Yes, it has been too long. We six spent a lovely week at Golden Lake with the Nordlund & Cedarleaf clan. Swimming, sunning, sailing, surfing, Kubb-ing, eating, reminiscing, fellowshipping. Full report and photos to come.
We've also been busy the past few days since returning from idyllic Golden, trying to survive wicked heat and humidity at home. But we were rewarded at the end of each sticky day with dinners of fresh beets, summer squash, potatoes, pesto and herbs.
A snapshot of current and upcoming projects at the farm:
Sawing, chopping, storing wood for the winter
Chicken coop/greenhouse combined structure
Harvesting and preserving vegetables
Replacing windows in the house
Buying and installing a wood cookstove for the kitchen
Discussing, planning, thinking, brainstorming, researching addition to the house
The last item is the biggest and most exciting and least determined project. We have many ideas and dreams for ways to make our living and community space all that we want it to be. Aside from the task of determining what our needs/wants even are, we will be faced with the next step of connecting with people and resources who know best about construction, building green, and sustainable practices. Let's start with you, fair blog readers... if you have any ideas or resources, or people we might want to think about connecting with, please comment or email any of us.
This post will be brief as I'm off to the cities in a few minutes to catch a plane to California for a friend's wedding. (Also my first weekend away from Ellis - bittersweet!) I wanted to touch base and prime your thinking caps for what we hope will be more dynamic blog-interaction to come.
Bon voyage!
Becca
Friday, July 27, 2007
Checking In
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7 comments:
Try these:
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Green Remodeling Tips for Homeowners > http://www.pca.state.mn.us/oea/publications/greenremodeling.pdf
City of Seattle Green Home Remodel Guides >
http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/GreenBuilding/SingleFamilyResidential/Resources/RemodelingGuides/default.asp
City of San Francisco Home Remodeling Green Building Guidelines >
http://sfenvironment.com/aboutus/innovative/greenbldg/tools/remodeling.pdf
Christina and I watch and read This Old House on a regular basis and their most recent project was a LEED certified home in Austin, TX. I can scronge up the magazine they highlighted the project in if you wish. Or check this out (actually the whole site is pretty great) >
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/tvprograms/houseproject/overview/0,16542,1546552,00.html
The MN Pollution Control Agency also has a section on finding a contractor, I image WI has something similar >
http://www.pca.state.mn.us/oea/greenbuilding/professional.cfm
Hope that helps! Also I'm curious to see the chicken coup construction photos.
oh this sounds like fun! my husband designs and installs renewable energy systems for a living (charis has heard abit of this i believe) and would surely have some suggestions. are you thinking off grid or grid tied? wind? solar? geothermal? many possibilities!
Blair, how cool! Eventually we would like to be off the grid, and most of the building we want to do would be making the most of the solar possibilities around here (south facing windows using the greenhouse effect). But we're really interested in all kinds of options. Does your hubby have a website?
Thanks for your tips too, Stephen. We really appreciate the feedback!
Charis
hey charis... being that you are already "online" with the grid, would you consider staying grid tied and then selling power back to them? i understand the whole "damn the man" concept and not wanting to be connected at all. but why not let the man pay YOU, being that the infrastructure is already in place? otherwise good systems produce lots of energy then it goes to waste before it can be used (storing it in batteries works but is very ineffecient). just a thought.
but there is so much that can be done with passive solar and energy efficiency in new construction (are you all building new things in the near future?) as well as retrofitting. very neat stuff.
dh's company website is old and crappy but the new one should be up soon. but here's the old one, i dont think he's even on it! anyway... www.creativeenergies.biz
ciao!
blair
Stephen and Blair - thanks for the comments and suggestions! I'm ready to dig around the sites you mentioned, Stephen and especially appreciate the reminder about the LEED resources. Blair, I was just having a conversation with someone over the weekend about creating our own power and selling it back to "the man". I love the concept but have much researching to do on the topic yet.
Yes, we're hoping to begin to build a new addition (hopefully with many old/reusable materials) in the next year or two or three, so the conversation is very relevant as we are in info gathering stage right now. Of course, we're also trying to do things on the cheap as much as possible, which always seems to take more time and creativity.
for a little light reading, check out home power magazine. it's a good resource for home based renewable energy systems for motivated folk. it makes the whole idea seem very attainable and do-able, with lots of good ideas. there was an article a few months back, written by my dear friend, named "bucking the system" about a system my husband put up outside of town. the people featured are fabulously creative and determined... much like the lostview farms folks it seems! ;-)
blair
I've spent the past few days diving into the web sites you all suggested...which led me to more and more and more. There is so much information out there for green living. Very little, however, about simple, cost-efficient green projects. I understand that it is often MORE expensive to do things the environmentally friendly way, but we don't require any bells and whistles. We'll have to learn about creative modifications.
I found a "green" architect in Menomonie, our nearest not so small town. I'm really surprised and hope to contact them as we get a better idea of what we want to do.
Thanks again for the suggestions - keep them coming.
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