Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - [permaculture] RE: Stained urbanite?

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "ingrid" <ingrid@earthlysites.com>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] RE: Stained urbanite?
  • Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 01:24:04 -0700


Thanks for the info. A key piece of what i'm considering is how the removed
chunks of concrete will stain. Anyone done this? The underside will
probably show more aggregate which i'm not sure about reacting. Also, would
it make sense to spray or dunk the chunks?

Thanks!!

-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of
permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2003 11:07 PM
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: permaculture Digest, Vol 5, Issue 60


Send permaculture mailing list submissions to
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
permaculture-owner@lists.ibiblio.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of permaculture digest..."


Today's Topics:

1. Re: Keeping your cool.... (Russ Grayson)
2. Re: the hydrogen argument (robert waldrop)
3. Re: Stained urbanite? (Rick Valley)
4. Re: Keeping your cool.... (robert waldrop)
5. Re: Stained urbanite? (Lawrence F. London, Jr.)
6. Re: Good Thistle... (Rick Valley)
7. RE: [permaculture]Hydrogen, wood, peace, justice (Michael Murphy)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 12:46:53 +1000
From: Russ Grayson <pacedge@magna.com.au>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Keeping your cool....
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <7310F386-A2C9-11D7-8CFE-000393877EB8@magna.com.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

On Friday, June 20, 2003, at 07:03 AM, Marsha Hanzi wrote:
> The late Joe Domingues of the Simple Living network argues that once
> we have the essentials ( including a few personal luxuries), getting
> more "stuff" just brings on more confusion. Stuff has to be taken care
> of. So reducing on consumption actually means getting back more free
> time-- an interesting tradeoff where time has become the scarecest
> commodity.

This is so true Marsha. My partner, Fiona, and I have been busy
enjoying the process of passing on things that we have been given/
accumulated/ left that we do not use. Other people have uses for them,
so once free of us the things enjoy another life of usefullness and we
enjoy less clutter in the garage. We have also pruned our book
collection, retaining only those volumes useful as reference in our
work teaching organic gardening and in media and overseas aid, those
that we particularly like and could read again and those that are
somehow inspirational. It was good to pass the less-used on to places
where they may be more-used.

Some years ago, I met a man living in converted a cow bails on a
property in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney. His needs were few, so
were his possessions, and he was happy. There was something satisfying
about meeting this person. And my friends who lived in similar cow
bails in the Tweed Valley, then in a converted industrial building -
the family were happy, their possessions few and the wants modest.

What are 'essentials', of course, varies with the individual. And where
the essentials constitute more than those of purer mind might regard as
warranted, then there can be recrimination. Those of interested or
working in Internet production would, for instance, have more
electronic stuff than those free of this particular affliction. I find
the minimum I need for my work in journalism is a kit of cameras, a
laptop computer + software, desktop for my partner to do layout on plus
the usual scanners etc, a mobile phone and landline phone/ fax. And a
notebook and pen, of course. These are essentials without which I
cannot work. Likewise, we need a car to visit a sick parent who lives
south of Sydney and to get to meetings etc that would take half-a-day
to attend by public transport.

In regard to this discussion, check out Clive Hamilton's (Australia
Institute - a thinktank) new book:

"Growth Fetish" by Clive Hamiltonwww.growthfetish.com/
This is an excellent new book and goes to the core of our fixation
with consumerist materialism as the high road to happiness. For
decades our political leaders and opinion makers have told us that
higher incomes are the way to a better future. But after decades of
sustained economic growth we must confront an awful fact: the people
are still not happy. This fact is the great contradiction of modern
politics. Growth Fetish argues that, far from being the answer to our
problems, growth fetishism lies at the heart of our social and
environmental ills.

...Russ Grayson
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 3166 bytes
Desc: not available
Url :
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture/attachments/20030620/a56107c
5/attachment-0001.bin

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 22:09:01 -0500
From: robert waldrop <rmwj@soonernet.com>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] the hydrogen argument
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <3EF27ACD.87CC081E@soonernet.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Marimike6@cs.com wrote:
> Where are you moving in West Va? There are two of them, you know. In
> the north and the east, it's really nice. In the coal country,
> well....

Oops, sorry about my confused sentencing, but I meant "we" as a nation
are headed towards destroying whole mountains to get the coal
underneath, not "we" as in the Waldrop household are moving to West
Virginia. I am a fourth generation Oklahoman and expect to finish the
rest of my life here and be buried in the same cemetary as my great
grandparents.
>
> The political situation is strongly polarized. Half the people hate
> having their state raped and ransacked, and are very vocal about it.
> After all, whenever you get a hard rain, people die from mudslides.
> The other half are pretty adamant about keeping a job or two in the
> state, since there's nothing much going on there besides coal. This
> has been going on for years. My guess is the average person feels both
> ways at the same time.

I have only been to West Virginia once, and it was very beautiful. I
went to visit Karl Hess, who had built an earth sheltered home there.
>
> Incidentally, when you rescue a bag of mown lawn grass from the dump,
> try throwing a handful of it into your rain barrel. It makes the
> damnedest compost tea you ever saw. I'd like to get it analyzed-- it
> smells like liquid heaven. Wet grass grows some interesting molds that
> I haven't seen described in print, but when used as a mulch they seem
> to do my bushes a lot of good. They also really keep the moisture in.

I will give this a try. Compost tea is not something I have tried yet,
but it is on the list.

