Pantry Paratus Radio, Episode 011

Interview with Paul Wheaton of Permies.com Part II

This is part two of my conversation with Paul Wheaton editor of Permies.com.  Click here to listen to Part I  Paul was very generous with his time, and so we divided up this interview into two parts.  Whether you have been gardening for years or have been wondering what Permaculture even means, pull up a chair and listen in as we continue with our chat with this great thinker.  Here is the second part of getting to talk to the mighty, the glorious, the amazing Paul Wheaton. 

Right Click Here to Download This Episode

We talk about:

-I ask Paul to go back to the summer he read the hundred or so gardening books, did he think that at the time he would have this kind influence on a virtual world?

-Observe, try, observe, it is that constant experimentation

-“Never lose a holy curiosity.” –Albert Einstein

-Refering back to Paul’s commentary on Joel Salatin’s speech at Google.  What would Joel do if he were king for a day, and he would not shut down Monsanto.  I ask Paul what can Permaculture do to correct the food system without making more laws or making other people illegal?

-Why does the bacon cost $12 a pound?  Answer: because it cost $9 to get the bacon.

-Polyculture as a food source, what would that do for health?  If it worked, who could deny the positive effects then? 

-Rather than sell food, you can sell admission to your land and people can eat or pack food out.  If there is a crime of theft, then that is between them and the government.

-At this moment in time, it is not illegal to have a garden.  When you cannot depend on traditional channels, then you can grow your own food and safety. 

-Can a generation of Permies farmers make the word “carbon” cool again?  Can Permies turn the industrial ag system around?

-If you take Sepp Holzer’s techniques, you would be able to feed 21 billion people without any petroleum. 

-Do you feel like you have woken up in an alternate universe where squirty cheese in a can is safe, but farm raised bacon is dangerous.  MSG, BPA, Round-up are all good, but raw milk is dangerous?

-“Whole” grains and veering off the plan

-If bacteria do not want to eat it, neither do I. 

-Currently it takes 10 calories of petroleum to produce 1 calorie of food, how can we reduce that further to say 2 calories of petroleum to one calorie of food.  Why do we not just eat oil?

-Artificial manures (prehistoric sunlight) and the green revolution

-Paul takes questions from his devotees from the podcast thread on Permies.com

-First question: “Could you ask him to define what he thinks are the characteristics that differentiate a philosophical Permaculture adopter from an ardent big black-book landscape trotting designer.
I think we do not hear enough about the different depths Permaculture can take people in so many ways in their lives. I think allot of people could find themselves and see where they fit in by hearing about the different character traits that Permaculture is inclusive of.”

-Wheatonian Permaculture vs. Permaculture cookbooks.  The philosophy and art and not just the mechanics and the “recipe” for how to get Permaculture.

-The more that you know about Permaculture the more you see is available to you in nature

-Reiterate the safety in Permaculture and how awesome you can make things for your future self

-Second question: “I was wondering what permie people really do when they get a horrible invasion of squash bugs, pick, squash, or other means. Wondering if any permies use soap on them?”

-Permaculture thinks about this age old problem of insects in the garden completely differently—grow plants apart from each other so if nature wants to take it out, then so be it

-I ask Paul about raising the Brix level in a plant to help the plant to defend itself.   Paul highlights Sepp Holzer’s method—how you know your progress of taking care of the plant. 

-Third question: “Once people are convinced Permaculture is awesome, what do you advocate people do with leftover bottles of toxic lawn weed sprays and such? If I throw it in the trash it will wind up back in the soil, if I burn it, it will be in the air, if I give it away to someone I can not convince to go organic, I am enabling putting more poison into the soil/water table but at the same time am I preventing more money entering the chemical companies pockets?”  

-Toxic waste round up (thanks Jocelyn for the assist!)

-If Paul Wheaton had an intern at the Permies.com Center for World Domination (located in a hollowed out volcano with submarine access in Missoula, MT) that could only bake one kind of pie—what would it have to be?

-Chaya’s checklist for the PDC

-Wrap up with Paul

Links:

http://www.permies.com/

http://www.richsoil.com/paul-wheaton.jsp

Pantry Paratus Radio, Episode 010

Interview with Paul Wheaton of Permies.com Part I

I have to admit, I like the perks of a job as much as the next man.  So when I got the opportunity to interview Paul Wheaton, editor of Permies.com and the biggest name in Permaculture in the US, I jumped at the chance.  I have had the pleasure of meeting Paul in person, and Chaya got to attend a PDC (Permaculture Design Course) that he was serving as an instructor at this summer. 

