The Crowdfunding Campaign Has Launched

I posted recently about the project, Beyond Laundry, that I'm in the process of bringing to life.

Yesterday, the crowdfunding campaign to fund the land purchase for this project launched on Indiegogo, and I'd like to invite anyone with an interest in sustainability to visit the page at igg.me/at/beyondlaundry.

There, you can read all about what we're planning and why, and if you feel inspired by it, please consider supporting the project, either financially or by sharing it with others who care about the health of the planet and its people.

Thank you!

Beyond "Sustainability," Beyond Laundry

One of the things that living off-grid changed the most in me was my attitude toward and experience of water. Living with a 14-gallon water supply that was replenished from a community well over a mile of bumpy dirt road away shook me out of my previous unconsciousness about water - how much you really need (not near as much as you think), what it's for (it keeps you alive, yo), how much it weighs (that sh*t is HEAVY), etc.

The most valuable thing, though, was what I learned and experienced in dealing with greywater. When you live in the high desert with that little water, you learn not to waste any of it, and I discovered the great satisfaction of taking the dishwater in the 5-gallon bucket under my sink out to the plants and trees to water them. (Posted about that here, back in the day.)

It's been almost three years since I've been back on the grid, and it's been almost two years since I even posted on this blog. In this time, a lot has changed, and I have no current plans to go off-grid again or try to work on building my house out there. That doesn't mean I never will, and I definitely still think about it, but my time out there showed me that for several reasons, it was a project that needed to be shelved, perhaps for a long while.

Which is really okay, except that it didn't take long after getting back on the grid before I started losing that sharp, vivid intimacy with water and earth that I developed out there. I stopped focusing so much on sustainability because it wasn't as intense of a lived experience anymore. I mean, I still dutifully bought compact fluorescent lightbulbs and turned the water off while I was brushing my teeth and bought organic food when it was available and within my budget, but that's obviously not the same level of sustainable living as, say, using a bucket-and-sawdust toilet that you empty into a compost bin when it gets full (although, that was always my son's job, ha).

A few months ago, for a variety of reasons, it became unacceptable to me that I was not doing more to create a truly sustainable life and world. And let's just pause here and talk a little more about the over-used word "sustainable," shall we? When I use that word, I mean it in the most complete and simplest sense possible: to be sustainable means to have the ability to continue. And it's just life that we're talking about sustaining, no less and no more. So when I think about sustainability, what I'm really thinking about is integration: for life to keep going, it has to be as integrated as possible. My life is connected to the life of other creatures, plants, watersheds, ecosystems, you. So for something to be truly good for my life, it also has to be good for all of life.

Too idealistic? Too simplistic? Perhaps. But it's the only thing that makes sense to me as an organizing principle for living. I fail and will continue to, I imagine, in practice, but if I make this my true north, I can keep correcting myself when I wander in a different direction.

What I came to in all my rumination about this is that when applied to my own decision-making process, if I want to do something sustainable it needs to be environmentally, socially, AND personally sustainable; and that includes being financially sustainable. Not so simplistic when you factor all that in.

I then used this framework to analyze the way I was living, and it suddenly became ridiculously easy to see what wasn't working in my life, and this ultimately led me back to an idea I'd had since 2009, shortly after I moved to Taos:  to open a sustainable laundry center involving solar power, rainwater harvesting, and greywater irrigation of a community food garden on the premises. It would be good for the planet, it would build community (in fact, the goal is to create it as a community center), it would be personally fulfilling for many reasons, and it would create a level of financial stability for me that I've never known before. (Which, among many other things, means I could eventually return to the building of my earthbag house.)

In an integrated way, it encompasses each of the aspects of sustainability I included in my definition. So, I'm doing it. And since I made that decision things have been unfolding in a serendipitous manner, including getting connected with an international team to eventually replicate the project in developing countries.

This is perhaps not the best graphic the world has ever seen, but it gives a very basic model of what this business is about:

Beyond Laundry: A Community Laundry Center

On Tuesday, July 21st, we'll be launching a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to fund the purchase of land for this project, and I'll share that link here that day. In the meantime, if you're interested in knowing more, you can visit our brand spanking new website.

Earthbags and UV Rays: A Reluctant Experiment

When I sealed the busted skylights on the Sky Bus with filled earthbags in the middle of July, I had every intention of getting back out there within a few weeks to paint over them, since UV rays are earthbags' greatest natural predator.  However, life being what it is around here, I didn't actually make it back to the land until last weekend, and I was worried about the state of the bags after so much time passing.  But I'm happy to report that even after almost three months of exposure, they were still intact;  the lettering was faded, but other than that they were fine.  I painted them a cheery yellow, since that was what I happened to have on hand, and now I don't have to worry about them again until spring.  I was also pleased to see that this method of skylight repair has apparently worked beautifully; there were no leak stains at all in the bus, even though we've had quite a bit of rain in recent months.

