Be joyful though you have considered all the facts
Back to patterns! Having a plan for the slope has re-opened my mind for the immediate front: the balcony, the level stretch of garden up top, the top of the driveway. This is what it looks like right now: I already analyzed one of the more general  problems: the negativity of this space. There are some more specific …
Continue reading “Applying the Pattern Language (ii): Inviting Entry, Making Connections”
Ah, it’s 2 degrees out, but bright and sunny and in between running out to swap out the chickens’ frozen water I am dreaming of the garden. My goal for 2013 is to do more work on the homestead, because I realized what an opportunity we have here, to build a place that is a …
I got Christopher Alexander(et.al.)’s A Pattern Language from the library a few days back and am just blown away by it. This man had such humble, democratic insights into the task of the architect and a real feel for natural, beautiful,  human and humane living spaces. His book first proposes patterns for building cities, towns, neighborhoods. About …
Continue reading “A Pattern Language for Building for Life: Positive Outdoor Spaces”
OVER FOUR YEARS OF RIOT! Four year summary coming soon (I know, I keep promising) This is the Riot for the months of November and December 2012 for, mostly, the three of us. My summary of our first three years is here. Edson fixed the calculator: all go tither to crunch those numbers! Gasoline.  Calculated per person. …
Continue reading “Riot for Austerity – November and December 2012 – 49-50”
After too many estimates but wonderful and very instructive conversations with installers, we have committed to going solar for our hot water. We got our shade report that tells us that our solar effect of 95.35% qualifies us for the State rebate (minimum requirement is 75%). Our solar fraction is 73.1% which means that solar will provide that …
We have always used our basement for three things: laundry, storage (aka dumping) and, seasonally, seedlings. There are two large rooms and a spacious corridor. One room holds the furnace and the two big oil tanks that the previous owner needed so her 50-year-old furnace could overheat her uninsulated house (we fixed all of that …
I am part of a group that seeks to “green”  our church (UU). At the last meeting only women came, five of us. One of our discussions revolved around single-use paper cups during coffee hour and Sunday school. We have many mugs and we figured out how to put them back to use. The major obstacle …
Continue reading “Powerful Householding, or How to Stop Flicking Switches”
Ah, that first fire. Over the weekend DH and I hauled a bunch dried fire wood from the woodpile to the screened porch, and I cut up a lot of kindling. It was my first go with the small electric chainsaw that a friend gave us. It does the job! Another friend commented “My favorite …
Here’s the West Garden, put to bed with the indispensable help of my mom and dad, who were visiting from Belgium the last two weeks.  Thank you, Oma and Opa, also for helping me extract another 25 lbs. of honey, totaling the honey harvest from Hive 3 to almost 50 lbs! I keep saying this is …
A pine in our backyard started dying two years ago. You could see the needles falling, the woodpeckers going after one particular spot, pitting the bark there. The bark stated falling off. Then dry, dead branches started crashing down. It was time to take it down, because Amie’s swing stands only ten feet away from …