Archive for the ‘Straw Bale’ Category
Saturday, January 21st, 2012
As some of you already know I suffered a serious hand injury at the end of October. I was sharpening a shovel using far too much pressure on the file, lost control, and gashed my wrist open. I was wearing gloves for protection, but the shovel caught me just above them and severed 4 tendons and one of the 2 main nerves, narrowly missing one of the 2 main arteries.
John and Jesse were nearby and we got to the hospital right away. Luckily, I have health insurance and so won’t be gashed too badly financially on top of it. We were in the process of winding down construction for the year anyway so the timing, if it had to happen at all, isn’t terrible.
My doctor and hand therapist both tell me I’m recovering remarkably well. I’ve gotten a considerable amount of feeling back and my range of motion and strength is starting to return. I should be good to go when Spring rolls around.
Apart from that minor tragedy, John has moved into the new mini-cabin. He’s sealed it up better, but it looks like we should have dug deeper for the insulation barrier in the floor. We’ll fix that in our future cabins. Jesse was staying in the common house, but just departed for a month and half trip to Denver, Portland, and Seattle. I’m staying mostly with Jessica in Columbia, although I’m hoping to start transitioning back out to MC over the next several weeks.
It’s been an incredibly mild and sunny winter and the new solar array has been pumping out the power. Our peak power output last I checked was 847 watts from panels rated at only 800 watts. Normally you never even produce the rated watts for panels, but thanks to the reflected roof sunlight we’re probably making an extra ~25%.
We’ve started really planning and prioritizing for this coming year and have created a project breakdown to keep track of it. The big projects will be putting in a cistern for collecting rainwater, building a mini-duplex similar to the mini-cabin we built last year, building a shed with a root cellar in it, finishing the outside of the mini-cabin, and doing a lot of interior work on the common house. That ought to keep us busy.
All the while we’ll be maintaining the garden. I’ve done some planning and have put together a page of garden notes. It has on it all of the seeds we’ve ordered with pictures and descriptions. We’ll probably add a few more plants before it’s all said and done. On the same page I’ll record all the pertinent information on when and how much we plant, when and how much we harvest, and everything else noteworthy. I’m also going to record the rainfall and high and low temps in the garden.
We lost all of corn to raccoons last year, but this year we’re moving the tipi up into the garden and I’m going to spend the summer in it along with the dog. That along with the solar-powered radio playing predator noises during the day ought to minimize our pest problems as far as mammals and birds go.
Tags: cabin, cistern, Columbia, common house, corn, dog, garden, Jesse, Jessica, John, project, Raccoons, rainwater, reflected sunlight, root cellar, shed, Solar, Spring, tipi
Posted in Cisterns, Firewood, garden, Guest Cabins, Organic Gardening, Pest Control, Raccoons, Solar, Straw Bale | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011
It’s turned into something of a running joke here at MC that just about any problem can be solved with rocks, wood, or clay. Andrew and John made replacement stove knobs from pieces of wood, and I built a replacement starter for it from clay. We also cleared a path along the creek, and to deal with all the creek crossing and drainage we either used rocks as stepping stones, or logs for steps or water diversions. We planned on making a wooden bridge, but opted for redirecting the path and using stepping stones instead.
House Progress
John, Jesse, and I finished putting in the base layer of the earthen floor last week(clay and rock). It will probably take a month to dry, and so during that time we’ll be working on the porch area. The wall on that side is not well protected from the weather until it gets built so it’s a priority. We’ve already done some prep work, prepared the back wall and cut and cleaned the cedar support posts.
Straw Bale Cabins
The straw bale house has performed amazingly with all of the above-average hot weather. So much so that we’ve started dreaming up a small ultra-cheap and easy one-room straw bale cabin design. Our current cost estimates put it at about $300 for ~80 square feet. If it performs anything like the main straw bale house it may be all-season housing. We’ll probably begin on that later this week.
Garden Deficiency
All of my new garden beds have been quite a disappointment. The new beds have some severe nitrogen deficiency. I noticed that there is quite a bit of wood chunks mixed in the compost I get from Columbia. I think that it’s not finished composting, and when I mix it up by spreading it onto the beds it’s like turning a compost which reinvorgates the decomposition process and locks up the nitrogen for months.
I’ve added blood meal and urine to the beds and it has certainly helped, but some of my crops have died and others are stunted and will likely be delayed significantly. I think the key to using that compost is to make the beds in the fall so they’ll be ready in the spring.
Inhabitants
As far as inhabitants of MC go, John has been here for about a month now. Tom arrived from Canada via 31 hour bus ride last week and will be here for a month or so. Andrew from St. Louis spent 10 days out here helping on the creek path. Jesse spent the last week out here and I think he plans on spending this coming week as well.
Tags: cabin, Canada, cedar, clay, creek, Earthen Floor, floor, knobs, nitrogen deficiency, path, porch, rock, stepping stones, stones, stove, Straw Bale, wood
Posted in garden, Kita, Natural Building, Nitrogen Fixers, Organic Gardening, Recycled Materials, Straw Bale, Summer Cabins, Visitor Lodge, Volunteers | 5 Comments »
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010
After making my way through the final push of the year, including cleaning up and taking down tarpopolis, finishing the rocket stove, and putting doors and windows on the house, I now find myself breathing a sigh of relief and am looking forward to a long winter of reading, planning, and preparing for next year’s warm weather. By the time the weather actually warms up enough to start on projects I’ll be chomping at the bit to get started, and the whole cycle will start again.
Project Updates
The rocket stove is finally complete, well, for the most part at-least, I still have some tweaks to do. The thermal mass bench took quite awhile, mainly because I had to let it dry in layers to avoid crushing the flue pipes. Ianto Evans, the guy who literally wrote the book on rocket stoves, says that you won’t have a problem with crushed flue pipes if you build the bench with love. So either I didn’t add enough love to my cob mix or he should be a little more detailed.
It took awhile to figure out exactly how to burn the stove and what size firewood to cut and how to position it to stop smoke from escaping inside the house, but I’ve gotten pretty good at it. If I make any modification to the rocket stove it will probably be to raise the height of the feed tube to make it harder for smoke to escape and so longer wood can be used.
Altogether though I’m extremely pleased. I can burn the stove for 5-6 hours and have the house stay in the mid-70′s for the next 2 days with sub-freezing temperatures outside. The constant temperature is also great for sleeping because I don’t keep waking up having to add blankets like I did in the camper.
