Property Updates

I haven't written much about the place recently, so I thought I'd do a little update on how things are doing.

Building
We haven't done any building since we finished the bathroom and hot water system. We really have everything we need, so no need to hurry on to the next construction projects, at least until well after the baby is born. We'll probably make the pantry (a big cupboard in the entranceway) and another shelf or two, but that's it for the next couple of months.

Hot Water system
This has really changed our lives and is the greatest luxury on the place. There have been a couple of small issues to work out, but Abe figures them out and fixes them. Unless it's cloudy for several days or unless we use the floor heaters a lot, our tank temperature sits happily at 130 degrees and will almost burn you!

Compost Heater
This did not work out as well as we had hoped. Although it heated Leo's wall a lot at the beginning, it does not do so steadily. We will have to tweak the idea to make it more effective. At least we''ll get a big old pile of compost out of the experiment.

Pigs
The three pigs are growing at an incredible rate. They more than doubled (and one of them almost tripled) their weight in the first month we had them. We made a pasture for them and they love to run around in it, root up the dirt, eat grass and play. When you arrive, they come running up to be petted, scratched and fed scraps. They consider Leo one of them. Photos

Chickens
We replaced most of our chickens a little while ago with some young layers. They have recently started to produce eggs. So far we are getting about two a day, but that will increase with Spring. It's Leo's treasured job to collect them (although he is only allowed to carry one back to the house).

Rabbits
The rabbits are amazing. We have kept a lot of the best females to pad out our breeding stock. We now have twelve females, four of which are still not ready to breed. By March, when they are all of breeding age, we will be getting a litter a week. Right now we have a little over 40 of them, of all different sizes!
They are truly the easiest animals in the world to keep and a joy to watch. Photos

Gardens
We didn't plant anything for winter outside. There was a lot going on at the time and we decided to let it go for this year. The inside dining room planter is on the other hand doing great, with all kinds of herbs, greens, carrots and garlic going crazy. We will shortly be doing soil blocks for the living room one.

Road
For the grand old price of $15, we got our road graded the other day. Most people don't understand what this means, but to sum it up for you, our road is long (2 miles), dirt and was in terrible condition after the rains we got this year. It now feels like a super highway, and my increasing belly is very grateful.

Tank finished

Well, the hot water system and bathroom are now totally finished.

We put radiant barrier around the tank, then insulation (R40), and then built a box around it all, which we stuccoed, waterproofed and painted.

The water now sits at about 115 to 120 degrees. It is too hot on its own. We can take showers as long as we want. If we leave the floor heaters on all night the temperature drops to 95 degrees, but heats back up to 120 by 10 or 11 in the morning.

We are very happy with it!

All photos, click here.

First shower in the new bathroom

Well, we didn't hit our desired deadline of 1st November for the bathroom, but we are now within 2 days of totally finishing. Things always seem to take longer than you think they will, what with unexpected occurrences and general delays. Oh well.

So, what have we accomplished?

Abe has got a lot done outside. The panels are finished and are now circulating hot water through the tank, which is in place and hooked up to the system. We have 2 pumps connected - 1 circulates the water through the sub floor heating, the other pumps the water from the tank to panels. When the panels are within 10 degrees F of the tank, the pump turns itself off. There is a control panel inside the house, which shows us what the temperatures of the panels and tank are. All that lacks now is to insulate and stucco the tank, which should take 2 days. As is, the tank's water gets hot in the day, but then loses its heat overnight.

He had one major mishap, one that was totally beyond his control. The hot water for the shower and sinks comes from 100 meters of 1" pipe that we coiled up inside the tank (which was a bitch to do!). It was in place and hooked up and Abe was about to fill the tank with water when the pipe sprung a leak, luckily near the end. I climbed inside and cut the bad piece of pipe off (almost couldn't get out, and give me another month of pregnancy and I won't be able to!) and we thought all was well. He filled the tank and then a day later the pipe sprung another leak. He had to take it all out (after emptying the tank water), buy a new one and recoil it inside. What must have happened was the machine that picked up the roll in the factory must have pierced it, for there were three identical cuts in the roll. We got our money back, but it sucked a lot of time.

