Finally, bedrooms for the kids

When we moved into the house over three years ago there was a lot left unfinished. We did not complete the planned bedrooms for the kids at that time because they were so young that they didn't really need their own rooms and we just wanted to be done and moved in so we said we'd get the rooms done "someday." Well, that someday came this winter after Chris' injury. The kids were ready for some personal space and in the light of Chris' disability we also needed to create an office/spare room where we could potentially put an intern to help us out on the farm.

After the injury we received an outpouring of offers of help as well as some financial gifts from family members too far away to help in person. We took those offers and decided to go ahead with the room construction. The first thing we had to do was clean out the entire West half of the house, otherwise known as the playroom. My mom spent several days down here with me helping to sort through all the mess and put everything in boxes. Here is the "before" photo after clearing stuff out.


Our friend Aaron is a talented carpenter and in just two days he had the majority of the three rooms framed. This was a difficult job because of the earthen-plastered walls and floor which are inevitably NOT square, but Aaron figured out how to deal with it.



After the framing was done, my Mom's friend Paul and his wife came down to spend a day on the project. They even brought a helper and lunch for everyone!

We got much of the rock on that day and I even ventured up into the attic to work on the wiring. It was an enormous boost for us and it was so much appreciated.

The following weekend my brother, his wife, and my niece Aris volunteered several hours to painting.


Here's the view of the rooms from the outside.


The kids enthusiastically helped with the painting. Fortunately the paint was clay based so it washed off the floors easily.


Scotty demonstrates the use of Eliza's little climbing wall on her bunk bed.


More photos of the finished rooms coming soon!

The wind is not our friend right now

A dear person in my life used to always say "the wind is your friend" but he was referring to bicycle racing, not solar panels.

This lasted for 5 minutes

For a blissful few minutes last week our kitchen and living room and part of the bedroom were picture perfect (barely) for a photo shoot. During the shoot Eliza came running into the living room a couple of times with water balloons needing to be tied and she dropped potato chips on the freshly mopped floor. Scotty moved one of his model tractors into the living room and moved a couple of chairs around. I was really amazed at how it's almost impossible to keep things looking perfect. But it did look good!

Here is the photographer at work:


Jesse's beautiful table and Chris' ceiling and cabinets. Just ignore the pile of clutter down the hallway. We had to move a lot of stuff out to simplify and clean the areas that were to be photographed:


Here is the kitchen floor that I made out of dumpster tile. The other floor is an earthen floor sealed with linseed oil.

We finally painted the kitchen for this shoot. It was great to have some motivation to get it done!

Only half of the bedroom was picture perfect. Behind the camera was a huge pile of stuff that had been moved out of the way! But I just love Chris' ceiling here, which is made from recycled pallets. Chris and Jesse made the bed (the actual bed--I "made" the bed that morning) and I made the wall sconces. The prints are from Chris' Aunt Pam and Uncle George.


The night after the shoot I climbed into my perfectly made, clean bed with the kids and sighed myself to sleep, only to wake up at 3AM to the sound of Eliza vomiting in the perfect bed. Back to reality! Hey, it was fun while it lasted......

Harvest worthy of the table

August has been glorious so far. Harvests have been colorful and abundant, but we hardly have time to harvest because we are preparing for a special event here. We are going to be featured in Su Casa Magazine sometime this winter and they are coming to do the photo shoot at the end of this month! The article will focus on the combination of sustainable home building and homesteading. I find the whole thing hilarious, because if you know us you also know that our house and farm do not fall into the glossy-magazine-worthy category of homes, especially in their day-to-day condition. And when we moved into the house almost 3 years ago it was still unfinished and we basically haven't touched a thing since then. We were burned out on construction and wanted to focus on developing the farm.

But this upcoming article has motivated us to work on the house again, and so has something else. Our dear friend Jesse is a talented carpenter/artist who created some beautiful features for the house, including these screen doors that appeared in this photo for an article in the local paper:



Jesse's style is very organic and he uses recycled wood, both of which suit our home and our tastes perfectly. Well, when I found out about the shoot I remembered a gorgeous dining set that Jesse had made and got the idea to feature it in the house for the magazine article. He thought it was a great idea, so last weekend he brought it down. Oh man, it is so beautiful in here!!!!! I feel like one of those movie stars who gets to borrow expensive jewelry for the Oscars. It makes me a little nervous too because the kids can be hard on furniture, but so far they are being very careful with it. I will be so sad when we have to give it back, because it really looks perfect in this house.

So last weekend we pulled in a big harvest and the food was so beautiful that I just had to put harvest and table together for a photo. Actually several:




And here is Jesse with his masterpiece (and mother nature's).

I didn't take any wide shots of the table and chairs in the house because the rest of the house still needs to be de-cluttered and spruced up. You'll just have to wait for the magazine for that!

The harvest and table have also inspired me in the kitchen. Later that day Scotty and I shelled a bunch of lima beans (king of the garden and Christmas):



Here he is demonstrating his technique:



I made the most amazing Indian food dinner that night. I made a lima bean and tomato curry with green cayenne peppers that was delicious. I also made palak paneer, which is a creamed spinach and cheese dish that is popular in Indian restaurants. But I made mine with swiss chard from the garden and homemade paneer from raw milk. It was absolutely amazing. The meat was beef kebabs from our beef, marinated in fresh tomatoes and spices. Chris grilled those to perfection. To top it all off we had an old friend and Chris' dad join us for dinner and music. It was a terrific evening.

