Book report principle 4: Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren

As per pg 85:
The self audit process
*list needs, wants, addictions, abilities, liabilities, and responsibilities
*consider the influences/connections
*map material and energy flows and personal movement patterns
*look for the easiest opportunities for reducing dependence, minimizing harm, and improving quality of life
*make small changes
*review audit regularly

Look for this audit soon!

Book report, principle 2:Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren

As per page 45
"Household storages of energy"
*diverse
*small
*dispersed
*easily used
*not rich or portable enough to attract much attention from thieves and those seeking to monopolize wealth

For example, a seedbox, a cellar/pantry full, and a 2year stack of firewood.

Modesty is key

Calcium/potassium balance is crucial

Book report inception: Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren

Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren

From the front: 12 principles

1]observe and interact
2]catch and store energy
3]obtain a yeild
4]apply self regulation and accept feedback
5]use and value renewable resources and services
6]produce no waste
7]design from patterns to details
8]integrate rather than segregate
9]use small and slow solutions
10]use and value diversity
11]use edges and value the marginal
12]creatively use and respond to change

Yield: Ekeltricity

So far, our average ekeltricity usage is between 12 and 16 kwh/day... but frequently spikes around 25kwh/day... This is while heating solely with wood. Our appliances are terribly inefficient, but I have no clue how bad they are in actuality [yay renting a white trash bungalow]. We also spend an unfortunate amount of time on computers or videogames. I have no idea how this compares to the yields of most pv systems for harry homeowner.

Because I can

Tea Seeds (Camellia Sinensis) - Narien Teas
Aka the link that tells you everything you need to know about growing/harvesting/putting by your favourite caffeinated beverage.

Revisiting coppice yeild

This old guy in PA, while ranting, may be on to something. And if you give him $5 he'll send you three cuttings, from which he claims you can get 30k tree starts propagated in two years. Since you only need 600 for his scheme, I'd reckon you could start your acre's worth of coppice the first year (a 25x25 grid is 625 trees, 8' spacing gets you to 40k sq ft, 3,560 sqft shy of an acre). Continuing with his assumptions, 5 years later you have 12x[0-5] 6" diameter trees about 40' tall. Because of taper, we'll assume you average 6" of mass if you fold the tree in half. So now you have a pile of logs 20' long and 30 [120trees/4trees per sqft] sqft on the end, volume 600 cuft. A cord is 128cuft, so you have slightly more than 4.5 cords of wood. In my temperate climate, this should last one to two years, allowing you to coppice the same number of trees on a longer rotation, resulting in larger logs, or to coppice fewer trees. His claims are only valid with hybrid poplar. Yay caveats.

Tactic: Graywater recycling

Gaia's Garden has a section on graywater recycling... building a marsh to filter the graywater and then storing it in several ponds... I wonder if you can combine that idea with the mycelium filtration system explored in Running Mycelium? Basically, you'd build the marshfilter, and then at the end of that add a straw bale inoculated with garden giant mushrooms... double filtering leads to redundancy [a thing permaculturists adore] and I bet the garden giants could be eaten or fed to beasts like chickens or goats...

Yield: Wood for burning and working

The heat requirements of my abode/workshop will be met by woodstove/mortar scandinavian radiant thingy systems. In the Willamette Valley, about 2 cords of wood suffice. In Bend, an average home uses six cords. A cord is 4'x4'x8' and comprises 128 cubic feet. If a tree has a diameter of 6" and a height of 30', it takes 22 trees to get a cord of wood. If a tree has a diameter of 9" and a height of 50', it takes 6 trees to get a cord of wood. I need to learn about coppicing to calculate the frequency of cutting for the maintenance of a woodlot. I intend to have  a woodlot that will provide the heating needs of my abode as well as for furniture making. 

The best article found in thirty minutes of searching the interwebs.

Lost Crafts, a BBC book appears like it may have useful info.

This link also looks promising.

