Quote from Jill as a comment on a Previous Blog of mine :
"Good for you Lisa. That's a great idea. You should add generating your own electricity and making paper to the list. Seriously. Get off the grid. Michael and I are planning on moving into his rental property in a year and making it completely green. We're talking about recycling the grey water, turning the back yard into various gardens- fruit, root, herb, salad, flower, get solar panels, rental suite or B&B in the bsmt, etc.."
This got me thinking even more about a mini-project I'm working on:
"I'm doing a project on "skills" we've lost in the last century. For example: keeping a root cellar, darning socks, knitting our own dishcloths, hanging clothes out to dry, growing our own food, etc... With the way the economy is going we have to start relying on ourselves and our community more than just turning to consumerism and wastefulness.
If you don't like veggies you can go suck an egg :P"
To further this thought I began writing yet another response to that blog and decided I should just blog it. Weird thought, eh?
I actually asked Ed Begley Jr about the whole alternative power thing in Vancouver last year at the EPIC Trade Show and he suggested getting both solar panels and a vertical wind turbine . I was thinking it would be really interesting to look at converting a wind turbine to work on rainfall. It would have a funnel type contraption on the top of it that would collect water and direct it at the "fan" blades of the turbine to turn them on rainy days, then the water from that would go through a grey water filtration unit or into a rain barrel for watering your garden or whatnot.
I'm jealous really Jill, let me know how your plan progresses because it interests me greatly. For now I'm going to focus on how to manage some independence while renting: Chris wants to build me two 1.5'x6'x1.5' planter boxes for our back deck so I can put in some food plant beds. I'm definitely going to be doing some paper projects in the near future (cards mostly) with leftover handmade paper scraps from the gift room (Butterfly paper is too big when it comes in so they cut it down) and I want to look into getting an angora rabbit and a spinning wheel one day (probably when I have my own property) as they shed tremendous amounts of super soft wool ideal for spinning and are extremely affectionate.
Possibilities are endless and I'd like to explore as many as I can right now.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
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5 comments:
I'll probably need your help when it comes to gardening. I'm hopeless. It's a long way off, but a plan and the property is available. I'm kind of excited about it and wish we could do it sooner, but leases have been signed with the current tenants.
I'm always willing and excited to help with this kind of project. I have been researching Native Plant species of the Greater Vancouver Area (mostly Richmond but outside of that as well) over the last year or two quite extensively so definitely up for sharing the knowledge. One day I want to own an East Van Victorian and return the property back to forest type flora with interspersed food plant patches.
awesome.
The plan is delayed. We're going to tear down the house and build it back green. You know.. with materials that don't off set gases.
If you haven't already thought about it, try to reuse as much of the material as you can. Vintage furniture doesn't off-gas because it's had a lot of time for the VOC's to be released since they were varnished. Also, anything you can't reuse, put it up on Craig's List and see if someone needs it.
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