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.

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.

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 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?   

Reflecting on Water

The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain. 
~ Tao Te Ching

Human beings were invented by water 

as a device for transporting itself from one place to another.

  ~ Tom Robbins

Sky Bus living is in many ways, life at its bare essence.  Fire, earth, air, water - each of these things is recognizably, distinctly involved in my daily existence in a way that I had never experienced before.  I cannot overstate the value of this.

The relationship I've developed with water in the three months that I've been living on the mesa delights and inspires me.  I can't just turn on a tap and have water appear then run down a drain and disappear.  And this makes all the difference in the world.  Moving water around, orchestrating its use, watching it come from somewhere and then deliberately taking it somewhere else so it can be used for more than one purpose - these things have given me a whole new appreciation for water.  I've become more aware of the water content of my own body, and meditating on water has become richer metaphorically because my actual interaction with water has become richer.  I have gained awareness of myself as water, water bearer, and also borne by water.

I started the summer with a 55 gallon plastic barrel that Rusty brought me.  He would bring me water from the community well at the entrance to the mesa, then siphon it into the barrel for me.  Then, I in turn would siphon it from the barrel into my two 7-gallon square plastic containers.  

I absolutely hated siphoning, sucking water up through a length of yellow garden hose until it felt like my lungs would burst, only to have the water finally shoot out into my mouth and choke me.  Ugh.  And then Rusty and I stopped communicating (not going to get into that here), so I had no way to fill up the barrel.  I had put in an application for membership to the West Rim Mutual Domestic Water Users Association (Cost:  $150), which, once approved, would supply me with a refillable money card to slide at the well.  (Cost per gallon:  3 cents.)  However, I didn't get the application sent until just barely after the June board meeting, so it wasn't approved until July.  And they happened to be out of water cards at the time.  They finally sent me one in late July, but it got lost in the mail, so I didn't actually get it until the beginning of August.  So for most of the summer, I simply hauled my containers into town and filled up at friend's houses, which actually worked pretty well.     

I keep one of those containers outside as backup, and the other in the kitchen, sitting on the counter next to the sink. 

 
The spigot turns on and off easily, so it's kind of like having real running water.  Kind of.  At the risk of stating the obvious, it differs in that a) the water is only one temperature - whatever the air temperature in the bus happens to be, which varies distinctly by day and night, b) it is a finite supply, so conservation is ever a consideration, and c) when it goes down the drain it doesn't just run away to some treatment plant, it goes into a 5-gallon bucket which eventually gets full and has to be emptied.

I may have said once or twice that dirt is heavy.  Well, water is heavier. I have been getting into shape in many ways with my new lifestyle, and hauling water has probably been the primary way.  A gallon of water weighs 8 pounds, so every time I haul a water container into the bus, that's 56 pounds I'm lugging.  The hardest part is lifting up onto the counter.  But it's getting easier.

When I want to wash dishes, I use water that I've drained from the ice chest, which I store in a bucket solely for that purpose.  I heat it up on the Coleman stove, then pour it into a bowl.  It really doesn't have to take much water to wash dishes, I've discovered.  

I also use the ice chest water for mopping, and watering the cats.  And since the bus leaks when it rains heavily, sometimes I use the water that puddles on the kitchen floor to mop.  Might as well, since it's already there.  (I don't have a rainwater catchment system yet, but look forward eagerly to the day when I do.  One of my neighbors has a cistern that holds between four and six thousand gallons of collected rain and snowmelt, and she says she rarely has to get water from the well.)

I use the greywater from under the sink to water my plants outside.  In addition to several baby pine trees, I have the two tomato plants Kerry and Richard brought me, two borage plants, a bee balm, basil, and jade, and before the monsoon season started, this greywater was their sole source of hydration. 

Borage.  I bought it because it was supposed to attract bees, but there are NO bees on the mesa, sadly.

Spare bus tire with bee balm (which hangs in there but doesn't thrive), jade, and basil.

One of the things I've become versed in is dealing with the varieties of greywater.  The stuff under the sink is frankly, gross.  It's not grey at all; it looks more like vomit.  Sorry, but it's true.  I learned early on not to let the bucket get completely full before emptying it, because splashing it onto yourself is no fun at all.

The greywater from the solar shower, however, is truly grey.  And it smells good, like the locally-produced Aromaland rosemary mint shampoo and the Dr. Bronner's lavender soap that we use.  That water is collected in a black rubber tub I bought at Taos Tack and Pet Supply whose purpose is really for horse feed.  I frequently use this water for the plants in the bus, or to rinse the composting toilet bucket.

When I was getting ready to move to my land, planning and designing the shower was, for some reason, my favorite obsession.  It went through an evolution of changes, even after I set it up.  This is what I ended up with:

I used the tow rope that broke when Jeremy and I tried to tow the bus to hang the 5-gallon Coleman solar shower that I bought for 7 bucks.  (The shower worked great for the most of the summer, then the handle ripped right through.  I bought the new one pictured here for twice as much, and it was twice as crappy; the handle ripped within days, so I returned it, and bought another Coleman one.) 

