Pockets

At some point, I paid attention to the safety instructions they always recite at the beginning of each flight on commercial airlines. By paid attention, I mean I actually *thought* about what they were saying and potential implications, not just nodding and saying “yeah, yeah, let's get there already.”

In the event of an emergency landing, inflatable slides will automatically deploy out each emergency exit. Please remove your shoes and do not carry anything with you as you exit the plane.

Okay, so now you're in the middle of a field (if you're lucky) or floating in a lake clinging to your seat cushion wondering if it may or may not serve as a flotation device (if you're unlucky). You have no shoes, no luggage, no purse. Have you ever seen what happens to a woman who loses her purse? It's like she's lost her mind. No contact info, no ID, no money or credit cards, not even keys once you make it back to your home or car. Admittedly, I was never a big fan of purses anyway, but that droning recitation convinced me I should have all critical items on my person at all times, i.e. pockets.

Obviously I'm very strange in this opinion, since most women's clothing doesn't have pockets, or at best one maybe two. I've even seen jeans with no rear pockets – we wouldn't want to ruin the curve of a woman's body now! Baloney, to put it politely.

So I wear mens jeans and make full use of the pockets. I have also structured my life (for an assortment of reason, including but not limited to) such that it is always my choice, not someone else's, should I decide to, as I jokingly call it, dress in drag wearing girl clothes – always good for startling people used to me in jeans and don't realize 'I kin clean up good'!

Right front – lip balm, hand lotion, and a utility key ring with mini pocket knife, LED flashlight, mini compass, and hair binders. The flashlight is great for seeing in dark rooms and under desks. I started carrying a tiny compass when I lived near Chicago. Every time I emerged from the L, I would start out the wrong direction! The natives might be able to sense which way the lake is, but I used the compass until I better learned the surrounding landmarks. Something that gave me a vague sense of E vs. W was all I needed. The hair binders are due to the fact I don't bother with cutting and styling my hair, except to use the scissors on the pocket knife to trim split ends while I'm bored waiting for some one/thing.

Left front – cash, cell phone, handkerchief. I carry plain white mens kerchiefs, not being the lacy frilly type.

Left rear – card pack. I tried for years to find a thin wallet that didn't make me look like a dyke. Nothing against dykes, mind you, but people already mistakenly wonder if I am one, wearing mens style clothing as I do. For a couple years I found a heavy post office type rubber band worked well, but after the third one broke, I realized I really don't need one at all.

Right rear – lens cloth for my glasses, and documents pertaining to my current project. Usually note cards, or my passport if I happen to be traveling more than 200 miles from home.

Coin pocket – Lighter. I used to have a cool refillable pressurized butane lighter than was like a tiny torch. It was great for cutting and cauterizing rope, but it stopped working and I never could figure out why. The mini Bic I have now sucks for cutting, but it shrinks rope ends well enough.

Because I live in the country, I have two knives on my belt – one is a smooth blade folder, the other is a multi-tool. The folder is most often used for sharpening pencils and cutting rope, the multi-tool's primary function is to crush ticks in the pliers, thus its nickname Tick Killer.

One last safety tool isn't in my pockets, but around my neck – a ball-less plastic whistle. That one is a new carry item. For as much time as I spend in the woods alone, usually a goodly ways form the road, carrying a whistle is just plain common sense. After the Japan earthquake I stopped removing the whistle when not in the woods; now it only comes off when I shower. The ball-less type is what the water patrol required of boaters at a friend's cottage in Canada. For once, I've gone with the official government opinion!

Nearly all these items see daily use, not just in emergencies. What I can't figure out is: how in the world do nudists function without pockets?

Perfectionism and Procrastination

Hi, my name is Ellen, and I'm a recovering perfectionist. (All together now) Hi Ellen!

I have always struggled with the belief that if you're going to do something, you should do it well. Even if you've never done it before. My fear of doing something imperfectly often led to procrastinating any attempt. In fact, that's one of the biggest reasons I wanted to write about my experiences of my search for a satisfying and sustainable off-grid life – to assure others, as I wanted to be assured, that mistakes will be made, screw-ups will happen, and it's okay! Not just okay, but fantastic, because we learn more, and more quickly, from our mistakes than our successes. It seemed to me that most books are about the successes, and rarely address the failures encountered en route. Or maybe the failures were discussed and I just didn't notice, being too busy comparing myself to the successes?

