Expedited Expedition

The cat's out of the bag and so we can finally make public the latest news. Christy and I have decided to move onto the property sooner than we had originally planned. We're leaving Charlotte at the end of March/beginning of April. We made this decision in November after being motivated by a Durham couple, Rebekah & Stephen, living sustainably in an urban setting. They had replaced their lawn with an edible garden, installed a PV system and a solar hot water system, and got rid of their cars. The two of them have authored a book - "The Carbon Free-Home". Rebekah is also an electrician and installs solar panels.

Christy has already informed her employer and I will do the same after the holidays. I think a 90 day notice will be sufficient, yes? I hope my employer will be as accepting as Christy's was. We'll see. But who knows, perhaps because of the down-turn in the economy one may get laid-off. I could only be so lucky.

Working in an industry that is so intimately tied to consumerism has been difficult for me. How to justify being against a consumptive, throw-away society and at the same time working for a company that relies exclusively on that principle? Do you simply say, "Hey, I'm doing the best I can. I have to pay the bills somehow."? It works for awhile but that dichotomy doesn't fade with time. It is this reason and more that I've decided to change careers and work in the renewable energy field by installing PV (photo voltaic) systems. In February I'll be attending a week-long PV Design and Installation class in Tucson. Afterwards, I'll do an advanced class which entails 60 hours of classwork which I can do online. The plan is to be come a certified PV installer. Where would I work? Well, as luck would have it, our neighbor, David, in Floyd owns a PV installation business. We've already discussed my working for him. Also, another neighbor told us he has a friend that also owns a PV installation business who needs help. So I don't think there will be a lack of work. In the long term, I do not plan on working full-time. The idea is to earn enough to pay for the things we can't provide ourselves - insurance (home, car, & health), gasoline, cell phone service, and staples such as TP, soy milk, and most importantly - coffee. We hope to provide the rest.

When we move onto the property we'll initially be living in our tent - how primitive! We'll use this time to build a smaller structure - a cabin/cottage. We're thinking an approximately 200sq foot structure. This will be our home while we're continuing to save for the straw bale house. At the same time we'll start farming as well. We'll be clearing some of the trees in either January or February in preparation for planting and the well.

It's all very exciting but at the same time quite daunting. Christy and I aren't approaching this with the romantic notion that it'll be easy and idyllic. There's going to be a LOT of hard work and many frustrations. But we're motivated, determined, and patient. We work well together and are always supportive of each other. This will be a good test of how well we cope under duress. I am just so lucky to be with someone who is as excited and willing to do this as I am.

ye reap what ye sow. So true - literally and figuratively.

First Snow!

Verbosity Mode Enabled

Christy and I spent another fun weekend in Floyd. We started on a couple of "hot" compost piles on Saturday. We're hoping to have some finished compost by the time we start planting in the spring. That night, our neighbors David and Annie had us over for dinner. We discussed, among other things, the possibility of me working for David installing PV systems (photo voltaic). David is a master electrician that runs a PV installation business. This would be my dream job. Working on something that I'm passionate about and that actually does something for the environment is too cool.

I opened our tent door on Sunday morning to discover it had snowed. Although it was a brisk 28° F, we were comfortable in our sleeping bags. But that comfort only lasts until you unzip and need to get dressed.

We took a drive to Roanoke for some coffee and breakfast at our newly discovered cafe - Mojo Cafe. Organic, Fair-trade coffee, and good, healthy food and I'm there. Good coffee, good food and good atmosphere. Afterwards we took a ride to find the Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op. Unfortunately the Co-op didn't open for another two hours so we checked out the surrounding and area and went back to Floyd.

Christy and I did a little more work on the platform - mostly putting the remainder of the screws in. We had originally planned on sealing the platform but because of the recent rains and snow we decided to hold off.

Before heading back home we stopped at Ed and Randye's for some more of their delicious goat cheese. We shared a cup of gotu kola tea and homemade blueberry cobbler.We've never had gotu kola before but it was quite good. So we chatted a bit or rather Ed chatted a lot. But it's all good. He is such a wealth of information. He encouraged us to rethink buying a used camper to live in while waiting to build the house and instead we should build a small structure/cottage for the same price (~$2000). That way we wouldn't have to mess with selling the camper once we're done and we'd already have something for storage or guests to sleep in. Not to mention an increase in the value of the property. So I think that's our direction. We also discussed the logistics of getting a well dug and clearing trees. So much work to be done and yet so much excitement.

Oh, and what kind of goat cheese? Red pepper! And yes, it really is good.