I used my old baker's rack as the outside wall of the shower stall, and the saltillo tiles I got for free at the beginning of the summer to make a floor.  I simply laid them down on the dirt, and it works fine, although it's not completely level. 

I got this tarp from a friend, and I love the fact that it matches the bus. 

I really thought I'd miss having a bathtub, but I haven't, until very recently.  Taking showers has been a treat.  The trick is finding that perfect window of time, when it's hot and sunny, the water's just the right temperature (it takes three hours to fully heat up), and the wind's not blowing.  It's only in the past week or two, as the days are getting cooler and we've been getting frequent rain, that I've begun to miss having an indoor shower.  But for most of the summer, while it was extremely hot and dry, it just felt glorious.  There's something about showering outdoors, with the sun shining on your skin, that's incredibly satisfying.

And as with dishwashing, it takes far less water to get clean than people normally use.  Graeme and I both can take adequate showers with the bag not even all the way full.  I did cut my long hair at the beginning of the summer though to save water. 

I'm really grateful for the relationship I've developed with water in this "pioneer phase," as my blogging friend, Kel, has called it.  My experiences around water this summer have actually influenced my plans for water in the house.  I've decided that I don't want a shower in the house at all, just a bathtub.  I am a huge fan of baths, especially in winter, and that is the one water luxury I will keep.  I'll set up a permanent (and more attractive) outdoor shower for summer use.  Why not bathe differently with the seasons?  This way, I won't need a water pump at all; I can just set my cistern up on a berm and use gravity to get the water where I need it to go. 

Simplicity is so lovely.

Sky Bus Living

Life is taking on an entirely new set of rhythms, and it's been challenging to adjust to them, but also very rewarding.  This shifting from one kind of life to another is kind of like when you're listening to music on your headphones and you walk into a room where some other music is playing.  For a minute, it's chaotic, until the old music fades out.

To put it in perspective:  I went from living in an on-grid house on a busy street corner in town to living in a bus with no electricity other than what batteries provide, a 5-gallon bucket under the sink to catch water that comes out of the 7-gallon container on the counter which is filled by hand from the 55-gallon drum outside (which is in turn filled from the community well down the road), a bathroom with a 5-gallon bucket with a toilet seat on it and a container full of sawdust nearby for scooping into it, a two-burner Coleman stove and a charcoal grill for cooking, and nothing around me but sky, sagebrush, and a few scattered dwellings.  Well, and a heck of a lot more birds than I would have imagined.  Twice, I've had hummingbirds fly into the Sky Bus, check things out for a sec, then fly back out.

The biggest part of the chaos has been adjusting my work schedule.  I have to say, I'm really grateful to be living a freelance life where I can actually do that.  My original thought was that I would come into town to work three days a week, but it's not turning out that way, for a variety of reasons, one of which is that it's too hot to work on the building site in the middle of the day.  So I've been coming into town almost every weekday, mostly in the afternoons.  That way I can work on the land in the cool mornings and early evenings. I'm definitely having less time for blogging though.  I've been keeping up with most of the earthbag and off-grid bloggers that I follow, but often don't have time to comment.

All in all, life is good at Serendipity.  I would love to know who took that old schoolbus and turned it into the wonderful little home that it is.  Someone put a lot of thought and love into the design, and care into the work of it.  The kitchen, though small, is very functional, and in fact has the best pantry I've ever had.  The cereal boxes actually fit standing up!

The bathroom is tiny, so I don't have room to build a housing for my sawdust toilet, but I've been completely blown away by how well this system works.  The sawdust completely covers any odor or grossness, and it's just as comfortable to use as a regular toilet - if not moreso.  I'm sold.  And it's pretty darn cool that I can pick up bags of sawdust for a buck each at the sawmill that's on the way into town.

As for the bucket under the sink, I was just telling someone today how satisfying it is to take water that you've used for cooking and cleaning, and carry it by hand out to a tree that you're watering with it.  In the midst of sagebrushland, I am blessed to have four baby pine trees growing in the immediate vicinity of the bus.  This morning I finally got around to mulching them, but I've been watering them regularly since we moved in almost a month ago.

The best thing about the Sky Bus is the bedroom I share with Eliana.  I have rarely enjoyed sleeping anywhere as much as I have this room.  It's cozy, and breezy (has a skylight I can wind open and closed), and comfy like a bedroom should be.  And, it's pretty.  I am a girl after all.

Incidentally, I'm having a buswarming party next weekend (July 2), so if you're in the area and would like to come, email me and I'll give you directions.  You can bring a tent and spend the night.

And now, for a little before-and-after:

Front of bus before

After

Kitchen before

After

Graeme chillin' at the table.  He calls the bus our "summer house."

Bedroom before.  That tire now sits in my yard awaiting soil and plants.

Bedroom after

The cats love it.  And let me tell you a little story about that calico, Roxie.  She was the whiniest, most annoying cat EVER until we moved to the mesa.  She's a completely different cat now - quiet, calm.  And a dang good mouser.  On the other hand, Higglebottom, the other cat, is and always will be the chillest cat in the universe.

