7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Where are you and where are you going?
7Wannabe5
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I do have some experience teaching inner city youth. I have on occasion confused delinquent teenagers into reasonable behavior by cheerfully behaving as though I thought they were gold star second graders or midlife middle management attendees of a sales conference at a Ramada in Dayton, Ohio. I also should have left a box of donuts on the kitchen counter.

Tiny gps tracking devices, super glue on pads , hooking hidden battery up to remaining wiring, mirrors combined with playback video, wet noodles falling from the ceiling,..the possibilities are pretty much endless.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by Western Red Cedar »

That's a bummer about the break in, but it seems like you're handling it with grace. Love the idea of of embracing and expanding on the graffiti :)

Toska2
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by Toska2 »

A thorny blackberry hedge is nearly impossible to traverse through or jump over. You could find it wild, transplant in your yard and rogue garden barren spots with any extra. I am unaware of the light requirements of blackberries although I have seen raspberries grow 5' on the north side of buildings.

Safety, privacy and food for free.


The guy commenting on the walnut tree wasnt lying, its worth $$$.

7Wannabe5
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Toska2:

I already have quite a few raspberries on the property, but not in location that aids security. A thorny edible edge on the northern boundary would work well with my overall plan, so moving the raspberries would be good idea, but I have well over 200 linear feet of open access to secure. Blackberry can cover a lot of ground, but not in first season in my experience, so would have to integrate with temporary barrier such as straw bales and staked trellising.

Obviously, I could budget well over $100/month ad infinitum for security on this property and it would still be way cheaper than anything in the suburbs.

I know that walnut is worth some $$$, but it is my understanding that the machinery necessary to keep it safe in urban setting obliterates any profit. Also, how am I going to make cookies in the post-apocalypse if I don’t have a mature nut tree? Theoretically, I should be able to gather 60 lbs/year @$10/lb retail =$600 =3% of $20,000. Mmmmm...raspberry, black walnut, maple syrup, cornmeal cookies. A lb of black walnuts provides about 3000 kcals, so 60 lbs could cover 1/3 of my yearly diet = 1/6 of my permaculture goal.

Frita
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by Frita »

Oh, and cracking those black walnuts will provide hours of entertainment! (Those suckers are hard to shell IMO.)

sky
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by sky »

I have foraged black walnuts, they have a nice flavor.

Foraging: Use a device that looks like a wire basket that rolls on the ground. The nuts push through the wires and are collected in the basket. You then pull the wires apart with your hands and dump the nuts into a pail.

Hulling: Soak the nuts in a pail of water for a few days. This produces a nasty dark green liquid that stains anything it touches and may be toxic. It would be a good natural dye. Fill a pail about 1/3 full with nuts, add water, and use a paint stirrer on a drill to separate the hulls from the nuts. Set up a screen to pour out the nuts and hulls on to. A wire metal shelf sections works well for this. Spray off the nuts and discard the hulls. Let the hulls dry for a few days, but be ready to protect them from theft by squirrels.

Cracking: Use an arbor press to crack the hulls, and a pointed object to pick out the meat.

It is a lot of work, but the flavor of black walnuts is quite nice.

7Wannabe5
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@sky:

Thanks for the recipe! Also thanks for providing lightbulb moment in which memory of crunching black walnuts on sidewalk suddenly made me realize that it isn’t raccoon or squirrel poop raining down from my attic, it’s decaying black walnuts!!!

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Alphaville
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by Alphaville »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon Apr 05, 2021 1:18 pm
@sky:

Thanks for the recipe! Also thanks for providing lightbulb moment in which memory of crunching black walnuts on sidewalk suddenly made me realize that it isn’t raccoon or squirrel poop raining down from my attic, it’s decaying black walnuts!!!
dammit! and all this time... :lol: :lol: :lol:

massive congrats on such a bullet dodge. not just a bullet but a machine guy spray of bio-minefields :D

what a huge relief! wow...

llorona
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by llorona »

Haven't logged in for a while. I come back and whoa - you have a home?? Nice!! Looking forward to seeing how the repairs and renovations progress. You're gonna develop some mad skills doing this!

7Wannabe5
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@llorona:

Thanks. I am trying to keep the skill (and muscle/vigor) build in fun/zen flow balance with my investment on this project. So now I have slowed it down to rate of $5/hr. And I am puttering from one verb to another more in alignment with my preferences than anything resembling HGTV flip house efficiency. Observe, open, tidy, dispose, sweep, rake, saw, measure, log, water, tidy, close. Like that. Following the patterns of “making home.”

