V Voice

Today we learned the components of a food forest. That is to say, how to create a productive ecosystem that mimicks a forest. It can be done reasonably quickly. I am delighted with the concept and look forward to planting one soon. The idea is to plant while projecting out 100 years in advance. You start with the ground cover to keep the weeds down than go to shrubs that provide shade for trees and also provide mulch. Geoff has a great dvd on how to plant one.

I just completed week one of a two week course here at Zaytuna Farm. I am loving it. Geoff Lawton is an excellent teacher and my course mates are fabulous. We are becoming like family.

Wow, what a place. Happened upon a temple in the middle of the rainforest called Rainbow Temple What a great place, perched on the side of the mountain. The owner Guy, is digging a tunnel through the mountain to “see the light” And for only 20 dollars a night you get lodging in the temple with meals. Coolllllll

My first post from Australia. Where do i begin? Here I am in the The Channon of New South Wales at the Australian Hippie Capital. Went to the “Market” yesterday to find a close competitor to Santa Cruz’s Pacific Avenue.

I hate to do it but I have decided to sell my baby. I will be taking off for Australia soon and do not want to worry about her while I am away.

So here is the scoop:

This is a solid, clean, well maintainted sailboat that I have been living on and sailing.

Download  Hunter 25 specs here.

This is a rare opportunity for the right person. Live in a gated community with maid service while sleeping on a water bed. My boat is ready for a liveaboard to move in today. the space is small but intimate. You will become aware of your impact on your environment and get in touch with tidal power.

Situated in the Santa Cruz North Harbor, this boat is has a great slip, private, sunny and gorgeous views. it comes with a dock box, wagon and is ready to sail. Completely seaworthy with new bottom paint! I sailed it from San Francisco to Santa Cruz no problem.

You can take over my slip in the harbor with purchase. The boat is being offered at $4900, cash. You take possession of the boat and all equipment. The monthly liveaboard slip fee is $388 which includes utilities. She is wired for shore power and has running water inside. If you use the boat for an occasional weekend, the slip fee is only $288.00 per month.

This is a 25 foot Hunter Cherubini designed by John Cherubini. He designed the first Hunter 25 in 1973.

Standing inside room 5′”7″.

Features:

Very clean boat.Hand layed hull in great condition,140,working jib,2 mains,
spin&bag,all in real good condition,nice sailbag for bow,anchor, radio, lights, depthsounder, tiller pilot, lifejackets, fire extinguisher, Solar battery charger, custom mohagany table, porta potty, lifelines, new sheets, new backstay tensioner, new halyards, upgraded rudder post ,tabernacle mast and good rigging, 4 two speed winches, spin pole, cushions, comforters, 8hp Nissan outboard(runs great!),fuel
tank,freshwater flush,volvo 50s(think will run but it’s disconnected and
prop is off),sink,butane stove, Toaster oven, cock pot, silverware, roller furler(off right now),new
battery,new elect panel,pulpits,3 good halyards.2 sail covers, but they are
old.Current registration.Lots of room and storage!

I have been everywhere on the Bay in this boat and she’s a champ!
Hard to knock down.Roomy cockpit and fun to sail.

Available today for serious inquiries call 415 259 6370 to view. Click on photos to view in large format

Living on a boat has changed my life in so many unexpected ways. I have met many people and a number of them are over 90 years of age. There is Milton Entwhistle, my navigation teacher. He is 92 and sharp as a tack. Then there are my good friends John Getzschmann and his dog Buddy. He helps me so much with things on the Finch. I could not do it without his help.

They all have wisdom that they convey through interesting stories. John was a frontline medic in Germany during War War II. He also was in Japan the day after the atomic bomb. He says war does not work and he should know, he has seen many. He also tells me that “you just gotta take it slow”. Here is to our elders, may we respect them all!

Living on the boat has created some real challenges for me. How to I refrigerate my food without using up a lot of space and energy. The following article comes from the Permaculture Design Institute’s website at http://www.permaculture.org.au Visit it for lots of interesting information on courses and projects in permaculture

A Refrigerator that Runs Without Electricity
Community Projects, Processing & Food Preservation — by Craig Mackintosh

Sometimes there are simple solutions to universal needs that don’t require coal fired electricity, fossil fuels, or even solar panels or wind turbines.
One modern day genius, mindful of this basic need to preserve food, has solved the problem for many. Mohammed Bah Abba, a Nigerian teacher, invented the ‘device’ — a refrigerator that doesn’t require electricity!
From a family of pot-makers, Mohammed has made ingeniously simple use of the laws of thermodynamics to create the pot-in-pot refrigerator, called a Zeer in Arabic.
Here’s how it works.

