Spring 2013: Update

This will be more of an update through photos as I’m rushing off to get some other work done. The past week has been busy as tomorrow will mark a full seven days since our last snowfall and we’re running around trying to get things sorted for our full-on season. I went to Calgary on Friday and picked up the lovely batteries you see below- Surrette CS17pS, 4 of them for a 24 Volt system. On Saturday we headed down to Lethbridge to pick up our very solidly built solar panel mounts. Thanks to Troy at Eco Diesel for building us a mount that will easily survive the winds that blow through our property daily. I took a couple of pictures of his system- ours will look just like that once in place except that we have nine panels instead of twelve and will only require two cement blocks to secure the system. And on our way home from Troy’s, we picked up a rescue dog from a woman in the area. The latest addition to our homestead, currently going by No-Name because his new owners have channeled all of their creative juices elsewhere. I will try to write or at least post photos in the next while (I have fabulous worm bins and a new tractor to tell you about) but am so ridiculously busy right now that I can’t say when. Hope everyone’s spring is off to a wonderful start!

 

Spring Planning

We headed off to Cuba a while back thinking that a vacation was looong overdue and hoping to return to spring-like weather. No such luck. We drove through a near province-wide blizzard to get to the airport and returned to a blizzard that started up just minutes into our (normally) four hour drive home. Winter continues to dump a massive amount of snow in the region. It’ll slow down this week according to weather reports but we’re still due to get between 5 and 10 centimetres more by Friday.

 

So what’s a girl to do? Order seeds and dream of warmer days! And that’s what I did last week, finally whittling down my wish list to a more practical (affordable) one. Still not entirely cheap (by my standards anyway) by the time I was done, but a considerable savings if even half of it produces and saves me gas money and grocery store prices.

 

I’m not sure if I mentioned here or elsewhere (a friend keeps suggesting that I buy gingko for memory but of course I never remember to) but we’ve been following Michael Pollan’s suggestion to “eat food, not too much, mostly plants”. Let me tell you, in our region that is a bitch to follow. Walking into our grocery store is like being transported in time- hardly any fresh produce, mostly root vegetables and nonsense like iceberg lettuces, all at ridiculous prices. If we ate canned or frozen food we’d be set but, well, ick!

 

I don’t have any difficulty avoiding processed/refined foods because I am making everything from homemade bread to yogurt to gnocci, soup, pasta, crackers and more but getting our hands on healthy produce is a trial. So I’m looking forward to gardening this year and determined to make the time, regardless of how busy the building season is.

 

On a related note, it looks like we have just about finalized our plans for an attached grow space. ‘Grow space’ rather than greenhouse because it’s not going to be a traditional greenhouse, not with the limitations of our climate and materials available to us right now. But it’ll do for the basics, we hope, and we’ll continue building up the outside gardens as well as look at plans for more buildings down the road.

 

Also making our ‘great news’ list is the fact that our tractor has come in! Yeah baby! Now there’s a tool I’m looking forward to having, after three years of moving every bit of material (clay, gravel, sand, soil) one shovel-load at a time. It looks like we’ll be picking it up this weekend and I can hardly wait! I’m hoping that we’re able to use it to move some of the heavy snow from our lower areas on the property before spring thaw and flooding. Couldn’t be better timing!

 

I’ll definitely be taking pictures of our new addition once we pick it up but here are a few totally-unrelated-to-anything photos of our trip to Cuba for now. Check out the Man o’ War. Shane had a run-in with one and they’re not nearly as harmless as they look.

Greenhouse Plan

Once again, it’s been a while. I’ve been busy making considerable changes/additions to my life and have been somewhat on the fence about sharing those in a blog. Not because of any privacy issues but because this is, after all, primarily a blog about natural building and sustainable living, though my political views occasionally figure. Suffice to say I’ve been distracted by my other pursuits and made the decision to let Canadian Dirtbags slide for a while.

 

So what are we planning for the building season? Well, a greenhouse addition for starters. Someone had asked a little bit back whether we intended to go ahead with original plans to add a greenhouse and I believe I hemmed and hawed over the decision. I am getting somewhat tired of building all the time and wasn’t sure whether “more building” was something I was entirely into. I also have an extensive garden to tend that I haven’t had much time for, and plans to incorporate bees, and perhaps ducks and geese, maybe even a goat or two, plus- ooh la la- some time for me perhaps. So much to do, so little time! At least in Canada where all of the seasons but winter are short.

