Cowboys & Dirtykids

This movie (cowboys & aliens) is either just out, or about to be out... I don't know if I'll go see it. It was filmed a few miles away from my house...

See! Neat! Yet another busy day at work...

From FRIENDS

Starting our kitchen! (aka: livin' my dream)

We've been super busy, doing super awesome things (what's new, right?).

I got a job. An awesome job, that's just 3 days a week. I work at a Teen Center. I can either hang out with the teens, or not. I am setting up an art class. There are no teens here right now.. and there haven't been any here at all today.. but the center is brand new, so hopefully it'll pick up. Besides, I wanted to update my blog at a leisurely rate, so it's all for the best.

We've started our kitchen wall! We are now including a curved wall in the back of the room, where we'll put a built in couch. We always planned on the couch, but never planned on making the wall curve around it! This was exciting. More exciting than any job could ever be. Here is the kitchen wall. One row of tires done, thanks to Dain! Who doesn't have a new job, or a part time job, but that good old full time house building job. I have two part time jobs, one where I get paid. One where I throw my back out 3 or 4 days of the week swinging a sledge hammer.

And thanks to the Teen Center's lack of attendance, here are some mock-up's of our "floor plans." A lot of people are still in the dark about what our house is going to look like. I mean, to some extent we are, a little, sometimes. The plans change constantly too. Never for the worse though. Some people have even thought that we were done. Let me tell you this: There is no way in hell I would live in one room for the rest of my life! We are building three more full rooms (bigger than the first even), a greenhouse, and a bathroom. Not to mention an outdoor patio with a BRICK OVEN! I'm not kidding! A brick oven. You, my friends will always be welcome over for pizza pies. And our roof is plastic right now! We're estimating that we'll get a real one around the end of summer. We're thinking of making it bright orange, but that's still up for decision.

From Kitchen!!

Anyways, here are the mock-ups.. to hopefully clarify a little.. (you could also go back to the beginning of the blog and read it, because I did go into a lot of detail over the last year...!) Oh, and our neighbor found a dead bobcat down the road. He told me that if I had the stomach for it, that I should go grab it. I did. We road bikes down there and got it. It was pretty messed up, but super amazing looking. We were afraid it would have diseases WWII would catch, so Dain buried it. We'll dig it up for the skeleton in a half year or so. Oh, and it's spring. Which means that winter never happened. I love New Mexico.

From Spring! Again!

Alas, back to the "grind." I'm going to go work on a sewing project I brought.

2500 Gallons of fun!

We bought our cistern! Hurray! It was very expensive for us. Yet worth every penny. This cistern is going to provide our water for the rest of our life. The cistern holds 2500 gallons. We will need to get a second one eventually. But this will be what we have for at least the next few years. Look how huge it is! We were told it weighs 400 pounds! We thought it would be difficult to get from the end of the driveway to the house, which is about 1/8 a mile. It wasn't at all though! It practically rolled itself half the way. The other half took only a small amount of effort. Standing it up and getting it into place was the most difficult part, but nothing even close to "difficult." So, the two of us got it up there, no problem!

We will harvest our rainwater with it. Water will be collected off our roof, and into the cistern. From there it will gravity feed into a series of filters. Then it will go into a pressure tank.. Or the other way around, I'm not sure actually. But we wont be doing that until (probably) next winter. It's an above ground cistern. This means that if we want to bury it (which we do), we have to put tire walls around it to support the dirt, so the dirt doesn't push into the cistern walls. The plastic is about 1/2 an inch think.

We had such an awesome day of friends helping us on Saturday! Three friends from ABQ came and dug dug dug. They also pounded, and moved dirt too! It was such a relief to have some help. The first help we've had all winter. The summer was great, friends showing up to help left and right. Luckily that's right around the corner again. Our neighbor, who has been super helpful and awesome, also showed up and helped us connect the cistern to the water pipe. Without him, we would have listen to the guys at the hardware store, and really botched this one up. We really got lucky with our awesome neighbors. Nick and Nora moved dirt from the "kitchen" all day long. It looks great! We're about 75% done with moving the dirt. Unfortunately, moving the dirt is much easier than leveling it off for the room. But man oh man, what a great start! I'm so excited! It looks like the kitchen will get its roof in much less time than I originally thought. If we skipped burying the house, we could have it done in 3 or 4 months! But, I think we'll stick to the plan, and bury the side and back of this thing so that it starts holding a much more constant temperature.

busy busy busy

Solar, Water, Power! Systems!

