Monthly Archive for October, 2008

Family Land Photos: Then and Now

Published
by
Ben

31

Oct

2008

in family, history and photos
. 0 Comments

This photo was taken on the land sometime around 1930.

Pictured are, left to right:

Top row - Hoyt, Glen, Lois, Paul
Bottom row - Henry, Nina, Annell, Ola

Henry and Ola are my great grandparents. The others are siblings. Annell is my grandmother; I call her MeeMa. Nina is my great aunt. They are the only ones still alive (see second photo).

L-R (rear) Hoyt, Glen, Lois, Paul, (front) Henry, Nina, Annell, Ola

Two years ago, I went to the land for the first time with some of my cousins who own adjacent property. We brought MeeMa and Aunt Nina with us — they hadn’t been back to the land in quite some time (they lived there for a few more years into the 1930’s, then the family moved closer to town). MeeMa will be 87 years old this coming December, and Nina is a few years younger. Both of them are still sharp as a tack.

MeeMa is up front holding the hat, Nina is behind her.

Nina and MeeMa

Old Land Photos

On the Land in 2006

Related Posts

Eco-Friendly Laundry Options

Published
by
Ben

29

Oct

2008

in money and simplifying
. 6 Comments

One thing that we try to keep in mind when planning our sustainable future is to avoid thinking “How can we do what we do now, but do it in a sustainable way?”. Initially, this is the temptation: to continue the status quo with less impact. It’s like buying a Prius when we should really just forget car-based transportation and ride bicycles instead.

What we’re looking for is a shift in ideas. How can we take this task, turn it on its head, and do it differently?

Recently, I’ve tried to figure out how we might wash clothes without resorting to using traditional washer-and-dryer appliances. They’re a wasteful use of energy and a complicated set of products controlled by computer circuitry. The initial costs are expensive and so is the maintenance. For us, this is unacceptable.

So how can this process be simplified without going back to the old, backbreaking, washboard technique?

I found three simple products that, when combined, will allow us to do laundry in a timely, efficient manner with minimal effort, environmental impact, energy use, or cost. Please note that we have not tried any of these. It is just a sample of the type of solutions we are looking for.

The “Breathing” Mobile Washer - $17. Yes, it looks like a plunger but the design actually pumps water through your clothes with ease. User reviews say that only a few minutes of agitation are needed to do a large load of laundry. It’s cheap, easy, and obvious.

Bio-Kleen Cold Water Laundry Liquid - $0.12 per oz. This clothes cleaning liquid is environmentally friendly, is not tested on animals, and does not contain any bizarre fragrances, dyes, or toxic chemicals. That means we can recycle the wastewater and use it for irrigation. It is also available in 5-gallon buckets, which fits our requirement that any consumables must be available in bulk. Each load requires only 1 oz of cleaner; at a current price of $77 for 5 gallons (640 oz) that’s $0.12 per load and it will last us at least 6 years.

Spin Dryer - $135. It’s a centrifuge for your laundry. With a spin rate of 3200 rpm, clothes are nearly dry in less than 3 minutes. The only thing left to do is hang them outside on a clothesline for an hour or two (sunlight is also a good sterilizer).

In the end, we may decide on something different, but compared to the complexity and price of a normal washer and dryer, solutions like these just make sense.

Related Posts

  • No related posts.

Our First In-Depth Look At A Rammed Earth Home

Published
by
Laura

27

Oct

2008

in community and inspiration
. 0 Comments

A few weeks ago Ben found this article about a rammed earth house located in Chapel Hill, NC, about 40 minutes from where we live. He called Gary, the owner and builder of the house, and scheduled for us a little visit.

Rammed Earth House : Outside

We met Gary and his wife yesterday and were completely in awe of the house. It is beautiful not only because of smooth, earthen walls but also because of their impeccable taste in local art. The house is about 1,050 square feet (about the size we’re planning for our home) and each little piece of the house had quite a creative touch to it: painted doors, custom windows and metalwork, small glass tiles in the patio columns, etc. Awesome.