Probably the best lesson I learned from the Guild of Metalsmiths back in Minnesota wasn't about blacksmithing at all. It was the concept of the learning curve. The most often cited example is a baby learning to crawl before walking, walking before running. (Except Teresa's son, who knew if he lifted his arms, someone would carry him where he wanted to go. One day Teresa told him he was too heavy to carry anymore. He shrugged and got up and walked instead, skipping the crawling stage entirely!) The Guild had an excellent teaching series, starting with just shaping metal – drawing out points, widening stock, punching holes, and so on. You weren't expected to make anything functional, let alone fancy, just explore the ways of shaping metal. (It was referred to as making scrap, the same way woodworkers make sawdust!) The next class built on those skills to make some basic blacksmithing tools – drawing out a firepoker, widening the end of a handle to attach a water can (used for fire control). Another class taught how to shape a hammer head, punching and shaping the eye hole to fit a wood handle. Now we're into functional but still not fancy. Eventually you gain enough experience, progress along the learning curve, to use these skills to make something that *is* fancy!

Studying college level biology taught me another important concept, that of the experiment. You develop a hypothesis (what you think might happen), design and implement an experiment, then gather and analyze the results. The results may not match your hypothesis of what you thought would happen, but that doesn't make the experiment a failure, quite the contrary. You have gained additional knowledge of what actually happened, and develop a new hypothesis and conduct another experiment based on the information of the previous one.

I have tried to apply the concepts of the learning curve and the experiment to my construction skills as well. Volunteering with Habitat for Humanity gave me a lot of the basic skills. How to hammer effectively, how to assemble a stud wall on the deck, then erect, plumb, and secure the wall upright. I also learned some slightly more advanced skills, such as how to untwist warped lumber, and why put extra studs across kitchen and bathroom walls (nailers for cabinets). Not everything I learned working with a group of people applied to working alone, which led to my own experiments on what would work while working solo or with one friend helping.

I built my first cabin in Southern Indiana and my second here in Maine. Neither one was perfect, but I learned a lot from each of them, both of what works and what doesn't, as well as gaining experience progressing along that learning curve. Those two cabins were my rough drafts, much as my blog posts here are the rough drafts for my (hopefully!) book.

As I get ready to embark on what is intended to be my permanent house, however, my perfectionism is rearing its ugly head again. Can I do this, should I even be trying? What if my floor plan isn't as functional as I believe? What if my insulation, despite having much more of it from the learning experience of the current cabin, is still insufficient? Doubts plague me constantly. But I am determined, and I refuse to allow my perfectionism to cause further procrastination!

Back in the mid-90s, I met a fellow who had a similar dream of an off-grid life. I quizzed him for information, looking for advice as to how I and my then-partner might achieve our similar dreams. This guy kept talking about “when circumstances line up, I'm gonna...” I sat back and looked at him honestly and thought “he's nearly 50 years old and circumstances still haven't lined up yet? I don't think they ever will, he's just allowing life to happen to him, and bemoaning his inability to bring his dream to reality instead of making it happen.” He was procrastinating, waiting for the perfect set of circumstances. It's like the Dear Abbey column where the woman is wondering about pursuing a college degree late in life, lamenting she would be 50 (or whatever age) by the time she graduated. Abbey replied she'd be the same age in that many years anyway!

I guess my point is, things will never align. You have to start from where you are, make mistakes, learn from them, and be willing to make more mistakes. Eventually you'll get the hang of it, whatever 'it' might be for you, or you might decide it's not worth it after all. But I encourage you, don't make that decision without giving it an honest go. Because 5 years from now, you'll still be 5 years older whether you try to follow your dream or not.

Heating Options, Part Three

In parts one and two, I talked about reducing heat needs and active heat sources. But as Anonymous pointed out in comments, there's also passive heat (I was getting there, really!)

For the most part, passive heat is best integrated during the design phase of new construction. This used to be standard practice until the wide-spread utilization of active systems. From the cooling courtyards of the Middle East and Mediterranean to the Pueblos of the American Southwest, the access (or avoidance) of passive solar heat was a primary consideration. Early American farmhouses were oriented to the climate effects of both wind and sun, but eventually the focus shifted to roads instead.

Many older homes can still utilize this advantage with strategic curtain use. In the cooler months the blinds are opened during the day and closed at night to keep the trapped heat inside. In warmer periods the process is reversed, blocking out the day's sun then encouraging cooling breezes at night. For several years I lived in an old brick bungalow that demonstrated the effectiveness of these methods quite nicely. Be careful of the chimney effect however – airflow along the windows behind the curtains can set up a cooling current instead of the desired heat retention. Thus the design of the magnetized edges of window quilts.

I knew a couple that built their home on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota who used solar awareness during their design and construction. The large South to Southeast windows captured much of the winter sun; in fact sometimes too much, necessitating opening windows and using ceiling fans to exhaust the hot air out in the middle of winter! During summers the overhang was designed to block the higher sun, and cooling lake breezes kept the house quite comfortable while the neighbors around the other side of the hill needed to use air conditioning units.