Hello, friends, family, comrades,

A lot of people think we live 30 miles from the nearest light post. Or, 25 miles from the nearest newspaper. Even, 45 miles from the closest record player. Some of this is true. Honestly though, we're not even close to as hardcore as some believe. We have power, solar. We have water, collected and carried. We have a functional stove, propane. And believe it or not, we have heat. Passive solar. This has confused people for some time now, so I will try to explain at least a little bit about our current (and future) systems. Water! Current: We have to collect and carry. This one is easy. About once a week, we fill up our jugs of water. We do this at one of the many local wells. No one seems to care. We use about 25-30 gallons a week. How much water do you use? Some people use more than that 25-30 gallons in just one shower. Water conservation is a new concern of ours. It is triggered by the fact that we live in the desert. Some people even water there lawn. I know that these people will go to hell in the future, but I do wish there was an earthly punishment for such blasphemy. The water table is threatened, EVERYWHERE, take measures to cut back. This blog isn't the place for my recommendations for you. If you do have curiosity in such conservation, ask me for my help. I can at least point you in the direction of someone who can help you. These are our jugs. We keep them inside because there they stay warm. They would freeze if we left the outside overnight. Bringing in blocks of ice does nothing to help with our passive solar heating, which I will explain in this blog entry. Future Water System: We are getting a 2500 gallon cistern to start. Eventually we will have two of these, for a grand total of 5000 gallons. The cistern will look like this: We are going to surround it with tires, and than bury it with dirt. This will keep it from freezing, or getting to hot in the summer (or in January, seeing as it's been in the 60's more than a few days this wonderful winter month). The water will be collected from our rain. It will fall onto our roof, be carried by gutters, and than filter into our cistern. From there we will filter it three times, and than drink drink drink. As well as bathe, and wash dishes. This will then go into our planters, as "gray water." It will water our plants and then, from there go into our toilet. We will flush with this water that was once used for dishes, twice used to water our plants, and finally used to transport our unmentionables. These unmentionables will be brought into a pretty traditional septic tank. The only difference between our septic tank and probably your septic tank, is that we are going to create a Black Water Drainage Field. This will be for our outdoor landscaping. We will use this black water to water our trees! We will plant trees! Get back to me in five years when I'm doing this. For now, we are dumping our "gray water" from our sink on our baby pinon trees in the yard to help them grow up big and strong.

This is our sink. We take the water in a five gallon bucket and dump in somewhere that looks dry. Almost anywhere looks dry.

This is where we will be putting our (purchased) cistern. After it's up on the platform, we will build tire walls around it to protect it.

Cooking... just like you, well.. possibly more elaborately, actually... I have mentioned this in the past, but it must be unclear. I have a fully functional stove! The only difference between this stove and the one I grew up with, is that it's propane! Except, that's not even true. I had propane gas for a few years of my childhood. We have a small tank. We have to fill it about once every six weeks, and that costs 15 dollars. So, about ten dollars a month. Ten dollars a month!! How much is your gas bill? I know how much mine was in Chicago. And this stove is wonderful. In fact, I've even considered getting another one. Than I'd have 8 burners! Can you imagine! Who knows.

Power Power Power!!! These are our solar panels! My mom's AWESOME gentleman friend bought us three fifteen watt panels for Christmas. This doubled our power. We already had 42 Watts. Now, with our total of 87 Watts, we can do anything we want, basically. We listen to records, use the computer (not a lot though), watch movies on our portable DVD player, listen to tapes and CD's, use the blender, and have lights on after dark, for just about as long as we want. We've never actually ran our power down as low as we can! It's great. And all this, POWERED BY THE SUN. It's constantly gratifying for me.