Also, cooking on the stove is really great, especially since it means I don’t have to use the propane stove very much. It gets hotter than I was told to expect, which works out well because I can use it to cook just about anything or boil water for tea. To slow-cook or just keep things I warm I set the pot on a raised metal stand. I haven’t tried it yet, but I undumpstered the top to a bbq grill that fits perfectly over the top of the barrel. I’m hoping that I can use it to turn the stove into an oven. Experimentation is required.
In other news, I’ve expanded my brewing abilities. I’ve got a gallon of blueberry wine fermenting away and a 5 gallon batch of experimental wheat beer going as well. I invested about $200 in parts and equipment so that I’ll be brewing my beer from actual grains starting with my next batch. It’s a somewhat more labor-intense process, but I’ll immediately drop my cost per beer from about 90 cents to 40 cents. I’ve been reading on how to use the spent yeast from one batch to use in the next so that will drop my costs another 5 cents a beer, and then once I get hops and brewing herbs planted next year I ought to be able to get it down to about 20-25 cents per delicious home-brew beer.
The off-grid power system got another serious upgrade. The limiting factor on the system was storage capacity. The system was making way more power than it could store, which isn’t a problem if it’s sunny and windy every day, but for weeks of overcast doldrums it becomes a problem. So, I bought 6 new deep-cycle batteries to add to just the 2 I had previously. That brings the system to 450 amp-hours from 112. Enough to easily run all the lights and my beast of a laptop for hundreds of hours on a full charge, which I get from a single sunny day.
Winter Goals
I was beginning to physically wear down near the end of the warm season, and now that my body has recovered from that my brain is anxious to get to work.
The main goals will be organizational this winter. I want to start holding monthly meetings for everyone interested in Maya Creek at whatever level. I want to involve everyone in the decision-making process, figure out things like what it would mean to be a member here, how the membership process would work, how the decision-making process would work, etc. I have ideas on a lot of these aspects, most of which I’ve posted on the website, but I want to hear from people interested in this place, what ideas and concerns they have, etc. A dozen heads are better than one. It’s also just a good excuse to get everyone together to try out my beer and wine.
Apart from the meetings I’m going to start recruitment efforts for next year. Last year was great, and I was lucky to have the people helping me that I did. I didn’t do much in the way of recruiting volunteers or work exchangers, partly because I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with being in charge of directing a large number of people. Now that I have a little experience with it I have some ideas how I can handle a lot more help.
The first thing is going to be getting at least 2 or 3 work exchangers to be here all year. These people will essentially be like foreman. I have several large projects which I would want them to oversee next year such as building semi-permanent summer cabins in the camping area where the tent platforms are, making a trail from the camping area that goes to the ecovillage site, and starting on the main driveway to the ecovillage site itself. Once they feel confident about the different projects I’ll essentially let them oversee them and put them in charge of short-term volunteers who come out to help.
I know the colleges and universities near here are brimming with people interested in what’s going on here, it’s just about letting the right people know what opportunities are available. So, I’m going to start a more aggressive campaign to get the word out at the universities this winter, try to identify organizations and professors who would be interested and let them know what I have going on. I’m also going to post a detailed description of what the work exchangers would be involved in and responsible for and once I find them to start preparing them however I can for those projects as well as just generally being prepared for life out here.
My other mission this winter is to make Maya Creek Ecovillage a bonified legal entity. I’m going to attempt to set it up as 501C3 tax-exempt non-profit educational organization. It will make it much much easier to get grants as well as donations. When that gets set up Maya Creek can create a formal agreement with the land trust, and once that agreement is in place it should serve to allay concerns about members’ property rights and provide a framework for what Maya Creek can do with the land which would facilitate more long-term planning.
Recent Events
I’d like to thank everyone for the attending the sweat lodge. A memorable 30th birthday to be sure. Justin and I will be reworking the sweat lodge to be smaller, more accessible, and ultimately much hotter. After all, you’re not going on a vision quest unless you’re on the verge of losing consciousness. Justin and I will hopefully have it down to an art for the next gathering.
Maya Creek also hosted the Weill/Lundemo family Thanksgiving this year. Despite the house still being only roughly livable everyone seemed to be impressed and enjoyed learning about the different building aspects and other projects going on around the land. There’s a profound since of satisfaction at having built a structure to protect your loved ones from the elements, especially when Thanksgiving day was the coldest day of the winter so far.
My dad enjoyed splitting firewood while he was here. It’s also become one of my favorite new past-times because it involves and improves concentration, hand-eye coordination, strength, and when you’re done you’ve also produced something useful. Last winter I had trouble finding ways to stay in reasonable shape, but this year it found me.
Upcoming Events
As I mentioned earlier I’m going to start holding monthly meetings for everyone interested in being a part of Maya Creek in one way or another. So I’d like to announce the first Second Saturday Meeting on December 11, 2010 at 4pm. If that date and/or time doesn’t work for a lot of people then we can move it. Please let me know if you plan on attending the meeting here at Maya Creek so I’ll know to expect you. If you need directions or more info contact me. I expect the meeting will last a couple of hours and time will be credited to everyone in the work log.
Tags: 501c3, batteries, Beer, brewing, cooking, Ianto Evans, land trust, meetings, monthly meetings, non-profit, rocket stove, second saturday, smoke, sweat lodge, tax-exempt, tea, thanksgiving, volunteers, Wine, winter, work exchangers
Posted in Beer, Renewable Energy, Rocket Stoves, Straw Bale, Wine | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Since my last post Dakota, Emily, and I have finished the discovery and infill coats of earthen plaster on the house. Others participated in various plaster parties and I’d like to thank them all graciously, but I especially want to thank Dakota and Emily. The infill coat was a herculean task, and took just over a month to complete. I’d guess we mixed a couple hundred batches of plaster in the cement mixer altogether, but the really time consuming part was smearing it on the walls and smoothing it out. The walls look relatively flat and it just generally made it look like a serious building. Tom Mudd, a local housing contractor, came by earlier today and told me it was “professional”.
There’s still a thin coat of lime plaster to put on before the walls are totally complete, but that’s going to wait until after the granite chunk footing goes around the very bottom of the walls. I’ve been picking up loads of free granite chunks from a counter top maker in town and I’m going to mortar the chunks together with a lime mortar. Functionally, it protects the gravel-filled bags that make up the stem wall from degrading in UV. It also acts as a splash guard and a moisture barrier for the bales and clay plaster. Aesthetically, I think it’s going to make it look kick ass.