The main house of the property I live on now was also designed to be passive solar. The south side is nearly all patio doors opening to the black tile floor of the great room. In the summer, the overhang limits direct sun to just a few inches, while in winter it penetrates not only across the great room floor but even striking the back wall of the room! Unfortunately there is insufficient insulation below the slab, and as much of the gained heat dissipates into the ground below as into the room itself.

Quite possibly one of the most unique utilizations of passive solar is George Bernard Shaw's writing hut. It is a small 8x8 structure built on a lazy susan turntable! A simple push enabled the writer to utilize or avoid the sun as he desired. A door flanked by two non-operable windows are on one side, with one small operable window on the wall opposite. By turning the hut, he was able to optimize heat gain as desired; increasing the gain during cooler weather, or avoiding it during warmer weather. Minimal windows also translate to minimum heat loss, while the operable window opposite the door allowed natural ventilation. Being able to rotate the hut for natural light gain also reduced the need for artificial lighting.

The writing hut is also an excellent example of smaller spaces having lower heating requirements. Another example of this are the canopy beds frequently found in old stone structures. The heavy curtains closed off a small space better able to retain the heat exuded by the occupants. The raised sleeping shelves of the Inuit igloos served a similar function, as well as allowing the cooler air an area below the sleeping shelves to pool. And of course there are the three-dog nights, when the weather was so cold a person would bring three dogs to bed as personal heaters!

In a sense, utilizing passive solar is a method of reducing heating needs. But somehow it seems like more than just reducing – perhaps displacing would be a better word?

Heating Options, Part Two

The way I see it, active heating options come from three primary categories:

Fossil fuels: this includes natural gas, coal, and an assortment of refined petroleum products – heating oil, kerosene, and propane.

Electricity: generated at a distance from coal, hydro, or nuclear; generated locally from solar, wind, or micro-hydro

Bio-fuels: Primarily wood, although many folks are experimenting with bio-alcohols and bio-diesels. Dried animal dung (think Buffalo Chips, but don't confuse them with Buffalo Wings) is a functional substitute in woodless areas.

Since my concept of sustainability is not using a resource faster than it can be replenished, I have a difficult time justifying profligate use of fossil fuels when other alternatives are available. And yes, I feel guilty every time I drive somewhere. So to depend on kerosene or propane as my primary heat source is not something I can comfortably do – it doesn't match my dual guide posts of satisfying and sustainable.

Electric is an option, but a fairly expensive one. For someone on the grid, it might even make sense, as long as you're aware and comfortable with how it's generated. Most power plants fall into three categories – coal (with its mountain top removal mining methods), hydro (utilizing dams, radically changing the environment and occasionally obliterating species), and nuclear (even without meltdown concerns, they still haven't figured out what to do with the spent but still hot rods).

Off-grid electric, or micro-generation, I'm more comfortable with. The first one most people think of is solar (requiring high-tech manufacturing with limited resources), then wind (having trouble coming up with a complaint here – turbines have been built using scavenged parts, the ultimate in recycling!), and micro-hydro (sometimes dropped straight into the water, sometimes using piped diverted water).

Finally we get to the bio-fuels. Burning wood or other materials (can put particulates into the air causing local air pollution) and derivatives such as bio-diesel and bio-alcohol (the jury is still out on whether as much energy is produced by the fuel as is consumed to create the fuel).

Boy, I'm just a bundle of joy today, aren't I?

So not having sufficient funds, sun, or wind, I'm pretty much out of luck for electric. No consistently running water, either, but that didn't scan as well. There are some windy days where I really wish I had a turbine, but not enough of them to make a reliable source of electricity I could convert to heat when I need it most.

I don't have the mechanical and chemical aptitude to create derivative bio-fuels, so I'm left with wood. Which I have lots of! I don't even have to cut down trees – those windy days will often lay them down for me. I have no idea how many cords are laying around (many are slightly hung up so not rotting) waiting for me to harvest the fuel. Plus there are weed trees that if removed will allow its (former) neighbors to better live their lives. And lots of coppicing stumps from the last timber harvest. Here is a resource that seems to be renewing faster than I can imagine needing to use it.

It used to be that every farm had its woodlot that produced the firewood from year to year. In fact I know of at least one forest preserve in the Chicagoland area that used to be the woodlots for residents of the nearby village, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the other forest preserves had similar histories. So historically even town folk, not just farm folk, had access to wood.