Robert Waldrop, OKc

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 22:01:32 -0700
From: Rick Valley <bamboogrove@cmug.com>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Stained urbanite?
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <BB174419.5951%bamboogrove@cmug.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

iron sulfate works great on wet concrete, and it will stain hard concrete,
but fades rather quickly. You can also "age" or "open" the surface with an
acid (recommendations on which one, anyone?) And you can "seed" moss by
selecting moss from a similar substrate and making a smoothie with it and
any or all of the following ingredients- buttermilk, sticky-cooked rice,
clay, non-chlorinated water. Paint it on the concrete just before moss
growing season where you are.

Some people warn against heavy metal content of concrete due to inclusion of
fly ash in the recipe. I've not seen any analyses.

BTW, breaking slab is a great job for two; one with an 8 lb. sledge and the
other, prying up on the unbroken slab. Hit along the line you wish to break,
while repeating the mantra: "concrete has high strength in compression,
concrete has low strength in tension"

rock on,

-Rick



------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 22:31:44 -0500
From: robert waldrop <rmwj@soonernet.com>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Keeping your cool....
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <3EF2801F.218874CB@soonernet.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

It does get hot here in the summer, July and August temperatures are
typically in excess of 100 degrees F, although last summer we only hit
100 degrees once. Everyone was amazed.

I have posted a little essay I have written on keeping cool in Oklahoma
to this list serve, which shows the strategies we use for our
situation: hot during the day, cooler at night (a definite temperature
differential), sometimes humid, sometimes not humid.

Each year we are more comfortable in the summer than the previous. I
attribute this to:

1. Each year we are better at the little details, knowing when to open
and when to close windows, etc.

2. Each year the vegetation outside provides more shade to our house.

3. Each year we make additional structural changes, such as ventilating
the attic, and working on our super insulation project.

There is a pretty interesting Australian site about passive solar
heating and cooling, which has suggestions and options for three
different climates.
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/yourhome/technical/index.htm

It may have some further ideas for you. I hope this helps. I think
working on developing a cooler summer microclimate around your house is
one of the best bets, although dowsing yourself and others using a water
hose is more fun.

Robert Waldrop, OKC

Marsha Hanzi wrote:
> By the way Robert, I am most interested in your strategies for keeping>
your house cool, am already gritting my teeth for the cruelly hot> Brazilian
dryland sumemrs. Built a little house with a
> passion-fruit-vine varanda around it to try to create a icro-climate.
> There is a small factory in Sco Paulo which produces fans with sponges >
in front of them- they say it reduces the heat by 8 degrees, while > needing
the energy only of a fan...What have you done? I imagine it > gets really
hot in Oklahoma...
>
> Marsha

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 00:42:53 -0700
From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Stained urbanite?
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <3EF2BAFD.3050306@intrex.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

Rick Valley wrote:
> iron sulfate works great on wet concrete, and it will stain hard concrete,
> but fades rather quickly. You can also "age" or "open" the surface with an
> acid (recommendations on which one, anyone?)

Muriatic acid which is dilute hydrochloric acid used to clean masonry and
excess mortar
from brick/block.


--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech



------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 23:33:09 -0700
From: Rick Valley <bamboogrove@cmug.com>
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Good Thistle...
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID: <BB17F8B4.59A5%bamboogrove@cmug.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Some Good Characteristics of Canadian Thistle
heavy bloom, nectar
breaks up hardpan soil with roots
rich feed for insects and some 4 leggeds
makes great compost



------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 23:05:56 -0700
From: "Michael Murphy" <mmurphy@ctsl.com>
Subject: RE: [permaculture]Hydrogen, wood, peace, justice
To: <john@eco-living.net>, "permaculture"
<permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Message-ID:
<E1A188F9DEC0CC4C8C599C33D997D58926FEBA@ntserver1.ctsl.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

The obvious, democratic, worldwide energy source is sunlight, which can be
captured as:
biomass (wood, biodesiel)
heat (hot water)
electricity (photovoltaics)
hydrogen (using electricity)
In our house, we have a woodstove. We've looked at an outside stove to heat
water and the house, and concluded we don't want to create that much free
carbon (even though we grow way more carbon-fixing trees that we would ever
use). On our farm, we have a diesel tractor and are about to trade the
pickup for a 3/4 ton diesel. These will run fine on biodiesel. I tried to
get a diesel outboard for the boat, but they cost $8,000. In the next boat,
we're thinking of using a diesel genset to drive a double trolling motor -
that also would run on biodiesel. (Not just reclaimed french fry oil, which
is fine but not scalable, but also on oilseed we can grow).
We have a solar hot water system waiting to be installed. Very cost
effective.
We've had 4600 watts of photovoltaics tied to the grid for about seven
years. Works great, and even with electric heat we never get an electric
bill.
For transportation, though, electricity doesn't work. We have a US
Electricar AC Chevy S10 pickup that has about a 40 mile range, and a Ford
Ranger converted to DC electric that has about a 25 mile range. They
recharge from the grid (our battery) at night, but 40 miles just doesn't cut
it. I finally decided to get a Toyotas RAV4 EV, after renting one at LAX
from Budget. It claims a 125 mile range and actually gets 85 to 90 miles,
which would handle 80% of our driving. For the other 20%, I figured we
could rent a car or use a biodesiel truck (which would have to refuel with
petroleum desiel on the road). But Toyota recently killed the RAV4 EV. So
we got a Honda Civic Hybrid and will wait for fuel cells.
The only long distance, portable, sustainable version of sunlight is going
to be hydrogen. I think you are going to find hydrogen enthusiasts will be
like PC enthusiasts in the 1970s, and hydrogen will follow the PC model of
distributed power.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 4754 bytes
Desc: not available
Url :
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture/attachments/20030619/d07db2c
3/attachment.bin

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
permaculture mailing list
permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture


End of permaculture Digest, Vol 5, Issue 60
*******************************************





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page