Permsteading.com

That is truly scary information there George. The way they farm in California is definitely not sustainable. They can't keep pumping the water out of the ground like there is an unlimited supply. They can't keep taking with out putting back. We are all going to feel the effects. We are all going to suffer. Shop your local Farmers Market and support local produce is the best suggestion I have to deal with this problem.

True that. I came to the study of permaculture via the study of survival related topics. The study of survival related topics was in response to articles that I read starting in 1998 that were forecasting a bleak economic future for our nation. Seems that, unfortunately, those authors may turn out to have been most prescient.

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I am so glad I got that half beef in the freezer in Dec., and am waiting for a call to tell me whether or not I'm buying another one this month.

So, I did sign up for the big online Permaculture course and have been going through the videos. Who knew that you should put artichokes in your fruit tree guilds!?! Big plans ahead for this year and hopefully about 1/2 of them will come to fruition.

Glad you are stocked up of Beef Lolly. I am excited about your taking the Permaculture class and watching the videos to increase your knowledge and expertise. I am sure you will be sharing much of what you learn with all of us. I was re-reading some old threads and came across one about building solar hot water here. I wonder if you ever had the time to get a shower going at your stead? I know you dug a well, even though you were not happy with it, so it sounded like all you needed was a 12 volte pump and you would be in business.

I'm so glad I found this lifestyle and find it so rewarding and fulfilling. Food security is a bonus for me, but it's amazing how it takes the edge off of articles like that one.

The water use issues involved in that whole deal are such a huge mess. When will we ever learn?

Guy, we never did get that well situation taken care of properly. Still no water available on site unless I go down to the ditch with a bucket.

But ... I'm thinking of getting a drilling hook-up to go on the backhoe, with various augers, this spring. Eventually I will ned to think of fencing, and then there are new trees to think of planting and it's neighborly to offer to help the guy down the road, you know. Anyway, as high as my water table is, an 8' hole will fill up and stay full, so if I can rig a drill to go 20', I should be good. In the meantime, I've been watching videos on how to create a manual pump from PVC that will work at depths below 25', by building in one-way valves made with ball bearings and washers.

Speaking of the ditch, the county came through and cleaned off the rest of the trees and re-dredged it, cleaning up the mess left behind in '05. Worst case scenario, I buy a quarter mile of water hose and pump it up from the ditch with a car waterpump. The place where I usually "garden" is about 800' from the water source. But that could change, now that old debris has been shoved around again and fresh silty clay has been dumped over the top well down from where I had started creating hugelbeds. They were doing all this work during hunting season, so I might have to show up in late March / early April with seeds and a pocket full of hope.