Paul was very generous with his time, and so we divided up this interview into two parts.  Whether you have been gardening for years or have been wondering what Permaculture even means, pull up a chair and listen in as we have a chat with a great thinker.  Here is the first part of getting to talk to the mighty, the glorious, the amazing Paul Wheaton. 

Right Click Here to Download This Episode

We talk about:

-Paul’s Bio: transition from straight gardening to Permaculture (when he was not trying to launch a rocket into space)

-Understanding the Design in Permaculture Design

-Permaculture for the lazy—letting nature drive

-Paul’s warmest memory with cast iron

-Regaining the wisdom of our ancestors

-Adopting Permaculture as a way to buy your freedom back and check out of the game

-A self-sufficient lifestyle as a gift to your future self—a measure for safety (hugelkulture, rocket mass heaters, WOFATIs, etc)

-Analysis paralysis by observing nature to understand that the algorithm is very complex!

-Homesteading and agriculture is perpetual innovation, when things go really bad is when you do your best thinking

-There still are intelligent innovative people out there actually doing good things.  Some of the gentler people have been silenced and the rest may seem cantankerous because they constantly have to fight back “the corporate message.” 

-Does Paul want to write a book or does he envision Permies as his living anthology for Permaculture?

-Why should bad people stop being bad?  Why should they listen to you? 

-Evaluating communication across different knowledge sets rather than beating people with sticks

-The Wheaton Eco scale (it’s a logarithmic scale by the way)

[Editor’s note: Wow, you really see the genius of Paul Wheaton here]

-You want to make sure that you are handing bricks to people to build a better world and not throw them at peoples’ heads

-How is the land search going?  Will the Permies.com empire be able to achieve world domination from the hollowed out volcano with submarine access from Missoula, MT?

-What is Paul’s vision for the land?  What are Paul’s goals? 

-Paul is interested in displaying some of his innovations instead of taking something with toxic ick and making it better so that you can grow food on it

-Paul wants to take the land and divide it into thirds: first piece will be Permaculture (10X Organic); second piece will be Symbiculture (10X Permaculture); last third will be H.U.S.P. [Horticulture of the United States of Pocahontas] (10X Symbiculture).

-Could Permaculture be the last frontier?  Paul wants to explore H.U.S.P. to see what are the benefits for mankind—very awesome concept

-The grand Symphony of Seed and Soil Tour is shaping up to be epic—what is it going to look like?  How did the devious plot hatch?  Will there be random unaccounted for dogs on the land whale?

-Paul and Art Ludwig are finally going to meet!  Paul has lots of stuff to hash out, should be good—cannot wait to listen in on that conversation (via podcast). 

-Jocelyn has been setting up speaking engagements all throughout the tour: Paul details the stops on the trip—wow!

-Paul was open to my idea of people donating seeds to Paul at every stop to help get the land project going.

Links:

http://www.permies.com/

http://www.richsoil.com/paul-wheaton.jsp

https://pantryparatus.com/blog/permaculture_ethics/

grease catcher

farmplate.com

Cold Antler Farm

http://www.permies.com/t/9121/permaculture/Horticulture-United-States-Pocahontas-husp

Raw Milk

We get the scoop from a Mom in Minnesota

Right Click Here to Download This Podcast

We talk about:

-Natasha’s Bio

-History of raw milk and the rich dairy heritage in Minnesota

-Milk comes into the Industrial Revolution

-Relevant portions of the Minnesota constitution that covers agriculture and farm sales

-Correlation of stripped nutrition from dairy cows to stripped flour

-The direct market farmer has to be very careful about how they care about their animals and the food they produce because they have to shake the hand of the people that buy it

-Raw milk benefits

-Systems that are so large when an outbreak can come from meat from a thousand cows

-Reasons from a former dairy farmer why he got out of dairy production

-Trend of small family dairy farms in Minnesota is down to just a handful now (in just one county 100 down to two)

-Price of feed up, (thanks Ethanol!) price of milk up

-USDA numbers for dairy production

-Treating industrial animals as though they are mechanical and not biological it affects how every other relationship flows from that premise

-People die from cantaloupe, spinach and peanut butter—the death count from raw milk still has yet to register . . .

-If the life itself is not sacred, and there is not a reverence for the life then you are totally comfortable with just irradiating the products before it goes out the door no matter how you treated the animal.

