I have been thinking about Rootstock, a toolkit that helps with doing the right thing at the right time when operating a homestead. The system needs to gather environmental data, support community communication without relying on mainstream corporate control for resilience and privacy, include some form of AI that is not controlled by corporate interests, again for resilience and privacy. Below is a basic sketch ...

Sage — Local, self hosted AI

A regenerative partner AI that lives on your own land—helping you nourish the earth and its inhabitants, building resilience and independence.

• Garden planning and harvest tracking
• Recipe guidance from your pantry and land
• Care support for chickens and farm animals
• Works offline, respects your privacy

Mycelium — Peer to peer network

A living network that connects neighbors, sensors, and shared knowledge—like mycelium beneath the forest floor, quietly exchanging what's needed.

• Share observations and resources with your community
• Connect soil sensors, weather stations, and resources
• Collective wisdom from the land
• Distributed, resilient, community-owned

Whisper Stones — Solar powered sensors on the network

Physical nodes you can build yourself—markers on the land that listen, sense, and share. Open hardware for open communities.

• Solar-powered sensing stations
• Simple to build, simple to repair
• Monitor soil, air, water, weather
• Open designs, local materials

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How It All Connects

Sage runs right on your own computer—private, yours, not owned by tech companies burning fossil fuels in billion-dollar data centers. She helps you tend your garden, manage your pantry, and care for your homestead, offering daily guidance informed by sensors gathering real data from your land. Plant this today. Make that dish for dinner.

Everything works on your own property, no outside internet needed—unless you want to connect with your rural neighbors through Mycelium to share knowledge, barter resources, and build community. All open source, all designed to serve the land and those who care for it.

┌─────────────┐           ┌─────────────┐
│    Sage     │◄─────────►│   Sensors   │
│ Private AI  │           │ Your land   │
└─────────────┘           └─────────────┘
       ▲                         ▲
       │                         │
       ▼                         ▼
┌─────────────┐           ┌─────────────┐
│  Mycelium   │◄─────────►│   Gateway   │
│ Local mesh  │           │ P2P bridge  │
└─────────────┘           └─────────────┘

More to come for this project ...