On the first floor he had radiant floor heating in a green-tinted concrete slab foundation. The first floor walls were 24″ thick (see photo below). The upper level had hardwood flooring and thinner walls. Heating in the colder months is supplemented by a wood burning stove in the kitchen area of the ground level. A single small air conditioning unit is installed in the upstairs wall, just above the stairway, and Gary states that they really only use it for about three weeks in the summer. (Only necessary during consistent 95+ degree days.)

Laura's Hand On Rammed Earth Wall

Gary’s costs were higher than we’re anticipating for ours, I’m betting mostly because he hired labor and opted for custom details. We’re also planning to build a one-level home so the difficulties that come with installing a second floor mostly won’t apply to us. We’re hoping to build this without asking too many others for help!

After snapping photos and asking some questions, we left feeling excited and inspired! We hope to be making another trip soon to a local earthen home builder. Stay tuned!

Rammed Earth House in Chapel Hill

Related Posts

Budgeting and Getting Started

Published
by
Ben

22

Oct

2008

in budget and work
. 0 Comments

Last weekend, Laura and I went to Earthaven Ecovillage near Asheville. While I’m fairly certain I don’t ever want to live in such an arrangement, it was inspiring to see some of the buildings and structures that they’ve made from earthen materials. We also got to help build a small pond and to mud plaster the exterior of a fancy outhouse. Getting ideas and learning learning learning…

Most recently, I have been trying to figure out a rough budget that we will need as the project progresses.

The first and most important thing to take care of is clearing the land. As much as I would love to live in a magnificent 50 year old forest, that reality doesn’t exist on our land anymore since my mom and other family members, in their infinite and forward-looking wisdom, decided to cut everything down 12 years ago for profit. As you can see here, most of it is nothing but brush, thorns, and very small trees.

In the name of growing our own food and putting up solar panels, some of the trees have to come down. I found a local land clearing company [Specialized Forestry Solutions] that will come in and take down 4 acres, in about 2 days time, for $4,000. The best part is that their clearing machine mulches as it goes, leaving a layer of organic matter covering the ground. This should be perfect in a few years when we finish the house and want to start a large garden and an orchard. Plus it’s less than 10% of the land, anyway.

After we get the land cleared, the second step is to get an 800 ft gravel driveway put in. I’m still working on getting an exact quote for that but it should be less than $8,000 for sure. Then we need small-ish concrete slabs installed for the shipping containers to sit on, and also for storage bays for other materials like the rocks and sand we will need for the rammed earth mixture. Oh yeah, did I mention that we’re going to live in 20′x8′x8′ shipping containers while we build the house? Yes, we’re that awesome.

Right now it’s looking like the land clearing will be done at the end of December. We’re aiming to have the road put in by the end of March, concrete slabs poured sometime in April, and shipping containers delivered by May. That way we can be set up to actually get stuff done next summer like building an outhouse, preparing the containers for livability, installing a few solar panels and a metal roof over everything, and hooking up a water catchment system (off the roof) so we have a source of potable water.

FUN!!!

Earthaven Ecovillage

Related Posts

The Jungle

Published
by
Laura

14

Oct

2008

in work
. 2 Comments

Last weekend Ben and I spent four days on the land literally chopping our way through to see what’s going on. We spent hours slicing through briars and knocking down small trees just to carve out a mere three trails, none of which connect yet. I can’t even put into words how much of a mess it is. In most places you can’t see past 20 feet in front of you, not like you can when you’re standing in an old-growth forest.

The Jungle

But, it’s all ok. There’s a part of me that is very happy it’s going to take so much work to make it nice. This is absolutely a labor of love and to confirm that, Ben asked me to marry him after three hours of chopping through the woods and asking me a bunch of questions about whether I think I’m up to the task of building a house there with him. I said yes… and I couldn’t (seriously) COULDN’T be more excited about the next few years.

Our next trip back will be during the last week of December and we’re hoping to bring better tools than just our machetes.

Fall Break In Toccoa

Related Posts