So these panels work real hard all day long. When it's sunny they work their best. When it's cloudy, they work sluggishly. Luckily, it's sunny nearly 300 days a year here. The panels run into the batteries. Here are our batteries. They are underground, so they don't get to cold, or too hot. They we also donated to use by our AWESOMEly generous neighbors. The amount of energy the panels put into the batteries is controlled by a "charge controller." This ensures that the batteries are not over or undercharged. That is in a separate box, next to the batteries. They are kept separate because the charge controller and/or inverter could spark, and cause an explosion. Scary? Not really. The inverter coverts the energy from these boat batteries from DC to AC. AC is what all our normal outlets are. So we can plug anything into our power, because the inverter converts it for us. This is our inverter and our charge controller.

Passive Solar Heating: Passive solar heating. Sigh. I'm sick of everyone thinking we're cold. WE ARE NOT COLD!! WE ARE WARM! ALL THE TIME! I PROMISE! SOMETIMES IT IS TOO HOT! I SWEAR! BEING TOO HOT THIS WINTER HAS BEEN MORE OF A PROBLEM! THEN WE OPEN THE DOOR, AND ONCE AGAIN: WE ARE FINE!!!!!!!

The quickest passive solar heating tutorial ever. You build your house so that it corresponds geographically to your location. You want the most sun possible in the winter, and the least sun coming into your house in the summer. This is why our whole house will have the front face to the south. In the summer, no sun will directly enter the house. It will flood the front hallway though, and that is where we will put the greenhouse. This time of year, in the winter, the sun blasts it's way into our house. This is because it is at it's lowest point. In the summer it will be directly above us, not coming inside. The tires then collect and store the heat, not too differently from our solar batteries. The house is to be buried. This prevents the heat from leaving at night. This will have the reverse effect in the summer. The house will be buried, keeping it cool. The earths natural temperature is somewhere around 58 degrees.

Our house is only halfway buried right now. Though, it is working just fine! We are actually quite surprised by the amount of heat we are getting. It's wonderfully comfortable. Just ask WWII. I've never seen a happier cat. The coldest it gets at night now is about 55 degrees! And once again, utility free. This is solar heating! What a deal. All you need is a sledge hammer, some upper body strength, some stamina, and a lot of motivation.

These passive solar ideas were not ours. Ancient Indians built there homes with these features. It is sad how few houses today are built with Passive Solar heating involved. If they figured it out, why hasn't everyone today?

The Hole. This is our hole. Don't be scared. Just pretend you are in Thailand. Hop aboard, and squat on down. Do whatever you want. There are no rules. Oh yeah, you are supposed to cover up your hole activity with some dirt when you are done. We're like semi-sophisticated cave men. And how luxurious! We have a view of El Pedernal, a highly spiritual mesa, right from our hole!

That's a good closing, right? Now you can stop asking me "how do you go to the bathroom." And I can stop answering: "just like you!"

So, to anyone who did not receive this card, I appologize. Here we are, at our best:

We have been busy. Taking it easy. But working as well. The past few weeks have been amazing. We got into our house, as you know, a day before our pronounced 6 Month deadline. We are now happily keeping warm at night, and have a place to keep out the dust! As well as a place to cook some amazing meals. We have been having fun. People ask us what we do. We make some art, play board games, play cards, scrabble of course. We read too many books. Sometime one a day. We write our friends who don't write us back. We take long walks, and the cat comes with us too! We watch movies, listen to music. We do everything any one does, for the most part, but out here, surrounded by no one and with the utmost peace and quiet.

Here are some updates, picture wise:

A tree in our yard... came into bloom?!

A christmas story: A few weeks ago we got about 4 inches of snow! It was cold for a whole 3 days! It has been in the 50's and 60's everyday since! WHAT A WONDERFUL WONDERLAND, NORTHER NEW MEXICO!

WWII is in heaven (as are we):

We've cooked some AMAZING meals:

Sometimes I feel like it doesn't look like much.. but I know I'm wrong! Eventually, this room will be inside. It's so cool that we could enclose it first, and move in so soon.

We've been building a tire platform. We will put our cistern on this in a few weeks. It will be either a 2500 gallon cistern, or 3200 gallons. We need to get what ever fits best. Either will suffice. In the future we're going to add another cistern too, to have about 5 or 6,000 gallons.

We even had a few friends visit. I made these coffee addicts some coffee cakes!