The other purpose of going out there last weekend was to deal with the pile of bags outside the bus.  I was able at last to get all of them either into the bus or into my Blazer to bring to my house, and this is a HUGE relief.  No more mountain of bags sitting on the ground!  And other than a very few at the bottom that had mildewed (which were the lowest quality bag I had anyway), they are all in good shape.

Earthbags in my mudroom, freshly unloaded from the Blazer.  A bit dirty, but intact.

Seeing how much I was able to accomplish in just a couple of hours out there inspired me.  My goal now is to get to the land one more time before it gets too cold and/or snowy, and finish what little rubbling of the trench there's left to do.  I'm hoping I can get one or two helpers to come out there with me and bring wheelbarrows, and then within a few hours, the trench can be completely filled and covered over with pieces of the old tarp that was previously protecting the pile of bags.  Any volunteers? I'll feed you and buy you a beer at Taos Mesa Brewing :) 

  

Earthbag Bus Repairs

A cool thing happened the other night.  I was on my way to meet the phenomenal Deonne Kahler at Taos Mesa Brewing to see a band, and the thought crossed my mind that I would run into my neighbors from the mesa there, Brenda and John, even though I hadn't seen them there or anywhere since last summer.  Lo and behold, I was right, and they filled me in about the earthbag dome they're building on Brenda and her husband Charlie's property, down the hill from Serendipity.  I also met a new neighbor, Diane, and it turns out she's from Montreal, which is where I was born.  The whole encounter really made me itch to get out to my land, but I had a problem to figure out first, one that I'd been procrastinating dealing with all summer.

At the beginning of June, I went out to my land and discovered that the last functioning skylight in the Sky Bus (the other two were gone and boarded up when I bought it), had blown off the roof and cracked.  If you're not familiar with the Taos mesa wind, that should put it in perspective.  The skylight was closed, and the wind was enough to open it, separate it from its hinge, and blow it right off the roof.

Bummer.

So I needed to decide how I was going to fix that before spending any real time out there, especially since the monsoon season has hit.  I finally sat down and gave it some thought yesterday morning, because I was going to go out there in the afternoon.  I had decided I was just going to Gorilla Glue a piece of tarp over the opening as a temporary solution, and was packing up to head out, when I had the sudden brilliant realization that I could use an earthbag instead.  Since my son was going with me, he could hand me buckets of dirt to fill the bag in place on the roof, and then just lay it down over the opening and tamp it to seal any cracks. 

So that's what we did and it worked great. 

I did lay a plastic bag liner over the opening first for added coverage.

It worked so great, in fact, that we decided to go ahead and do it with the other two missing skylights as well.  Since they were boarded up only on the inside, they still leak when it rains a lot.

Halfway through filling the second bag. 

The ugliest of the three.  Notice my lame attempt from last summer to seal it by inserting pieces of a sleeping bag mat.

Next time I go out there, I'll paint over the bags to keep the sun from eating them, and I think they should hold up at least until next summer.

Another thing I accomplished yesterday was to bring a bunch of the bags home with me.  They've all just been sitting there in a huge pile under a tarp, so I want to eventually get all of them out of there.  One of the benefits of having them at my house is also that I can get them all inverted before I actually start to build.

We stopped to visit Brenda's building site on the way out.  They're doing a 20-foot diameter dome just like ours, but they're using mesh tubing and they've got this very interesting DIY barbed wire they've created.  And John has come up with a brilliant bag-filling device with wheels.  I can't help but feel a little jealous that they've accomplished in a month more than it took me two summers to do (they're now about three courses above ground level), but on the bright side, it's inspiring to see and motivates me to start turning those bags inside out!

The Thousand Year Plan

I once wrote this article for the Taos News about a local artist named Thom Wheeler who, over the past three decades, has turned his acre of land into a magical melange of buildings and gardens.  He talked about further plans he has for the property, saying he's "on the thousand year plan."

Thom Wheeler's main house, image borrowed from thomwheeler.com

For whatever reason, that's what popped into my head this morning, as yet again I fretted about how slowly things are happening on my land and how long it's been since I posted on this blog.  I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself about all of that, and feel like I "should" be doing more and faster, but the truth is, I have other irons in the fire right now that come first.  I'm definitely a multi-iron-fire kinda girl anyway, but also being an entrepreneurial-minded single mother who doesn't like settling for less than meaningful work means that the irons I'm firing right now must be well-tended or the bills won't get paid.