We also stopped at Green's Garage for a few staples. It's a self-service (honor system & no store personnel) store that sells mostly local food. What a great concept and such a low overhead to operate. They pretty much have everything you need - from fresh produce to dairy to bread to TP.

That's all kids!

A light dusting

Mojo Cafe

"Charity Starts at Home..."

...however, extreme poverty trumps that notion. Two weeks ago Christy and I went to El Salvador as part of a Habitat for Humanity trip to help build a community center for a newly built community in Santa Ana, El Salvador. This was our second trip in two years. This trip was truly amazing. We were able to interact with the local families and masons a lot more this time. My Spanish has also improved so that was a big help. It's such a moving experience to get to know these people who are so genuine and humble.

It's an honor to be able to leave the comfort of our lives here in the States and have the opportunity to help those in need. It's actually a pleasure to do manual labor for this cause. It feels good to work outdoors building something with your hands.

Our group was a lot of fun, too. As was the case last time, there were only four men and the rest women. At least we weren't honored with aprons this time. The local Habitat affiliate has some really top notch folks working there. They treated us as family as they always do.

If you've ever thought about doing something like this I would strongly encourage you to just do it. It doesn't have to be El Salvador, it doesn't even have to be out of the country. There's such a need for basic housing everywhere. Serving others doesn't necessarily have to entail building houses. There are soup kitchens, homeless shelters or other organizations that are worthy causes, also.

When not working during the week we did some fun touristy things on the weekend. Things like swimming in a lake formed from a collapsed volcano; lunch on a volcano; checking out the local markets; visiting Bishop Oscar Romero's house (Bishop Romero was champion of human rights in El Salvador who was assasinated in 1980); and swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Oh and I can't forget the monkey that stole and broke my glasses. What a riot!




Our group minus 2 lads ..............View of Coatepeque Lake



One of the new houses.................. A typical meal


Day one .............................................Day five



Some of the local children............ Our masons


My flower - Florecita....................... Santa Ana

View of Santa Ana from our room


Celebration night!

YES!!!

3rd Anniversary

Today was Christy's and my 3 year anniversary. We started the day with yummy scrambled eggs, grits and coffee that Christy prepared. For dinner we had salmon and couscous followed by a showing of Bill Maher's "Religulous" at the local Manor Theater and then for dessert - chocolate raspberry tart from Amelie's French Bakery. It was a happy day.

This weekend we'll head to the port city of Wilmington, North Carolina. It'll be nice to spend some alone time on the coast and explore the city.

Ain't it the truth

Thought for the week:

The other day Christy and I were talking about our jobs and I expressed my desire to work for a company whose principles are in line with mine and Christy said, "You're working for a company that prevents the theft of products made in China that'll be in a landfill in two years." And I was like, "Wow! How messed up is that?"

Think I'll go install solar panels somewhere.

No duh, we're in NoDa!

So, Christy and I have been living in a part of Charlotte called NoDa (short for North Davidson St.) since June. It's the cool and funky part of Charlotte. When we first visited NoDa I told Christy that this is where I'd want to live if we were to live in the city. There are great music venues, art galleries, cafe, french bakery, fun stores, and more, see here.

Christy is still at Carolina Raptor Center as their Controller and I'm at Alpha - High Theft Solutions as an electrical engineer.

We spend most of our free time hanging out at home, riding our bikes, playing music and visiting with family and friends. Usually we'll spend some time camping on our property once a month. Madchen is enjoying the south, too.

Next month we'll be quite busy. On our 3 year anniversary we'll be spending the weekend in Wilmington, NC (on the coast); Christy's 15 year high school reunion; and ending the month with a Habitat for Humanity trip to El Salvador. We're looking forward to October!

Our First Structure!

Alas, we've completed our first building project. Christy and I were ready for more comfortable accommodations when camping so we decided to build a tent platform. This serves several purposes - level sleeping off the ground and a better vantage for viewing our surroundings. It's a 10' x 10' structure situated on the side of a hill. We used locust wood from our property for the posts. Our neighbors tell us this is a very hard, strong and durable wood good for fence and support posts. It's also a great alternative to pressure treated wood. The platform itself was made from nearby milled spruce.

I'm glad we started with a small project. It's a great way to learn techniques that we'll use later on when building the house. I have to say that building the platform wasn't easy. A lot of sweat went into erecting it. Mostly from digging the holes. Christy honed her skills with the digging bar and post-hole digger. Using the chain saw was quite fun, too. I felt like such a woodsman.

