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.

bathroom

We cleaned out the bathroom. I mean, REALLY cleaned. These pictures will show the whole process so far. I am going to start at present and work my way back, mostly. The top photo here shows the amazing first night I took a bath in our new tub, the one below it shows the new toilet (from the Restore) installed. This top picture was a snapshot of bliss.

Candles and Epsom salts in a hot bath after a lot of hard work.

The tub, I think I already mentioned in another post, we got free off of craigslist. The man had already sold two and just wanted to get rid of the third. Phoenix got to be the first to try out the jets. Jets might take a little more energy, but they can be used only when needed/wanted. We will eventually build a frame around the tub. There will be shelves on the left and I am debating the sink. A friend of mine has a toilet that has the sink on the lid of the tank. When you flush fresh water comes from a faucet above. This used water then fills up the toilet tank. Otherwise we could just to a gray water tank hooked in to feed the toilet.

This shows the previous step of the process. I had washed, cleaned and painted the area the new tub would fit into. It felt good to see the tub placed in the room.

The black places on the floor had some tile I had to break out. Next to the wall was a small cement reservoir for draining the tub. ? . We had the water from the tub (underneath) come out onto the floor a few times and this finding made the cause very clear. There was no drain pipe run from the tub into the floor. If you tried to drain more than about 3 gallons it overflowed if you tried to drain it all at once (which we usually didn't because we thought the drain was broken). Jerome placed a pipe into it after I demolished the reservoir with a sledgehammer (fun!). I don't, however, have a before demolition picture of it.

The old bathtub was cast-iron. This puppy was heavy. We had to wait a few days to gain up some strength (sleeping and eating really well) to move it out. We did it in increments. Some research online shows they weigh about 350-400lbs. At first we just moved it to the left of the room so I could work on the right.

Scrubbing the floor and walls. I had considered taking pictures of each dirty bucket of cleaning water successively, but decided to narrow my focus to more work and less play. I washed the walls 3 times and the floor 6 times to get them completely clean before painting. I used to be anti-bleach, but have learned that it really is the best thing for mold. When Jerome ripped out the shower we found mold behind some of the drywall. I washed with bleach, rinsed, then used citrasolv. Then washed/rinsed a few more times. Citrasolv is amazing. It is made with essential oils, so it is natural and it works so well that I avoid it on freshly painted surfaces. It makes your whole house smell like oranges.

This is a very early picture. It is clear the bathtub had overrun before. There was stinky carpet in the bathroom when we bought the place. We immediately ripped out the carpet and took out the drywall where we saw mold. After this picture we had a temporary tile walkway in place to the toilet and shower.

chicken tractor

We go to SpringValley farms once a week to get our raw milk. I found out today that yes, it is legal in Illinois for me to buy raw milk and yes, I can tell people where I get it. If you are from Iowa (about 2 miles from here) then it is a completely different story.

Last week farmer Mark and his daughter Faith both mentioned they were wanting to get rid of some small chickens. This reminded me that I had set a goal of building a chicken tractor and having a few chickens by this month. So I made one last weekend.

Jerome set out some wood that was salvageable from what we had ripped out of the bathroom. I bought some chicken wire. The yellow painted wood on the back we found on the curbside. I didn't even have to cut it, both boards were a good size. Oh, but I did cut the top yellow board in half for fun so that I could place hinges behind each piece and have each pivot backward and up (the hinges were reclaimed). The bottom piece hinges down so you open it as far as you need to for collecting eggs. Jerome and Phoenix found me a few wooden boxes, from the barn, to nail to the inside-back for nests. The tin for the roof was from the building scrap we found on craigslist. I really enjoy the fact that I bought the chickens from a four-year-old (Faith). She is a really amazing girl.

The bottom is open so the chickens can "tractor" the ground. They can scratch it up scrounging for bugs. It is light and movable so that they can be moved around to different parts of the yard.
As seen from the front: chicken pagoda.
This is a picture of the latch on the back. We did happen to have a metal hasp, but I thought it would be more fun to make my own from scrap wood. I didn't put the screws in all the way, so the wood can pivot. The idea here was like folding over the four flaps of a cardboard box to keep it closed. :) I also like the shapes . . .triangle, pagoda, triangle . . .

Happy chickens, happy Phoenix, happy mom, happy earth

Next comes the Earthship chicken coop for winter. I was told that the chickens were kept warm enough in the coop at the Phoenix Earthship in Taos that they lay the same amount of eggs through the winter.