I am also going to attempt to repeat experiment I tried at my last urban permaculture project where I parked my camper. As the year turns towards the summer solstice, I will try to extend the portion of each day I can stay on my project without having to leave to get something I need. However, I can’t start this experiment until after I recover from side effects of second vaccination.

llorona
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by llorona »

@7WB5: Wishing you a speedy recovery from the vaccine. It's crazy how side effects are all over the map.

Slow but steady is good! There's no huge rush and when you're done, you'll have a nice cozy place to live, designed to your liking and specifications.

DutchGirl
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by DutchGirl »

I can also already see you live in this place very happily once you've created your own "nest" there, just how you like it. I hope you're doing well now, by the way. I'm looking forward to your next update on the house. :-)

Married2aSwabian
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by Married2aSwabian »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Thu Apr 08, 2021 3:51 pm

And I am puttering from one verb to another more in alignment with my preferences than anything resembling HGTV flip house efficiency. Observe, open, tidy, dispose, sweep, rake, saw, measure, log, water, tidy, close. Like that. Following the patterns of “making home.”
Yes, ERE approach would be the anti-HGTV approach! When we had our 100 YO farmhouse in SW lower MI, sometimes we’d turn on HGTV after a day of learning DIY small farm maintenance and husbandry lessons the hard way. Typical show included some twenty something couple buying a $500,000 house with no money down, after complaining how offensive the carpeting looked. :D
We also had two black walnut trees on that property, as well as chickens. Anyone who tells you chickens aren’t intelligent creatures is full of chicken shit! They were often free ranging around the property. One of the black walnut trees was next to the driveway, so that cars would drive over and crush the walnuts. One day, we were wondering why the “girls” were hanging around the driveway...it didn’t take them very long to figure out that cars in the driveway meant a good food source. They’d head in that direction often, if they saw a car drive through. :D

So happy for you and your project. I hope that it continues to be enjoyable and rewarding and that you are feeling better after vaccine.

As you mentioned permaculture, I wanted to ask if you’ve read Wendell Berry? “The Unsettling of America” addresses permaculture vs our “modern” industrial monoculture farming system.

7Wannabe5
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@llorona@DutchGirl:

Thanks! I was knocked out by the vaccine last week, and I’ve had to deal with solving security and lawn maintenance issues, so not much progress on the renovation itself. My kids are coming to help this week, so that will add momentum.

As I noted on iDave’s thread, I also had round robin with my sisters about moving forward with our up north extended family compound. So, I may actually end up simultaneously working on two renovations by the end of the summer :o :lol: However, The Sisters (our official extended family designation, as in “Can I come to brunch?” , “No, it’s The Sisters only”) can only make decisions by consensus, so it might not happen this year. We’ve only committed to shopping while we are up there together at an AirBnB in August.

@Married2aSwabian:

My previous Money Pit was located in a very small city in a very rural farming county in SE Michigan. It was built in the early 1860s in the Italianate style. The city/town was very Norman Rockwell pretty and the house had all sorts of lovely features such as two sets of French doors with lesser glass and Grecian columns framing the fireplace. My current project is much smaller (except the yard is somewhat bigger), but also much more of a gut-job. For instance, on that rehab, I had to deal with 5 different generations of wiring on 1 circuit box and 3 different fuse boxes (including the detached garage), but the power was on when I started. I also did a great deal of renovation work with my second “husband” who had just purchased 4 rentals when we met, but none of those were as “down to the guts” as The Money Dimple, so the prospect of replacing structural framing elements is taking me up a steep learning curve.

I have read and enjoyed Wendell Berry. There are definite upsides and downsides to small rural city/town living, but it would definitely be a shame to see it pass out of existence. Once again the “evil efficient” Optimizers will be to blame if it happens.

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Alphaville
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by Alphaville »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat Apr 17, 2021 7:57 am
I’ve had to deal with solving security and lawn maintenance issues, so not much progress on the renovation itself. My kids are coming to help this week, so that will add momentum.
ah, bummer that security problems continue. did you find a solution yet, or still iterating?

7Wannabe5
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Alphaville:

Still iterating. I reinforced the boarding and all my tools which are too bulky to transport, including my new high intelligent design low fossil energy use reel mower, are locked with a Magnum strength padlock on a 30 ft. length of thick plastic coated twisted thread coil inside the small window shed which is also locked with Magnum padlock and is located right next to nice neighbor on my lot. My estimate is that stealing my lawnmower would take 20 minutes, significant tools, and cause a great deal of clatter. Stealing the rest of the copper wiring in the house would still be easier than that. I am pretty annoyed that I felt compelled to spend significant proportion of the value of my tools in order to secure them, but the security system can expand to enclose more stocks of value, for instance I would feel somewhat safer sleeping in shed, and won’t suffer much depreciation, so hopefully good value over time.

