May 2016

This was a good month. We planted some fruit trees, a plum, cherry, apple and another peach tree, a pear tree (that died), some garlic around the apple, some grapes and loganberry and raspberry, some blueberries, and 2 persimmons (one of which died and the other doesn't look all that great). We also bought 2 fig trees and a Goji berry that we'll leave in pots for now, as I believe they're not cold tolerant.

We discovered that all the sticker bushes dominating the hillside were actually blackberry bushes (which takes up a good 50ft x 50ft area) except for a few multiflora roses. Looks like we'll be canning a lot of jam and making a lot of cobbler. We're going to keep them, and look for companion plants to add to the patch, maybe add a few pear, cherry, hazelnut and/or almond trees, or some bee balm (L.didyma for highest concentration of oils), or a lemon balm, mint, garlic and chives to confuse ground-based varmints. Maybe include strawberries - you can never have too many of those. If we add some sweet cicely and American vetch they'll add some nitrogen to the soil. Based on how much these blackberries have propagated, I'm guessing they've been residents there for a while, so they may need a little help nutritionally. The spring flowers from these blackberries make a great pollinator attractor, too. We'll probably put the beehives there when we move in.

We planted some grapevines along with the grapes that were there but there was a nasty late and unexpected frost, and since we are over an hour away there wasn't an opportunity to run down there and cover them. We noticed that all the grapes had been nipped pretty badly and were turning brown, but the last time we went out they seemed to be coming back. Not sure how our less hardy, more domesticated variety held out though. We'll try to help those and the grapes that are already growing there with some companion planting too. Geraniums, mulberries, hyssop, basil, oregano for pests. Peas and beans for nitrogen. The soil is kinda dry and lifeless, other than a bunch of big fat earthworms. As we scythe down the weeds we've been mulching around everything we plant.

Andrea snagged a bunch of tools off Craigslist for $40 that were rusty. Among that were 2 pitchfoks, 2 garden forks, a variety of hoes and shovels, a log roller and a scythe. We needed the scythe to clear the building area (we really don't want to take a mower down there) so we took it apart and soaked the rust-caked blade in white vinegar overnight, then in baking powder water overnight again and most of the rust flaked right off. After taking a wire brush to it and using a sharpening stone we got it looking pretty good for the weekend, but we'll probably soak it again. It works great.

We also got a building permit a couple weeks ago. $20! 

I told them we were building a weekend cabin/greenhouse. We thought that would be the best way to hold off the "water and septic" approval we'd need to get the residential building permit, and just go ahead and create a working model to show them that this works. It's pretty much the truth, since we won't be moving in for a while, and there's a lot to do, and we'll basically be staying there on weekends. we figure if we go into the health department office with a few 3D models and a promise they'd likely throw us out of there. If we build it first, test it out, then go in there with data proving it works and show that it protects the surrounding streams, keeps the waste contained and off the ground, and converts it all to fertilizer we can apply to bamboo plants for building and not for garden food, we'll more likely get it approved. We may also need to prove our water is safe for drinking - at least what we'll be drinking from. That would be filtered more so than our bathing/washing water. We wrote a blog on it last year but will probably rewrite it soon to illustrate what we actually plan to do with these new water tanks and the new root cellar.

We snagged a worm bin off Craigslist from a guy in Columbus, and while we were bagging up the worm-rich soil we noticed a trash can full of Osage oranges being devoured by black soldier fly larvae. He said the Osage orange attracts them, and all he had to do was fill up the can and they came. We have gobs of Osage orange in our woods, so one of the next trips down we'll gather them up and toss them in a can and wait. That tidbit of knowledge led to updating the Minimal Effort Compost Toilet blog today.

Behold the eleven 275 gallon food grade water storage tanks we snagged - also from Craigslist - for $60 each...

(That's the scythe blade soaking in vinegar next to it in the brick and plastic trashbag tub I made for it.) These tanks will line the walls surrounding our root cellar we just designed.

We plan to cut a 4ft deep section out of the north wall and line the edges of the excavation with 9 water tanks resting on the grade, then build the walls behind that and berm the excavated dirt up to the roof. It'll suck the heat out of the room and it'll keep the water tanks from freezing in winter, and give us easy access to them for cleaning. It'll also keep them out of the sun so we don't get too much algae build-up, though some algae actually cleans the water. 

The other two water tanks can collect water from the uphill roof over the bedroom and gravity-feed water to the front (south side) of the house as either irrigation or additional access to water for drinking (filtered) or washing up in the morning.

So once we have this all set up, and a water filter in place for drinking, and we've stayed in it over a long enough period of time to show it's all safe and all works properly, we'll take our results to the health department and show it to them for approval and to see what we need to do to maintain it. If we get approval, we can move in and purchase another $20 building permit. If not, we buy a $5000 composting toilet.

We got 7 chickens that we're keeping at a friend's house, to bring down with us when we start prepping for the gardens this fall. We just got 2 pygmy goats last week, Laverne and Cinnamon. We are keeping them at our house until the homestead is built, but may bring Cinnamon, the smaller one, down occasionally to eat poison ivy and multiflora rose bushes. We snagged a 10x10x10 foot chain link dog kennel for $100 off Craiglist just after we got Cinnamon. She stays there and Laverne stays in the corral out back here, til we move to Soulstice Homestead.

Last time we went down we hit a barn sale and snagged a garden rake for $3, a clear hose for $2 (to use as a long distance level for swale siting), and a sickle and sharpening stone for a few bucks each. Used the sickle and the scythe to clear the building area, which we pegged off the weekend before... 36ft per room, 2 rooms. 

