Archive for the ‘Solar’ Category

Healing Up and Breaking Down

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.

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Posted in Cisterns, Firewood, garden, Guest Cabins, Organic Gardening, Pest Control, Raccoons, Solar, Straw Bale | No Comments »

Stick It Where The Sun Does Shine

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

It’s hard to believe another summer has come and gone, and as the colder weather has set in we get less and less things done.  We’ve wrapped up construction on the common house for this year and I’ve moved into the loft for the winter.  John has been taking refuge in the common house as well until we get the floor totally finished and the doors and windows installed on the cabin he’ll be in for the winter.  Jesse’s managing in his camper, but he’ll probably move into the common house when John moves into his cabin.  So, there’s lots of shuffling going on as we prepare for the winter.  I think we’re all looking forward to the nice long break.

Hot Showers

We’ve gotten our first hot indoor showers at Maya Creek now.  It’s still very primitive, we have to heat up the water via the cook stove or rocket stove and pour it in a feeder bucket above the shower.  One of next year’s major projects will be installing the water system including the cistern and solar hot water panel and tank, until then we’ll be just fine with what we’ve got.  It’s probably hard for an outside observer to understand how grateful we are for the low pressure showers that we take right now, but that goes for a lot of things out here.  It’s rare that people understand the amount of time, labor, and general effort that have gone into what we’ve got so far.

Mini-Cabin Progress

We’ve gotten a steel roof installed on the cabin, with an old billboard tarp as a second layer of protection taking the place of tar paper.  We extended one side and added a small covered porch area.  We’ll finish filling in the gaps on the roof gables and plastering the outside next year, but we did put all of the layers of plaster and floor in on the inside.  We haven’t worked with the finish coats of plaster or earthen floor to this point and we used the cabin as an experiment to get some experience before doing the common house.

We wanted to lighten the walls some so we incorporated some masonry lime into the mix, and a little really went a long way towards lightening up the color.   That’s good to know so that we can use it for the exterior finish coat on the house and make the burnt sienna coloring stand out more.  The lime is a little rough on the hands, so next time we do an interior finish plaster that we want to lighten we’ll try to find some white kaolin clay, but for an exterior plaster the lime adds extra protection.

The floor is currently drying out after applying a couple of coats of linseed oil cut to different strengths with mineral spirits.  Then we finished it off with a mixture of oil and beeswax to finish it all off and waterproof it.

John’s building an insulated door improving the design of the doors used in the common house.  They’re kind of a pain to build, and in the future we’ll probably just build the door and window bucks to fit whatever doors or we can salvage.  The benefit of building our own is that we can make them super-insulated, so there’s a trade-off.

Reflecting on Solar Power

When I first picked the unpainted galvanized steel roofing I was mainly thinking about our rainwater collection system and how I didn’t want any toxic paint residue in the water supply.  I was also thinking about reflecting some of the heat in the summer.  That reflected light goes all year really and is actually blinding when you hit at the right spot.  After putting on the porch on the back of the house this year at a lower angle than the roof the effect was even greater.  It occurred to us to harness all that extra light by mounting our panels behind the house on a raised rack to catch all of that extra light.

We’ve never seen something like this before, but now that we’ve done it we’ll pretend like we had it planned this way all along. Hehe.  The panels are all in one long row to catch to orient with the roof more closely and catch more reflection.  We’re still putting the finishing touches on everything, and we had to buy a few more pieces of hardware since we’re moving from a 12V system to 24V, but so far the panels appear to be putting out 25-50% more power!  As you can imagine we’re quite pleased and have doubled our battery bank to hold more of that goodness.

Granting Wishes

We’ve been looking into trying to get some funding help for our projects out here at MC.  Next year we’re planning on holding several free workshops on the things that we think we’re confident in teaching.  We’ll post a schedule some time over the winter about those.

Anyway, we feel that since we’re actively providing education opportunities by giving tours, work parties, setting booths at related events, and now with workshops that we should be able to receive grants to help us along.  We’ve been pouring our own money into everything so far, but it’s consistently a restrictive factor and one causes significant amounts of stress.

We’ve explored the option of becoming a tax-exempt non-profit, but the paperwork and legal rigmarole is disenchanting to say the least.  However, we’re in talks with Mid-Missouri Peaceworks to become a project of theirs and fall under their non-profit umbrella.  We’ll probably know if that’s going to work out by the end of November.

In the meantime, I went to a grant-writing workshop for SARE(Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) grants last week.  It was moderately helpful, although I was told that many of things I’d hoped to get grants for such as permanent structures like greenhouse, root cellar, etc wouldn’t be allowed, I found examples of SARE grants funding those exact same things while researching it later.

We understand that grants are not meant to build private structures, but everything we’re building is meant to be both for our own use as well as to be a demonstration for tours and for use in workshops.   It seems like most grants do not want to pay for physical items, but if they want to pay us to do what we were already intending to do then we can use those wages to buy the physical items that we need.