We’ve also set up a basic tarp storage area outside the house to get all of the tools and supplies out of the house so work can start on the earthen floor. There are a couple of things that need to be done inside before the floor can start being poured, but that should begin within the next few weeks.
The garden is in decline. I knew it at the time, but I really should have done succession planting so I wouldn’t be swamped with different crops all at once. The tomatoes have come and gone, and without a solar dehydrator many of them either rotted or were given away. Emily is working on an Appalachian style solar dehydrator, which ought to be completed in relatively near future. Many of the turnips and beets went bad before they could be eaten as well, so food preservation and succession planting are the name of the game for next year.
I spent this last week weeding and working on the garden. It had been badly neglected because of all the work on the house. The flowers I’d planted had overtaken large swathes of the beds, and so had inadvertently become a kind of weed and so were trimmed back hard. I also put a bunch of compost and mulch around the fruit trees and berry bushes, as well as laying down some paths. I’m essentially going to sheet mulch 3/4 of the area around the vegetable beds and plant a whole range of useful plants in the under-story of the fruit and berry bushes. I did roughly 1/8 of what needed to be done, but it’s certainly a start and it felt good to improve the garden after all the neglect.
The majority of the work in improving the soil involves importing organic material. I’ve used compost and manure from a number of sources, some were good and some weren’t. Right now my main source is William Woods University’s horse stalls. The fine people there load me up for free, and it’s only a 15 minute drive away. The food forest section that I sheet mulched used basically two truck loads of material. Once all of the soil has been improved though, I won’t need to be trucking in material any longer as long as there’s a closed nutrient cycle and all of the waste and humanure is composted and returned to the soil.
I also spent this last week making two large compost piles, improving on my previous straw bale system. The original pile I made didn’t get compost in the very core of the pile. It just wasn’t wet at all because the mound shape had hardened and redirected all of the water to the sides. My new piles were slightly rectangular to handle the full truck load and be flat on top so the water would soak in more evenly. Also, I layered the horse manure/bedding with weeds and other garden wastes which are high in nitrogen. Horse manure by itself has the perfect C:N (Carbon to Nitrogen) ratio for composting, but with the wood shaving bedding material added it puts more carbon in the mix, so the greens help to balance that out somewhat.
I also sprinkled a shovelful of finished compost on each manure layer and wetted it down thoroughly. Then I topped the whole thing off with several inches of straw to stop it from forming that hardened surface and to hold the moisture in better. I stuck my soil thermometer in one of the piles and by the 3rd day it had reached 140F. It’s cooled a little since then, but I think that’s because it didn’t have enough water. Because it got so hot I decided to build the 2nd pile with humanure in the core to sterilize it. If a compost pile spends 24 hours above 121F it will kill all the harmful pathogens in the poop.
The two piles should give me enough compost to give the vegetable beds a good layer and re-energize them for another productive year. I’ll continue expanding the sheet-mulching of the food forest as I have time and available helpers.
I’ve got 4 new guineas in the guinea house and I’ve moved the lone chicken up by my camper as a personal tick guard. I’m going to go get her a friend soon though. I think she’s starting to go a little crazy by herself. The guineas should provide excellent tick clearance, but really I haven’t even so much as seen a tick in more than a month now.
As far as community goes, Justin has begun work on a tipi he plans on trying overwinter in. He had originally planned on making a type of yurt but has scaled back his plans as winter looms. He’s cleared out a space in the main community field and has already collected the majority of poles he needs from the surrounding woods. He’ll use the billboard tarps to make the covering. He’s also discovered a vein of paint rock, basically a type of mineral ocher that can be used as a paint, such as on a lime plaster to make a type of fresco.
Patrick has downgraded his plans as well and is going to make a simplified geodesic dome assuming he has time. He’s also cleared out a space in the central community field. He’s had some transportation issues that have been slowing him down, along with other projects he already has in the works.
Dakota and Emily left last week for a 2 week trip to visit Emily’s friends and family in Columbus, OH, but they’ll be back this next week. Dakota will probably be leaving a week or so after they get back, but Emily plans on staying until the weather heads south.
A new work exchanger, Joanie, should be arriving this coming weekend for several weeks to help out. Also, Jessica, who’s actually from Fulton has been camping out in her van for a few days. She’ll be leaving for California in a few weeks, but is hanging out until then.
The weather has been getting progressively nicer. It’s not as hot or humid, and there have been plenty of blue skies filling up the battery banks. It’s actually been kind of nice needing to use a blanket on some nights.
I know I’m missing a lot of different things that have happened, but I’m going to make it a priority to post once a month. So stay tuned, and check out the flickr feed for more pics.
Tags: C:N ratio, clay, Compost, Earthen Plaster, Food Preservation, forest garden, granite, horse manure, infill coat, lime, mortar, plaster, sand, solar dehydrator, straw bales
Posted in Chickens, Compost, Guineas, Humanure, Raccoons, Sheet Mulching, Straw Bale, Ticks | 4 Comments »
Sunday, July 11th, 2010
There have been a lot of great developments at Maya Creek in the 6 weeks since my last blog post. I’ll start with the oldest and work my way up to the present.
The roof has been completely insulated. Dakota and I spent 2 days blowing insulation into the roof space we’d created between the rafters with used billboard tarps. The inside of the roof isn’t the prettiest, but I’m planning on getting some kind of fabric or saris, and hanging them up over the tarp to make it prettier and to add some character. Even without doors or windows it’s noticeably cooler and less humid inside the house.
After the roof was finished we started preparing the walls for the earthen plaster. That mainly involved stuffing cracks and spaces with straw slip, essentially straw dipped in a clay/water mix about the consistency of cream. We also taped off some parts that we wanted to protect from the plaster. Afterwards we made a gritty adhesion coat out of flour paste, sand, and clay. The adhesion coat was smeared on all of the non-straw surfaces that were going to get plastered such as wood, parts of the gravel bag stem wall, and the metal compression wires. We also stuffed some of the spaces between the gravel bags with cob to minimize the amount of plaster that would have go in there to even it out.
Next we rented an air compressor and stucco gun and blasted the straw bale walls with clay slip, the clay/water mixture about the consistency of heavy cream. At that point I bought a cement mixer and generator to help with the mixing and it has already been incredibly helpful in mixing the plaster as well. While I could see mixing plaster by hand for a small project, the cement mixer has probably doubled the speed at which we’re plastering both with the time it takes to actually mix and the energy saved and used on applying the plaster.