We'd been considering renting a backhoe and doing the excavation ourselves, which has been one of the more stressful parts of this process for me personally, as I've never operated one and I was concerned about the liability of tipping one of those babies over and having to tow it back up. Andrea has operated one before and didn't seem as concerned about it all. But so far we've found that renting one for 4 days, which is what we figured it might take for us to complete the digging, along with an auger would cost around $1200. We're meeting with a guy Sunday who has so far quoted a rough estimate of $1000-$1500. It might be worth the extra $300  to not have to take the extra time it'll take to learn to use it and to do the digging, especially given that he can probably do it in a day. Also if we do it ourselves and it takes more than 4 days we have to pay more to rent the machine an extra day or so. Then there's the possibility that one of us topples that puppy over and there's another grand to tow it out. There are a few local excavators out there. We'll scout around for pricing and see how it goes. But once the hole is dug, it's on.

So here's the overall final plan, after lots of alterations...

Due north is up in this overview map.

Note the contour lines in pink to blue - every 2ft in elevation.

Uphill is the top right (NE) corner.
Click here for a full size image

• We'll take out the NE pole and rails of the current fence and put in a double gate. That'll be our driveway. 
• Excavate a 4ft deep floor area in 2 circles (kitchen on the West, bedroom/living room on the East) connected by a greenhouse hallway to the south. Each room has a 36ft diameter. The excavated dirt will berm up against the north wall. An additional 12ft excavation in the kitchen's north wall will be for the water tanks and root cellar.
• Cut a french drain around the northern and eastern/uphill perimeter of where the excavated dirt will be bermed up against the back wall
• Dig out 2 temporary holding ponds for the resulting runoff, to use for cleaning while working, mixing cob, etc... one at the NW corner holding the northern drainage and one to the SE holding the eastern drainage. These will later just be expanded into ponds for wildlife and gardening.
• Cut another french drain along the inner wall under the windows at the downhill/south side to drain any water coming from the indoor garden under the windows.
• Auger out pole holes and set poles for the roof.
• Dump and spread gravel along the floor and through the french drains and driveway
• Set up and cover water tanks and set up a temporary rainwater harvesting system.
• Use earthbags against the walls with the bermed earth and against the 4ft deep excavated walls, infilling with gravel (for drainage to the gravel footers) and maybe a moisture barrier between, though if the bags are plastic we may not need it, cuz water will run off into the gravel footer..
• Dig out a greywater system on contour with a slight grade, eventually leading to the south hill to supplement and irrigate the terrace garden. Line the outside greywater treatment system with reeds, cattails and bamboo.
• Use strawbale and cob on all walls that don't hold back dirt.
• The kitchen is the lowest part of the house, and will hold the rocket stove. Heat from there will rise up to the bedroom and mudroom. Not sure about the rocket stove exhaust layout yet, but part of it needs to go to the shower to heat water, and to the compost toilet area to heat the pipes venting the methane and odor from the composting poop. Coiled pipe outside the heat riser of the rocket stove will heat part of the water coming from the tanks to feed the sinks and shower, so it only takes a quick hot fire to warm the water.
• The shower/bath will be located next to the kitchen so it's near the greywater system. That's the lowest part of the building area and will prevent greywater from entering the house in the event of backing up.
• The compost toilet will be on the other side of the bath, elevated for easy access to cleaning underneath and moving the poop around the composting bins, adding extra worms and black soldier fly larvae if needed.
• The mudroom on the north side between the bedroom and kitchen will be above the excavation and on ground level and serve as the front entrance from the driveway. It'll have separate doors to help keep out the cold, and it's elevation will hold heat from the rocket stove in the lower kitchen to help dry coats and shoes. A sink can be added to clean up hands and shoes, and one or both of the two extra water tanks can feed that sink from the bedroom roof.
• The windows will line the south wall and will all be at a 63° angle from horizontal to get full sun on Dec 22nd, which at noon is at 27.3º. Some sun will hit the window garden in summer too. If it gets to be too much sun and too hot inside, we can strawbale over the windows, or plant grapes and gourds and viney edibles to cover in summer and drop leaves in winter. There'll be a small, vertical window on the west kitchen wall for sunsets.
• We'll snake some pipe through the berm of the north wall to use for cooling air, and include a hatch at the highest peaks of the roof for venting off heat. When the hot air is released that way, the cool air will be pulled in from the cool air pipes for natural A/C.
• An outdoor kitchen will be just outside the kitchen door to the south and will likely need to be built up to be level, probably with earth-pounded tires.
• Here's a quick and dirty model from the inside showing a very rough version of the roof. The ledge under the window to the left will be the actual ground level outside at the bedroom. Bunnies and deer could walk right up to the window. The far door would lead to the hallway. If this model were of the kitchen that far door would be at ground level, as it would be downhill, and the ledge would have a small berm building up to it outside.
• I've worked out a roof configuration that would minimize the amount of poles we would need. But I still need to adapt it to the most recent layout that we're going with. It'll basically be two of these with a basic shed roof connecting them. We've compromised on going with a metal roof because the roofing material I originally wanted to use hasn't been tested, and we'd like to not have to rebuild the roof for a long time. I'll just need to test it out on one of the animal buildings, which BTW, we won't need permits for. Anything agricultural in that township doesn't require a building permit.
• I'm sure a lot of the details will change as we build, mostly because that's how you build these kinds of houses. You sort of make it up as you go along, while you're walking around in it.