I also did some more research/planning on edible/attractive/security-providing hedges and started designing integrated roof to rain barrels to trench/swale to berm/hedge system. I found “The Suburban Micro-Farm” by Amy Stross to be a great resource for this. I highly recommend this book as introduction to permaculture techniques and philosophy for novice. I was already familiar with most of the ground that she covers, but her presentation of the material is extremely well organized and very clear. I found myself nodding along with her insights fairly frequently. For specific instance, the manner in which she integrates Mel Bartholomew’s square foot gardening method into permaculture almost exactly models how I made this gardening level transition organically.

As an old lady, I am actually trending back again towards the ornamental with my new project. I went through a phase where I had nothing but disdain for the sort of sturdy, popular flowering perennials that are sold in Home Centers and recommended by books such as “The Well-Tended Perennial Garden”( after going through a phase where I loved that book 😂. ) It will be interesting (to me) to see where I go with improved integration of ornamental at the level of something like how much similarity there is between the eye structure of humans and insects as opposed to something more like “curb appeal.” Although, as Stross notes, there are deep human pattern motives that should preclude scorning curb appeal completely.

Dream of Freedom
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by Dream of Freedom »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sat Apr 17, 2021 11:01 am

I also did some more research/planning on edible/attractive/security-providing hedges
:mrgreen: Security plants, like this:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... n_US&gl=US

7Wannabe5
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Dream of Freedom:

:lol: I am also amusing myself with ideas for further development of zany security measures. For instance, Beware of Frog sign combined with motion activated very loud recording of bullfrog croak. Booby traps are strictly illegal in the sense that you can be prosecuted/sued for any ill effects, but I still might be willing to risk it at the level of dumping vat full of green jello on intruder’s head. Also, I believe that activation of jello drop from a distance with remote control after offering verbal warning would make it legit. I am willing to set precedent since I have two sisters and a son in law with law degrees to advise my defense and the video might be hilarious enough to pay my fine.

ellarose24
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by ellarose24 »

Did you used to live in a sort of garden shed in maybe 2014 or so? I remember reading this forum and reading a badass lady that lived in her garden shed and gave me hope as like most females I was taught 30 would be the end.

I am very impressed and I suppose I had forgotten that this forum has people that think uniquely and creatively in ways beyond what I typically talk myself out of. Really crazy what can happen in a community away from consumption. Your journal is inspiring me quite a bit.

A lone male that you don’t know, and even one you do know sometimes, is absolutely a danger and the reaction has nothing to do with trauma or ptsd. Sometimes I do not think the male species can recognize the physical reality and space that females live in. That is not paranoia it is reality. A well trained dog, mentions of a boyfriend, and a gun are all great ideas. I have thought of buying a refurbished Apple Watch for the simple reason that pushing the buttons in a certain way calls the police and also makes a loud siren noise, and there was a recent case near me where that is how a woman got away. Either way you are a badass and I have no doubt you can and will successfully defend yourself if need be. I have also heard stories of women getting down on all fours and barking rabidly like a dog and that made intruders practically run out the door. I have though I would laugh maniacally, drop my pants, and take a shit while staring at them intensely. (I too have been assaulted by men, but so have quite a few women I know. Even more have been made to feel afraid or in danger, purposefully by the perpetrator even if he didn’t physically assault. That is just the norm. If PTSD is shared collectively by 30-40% of the population, when does it just become reality?)

7Wannabe5
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Re: 7Wannabe5- Take 7- The Money Dimple

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@ellarose:

I am definitely not a “badass”, but attempting to live in something like a garden shed is one of my lifelong recurring themes.

Since you mentioned women thinking it is over at 30, it’s possible you are remembering my journal entries from summer of 2016 when I was actively practicing polyamory and attempting to live in a camper on my abandoned lot urban permaculture project. That was fun. You might want to read “A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late Life Adventures in Sex and Romance” by Jane Juska. She was 69 when she put herself back out there again.We all live far too long as adults these days, even in our empty nest years, to declare that it is over in early middle age. Heck, I even think half of the guys in their 70s whose pictures are intermittently sent to me by dating app are pretty cute. I did a very non-ERE thing a few nights ago and watched the “Sex and the City” movie on HBO. I can’t imagine living such a consumption driven lifestyle, but there is something about Kim Cattrall’s style which I have always liked. It cheered me up when the plot took the twist that she was getting a chubby tummy due to menopause and being stuck with the same man, mostly in his life rather than hers, for 5 years. I can so relate. It’s tricky though, because who wants to be in a relationship with a man who doesn’t want his own life too? And, maintaining your own independent turf isn’t usually the most frugal option.

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