Wow. Two weeks since I last updated. It's been so busy here and my computer finally came back from the dead on Monday. It's still not connecting to the internet here though which is so frustrating and causing me to get behind in my commitments back East. I feel like my car ran out of gas on a trip to far away and now I'm arriving late to everything. It's an awful feeling.
So since I don't have time to describe everything we did, I'm going to list it and some day if I stumble across the mythical creature called Spare Time, I will elaborate on them.
* 2 Day workshop on Council - I intend to use this tool which combines speaking and listening from a place of truth and heart for creating community and stronger relationships wherever I am.
* 5 Days of Curvalinear Foundations with Gord Baird. We set up the forms for the curvalinear fabric which will be filled with concrete and serve as a water barrier. Cob walls are stronger when they're curved so this makes sense for cob walls of the house. So much fun and we got it all done in about 3 days. Go team.
* Visited Gord and Ann Baird's natural home they designed and built that blew me away. I took pictures and recordings that I'm so excited to pass on. Here's their website: www.eco-sense.ca
* Weekend (Mon/Tues) Stayed in a hostel in Victoria for two nights. Got some wicked stuff at the Sunday market. Talked for a few hours with a 13 year old girl skipping school. We talked about so many things: climate change, the government, detrimental social norms, feminism, sexism, being a hermit. I was so much like her at that age.
* 5 Days of Brown Coating the interior of the Art Studio - brown coat goes between the cob structure and the finishing plaster. It's where all the detail, smooth walls, and/or sculpture are put on. I was tasked with fixing an odd window to look good. I went into the woods and picked some fiddlehead ferns then brown coat sculpted two of them above the window on the outside of the East wall. You'll see pictures eventually I'm sure.
* Stayed at Elke's house then picked up my computer from the repair shop. They replaced my hard drive but I still needed to buy an XP disc. So that cost me almost as much as I payed for the computer. Now the power on it goes from 100% to 0% in about 5 minutes. Ugh.
* Started timberframing with Randy, a master timberframer. We'll go until Sunday. We're building a trellus to grow haning food from. Should be monolithic and be able to bear about 500 times the weight we're puting on it. Good learning project though and a timberframe structure can be moved to another location in the future.
When I finally get my computer issues sorted out there will be pictures, I promise. Love and light.
Anti-Viral Herbs and Fasting Healed Me Fast
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.
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.
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