Which brings me back to thinking about my land - the whole idea in the first place was to build a house and cut out a large portion of said bills, but it's just not that simple.  When I first decided to buy land, live in a bus off-grid, and build a house, I was excited by the prospect of no longer pouring money down what I called then "the black hole" of rent.  But after two summers of pouring money down the black hole of fuel and bags of ice and coffee shop food so that I could access the "free" Internet to do my work, not to mention the cost of moving back into town each fall, it was such a blessed relief to start paying rent again.  I realized that rent can actually get you something very valuable - a stable home base from which to live your life in a functional and harmonious manner.  I now happily hand over a check to my kind, generous landlady every month. 

Thus, here I am, still in this lovely funky sprawling adobe in town, enjoying my summer, working on my two new businesses (one of which you can check out here if you're so inclined).  But I think about my land every day, keep trying to find a time to get out there and do the little bit of work still left on the foundation trench.  That is realistically about all I can get done this summer unless these businesses take off in a big way because I don't have the extra money to put into building supplies at this point.

So waking up this morning hearing Thom Wheeler's calm, drawling voice in my head saying, "I'm on the thousand year plan" was wonderfully reassuring to me.  And I hope you understand me when I say that the fact that I (and perhaps the whole human race) won't be here in a thousand years makes absolutely no difference.

Revision

I write and teach writing for a living, so revising is a process I'm very familiar with.  Building a house and living off grid, however, have taken me into a whole new realm of revision.  I've already made several changes to my plans over time, and recently I've made a couple of really big ones.

I've had to face the fact that things just weren't functioning very well the way I was doing it. The hidden costs were adding up.  It was all taking too much time and causing too much stress in other areas of my life.  I mentioned in my last post that I even considered giving up altogether.

I'm not going to do that, but what I am going to do is build just one dome instead of three.  And the even bigger decision I've made is that I'm not going to live out there.

In the middle of September, I moved into a new rental house in town.  I love this place.  It's a funky sprawling adobe that was handbuilt over many years by a woman, my landlady's late mother.  I adore my landlady and her family, and this is the most comfortable, functional house I've ever rented.  It's on two acres so it's quiet and private, but it's also very close to pretty much everywhere I go on a regular basis.  I can walk Eliana to preschool from here.  And the rent is very reasonable. 

As I've settled in here and felt the stress of the past few months dissolve away, it's become quite clear to me that I need to quit swimming so hard against the current.  I need my home to be a sanctuary, a peaceful, nurturing place for me and my kids; and as a single mother with multiple jobs, I need a simpler lifestyle that doesn't involve a 40-minute commute, a third of which is on really really crappy roads.

So my revised plan is to build the one dome at a leisurely pace, and have it as a retreat space.  In the future, I can always add on and live out there full-time if my situation changes in a way where that makes sense.

Sky Bus Upgrades

First, I should tell you that I've been filling my foundation trench with rubble and should have a post with photos of the completed trench soon.  In the meantime, I just wanted to share a couple of small but significant changes to my living situation this summer.

Upgrade #1

Last summer, I lived out of an ice chest, which was the one thing about living off-grid that could really become a drag at times.  Having a bulky ice chest in the kitchen, slogging around in it to find the desired item, and having things get waterlogged is just no fun.  Not to mention having to drag the thing to the bus steps every other day or so (at least it has wheels!) in order to drain the melted ice into a bucket.

The bus actually has a fridge, but of course, without electricity, it's not functional.  Or so I just automatically assumed last summer.  It smelled bad too, so I just kind of ignored it.  After I moved back out to the land this year, for some reason I opened the fridge one day and discovered that the glass shelf in it was cold to the touch, and I thought, "Hey, maybe I could use this as a cooler."  Duh, right?  I mean, why did this never occur to me before? 

Anyway, I cleaned it out, bought a dishpan to put bags of ice in, took out one of the rack shelves to accommodate the dishpan, and voila!  I now have a much better way to store my cold food.  For one thing, all my condiments can go in the door and no longer sink to the bottom of the ice chest where their labels disintegrate.  For another, the ice lasts longer.  And I no longer have a monstrous ice chest in the way (which is good, because now that I have an oven, there's a propane tank there instead.  At least it doesn't take up as much space.)

Upgrade #2 

The bus bedroom consists of three benches in a horseshoe shape; last summer I put a twin size futon mattress on one of the benches to sleep on.  I had to fold it up a bit so it would fit.  It was fairly comfy but narrow, of course, and it would annoyingly slip down from its half-folded position and I'd have to prop it up again. 

When I was getting ready to move back out to the land in the spring, I started putting some thought into how I could improve this system and realized that if I could place some kind of board the size of a full-size mattress over the benches, I'd be able to have a real bed.  And then, just around that time, a friend of mine was getting rid of a full-size bunkie board (this is one of those boards that goes on a bunk bed, in case you didn't know).  Perfect timing.

So now, I have a very comfy place to sleep, which makes all the difference in the world. 

A Perfect Circle: Rubble Trench Foundation Progress

"Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living." 