My dad use to call me "nature boy" and it's a nickname that I've always enjoyed. This past weekend finishing up the platform on my own was very cathartic. It's just you and nature... well, and perhaps a tent and a sleeping bag, and a camp stove, matches, food, etc. but you get the point. It's just such an awesome feeling to be out there by yourself with the trees with minimal comforts (go ahead and laugh Lindsey, Jamie and Lauren). My daughters like to make fun of their dad and his penchant for the woods.

(Click on image to view video)

SheRox Triathlon

Sunday my sister Nancy and I (Christy speaking) participated in the SheRox triathlon at Latta Nature Preserve just north of Charlotte. It consisted of an 800 meter swim, 27k bike ride and a 5k run. These events are so much fun, and a great reason to get in shape and improve your overall fitness. We both did well, coming in under our goal of 2 hours. The race started in the lake just as the sun was coming up. As I was about 5 minutes away from the finishing the swim, and wishing that part were over, I noticed that every time I turned my head to the right to breathe I could see the sun peeking up over the trees at the edge of the lake. It was beautiful, and it gave me some scenery to enjoy to take my mind off the struggle to get to shore.

The bike portion went fast, 17 miles in one hour, and I worked harder than normal because the spirit of competition got into me. Not being a particularly competitive person, I secretly relish the feeling of flying past someone on a long downhill! Take that!

It's hard to start running after the bike ride, because your legs are full of blood from using your quads so much on the bike. So the first few minutes of the run were a struggle! But running on the trails in the woods is refreshing, and I finished in 30 minutes. In this case knowing you are almost there makes you able to tolerate the exertion.

I recommend doing a race to anyone who needs extra motivation and a deadline to get in shape. Just sign up, put it on your calendar, and then get busy exercizing!

rick:
The triathlon coincided with a visit from my mom. She took the train from Durham to Charlotte. We had a great time. On Saturday we had lunch at Carrabba's (Italian) and then took a ride on the Charlotte light rail. She was a good sport by getting up before 6 AM on Sunday to attend the triathlon. Afterwards we all went to Boudreaux's Loisiana Kitchen for brunch. We're really glad she came.

Floyd Fest, la Fruita and Hornets

My Birthday! And what did we do? We went to Floyd, of course. It also happened to be the weekend of FloydFest - a four day music festival with musicians of many different genres.

Friday night Christy and I went to the weekly Friday night Jamboree at the Floyd Country Store. Outside, musicians playing on the sidewalk while inside there's even more action.


Friday Night Jamboree at the Country Store



Photo by Doug Thompson



Sidewalk Musicians Outside the Country Store

Here's a short video highlighting the Floyd music scene that Smithsonian Magazine recently filmed:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/multimedia/videos/25911104.html

Saturday morning Christy and I headed to the southwest corner of Floyd county for the annual FloydFest. We spent the entire day, leaving around 11 PM. What a blast! To be so close to these performers and seeing so many people. It was a perfect day - sunny and temps in the mid 80s. We got to see one of our favorite performers - Oliver Mtukudzi - from Zimbabwe.

Oliver Mtukudzi, David Grisman, The Crowds

It was, without a doubt, one fun fesitval. Oh, and the food was plentiful, varied and good.

On Sunday we pretty much took it easy. Woke up to see a fawn in front of our tent. For breakfast we had oatmeal and fresh brewed coffee (french pressed, of course). The rest of the day we mostly explored the property, hung our solar shower, and chilled out. We did make an unexpected discovery - we had a peach tree that was fruiting. That coupled with the blackberries that were everywhere made for a pleasant day. That is, until I hit upon a hornets nest. While securing the solar shower for use, I unknowingly stirred up a hornets nest that was in a log I was perched on. It was a funny sight if viewed from a distance. I was able to escape with only 4 stings. After the excitement I was able to retrieve the shower and mount it elsewhere.

Check out these blackberries that Christy and I picked:

Homesite/campsite

The next trip, Christy and I hope to build a tent platform that overlooks what we call the valley. Stay tuned.

Afterwards we headed back to the property to pitch our tent in the dark. Thank god for headlamps!

Easter Weekend Part III (Sunday)

Durham, NC

What a difference 8 hours of sleep makes. That coupled with being able to stretch out diagonally in bed - sorry Christy - makes all the difference. Adrian and Keith are awesome hosts. They're so accomodating and I just thoroughly enjoy myself whenever I visit. So today is Easter Sunday and my mom, Ron, brother Roney, his wife Beatriz, and kids Parisa, Bianca & baby Micah will be joining us for dinner. This will also be the first time I see Micah who was born a few weeks ago.

