Books and travels: Small Is Beautiful. economics.

I didn't bring a good, long book to my flight. As much as I usually prefer to buy books used, there is something exciting about buying a book in the airport bookstore just before I take off on a new adventure. I did not anticipate that the international terminal that I checked into would only have books in Spanish.

The short book that I had brought (and read before) was The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz. A very good book, but a short read. After checking spanish bookstore after spanish bookstore I settled on Deepak Chopra's Buddha.

I had a six hour wait in the airport before my shuttle. I only know a little Spanish, so the book kept putting me to sleep. I was getting pretty desperate for any book in English.

Before I scoured everyone for a good book attempting a book trade. Estrella didn't have a book so I offered her the Deepak Chopra book. Later she told me that she had been looking at this same book earlier, but hadn't bought it. She did really want the book. I found someone else to give The Four Agreements to. The last day before I left, my friend Willie told me he had an extra book.

The book he gave me was Small is Beautiful: economics as if people mattered. I started the book on my flight back--with an 11 hour layover in Mexico City. I made a friend in the Mexico City airport and we talked for the majority of my layover. The book pulled me through the toughest part of my layover, the end, and kept me awake.

I can tell that this is going to be one of those books that helps me to look deeper and understand more about some of my life philosophies. Books often give us a language to express what we believe. I am excited to be able to add these theories into my world.

I love what this book has to say so far about economics. The author talks about the birth of Economics as a science and therefore the limits. I like that he mentions that perhaps Economics as a science is better if limited to quantitative measurements rather than qualitative. Quality is difficult to measure especially if we don't factor out creativity from the value. Then we end up with mass produced goods and people who become tools instead of craftsman. It is difficult to feel one has a personal purpose in life when one is a replaceable, unskilled tool.

Economics are out of balance when there is no cap. More, more, more production requires more consumption, creates more waste, while mechanization takes "jobs" . . . it creates quite a downfall for a community. The creation of the Megalopolis further throw the countryside out of balance. There is an optimal population for a given location to support.

This book takes the approach of Buddhist economics. The author states, however, that it is more about spirituality, that this could be said in the language of any religion. It is about each person as a person, not a strawman.

An excerpt from p. 57 & 58

While the materialist is mainly interested in goods, the Buddhist is mainly interested in liberation. But Buddhism is "The Middle Way" and therefore in no way antagonistic to physical well-being. It is not wealth that stands in the way of liberation but the attachment to wealth; not the enjoyment of pleasurable things but the craving for them. The keynote of Buddhist economics, therefore, is simplicity and non-violence. From an economists point of view, the marvel of the Buddhist way of life is the utter rationality of its pattern--amazingly small means leading to extraordinarily satisfactory results.

For the modern economist this is very difficult to understand. He is used to measuring the "standard of living" by thee amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is "better off" than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. Thus, if the purpose of clothing is a certain amount of temperature comfort and an attractive appearance, the task is to attain this purpose with the smallest possible effort, that is, with the smallest annual destruction of cloth and with the help of designs that involve the smallest possible toil. The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. . .it would be the height of folly to make material so that it should wear out quickly and the height o barbarity to make anything ugly, shabby, or mean . . .

back from Earthship Guatemala, 2 weeks until Christmas

I just got back from building with Earthships in Guatemala for two weeks. I left the day after Thanksgiving and got back two days ago. The nonprofit Long Way Home raised money and received a grant to have Earthships come help build a home for a single mom in Comalapa Guatemala. Volunteers came from all over the world to help build and learn about building Earthships.

There is so much that I could write about the build in Guatemala. I am going to limit this post but hope to write more later. On the practical side I learned how to build the new roof (rebar and cement) that I want to here on our retrofit home next Spring. The Earthship we built in Guatemala was very simple. This is a style that should be easily applied in many areas (with climate tweaks) by anyone. Obviously it is much easier permit wise in Guatemala.

The roof on this house needs to be redone before we can have water catchment with cisterns. Another project is that I would like to make my own cement and can or tire cistern. This winter will be for planning, researching, and organizing.

We have got a simple system in place for water right now. Phoenix and I are still going to be doing some traveling January through March. Regina, a friend of mine who is an accountant travels to Miami Jan-March (3 weeks there, one week back) for tax season. She needs help driving and is teaching me how to do taxes (something I definitely need to learn more about). Taxes are the most mysterious part about running a business to me. Phoenix and I will be traveling with her. Phoenix will likely be in a friend's daycare during the day. I am also excited that a local studio will be having and acroyoga intensive in Miami while I am there.

