Alternative Building, Alternative Health

It's not a stretch...

As our journey unfolds and as you continue to read our blog you will see a common thread develop. We believe in alternatives. We are not so much in tune with mainstream. Whether it is our thoughts on building or on energy or on food production or on food purchasing or on health. We have alternative views in all of these areas.

There are so many conscious choices we have made and continue to make. We chose a dirtbag building with passive solar heating, wood stove cooking and solar power for our new home. We choose to support local farmers whenever possible and eat seasonally. We choose to buy locally in general with great thought given to the local economy. All are choices we make for the well-being of ourselves and our planet.

Many of our readers feel much the same and we hope that our journey may inspire you to keep on this path or, if you are not quite there yet, at least give you food for thought.

It is not a stretch to alternative health when you have this frame of mind. We choose to be proactive with our health. Eating good quality toxin free food, choosing safe non-toxic personal care products, choosing the highest quality essential oils for our wellness and supporting the general health of our bodies with alternative healthcare modalities such as chiropractic, massage, acupuncture, yoga and reiki. We will, in future posts, delve into these ideas in more detail but we want you to keep these in mind as you go along on your own journey.

If you have questions or ideas regarding alternative living we always encourage discussion. Tricia is a consultant for two companies that provide excellent products if you have interest in dumping the toxins in the lives of your family and yourself. Want more information? Send a message to NorthernDirtbags at gmail dot com or leave a comment that includes your email address so that we may respond.

Enjoy your journey, wherever you are along the way.

Ed's 1st post

Hello from the other half of the team.

I'm Ed and I'd say I'm the captain of this journey but that isn't so. Both Tricia and I are steering this so I'll just go with Engineering at this point.

I was having a hard time trying to decide what to write about, first post and all. So much going on right now and so much to do ahead, my head spins from all the info and thought racing around in there. Then I remember from our visit with Cam and Michelle Mather at SunFlower Farm, Cam asking me our “why?”

There are all the usual reasons, and they are many. I don't want to rant on about this stuff so I'll point you to relevant pages or videos.

First off the food thing...Do I have to spell out what I mean? I'll go with Food Inc. on that.

Second, climate change. 97% of the scientists AREN'T being bought off to lie in a plot to ruin the economy or whatever they would have you believe on the right.

Let's say pick from the top 5 climate change movies

Third, the driver of this train wreck, Capitalism. This is a whole other ballgame.
Let's go with Capitalism: A Love Story

I'll likely come back to flesh these out in the future and I hope I don't lose too many of you with what I might say. I'm just going to tell it as 'I' see it. If you don't agree, GREAT! Let's talk about it. We ALL need to discuss this world more. This is a global problem and it will take all the people of the world to solve it, not including Corporations.

Went out for a walk, I do that ALL the time. I think a lot when I go for a walk. It helps me sort out the pressing issues from the jumble of stuff in there. I got to thinking about my 'why?'.

When I was hurt about 13 years ago, and thought I might not walk again, things changed. When I could walk again, after all the physio and chiro, I would go walking in all types of weather, because I could. I realized then, in those years of limbo, that life truly marches on. After nearly losing the house on injured workers wages, getting training to re enter the work force and then getting into another job (Just Over Broke), I decided things had to change.

Since I was young I always thought that having land was the way to go. You can do things with it or on it to make a living. By 'making a living' I don't mean monetarily. You can grow stuff, raise stuff and build stuff. You don't NEED to deal with the economy. The corporate greed, big OIL, big AG and big PHARMA, don't be tied to it, any of it. Use as little of it as you can. Have a house that needs little energy to heat and heat it with wood. Free, all that's needed is a little sweat and time. Grow food on your land, lots of it. Raise chickens, goats, pigs, and rabbits. Can it, freeze it, dehydrate it, ferment it, salt it or smoke it.  Each differing food as it ripens and is ready to harvest starts a new carnival of activity and flavours. Live with the seasons. Live IN them. Experience each day as a new beginning. Each time of year having it's own personality of light, colour, sound, smell, touch, taste and memory. Be present for it all... each day... every day.

Enough for now. Be well.

ED...

Making your own tools

Putting a wonderful day to good use

We are learning that there are a few special tools required for our build. Tools that we can make ourselves. We made our own tampers and bag holders awhile back and that was fun. The newest handmade tool, although no proper name can be given, is to hold down the barbed wire between the rows of bags while working on the walls. It is basically a brick with a string attached and a clip to keep the string in place. 

We had a few bricks from the house which we took when we moved knowing these tools were to be made. We purchased 2000 feet of nylon twine and had wire clothes hangers that could be used to make the clips. With all this in hand we set out to make 30+ of these. 