-Louie Pasteur never pasteurized milk—he pasteurized wine after studying the bacteria

-When you are no longer close to the food, you have to presuppose cheap energy and a system with consequences we have yet to understand

-Food safety vs. market access

-Greed is not going to yield a circumspective system concerned about long term consequences

-In Minnesota it is legal to buy raw milk, sell raw milk and consume raw milk—the legal fight is over transportation of raw milk to sale points

-Buying clubs create community

-Where can I get raw milk?

-How the raw milk raid went down at the Sandvig house

-After raw milk, where do you go next if you are trying to keep people safe? 

-Food regulations and the enforcement of them—is that done by elected officials?  So you still think this is about one dairy farmer in Minnesota? 

-Current state of the case in the Minnesota courts and the petition to Governor Dayton

-“There has to be a critical mass of people who care.”

-Has the FDA or USDA weighed in on this?  What are events on the national scene?

-The order of magnitude for a Cargill meat is across multiple states, but a small scale farmer’s (unlikely) impact of contaminated food is relatively miniscule

-The practice demanding the same level of regulation from small farmers as big ag—but the level of legal attention leveraged against farmers has brought them to a place where they cannot compete in  a system when they are expected to have the resources to buy a very expensive thermometer. 

-Milk is the leader item for grocery store shopping lists

-What can people do to lend a hand to the raw milk fight?  Follow the news stories, be aware, and get to know your local farmer!

-What keeps Natasha going, how does she not be overwhelmed and lose hope?

-National Animal Identification System—if that is part of everyone’s business, what is next?

-If the industrial ag food was so good for us, would you not expect the experts to read the score to us once in a while? 

-Who owns this person?

-How Natasha set out in this—and it was not to be an activist for fresh raw milk

-Raw milk to successfully treat a child’s arthritis, and that Mom is not going to give that up without a fight

-Giving up freedom in the name of security

-Food safety is a subjective thing—how many editions of the food pyramid have we seen?

-What is Natasha’s favorite use for raw milk?

-Wrap up: taking personal responsibility

Links:

http://www.westonaprice.org/

Rawmilkfreedomriders.com

http://hartkeisonline.com/food-politics/minnesota-farmer-being-treated-as-a-criminal-for-serving-his-community/

http://hartkeisonline.com/food-politics/minnesota-farm-buying-club-under-assault-by-overzealous-regulators/an>

Growing up in the Midwest, I discovered the art of grease at a very young age.  My mother may be a messy cook—we’ve found flour on the ceiling—but no one can fry up a green tomato or an onion ring quite like she can. 

I rarely fry anything.  It is mostly because of renouncing my hydrogenated past; it is partly because I can only contrast the end result to my mother’s cooking, which is forever etched into my taste buds. 

I have discovered the beauty of butter. 

Olive Oil is my go-to for most cooking and certainly for a light sauté…

…but for that occasional fried food—butter is my friend.  My warm and creamy, rich and delicious friend. 

I have found that my children’s palettes are quite different from my own—it’s like discovering a child is left handed or can’t curl the tongue…not a real problem but a perceived difference that leaves you with the “aw, man, too bad for the kid” feeling in life.  By the way, I was that left-handed kid. 

One of the major differences between my children’s tastes and my own is that of onions! As a young child, I cherished the wild onion found out in the fields as a stolen treat. 

In the summers, my mother kept a “bouquet” of chives on the kitchen table, and we frequently munched on them throughout the hot summer days.  A common greeting to my grandfather was to ask, “How are your onions this year?”  He would reply with a speech not unlike a fisherman discussing his last catch: “These are the sweetest onions yet! You can eat ‘em like an apple, that sweet.”  Indeed, his fried up to the best onion rings I will ever taste. 

One lost opportunity, however, was the blossom.  Perhaps it was because we ate them too quickly, but I do not ever remember an onion blossom in my childhood. 

Gorgeous on salads, beautiful as a garnish, the blooms are quite special.  The color, the flavor, and the texture join together to give something unique to the dish you are serving.  My kids hate onion rings (I know, right?!) but they love the blooms as fritters because the flavor seems to be milder. 

I find the blooms to be every bit as strong as any other garden fresh onion when eaten raw.  But something about the fritter softens the flavor.

Whip some fresh eggs and add milk (no real ratio here, probably about half the milk to the egg volume).  Dip blooms in the egg mixture and then into freshly milled flour (and my mother’s secret is to double dip back into the egg and then flour a second time!).  Fry them in butter, and Oh—

You just gotta try them.

–Chaya