(((Update: due to a recent developments Regina and I have decided that this is not the best time for Phoenix and I to travel to Miami with her. Let's see what other fun stuff shifts into place. . . more time for CSA work)))

For now we have two weeks to prepare, enjoy exploring what Christmas means to us, plan, and relax a little. I am listening to jazzy Christmas music on Pandora while drinking spiced rum and eggnog. Phoenix and I are making homemade Christmas decorations from Christmas colored newspaper advertisements, rice paper, water colors, pine cones, and some snowflake beads I found at a garage sale this past summer. . .soon to include popcorn and cranberry garlands.

I came home from Guatemala and no snow! I am on the lookout for a place to ice skate, however . . .

pictures coming as soon as the computer agrees to them

water updates

I have had a chance to dig into my research for making our cistern a reality. My decision is now that I would really like to take my time with this system to do it how I'd like to and do it right. I have instead come up with a temporary solution that will be easily implemented but very low volume. This means that we probably will not be inviting many guests over until Spring and Phoenix and I will be taking this opportunity to travel and learn a little more than we would have been.

I will be taking a break from "doing" on the house this winter and will be focusing on making thorough plans for the Spring. This could be really fun. Since we bought the house in June I have been having a hard time finding the balance between planning and organizing and physically getting the work done. Now I will have the opportunity to plan further ahead of time.

I would also like to take some time before Spring to continue to practice my Touch For Health, Applied Kinesiology. This shifting of focus should work very well along with that.

In the mean time I have a few days to get some research, work, play and recuperation while Phoenix gets to have some special Grandpa time over in central Iowa. She says she is really having a good time despite the fact that it seems Aunt Sarah's dog karate-whipped her into the dusty ditch when she tried to boss him around! The story goes: she had been bossing the dog around all day. When they were on a walk she reached for his collar. The dog jumped into the air and hooked her arm into his leg. Phoenix went flying face first into a ditch full of grass and dust. She lay there quietly upside down and dusty for a moment . . . then burst out laughing.

Projects: water

Picture of buried cisterns (in the house berm) in Taos at the construction of a global model Earthship

We have run into some interestingly imminent projects here. Why is it that sometimes you run into a number things that demand your attention all at once. We are in one of those time periods.

The biggest project is that our water has gone kaput. We have had a local company helping us to see if there is a way to get our well pump going again. The end goal where water is concerned is to have rain water catchment and a cistern. I had planned on putting this in next year, but I think I might try to see what I can throw together before we get snow sticking on the ground. In the future the well will not be a main source of water, so I really don't want to have another one dug if that is where we end up. If we catch rainwater I'm not sure we should drink it until we get a chance to re-do the roof. I would like to have it for dishes and baths etc. We will for sure have it tested before we do anything with it.

There will be snow instead of rain soon anyway. I do not plan to install a glycol panel to heat the roof for water in the winter (as they have begun doing with Taos Earthships). This area should be able to catch enough water throughout the year that we can get through winter without that (the evaporation rate should be slow enough that small melts would still drip in as well). I am looking into having some water hauled out to get us going once I get the cistern in.

I have been looking into buying cisterns instead of making a tire or can one. I made a few calls around and had some options, then realized I hadn't asked enough questions about the poly tanks I was looking into. My conclusion so far is that if I wanted to buy a poly tank for cistern use, I would probably have to order it. I have not found any local that are covered that are new, though I have found some used ones that look like they will work well for gray water.

I have been trying to get Phoenix to Grandpa Bill's so that I can dig in with the cistern project, but ironically we blew a tire and cracked the rim on the car when we hit a giant rock in the far left lane of a four lane highway (?). We have to wait for the new rim. Then it rained for a couple of days and the truck got stuck in the mud! I hope you are getting as big of a kick out of this as I am.

I am not terribly concerned. All we can do is try and learn. If things do not turn out in time then we consider a few other options until the spring thaw when this type of work will be easier. It would be nice to just get the water going, but I love adventure and who knows what doors will open if this once needs to detour for a few months?

Stay tuned for further updates ;)

bottle bricks & cement

We found that some of the wood was rotten around one of the windows. The berm had been draining improperly when we first bought the place. The window was behind the cabinets we had to rip out.

Ripping out the rotten wood left us with a gap around the west window in the kitchen. It let in a bit of a breeze. I had decided to move this window to the south side of the house for more solar gain and we are looking at maybe bringing the berm higher on the west side. This gave me a chance to explore bottle bricks.

After grilling my friend Michael about the possibilities of using a table saw to cut glass bottles I went out and bought a wet saw. I did consider having Phoenix stand near the table saw with a spray bottle . . . but, umm, I guess that probably isn't completely safe . . .