Adrian and I ran a few errands during the day. While out and about we saw this woman with rain barrels in the back of her truck. We pulled up beside her and asked where she got the barrels. She gave us the name and number of her source and so we called and made arrangements to meet the guy selling them. Adrian and Keith had already installed one at their house and wanted a couple more. So we ended up purchasing 4 - two for A & K and two for Christy and me. The guy who sold them modified them himself. Two of the barrels were formerly used for olives from Argentina. It looked pretty easy to modify so perhaps we can do so in the future. I'm envisioning Christy and me having a water collection system in excess of 500 gallons. Consider this, for every 1" of rain falling on a 1000 sq foot roof, 600 gallons of water can be captured. That's incredible! So after one inch of rain fall one could fill 12 50 gallon barrels. We don't have to suffer the consequences of a city imposed restriction on water use if we all collected our own rain water.

Before dinner, Roney had taken the girls to a nearby park. I ended up joining them for some tennis. On the way back to the house I borrowed the soccer ball Bianca was holding and kicked it up ahead of us. The ball did a Beckham bend and ended up hitting the driver side of a car in which a woman was sitting. She turned to look at us and immediately drove off. I couldn't believe it. Here I was feeling so guilty and expecting to have to apologize and she simply drives off. I guess she felt a little intimidated by the girls presence.

Dinner was enjoyable as always at A&K's - a baked ham and roasted vegetables followed by a homemade velvet cake my mom made. All was delicious as was the company.

Afterwards I did a little demonstration on how to put together a hot batch compost bin.

Pre-demo discussion

Adding leaves...

and even more leaves

Adrian and Micah

Keith, Micah und mutti

Easter Weekend Part II (Saturday)

"The mind is the source of happiness and unhappiness." Bhuddha

That's easy to say when you've had a good night's sleep. So even after a hearty breakfast I still wasn't feeling up to par after minimal sleep the previous night.

I tried to keep busy by purchasing some garden posts at the local farming/hardware store and doing some work clearing fallen debris on the property. Then after a failed attempt at getting some sleep in the afternoon I decided I'd leave Floyd a day early and head to Durham. I stopped by Ed and Randye's to buy some of their cheese for my mom and take a shower. It turned out that they had a limited supply of hot water so their son Eli offered his place saying "I've got unlimited hot." He has an unlimited supply because he has an outdoor wood furnace that supplies all of his hot water. So after a nice hot shower I ran over to David and Annie's to say bye. We had planned on getting together so I wanted to at least drop by to say hi.

On the way to Durham I witnessed something surprisingly disturbing. Disturbing because my reaction was unexpected. Traveling east on route 58 (posted 55 mph) I saw a deer get hit by a pickup truck. It struggled frantically to get up for what seemed like minutes although the event took less than 10 seconds. When it finally did get to its feet and managed to take a few shaky steps, it's mouth was dripping fluid that didn't appear to be blood. Just as I passed the scene it lept over the guard rail and took off. During this whole time 3 more deer bounded across the highway unscathed. I think I found it disturbing because I was imagining the panic the deer felt at the moment. It made me think of the movie "Powder" when the hunter is made to feel what the deer is feeling after being shot - see here (go to 1:40). I've seen plenty of animals get killed but this was different. Now where's my PETA membership renewal form?

Here are some pics from the day:

Easter Weekend Part I (Friday)

I arrived in Floyd on Friday morning after a 2 1/2 hour ride from Charlotte. There I met with Dennis Anderson of the Virginia Department of Forestry at 9:00 AM sharp - he's very punctual. On our previous encounter - to view property he was selling - he called Christy and me 1 minute before we were to meet to see where we were - we were only a block away. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with punctuality. In fact as I get older I'm finding that timeliness is a good thing. I believe someone once told me that being on time is a sign of respect.

Forester Anderson is a veritable fountain of knowledge when it comes to the natural history of the forest. There we were, walking the property with Dennis pointing to and naming trees, shrubs, invasive species, etc., and me furiously trying capture all he said in my notepad... "here, smell this." as he handed me a twig he broke off , "this is black birch". It smelled of wintergreen. A little further into the woods ,"Deer tend to defecate where they eat" he said pointing to a small shrub which had its end nibbled off. And sure enough, not 3 feet away was this:











So I learned quite a bit in the hour and a half that we spent together. It's pretty cool that the state of Virginia offers professional forestry advice for landowners.

