MidwestSolarpunk

You telling me I can eat my cat's food in times of need? I don't think he'd forgive me if he saw me do that.

Iterating and innovating isn't just for tech bros, you'll know better next year and get an even better crop. Beautiful plants! I also love those air balloons, are those lights? Or just meant to reflect the sun?

Hell yeah! That's part of what drew me to solarpunk too, the hopefulness of it. I see the world drifting further and further into a cyberpunk dystopia and it makes me want to say "nope, we can do better." To me, solarpunk is that vision (even if it starts out as fiction) and the acts (small or large) of creating that brighter future in spite of the forces pulling in the opposite direction.

In a culture increasingly addled with AI slop and sanitized "commercially viable" visions of the future, taking the time to create art like yours for yourself and for its own sake is an act of defiance. That AND choosing an electric bike over oil-powered propulsion AND making tea with the power of the sun? Solarpunk as hell. ✊

For real though, get your auto loans through credit unions. Checking and savings there too. And mortgages. Actually, just don't use big banks.

I hear you. In just the last month we've had a run of bad luck: tree branch tearing down our service line (some siding repair $$ + tree needs trimmed & cabled $$$$), failed water heater (upgraded to heat pump $$$$), and overwhelmed sump pump causing slight basement flooding ($$$ DIY plus a lot of headache). We'd hoped to progress with our plans more this year but it's just not in the cards.

However, something I'll say that saves a lot of money is propagation instead of buying new plants. Get cuttings from friends and neighbors, some rooting hormone, and just make new plants. Even adding a few to your yard can make a big difference for the pollinators!

🤘

I will come back and share my findings if/when it happens.

Could make everything within ~3ft of the road non-edible natives, either companion plants for the food or native cultivars to help pollinators (which in turn, will help the edibles closer to the house). So there's still a way to make this work!

My understanding is that they get into the soil and can then get into the plants. Then into your body.

Oh no! I was just saying how little conflict and migration we've had this last century+ of oil.

Well good on you for making it happen! Not sure where you are or the weather, but issues in storms/heavy wind? That'd be my concern here in the Midwest US (we get a few nasty squalls a year).

Hopefully a little ground-mount plug-in option will be available soon, if my state can bother to pass a bill allowing plug-in solar. Even two extra kW would be nice to have, and it's DIY by design. I talked about it in another comment in this thread, but I'm hoping to put them over my raised garden beds, make more use of verticality but also diffused light is apparently really good for plants (a little at-home agrivoltaics).

Do you have any experience with plug-in + roof mounted solar on the same home? I'm told it's technically possible, just not common.

Damn, guess I never looked that closely at the itemized parts for my install (if there even was one). Any idea why it's so expensive? You know of any good alternatives?

The pros did a good job on mine, new roof and no sign of leaks yet. Of course, I'm not a pro, so maybe I do need to look for other options.

That’s true, it had a high skill ceiling, but there are a lot of casual worriers getting into it. Honestly great for the genre.