February Journey - Life Force is Rising!

We are so happy to welcome twin baby boys to our lives, born to my step-daughter on the 8th of this month. I was honored to host her Mother Blessing ceremony - an opportunity to gather women friends and family and acknowledge  the blossoming of the mother-to-be, her morphing into a new person. This ceremony seemed so familiar to me, with many of my own women-friends celebrating their own becoming in that way, asking for strength and beauty in the upcoming birth, drawing in the love and support from their women's circle. With song and poetry, with story and crafts, a special day to elevate and behold the expecting mother. For my dear step-daughter circle of friends that expression was not so-familiar yet became an opportunity to offer an afternoon of something very sweet and supportive. We were blessed with the presence of the 12-year old niece, and a beloved Aunt came for the day too.

                                                   

With candles, flowers, gorgeous silk outfits, hair brushing and rose petal foot bath we were enjoying the day of anticipation, the day when the Mother-to-be was still alone yet holding the life within. She was like the Sun and the Moon, when she entered the room in her glow, in her lei. Today she is nursing and dreaming, and sleeping and gazing at her little ones. She got two sweet peas in a pod, one is smaller and one is bigger - two boys who are still only few days old! 

Sustainable Living in December - Stillness

Stillness is something that is very hard for many of us to embrace or practice. Often we wish for it, search for it but still fail to create space for stillness in our busy fast-paced lives.
Stillness of quiet wonder, observation, inhale.

The earth around us is asleep in December - the days are short, nights are long, and the life force of the world is being drawn in, inhaled by the earth - into its depth. Tree sap has drained to the roots, creatures are hibernating, leaves returned to the ground to cover it with a soft blanket and to give back nutrients and organic matter that was previously held high on branches.

The winds blow low now. They carry snow, leaves. The movement of living things are inward, towards containment. That observation of the living world is something to learn from - and use as a guide both in our own lives and in our work on the land, with living things and other beings.

Sustainable Wood Lot in Dry Climate

What does it take to meet a household needs in wood - at least when it comes to keeping the house warm during the cold months of the year? A wonderful question to ponder when engaging in permaculture design of a homestead, neighborhood or community.

Cooking in the Masonry Woodburning Stove

This is not a very practical post - not too many houses feature masonry (or also known as Russian) stoves. The masonry stove is a large, very heavy stove made out of stone, which absorbs and holds (and radiates) heat very efficiently. They were first designed and finessed in Europe after it was deforested twice over for firewood and wood in general... You can a Russian Masonry stove from our house in the picture above, right.

Home, Plants, Sun, Water

I am constantly amazed how warm and cozy our solar house is, my appreciation for its pleasant ambiance is growing with each passing year. My husband, Scott Pittman, designed it back in the day when I still could barely understand how solar homes worked. For a long while I took it for granted. But as I see other homes, answer questions of our visitors, I am beginning to understand that we are truly living in a miraculous house. It "knows" how to absorb a very significant amount of sun's energy in the bitter cold winters, cooling off only slightly into the next morning, needing very little additional heat from our masonry stove to keep it at 68 Degrees even through the single digits frosts.
Our house "knows" how to provide enough light for the 600 sf interior greenhouse on the hottest summer day without overheating the house in the slightest. It is a large house, kind of embarrassingly large, nearly 2400 sf - but a large portion of it is interior is a waste water treatment greenhouse, which you can see on the photos above. All of our water (I mean ALL of it) goes into this very simple pumice bed which has some light soil on top. There, without any contraptions or moving parts, or energy inputs, it is being processed by bacteria into nutrients for our plants. The plants, besides being very lovely, also cleanse our home from any pollutants, they transpire the moisture from the pumice bed underneath and make our home a little more humid in the typically low (10-20%) humidity of our arid environment. Some are food producing too, although one cannot count on it for survival!
Our interior walls are made with bales of straw, creating a very quiet home, which is also very good at keeping constant interior temperatures. In the summer it is cool (the window and roof overhangs are designed to keep the sun out of the house); in the winter all of our absorptive surfaces (walls and floors) are awash in the sunshine, warming up with each hour. For heat we use a Russian (masonry) oven, which is very heavy with its incredibly thick masonry walls. It takes a while to get it hot, but once it is hot, it takes a while for it to cool off - making it into a very efficient device! An added benefit - it can be fueled with twigs, which allows us to be self-sufficient using just dead wood from our small woodlot. The more I think about all of this, the more I realize - this is a truly fabulous house we built!