yup. Kind of early! I'm afraid my recently-potted fig cuttings won't make it, but we'll see...

It's such a different viewpoint than we would see now - what I think of as true environmentalism (health of soil, land, people, animals).

Most of the trees he explores are for animal fodder (e.g. pigs eat the acorns, we eat the pigs), since he points out - rightly - that growing grain for livestock is ecologically ruinous and far less productive in the end.

Also with trees you can explore "2-story" agriculture - something grown on the ground later beneath the trees.

Of course permaculturalists will point out that we can have 7 layers in our forest gardens, but Smith is exploring tree agriculture on a larger scale - acre of chestnuts, oaks, hickories, persimmons, etc. Personally I think that focusing on scale is part of what got us into such a mess in the first place (@`jackspirko` has a great episode on the USDA "go big or go home" campaign) but rows of nut trees and productive ground layer would be a dramatic improvement on the monoculture disaster that we have now.

Morning, Odell! 🫡

Here's a goat pic for you 🙂

I'm reading Tree Crops, written in the 1950s, which goes deeply into the advantages of using trees for fruits and nuts rather than basing agriculture on annual crops. Especially on hilly land, the tilling required for crops is devastating for the soil.

It's basically all about time preference.

"When the Corsican starts a crop, he does it by planting beautiful trees whose crops he and his children and his children's children will later pick up from year to year, decade to decade, generation to generation. When the American mountaineer wants to sow a crop, he must fight for it.. first he cuts and burns forests… in a few seasons the mountainside cornfield is gullied to ruin, and the mountaineer, the raper of the mountain, must laboriously make another field.

There is one argument for corn. It is a great and destructive argument. The plant is annual. The labor of the husbandman is quickly rewarded. The ruin of his farm comes later."

#perennials

#permaculture, #permies

#homesteading

#timepreference

#soil

It doesn't make any sense within their framing of the world.

Not sure this is quite in the spirit of #coffeechain, but I wanted to say GM! This is what my coffee cup in our outdoor kitchen sink looks like when it hits 12 degrees 🥶

#offgrid

I've never had a Twitter account (nor IG, FB etc). Very cool that my first social media experience is with all of you wonderful folks.

Whatever Odell says, obviously, but something I did that kick started things for a lot of my loved ones: I had them download Muun and I sent them a few thousand sats. It's amazing how once they owned some - and saw how easy the P2P thing was - they were much more motivated to take the next steps. Literally every single one of them "wow. Ok, so how do I get more?"

(Sounds like you're already at that stage but thought I'd add this just in case it's useful.)

Eryn, we're thinking of you and the little one!

I'm doing similar experiments!

Right now - because we're right up against a freeze - I've only done rooting hormone vs none (and all in potting soil plus our compost). But earlier in the year, I cut lots of little mulberry cuttings, soaked them with willow cuttings for a few days, and then planted them directly in the ground. So far almost all of them have taken (fingers crossed - they're still very small, so we'll see if they make it through the winter).

ugh. I think we should just assume it's going to happen sooner or later.

(FWIW I did not get this email)

What exactly is a "net" in this scenario?

Yay!! congratulations 🥳

Yes, the ashes can be useful as well!

A retort inside the woodstove will allow sticks, twigs etc to burn without oxygen, which means you're left with pure carbon. Crush it up and inoculate with some compost tea and you have a soil amendment that holds 8x its weight in water and acts as a living space for microbes and other wonderful soil critters. Many folks use it as their primary soil fertility tool.

I'll gather a few photos and post them soon.

so good! I'm sitting next to ours right now.

You know that you can easily make biochar in a wood stove? (well, you can easily make charcoal, and then use compost to inoculate it)

We're playing around with some larger systems to get more going at once, but it's wonderful to be getting daily small batches with a fire that's going anyway.

thank you!

Good morning, all!

We recently found a wild persimmon tree at the edge of our property.

They're delicious and beautiful - and there's something so magical about a tree full of fruit!

hello! I'll head over to your account now.

Many thanks for the welcome 😊

(and yes, cello is gorgeous!)

Here’s my official #introduction post. I didn’t know about hashtags when I started my account!

I’m a #violinist and one of the caretakers of a beautiful, mostly #offgrid homestead. A lot of cold nights in our tent and no running water, but it’s an incredibly satisfying way of living.

I’m not tech-y at all but very excited about all the developments in the Nostr space. Many thanks to the #devs

Happy to be here 🙂

#grownostr

#plebchain

#permaculture

(Also #goats #rabbits #ducks #chickens)

oops - I think that quote was actually Munger.

(Though Buffett doesn't like it either!)