A couple of years ago, Shane and I fell in love with an acreage in the “middle of nowhere”- a small parcel of land on the Alberta prairies. We decided, pretty much on the spot, to trade our high-powered, fast paced careers and home in the city for a new way of life. It took some adjustment as we moved from a “wants”-based lifestyle to evaluating needs, and learning to prioritize and carefully plan our limited trips to the nearest town. No more running out to the store at 11 p.m. for those last minute items, or ordering pizza (or anything else!) for delivery! Even more surprisingly- no more fresh, potable water straight from the tap. (I now take the opportunity to guzzle tap water whenever we travel to the city.)
After a period of adjustment we began to notice the spiritual value in our new lifestyle. While we gave up the convenience and economic advantage of city life, we also left behind a stressful pace, noise and air pollution, and a “go-go-go” mentality that often saw us moving fast but without much direction. We now find ourselves working hard but enjoying life considerably more, and feeling more satisfied and accomplished.
A while back we started to reevaluate the “working hard” portion of our lives. We fantasized about what would we do if we could do anything that we wanted to with our lives, if we were free of obligations and bills and general expenses? The answer for us was very simple. We’d stay home most of the time and travel occasionally. That’s how much we enjoy our property and each other’s company. We have a wonderful vegetable garden to tend, beautiful landscape to wander, deer and horned owls and coyotes to watch and wile away the day…
The question then became- what’s keeping us from doing that, from being able to live and enjoy our lives right now rather than planning for the day some thirty years from now when we’ll have achieved the ‘freedom’ to do so? (And heaven forbid one or both of us doesn’t make it to our ‘magical sixties’- or seventies at this rate- then what have we been working for?) Well, we work to pay the bills. We work to provide our basic necessities. Or, more accurately, we work to pay someone else to provide our basic needs- food, electricity, and gas for heating. Whoa- wait a minute now- we work to pay someone else to provide our basic needs??? And so the question changed once again and became- what’s to stop us from providing for our own needs? The answer, quite simply, is nothing.
I’ll save my socio-political tirades for later and keep this introduction focused on the ‘planning’ aspect of our goal for the sake of brevity. Moving on- we began to research sustainable living. Let me tell you, with the internet what it is today this is no small feat. There is a wealth of information available if you’re willing to put several thousand hours into sifting through the practical to the idealistic. It just so happens that Shane and I are both obsessive by nature so we have taken up the gauntlet and digested tremendous amounts of information- some helpful, some silly, and some downright hilarious.
Michael Reynold’s “Earthships” initially caught our interest. Reynold’s himself is a man of the future with many great thoughts on sustainable living and integrating practical, modern solutions. (See http://www.earthship.org for further information.) We bought all three volumes of his Earthship series and began planning. During the planning stages we also researched alternative heating and building techniques and came across Ianto Evan’s work with cob and rocket mass heaters and Nader Khalili’s domes. Which led us to Owen Geiger, Kelly Hart, Kaki Hunter and Doni Kiffmeyer… Long story short, we have abandoned our Earthship plans in favour of building earthbag domes, which we intend to cover and partly furnish in cob, heat with rocket mass heaters, and integrate with Reynold’s greywater reuse system and passive solar design. Phew!
Oh, and Shane will build a wind turbine for generating power using the design concepts of Bartman and Fink of “Otherpower.com”. And we’ll raise some animals (should be interesting for a couple of city folk). And while some of you may already be laughing, we’d like to have this done in the next two years. (We’re also planning on harvesting and treating rainwater and incorporating permaculture techniques into our landscape, for those of you who think we’re slacking.)
So stay tuned and feel free to offer suggestions or feedback. We’re always happy to hear new ideas or about your personal experiences with sustainable, off-grid living. And of course we’ll answer any questions that we can along the way. We expect it will be a fun-filled, magical, painful experience with lots of ups and downs and comic relief to keep us (and you!) entertained.
Cheers!