~ Anais Nin

Everyone says that building a house always takes longer than you think it will, but in my case, it's taking waaaayyyyy longer than I initially imagined.  Last summer, I came to a point of acceptance about that and decided to just take my time, not stress about it, and enjoy the process.  But it seems like the way life often works is that as soon as you come to acceptance at one level, you get thrown to a more challenging level.  Such, at least, has been the case with my housebuilding project.

Over the winter, I made plans to organize my life a little differently this summer.  I would work less and stay out at the land more, thereby making it possible to not only have more time for building, but live on the reduced income.  However, because of a variety of unforeseen factors, it did not work out this way.  I've found myself in town most of the time, and even out of town altogether.

I don't want to get into too much personal stuff on this blog, but I feel the need to give some context here.  This has been so far the most intense year of my life.  It has included the death of my younger brother; a dear friend going missing in the woods for nine days, returning, finding out he has a brain tumor and starting chemo, going missing and returning again; and a daughter who fell into a self-destructive lifestyle and has needed lots of help to get out of it.  All of this has been beyond challenging to deal with, especially while also living off-grid and trying to build a house, plus just the "usual" stuff of working and raising four children, the youngest of which has been in a "me-first-or-I'll-throw-a-tantrum" stage. 

I've had moments of discouragement and near-despair, when I've questioned what the hell I'm doing and if I should just give up and find a decent rental in town.  It all came to a head a couple of weeks ago.  I was just back from Denver after bringing my daughter to the airport to go live with her dad in Louisiana and get her life back on track, and I just felt defeated and exhausted.  Like I just don't care anymore and don't have the energy.  There was only ten feet or so left to dig on the first trench, but it just seemed pointless and beyond me.

But then, I just got up and started digging again, and once I started, I was determined to finish it.  That day.  In the Earthbag Building book, the authors say, "Action dispels doubt," and they are totally right.  That day, everything began to turn around for me.  I dug longer and harder than I ever have.  I spent that whole day digging, taking little breaks, digging some more.  And then it was done; the two ends connected, and they connected level.

To be able to then stand back and gaze upon the fruit of my labor, this perfect circle, was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, even if there's still a lot more digging to do.  I can only imagine what it will feel like when the whole structure is completed.

But the really significant moment was actually not when the trench was completed, but at the point during the day when I stopped for a break and realized there was only about four feet left, the length of my beloved orange level.  That's when I knew that I really would finish it that day, and I felt an immediate lightening, the proverbial burden off the shoulders.  I sat there on the edge of the trench with my feet on its floor, and just looked and listened, received the beauty and grace of this piece of land that I now know I belong to.  I felt a surrendered gratitude and intimacy with it like never before, this land that has claimed me, this place I am constructing and being constructed by.  Being here, doing this, is both sanctuary and pilgrimage.

A Baptism of Butterscotch Brownies, a Barbecue, and Level Love

Concerning the Brownies

When I first bought the Sky Bus in the spring of 2011, I immediately started searching for an RV or camping oven on Craigslist for it, but it wasn't until a couple of months ago that I actually found one, and at the right price.  Last summer, I used a two-burner Coleman stove, which was fine, but a) I went through those tiny little propane canisters in a way that felt truly wasteful, and b) I missed being able to bake.

My new oven is a Flamineta, which is a Mexican brand.  Everything is in Spanish, including the instructions that came with it and all the text on the oven itself.

It's adorable, and that little sucker can put out some serious heat.  There are no numbers telling what degrees it is, so I had to buy an oven thermometer.  Turns out on "high" it will go up to almost 600 degrees, and you have to turn it practically off to get it to 350.  Not that I'm complaining; I'm thrilled with my new oven, and baptized it by making butterscotch brownies, like so:

Concerning the Barbecue

My dear and lovely friend Nicole, who is also co-owner of Serendipity, came to visit at the end of last month, so naturally, I threw a party.  I was a little nervous about having so many people out on the land, but it went swimmingly, and as they say, a great time was had by all.  I loved getting my neighbors together, some of whom didn't know each other very well before the party.  I love that I like my neighbors enough to invite them to (and enjoy their company at) a party!

Here are some photos Nicole took:

deepening the fire pit that Graeme created last summer

Can I Marry My Level?

I'm still digging my foundation trench, slowly but surely.  This summer (in fact, this whole year) has been full of detours, distractions, crises, and various other surprises, so progress is slow, but I'm fine with that.  I dig when I can, and I enjoy it immensely.  At the beginning of the summer I bought a new level that is 18 inches long, which is how wide and how deep the trench should be, so it's a very useful little tool.  (I have to admit that the first night I had it, I was very tempted to sleep with it like a teddy bear.)  Before I started building this house, I didn't even know what a level was.  I had no idea what I was missing out on.  I mean, is there really anything in life more satisfying than seeing that little bubble in the center of the window?