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Posted in Cisterns, Earthen Floor, Greenhouses, Guest Cabins, Solar, Solar Hot Water, Water | 2 Comments »

Growing Possibilities

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Visualizing the future of Maya Creek can be double-edged sword.  The possibilities for this place are incredible and less and less difficult to see even to outside observers.  On the other hand, the amount of energy needed to realize those possibilities can be stifling and disheartening.

Still, over time I get used to the pace of growth and accept that it may be many years before it even approaches what it could be.  Every year and every day is different and fulfilling, and there’s really not much more you can ask for out of life.  The work here will never be done, or at least I should hope it never ends.  As the saying goes, the day you stop learning, is the day you begin to die.

Guest Cabin Progress

We’ve finished applying the last thick coats of earthen plaster and floor to the cabin.  It’s a very labor intensive process since the infill coat of plaster can be a couple inches thick.  It’s worth it though, because it really smooths out the walls, and is going to provide lots of thermal mass to moderate the temperature.

We also installed the foundation insulation, and mortared in the scrap granite chunks around the base to protect the bottoms of the walls from rain.  We stuffed the area behind the granite with misprinted polypropylene feedsacks filled with scrap alpaca wool, which we affectionately named, “fur turds”.

Yesterday, we went looking for a screen door and found one at the Habitat Restore for $20.  It was the only one they had and it was heavy duty and just barely the right height.  We took it back and it fit perfectly.  Dumb, but very awesome luck.

John should be able to move into the place after the walls and floor finish drying in several weeks.  We’ve still got to put the metal roof on, install the doors and windows, and put the finish exterior plaster on, but we’re getting close.

Garden Raids

The garden has been under siege ever since the sweet corn started coming in.  We’ve trapped ~7 raccoons and 2 opossums, and we probably would’ve gotten more if they hadn’t finished off the 400 sq. ft. of corn completely.  The fence we’ve set up works well on deer and rabbits, but climbing critters don’t mind it at all.

We’ve got a new solution though that I think will work.  We’re going to set up a stereo hooked up to a small solar power system.   We tried it out for about 5 days and the garden was left alone all that time.

Playing conservative talk radio seemed like the best bet, because it has the most yelling and angry sounding voices… and it’s just scary in general.  However, I had the idea of making a long MP3 recording of the sounds of common predators in the area and having it loop.  I’ll probably throw in some weird tiger roars and other foreign animal sounds too just to keep ‘em freaked out.

The tomatoes are still coming in pretty heavily, and so are the squash and cucumbers.  I’ve been dehydrating a lot of the squash and tomatoes for winter soups.  They should go well with the ~50 lbs of potatoes we’ve got left from out harvest earlier this year.

The Possibility Alliance

Last Saturday Jesse, Jessica, John, Nic, and I went up to the Possibility Alliance in northern Missouri to take a short class on sustainable forestry.  It was actually more about just seeing the place and meeting the people.  It was a short, but sweet visit and I was really excited to see a project working that’s so similar to what I currently hope Maya Creek will turn into.

They’re creating a sustainable community, teaching workshops, and permaculture certification.  All just for donations!  I’d noticed that all the places that teach these types of skills and certifications were really pricey, and it seemed to defeat the point.  Most people interested in learning these skills don’t have a lot of money, and if you think the skills are that important then I would think you’d want to give as many people access to them as you could.

Today John and I went back for a more in-depth tour.  We got to explore the site fully and get a lot of questions answered.  The amount of energy that Ethan exudes is staggering, and I’m amazed he’s able to maintain it.   He and others at PA are part of the superheroes organization which ride bicycles in superhero attire offering help to people.  Perhaps he really is a superhero in more ways than one.

I’ve created an album of photos from the tour here.

Visitors

We had a nice visit from Bob and Kelly earlier this month.  They were out from California looking around the area at permaculture related projects.  They’re planning on moving out this way in the near future, and are planning to help out at Maya Creek after they get settled.

Nic just left to help set up a camp at Burning Man.  He was here for about a week helping us put in some earthen floor and just checking the place out.  He came down from Minneapolis, but has been traveling around all over.  It’s always nice to have a new person with new stories and perspectives come and share that with us.  I’ll be seeing Nic again at Burning Man in a few days.

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Posted in Guest Cabins, Intentional Communities, Organic Gardening, Pest Control, Raccoons, Solar, Solar Dehydration | 5 Comments »

A Gravity All Its Own

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.

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Posted in Chickens, Compost, Dumpster Diving, Earthen Plaster, Guineas, Raccoons, Recycled Materials, Reusable Goods, Solar, Straw Bale, Ticks, Visitor Lodge, Wind | 2 Comments »

A Little Bit of Everything

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.

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Posted in Earthen Plaster, Mushrooms, Organic Gardening, Recycled Materials, Reusable Goods, Solar, Straw Bale, Ticks, Wind | 5 Comments »

Making Connections

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.

