Tag Archives: off-grid

Making Connections

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.

Maya Creek Christmas 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.