A Shady Operation

Last summer, I loved living in the Sky Bus, but during the day it could get pretty miserable - too hot inside, no shade outside, too many flies.  I realized the need to address those problems as much as possible before moving back out there, so that I won't be tempted to flee into town during the hottest part of every day.

My original idea was to build a post-and-beam structure over the entire bus; fill in the north, east, and west walls with scoria-filled earthbags; then angle a metal roof over the whole thing for catching water in rain barrels.  Well, after discussing this plan with Aly, I realized it was a bigger project than I wanted to take on just yet, and really not even necessary.  So I scrapped the whole idea (at least until after the house is built), and decided all I really needed to do was create a bit of shade on the south side of the bus.  So I ordered a 12 x 20-foot piece of shadecloth online, and bought two four-packs of 10-inch steel tent stakes and some rope at my local (yes, I admit it) big box store. 

And voila!  I now have shade and a small patio, which Graeme and I created with the leftover Saltillo tiles we got for free last summer.  Soon I'll even have a table and chairs to go there; more about that later.

Grommets are so lovely.  The shadecloth is tied with rope to handles on top of the bus.

I took what used to be a bench/wood-storage box inside the bus, covered it with last year's shower tarp, and used it to raise and prop the shadecloth a bit, then staked it down.  Even with massive windstorms last week, it's held up great!

"Interior" view, with patio awaiting table and chairs.  We also made a little "floor" for Eliana's kitchen (back left).  The spare bus tire there next to it has bee balm from last year that unexpectedly has come back, so rather than move it, I'm just letting it be shaded and hoping for the best.

It's really amazing the difference having this shade makes.  It's even cooler inside the bus now, as the south-facing windows are shaded.  And the great thing is that in the early morning and late afternoon when the sun is not so scorching, the patio still gets light.  It's pretty darn close to perfect, I'd have to say.  And the whole project cost under $100.

Dying to Dig

Well, spring has sprung, and we all know what that means - time to get back to building!  I'm still renting in town and will be until May 15th, but I've been going out to the land once a week for about the past month to get things ready.

After spending the winter hibernating, I'm more than ready to get out there and continue digging the foundation trench.  I didn't make as much housebuilding progress as I'd hoped last summer for a variety of reasons, so I've been working on ways to move things a bit faster this time.

For one thing, I will not be involved in as many writing projects this time, so I won't need to come to town every day for Internet and electricity.  Also, there have been a couple of serendipitous developments recently in the green building networking department.

First, for an article I was writing, I had to interview architect/builder Mark Goldman, who teaches some of the classes in green building technology at UNM-Taos.  During that two-hour(!) conversation we also talked about my housebuilding project.  He had me come present to one of his classes about it, and he wants to bring his students out to help me build :) 

Mark Goldman and the adobe structure his students built in their classroom/workshop.

The other development came out of a contact I made when I coordinated the UNM-Taos Fall Harvest Festival last year.  Alice Ko, who did an adobe brickmaking workshop at the festival, suggested we form a women's natural building collective (so far we're calling ourselves Ladies of the Mud).  The idea is that we can do workshops and work parties together and invite other women.  Aly (of Building an Earthbag Home in Northern New Mexico) and I went out to Alice's land a couple of weeks ago for a mud party and made adobe bricks, which I had never done before.

Another issue that slowed things down last summer was how unbearably hot and sunny it got during the day out there, so I've been working on creating some shade; I'll describe what I've done and post a photo or two next time.

A Budget in Water

I posted on my other blog recently about how for the first time in my life I'm seriously applying myself to working within a budget, not just of money but also of time.  (You can read that post here, if you're so inclined.) 

Now that I'm doing this, I'm really appreciating the whole concept of a budget, which is really just a recognition of what one has and how to use it.  Living by a budget is a demonstration of how freedom can come through discipline.

One thing that occurred to me in playing with this concept is that while I was living on my land over the summer, I was living by a budget of water.  I had my two seven-gallon containers and I had icemelt from the ice chest, and that was it.  Having this limited water supply meant disciplining myself to use that fifteen or so gallons completely and creatively.  It meant I could see exactly what I had and where it was going, and so, as I posted earlier here, it was a rewarding experience. And I realize now that the sense of empowerment that comes with living by a budget is directly related to the ability to control one's resources.

What's interesting for me in the water budget framework is that most of us (including me, now that I'm living back on the grid for the winter) have no concept of how much water we "have" and how much we use.  So while we have the relative freedom of a seemingly unlimited water supply, which also doesn't burden us much in terms of cost, we are actually missing out on the empowerment that comes with budgeting.  And I don't just mean on an individual level; I see this is at the heart of the whole problem with the developed world.  How can we have a sense of responsibility about how we use water if we have no working concept of how much there really is and where it's all going?   

