bamboos, though I do think they have their place in certain environments.
I think there are more temperate runners than clumpers, though there are some wonderful clumpers that are quite cold hardy. It all depends on what you want: small beautiful landscape plant? Five-inch diameter timber bamboo? Edible shoots? 60" tall windbreak? Easy management?
There are a few that I have in mind.

In the sustainable materials discussion, my friend and neighbor is one of the best sustainable organic farmers I know. He was telling me his philosophy on plastics the other day. He thinks only durable polymers and other persistent plastics should be used and only for certain uses. He believes using something like plastic is best done as far out of the nutrient cycle as possible. and things that are temporary or disposible should be natural or biodegradable materials.
For example, the majority of garbage that he's pulled from his fields are children's toys. A plastic dinosaur can sit in the soil for who knows how long. He thinks childrens toys should all be made of natural materials-- Wood, bamboo, stone, and so on. This makes sense to me and I generally believe simple toys and games are often more stimulating to imagination and mental development than lots of modern toys design to keep kids entertained while their parents try to get by or get ahead. I'm not saying all modern toys are like this, though I'm ashamed that so many are.

[Amanda_931]

I grew up in (the zone 8 area of) North Carolina.  We lived on the grounds of a hospital (2300 acres, mostly pine and scrub oak woodlands, a biggish farm), and the grounds people took care of the lawns.

But one place there was a biggish grove of bamboo.  My mother discovered that the young shoots could be blanched and cooked--might have been Sweet-Shoot--it was certainly one of the ones that had been fairly widely planted in the South-East years before).  I don't remember a problem with it invading the lawn.  What my mother didn't get the groundspeople mowed--easily for the first week as it started up. And the pine woods on the other three sides seemed to contain the grove.  I mentioned this to Adam Turtle (grower and promoter of bamboo, publishes a newsletter on the subject, IIRC, friend of friends) and he said something on the order of "exactly."

I'm not looking forward to removing a huge privet thicket so I can plant bamboo.  But....

[glenn kangiser]

I was hoping to find a timber bamboo that would grow here.  Seems most of the bigger bamboo are runners.  I'm just always looking for diffrent raw materials to somehow use for building experimenting.  Even the medium sized would be OK though.

About the toys of wood etc.  My granddad used to make wooden traps for us when I was small - he did trapping as a sideline sometimes.  He used to make live box traps I sketched out in the free stuff section.  They work great - not exactly a toy but kids love them, and they safely remove critters from the house.  In Oregon we used to remove skunks with them.  I accidently caught a couple of deer in a larger version one time when I was trying to catch a coyote that ate my cat.  I turned them loose though.

My uncle, the welder who inspired me used to make log loaders for his kids out of steel -maybe 10 lbs. -about a foot and a half long.  I think it would be nice if more people made toys rather than bought them as you mentioned, Seth.

Here is a link to the trap drawing.  http://www.countryplans.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1134805056

[Amanda_931]

There are ways around the horrible "opportunistic" (the permaculture substitute word for "invasive beyond belief"    ) running bamboo.  

Mowing.  Barriers like aluminum flashing buried in the earth.  Adam Turtle thinks it's not that great a problem.

What might be a problem for you is--do you have enough water?  I think they need quite a bit, especially until they get established.

[glenn kangiser]

I have a year round spring down the hill I was thinking of planting it around.  Cheaper to pump from my well ---450' elevation drop to the spring--so the water goes to waste - at least I'm not making use of it.

[benevolance]

Glenn

Did you see the Coyote eat your cat? Or are you just being paranoid again like you obviously are about the government

BTW, did you get that coyote?

we used to trap em in Nova Scotia...Hang a big meat hook 4 feet high in a tree with a piece of meat on it.....The Coyote jumps up to grab the meat and the hook drives through the bottom of his jaw...

Works every time...Bleeds out the coyote as he hangs himself...

I would be scared releasing a trapped deer....Man those things could break your hips if they kicked you...And they would be scared half to death
-Peter

[glenn kangiser]

Obviously by now you should know that I am extremely paranoid, Peter, and to make things worse I suspect it was a government coyote, right out of Yosemite National Park.

There was a large black looking pile of coyote poo with hair in it laying in the driveway - once again the paranoia is overtaking me but it sure looked convincing.

Between my neighbor and I we have lost about 10 cats to coyotes - he shot one trying to steal his chickens.  Coyotes love to pop their little skulls like an overripe melon with those big ol' teeth.

Pedro here just narrowly escaped being another victim.  He showed up here Friday night with teeth holes in his head- narrowly escaping becoming another government coyote victim.  He is my neighbors cat also, but when the chips are down, I seem to be a cat magnet.

[PEG688]

Glenn



we used to trap em in Nova Scotia...Hang a big meat hook 4 feet high in a tree with a piece of meat on it.....The Coyote jumps up to grab the meat and the hook drives through the bottom of his jaw...

Works every time...Bleeds out the coyote as he hangs himself...


-Peter

 Or some kids dog ,   I thought you Canadians where peace full folks  :-/

[PEG688]

  and to make things worse I suspect it was a government coyote, right out of Yosemite National Park.

 Could be a native american coyote  

Pedro here just narrowly escaped being another victim.  


Pedro needs to stay home at night ,EH  

[glenn kangiser]

Native American Coyote- possibly.

Coyotes come through here day and night - some not scared of people - in the park they beg for food from cars.

The cats around here are great hunters - tons of gophers and wood rats.  They have to get out to do their job.

[PEG688]

 So does Wiley , and he's a native american

[benevolance]

Peg

Never ever caught a neighbors dog...Dozens of coyote... Here in South Carolina the Government actually introduced coyotes...Stupids mother Fuc**rs

There used to be great wild turkey hunting, rabbits too... The coyotes here are so bad you can go into the woods sit still for half an hour and you will see some.

All of my neighbors here lose cats..They are scared to let their cats out at night.


Glenn...I would  bait, trap and shoot the coyotes too...I hate the damned things. I dunno if they have the bounty on them...They have it every so many years in Nova Scotia...

So you get 50 bucks for every one you kill....You will not get rich...But if you shoot, trap 50 a year... a little extra pocket money

Now Glenn speaking of Paranoia...Do you suppose the government released the coyotes in the national park just to bother you for being.. well, anti Government?