The 4th of July: Get Plastered weekend event was a resounding success as far as I was concerned. 14 people showed up at one point or another and there were a dozen that helped with the actual plastering. It was extremely gratifying for me to see my old friends getting along so well with my new friends. It took us a good 6 hours to get 3 of the outside walls done and we finished up the last wall in a couple hours on the 2nd day. Dakota and I built a dock at the lake just in the time for the party and the bonfire was quite impressive, seen here with flames only half as high as they got to be.
It sounds cliche, but it really is hard for me to put into words how grateful I am to everyone who has helped me along the way so far, not just the people at the plaster party, but all the support I have gotten with the ecovillage project. It is fueling the progress here, not to mention giving fire to my determination to see this through. Without it, this simply would not be possible and so I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I have an optimism about the future that I have never experienced before as an adult.
Whew, now that I’ve let that wave of emotion sweep over me let me get back to the business at hand. I have a new work exchanger, Emily. She arrived from Ohio a day or so before the plaster party. She’s inquisitive and hard-working and we seem to get along well. Dakota was planning on leaving after the plaster party, but seems to find it harder and harder to leave. This place seems to be developing a type of gravity all its own because he’s not the only one.
Over the plaster party weekend I talked with Justin and Melainia and they wanted to start construction on a DIY yurt. I’ve already seen some of the initial plans on it and it seems fantastic. They’re wanting to start some time this summer and I couldn’t be more thrilled. They’re already good friends to me and I welcome them whole-heartedly as the first community members apart from myself. The construction of a small dwelling in the actual ecovillage area fits in exactly with that I’d envisioned for the first phase of the main ecovillage area construction.
I’d only met Patrick once before early this spring. I liked him after that one encounter, but after the plaster party weekend he’s already entered the ranks as a good friend as well. He’s been building a geodesic dome about an hour or so from here and hung around an extra day after the plaster party weekend. He seemed to be at home here and I was sad to see him leave. I’d already been conspiring on how I could get him more involved here when he e-mailed me and said that he had to be a part of Maya Creek sooner rather than later and wants to build a small dome here this summer.
There’s this sense that the pieces are starting to fall into place and that my “start building it and they will come and help you” strategy is working. I feel like I’ve been able to attract exactly the kind of people I’d been hoping to find. The ecovillage seems to be well on it’s way to becoming an actual village and not just a wild man in the woods.
So, getting back to the more hum-drum ecovillage news. The plaster is still going up. Dakota, Emily, and I have already significantly improved our plastering methods and are moving much quicker than I had thought possible judging by how much we got done at the plaster party. It’s quite a relief since it was beginning to look like a herculean feet to finish the next 2 coats, especially since the next coat involves 3-4 times more plaster than the discovery coat we’re still applying does.
I’d like to put out an open invitation for a plaster party this Saturday, July 17 as well as one on Saturday, July 31. Everyone is welcome to camp for the weekend. There are a number of tents already set up on raised platforms with protective tarps. A few of them have mattresses, and I’m looking for a couple of double mattresses to throw in two of them. If you’re coming out remember to bring clothes that you don’t care about since clay can stain clothing.
In non-housing related news the garden has exploded in productivity and lushness. Many of the companion planted flowers are blooming, tomatoes are ripening, zucchini, squash, and cucumbers are growing faster than I can pick them, and my only regret is that I can’t spend more time there examining bugs, growth patterns, and generally just poking around. A couple raccoons got in one night and ravaged the sweet corn, but it’s recovered fairly well and I’ve since trapped and relocated the rascals about 20 miles away.
A couple fruit trees have died, and some are struggling. A few seem to be doing really well though, which is I suppose to be expected in essentially unimproved clay soil. Next year I’m really going to kick my compost-making operation into high gear and make it so that I can grow pretty much any plant the climate will allow. I have the sources for material and means of delivery, just not the time to do it right now.
Sadly I’ve lost two of the three laying hens I bought this year. The first one happened when the chickens accidentally got locked out of their coop one night and nested in a tree. I could hear it screaming as something attacked it and ran down and scared away whatever was attacking it, but it was mortally wounded and I had to put it out if it’s misery. The other was mortally wounded by some dogs and was likewise mercy killed. It’s really pretty depressing, and I’ve begun to wonder if the act of butchering these animals is worth the meat. I’m almost to the point of burying them in the garden and using them as fertilizer. It seems right since that’s essentially what I want done with my own body, except in the forest, not the garden. Jason is raising some guineas for the both of us, and so I should have 4 or so of them running around tick-hunting in a couple months.
Maya Creek is also now solar-powered. The wind generator doesn’t reliably produce very much power. The turbine needs to be higher above the trees, but I’m hoping that in the winter when the leaves are down and the winds are generally stronger and more sustained I’ll see more production out of it. If not I have a plan to raise it another 5-10′ and possibly trim some tree tops.
The 90W of amorphous silicon solar panels are doing the trick on these hot sunny summer days. The battery bank had been consistently topped off, but as more people have arrived and the weather has gotten cloudier, they may not be enough for what we’ve been demanding. I’ve got 2 new LED lighbulbs that put off a nice omni-directional warm light that only use 5 watts each. Over the winter I’m also going to be looking at getting a new super-efficient laptop.
In more recent news, I’ve lost my dumpster diving cherry. I spent most of the time laughing at the incredible amount of perfectly good food thrown out. I didn’t even notice a smell in most of the dumpsters and within the course of an hour or two the car was packed to the brim with a huge array of food and goodies, including a perfectly fine step ladder, which had been on my list of things to get for plastering. If I had to estimate what it would have cost to buy the stuff we got, I’d put it somewhere in the area of $200-300, if not more.
We did all of that on the way back from St. Louis where we went to an event remembering the 1877 general strike in St. Louis. The main reason we went was to see David Rovics. I designed David’s site about 5 years ago and had never met him until yesterday. He introduced me to some extremely interesting people in the St. Louis area and I’m really looking forward to getting to know them better.