Yield: Wine

According to various sources, making wine averages between $1 and $3/bottle. My favourite bottle, Chateau St. Michelle Riesling, costs $7 on the west coast and $15 on the east coast. The Kniffen System of pruning, detailed in the ubiquitous Backyard Homestead, will produce 8-12-15lb of grapes per year per plant [depending on whether you read page 104 or page 106]. Page 106 tells me that I need 11-12lb of grapes for 1gal of wine. A gallon is 3785ml or slightly more than 5 average 750ml bottles of wine. At a rate of one bottle per week, I'd need to make 11 gallons of wine and so would need 13 plants [Rounding up to be safe]. This is of course after the plants reach maturity, 3 years after planting. The first two years yield nothing but mulch.

Further reading [suggested in TBH]: From Vines to Wines - Jeff Cox; *The Home Winemaker's Companion - Gene Spaziani and Ed Halloran; Making Wild Wines and Meads - Pattie Vargas and Rich Gulling; The Winemaker's Answer Book - Allison Crowe;

Yield: Eggs

When in my tip top form, I eat two eggs, fried, for breakfast daily. I like the protein early in the morning, and since various health peoples have told me it's safe to eat as many eggs as I wish, I can calculate my chicken and/or duck needs. Young layers [once they start laying at 8mo or so] can be expected to lay an egg every other day. In order to satisfy my breakfast desires, I need four chickens. Ducks are also an option, or so The Backyard Homestead tells me, but it seems like it would be a bit more difficult to care for them.

Yield: Milk

I don't like cows, apart from eating them. I don't feel comfortable with their size. The Backyard Homestead offered some ideas on substitutes, namely goats. Apparently, cows yield 6gal/day. Way too much for me. Goats yield 3q/day - a much more usable quantity. Minigoats, the Nigerian Dwarf in particular, maxes out at about 60lbs of animal and produces 1q/day, which is just more than I consume in all forms. As goats are companion animals, you can imagine getting 2q/day - perfect for milk, yougurt, ice cream, and cheese. Apparently goat milk is also indistinguishable from cow milk when raw. In order to provide all the milk I can think of needing I need 2X Nigerian Dwarf goats. She doesn't say anything about whether Angora goats can also be milkers. Doubling the function of my goats would be nice. Mini-Angoras would also be nice. [I imagine goats could also be included in the compost process of returning nutrients to soil]

Overarching Yield Goal:

Self-sufficiency!

Food production and storage

Lumber/textiles?

A big [global warming] idea is that the cost of food is going to go from being 10% of the western [American] budget back to it's historic reality of 30-50%... In order to win big, I need to devote a minimal effort to food production/storage. Lets say my production level is at 50H/W - that means if I spend less than 5H/W in activities related to food in order to maintain the current proportion of my western budget. [Meal preparation isn't included unless I somehow end up working in a restaurant sometime soon] That seems unrealistic in the high yield summer months [5H is the amount of time it took me mum and me to can 14Q [30lb fresh] of pears this year]

Permaculture, in particular Forest Gardens

~ The art of creating a landscape/ecosystem that is self-sufficient and lush. A productive garden without the intense labor costs of traditional [read: monoculture] vegetable plots or the intense fertilizer costs thereof. Key phrase: perennial polyculture of multipurpose [plants] inhabitants* P1 of Edible Forest Gardens

Key steps in building a permaculture [via Gaia's Garden P6]

1. Observe
2. Connect
3. Catch and store energy/materials
4. All elements multifunction
5. Each function supported by multiple elements
6.  Make the least change for the greatest effect
7. Use small-scale, intensive systems [wait, that makes no sense, chunking kinda does]
8. Optimize edge
9. Collaborate with succession [plan longterm]
10. Use biological and renewable resources
11. Turn problems into solutions
12. Get a yield [immediate and longterm]
13. The biggest limit to abundance is creativity
14. Mistakes are tools for learning

I mean, these are the kinds of things that one would use to evaluate anything, right? I think my process will look something like this:

1. Planning for yield - Working backward from the end goal
2. Meeting the needs of various functions that get you to the desired yield

*denotes my word change

The purpose herein:

• an exercise in planning a homestead
• principles to remember
• ideas collected
• references noted for future study
• conclusions reached
• realizing the vision [way in the future]