Phoenix and I have been stopping by the local bars to find a few that don't recycle their beer and liquor bottles. A couple local bars are saving their bottles for us now. They are intrigued and I said I'd show them pictures :)

One night it got too dark out to work and I was so tired I started to make mistakes. I still had some cement to use up. I ended up fixing up a short brick wall that was cracking in half. It encloses a portion of the patio (I plan on turning this into the outer greenhouse, oh, and have found some fun links for the transformation--next year). We had also ripped out rotten wood under the door the the kitchen. I replaced this sill plate with cement and placed a collage of broken dishes in it. Phoenix was asleep, but we borrowed her hand to make an imprint in the middle.

Speaking of making mistakes, I still have some drippy dried cement to clean off of my bottle bricks, but here is a picture of the window at the moment. This is at night, from the outside with the kitchen light on. We placed vents in the upper right and lower left corners. The vents have the possibility of becoming earth tubes, but presently are capped and filled with insulation cut-outs.

Chillin' in October

Jerome reading a bedtime story by the fire at night. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. We roll the couch up to it. Phoenix and I had fallen asleep here a couple of times last week.
Phoenix and Jerome making jack-o-lanterns on their date night. I was working outside and snapped this through the window (where they had drawn with window marker.
I am finishing off the gluten-free sweet potato/butternut squash pie. I don't bake with sugar, but with honey and sometimes a little stevia (does grow in this climate). This is both for sustainability/fair economic practices and health.

Its been getting colder this month. We are focusing on warmth! This means fittings for the wood burning stove (that we found on craigslist), more fires in the fireplace (fun and warm, but inefficient), and getting tires pounded.

Since we are often working from before sunrise until after sunset we have had to make sure we are getting some fun in too. We put up a wood swing and I have been working on a ring of tires dug halfway into the ground around our fire pit outside. Phoenix enjoys climbing on these. I am also making this a priority because Phoenix is planning to have a Halloween bonfire for her preschool class next Friday.

With Fall and frost come squash. We brought in our butternut squash. Because it is cold out I now have a great reason to bake. I love butternut and acorn squash pie, and pumpkin pie of course. If these pies last beyond one meal they are unlikely to last a whole day.

Today I began to make my first bottle bricks! We have a drafty west window that I am just going to take out and replace with bottle bricks. For now this will eliminate the draft. We are going to move the old window to the south side of the house for more solar gain. Eventually the west window will be buried in the berm.

After checking around we came to the conclusion that the the best water barrier for the cinderblock foundation would be painted on. We took the plastic down and have been painting on a sealant outside. This is something extremely important to me. I've mentioned in other posts that when we first bought the house water was coming in three rooms when it rained. Initially the foam under the carpet kept the leaks disguised, but we had to rip out all of the carpet because it stunk. We sealed from the inside and have not had leaks since, but I want to be very certain it will last for years and years to come.

We have also been working on fixing up a section of the barn for our new goats :) . The chickens will go in there this winter. The chicken tractor was not built for cold weather. I began an Earthship chicken coop, then realized they could just be in the barn for now. I have other things to focus on. I will certainly revisit the chicken coop later.

october updates

*watch video of Dreaming Bear at the end*

septic fun:

dun dun dun, well, ok the septic did have to be pumped. We really aren't sure where the leach field is, so we are just using the septic system and keeping an eye on the level. Everything seems to be working great so far.

chicken tractor:

two stray dogs showed up. They were really sweet, to humans. They got my latch open and ate the chickens when I was gone along with chasing the cats off of the farm. I had a bit of a spiritual dilemma about the fact that animal control was going to put them to sleep if they couldn't find the owners and had all kinds of plans running through my head . . .but they found the owners! Sweet, naughty dogs are gone and we picked up the rest of our chickens--and the cats came back too. Next dilemma, do we buy Mark and Catherine's (SpringValley Farm) breeding goats? Tempting . . . think goat cheese. Also, do we need a dog here to protect our animals?

my birthday, Iowa City Yoga Festival my snopsis:

i got to take a weekend by myself and go to the Iowa City Yoga Festival. I really enjoyed Jim Bennett's pranayama and yogic purification. I was also really excited to learn about how to organize yoga in the park. When I got to the class one of the two presenters just so happened to be the Reiki teacher that I had bumped into the night before in the hallway. He helped me with my headache and balanced a few other things as well. A sweet shaman woman was selling handmade jewelry. I liked her spirit. The necklace I got from her is grounding. Yoga Therapy was another session I went to. The presenter had been a physical therapist who got into yoga because it accidentally solved his chronic back problems. We got to hear about some really interesting research going on with MRI's about the science of the subtle body and the nervous system, and much more. . . oh and dreaming bear! Another great video of Dreaming Bear.