Sketch for the new cabin
Insulated floors!
Wednesday 5 November 2014
Summer 2014 pictures
Insulated floors!
Monday 19 May 2014
Spring 2014
After 3 years off grid, I am finally breaking my internet habit. which is mostly good, unless your my grandma, who always gets on me to update this blog. So here Nana!
This year marks the fourth year of our garden, which started as a 50 sq foot clay wasteland. Now after three years of expanding, adding soil, winter cover crops, picking, tilling, and peat mossing, The garden is seven times the size of my house, and is actually supporting some plantlife!
We've got some of last years crops going to seed, aswell as heaps of berries and 75 garlic plants going, everything else is just starting to sprout.
After three winters in a cabin that was supposed to be a summer home, I am Actually getting ready to build my extention. Which means........ there will be somewhere to sit! Yesterday I extended my deck, and improved the foundation of it to support walls. Until I get the wood to box it it, it's a sweet outdoor living room.
Building Bridges
Monday 5 August 2013
Summer Pictures
Added a small extension to the sink counter
Pathway into the garden (covering an irrigation ditch)
Can't have a land project without a hound dog....
Second bridge and stairs to side exit of property
Pathway into the garden (covering an irrigation ditch)
Second bridge and stairs to side exit of property
Tuesday 2 July 2013
Swamp living
While drinking coffee during my morning walk through the garden, I realized something amazing. This is the start of our third summer, but these july mornings are different than those of the past two years. My previous routine, which consisted of heading to the grocery store to buy a coffee, sipping it in the courtyard, while trying to figure out where is was going to get the siding to finish my loft, or how I was going to get my roofing shingles to the property, or if the last burner on my busted old propane stove was going to last another day, and even if it did, someone else might already be using our communal propane tank today.
This summer is different, though I can't hear the morning birds through the walls anymore, the siding and insulation kept me warm through the winter, as is keeping it cool in the summer. My cabin is a tiny home now, no longer an over-glorified leaky wooden tent. These mornings I climb down the ladder into my own kitchen, with a four burner stove, an oven, a rainwater sink. The dishes all have homes on shelves, the sugar, coffee, pasta noodles, all in tins not zip-lock bags. I don't have to ask one of the property mates for the propane tank, cause we all have our own. I make coffee and an egg sandwich, and start my morning walk through the garden.
Beside the garden is a circle of chairs around a table and umbrella. Beneath the table is our winter fire pit, shut down for the summer. In the garden (which is now 5 times the size of my house) you can see the orange flowers of our collendula plant, celebrating it's first birthday. Next to it, raspberry bushes also a year old, not too far away from a blueberry bush we planted back in 2011. Our winter crops of garlic, fava beans, and tree onions, greet their new neighbors: peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, and a family or two of root vegetables.
Jackson walks down from his trailer, as a couple couch surfers emerge from a tent at our pond-side campsite. Jackson and I sit down at the table and talk about the last couple years, how far we've come, and what we have now. A solid foundation, tiny homes, that grant us (though slightly compromised) real life comforts. We can take a day to ourselves and not think about how fucked we'll be if it rains, or how we really should be putting in insulation, so we can put in siding, so we can build a desk, so we don't have to sit in the dirt to write, draw, carve spoons, or whatever. For the first time since we moved here, we can just live!
With that said, we still have an endless list of projects, and though there are still countless ways we can improve our standard of living, we are comfortable enough to also focus on the stuff that is just fun, I can go another couple weeks without hooking up my solar panels and batteries, because today I want to build an archery range....
This summer is different, though I can't hear the morning birds through the walls anymore, the siding and insulation kept me warm through the winter, as is keeping it cool in the summer. My cabin is a tiny home now, no longer an over-glorified leaky wooden tent. These mornings I climb down the ladder into my own kitchen, with a four burner stove, an oven, a rainwater sink. The dishes all have homes on shelves, the sugar, coffee, pasta noodles, all in tins not zip-lock bags. I don't have to ask one of the property mates for the propane tank, cause we all have our own. I make coffee and an egg sandwich, and start my morning walk through the garden.
Beside the garden is a circle of chairs around a table and umbrella. Beneath the table is our winter fire pit, shut down for the summer. In the garden (which is now 5 times the size of my house) you can see the orange flowers of our collendula plant, celebrating it's first birthday. Next to it, raspberry bushes also a year old, not too far away from a blueberry bush we planted back in 2011. Our winter crops of garlic, fava beans, and tree onions, greet their new neighbors: peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, and a family or two of root vegetables.
Jackson walks down from his trailer, as a couple couch surfers emerge from a tent at our pond-side campsite. Jackson and I sit down at the table and talk about the last couple years, how far we've come, and what we have now. A solid foundation, tiny homes, that grant us (though slightly compromised) real life comforts. We can take a day to ourselves and not think about how fucked we'll be if it rains, or how we really should be putting in insulation, so we can put in siding, so we can build a desk, so we don't have to sit in the dirt to write, draw, carve spoons, or whatever. For the first time since we moved here, we can just live!
With that said, we still have an endless list of projects, and though there are still countless ways we can improve our standard of living, we are comfortable enough to also focus on the stuff that is just fun, I can go another couple weeks without hooking up my solar panels and batteries, because today I want to build an archery range....
Friday 17 May 2013
Season 3 premeir!
The last few months have been an interesting start to the year. Tom and Travis went out to the east coast, where Thom is planning on buying land and starting his own land project. After three and a half months of biking down the Mississippi and other a adventures, Jackson has returned home, and we are planning a powerhouse of a summer.
I have been working stone masonry for the past few months, which other than being great exercise, and bringing in enough money to pay for some big projects, has got me even more stoked on doing stonework. If all goes as planned this spring I want to do a bunch of landscaping in the garden, build an old school stone well, and maybe a stone bridge over the creek. We'll see what happens......
Things in the garden are on schedule despite not having Thom around, Jackson and I have picked up where he left off. Though the tent caterpillars might be holding off their invasion, slugs are on the full offensive and ate all our baby cucumbers. We are hoping tiny bowls of beer in the garden will work as slug traps, and if not, well at least our cat will be drunk.
I have been working stone masonry for the past few months, which other than being great exercise, and bringing in enough money to pay for some big projects, has got me even more stoked on doing stonework. If all goes as planned this spring I want to do a bunch of landscaping in the garden, build an old school stone well, and maybe a stone bridge over the creek. We'll see what happens......
Things in the garden are on schedule despite not having Thom around, Jackson and I have picked up where he left off. Though the tent caterpillars might be holding off their invasion, slugs are on the full offensive and ate all our baby cucumbers. We are hoping tiny bowls of beer in the garden will work as slug traps, and if not, well at least our cat will be drunk.
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| Fava beans and Collendula (Winter crops, ready now) |
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| Tomato House |
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| Strawberries, Soon to be beats, and Garlic |
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| Jackson in the garden |
Saturday 23 March 2013
A year later
The first picture was taken just before easter weekend last year, Since then some landscaping and rock work has been done, a garden put in, and a garden expanded!
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