Project Gingerbag House

In the Earthbag Building book, it's suggested that one make a model of one's house before attempting to build it.  While the idea intrigued me when I read it, I didn't seriously considering making a model of the Enviro Dome I'm going to build until this holiday season, when it occurred to me to make one out of gingerbread.

Since my house will consist of domes, I decided that I would construct my gingerbread model in the same way you make a clay coil pot, which would be similar to using earthbag tubing.  I looked around online to see if anyone else has made a gingerbread house this way, and while I didn't find any, I did find a few gingerdomes that were constructed in other ways, such as this geodesic one:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/35535885@N03/4153861565/.  (The image is password protected, so I couldn't copy it in.) I also found a really cool site that features "green" gingerbread houses. 

I wanted to make the model as close to scale as possible, and I used plastic yogurt container lids of two different sizes as my templates.  They weren't precisely the right diameters, but close enough. 

I started forming the first "course" of "tubes" around the templates,

 

 but then realized I needed to place them on a base.

I used Jolly Ranchers topped by half a Life Saver for my door forms, and planned on removing them for the baking process, then putting them back in afterwards as the actual doors.

Justin was really good at making the "tubes,"

which I then moistened and stacked, trying to bring each "course" in just enough to get the corbelled dome effect.  Once the domes were finished, I removed the candy doors and replaced them with a tin foil form.

Gingerdomes!

Into the oven went the house.  When it came out, it looked like this:

Gingerblob!

 

 

I had suspected this might happen, but other than the fact that I couldn't do my cotton candy berm now, I really didn't mind.  The purpose of this experiment was more about going through the process of creating the domes, rather than having some perfect finished product. 

In retrospect, building the gingerdome this way was more like building with cob than with earthbags.  And like cob, which needs to dry between building sessions, I should have baked a few "courses" at a time, just enough to give it some solidity before adding more.

Graeme and I were standing over the blob, gazing at it rather forlornly, when he said, "Wait!"  He turned the baking sheet around, and said, "Look - it's a perfect troll face."  And indeed it was.

Gingerface!

 

 

 

 

Well, it wasn't quite what I'd had in mind, but who was I not to go with the flow?

That was one tasty face.

Happy Holidays!

Shimming the Tree

Here's a confession which will give you a very clear understanding of just how "inexperienced" a builder I was before beginning my housebuilding project:  I didn't even know what a shim was.  In fact, even after I looked it up because it was referenced in the house plans I bought from Owen Geiger, I still didn't really understand the term.

It wasn't until I helped Aly hang her doors that I truly comprehended shimming.  Thank God our friend Jeremy (who helped me move the bus way back when) was there too.  Because while Aly at least knew what a shim was, neither of us was really prepared for the exercise in precision that hanging doors is.  Jeremy, however, is a construction guy (and a really great teacher, I might add).  He was very patient with our ignorance, and walked us through the whole process.  Because Aly's doorway wasn't quite plumb, we had to make shims, so I got to see exactly what they are and what they're for.  Pretty nifty.   Jeremy even let me operate his circular saw, a first for me.  Turns out I'm pretty good at it, but power tools still kinda freak me out.

Sorry for the crappy quality; these were taken with my phone.

 

My second experience using shims has come unexpectedly.  I bought a Christmas tree last weekend, and while installing it in its stand, I realized the trunk was too skinny for the screws that hold it in place, so my four-year-old's dad helped out by making four shims, one for each screw.

 
Useful buggers, shims!  You just never know where they'll come in handy.

The Winter House

It's been almost two weeks now since I moved into my "Winter House."

Life has shifted dramatically, and I'm still trying to get used to things like having running water, working at home again, and cooking in a "real" kitchen.  I'm definitely not complaining; it's just very different.

One of the first things I did after getting settled in was bake pumpkin bread in the oven, using organic spelt flour and a pumpkin I got from the Morning Star Farm CSA.  Yum.

I also have been taking baths, staying up late (because I have electric lights!), and buying more food than I need immediately because I can store it in an actual refrigerator, with a FREEZER.

The house I'm renting belongs to a woman named Karen who lives in it half the year and in New York the other half. So I will be here until she comes back in May, which is great timing to move back out to the bus again.

One of the contrasts to living in the bus is having excellent insulation and passive solar gain.   Karen had this house built out of pumicecrete, with lots of south-facing windows, and radiant floor heating.  The result is that it's almost always warm in here, and the heat only comes on late at night, if at all.  I actually lived in this house when I first moved to Taos, and even in the winter, you could sometimes leave the front door open during the day because it got so hot in the house.  It's really amazing how well this place holds heat, which reinforces my decision to build my house with scoria, which is basically red pumice.

