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With the boundary cleared attacks of giggles took over as I realised I had no idea how the hell we were going to be able to erect a chain link fence along this edge.
Jack & I start the process of erecting the angle iron poles that were to support the chainlink fencing. Not very eco I know but goats are savage and I knew they would simply eat through any vaguely eco solution.
Internet research came up with this gem about goat fencing. If you can blow smoke through it - it won't contain goats.
Katie sets about working off her lunch and a few layers of clothes but ...
sorry guys ... it wasn't really that warm :-)
I wanted to experiment with the electric fence unit that was as yet unboxed but I didn't have any fence poles. With a number of budding welders around we decided to make up some fence poles from lengths of rebar and thick plastic piping.
Nicky and Blazo got the spit roast fire underway.
Side note to flickr friend oldspice - did you notice the tyre wall you inspired. It's not finished yet but we're getting there - what do you think?
Alexa was espousing how tasty the brain is but then proceeded to prove that he wasn't quite sure where it was or how to get at it.
Carpeted living space and seperate (un)dressing room with clothes rail - well naturists need somewhere to hang their street clothes.
Elizabeth Mukwimba is a 62-year-old Tanzanian woman who now has solar lighting and electricity in her home at the flick of a switch, thanks to a scheme backed by UK aid.
Elizabeth has had an M-Power solar panel and lights fitted in her home by Off Grid Electric, a private sector company dedicated to providing sustainable, affordable energy to people in developing countries who aren't connected to the electricity grid.
It means that she now has lighting at home at night, which means she doesn't have to buy expensive kerosene. The money she's saved already has helped her put a new tin roof on her house. It also means her grandchildren can read and do their homework in the evening.
UK aid, working with the Dutch NGO SNV, is providing support to help Off Grid Electric expand its business to reach more and more people who live in remote, rural areas, through two international partnership programmes - Energising Development (EnDev), and the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund Renewable Energy and Adaptation to Climate Technologies (AECF REACT).
The UK's support to EnDev is a 'results based financing' facility - this provides a financial incentive for companies like Off Grid - meaning they only get access to finance if they meet a given target (increasing the number of people who have access to clean energy) over a fixed period of time. This acts to boost the market returns for private sector companies providing services to poorer consumers, thereby attracting investment and enabling continued market expansion after the project (and financial incentive) ends.
In less than 2 years, Off Grid Electric has installed solar power systems in over 22,000 homes across Tanzania, meaning many more people now have access to cheap, renewable electricity - a vital step forward in a country where less than 14% of the population are connected to the electricity grid.
Picture: Russell Watkins/Department for International Development
Here's the solar panel controller showing our battery is 100% charged and supplying power.
A big thank you to Spela Vidic of Domsolar in Slovenia who supplied the system and provided remote help with the installation. www.domsolar.com/
In order to ensure that our compost toilets have sufficient air for aerobic decomposition of the waste and thereby keep everything smelling sweet, we needed to install a small solar system to power fans that would constantly draw air down into the composting chambers and push it out through stench pipes above roof level.
We anticipate needing a total of 5 baths to filter and treat our waste water sufficiently before it is piped to the raised beds in the garden but for now 2 and a long length of pipe will have to do.
While Den worked on completing the kitchen floor Nik and I moved on to the shower bases. Rather than skip them, a friend had given us a bunch of sample tiles and we were determined to re-use them even if it did mean complicated cuts and awkward positioning.
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Tiny Bamboo House. Build with Guadua angustifolia
Access steps to the lower terrace was another project we had to contract out to our builder Miso. His brief was simple "I don't care how you do it, use whatever you can find on site and keep concrete use to a minimum". He managed to break up some of the larger rocks around the site and then cut up some of the reclaimed railway sleepers left over from building our perimeter fence. Great job Miso!
Michael Reynolds is the founder and creator of the Earthship concept. He’s been perfecting these buildings for the past 20 years with thousands of them built around the world. Michael Reynolds and his crew and volunteers helped build in the Kinney Earthship in southern Alberta. Photo David Dodge, Green Energy Futures See story: www.greenenergyfutures.ca
D-day minus 5. Thanks to some excellent photos and instructions from the solar panel suppliers The electric fans, solar panels, battery and solar charger are wired up.
Nik relocated his palatial tent and erected another for his friends who were also due to arrive on the same day.
Bit of a personal milestone - having never plumbed anything in with jointing compound and fibre before.
D-day minus 7 - As it had taken us 4 days to finish the kitchen tiling we realised there was no way we were going to finish the shower and toilet area floor tiling (twice the size and twice the cutting complexity) . So it was time to call Miso (our original builder) to ask for help.
No army surplus protective clothing for Miso - Shorts and flip flops are the standard tiling attire.
While traveling in India the author, a Dutchman, is introduced to the curative properties of urine while trying to heal a broken toe suffered from a rock falling on his foot. The wound treated with the usual antiseptic cream seemed to deteriorate and threatened to become infected. Applying his own urine to the wound by suggestion of another European was the only thing that worked. At the same time he read the book The Waters of Life written in 1940 by an Englishmen and decided to research further with more trips to India. This book first published in 1993 and again in 2019 is the culmination of his research. One of a handful of books in English on the practice of urine therapy, it has a wholistic spiritual approach that is gentle and soothing.