Tags: 1877 general strike, 4th of July, bonfire, cement mixer, clay slip, Compost, Dakota, David Rovics, dock, dome, Dumpster Diving, Earthen Plaster, Emily, garden, geodesic dome, Guineas, hens, Justin, LED lightbulbs, Melainia, Patrick, plaster party, Raccoons, roof insulation, solar panels, straw slip, sweet corn, wind generator, yurt
Posted in Chickens, Compost, Dumpster Diving, Earthen Plaster, Guineas, Raccoons, Recycled Materials, Reusable Goods, Solar, Straw Bale, Ticks, Visitor Lodge, Wind | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
As usual, sorry for the blog hiatus. Time has just been zipping by, but that’s what happens when you’re busy from sun up to sun down. So, let’s see what’s new.
I’ve planted a ton of new fruit trees and berry bushes in the garden. At the last minute I decided to try some blueberries and put three plants in this evening and added some sulfur to acidify the soil and mulched them with dried out cedar needles.
I also planted two different varieties of Goumi, which fixes nitrogen in the soil and grows an edible berry. It’s related to the Russian Olives that grow here wildly so I figure it’ll do fine. I planted them in among the fruit trees so that when I cut it back its roots will die back and feed the fruit trees.
The garden looks amazing and the first thing I do every morning is go check on it and just soak it all in. The sugar snap peas have started coming in full tilt and there’s more lettuce and spinach than I know what to do with. The first little green tomatoes have appeared on the early variety tomato plants, and there’s already some little zucchinis in the making as well.
I have a work exchanger from Nebraska who I’ll call “Dan” for privacy’s sake among other inside joke reasons… He’s been helping me since early May. He’s staying through the 4th of July weekend when I’ll be holding an earthen plaster party and having a large bonfire down at the lake. If you’re interested in coming just shoot me an e-mail and I’ll get you info.
Mid-way through May I also had a couple visitors from St. Louis who stayed for a week and helped me raise the wind generator. I would’ve raised it sooner but it had been far too windy, and now that it’s up the wind hasn’t come back. I’d like to have gotten higher above the trees but it just wasn’t easily done without cutting a bunch of trees and having a lot of ugly guy-wires all over the place. I may have to cut the tops off a few trees to get some better air flow, but it still spins regularly. I’m thinking about getting a small solar setup to augment it in the meantime.
Dan and I have gotten a lot done on the interior of the roof, and tomorrow we’ll be filling over half of it with cellulose insulation made up of recycled paper. I also put quite a bit of alpaca wool scraps in there, but it was nowhere near enough and apparently all the other alpaca farmers sent their scraps to the gulf to help with the oil spill.
I’ve also installed the basic wiring for the house and put in the breaker box. I used the chainsaw to cut out the depressions for the switches and outlets, and then attached the boxes to a plywood wedge and pounded it in between the bales to secure it. I left them jutting out a little over an inch so that they’ll be flush once the wall is plastered.
With the help of my dad, Charlotte, Jessica, and Dan we’ve also got a bunch of mushroom logs inoculating. Right now there are 3 different kinds, shiitake, chicken of the woods, and reishi. I have another large bag of plug spawn for maitake(hen of the woods), which I need to get plugged in the next few weeks. I won’t actually have any mushrooms for at least 6 months, possibly a year.
The main trees that needed to be removed from the dam have been cut down and piled up for the bonfire on the 4th. The roots can penetrate the heart of the dam and cause leaks. There’s quite a few more trees that need to come out though and there’s already enough wood down there for several large fires. While I was clearing one day I almost stepped on a fawn in the reeds by the lake. It was clearly scared, but just hoping that I didn’t see it or would ignore it. I somehow just expect animals of that size to run, even if they’re small.
We also cleared the tour route and cut back the grass so ticks won’t be a big issue when I give tours. The ticks haven’t been bad, and the only reason I get them at all is because Pink brings them in on his fur and they fall of in my bed in the camper. I’m working on getting a lavendar oil/water mix to spray on him so that hopefully the ticks won’t hold on to his fur. The mosquitoes are just now getting kind of annoying and aren’t nearly as bad as they were this time last year.
I’ve got 200 pounds of hydrated lime slaking in preparation for making lime mortar, i.e. lime putty and sand, which I’ll use to mortar rocks against the foundation wall of the house. I’d come up with the plan of using the rocks surrounding the foundation wall at the old cabin. My dad told me that they actually got the rocks from an old farm house that had been on the property so far, so this would be the 3rd time they’d been used. However, I passed a granite counter place in Jefferson City that just had piles of broken granite pieces and I’m talking to them trying to see if they’ll sell or let me have it. In which case I might have a really pretty foundation wall material, not to mention a great material for mosaic counter-tops, furniture in-lays, etc.
I took a fantastic trip down to a place called Jack’s Fork in south east Missouri. It’s actually in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. We went canoeing one day, and exploring water falls and springs the next. There also a bunch of really interesting caves. Surprisingly, the water was almost perfectly clear. I have a bunch of fun and interesting stories from the trip and I’m contemplating whether to post that kind of stuff on the Maya Creek blog. I know I make this pretty personal, but it has a pretty specific scope. Let me have your input on whether I should branch out or not.
I’m having a hard time believing it’s June already. I still think I should have everything done to live in the house this winter, but I’m getting a little anxious. The trip to Jack’s Fork this last weekend and the wedding I’m going to in North Carolina this coming weekend have me feeling like I’m not getting enough done. I had a couple other trips planned later in the summer, but I may have to cancel them depending on my progress out here. I’ve definitely got one new work exchanger coming out at the beginning of July from Ohio, and very possibly a second one from New Jersey coming at the same time. Having help is fantastic. It’s great to get so much done, but also to have someone to hang out with.
Hopefully, I’ll be getting back to my regular 2 week posting rate, but we’ll see.
Tags: 4th of July, berry bushes, blueberries, bon fire, chicken of the woods, dam, Earthen Plaster, fawn, fruit trees, garden, goumi, granite, Jack's Fork, Jefferson City, lettuce, lime, maitake, mortar, mosquitoes, mushroom logs, Nebraska. work exchangers, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Ozark National Scenic Riverways, plywood, reishi, russian olives, sand, shiitake, Solar, spinach, Straw Bale, sugar snap peas, sulfur, Ticks, tomatoes, tour route, trees, wind generator, wiring
Posted in Earthen Plaster, Mushrooms, Organic Gardening, Recycled Materials, Reusable Goods, Solar, Straw Bale, Ticks, Wind | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Yes, I know, I’m overdue for a blog entry. As soon as the weather warmed up it seemed that everyone decided it was time to get their web page revamped. Every time I’d sit down at the computer I’d feel like I needed to be working on web work, and the blog could wait. It can wait no longer!