First the hangers had to be cut. If you have ever tried to cut a hanger it's not all that difficult but in this  case each hanger had to be cut in three places. Starting out doing so with a hand held set of, not too sharp, wire cutters, 90 odd times, was not something to look forward to but we could fix that. You see we were doing this at our very good friend's house and he has a couple of massive garages that contain just about anything you are looking for and can makeshift anything. So we took a rather large set of bolt cutters put them in the vise and in less than 5 minutes had the wires cut. The twisting and bending of the wire into clips took quite a bit more time but the vise again was utilized. We had already cut the 2000 feet of twine into lengths that were double the width of his deck, our approximation of 50 feet, and were ready to start putting the pieces together.
 

We sat at the front of one of the garages in the full sunshine of a lovely Easter Sunday evening affixing the clips to the twine, using the knot used to tie fishing line to a hook, the twine was then wrapped around the brick and clipped so it all stays together until ready for use for the building of our walls. We had quite a production line going and actually the time passed quickly as the sun set. 

It was both an extremely pleasant and productive day.

Weekends away will become a thing of the past.

We'll enjoy them while we can.

We have been warned by many who have experienced a self sustaining lifestyle - you will not be able to just pick up and leave for days at a time. We have been educated. Animals require daily care and your 'friends' are not going to come over twice a day to milk your goats or feed your chickens. This is what we are being told and are in no position to be argumentative. But we don't have animals, yet. In fact we have not even begun our build so this past weekend we took off. A last ditch get away and an educational one to boot.

As we had mentioned on the Northern Dirtbags Facebook page we had arranged a consultation with Cam and Michelle Mather. If you have not yet checked out their blog,  we highly recommend you do so. There is a wealth of information available there at your fingertips and hopefully you will see the enormous educational opportunities offered by partaking in a consultation or one of the bi-annual workshops offered. If distance is an issue be sure to check out their books and DVDs.

The Mathers live about 3 1/2 hours away from our current location and the route to them takes us right through Toronto traffic. We've lived with that reality for most of our lives so we know, just leave early. That meant a 4:30 am alarm. An early start is a wonderful beginning to a day and this was no exception. We had good weather for the drive. 

Arriving at Sunflower Farm we were welcomed by Jasper, the wonder dog, and Cam, offered our choice of hot beverage and Michelle's homemade muffins. We chatted, Cam asked us a few questions and then took us outside to go through his solar system. Cam can explain his system in a language that is easily understood and always had a good response to our questions. We were shown their hot water system which as explained has been an evolution. The gardens also have evolved with the start of their CSA a few years ago which they now share with 40-50 members. We had a wonderful lunch provided and then chatted more about their journey as well as what we believe ours will look like. The gorgeous weather allowed us to go outside without coats and soak up the sunshine ever if there was still snow on the ground. We talked about such a variety of topics, from appliances through to raising chickens. The 15 years worth of experience means there are no stupid questions. The Mathers have gone through the learning curve and openly share that experience.

We ended the day after another 4 1/2 hour drive to Bala and the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen (if you were in Ontario on April 10th I am sure you remember the amazing shades of purple and pink). We spent a couple of days with dear friends that we do not get to see often enough. Ed was able to go over the plans with our friend who is a builder by trade. We left confident that we are building a sound structure. 

We may not again have this kind of freedom to come and go but we will have so much more joy in staying put. 

PS This blog post was delayed as we awaited the birth of our first grandchild. Welcome Daniel Robert James born during the lunar eclipse this morning to Kristina and James. All are doing well.

Building Our Dirtbag Dream

The Learning Experience

The internet is an irreplaceable technological advancement. Through it we have been able to be in contact with other like-minded people and also find sources of information that, prior to the internet, would likely have been unavailable. Books, videos, how-to's all at our fingertips. While the ability to access a seemingly unlimited source of information has it's benefits, there are also drawbacks. Having so much information available can make for difficult decision making. One source says one thing, another source has different suggestions.  What does a person do? 

We spent many years researching options with the help of the internet. In our vision to build a self sustaining homestead we also looked at gardening as well as animal farming (both to be done on a very small scale) methods. We found books and blogs and read them, found videos, movies and television and watched them, and we found like-minded people and asked them questions. Each time that we added new information we would reassess our plans. Was there an option that worked better? Was there a less costly means to accomplish a task? What had others tried?

Today we're sharing some of the documentaries and tv series that we found over the years.

The godfather of North American sustainable building without a doubt is Mike Reynolds. His documentary Garbage Warrior is available online. It is from this documentary that most of our build ideas were initially formed.