Bedroom detail.  Another little story:  I grabbed that Into the Wild DVD insert when I was packing to move.  I always put DVDs in a sleeve binder, then don't know what to do with the cases.  Since I adore this movie, I kept this one, and for whatever reason, decided to put it up in the bus....without even thinking about the fact that the guy in the story lived and died in a bus.  Hmmm.  

Water, Power, and the Sky Bus

It is amazing how complex it is to plan a simpler life.  I am up to my ears in researching water storage, greywater systems and plumbing, varieties of composting toilets, and generators.  The closer it gets to time to move to the land, the more pressing these concerns become.  My housebuilding notebook is getting fuller by the day, and in looking back over what I've written, I can see how I'm revisiting the same topics in ever-more refined detail.

With such a huge project, breaking it down into a timeline of steps has been most helpful and is an ongoing process.  I still haven't sold the van and am now considering the strong possibility that I will not get as much for it as I was hoping, so my timeline reflects some budget changes.  Rather than having enough money up front to deal with several steps at once, I'm now looking at the bare minimum of what's needed to move to the land, set up the bus with preliminary water and power needs, and begin building.

And that's okay.  In fact, it's kind of nice to be planning at this more manageable level.  I've realized that all I really need for water in the bus is a couple of 55 gallon drums for water, one of which will be placed on the roof of the bus to supply water to the faucet, and the other for water catchment and storage for outdoor needs.  There's a community well, and a friend of mine who lives on the Mesa has a pickup truck he's going to let me use to haul water, so I'll just need one more drum or tank to use for transport.

The bus has a simple bathroom with just a toilet, so I'm considering just digging a deep hole under it and using sawdust, as a sort-of indoor outhouse.  This definitely wouldn't be a workable longterm setup, but I figure it can work for a few months while I'm building.  I'm also planning on setting up an outdoor solar shower.

As for power, ultimately my plan is solar panels, but the cost is prohibitive for me right now, so I'm looking at getting a 2000-watt generator, probably a Honda eu2000i.  After scouring the Internet for reviews of different generators, this one seems to have a consistently high rating.  My power needs for now are minimal:  two laptops, a low-wattage microwave, and two or three lights.  No refrigerator, and this is something else I'm thinking a lot about, considering such radical things for the future as building an icehouse and root cellar rather than conventional refrigeration.  This line of thought leads into a whole lot of other stuff, like considering what my family eats and why, how I do my shopping, how to eat and shop more simply, how much food I will grow myself.  I may end up with a conventional refrigerator once I have solar panels, but in the meantime, I really want to avoid it.

I checked on the bus yesterday and finally took some photos.  My short-term goals are simply to get it moved and clean enough to live in, but I've been thinking of longterm possibilities as well.  I'd like to keep it around as a guest house and eventually make it look nice and be more liveable (i.e., better insulated).  I've been considering the possibility of cobbing the outside of it, and covering the north-facing windows this way for passive solar benefits, but we'll see.

In the meantime, this is what it looks like.  Consider these the "before" photos.

When I looked at this photo, I realized that the colors of the bus match the sky, which is why I've dubbed it "The Sky Bus."

Notice the chimney pipe for the woodstove.  Brilliant!

I love that this bus was made in 1968, the year I was born, and also that it has a New Hampshire license plate:  Live Free or Die!  As I'm never going to attempt to register this vehicle to drive, I'll leave it on there.

Dining and kitchen area.  With all those windows, it really feels spacious and airy - another reason to call it the Sky Bus.

Sleeping area.  Note to self:  Remove tire.
Each sleeping bench is wide enough for a twin-size mattress.  Sweet!

Thinking Outside the Grid

As fate would have it, about a week after I made my decision to build an off-grid house, the Taos area experienced a gas outage that lasted several days, which nicely reinforced the value of living off-grid.  As I listened to radio updates that cautioned people to drastically reduce their use of electricity because of the overload on the grid due to the increased use of electric heaters, it became very clear to me that living on the grid is a form of enslavement.

I've just finished reading Off the Grid, by Nick Rosen, and it has definitely given me food for thought.  The main thing I've been thinking about is what "the grid" actually is.  The obvious definition is the electrical grid, but as Rosen points out, that definition has been extended to include any public utilities, and even the ecopolitical structure as a whole.  In the book, he travels around America talking to people who live off-grid, and for different people that means different things and is prompted by different motives.  But what he points out is that these motives can be classified very simply as either fear-based or from "a sense of joy."  

What the gas outage experience brought home for me is that I do not want to be dependent for the basics of physical survival and comfort on entities whose primary purpose is to make a profit off me, especially when said entities, and my cooperation with them, are contributing to the illness of the planet.  However, I operate in life on the principle that ultimately I can only be enslaved by the grid of my own thoughts, emotions, and corresponding responses, which is why my decision to build off-grid was prompted by a sense of purpose and joy, not a feeling of enslavement.  

I'm certainly aware of the ways things are falling apart and the dangers of the world we live in, but I choose not to live in fear, and so I don't give my attention to those things any more than necessary.  The freedom of building an off-grid house for me is not so much freedom from a system as freedom to create.  It's a subtle but important distinction that makes all the difference in the world.