There’s so much to do and just not enough time to do it all. I’ve significantly cleared out the garden area along the edge and put up a 5′ tall fence. I’ve taken to throwing all of the brush on the outside of the fence to further deter deer from jumping it and hopefully it’ll be good wildlife habitat for less garden-aggressive creatures.
I decided to cut things back when I started planning out the exact fruit tree locations and realized that they’d be getting quite a bit of shade, and if I didn’t cut those trees back now it’d be a lot harder when the fruit trees are planted because the trees and branches could very easily fall on the fruit trees. It’s been sweaty work, but it’s finally done. I don’t enjoy cutting trees down, both on principal and my general dislike for running the chainsaw. It just makes me nervous handling something so dangerous.
Incidentally, a couple weeks ago I accidentally cut a tree down and had it fall on the straw bale place. It did some damage, but not nearly as bad as it could have. I’d actually taken extra precautions because it was near the house. I had a wench set up and had it under a lot of tension pulling it away from the house and cut an extra large wedge, but somehow the laws of physics decided to throw me a curve ball. I’ve since chopped the tree up, along with some others and will be inoculating them with shiitake and chicken of woods mushroom spore plugs in the next week.
I’ve successfully been driving the truck around without being hassled. So far I’ve picked up all the supplies I’ll need to raise the wind generator, supplies for the plaster that’ll cover the gravel bag foundation wall, a load of horse manure, and a heaping load of compost. The compost came at a price though. I didn’t realize that the new trailer that I’d been given couldn’t handle the weight I put in it. The person who gave it to me told me that he’d used it to haul compost and so I just filled it up. I didn’t realize anything was amiss until I pulled into the driveway and was clearly dragging something… it turned out to be the whole trailer. The neck part basically just bent, and I’m not sure what I can do to fix it. The guy who gave it to me does welding, but I’d feel bad asking him to fix this. I’ve considered just flipping it over and using a sledgehammer to bash it straight, but even if it’s effective it’ll still be weak.
Despite the tree falling on the roof and trailer breaking things have been generally good. I put up the gutters on the front part of the house and have been harvesting rainwater. All of my seedlings seem to be doing well. I was worried for awhile that some of the older seeds weren’t good any more, but they just took a little longer. I’ve got one of the garden beds planted with cool weather crops. I’ve added nesting boxes and a run to the old guinea coop in preparation for the chickens.
I’ve met some interesting people in the last few weeks as well, and everyone always seems to bring me things. A couple people from Columbia came out and brought me 3 loaves of freshly baked homemade bread which was absolutely delicious. I’ve even been invited to come out to the next bake so I can see how it’s done.
Yesterday, a guy that lives a little over an hour from here came up for a visit. He’s building a geodesic dome, and it turned out we had quite a lot in common. He brought me some great stuff that he’d got dumpster diving behind a Trader Joe’s. I’m quickly getting on board with the dumpster diving idea. It’s not exactly sustainable, but it’s certainly making good use of things that would otherwise just go to waste. You wouldn’t believe the perfectly good stuff that people throw out. He’d even found working power tools in hardware store dumpsters!
As with every post, I’ve got to talk about the weather. It’s been unseasonably warm here, it got up to 82 today and right now there isn’t anything close to freezing temperatures in the forecast. I’ve been sleeping with the door and windows open, and I installed a cat door on the screen door so Pink wouldn’t just tear a hole through it. He didn’t like it at first, but he’s getting used to it. The nice weather has made it all the harder to spend time inside working on the computer.
My next projects are getting the fruit trees in the ground, getting more manure, and raising the wind generator. I’ve had a lot of offers for help getting the wind generator up, but there’s quite a bit of prep work I need to do, and even then I need to think about exactly how it’s going to work and what people will need to be doing. I’m trying something a little… unconventional, but I’ll save that for my next video post.
Tags: chainsaw, chicken of the woods, Chickens, Compost, Deer, fence, garden, Guineas, Mushrooms, roof, shiittake, trailer, trees, wind generator
Posted in Chickens, Compost, Deer, Guineas, Mushrooms, Reusable Goods, Straw Bale, Wind | 3 Comments »
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
It’s amazing how many connections I’ve found by just doing what I’m doing. Jesse’s mom, Anne, raises alpaca only about 15 minutes away from here. She’s offered to let me take her “alpaca beans” off her hands, some of which are already well rotted. I’ve only gotten one small load so far since it was muddy and now everything is frozen solid.
While I was talking to her she mentioned she had a local guy who DELIVERED straw bales for $2/piece. They’re not anything I’d use for construction, but for stacking around the camper and eventually becoming mulch, they’re perfect.
A nice guy named Charles delivered the bales and while we were unloading the bales I was just talking with him and the fact that I didn’t have a larger propane tank came up. I tried to get one in town but they were sold out, and in any case they were pretty expensive. Well Charles said they had a couple 100lb tanks(holds what 5 grill-size tanks do, which I was using). So, I ended up getting one from them for about half of what they were going to charge me at the store in town.
Connections can be powerful, but you have to be open to them. If I hadn’t talked to Anne about straw bales, I wouldn’t have met Charles, and if I hadn’t talked to him about stuff I wouldn’t have gotten the tank. Even a few years ago I may not have been extroverted enough to just start talking to people.
I’ve actually talked to Charles a couple times now and shown him around the straw bale place. He had a lot of questions and seemed kind of excited at the idea of being able to build like that. He even asked me for the website address to find out more about it, so hey, what’s up Charles? if you’re reading this.
I had just enough bales to cover the trailer as much as I wanted to and also make a compost bin out of bales. I’m going to put fresher manure in it to break it down. The bales should keep it warm and I’m also thinking about putting some clear plastic over it to heat it up and speed it along, that’s why I left a few bales off of the south side for better solar gain. Oh, and the bales will give off heat as they decompose, adding to the heat generated by the compost which will be even hotter thanks to the bales insulative value.
I’ve also taken the chicken tractor and removed the door on one side. I found a really cheap roll of clear plastic drop cloth and stapled a couple sheets over the run and the now opened nesting box. I oriented it to run east-west, ie, face south. I also put a couple inch layer of straw underneath it. I plan on putting some bricks and bottles of water in there to regulate the temperature and hold the heat into the night.
Today was sunny with an actual high of 40F according to weather.com. I got two outdoor thermometers and set one outside the “solar coop” and one inside on the straw. I checked it this afternoon and the thermometer sitting outside the coop in the sun read 60F, and the one in the house read 100F!
