passive solar

Here is my favorite place to roost: a rocking chair in front of the wood stove, on the slate floor.

When we designed this place from a description we saw in a book from the library, one of our first considerations was alignment with the sun. We wanted to take full advantage of that low horizon sunlight that sometimes appears on a winter's day, for both light and heat. We also wanted to place the wood stove, the main source of heat, as close to the center of the house as possible, not backed up against some wall somewhere, so it would heat most of the house evenly.

We have now had the opportunity to put our design to the test of subzero weather, and overall things are functioning quite well. I admit there have been some times when some parts of the house were chilly, and the wood stove has barely kept up. We bought two stand alone radiator-type electric heaters for the family room and Calvin's bedroom, and they have helped (although I'm scared to check out my latest electric bill online!) But then again, we don't have the extra insulation of flooring and drywall in many areas of the house yet, nor is the skirting around the base of the house complete. I think these elements could make a difference.

So many houses around here appear to be just dropped on a piece of land without any basic consideration for how they blend in, nor how heating and cooling could be augmented naturally. I can feel the difference a sunny day makes in the house, and Bloof the cat seems to appreciate it as well.

Actually, this photo was taken a week or so ago. Today we have not seen the sun, but the temperature is hovering around 30 degrees, relatively mild.

Monday shared stuff

I've been trying to incorporate Google Reader into my repertoire of Internet tools. but apparently it doesn't get along too well with my work computer. So until I get that figured out, I hope to periodically post a few items of interest here on Sand Creek Almanac.

The Farmer as Natural Resource Professional

As a fish and/or wildlife manager, one of the first things one learns is that most of one's efforts to protect and maintain habitat and fish and wildlife populations are at the mercy of private land owners--farmers, forest product companies, developers, lake shore owners. Of these, farmers have influence over approximately 58 percent of the total land area in Minnesota. When I was in graduate school, we often saw examples of "farmer as bad guy" in land and watershed management: stream banks eroded by cattle, land tilled right up to the roadside, with no fencelines or other wildlife corridors, ditches washing topsoil and fertilizers into rivers. However, there always have been farmers who practice good land stewardship, and an increasing number are making the connection betweeen the health of the land, sustainable productivity, and wildlife habitat. The above link is about one such farmer, Kent Solberg. Solberg had a somewhat nontraditional route to farming; he grew up in the city, got a degree in wildlife management, and spent years working with various state and federal agencies as a wildlife manager. Now he and his wife raise dairy cattle, pork and eggs on carefully managed pasture on their farm in north central Minnesota. Listen to the linked podcast if you have time; it's about ten minutes long but very informative.

There is also a personal connection, which is why I was happy to find this story this morning. Solberg and The Hermit were buddies in graduate school, he was best man at our wedding, and I worked at the same office with him for several years. We haven't been in touch for a while, but I would like to visit their farm some day.

Choosing to live with less

In these tough economic times, there are a few people who are not feeling the pinch, since they have chosen to get by with what some would call poverty-level income. However, the lives they are living seem to be rich and fulfilling. I was inspired by these stories. And there's another personal connection; the barn dance I played at last week was called by Terrence Smith, who is featured in the article. His passion for music and dancing is contagious.

More reasons to eat organic

This article, just posted online by Environmental Health Perspectives, describes a study in which levels of certain commonly used organophosphate pesticides dropped significantly in urine samples from children who switched to a mostly organic diet for just five days.

Of course, the big chemical companies will counter with "but those children were perfectly healthy even when they ate a pesticide-laden diet, weren't they?"

I'm not so sure. With all the immune-related illnesses these days, and the hundreds of thousands of chemicals we are bombarded with which make it virtually impossible to prove cause-and-effect, I'll err on the side of caution. Last night it was broccoli and potatoes from the garden.

Low tech

We celebrated Nina's birthday on Sunday by having my mom, dad, brother and his family, grandma, aunt and uncle up for a picnic. It had been two years since any of them had seen the place and we were anxious to show them the progress on the new house. We even enlisted the muscles of my dad, brother, sister in law, and uncle in lifting one of the glue-lam beams that supports part of the second floor.

While I love having my family up for a visit, I always get the feeling that they don't fully understand why I'm doing this, why I'm working towards this homesteading lifestyle. My grandma and my mother certainly lived some of it, but are content in not having to do all of the hard work anymore. I think they admire me for doing it, and creating such a great environment for the kids to grow up in, but at the same time are a bit perplexed by some choices. Like the composting toilet.

"Why are you going with a composting toilet instead of a regular one?" my dad asked me. I paused, reaching for the right words. The composting toilet is such an integral symbol of our philosophy of living here; conserving valuable resources, making do with less, and participating more fully in the cycle of life. How do I distill all of that into an answer that won't take the rest of the afternoon? I didn't have a copy of The Humanure Handbook available to show him, although that may have been a bit too much information for a Sunday afternoon.

"It's low tech." I heard myself say. It's low tech. Exactly. You can't get any more low tech than a bucket of sawdust. It's simple and elegant, and it won't get plugged up and overflow at inopportune times. But yet, the process of composting is probably more complicated and technical than anything humans could come up with, so in a sense it's not low tech. But for our purposes, at an organism/ecosystem level, it's low tech.

I went on to explain how a septic system would cost thousands of dollars to install, would require intervention by professionals and inspectors, and even then would have no guarantee of working properly. Mound systems have a way of freezing up during winters with little snow, and functioning questionably the rest of the time. My aunt and uncle, who live on a lake, are aware of this. They will eventually need to replace their system, but will probably go with a holding tank instead of a mound. As a biologist I agreed that was the better option for them and for the lake, which suffers from nutrient overload. I should have preached the benefits of the composting idea, but perhaps that will wait for another day, not a family birthday celebration.

The economic argument probably made more sense than the low tech one. I don't know. My extended family probably still thinks I'm a bit strange. Oh well, at least we didn't go with my husband's idea of greeting them with a hatchet and telling them to go down to the chicken tractor and choose their dinner.