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Posted in Compost, garden, Greenhouses, Recycled Materials, Reusable Goods, Solar, Straw Bale, Visitor Lodge | 3 Comments »

Radical Sustainability

Friday, January 15th, 2010

I’m not a spiritual or religious person, but I do take notice when the stars align.  Justin and I were having a discussion last week about how solar panels, hybrid cars, and CFLs aren’t really and truly sustainable, at least not in the way I’d like to be sustainable.  The next day I began reading Toolbox for Sustainable City Living, and it introduced me to the phrase, “Radical Sustainability”.

toolboxRadical sustainability means using only what you can find in nature or can scavenge easily, in other words, using things that are locally sourced.  To me being sustainable means not relying on goods, especially complex ones, to be readily available for purchase forever.

The word “radical” actually means “root”, so a radical solution is a solution that attacks the root of a problem.  It makes you wonder how being a “radical” got a negative slant over the last few decades, kind of like “liberal”.  I guess if the root of the problem is the military-corporate-media-government complex and they’re making the definitions, it makes sense.

Long story short, I’m rad, and yes, I know the 80′s called and want their word back, and no they can’t have it.

Here’s an instance of how radical sustainability differs from regular sustainability. Say you give some solar panels and CFLs to a rural village in Africa.  That’s great for however long the bulbs and panels last, but then what?  They can’t make any more.  If you want real sustainability you show them how they can make lamp oil from crops and animal fat, or candles from bees wax.  If they need electricity, showing them how to make wind generators from easily sourced “junk” like bike parts and simple motors means they’re not SOL when one generator goes out.

This basically hints at the fact that I believe we are heading for a much less energy-rich future, and to be quite frank, the thought of how much more our society could destroy with unlimited energy scares me.  I think most people view this as a “sky is falling” scenario or they want to avoid thinking about it altogether because a future like that seems painful, dreary, and downright terrifying.

I don’t believe that has to be the case. In fact, I’m totally convinced that we can live far better than we do today as long as we’re smart and prepared. Most people are totally oblivious to how much we are missing with our modern lifestyles.  The personal connections to nature, food, housing, and other people have all decayed to the point where we don’t even realize what we’ve lost.

The solar panels that I ordered didn’t get processed.  Apparently the shipping was twice as much as they told me when I ordered them, not to mention an additional credit card fee, so I canceled my order.

I’ve taken to temporarily using the truck as a type of generator and running an extension cord from the car inverter to the camper.  I’ve been researching how I can build a simple wind generator cheaply from scavenged or easily found materials.  I’m leaning towards one like the photo here, with blades built from a piece of PVC pipe, a scavenged motor from things like ceiling fans, treadmills, old printers, or even making one from magnets scavenged from hard drives and coils of wire.  You can find more info on this wind generator here.

One thing I’ve noticed after being out here and looking for the simplest, cheapest, and most environmental way of doing things is that you develop a sort of MacGyver eye.  It’s creative problem-solving, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t a lot of fun.  Even though I haven’t built this wind generator yet, you can be sure I’ll be a proud papa one day.

In other news, I’ve got the camper about 75% surrounded with bales, but I’ve run out and my farmer friend migrated south for the Winter and won’t be back until Spring.  I found another source, but it’s twice as expensive.  I don’t think I’m going to bother finishing with the rest of the bales as it’s already quite comfortable in there, even when it was sub-zero here during the recent cold snap.

I’ve also taken to painting the purple “No Hunting” stripes on the trees along the property line.   I’m hoping that if I can increase the wild turkey population significantly they can put a bigger dent in the tick population.  I considered planting native food sources for them, but after I looked at a list of what they eat I found that there is already plenty out here for them… they just need to quit being hunted.

On my way back from painting some trees yesterday I decided to stop by the lake to check it out.  On the way I ran across a herd of wild turkeys.  I’d estimate there were at least 25, but maybe more.  So that’s a pretty darn good start.  Seconds before I snapped this picture of the lake I saw a coyote running up the hill on the other side.  He may also be happy about the turkeys…

Tomorrow Justin and Melainia are coming out to visit along with Jesse and Tracy, a couple that lives towards St. Louis.   I know Justin and Melainia wanted to help out with something, but there’s really not that much to do just yet.  I might just run my cold frame, greenhouse, and wind generator plans by them and make plans to actually work on it another day.

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Posted in Greenhouses, Radical Sustainability, Recycled Materials, Solar, Ticks, Wild Turkeys, Wind | 10 Comments »

Maya Creek Christmas 2009

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!

Straw bale house with new truckIt’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.

Camper partially surrounded with balesI 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.

Consider it stickeredThe 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.

Pink is not a snow fanAnd, 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.

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Posted in Chickens, Greenhouses, Guineas, Solar, Straw Bale, Visitor Lodge | 3 Comments »