In India Shivambu, the word for urine, literally means the waters of Shiva and urine is considered one of the gifts of the body. A practice that is noted in a 5,000 year old document discovered in India. One hundred and seven verses describing the process and benefits of this practice within the larger disciplines of yoga and meditation. A translation of the full text is offered here in this book. The practice is still popular in India and an Indian prime minister famously boasted of his devotion to the regime. His good health up to his death at 100 years old standing as a testament. I first heard about this unusual health practice at the Pun Pun eco village in Thailand.
Chapters cover the history of urine therapy in both the West and the East. In the West urine was collected from laborers as part of the economy in the textile trades for washing and dying textiles. The ammonia in old urine being the key ingredient. Urine was also noted for its ability to cure colds, wounds, skin diseases, eye diseases, baldness, jaundice, deafness and numerous other ailments. And was used as an emergency cure in the front lines of war and in survival situations when there is no water available to drink.
In the 20th century scientific research revealed substances in urine that combats growth of cancer cells along with numerous other proteins, enzymes, hormones and vitamins. Urine is sterile and is the product of the kidneys whose purpose is to filter the blood of excess substances in order to keep the blood balanced. It filters out the overflow as it were and when ingested again the urea is broken down into other elements such as amino acids by the digestive system.
Pharmaceutical companies and skin lotion companies already collect urine from humans for use in the manufacturing of their products. In Shanghai the city government collects urine from public toilets and then sells this resource to pharmaceutical companies. The 500 million dollar market for certain substances collected from urine include Urikonase an enzyme that dissolves blood clots. Also insulin and growth hormones. These substance filtered out for use in manufacturing of products.
Scientific research of the efficacy of urine therapy itself is difficult to come by for a liquid with so many variables and substances and of course there is little profit to be gained from people’s bodies manufacturing their own medicinal cures for free. Thus it is only in the alternative medicine world that urine therapy is actually promoted as a practice. The author asks us to consider that for the 9 months of our gestation the amniotic fluids we swim in contains our urine which we drink and expel repeatedly and the lungs need to be filled with the fluid to develop fully. So we have already experienced the life healing properties of our own waters. Plus any surgeries done to babies in the womb leave no scars.
The author having taken up the practice himself provides a chapter on its many uses from massage to shampoo to drinking. Basic instructions are to catch the mid stream in a cup and drink while fresh. To avoid the toxins that come out first and sediments last. Applications to skin and for joint pain require the use of compresses soaked in aged urine. Can also be used in eyes when fresh to heal eye problems including vision. Three drops under the tongue for a homeopathic remedy. More deep seated diseases required fasting and drinking urine all day for many days. Drinking urine should not be done when allopathic drugs are being taken. Nor is it a cure all on its own, but part of a healing regime that may include diet and fixing what is triggering the problem.
He lists some of the substances in urine and what they can do. Includes melatonin and dopamine, both mood elevators. The chapter of testimonials from doctors and patients are filled with stories of rejuvenation, remission and recovery from cancer, AIDS, allergies, mono, chronic fatigue and an assortment of other ailments. The index of ailments fills seven pages. Further research by the same author beyond this book offered the discovery that the body’s urine when drunk stimulates receptors in the throat to trigger the body into producing needed substances to repair and rebalance the body.
The picture that he creates through these remarkable stories is one that shows the body to be a self sustaining organism that every few hours produces a report reflecting its status which is also a tonic that when drunk will stimulate the body to produce what is needed to cure and rebalance the body. The body can also thus self vaccinate using the toxins contained in the urine. It is a feedback system of intelligence that maintains the health of the organism. There is no reason why this cannot be the intent of the design given that other creatures also have powers of rejuvenation. But our culture has created such disgust with our bodily functions that we operate from a place of self hatred of the flesh. We are thus blind to our own ecstatic existence in the present moment in conjunction with the present environment.
Our attachment to the idea that the human mind was given us to “solve” problems of our earthly suffering renders primitive the gifts we already have for a full life. How different a world we would have if we used our brains as a a problem solver in tandem with natural feedback loops in order to rebalance and maintain the health of our natural world and ourselves. This would entail a spiritual movement based in nature rather than a political one based in a capitalistic economy designed to exploit nature for profit in order to “improve” on it. It is worth contemplating this vision of a self-healing world that begins with our body.
D-day minus 4 - Nik magics an excellent extra kitchen work surface seemlingly from bits of spare wood and tiles.
Anna Davidson, Dawn Kinney, Glen Kinney and Duncan Kinney on the roof the Kinney Earthship – 2,700 sq. feet of roof will collect 1,620 gallons of water from one inch of rain that is stored in 26,000 litres of cisterns. Photo David Dodge, Green Energy Futures www.greenenergyfutures.ca
As Miso's tiling rapidly advanced across the floor I desperately tried to install the longer tap fittings and better quality waste pipes.
D-day minus 5 - Matt shows up to help me install the photo voltaic solar panels that are to generate the power for the compost toilet fans.
D-Day minus 12 and not a good time to discover that none of the tap hoses are long enough and the waste fittings are .... crap? Because each trip into town for extra materials was hugely time consuming I made the decision to loosely fit all the plumbing to check we had all the right fittings before fitting them properly.