Now that I'm building my own house, I'm noticing things about this place that I didn't the first time I lived here.  Like the layout - it's not an ideal use of the square footage, in my opinion.  There are little areas that are not very useful.  This makes me even gladder that I'm building domes, where every "square" inch of space will be used efficiently.

I also feel that the passive solar design is a bit overkill, that there are actually too many big south-facing windows.  It's extremely bright in the living room and one of the bedrooms during the day.  And, as I mentioned, it gets too hot, even in the dead of winter.  Once again, this makes me appreciate Owen's design for the Enviro Dome I'm building, as it incorporates passive solar gain primarily through the French doors that provide the entrance to each of the main domes.

All in all it's nice to be back on the grid again for a while, but I do have to say that there's a certain level of unconsciousness that seems to go along with it.  I can distract myself on the computer or watching movies whenever I want.  I can read until all hours and barely be aware that it's nighttime.  I can run any amount of water down the drain without having to think about how much it is or where it's going.  I can turn on the oven without having to worry about how much propane is left.

Having on-grid conveniences means that my time and mental energy are freed up to focus on other things, but the trick is deliberately choosing what those things will be rather than just falling unconsciously into life-sucking time-wasters, like playing hours of computer Solitaire.

Snow Changes Everything

So yeah.  In my last post, I waxed poetic on the joys of continuing to live in the Sky Bus in fall, and setting up my woodstove.

But then, it snowed.  Really snowed.  FOUR inches.

I was driving home after dark when it started.  It had already been raining for hours, and when I saw those first few flakes mixed in, I didn't think it would last.  We got back to the bus, and started working on getting a fire going.  When I went out for wood a few minutes later, the ground was already covered, and big fat flakes were coming down like the devil's dandruff.

Needless to say, it was extremely cold that night, but I didn't really mind, although Graeme did.  The snow was a beautiful novelty, and felt like an unexpected gift - I got to be present on my land for the first real snow of the season.  I drank hot tea, lit a candle, and sat by the woodstove and reveled.

However, the next morning, beautiful as it was outside, something in me just sort of snapped.  The digging party was supposed to be that day, but there was snow everywhere, and even though it was rapidly melting, it was still uncomfortably cold, and the fire, once I finally got it built, kept petering out, since I didn't have enough smaller pieces to feed it with.  I was using my mattock to attempt to split wood, which didn't work so well; a friend was supposed to bring out an ax to the party, but that was hours of freezing toes away.

I finally decided to cancel the digging party, because I knew that once the snow melted the roads were going to be terrible, and also, all I wanted to do was go into town and get warm.  My fingers and toes hadn't thawed all morning.

At that point, I also decided I was not going to stay another night in the bus.

So we packed up the Blazer with stuff like the plastic set of drawers I'd been using a dresser and the ice chest that had been sitting in the same spot in the kitchen for months, left a ton of food for the cats, and vacated.  It felt really weird, but was also a relief.

We stayed at Jeremy's last night (that's my friend who helped me move the bus to the land way back when), and this afternoon we'll go back out to feed the cats and pack up more stuff.  We'll take down the tent that's been up since June, and I imagine it will be strange to see that spot empty.  I'm also going to take out everything that's stored under the sleeping benches in the back of the bus and then load up that space with earthbags.  Then, we'll use the tarp that has been covering them outside to drape over the top of the bus to keep snow and rain from leaking in through the two busted skylights over the kitchen and "living room."

And once we're done with all that, we'll come in to town for the night again, because it's supposed to go down to 28 degrees.  Call me a wuss, but I just don't feel like dealing with that kind of cold in an uninsulated bus anymore.    

Like a Squirrel

Originally, the plan was to move into town on October 1st, but the place I thought we'd be moving to fell through, so we're still out at the Sky Bus until this Tuesday.  When I first realized we'd be out there an extra ten days, I have to admit I was really dreading it, as cold as it's been getting.  I've been sleeping with a hat and two pairs of socks, inside a sleeping bag with a comforter and another blanket over it.

But today I am feeling honestly grateful that we were "forced" to be out there a bit longer.  It's given me more time to get the bus and land ready for winter, and work on the trench.  Yesterday, Graeme and I set up the woodstove that came with the bus.  The day before, I had bought wood from a friend of mine, just enough to fill up the back of the Blazer.  I figured that would be enough to get us through the next few days and have a little left over for when I want to escape to Serendipity over the winter.

The timing couldn't have been better, because it's predicted to go down to about 30 degrees tonight.  And yesterday while we were setting up the stove, it actually started SNOWING.

The whole task was tedious, backbreaking, and took longer than I'd anticipated (of course! I should know better by now), but I had such a sense of accomplishment when it was done, and I built our first fire.  I used to have a woodstove at the house where I lived for several years in another part of New Mexico, and since we moved from there, I've really missed having one.  I love splitting wood and building a fire, then sitting in front of it, toasty and mesmerized.  I love the sound and the smell of a good fire.  I'd almost forgotten the satisfaction of all that.