Hiking around! We went a couple of miles! The cat came the whole way!

We have accumulated an couple cows worth of bones. It is turning into quite the collection.. and we're not even sure what we're doing with them yet... More to come soon, I'm sure... up next: GETTING THE CISTERN!

The long and winding road....

It has been a month since an update, possibly more. I have excuses, and only a little regret. It has been cold. It has been dirty. It has been restless, uncompromising, anxiety-ridden. It has been harder than any other feat I have ever set my mind on. And as usual, it has paid off.

Dain and I finished the tire walls, the roof, the front facing windows, the attic insulation, all in the past few weeks. We woke at sun rise. Made breakfast while it was too cold to eat it, sometimes it would freeze before we could eat it, and than went to work. Non-stop, sunrise to sunset, every day. The cold got us going, but at times was painful. The day light here is so limited that we did all the work we could before the sun went down, and were restless and cold in the evenings.

Needless to say, it was all worth it. Every freezing cold minute of it. It was getting down to ten degrees or so at night. We were bundled up in a tent covered that was covered in blankets, us under even more blankets, and the cat on top of us, trying to keep warm for herself. It was cramped and not the slightest bit enjoyable.

Here is a picture of Dain, one of our last nights in the tent. Notice the jacket he is sleeping in.

I will go in chronological order, from the last blog post until now. Even though these days of hard work are over for the next week or so.. (we are officially on vacation)..

First we made a form out of cans in order to pour our bond beam across the roof. This took about eight hours of insane labor. Our neighbor friend came over and was more than a help. It would have taken us three days without him, instead it was just one HARD, LONG, long day. We were able to collect enough water to mix our cement, and were able to borrow a cement mixer as well. It was an awesome amount of work, but it paid off. The last picture is from above. It is where the cement was poured. All our work was so constant and happening so fast, that I was unable to take a few extremely important pictures. BUT, i will have other pictures, of other rooms in the future, so no worries. That said, there is no picture of the bond beam. Just picture that can wall full of cement. It also had brackets and bolts put in it, which is how we connected our trusses to the bond beam.

A birds eye view of the bond beam with the wood bolted to it, and a bracket (where we will eventually attach our posts for the attic). >

Than we started building trusses. Each truss ended up costing only the price of the screws we used. These were built from scrap wood from a local saw mill. We have used a lot of this wood so far, and are getting good at making it work for us. These trusses hold 20 inches of fiberglass insulation (another thing that never got photographed because it happened so fast). Almost done building them.. it took about a full days work to make three of these. We were going at it non stop. Skipping lunch, skipping breaks. It was insanity and joy. Sweat and tears. Blah, blah and blah.

From And finally, it became a room!

The cat was the only one enjoying herself. She loved this jungle gym we were building her..

We finished the trusses and quickly went and spent a small fortune on cedar lumber for the front face (window frames) of our room. We built this wall in about seven days, the other three walls.. well, they took over five months.. (they are the tires, of course).

And in about three days we had all of our glass cut, doubled up, and put into it's frames.. whew..

Here is a picture of our current unfinished ceiling. It is simply holding the insulation in right now. Later I am going to do some wood work, and put in some tin tiles. And possibly a chandelier... of the DIY sort.. of course, who do you think you're reading? The current "roof" is just wood, with three layers of thick plastic on it. It will probably be there for about the next three or four months, until we get the hallway/greenhouse built, which is going in front of this room.

And thar she blows: And moving in hasn't been as fast as it was the when we moved into the cabin, but it has been more than satisfying. It is about 70 degrees inside of this thing all day, already, even though it's only half buried so far. And it hasn't gotten below 40 degrees yet. This is a COMPLETELY UNFINISHED ROOM! We are SO going to have a constant PERFECT temperature, all for the price of A MILLION HOURS OF MANUAL LABOR! Unbeatable in the long run. >

It's like a studio apartment in the middle of nowhere. Or, heaven. It is so amazing. I feel so accomplished. And now, time to get a job!

I am cutting this "short". I need to get off the computer, out of the library, and back to my slightly temperate, slightly temporary home.

PS- Please send me your address, that way I can send you a lovely card.