 

Having said that, we decided that food production was too critical a matter to slack off on. Especially since some of the changes I’ve made in the last while mean that we’re no longer purchasing any refined or processed foods and are instead going with Michael Pollan’s suggestion to, “eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” (If any of you have read “In Defense of Food”, let me know what it was like- I haven’t read it.) And since we are juicing as well as eating, we are going through a lot of produce.*

 

We have pretty much settled on, but not yet purchased, the Rion sunroom. It is not (in my books anyway) cheap but it will save considerable time scavenging and framing to just buy the thing new. We are leaning towards the 14’ model, since our summers are scorching and winters are lengthy. Anything larger than that could be an utter waste of space.

 

We will be building the back (north) side of the structure with earthbags for ease of construction and to provide some good solid mass. We haven’t finalized the plan yet but will be building with the intention of integrating an aquaponics/hydroponics system at a later date. Shane is quite interested in those things and I’m happy to leave him to it. I have seen the results of growing produce hydroponically, as opposed to traditionally, and they do seem to outperform.

 

If you have seen the pictures of the house, the completed structure will look just like that but with a greenhouse extending 14 feet on the east side of the building, connected by a central foyer. The entire back of the building(s) will be bermed and the long stretch along the south will have an extended garden. I’m excited to see the plan complete this year!

 

riongreenhousekit.com photo

*I will write a post later about how to use veg pulp from juicing. We’ve found so many uses already!

 

 

On a totally unrelated note: I hope that many of our readers will be joining in the One Billion Rising movement today. When one in three women on the planet will be beaten and/or raped in her lifetime, this is a global issue- not a ‘female’ one. There have been actions all over the world today- including in Manila where 15 blocks were shut down for the mass of women and men dancing in solidarity! If you have not heard of this revolution, I encourage you to visit the One Billion Rising website.

 

 

 

Well Worth Watching

If you happen to be snowed in, or without a television (both of which describe me), there are still a lot of great documentaries available online. One of my current go-to sites is Films for Action. There are hundreds of titles but a good place to start is their Wall Of Films, featuring over 400 documentaries for social change on one page. My current favourite is Sharkwater, also available on YouTube.

 

 

Another fabulous *free* download is a spoken word poem by Shane Koyczan, “For the Loneliest City” (aka If You Are Alone at Christmas). Just go to his website and download. You might want to check out his other works while you’re there- he’s a remarkable poet.

2012: Where We’re At and Lessons Learned

Well, having taken the time to post a rant I figure it is probably high time to update our friends about the actual building progress. Long story short- we’re not in and won’t be until spring. Short story long, see below…

As of mid-November we were still planning on moving into the new place this winter. And then I hit a wall. Upon heading outside in the mornings I started to feel like if I had to spend one more freaking day toiling I was going to break down in tears. I was kicking at the snow and muttering clever things like, “stupid house!” From April until November the schedule had been: get up, go to work (house and garden), come home, make supper, pass out, repeat. Which might not have been so bad except that I determined (in my infinite wisdom) to work seven days a week at the beginning of the year. Previous years I’d taken time to dirt bike, read, visit with friends- what a difference a little down time makes.

Anyway, add to that my inability to complete floors and ceilings on my own and the decision was made to postpone the move. Having had a month off physical labour, I’m ready for spring and excited to go again but hey… The decision was made.

I’ve had a lot of questions about what the temperature in the new house is like and don’t feel qualified to answer at this time. Because we haven’t moved in, we’re not heating it regularly. Shane fires up the stove and heater (sometimes) when he goes out but there have been weeks when we haven’t even gone inside. The wood stove in the kitchen does heat things up quite a bit (and quickly). The mass heater takes longer to heat things up but stays warm quite a bit longer. And the passive solar in the living room does add a good amount of heat to the room.

We will finish up berming in the spring. Our intention is to berm at least 3/4 of the way up the buildings on the north, east and west sides leaving only the south side exposed. We didn’t have time to berm very high this year before the snow fell but you can already tell the difference in temperature between what’s exposed and what’s ‘underground’. I suspect that because we didn’t insulate, the berming will be critical to the liveability of the house. We’re actually considering buying a small tractor (wheeeeee!!!) and, if we do, that should move things along nicely compared to our manual shovel-work.