This morning, it was cold and overcast, still wet from yesterday's rain and snow.  I got up and unloaded all the wood out of the Blazer, and stacked it next to the bus.  Then I disassembled the shower "stall," and used the tarp to cover the wood; I felt like a squirrel stashing acorns.  It felt bittersweet to take apart the shower - a true acknowledgement of the change of seasons.

And that's the biggest reason I'm grateful to still be out there.  I once had a boyfriend who believed you couldn't truly know someone until you'd gone through every season with them, and that applies completely to the relationship I'm developing with my land and bus.  And even though I won't be living out there over the winter, I look forward to visiting from time to time so I can at least have a taste of winter deliciousness on the mesa.

A last little view of summer.  These guys are gone now; I'll miss them.

Changing Seasons

The Fall Harvest Festival has come and gone, and life is slowing down a bit now.  The earthbag workshop went well, and was fun to do.  We had eight attendees, and they were all very interested and asked a lot of questions.

Photos by Enrico Trujillo

The trench is coming along nicely, although slowly.  So far I've only been able to put in a total of about five hours on it, but have managed to do around twenty feet, which isn't bad.  And it's fun work.  One thing I've realized lately is that there are distinctly two kinds of people:  those who love digging and those who hate it. Turns out I'm one of those who love it.

This Saturday I'm having a digging party, as I've had several people offer to help.  I really want to get the whole trench dug before the ground freezes, and I figure if a few of us spend an afternoon on it, we can make some good progress.  If you're in the area and want to come, please do!  If you're a non-digger type, you could just hang out and be a cheerleader :)

Five more nights at the Sky Bus, and then I'll be living in town again for winter.  It's been getting quite cold at night, and both Graeme and I are really looking forward to being in a warm house.  I've really enjoyed living as we did over the summer, but I'm also ready for a break.  And in addition to simply enjoying things like a bathtub, an oven, a refrigerator, and stuff like that, I'm also looking forward to taking time this winter to refine my plans, so that when we move back out to the land next spring, life will be a little more organized, and I'll be able to put most of my energy into building, instead of feeling scattered and stretched thin as I did much of this summer.

Earthbag Buddies

Aly and me in her outdoor kitchen.  Photo by Mary Longe.

One of the cool things that happened this summer is that I connected with Aly B, of Building an Earthbag Home in Northern New Mexico.  We had been following each others' blogs and emailing a bit, but then one day she walked into the cafe where I do most of my writing work, and I recognized her from the photo on her blog.  Since then, we've visited each other's places and hung out for barbecue (and had a bit too much fun at the Station Bar at KTAO Solar Center one night).  She even loaned me her truck for a couple of days when mine was in the shop. 

It's been great to have someone else to talk to about all this stuff that most people don't know jack about and/or couldn't care less about.  I mean, how many people want to get into a passionate discussion about gravity-fed water versus electric pumps? (Well, in Taos, probably more than the average place, but still.)

And then the fact that she's another single woman building a house on the mesa is a major blessing.  One thing I've found since I've started my project is the need for some men to try to take charge in subtle - or not so subtle - ways.  There is a LOT more I could say about that, but I'll refrain.  (If you're a woman, you're probably already quite familiar with what I'm talking about, and if you're a man, all I can say is it's not a bad idea to watch for the tendency to talk down to women and feel entitled to take control in some way under the guise of being "helpful."  Enough said.)

Anyway, Aly and I are doing a mini-earthbag workshop together tomorrow at the Fall Harvest Festival that I'm coordinating.  It will be at UNM-Taos' Klauer Campus, if any of you want to come out tomorrow. 

Working on this festival has been a LOT of work, but I feel pretty passionate about it because the focus is sustainability, and we're offering a bunch of different free workshops on things like solar energy independence, water catchment, adobe brick-making, just to name a few.

Aly and I are going to just give a basic introduction to earthbag building in our workshop.  We'll talk about why it's a good choice for owner-builders with little or no construction experience and limited budgets.  We'll show them the basic tools, and what scoria looks like.  We'll show images of finished earthbag houses.  I think it's going to be fun!

I also think, after this festival is over, I just want to go hide in a cave for about a month :)  Well, it won't be a cave, more like an apartment that I'm moving into at the end of the month, but same difference.  It's been a very active summer for me, both in terms of the physical labor of working on the building site and in terms of organizing this festival.  And a lot of other things too.  I'm ready for a break.  I'm still hoping to get the trench finished before winter, though, and will probably have a "digging party" around the middle of October.

But for now, I've got a festival to get through tomorrow, then moving the weekend after.  Miles to go before I sleep.