I filled the inside planters with soil. We had made a huge pile of compost many months ago and this composed the main substance of the soil. It was black, rich, tarry and filled with worms. I also added a little sand and soil (for trace minerals and bacteria) to the mix, and then put a thick layer of mulch on top. I must have moved more than a ton of earth, and of everything I've done recently it was the most tiring couple of days.

I also finished all the interior concrete and then painted the bathroom. Abe installed the bathtub, shower and sink, and then we hung the curtail rail and shower curtain. Yesterday, the three of us took our first ever showers in our own home. It was truly blissful, and of course Leo loved it as much, if not more than we did. I got the privilege of the first shower, which was a mistake, as Abe and Leo then got in and stayed there until the hot water ran out, which was a very long time. That's the last time I let Abe be chivalrous.

We've been dreaming of having a hot shower in our bathroom for so long now that we can hardly believe it's actually done. We feel like we have truly climbed to the dizzying heights of civilization. I guess all that's left to do now is a solar hot tub!?

For photos, click here.
For photos of the construction of the planters, click here.

Hot water panels

We worked again on the hot water system this week.

I finished interior stucco, but I still have other concrete work to do.

Abe stripped, cleaned, tested and put up the solar water heating panels. They are each 8 feet by 4 feet metal, insulated boxes, with copper pipes (painted black) snaking back and forth inside. They are then closed with glass.

The panels were on the verge of being thrown away some months ago in New Mexico. They were saved from the dump by Abe's dad, Jim, who is just as loathe as Abe to see anything useful become trash. Though he didn't need them, he immediately told the guy that his son would use them, so the man gave them to Jim for free. One of the panel's glass was broken and they were a little dirty, but otherwise in perfect condition.

They now have a new home, mounted on our roof. You cannot hold your finger inside the copper pipe as it gets way too hot.

This week, we work on the tank and controls. Next week, we should be having hot showers inside our bathroom!

For all of the photos, click here.

Bathroom and hot water system

Since getting back from holiday, our focus has been prepping for winter. First we gathered and cut firewood and did a few other basic bits and pieces, and now we are attacking the bathroom and hot water system. Our goal is to get it finished by around the first of November.

Because it is an integrated system, there is a lot involved.

I've been doing the concrete work – stuccoing the walls and underside of the bathroom ceiling. For those of you who have never done overhead stucco, it is a bitch, leaving you with aching neck and shoulders. However, Abe had saved some acrylic sludge that was in a used barrel we bought and cleaned out, and I added it to my concrete. It made the hardest part of overhead stucco a million times easier. I have another two days to finish the interior of the bathroom and I will then start stuccoing the tank and other bits and pieces outside.

Abe meanwhile has been doing everything else. He's laid the grey, hot, cold and floor heating lines within the house. So far all these lines (except the grey) end just outside the kitchen's east window, which is where the tank will go. This is our 300 gallon heat storage tank. We will have panels on the roof that will heat water and circulate it into the tank. We have not yet set up the tank or the controls – that will be next week's project.

Abe has also been working on the brackets that will hold the panels onto the roof, welding and bolting them together. Next week should also see the panels mounted.

The grey water lines will empty out into the flower beds that are inside the house, in the dining and living rooms. We will be using a wicking bed system for them, whereby the water sits in gravel and rocks, and is then wicked up by the soil to the plants. We'll be adding the soil next week or the week after – that will be almost the last thing we do.

All in all, we had a very productive few days. We're both pretty tired, as it's been a while since we worked like this. But hopefully just another week or two at this pace and we can slow down for the winter months.

On a side note, I have found the cure for morning sickness: since starting working with concrete (which I did all the way through the first two trimesters of Leo) my nausea has disappeared!

For more photos, click here.