I’m actually hoping the bricks and water will moderate that high somewhat. I’m going to use the solar coop to start my garden plants. A lot of seeds are supposed to get started 8 weeks before the average last frost, which is April 15 here. So, I’ll be starting several flats of seeds in the next 2 weeks. I’m sure I’ll be checking on them far more than need be, it’s my nature.
I bought a couple of T-105 deep-cycle batteries a couple weeks ago. I’ve got them all hooked up and now have juice in the camper without having to go out and turn the truck on and off. I have a wall-charger and can take them to friends’ houses to charge them every week or so when they get a little low.
I’m excited about getting a wind generator set up and be truly off-grid. I’d really like to build one, but I’m trying to prioritize as best I can. The situation as it is right now isn’t too bad, and I think having a real roof over my head should be my top priority.
I can’t imagine that I won’t have the house ready to live in for next winter, but just the same I want to be sure. I went and picked up some more of my favorite free used billboard tarps. I’m going to use them to line the inside of the roof rafters and stuff the space between with wool and cellulose. I’m taking it piece by piece since it’s hard to work with by myself and it’ll be easier to take down to fix leaks or run pipes and wiring up there later if I need to if it’s in smaller pieces. I’m going to put pieces of wood on the outside of the rafters to hold the tarp in place better since it’ll be fairly heavy with all of the insulation.
Anne, who I’m getting the alapaca beans from has a bunch of rough wool she can’t use for anything else. She said she’s been using it for mulch in her garden, but wool is an awesome insulator and even holds it’s insulative value when it’s wet, though I don’t intend it to get wet. I’m thinking about asking other people with sheep and alpacas(I’ve heard of others) to see if they have wool they can’t use. Connections.
I also continue to be contacted by all kinds of interesting people who find that what I’m doing resonates with them. Keep on writing, I enjoy talking with all of you. I’ve also gone out of my way and contacted several of the local universities. William Woods University in Fulton has offered me as much horse manure as I want and a few professors at the University of Missouri have given me some good references about Native Americans that lived in this area, specifically ethnobotany(what they ate and used for medicine), but also traditions, rituals, etc.
I’m going to try to plant a lot of native plants in the garden here. Hey, if they grow here already without anyone having to do anything, think how easy they’ll be to grow in the garden. My kind of gardening.
Tags: alpaca beans, Anne, billboard vinyl, camper, cellulose, Charles, chicken tractor, Chickens, Compost, compost bin, connections, coop, deep-cycle batteries, insulation, Jesse, manure, off-grid, plastic drop cloth, roof, solar coop, Straw Bale, thermometer, University of Missouri, William Woods University, wind generator, wool
Posted in Compost, garden, Greenhouses, Recycled Materials, Reusable Goods, Solar, Straw Bale, Visitor Lodge | 3 Comments »
Friday, December 25th, 2009
After some soul-searching and continued annoyance with referrals to the morning after pill I’ve decided to change the name of the Ecovillage. I’ve gone through a few different ideas and some conferring with Justin and Melainia I’ve settled on Maya Creek Ecovillage. Almost the entire watershed is on the property and it’s easily one of the most beautiful features of the land. The road that will eventually go out to the ecovillage center will pass along several especially beautiful parts. What a way to be greeted home!
It’s snowing out here on the land today. Big fat flakes dancing around in the gusty wind. There was a little snow on the ground when I arrived but it melted quickly the first day. I’ve only been out here for about 5 days.
It’s gotten colder since then, but I’m keeping warm. The propane heater is keeping the camper warm and I’ve also started using one of the kerosene lamps in the evenings, which also puts off a good amount of heat. It makes it smell a little, but nothing like the kerosene heater did.
It’s not a large area to heat, but the camper has exactly no insulation. That’s why I’m using a bunch of the rejected straw bales I have left over from the house to just wall in the camper for the winter. I’m going to hang one of the billboard tarps from the trees over the camper to keep the bales dry It’s ok if they degrade a little because I’m going to use some of the wet ruined bales to mulch the garden this year.
I started on it, but didn’t want to hang the tarp first because it was supposed to snow and I wouldn’t have been here to knock it off and make sure it didn’t just collapse and tear the tarp. Even with just third of it I’ve done it’s made a difference. I put that part up to block the prevailing winds, but I’m sure once I get the bottom done all the way around it’ll make the floor a lot warmer too.
I wouldn’t have been here because I was supposed to be in Minnesota at the family Christmas, but the same storm that’s snowing on me made a barricade of ice between here and there. Snow is one thing. Ice is another beast altogether. I’m still going up there, but just going to miss today and post-Christmas eve. I’d been looking forward to seeing everybody and I’m glad I still will.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my goals for the winter out here. The first thing is to get the trailer baled and get the water running, especially the hot water. I’ve been worried that the water might freeze in the tank or in the lines, but I think once it’s all baled in that won’t be a problem.
The next thing I’m going to do is make a hot bed, which is basically a cold frame that you put compost under to keep warm. I’m going to try growing some greens and who knows what else in it. It’s a stepping stone to a larger greenhouse I’d like to build out in the garden area. I’ve already got some good ideas on the design.
My next bigger and much more expensive project is to start generating some power. I didn’t really want to spend the money just yet, but I found an awesome deal on some amorphous silicon thin-film panels. They were only 98 cents/watt, which is outrageous considering the next cheapest I’d ever found before was $1.74/watt and that was at this same web site. I ordered 10 Kaneka 60W panels from Sun Electronics in case anyone else is looking for cheap panels. The next cheapest place I found was Affordable Solar, but even it’s best deal is $2.69/watt and most of them are much much more.
The camper has a battery-powered lighting system and I have an small inverter I can use for now, but 600W will be way more than enough for just me. Even just taking the minimum average hours of full strength sunlight per year and minimum panel efficiency I should get at least 1.5 kWh/day or roughly enough juice to use my 90W power hungry giant laptop for almost 17 hours/day. Obviously I wouldn’t use my computer that much, but it gives you an idea.
There are a still a lot more expensive components to buy and then I’ll have to assemble them, the toughest of which will be mounting the panels on adjustable mounts that I’m going to make myself. The batteries and the charge controller will be the most expensive pieces, and the inverter isn’t cheap either.