You take two earthen pots, both being the same shape but different sizes, and put one within the other. Then, fill the space between the two pots with sand before pouring water into the same cavity to make the sand wet. Then, place food items into the inner pot, and cover with a lid or damp cloth. You only need to ensure the pot-in-pot refrigerator is kept in a dry, well-ventilated space; the laws of thermodynamics does the rest. As the moisture in the sand evaporates, it draws heat away from the inner pot, cooling its contents. The only maintenance required is the addition of more water, around twice a day.

To give an idea of its performance, spinach that would normally wilt within hours in the African heat will last around twelve days in the pot, and items like tomatoes and peppers that normally struggle to survive a few days, now last three weeks. Aubergines (eggplants) get a life extension from just a few days to almost a month.
Inventing the refrigerator in 1995, Mohammed distributed thousands around Nigerian communities during the late 1990s (initially for free to get the word out, then later at just production-cost price), and subsequently won the Rolex Award for Enterprise in the year 2000. It has improved the lives and health of thousands. Less work can translate into more education for children, and small farmers who were before losing large proportions of their harvest are now able to earn a better income. Another knock-on benefit is improved health due to better preservation of vitamins, as well as a reduction in health problems like dysentery due to the separation of food and flies.
It seems that not all the answers to life’s needs have to come with a plug and instruction book.

For more information on permaculture projects visit http://permaculture.org.au

The World Is Running Out of Fresh Water!
There are two principal signs of stress as the demand for fresh water outruns the supply.
Rivers are running dry. Many major rivers—including the Colorado, Ganges, Indus, Rio Grande, and Yellow—are so over-tapped that they now run dry for part of the year.

Water tables are falling on every continent. Aquifer depletion is a new problem. Water tables are falling from the over-pumping of groundwater in large portions of China, India, Iran, Mexico, the Middle East, North Africa, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.

So what can we do about it?  Look up my friend, look up!

Earthcraft Landscape Design’s Bobby Markowitz, gave a great seminar on rainwater harvesting this weekend. If you want a system designed I encourage you to contact Mr. Markowitz. He has an extensive background in permaculture and has been creating rainwater harvesting systems since 1977.

The project was at Aptos Academy. Through Ecology Action’s Livestock and Land program, they are installing a rainwater catchment system to provide water to their horses and pasture.

After the presentation, we all gathered outside to watch the installation of the system. Here are the steps

1. Capture - That is usually the roof. The rule of thumb for the amount of water you can harvest from your roof is: Roof square footage x .625 x inches of rain a year = Total Capture in Gallons/year

So if you have a 1000 square feet of roof surface and it rains 24″ a year you can capture 15.000 gallons.

It is pretty amazing.

2. It is best to flush the first rain of season and pre-filter all other water before storing it. This device makes it easy. After your first rains, you simply close the value and it will pre filter the water.

The system pictured here is “Leaf Beater” downspout filter attached to a manual flush value. There are a variety of systems that can be used but this is a simple manual system that works really well. There are automatic systems as well.

One more thing. It is recommended that you use rounded gutters so there is less risk of collecting debris in the corners. Depending on your area, you may want to cover the gutters with a mess to further pre-filter the water and prevent leaves from collecting in your gutters.

3. So after you collect, flush and prefilter the water that comes off the roof, you need

to store it. There are so many options for this but this system used an above ground PVC cistern tank. They are readily available and if you use one under 5,000 gallons, you can get around the building permits in Santa Cruz county. These cisterns can be connected to each other and as long as they are under 5,000 each, no permit is required.

In the photo to the right, the installer is going inside the cistern with a shop vac to clean up the little pieces of plastic that came from drilling hole at the top.

After the cleanup, the pipe connecting the cistern from the prefilter is installed. This is a four inch diameter pvc pipe which will easily handle heavy rain runoff. If the pipe is too small, you risk flooding the system in heavy rains.

4. After you have your rainwater collected, you need to pump it out of the tank. This system used a simple variable speed pump, solar collector and battery.

This is ideal in rural areas that do not have access to electricity. The small panel will keep the pump supplied with energy.

5. The water coming from the tank will pass through the pump and small particles can damage the pump. So another filter is installed before the water passes through the pump.

6. After the pump filter, you are ready to distribute the water. The pump is variable speed pump that consumes low amounts of energy and autoregulates. Here is the system with all the filters installed.

n·cu·ba·tor (nky-btr, ng-)
n.
1. An apparatus in which environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity, can be controlled, often used for growing bacterial cultures, hatching eggs artificially, or providing suitable conditions for a chemical or biological reaction.
2. Medicine An apparatus for maintaining an infant, especially a premature infant, in an environment of controlled temperature, humidity, and oxygen concentration.
3. A place or situation that permits or encourages the formation and development, as of new ideas: a college that was an incubator of new approaches to sociology.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

4. A boat, that floats, moves and caressing the tides, ebbs and flow while providing a secure environment for Viella to grow and develop a sustainble business that allows her fulfill her wildest dreams.

Viella Shipley® Dictionary of the English Language, First Edition copyright ©2008. All rights reserved.