And if you want to see that there are no limits to building an earthship check out the video of the one built for Dennis Weaver. The quality is not the best as it's from the 80's.

 

Some of the most interesting and inspiring tv shows were found on UK television.  

The farm series done on BBC which you can find online or through your local PBS station is wonderful for those who are planning to work with less technology. We found them both educational and entertaining.

Tales from Green Valley

Victorian Farm

Edwardian Farm

Wartime Farm

Tudor Monastery Farm

Another very educational show on farming is  A Farmer's Life For Me. This was a reality series where the winners were given a farm for a year. Great series if you can find it.

Also a couple of shows done by Kevin McCloud are terrific. Check out Kevin McCloud's Man Made Home as well as the series he been doing for years, Grand Designs. 

There have been a couple of seasons done of George Clarke's Amazing Spaces and there is some unbelievable work seen on those episodes. 

Recently we found another documentary series called Ben Fogle: New Lives In The Wild that made us feel a little less crazy. ;-)

Having a dream and pushing through all the obstacles has shown us what is truly possible. We hope that sharing will be the same inspiration for you.

Have you watched any of these shows? Share your reviews in the comments. 

Waiting for things to fall into place

It's all perspective

We first listed our house in May of 2011. We firmly believed that within a few months we would be up in Cochrane building our dream. As you may or may not know we had our house on the market for 21 months, listed with 5 different agents before we had an Agreement of Purchase and Sale via our For Sale By Owner kijiji ad. That deal closed on Friday. Now we are waiting for the weather to warm up slightly before we make our final move and begin the build.

How often have you heard we are exactly where we are suppose to be? Well,  it has been quite a ride these last few years and many times we wondered why were we  being held back, why were we going through so many agents without offers? It was frustrating to put it mildly. Then the offer was made with a close date of March 28th.

We were hoping for a closing date a couple of months later so that we could move directly to the property and get started. This offer meant we had to find a place to live for a couple of months. We took that in stride. Surely it was not going to be difficult to find someone to rent us a place for 2 months. That was the first surprise. Generally landlords are looking for long term tenants. We were very lucky to find a couple of guys who were willing to cut us some slack. To Adam B and Adam W, thank you for being so generous to strangers.

We decided, to make things slightly more appealing to a landlord, that we would rent for two weeks prior to the close date. Well that's what we thought was the why at least. As it turned out moving out of a house that you have been in for over 15 years is quite daunting. It was so very nice to have those two weeks to move in a little more gradually. If you have that option we would highly recommend taking it. 

We thought moving in March would be horrific. Once again things worked out in our favour. The Saturday that we chose to make the move we were able to do so with no coats. The next few days were bitterly cold. This long winter gave us a beautiful moving day and for that we must say thank you. 

As we begin to go through our packed boxes again, to lessen the load even more, we are once again surprised by exactly how this ride is moving along. An extra walk through of our stuff has made for donations to help others. We are always grateful for that chance.   

             

The timing of the close began as being considered another obstacle. We look back and see with gratitude how wonderfully everything turned out. 

Now we have two months to put all our ducks in a row. Building a home with no experience is not the life path chosen by many but we pride ourselves on going slightly off the beaten path in most life choices. It makes for a journey with a view that is seldom seen and one that is extremely exciting.

Getting ready to move

A practice session helps

This process began a couple of years ago when we decided we were ready to list the house. There was a lot of purging done or so I thought. We packed up a storage locker full of items we were not ready to part with but realized we would not need in the near future. This was done in an effort to  declutter the house for showing purposes. We never expected the sale to take almost 2 years. That turned out to be a blessing  as we have realized that much of what we thought was important is now so much easier to part with after it has not been around for so long. We did have to make our build  plans smaller than we had originally thought so a go through of our 'stuff' is required to lessen its amount after the reduction in home size. It is still a daunting task to pack your whole life into boxes.

The fact that we are moving into an apartment for two months while we wait for the warmer weather does make things different.  As we prepare to move on Saturday we have found a very easy and inexpensive means to mark boxes. For us we have boxes that are not needed until the build is complete, we marked them red. Boxes that may be wanted before the build is complete but are not necessities are marked blue. Finally boxes that are required while we are building we marked green. We made sure to mark every side of the box so the mark is visible and it was easy to know what type of box it is regardless of how it was stacked. And what did we use? Bingo dabbers! You could use them to sort for each room if that is what you needed. Much better and cheaper than markers.  

This practice move is helpful but I would not suggest it as a preferred method. Moving an entire household three times in 7 months is not something I ever want to do again. Putting the building of a house in there is looking like crazy when it is in writing but this is going to happen and we are crazy enough to share it with all of you. Hope your comments can keep us inspired. :)