Home / Observations / Sunshine!
A week without sunshine was broken this morning with clear blue skies. The birds, frogs and plants all singing.
In the week without sun, we hadn’t noticed it has changed it’s position in the sky. We now get an earlier and more beautiful ray bouncing off the pond and into the kitchen as we go down to breakfast. It is so much more enticing when the bench is bathed in sunlight.
The kitchen greens love their early morning bath in sunlight too.
There is still rain predicted for today, so we hope that the rays hit the panels enough to charge the batteries a bit and for us to pump the last seven days catchment of rainwater to the top of the hill. About 23,000Lt.
We have set ourselves up for self reliance in electricity and water. Our water supplies lasted the two months without rain. Our electricity supplies lasted the recent week without sun.
Our system encourages us to be self regulating and accept natural feedback. We harvest a flow of renewing natural resources and store them for use that fits our pattern.
The system is completely dynamic. During cloudy periods we limit our highest grade of energy, electricity to just lighting, communications and refrigeration. When the store is full and there is still more coming down we can have added luxuries.
When there is full sun we can use powerful electric motors to do work. Drills, saws, grinders and pumps all have capacities that allow me to be incredibly productive. We can stay up later, use the high power exterior lights and charge up all the smaller batteries we have.
If it is plenty of rain, we can indulge in long hot baths and showers.
I can experiment with dams, catchments, waterways and irrigation. These experiments allow me to expand my understanding, they are currently wasteful and inefficient so can only be justified when there is a glut.
My results are constantly improving.
We have a lower grade of energy stored here too. The synergy of water and sunlight allow plants to form carbohydrates. Some of these we can eat, some we can use to build and some we burn. Properly dried and fully combusted timber produce enough heat for our home to keep us comfortable through winter, boil our water for baths, showers and washing up, bake bread, cook food and provide enormous pleasure.
The local timbers that grow here are Ironbark, Stringy bark, Bloodwood and Tallowwood. These are all very hard woods. Ironbark is graded as extremely durable in the local conditions, it is rated for 25 years in the ground and I recently heard of a well built house almost 200 years old. Our house is only 13 years old, all the timber is off the ground supported by solid, deep concrete foundations then on steel stirrups. I expect it to still be here in another hundred.
I would like to be more self reliant in firewood and structural wood. We bought $35 in firewood this season. And $300 worth of structural posts. The flow of these items isn’t the issue, it is the store. That means increasing our dry storage space.
We are at a stage now where there are still many priorities.
I would also like to be more self reliant in food production. We have established a very successful winter green salad garden. This complements almost every meal.
We have prepared soil over time and fenced a space for a larger garden to provide more of what we like to eat.
Currently growing are Rainbow chards (so sweet), basil, oregano, parsley, mints, lettuces, taro, arrowroot, aloe, pineapples, mulberries, guavas, peaches, oranges, lemons, dragon fruits, olives, pomegranates, avocados, mangoes, calandula, pecans, candlenuts, davidson plums, bamboo, rosemary, thyme, lavender, passion-fruit, figs, carob, coffee, icecream bean, comfrey, hibiscus, lemongrass, bell-peppers and onions.
Towards this end we have been diligently catching our own humanure and urine and composting this to return to the dirt. I even went to school to learn how to do it right.
This is a years worth for two people. A bit over a cubic meter.
This process has recently received an upgrade. We are developing the capacity to harvest our visitors contributions too. A few little luxuries like a door, and a seat and we will be ready to make the first of the new piles.
This is a slow and steady cycle. A pretty critical one for us, we realised as soon as we got here that we would have to deal with our shit if we wanted to grow.
And that brings us back to the kitchen.
Today was brought to you by the following principles of sustainable living.
Use and Value biological and renewable resources.
Catch and store energy.
Accept Feedback and Apply Self Regulation.
October 15th, 2007 at 12:28 am
Square Foot Gardening…
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…