On Wednesday morning, I was preparing a ride to go to a walk in clinic since I wasn't getting better. Fortunately, I spoke with Rebecca before taking off. She's the wife of John, a fellow natural building intern, and parenting their little son Osha. Rebecca trained with an herbal guru so we decided to talk about my sickness and see what the best path to healing would likely be. Since I was fairly certain it was a virus and she agreed, a doctor wouldn't have been able to do anything for me. Even anti-biotics aren't effective against viruses, to my understanding, plus they can really mess you up. Thankfully, there are many anti-viral herbs grown around the property. For the next two days, I picked, dried and brewed myself many teas of oregano, thyme, and lemon balm, with honey and fresh ginger. My intuition had been telling me to fast (not eat) so we agreed that I would fast all Thursday.
It's really hard to fast when there's the yummiest super-healthy food prepared for you by a wonderful woman after all our hearts named Jan. And I did it! ...along with about 4 litres of the herbal brew. The next day, I was a bit weak but knew that I had been healed and have been since. Now I'm filled with energy and joy of being well again. Thanks everyone for your concern and support. Love.
Freya's Curvalinear Foundation
Last week we were in the dug foundation of Freya's house, the first of nine residences being built here. I totally geeked out when we were helping Gord calculate and position the rebar and forms for the foundation footings. There are two kinds of structure going on, timberframe and cob, plus 5 different kinds of footing designs. This is the kind of math I loved so much in high school that I went and majored in math in university. But since we didn't do any geometry and not even one application in university, I left that program after two years. The timberframing footings need to be accurate within 1/64 an inch. Cob is more forgiving so you can be within 1/4 an inch and still be fine. We used trigonometry, string, laser levels, and neat tricks to line things up.
We're teaching curvalinear foundation, which allows us to create a curved foundation for curved walls. The technique involves posting rebar, lining with curved wood forms and laying fabric to pour the concrete. Geeky fun times were followed by sledge hammering rebar into the ground. It's good for building confidence in your own power and motor skills.
We're teaching curvalinear foundation, which allows us to create a curved foundation for curved walls. The technique involves posting rebar, lining with curved wood forms and laying fabric to pour the concrete. Geeky fun times were followed by sledge hammering rebar into the ground. It's good for building confidence in your own power and motor skills.
My Computer and I Are Sick
Sorry I haven't updated in a week. My laptop died on Friday night with a hal.dll error preventing Windows from launching. So either I buy a copy of XP for as much money as I payed for the computer or I install Linux...hmmmm free stable operating system or $230 to a ginormous stinking rich corporation. hmmmm.
My body is under siege as well. Two weeks ago, this illness started as aches and a cold. For the past two days, I've spent several hours in the afternoon unable to stay awake. Other people on the ecovillage and in the surrounding area are sick with what seems to be the same thing. There are rumours that some end up with pneumonia. I feel like I have mono in waves throughout the day and I'm only healthy feeling in the morning. Anyways, if you have any idea what this is or what healing method I should attempt, please advise. So far, I'm drinking lots of lemon balm (an herb we grow here) and fresh ginger tea to boost my thyroid and immune systems. Maybe it's time to visit a doctor.
My body is under siege as well. Two weeks ago, this illness started as aches and a cold. For the past two days, I've spent several hours in the afternoon unable to stay awake. Other people on the ecovillage and in the surrounding area are sick with what seems to be the same thing. There are rumours that some end up with pneumonia. I feel like I have mono in waves throughout the day and I'm only healthy feeling in the morning. Anyways, if you have any idea what this is or what healing method I should attempt, please advise. So far, I'm drinking lots of lemon balm (an herb we grow here) and fresh ginger tea to boost my thyroid and immune systems. Maybe it's time to visit a doctor.
May 8: Solar Gain in Victoria
We spent Thursday visiting three different places in Victoria. First we visited Solar Crest, a booming solar hot water system company. Solar hot water is my second favorite solar heating technique. It's currently the most viable alternative technology out there. The system that Solar Crest installs is inexpensive, there aren't many links in the energy transfer chain, it saves so much money since heating water and space is the biggest drain on your energy bill, there's only one moving part, each tube costs only $10 to replace, the broken tube material can be recycled, the energy source never doesn't need to be transported to your building, water is used as a battery instead of toxic materials, the environmental cost of producing the system can be offset withing 2 months of operation, paying for the system takes around 7 years and after 30 years of operation, the tubes are still heating water for free. The system gets put on your roof and hooked into your existing hot water tank. The way it's hooked up, you're never short of hot water and the system only uses the panels if it can get enough solar gain so you're not cooling the water.
We also visited Burnside Community Centre and got a tour of their LEED Gold building. Neat place and I love what they do for Victoria but almost the entire building was cement, which made all of us rather skeptical of the LEED system. Natural builders could pursue LEED certification and get it fairly easily but I don't know any of our buildings that have. It's an improvement on conventional building but sometimes the bigger picture gets disregarded. I'm glad it exists but it doesn't appeal to us all that much.
Last on our tour was Energy Alternatives who install mostly solar panels and wind turbines but do delve into other alternative technologies such as composting toilets.
We also visited Burnside Community Centre and got a tour of their LEED Gold building. Neat place and I love what they do for Victoria but almost the entire building was cement, which made all of us rather skeptical of the LEED system. Natural builders could pursue LEED certification and get it fairly easily but I don't know any of our buildings that have. It's an improvement on conventional building but sometimes the bigger picture gets disregarded. I'm glad it exists but it doesn't appeal to us all that much.
Last on our tour was Energy Alternatives who install mostly solar panels and wind turbines but do delve into other alternative technologies such as composting toilets.
May 3-4: A Hundred People at the Ecovillage Convergence
As part of the natural building interns' escape from the Ecovillage Convergence, we had an 8am to 4pm workshop on Project Management for Homeowners with Randy on Saturday and Sunday. He gave us a great intro to what and who is involved in the building of a house. It can be overwhelming and intimidating when one learns just how many blocks are presently in the way of natural building. We talked about what makes a good site manager, who is good to have as your architect if you want/need one, what papers do you need an architect or engineer's signature on, how to schedule the critical path of a project, insurance, budget, and some other stuff.
I hopped out of the workshop from 2-4pm to lead a cob mixing workshop for the Convergence participants with Dawn. Cob is a mix of roughly and quite variantly 1 part clay to 2 parts sand, some water and some straw or other fiber, like hemp stock. It was fun. A couple folks took off their boots and socks and got right in the mud to mix it up real good then we started building a cob bench and garden wall on the stone foundation the Convergence folks built together under Elke's instruction.
I expected myself to get really excited about having so many interesting people here and would get to know the visitors. But almost all the interns, including myself, retreated into hiding from it all. I guess 100 people in your living space can be a little overwhelming, especially when they're not used to living communally. The Convergence actually went really great. Check out the call out for participants here, if you're interested in what it was all about. There will be another one in September.
I hopped out of the workshop from 2-4pm to lead a cob mixing workshop for the Convergence participants with Dawn. Cob is a mix of roughly and quite variantly 1 part clay to 2 parts sand, some water and some straw or other fiber, like hemp stock. It was fun. A couple folks took off their boots and socks and got right in the mud to mix it up real good then we started building a cob bench and garden wall on the stone foundation the Convergence folks built together under Elke's instruction.
I expected myself to get really excited about having so many interesting people here and would get to know the visitors. But almost all the interns, including myself, retreated into hiding from it all. I guess 100 people in your living space can be a little overwhelming, especially when they're not used to living communally. The Convergence actually went really great. Check out the call out for participants here, if you're interested in what it was all about. There will be another one in September.
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