After the meeting with Dennis, I met with Dr. Mark Schonbeck, a soil scientist. I figured he was an alright guy when I saw his Dennis Kucinich bumper sticker. We chatted a bit about hybrid cars and why car makers are putting out hybrids that barely get as much mileage as some cars did 20 years ago. His Corolla gets >40mpg. My friend Tom's Civic also gets over 40 miles per gallon. And so the obvious question is - why is a hybrid that gets 30-40mpg so great when a regular gas combustion engine car can do the same? Why spend $25k when you get a used
Civic for $3-4k? So Mark took some soil samples from near the home site and also some from the field below on Level Bottom Rd. The thinking is that we may want to grow something down in the field. Although sun exposure is a concern there during the spring and fall. But if we grow crops that don't require full sun during those seasons we could put the field to work.

In between meetings I took the time to set up my tent:



After meeting with Mark and getting settled in I took my mountain bike for a spin. I drove by Ed and Randye's son Eli's house and noticed some people working at the burn site. There was a 30 acre fire a few weeks ago that started on Eli's property and stopped just shy of ours. So I rode up to the house to find that those two people were Ed and his hired-hand (or caretaker as Ed likes to call him), Jay. They were segregating burnt wood for the furnace from structure wood (because of nails and screws). So I ended up helping them for an hour or so until we broke for lunch and drove up to Ed and Randye's. There we had a delicious meal of spaghetti with seasoned ground venison (very tasty) along with brocolli, green beans and salad. Again, most of the ingredients from their garden.

Driving to Ed and Randye's with theirs and their son Eli's dog keeping company.

Ed and Randye invited me to an Equinox party later that evening at their friend Luke and Laurel's house. I wish I had taken pictures of their house because it was amazing. Luke & Laurel built it themselves. It's huge, spacious, and surprisingly "green", although I dont' know if an 8,000 square foot home can be considered green. I'm making that number up but the house was huge. Nor did anyone claim that the house is green. That was my adjective in describing the design and materials. They're going to be installing huge underground cysterns for collecting rainwater. They also have solar hot water panels.

I met a bunch of cool and interesting people at the party. It was just a casual potluck get-together. A woman, Christine, I was talking to asked me "Were you at the recent Green Expo in Roanoke?" To which I replied, "Yes!" (Yes, there really was an exclamation mark afterwards.) She proceeded to tell me that she had met Christy at the Expo we attended, and they talked about us buying land. In fact it was Christine who put us in touch with another woman at the Expo who was looking to sell some of her land.

After dinner, a bunch of us went to their sunken livingroom where there was much singing and laughter. It was a lot fun.

I got back to the tent around midnight. It was a beautiful clear night with a new full moon. Full moons do not make for good sleeping in a tent. With the wind, owls calling, coyotes howling in the distance, and hoping to hear a deer walk by the tent, I may have slept for an hour in total. It was not a fun night to say the least. Next time I'll bring eye covers and ear plugs. Comfort wise I was fine. Even though it got down to the 30s my down sleeping bag kept me quite warm.

The next morning I had breakfast at the Blue Ridge Restaurant. It was a bit busy inside. I always feel akward when going out to eat by myself in a crowded restaurant. Thank god for newspapers.

Show and Tell

This past weekend Christy and I were joined by Jim, Linda, Nancy, Adrian & Keith in Floyd. Saturday's weather wasn't all that great but it was nice enough for the boys to view the property. The Pugh clan arrived late Saturday so they checked out the site on Sunday which turned out to be the nicer day. Everyone got to meet two of our neighbors, Ed and Randye. They're into growing their own food and raising goats... and a slew of other projects. In fact we got a little tour of their place and had some of their goat cheese. It's interesting that the goat cheese most people are used to has been aged and thus has a fairly strong (goaty) flavor. Our friends don't age their cheese so it has a really mild and delicious flavor. We all tried some goat milk, too and it tasted just like regular cow's milk - literally.

While the Pugh clan stayed at the eco-friendly Floyd Hotel, the rest of us stayed at our other neighbors - Annie and David's - house who were away for the weekend. The accomodations were awesome. They have a beautiful house that they built themselves. There's the main house that's about 800 sq ft not including the loft and mudroom. They also have a cute little artist studio, a green house and barn (see pics). Adrian & Keith slept in the loft while Christy and I slept downstairs.

On Saturday night we all had a fun dinner at El Charro. Thanks to Jim and Linda for treating everyone. Afterwards we went upstairs to Cafe del Sol to catch the tail end of their monthly Spoken Word Open Mic Night.

Tomorrow Christy heads off to Puerto Rico with her college roomie, Anne. They'll be staying on the island of Culebra and camping on the beach - http://www.islaculebra.com/puerto-rico/camping.html while I'll be camping in Floyd. What a contrast!



Our accomodations courtesy of Annie and David



Their greenhouse is partially made with cob (straw, sand & clay)



Mary and Jesus



Adam and Steve