The animals help decorate

Yesterday as I was sweeping the floor I decided to change my perspective on the constant mess a bit. I thought about how it is a chic architectural trend to "blur the lines between indoors and outdoors" and I realized that we are on the cutting edge of trendy home decor. There are some days when the floor inside is nearly indistinguishable from the ground outside! We're so cool.

Case in point: The livestock have been spending some time indoors lately (helping with the decor of course). Martha Stewart is so last year.......

A bit of winter

We had a light flurry a few weeks ago. It wasn't until Thanksgiving that it even started to get cold here. With our passive solar design we were still reaching 77F inside the house, and we even had to shut the shades a few times to keep from overheating. But now we have settled into a more average weather pattern. It's been freezing at night for some time now and lately the highs have been in the 40's and 50's. More clouds have meant not as much solar gain, which is hard on our PV system and keeps the house on the cool side. But we still haven't needed to light a fire in the woodstove yet (our only source of backup heat). We're hoping to make it till Christmas this year.

In answer to all your questions

I'm doing a new post to answer everyone's recent questions. Thanks to all of you for your comments!

homemoma: The tomatillo is related to the winter cherry (it's the same genus) but it's not the same thing. Tomatillos are used in Mexican cuisine for green salsas. Roast them and combine with garlic, peppers, onions, cilantro. Yum!

Alan: Yes, we seeded the onions inside in January. Two varieties--Valencia and Newburg. We planted them in the garden in mid-April. Also, thanks for your comments on vegetarianism. It has been an interesting journey for me.

Mike: The jury is still out on the tomato cages. So far it's working pretty well but there are some kinks to iron out. We cut the hog panels in half lengthwise both to save money and to be able to access the bottoms of the plants easily to weed, prune, and harvest fruit. But the cut ends are sharp so it requires extra caution when working in there. Also we didn't put them close together enough in some places so that is something to keep in mind--I'd say around 16-18" apart is ideal (depending on the plant--some of our varieties are much bushier than others).

As for the lettuce, it's a butter lettuce called Bronze Mignonette. I got the seed from Seeds of Change.

And Mik: Eliza is doing well! She's looking forward to her birthday on Tuesday. We're still waiting to see if she gets chicken pox but if not she would like to have a party at Chuck E Cheese's. I'll go snap a few photos of her now.







And here's the photo of the house from the driveway, as you requested. You can't see much through the weeds! Although I do want to point out that the sunflowers that grow as weeds here are selling well at the market!

Chicken energy

It's absolutely amazing how much energy a chicken can produce. A mother hen must keep her brood warm for weeks on end. For just one week we have been brooding our nearly 50 chicks at an average 90 degrees Farenheit. The single 40 watt bulb that has done the job has been running 24/7 and has brought our electrical system to its knees. We have a small off-grid system, designed thoughtfully to use minimal energy and cost as little as possible. All winter we ran our efficient, DC refrigerator and freezer, our TVs and computer, our vacuum cleaner, power tools, microwave, and compact fluorescent lights. Nearly every day we were able to recharge our batteries fully without any noticeable sacrifices on our parts. Sure, we keep lights off when not in use and we unplug appliances to avoid phantom loads, but we were never in the dark or without TV or radio due to an energy shortage. Until tonight.

This morning we hit the lowest point so far in battery capacity, and due to cloudy weather today we only recharged a fifth of what we needed to reach 100%. So this evening the kids and I decided that we would use no electricity tonight. We made a bonfire outside and stayed out there until dark. Then we came in and used candles while getting ready for bed. Both easily fell asleep moments ago and now I'm cheating a bit just long enough to make this blog entry.

Point being, we are getting an idea of how much energy our modern society really uses. All of the "conveniences" that we take for granted, all the lights left on day and night for show, for security, for convenience, or for raising chickens amount to an unfathomable amount of energy used. It makes us, as a small family, feel insignificant in the little we are able to save. It also makes us wonder how people ever raised chickens before there was electricity. I guess they did it the old fashioned way--they let the hens do it!

The good news is we planted 10 tomato plants today--all different, some with fun names like Pink Ping Pong and Hillbilly. Eliza helped me put them in their holes and as she put each one in she told it that it was a sweet little plant and we were going to take good care of it and keep it safe and sound. Surely her words will benefit the little guys on their first night in the garden. We also put in some parsley, borage, and basil. Yesterday we seeded in some carrots and some more flowers on the west side. The kids fed the sheep about a pound of corn last night while I wasn't looking and though I cleaned up as much as I could the sheep got enough of it to have some runny stools today. I hope they are OK by tomorrow. We put the corn out of the kids' reach so it shouldn't happen again. The chicks are growing and doing well despite the best efforts of Eliza to accidentally harm one.

Signing off now to get back to the voluntary blackout. I guess I'll have to go to bed early tonight!