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As the sun began to set those staying donned extra layers and moved closer to the fire as others drifted home apparently having had a great day. We really do have the best friends in the world.
Nik set about organising volunteers for rock moving. We desperately need to repair much of the stone wall terraces but we first have to find additional rocks. Once again a perfect job to do when there's lots labour and a 4x4 with tow bar on hand.
It took Den & I a good twenty minutes to unload these tiles onto a pallet but it was now in the way :-( Problem solved in 20 seconds when you have enough help! We need to organise more of these working weekends :-)
Nik, Den and I have since started the next section of chainlink and proved that the electric fence poles and charge unit work OK. Pictures to follow soon.
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.
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?
By the time I found my way to the food it had almost all gone so I just sat down where they were stripping the last of the carcass and got stuck in.
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.
We drove 3 oldtimer Landrovers from Belgium into the Catalan Pyrenees and back. Off-road, off-grid and with a minimal ecological footprint. Nobody would find traces of us sleeping next to a ravine or in a forest.
Carpeted living space and seperate (un)dressing room with clothes rail - well naturists need somewhere to hang their street clothes.
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.
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
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.
D-Day minus 10. We can't connect the water to the building until we have at least some of the grey water system installed. Nik starts establishing the levels and location of the baths.
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.
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
This is the Jay Hugh Stafford homestead cabin on Bonita Creek in the Faraway Ranch Historic District in Chiricahua National Monument. This was the first building in the area. Stafford convinced Emma Erickson to homestead the 160 acres to the west.
I went to Chiricahua National Monument for a weekend of hiking, camping and adventure. I had never been here even though I had heard a lot about it.
www.nps.gov/chir/photosmultimedia/Faraway-Ranch-Historic-...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraway_Ranch_Historic_District
The Faraway Ranch Historic District is part of Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona, and preserves an area associated with the final conflicts with the local Apache, as well as one of the last frontier settlements. In particular, it is associated with the people who promoted the establishment of Chiricahua National Monument.
Bonita Canyon lies at an approximate altitude of 5160 feet. The box canyon opens in a southwesterly direction into the Sulphur Springs Valley.[2]
Settlement of the area was started at the Stafford Homestead in Bonita Canyon in 1879. J. Hughes Stafford was a significant pioneer in the area, and his cabin was incorporated into the later tourist development.[2] In 1885-86, the 10th Cavalry, an African-American enlisted unit commanded by white officers, established a temporary camp at Bonita Canyon. They were part of the last campaign to capture the Apache rebel Geronimo.
In 1886 Neil Erickson and Emma Sophia Peterson, both young Swedish immigrants, married and set out for Bonita Canyon to homestead. The Erickson Homestead, established in 1887, soon became the Erickson Ranch as they gradually took over the smaller homesteads in the canyon. They planted fruit trees and vegetables, and raised cattle. The Erickson Ranch period, 1887–1917, was significant in the areas of agriculture, architecture, industry, social history, conservation and the end of the frontier.
In 1903 Neil became a forest ranger with what soon became the US Forest Service. He was promoted to District Ranger in 1917. He headquartered at the ranch until he received his promotion which required him to relocate. The senior Ericksons left the ranch in the hands of their oldest child, Lillian, a college graduate and part-time school teacher. She managed the cattle ranching operations and branched out into guest ranching, letting rooms, and providing guests with horses to ride and guided trail tours for a fee. In 1923 she suffered a head injury in a fall from a horse which compromised her vision immediately and took it completely 19 years later. Nevertheless even into her 80s she continued to run the ranch with the help of series of foremen and hired hands. Guest operations continued into the mid-1960s. In 1974 she moved for a time to a rest home in Willcox, but returned to the ranch and continued to manage it in some capacity until her death in 1977.
At about the same time as her accident, 1923, Lillian married a local son of pioneer stock, Ed Riggs. While she managed the operations at home, Ed promoted the “Wonderland of Rocks,” an area of rhyolite tuff rock formations just southeast of the ranch) as a tourist attraction and potential national monument. Largely through his efforts, Chiricahua National Monument was established in 1924 and Riggs was hired to supervise construction of new horse and hiking trails throughout the newly established monument. He also managed most of the maintenance around the ranch until his death in 1950.
The National Park Service acquired furnishings, papers, documents and records associated with the ranch with its purchase. As a most complete and outstanding historical record of both the business and personal affairs of the family that founded, developed, and operated this ranch, the documents are considered contributing to the district.[3]
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