First touch of winter.

This week we had a couple of days of HOWLING wind, and with it came the first hint of winter.

It was blowing so hard that it nearly lifted me off my feet when I went outside. In the house, however, it was deceivingly calm and quiet. We just snuggled up as a family, watched movies and read, enjoying the days off work.

Since then, it seems as though the temperature has taken on a chillier turn at night. Still not super cold, it is getting down into the 40s instead of 50s. The lowest we've had inside the house has been 57 degrees. In the mornings, with the curtains open and the sun pouring in, the temperature rises about 3-4 degrees an hour, and by 11am we shut the curtains to avoid getting into the 80s. So far, we are super impressed by the solar heating system. But it's not really cold yet, so this front was enough to make us get a little more prepared.

Over the past three years, they have been building a paved road to our village and beyond. They finished it about 6 months ago, but the oak and pine trees they had to cut down are still all along the sides. So we decided to take a drive up the new road, with its breathtaking vistas of pine-covered, 9000 feet mountains. We took the chainsaw and filled the truck in no time. Leo did his part by finding twigs and throwing them in!!!!

We will be building a wood-gas heater for when it gets colder, but in the meantime we went ahead and bought a wood-burning heater for the living room. We have a wood burning stove for the kitchen, but the size of the logs you can use is very small; the new one will allow us to put a big, all-night log on before we go to bed. With the stove pipes all hooked up and wood all cut and ready, we couldn't resist trying her out, even though it wasn't really cold. Man oh man, did it get hot! It was beautiful. Almost makes winter appealing, though not quite!

More photos

White, white!

We painted the outside of the south and west walls of the kids' rooms, which meet the roof of the previously constructed rooms. So far, we have just used a waterproofing paint, which is white. We will probably leave it white as it helps reflect heat in summer, but who knows.

Twinkle Toes

dancing2
Originally uploaded by velacreations

This one was worth a mid-week blog!!

Turn the volume up.

Stucco finished!

This week, we finished the south and west walls of the kids' rooms.
Ferro-cement basically consists of a rebar, remesh and lathing frame, stuccoed with concrete. The concrete mix we use is 3 fine sand, 1 cement, and a little waterproofing additive. On each side, we do a scratch coat (fairly dry), then a brown coat, and finally a cement and fiber coat, all of which are now finished. Even the 4 windows are in.

We still have to paint them and silicon the window/concrete join, but that won't even take a day.

Next week we start work on the north and east walls.

For more photos, click here.

Top Bar beehive

Something very exciting happened this week - we got our prototype top bar beehive made.

We want to start keeping bees as soon as possible, for both honey and pollination, and this method seemed like the best suited to us and our way of life. It is cheap, easy to do, and other people that use the top bar system say that they see a marked reduction in bee diseases. It seems to be the "organic" way to keep bees.

In short, the hive consists of half a barrel on 2"x4" legs, a frame around it on which rest 23 bars for the honeycomb, and a roof. We will be writing a full how-to over the next week or two, which we will post at http://velacreations.com/beehive.html

All we need now is to find a swarm of bees. Usually they swarm - which is when a new queen leaves the old hive with a group of bees, ready to make a new hive - in Spring, although people say that bees do swarm as late as this here.

For more photos, click here.

Curtains

Managed to sew most of the curtains for the kitchen, dining and living rooms this week.

At this time of year, the sun is starting to come into the rooms a lot more (in summer it doesn't come in at all, and in winter it almost hits the back wall). However, it can still be kind of hot in the days (80s in the shade), and the rooms were getting a little warmer than perfect. But now, with the curtains pulled against the sun, we can control the temperature a lot better. Plus, the fabric we used is fairly thin, so light can still pass through without letting in the heat.

Winter Planting

We made use of bad weather this week to do some gardening.

We harvested all the beans, potatoes and most of the winter squash. All that's left now is collards, cabbage, turnips, carrots, parsley and lettuce.

We cut all the weeds and plants that have already produced, making a huge compost pile. We then replanted most of the beds with wheat, rye and barley, and spread compost on top of everything for food and mulch.

This year's focus has been the house. Next year, we hope to concentrate far more of our time on the food systems.