http://permakent.com Building relationships between people and with nature. Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:13:06 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Adamama, according to their web site, was founded in 2003 "for adopting ways of sustainable lifestyle, agriculture and recycling, and as a place for finding the balance between man and nature." And here's an excerpt from a Haaretz article about "an anarchist group" in Nir Moshe. "The journey began with a visit ... http://permakent.com/2008/08/17/permaculture-in-nir-moshe-village-israel/ There may come a day when unspoiled natural scenery has no connection to our physical health, due to insanely high-tech medicine. But what kind of world would it be? The author Paolo Bacigalupi said in a great interview about his career at the Mumpsimus blog, "With "Sand and Slag", I had ... http://permakent.com/2008/08/11/the-people-of-sand-and-slag/ Organic farmers should appreciate the vigilance of the rat terrier breed of dog against rabbits, squirrels, rats and other nibblers of your produce. Calmer than Jack Russell terriers, rat terriers are also more appropriate as a typical family dog. A Boing Boing post by Cory Doctorow about rats in an upscale ... http://permakent.com/2008/08/04/rat-terrier-dogs-for-natural-pest-control/ In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore said he grew tobacco among other crops on the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee during summer vacations in his youth. Gore also likened what he views as today's suppression of global warming evidence by Big Oil to the cover up long ago by Big ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/28/tobacco-for-food-and-biofuel/ Louise Meyer and Patricia McArdle of Solar Household Energy, Inc. and the resource site SolarCooking.org, demonstrate several solar ovens, ranging from shaped trash cardboard covered with foil (cheap, effective, but not durable), one used in Afghanistan that sells for about $25, to an elegant origami folded aluminum product that will ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/25/solar-cooking-for-the-rest-of-us/ The folks at Project Off The Grid have a new video at their greatly improved website describing their off-grid community project in South Dakota. They also seem to share my enthusiasm for Ryan Is Hungry YouTube videos, like this one about Keith Thompson a.k.a. "Skeeter" and his off-grid homestead. http://permakent.com/2008/07/23/totally-off-grid-in-new-mexico/ Patrick Stanton asked me about root cellar requirements in an email message. "I had a technical self-reliance question that you could address on the blog, MLL list, or directly: What are the requirements of a root cellar? We have a dirt floor, brick walled basement, but what alterations would be needed ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/23/mailbag-root-cellar-for-winter-vegetables/ Last Thursday, Al Gore challenged the U.S. to stop using fossil fuels in ten years. He discussed his plan and the reactions to it Sunday on Meet The Press. Wind power may be viewed as an indirect form of solar energy moving the atmosphere, but megawatt production (like the Pickens Plan) ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/21/raw-solar-mit-solar-collector-breakthrough/ A Boing Boing post links to a National Geographic article about honeybees used in Tokyo to protect seabirds (terns) from attack by crows. A related NatGeo story tells of a gun club hunting crows at a city's request. Wizard Saruman isn't going to like this. A commenter on another site said "crows ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/17/pest-control-the-birds-and-the-bees/ Readers have asked (via email) for an off-grid-friendly fuel making how-to article. A process that looks simple is found at kitchen-biodiesel.com. The "Automatic Alternative" shown below the animation is one of their sponsor's systems. Don't take the abbreviated animated GIF thumbnail I made from images there as the whole process. Make sure ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/15/make-biodiesel-in-your-kitchen/ Cassava is “Africa's Food Security Crop” according to the World Bank. A CNN report about Nigerian civil engineer, Dr Joseph Adelegan, and his projects to convert waste into useful commodities, describes his latest idea to recover energy from cassava processing waste, which in the past would be dumped untreated to pollute ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/14/cnn-toxic-waste-into-off-grid-lighting/ Greywater Guerrillas help stop pollution of the water supply by using greywater to irrigate trees and other plants in the garden. Greywater is water that flows down sink, shower, and washing machine drains--but not the toilet. Greywater may contain traces of dirt, food, grease, hair, and household cleaning products. While greywater ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/11/greywater-guerrillas/ Ilex over at Homesteading In A Condo thinks the non-locavore 18 course meal served to the ruling class at the G8 Summit meeting July 7, while discussing the global food crisis, was a bit, uh. I think it's a lot uh! A handful of uncooked rice might have been more ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/10/18-course-g8-summit%e2%80%99s-food-crisis-menu/ kabri over at the Forest and Farm adventures blog, writes about homesteading on forest land, with plenty o' pictures. The July 8th post includes the image of their cabin in the trees (cropped here in reduced thumbnail): When we first bought our forest land, we tried camping in our trailer. The trouble ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/10/homesteading-cabin-in-the-trees/ A recent post at the T’a'grarial blog shows a TED talk video of Adam Grosser describing a new, improved version of a product from 1928 providing 24 hours of safe non-electric