Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond – Vol I & II by Brad Landcaster
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond is a much awarded series of titles out of the USA by Brad Landcaster. Brad’s a Permie who has worked extensively in grassroots greywater re-use and has also worked on many community projects in both developing and developed nations in the realms of rainwater harvesting systems.
Volume I focuses on designing and implementing rainwater harvesting systems for domestic, rural and community use, with a wide range of examples form various countries. Drylands processes are emphasized, but there’s plenty of other examples and the techniques hold true for any biosphere. It’s a great overview of the basics of rainwater harvesting for a range of environments, and full of tips and tricks for designing a complete system, or for the 1% rule of small, slow solutions
Plan for our Rocket-Powered hot water system for the Basecamp shower + bath block
Spending all your day gathering sticks for a hot shower is just no fun. No fun at all. Mind you, anything that results in a hot shower (or even better, a hot bath) has to be considered a priority at Milkwood. So when Nick finished converting the old ‘Sunbeam Sheep Shower’ structure (basically a new-fangled sheepdip) to a shower block with a little wood-fired, home-made firebox thingamy to heat the water for the shower and the bath, that’s what we did. Lots of stick-gathering.
October 2, 2008 – 10:03 am
“The Transition Handbook: From oil dependency to local resilience” – front cover
The reason I am brandishing this book about at the moment is *not* because it crushes the reader with an avalanche of undeniable evidence. I feel that we’ve all been beaten about the head a fair bit with how the media portrays Peak-Oil and our society’s utter and complete dependence upon this black sauce. Not to mention Global Warming. And/or a potent combination of the two. It’s enough to make you go and find a large rock to wedge yourself beneath.
The reason I am brandishing this book about at the moment *is* because it is a template for community-level solutions. It ain’t a call to run for the hills, nor is it a treatise on how to greenify your life. This book describes (and very well, I think) possible ways to set up structures for community awareness, organization and implementation of action that will make a community more resilient to massive change.
October 1, 2008 – 11:38 am
How good are these? You probably don’t know, so I’ll tell you – they’re great! Oh and though this looks like a shameless plug saying, basically, *buy stuff*, I’m afraid I have to mention it because they really are splendid. And really, how many other 2009 diaries will you find that contain the gruff but pertinent quote:
“there are two sorts of people in this world – those who poo in drinking water, and those who don’t…”
Ok, a little background… the 2009 Permaculture Diary + Calendar have been put together by Michele Margolis + David Arnold over the last 6 months or so. During this time, they invited contributions from people + groups all over to contribute projects and images for the two publications. I recently bought one of each to see how they turned out, and they are really, really good.
September 20, 2007 – 12:00 am
Out in the rural areas of NSW (and probably in other states of Australia as well) this book has been causing a minor furore. Country town bookstores were selling out of all their copies in a day, everyone was talking about it, everyone wanted to read it, everyone was ordering in a copy for their father/wife/husband/themselves because the word on the street was that it contained mighty important information about how to drought-proof your land.
September 11, 2007 – 10:25 am
In Australia, the term ‘weed’ is highly subjective, depending on what industry puts food on your family’s table… so this book caught my eye. In short, it’s great. A no-nonsense run through of every weed you are likely to find in the Hunter Region of NSW, what to use them for, and why to use [...]
Rocket Mass Heaters – Superefficient wood stoves YOU can build (and snuggle up to)
Ianto Evans & Leslie Jackson