Brandee
Just stumbled across your blog – fortuitous, as my husband and I have just moved onto an overgrown acreage in Saskatchewan, with some plans that are rather similar to yours! I’m looking forward to catching up with your blog and seeing how far you have come, but just wanted to leave a quick note 🙂
Wonderful! I hope you’ll share your own experiences as you progress. It’s been quite the learning curve, for us, and a whole lotta work but we wouldn’t have it any other way. 🙂
Similar story here of being fascinated with earthships, and later following earthbags, and now wanting to incorporate earthship designs into an earthbag build. Love your posts and am following your progress.
Do you have your basic plan posted sonewhere?
We had considered the earthship design using earthbags too. Ultimately we decided against it because we wanted to keep costs really low and the windows and roofing material would have shot the budget, besides which we’d have had to learn how to build a roof. Awesome idea though.
Shane has a very basic plan in Autocad on one of his computers but we haven’t posted it. It doesn’t detail much, just the overall floor plan.
“we work to pay someone else to provide our basic needs???” >>> enslaved !!! This should be on bumper stickers and T shirts !! great quote ! I was researching prefab yurt homes and found my way to Owen Geiger site then to your blog. I cant wait to see pics of your dream home when it is complete , or close to it. The futurist Jacques Fresco (venus project / zeitgeist movies) has some interesting home designs also worth checking out.
*slow clap*
Kudos to you for having the guts to do this. It isn’t easy breaking from what you call the ‘want’ based way of living. I’d like to think we’re on the cusp of doing something similar so I’ll be following your blog with interest.
I would like to know if you guys have any kids that you had to worry about when you started. We have twin 5 year olds and we just can’t seem to squeeze out enough time for a project like this. if you have any strategies born from experience I’d love to hear them!
Also, how’s the insulative value with your domes? We’re in Ontario so we’ll have to contend with some cold winters as well. Is passive solar/woodstove enough to make it comfortable or do you need some extra insulation (such as scoria) to ensure it’s warm?
Thanks and all the best with your home!!!
It’s just Shane and I on the property. I really should update my posts some day- we haven’t actually moved in yet. We’re thinking of waiting until spring due to other things coming up and the inability to complete some tasks due to weather.
I suspect temperature won’t be a problem- once we finish berming (spring). The sections of the house that have been bermed show a remarkable temperature difference compared to the exposed areas. The plan is to berm at least 3/4 of the height of the rooms on all sides save for the south.
Right now the temperature is cold but we’re not heating the building regularly. When we do manage to get out, it doesn’t take long to heat the rooms to a comfortable level.
guzzling tap water during trips to the city? I can’t tolerate water in the cities without lemon to make it drinkable. I like the taste of our well water. Someday, we’ll get one of those well-dippers from Lehman’s.
“we work to pay someone else to provide our basic needs” Wow! That packs a punch!
I admire your wide, open land that you can reforest. You probably ache for the 60-year-old forest that provides too much shade for our house and gardens. Oh, well…
I enjoyed seeing where your blog began.
With great interest looked at your blog. It is very interesting. Positive, beautiful people, with Golden hands and a bold heart. I’m from Russia. I am very glad that at you all turns out. Good luck and success in everything.
Thanks so much! And all the best to you as well. 🙂
Ah! You guys are amazing! You have described pretty much exactly what I want in this post! Of course, with 4 little ones and my husband working full time an hour away, we are moving at a slower pace, but I am designing as much permaculture into our landscape as possible, and I dream of building an earthbag, energy efficient home instead of the meagerly insulated house we moved into since it was already here. We are planning to add a rocket mass heater this year, and I’m excited to see your success so far! You are an inspiration to me!
I’m afraid the rocket mass heater didn’t work out for us- even after a couple of rebuilds. I wouldn’t recommend it for our climate where heating is so critical. The rocket stoves are pretty efficient little things, and useful for some things; the mass heaters not so much. Best of luck in your building and permaculture plans! It’s a long haul but worth it. 🙂
What did you do for heating instead?
Wood stove and fireplace.