refrigeration from a device the size of a thermos using just one hour of cooking heat available anywhere in ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/09/off-grid-non-electric-refrigeration/ A new project that seems at first blush to be Hobbiton Meets Starship Troopers (because its founding leaders are veterans) is the formation of an off-grid community designed to provide mutual aid and support with a "family values" emphasis. The founders already have 100s of acres to start, from the 419 ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/07/ron-paul-forums-%e2%80%9cproject-off-the-grid%e2%80%9d/ Gene GeRue's Ruralize.com website promotes the homesteading author's book, How to Find Your Ideal Country Home: A Comprehensive Guide. Until urban centers in the U.S. become something other than crime-riddled, polluted cesspools of disease and poverty, I'm taking the rural side of the debate. Although I'm on five acres in Pahrump ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/06/urban-expatriate%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9cideal-country-home%e2%80%9d/ This remains my favorite of the TED talks (except maybe Ray Kurzweil). William McDonough, co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, discusses sustainable design in architecture and ends with his astounding plans for twelve new cities in China. Quite a contrast from the toxic hell that ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/02/cradle-to-cradle-12-new-cities-in-china/ Rob Johnson is holding a contest in which you can win his balls, seedballs that is. I bought a product at the NW Flower and Garden show this year called seedballz I have some balls left over and thought... what will I do with my balls? I know- I will give ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/01/rob-johnson-%e2%80%9cwin-my-balls%e2%80%9d/ Just because PETA drives me crazy, don't think I hate vegetarians. The Path To Freedom family in the video is a model for everyone. I'm all for Food Not Lawns, Edible Estates, and Urban Homesteading if you've already got a house in the 'burbs. My only quibble is that for ... http://permakent.com/2008/07/01/admirable-vegetarian-urban-homesteaders/ The following is a guest editorial by J. Neil Schulman "Instead Of A Comment" to amplify on the annoyance I expressed against PETA: Don't get me wrong. I have no objection to anyone choosing to be a vegetarian, a Vegan, or pro-Ana for that matter. Short of cannibalism by murder, everyone ... http://permakent.com/2008/06/30/peta%e2%80%99s-pathetic-fallacy/ Gardeners can fight pests while remaining organic by using beneficial insects to eat harmful bugs. The fly in this ointment is that one of PETA's recent campaigns is to treat the sale of common predator bugs the same as cows in the slaughterhouse or dogs from the pet store. Don't we get ... http://permakent.com/2008/06/30/peta-for-pesticides/ Kurzweil AI links to a report of new windpower design selling for one dollar per watt. Energy Daily: ". . .efficient aerodynamic design lends itself to smaller wind turbines, which can operate closer to the ground or on a rooftop. They can handle a wide range of wind velocities, anywhere between 4 ... http://permakent.com/2008/06/27/broadstars-aerocam-breaks-1-per-watt/ The bacteria caused disease Salmonellosis is in the news with detectives tracking tainted tomatoes. It's a serious issue: In severe cases, the Salmonella infection may spread from the intestines to the blood stream, and then to other body sites and can cause death unless the person is treated promptly with antibiotics. ... http://permakent.com/2008/06/24/fighting-bacteria-in-the-garden/ J. Neil Schulman told me that Fox News Channel aired a report about a Cuban refinery for Venezuelan oil. Here's the Havana take on it. An older report from another Cuban source says: The Cienfuegos oil refinery, a new joint Cuba- Venezuela project, reached 112.9 percent its target production for the first ... http://permakent.com/2008/06/20/the-bad-taste-of-castro-oil/ Digg front page item links to a report from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research that I heard yesterday on right wing talk radio saying Al Gore's energy usage is up 10% even after installing a token solar panel and geothermal pump. As one commenter at Digg noticed, TCPR's headline ... http://permakent.com/2008/06/18/a-tale-of-two-houses/ Inspired by the historic Victory Gardens of San Francisco, which supplied the area with 40% of the food consumed during WW2, and motivated by a desire to eliminate the high energy costs of trucked-in produce, the Alemany Farm started by volunteers taking over a former illegal dump as an ... http://permakent.com/2008/06/18/alemany-farm-san-francisco-urban-farming/ Times Online in the UK reports on the biofuel tech race in the U.S.: Mr Pal is a senior director of LS9, one of several companies in or near Silicon Valley that have spurned traditional high-tech activities such as software and networking and embarked instead on an extraordinary race to make ... http://permakent.com/2008/06/16/carbon-negative-renewable-%e2%80%9coil-20%e2%80%9d/ One of my favorite scenes in the 1980 film, The Formula, is when the oil magnate played by Marlon Brando tells the detective named Barney played by George C. Scott, who's been sniffing out clues on murders involving a Nazi-developed synfuel formula to "get out of the oil business, Barney." ... http://permakent.com/2008/06/12/get-out-of-the-oil-business-barney/ Marketing expert Alex Mandossian explains how he noticed Al Gore and Tipper were signing Joined at the Heart: The Transformation of the American Family at a local independent bookstore in Corte Madera back in 2002. Alex found out later that despite a full parking lot and packed attendance inside a fairly ... http://permakent.com/2008/06/10/birth-of-the-virtual-book-tour/