What Tom was up to while I was in China

It was waaaay to hot out for Tom to pound tires while I was away in China, so he turned his focus to other things. We were in the market for a cheap trailer or shed to use as a chicken coop in the near future, and so of course an old 54 foot by 12 foot mobile home was only natural :P It's set up on a nice level pad with blocks so it (hopefully) won't sink in 30+ years. Still need to do a few things to it (tear out some carpet and lay lino for easy cleaning, replace a few ceiling tiles, build steps, add some skirting), but it's basically ready and waiting for chickens. Not sure if we'll be ready for chickens by next spring though. 

 

This (below) will be our rabbitry (a place to house our rabbits). Large windows to let light in. The rabbits will be in cages inside because (1) we don't want them eaten by predators, and (2) our ground isn't totally flat making it nearly impossible to fence them into a small outdoor area. We bought the huge windows first and based the dimensions of the building off the dimensions of the windows and the cages. Cages should be about 1 square root per pound of rabbit, so if your rabbits are 6 pounds you want the cages to be say 2 feet by 3 feet. Not only do you need large cages but there needs to be 3 feet of space all around the cages to facilitate cleaning. Trust me, that is very important!

Rabbitry

Roof pic (rabbitry).

 We'll do the same rainwater collection idea from the earthship with the rabbitry (and eventually the mobile home chicken coop). Rabbits can drink 1L a day each. By next summer we should have enough money to deal with backburying a cistern.The plan is to hook up a pump and a bunch of pipes with water valves along the cages so it will be a totally automated watering system.

Rabbitry + shed roof.

This (above) is the join between the rabbitry and the attached shed. The entire thing (rabbitry + shed) was supposed to be earthbag construction, but things didn't quite work out so the rabbitry is only maybe 3 ft earthbag and the rest regular wood construction, and the shorter and smaller 10ft x 10ft shed is all earthbag)

A view from the roof

Rabbitry + shed

22 inch lawn mower that can't quite handle 10 acres! Holly cow those weeds grow like...weeds. Camper in background.

We need some goats to take care of these weeds!

China

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I was out in China for work for two weeks and didn't realize the extent of internet censorship out there, so I couldn't check my email or update the blog or facebook group. There's not much for updates, we had a couple couples visit to help Tom out while I was away, but the weather did not cooperate (in one instance there was a heat wave warning and people were told not to do anything outside, and in another it had rained so much that tire pounding was impossible). Thanks to those who came out and visited; hopefully the weather cooperates in the future!

Tire Pounding

First row of tires along the back is done! The tarp and tires on top are just to keep the rain from getting in. Grass is already growing on our dirt pile. Nature's way of telling us we're going too slow...

This is our platform of compressed dirt the excavators made for the home to go on. It's just about a foot above the rest of the ground. Just an easy way to get things level. Some of our culverts arrived (you can see them poking out in the left of the photo). Still not quite ready to put them in yet. The rest should be arriving early next week (the company miscounted their stock).

Zilla surveying his kingdom.

Go Fund Me

Tom started a Go Fund Me campaign where anyone can donate to help out with the costs of building our earthship. The cheapest earthships I've heard of being built (maybe around $70,000) are when the husband/wife/immediate family members are engineers, contractors, and/or tradespeople, who can use their connections to get wholesale prices and call in favours from friends. Even then it's still a lot of work! We unfortunately have no connections so we seem to be paying a premium for everything. I have heard of earthships costing as much as $400,000 (yikes!). Some people are on a very tight timeline so they are forced to pay more. The one near Winnipeg wound up being $250,000+. We are trying to keep costs reasonable by taking our time and finding deals, but since Brandon and area is still in the "boom" phase, deals are hard to come by. Any donations are much appreciated and can be easily made by following the link above :)

Alumni News

We've gotten lots of emails from Brandon University alumni after our story was featured in their Alumni News (page 26 of 32 in the pdf). I've been told the story also wound up in the Solar Energy Society of Alberta newsletter. Cool! Lots of alumni from the '60's and '70's have been living sustainably for years, and are happy/excited to see people from the younger generation trying it too (I honestly have no idea what generation I am---generation next? what came after next?)

First tire row...

The radon and septic pipes still haven't been layed, but in the meantime we can get started on the back wall, since the pipes are all near the front. Here's some pics of Tom getting started. The first row takes a lot of time because all the measurements have to be bang on.

 The excavators flattened a platform of dirt for our home to go on, and made a huge pile of dirt next to it to fill the tires with.

Now to call the fire commissioner so she can come out and inspect. The municipality knows it's going to be a long-term project, but they want to make sure we break ground this summer.

Start date

Lots of people have been asking when we'll get started pounding tires. The excavation crew is nearly done; radon pipes and septic pipe will be going in this week, and then it looks like we can get started on the fun stuff this coming weekend (May 30-31)! Anyone interested in volunteering please email me at sarah.plosker@gmail.com :)