Of my “lessons learned” from the year, I would say that the importance of berming in a northern climate ranks near the top. (And don’t work seven days a week for seven months straight.) The other two big ones: we should have gone with larger (or more) windows in the kitchen and maybe the bedroom (solar gain in the living room is drastically better and does add a good deal of ‘natural’ heat); and deciding to put a room on the north side at last minute, in spite of advice, was not the best idea. It’s very cold in there. We will insulate the room come spring (from the outside) in addition to berming and that should save it.  I also think that building lower would not only have saved time but also been more efficient insofar as heating. Granted, we hadn’t intended cathedral ceilings so much as belatedly changed our minds about a second story and decided to throw a roof up… In any case, it looks fabulous but a shorter building would have done.

Like every other year, the experience wouldn’t be complete without a few lessons learned.

Let Your Bigot Flag Fly! (or: Merry Christmas!)

This is probably not the best time of the year for me to write (publicly). I tend to get a little cynical around the holidays. Rather, the cynicism of others starts to wear on me. My biggest annual irritant is those people who (in most un-Christian fashion) choose to get up on their soap boxes and bemoan all of the ‘foreigners’ demanding that they say “happy holidays” rather than “merry Christmas”. Really? When was the last time a so-called foreigner suggested you change any of your traditions? And where did you get the impression that anyone cares what you have to say, be it about a holiday or any other subject? If you are the type who chooses Christmas to vocalize your bigotry, against people who may or may not share your religious beliefs (I’d point out there are MANY Christian immigrants living in Canada, and many non-Christian immigrants who could care less what you celebrate let alone what you call it), chances are the only people who will ‘like’ your status or go merrily along with your assessment of political correctness run riot are other ignorant fools. The rest of us fall into the cringe-and-try-to-ignore-you group, or the deeply offended.

That these same people choose to celebrate Christ’s birth (which many Christians argue is not December 25th) through massive consumption strikes me as a wee bit sacriligious. I’m not sure what evergreen trees, presenting people with wish lists, massive spending, overconsumption of goodies, and waste have to do with your Saviour’s birth but hey- I’m not Christian. There, I said it. I’m not Christian. Whew. That’s a relief. And probably a surprise to many who know me as a third generation Irish, white girl. Quel surprise! A third generation Irish, white girl who every year makes a full turkey dinner for whomever I know will otherwise be alone at this time of the year that means something to them. Ironically, that strikes me as the more Christian thing to do than shopping and bigotry.

One last thing- let’s call it a reality check. I’m surprised with all of the news about Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike and the Idle No More protests taking place across this country that more people aren’t reminded that there were people here before our Christian European ancestors landed here and began to decimate the population. We had (I would argue have) no respect for Native spiritual beliefs and no attempt was made (on our part) to assimilate. We forced our religion, our way of life, language and self-entitlement on the Native peoples, taking their children, their land, and their rights (that hadn’t hitherto needed to be written as law). Hence the whole messy reconciliation process and lack of equality that persists to this day. So before we get up on our hind legs about our (imagined) persecution, let’s take a moment to reflect on what what allows us to be so self righteous.

I’m not suggesting that my Christian brethren shouldn’t vocalize their beliefs. Au contraire. At this magical time of the year, I would like to advance the concept of embracing your Christianity- specifically those tenets that involve kindness, humility, charity, and good will. If there are points to be had for saving souls (I think the argument goes, “better to act as if there are and find out there isn’t, than to…”) , let’s take a lesson from all of the companies out there so effectively marketing their products and services and make Christianity appealing and not just offensive. Go ahead and put the “Christ” back in “Christ-mass”. I double dog dare you.

Multiple Uses for Pallets

 

We live on the prairie so wood is hard to come by. Not so for pallets though- it seems there are always a surplus of pallets being thrown away. We collect them wherever we go. We even have a friendly store owner who saves them out back for us.

Of the many uses we’ve found for our pallets: perfect firewood for the rocket mass heater, a temporary front landing for our new home (perfect for scraping off muddy boots), compost bins, bins for sand, and sturdy platforms for our lime and cement bags (to protect them from moisture). We’re also planning on using a few in the construction of a new dog house and recently came across a great idea for “pallet gardening” on Grow Food, Not Lawns facebook page.

Gotta love it when free stuff turns out to be so darn useful!