I’ve learned to scale down my expectations somewhat on how quickly I can get things done, but not as much as I had worried I’d have to. So, building the green house and the solar power system are my main things to get done, but somewhere in there I’m also going to set up a small biodiesel production system to process waste vegetable oil for use in the truck and future vehicles and engines. That’ll cost a bit to set up as well, but nowhere near the expense of the off-grid power system.
And, as if I could get all of that done I’m also thinking about building a nicer larger guinea/chicken coop with insulation that I can fit inside the greenhouse. It’ll keep the birds warmer and they also produce some CO2 and body heat for the plants. At some point I’d like to be able to move the coop to another greenhouse though so I’m going to keep that in mind.
Other than that, the straw bale house is standing up nicely to the elements, even without plaster or gutters. The tarps certainly aren’t very charming though. Everything else said and done, I’m enjoying living in the camper. It’s cozy, everything is within arm’s reach, and it takes 5 minutes to clean from top to bottom. I hope everyone else out there is staying warm and dry.
Tags: amorphous silicon, biodiesel, body heat, camper, Chickens, Christmas, CO2, cold frame, coop, greenhouse, Guineas, heat, hot bed, insulation, Kaneka, kerosene, Maya Creek, off-grid, power, propane, snow, solar panels, Straw Bale, sun electronics, waste vegetable oil, winter
Posted in Chickens, Greenhouses, Guineas, Solar, Straw Bale, Visitor Lodge | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
The weather has shifted and things are getting downright cold around here. The first frost is just around the bend and our tomatoes don’t look happy about it. It’s been pretty overcast and the solar shower just isn’t cutting it anymore so we’ve been taking showers at the truck stop.
The metal roof has been installed on the straw bale visitor lodge and it seems to be working like a charm. It’s already weathered several intense storms without a sign of leakage. Standing back and looking at the place I can’t help but be proud of myself. I know we were aiming to get the entire place done this year, and we certainly could have gotten farther with different weather and more help, but somehow it’s hard to believe we’ve done as much as we’ve done.
We’ve started packing everything up and taking down Tarpopolis for the winter, after all, the tarps would collapse under any kind of snow load. Liz has cleaned up a large chunk of the garden. I’ve still got a few more things to do like tarping up the walls of the straw bale place and putting a metal roof over the composting toilet. The cold makes it hard to get up in the mornings, but it certainly motivates to get as much done as possible.
We had a busy weekend with a photo-journalism student coming out to do a project about us, and a couple from Kansas City came out for a visit as well. Justin and Melainia came out Sunday too and Justin helped us slaughter and butcher the guineas. In reality, he did all of the slaughtering by breaking their necks in what appeared to be about as quick and painless a way imaginable. The bodies still flopped around afterwards in a grotesque nervous system dance. After watching Justin clean and butcher 2 of the 3 guineas I did the last one to get my hands dirty and really learn how to do it.
I’m not quite comfortable with the neck snapping, killing the animals is by far one of the more difficult and emotionally taxing things to do, at least for most people. I’m concerned about hesitating and not doing it hard enough to kill them and having them suffer, the opposite is doing it too hard, in which case you pull the head clean off, which Justin did on the first one since guinea necks are weaker than chickens’ and he’d never done a guinea before. I’m thinking I’d like to try making a chopping block out of a stump with two nails that you bend over the neck to hold it still and cutting the head off that way. I’m sure that will cause the birds more anxiety, although I’d know I could kill it quickly and surely that way. Gruesome trade-offs, and I may end up snapping the necks, but either way I know the birds had a good life, and that’s really the most important thing in my opinion.
We would have also slaughtered the last chicken but the night before Justin came out, a fox or some other critter made off with her. All that remained was a pile of feathers and a bent fence where whatever it was climbed back over the fence. Surely the way we choose to slaughter our animals is less painful and drawn out than what nature would do otherwise.
We cooked the meat over the fire and served it with some boiled carrots and potatoes from the garden. The guinea meat was somewhat darker than chicken meat and had a slightly gamy flavor, which was actually very enjoyable. The leg meat was a little chewier, but again, it was enjoyable. I say that not just because it was personally satisfying to have raised our own meat, but because I objectively thought it was tasty.
Our goal is to be providing ourselves with all or most of our own meat, which will undoubtedly be much less than the average American consumes. It will also be healthier meat without all the antibiotics and elevated levels of saturated fats that confined animals end up with. Not to mention our animals will be living happy lives doing what they instinctively want to do, and in the process providing us with much more than just meat and eggs. We’ll be using goats like lawn mowers, using manure as fertilizer, guineas and other animals to get rid of pest plants and insects, all the while providing the pleasure of their company.
We recognize that the shear fact that we will be killing most of these animals near the end of their useful lives may seem brutal or inhumane to some people. However, the more I observe and live closer to nature and read varying perspectives on animal husbandry, I’ve begun to see it as a symbiotic relationship. These animals have evolved to depend on humans for their care and continuity as a species, in return they provide us with a host of services and ultimately even their bodies.
The alternatives are either to not have animals at all, which seems like a huge loss once you begin to recognize the immensely useful goods and services they provide, or to take care of them long past their useful lifespan until they die of old age, which is simply a fool’s errand. I certainly will not enjoy killing them, but I will do it with somber respect and gratitude by doing it as quickly and humanely as possible and being as wasteless as possible with what they have provided.
In this last week, my mother will be coming up and we’ll visit the sustainability fair in Columbia, MO as well as just showing her what we’ve done and enjoying each others company. Liz is heading out on Saturday I believe and I’ll finish up a few things and follow her a couple days later. It’s sad to be leaving all of what we’ve accomplished but we’ll be back early next year and then we’ll be permanent residents. I’m definitely looking forward to hot showers whenever we want and not dreading pulling off those covers in the morning.
I’ll continue to post blogs, I may even convince Liz to start posting as well. We’ll spend the first month or so in Virginia doing some minor improvements to Liz’s house there and then we’ll head off to visit different intentional communities, as well as friends and family on a winter voyage in a small cheap tow-behind camper. I’ve already got a few questions for each place we go, and I’m excited to see what other golden bits of wisdom they can bestow upon us and thus our blog readers as well.
Tags: butcher, camper, cold, Columbia, ecovillages, feathers, fox, frost, Guineas, Intentional Communities, MO, slaughter, Solar shower, Straw Bale, sustainability fair, tarps, Visitor Lodge, winter
Posted in Chickens, Guineas, Intentional Communities, Solar Hot Water, Straw Bale, Visitor Lodge | 6 Comments »
