WinSol +

Winter has finally moved on... and temperatures are consistently in the 60's for the first time since December - a real winter, after 5+ years of being spoiled. The fruit trees have blossomed and leafed out - the first time in 2 years without a snowstorm killing the blossoms, so there should be hundreds of peaches and cherries ++.  The rhubarb sprouted up first.  For some reason rhubarb seems to do really well here - we've split one plant over 10 times and have so much rhubarb we give it away! And now the hard work in Spring begins in earnest.  Getting the learning center going again for interns and helpers are a two year hiatus is the major project right now. There's about 12 more olla pots for a couple raised beds put back into production.  the strawberries from Peaceful Valley are doing wonderfully.  They are SO much better quality than other nurseries.   As any property owner knows, murphy always shows up in certain repeat trends.  T...

Enough already!  Having returned from a 2 week hiatus - mostly down south, it's nice to be back at this forest sanctuary.  BUT - there's another winter storm coming tomorrow.  The drive through snow country (hwy 88 - minden to WinSol) was awe inspiring if it wasn't for the endless cars parked on both shoulders with snowmobiles, skis, sleds, and gawking people.   Records broken Mammoth ski area had more closed days this season, than ever before - and they are staying open (weekends only) until July 4th.   Tioga Pass at Yosemite won't be plowed thru until late June or later.  Yosemite valley buildings have suffered a LOT of damage for snow loads.   So it's now inching toward 8 weeks of non-stop winter.   The outside temp today was 55F (March 25) and the last time it reached that temp was in the 2nd week of January.  I've never seen a continuous winter without a break like this.  That's why I headed south to Death V...

After a cold start, it's turned nice.   Temps are 65/42F and the solar house is working beautifully.  inside temps exceed 85F with curtains open and no indoor fires. But when it gets cloudy, it's downright cold inside:  A solar house without sun really sucks. The 12ton Trombe wall holds latent heat for about 2-3 days without the firestove going.  I usually fire up the stove on the 2nd day without sun and that keeps things warm.  Over the years I've been able to 'train' my body to be comfy down to 45F.  There's a snow workshop back east where people are trained to stand barefoot in the snow -- the first day they last 5 minutes, after 5 days of 'hardening up'  they can stand barefoot in the snow for 30+ minutes.  The body adjusts... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last summer, the big project was building an RMH (Rocket Mass Heater - see other blogs) in the bedroom - which is heavily i...

After experience the first beams of light on Winter Solstice sunrise at 7:43am...  Sun beaming on the eating nook, and bedroom pillow. A couple hours later it floods the entire house, including back wall in sun. I once again appreciate the beauty of the ancients and their passive designs (think adobe, mesa verde, etc) to maximize winter sun intrusion.  Winsol heats and cools itself.  But it needs a little help from outside conditions.  I've been there in January when it's 20F outside, sun is shining, all curtains are open and it's 85F inside.  WinSol is buttoned down for the winter.  with the holidays, snowfall, cloudy days... it's a challenge to stay at Winsol during winter.  As I always say:  'a solar house without sun really sucks' - and so I tend to be a bluebird kinda guy. The logging around WinSol has finally started.  It's been a 6+ month wait for this to happen.  i am both sad and happy about this logging.  It wi...

WinSol is coming out of a hiatus.  The original grand opening of the Living Energy Learning Center (LeLc) was postponed last June for various reasons, and slowly things are congealing again.  We are now set for a 2019 spring opening.  Here's a progress report: (1) For the first time in 5 years, we have vegetable gardens (raised beds) producing again .  With the addition of several kitties, the persistent munchers and pesky rats are retreating to less threatening environs.  We'll see how the kitties fare during winter and the racoons.  so far, so good: lessons learned from previous kitty ventures. (2) The LeLc dome floor is now 95% finished.  We've had to take out a few rough spots and repair some cracks.  The main progress has been along the outside permieter where snow and rain intrusion was next to impossible to stop. So we cut a 2" gap around the perimeter with the chainsaw to allow speedy runoff.  (3) Our re-Focus will be tow...

It's important for all 7 billion of us to live within one earth equivalence. We only have one planet.  Except for the Blue sky space billionaires, we're stuck here.  One earth is all we have. More than one earth is unsustainable.  We currently use about 1.7 earths overall .  The USA uses about 4-6 earths, Europe about half that.  This is unsustainable   Last time I checked we only have one of these 'earths'... somethings gotta give.  How can we adapt our current lifestyles to living within our means - one earth equivalence? My applied ethos 1 is walking my talk. If I’m going to tell others that it’s best to live within one earth, the least I can do is live within one earth myself. It’s easy once my heart aligns with Gaia and once I understood the frailty of our current systems and structures and how utterly unsustainable they are. One concept illustrating this is ‘earth overshoot day’: it’’s currently August 21 for th...

when people introduce me and say 'fred lives off the grid', While I appreciate the intro,  I always want to say: 'I'm WAY beyond off-grid'... and if a conversation engages around it, I like to throw in the moniker: 'I live off the dreadmill' ... let me explain. Our society loves path dependence. The history of humans is written on it. Path dependence implies we continue down the current path even though we know better paths – because it's convenient and we 'need to pay the mortgage/rent'.  And of course, many industries profit enormously from the current path.  it. Take oil, fast food, big box stores, etc.  I like the sound bite ' we didn't sto p using  whale oil for lighting because we ran out of whales'   And so too, we are blazing new paths not because we're running out of resources (which certain groups want you to believe) as much as there are better options on the horizons (uber, AI, self-driving cars, robotics,...