So my best choice seems pretty straightforward to use wood for heat. However I am planning to also have a backup system based on either kerosene or propane, in case for some reason I cannot maintain the wood heat (out of town, injured, what have you). My goal is to never need the back-up system, but one saying I believe in is “two is one, one is none”, something of a variation of not putting all your eggs into one basket. Everyone's circumstances are different, and I would never claim to have all the right answers; each of us need to consider our own situation and options, and choose how we best see fit.

Heating Options, Part One

It's hard to think about heating when I'm sweating and wishing for a fan. The sun finally showed up this week and temps have climbed into the upper 70s. Those of you living further South can stop snickering now – there's a reason I live this far North! (Well, 42 reasons, but climate is one.) Realize also that I am in long pants and long sleeve shirt for black fly protection. After all the rain, drizzle, and downpours lately I was beginning to think I lived near the *other* Portland! The lack of sunshine there is exactly why I don't.

When considering heating options, it's very useful to think outside the box and look at not only potential heat supplies, but also ways of reducing heat needs. The goal here is not how to make my environment a constant 72F, but rather to be comfortable in my environment.

I find the easiest way to be comfortable whatever the temperature is to wear layers. Feeling cold? Put another sweater on. Too warm? Strip down to a t-shirt. What you're wearing is much easier to adjust than increasing the heat or AC, and far more energy (and its cost!) efficient. It's also more adaptable to changing activity levels. It's not uncommon to find me in flannel-lined jeans, turtleneck, sweatshirt, and quilted flannel shirt during the winter while I'm doing some quiet low-energy activity, only to have stripped off the two top layers while doing something more active.

Another method I alluded to above is choosing the environment you live in. The Pacific Northwest has long appealed to me because of its mild climate. My ideal climate would be 40s at night and 70s during the day. However I have long claimed, in only semi-jest, that I am solar powered. Thus an environment with persistent cloud cover (even if it is a dry rain!) is contra-indicated for me. Obviously the population levels that do make their home there prove the internet maxim 'your mileage may vary' (YMMV).

One sadly neglected approach to comfort is simple acclimatization. Eric Brende, is his book “Better Off”, talks about joining an Amish work party after having spent a couple weeks on a road trip. He suffered from heat exhaustion by the end of the day while the other workers took the heat in stride. He realized that using the car's AC during the road trip left him unacclimatized to the warming weather back home. At the other end of the spectrum, early accounts of European-Indian encounters comment on the apparent comfort of the natives, wearing little more than loincloths, on 40F days. Most modern Americans, going from home to car to work to stores and back, never get the opportunity to acclimatize to what the weather actually is outside. This week I'm finding it difficult to make the abrupt shift from 40s and rainy one day to 70s and sunny the next, but I expect in another week or so I'll be fine.

When discussing heating in particular, something related to dressing in layers is the concept of warming the person, not the space around them. There is something remarkably delicious about climbing into a bed in a cool room with a hot water bottle at your feet! Some people use rice bags, warmed in the microwave or on the back of a wood stove. It's the same concept as the chemical hand and toe warmers used by skiers and other winter outdoor sports enthusiasts.

One layer many people seem to be unaware of is hats. If you wear a hat, or nightcap, to bed, you can comfortably sleep in a much cooler room. I use a knit hat that I can even pull down over my eyes. With a hat on my head and a hot water bottle at my feet, I'll happily doze off in temperatures in the teens, with little more than my nose sticking out. Getting up in the morning, however, is another matter entirely. I've never done any winter camping, so I asked someone I know who has – how was he motivated to climb out of his warm sleeping bag on cold mornings? His answer (which I suspected) was your bladder demands it! But what keeps you from crawling back in? I persisted. Essentially, being up and moving is warmer than the cold spots encountered if one squirms too much. I suspect there was also an “awake and bored” factor.

Which brings me to my final observation – if you're cold, move. The adage that wood heat warms you three times has a lot of truth to it: cutting, stacking, then burning. If you're sitting quietly reading, with a lap blanket over your legs and another around your shoulders, and feeling chilly, that's a cue to put the book down and get up and move around for a while. Just don't move around so much you start sweating, because the moisture works to wick heat away from your body.

So having (hopefully) reduced heating needs, but not eliminating them entirely, what are some of the options? I'll explore that in part two.

The Heating Challenge

I must admit, milder climates are easier to deal with. My first go at an off-grid cabin was in Southern Indiana. 50F in December seemed just wrong to this Minnesota kid, but I wasn't arguing too hard! That cabin was 8x8, which meant leaving my toilet outside (although I did rig a tarp overhead). I had read warnings against insulating such a small structure too well and overheating it, so I wasn't terribly concerned. I had two different propane heaters – one a higher-end Wave heater hooked up to a 20lb tank, the other a portable Dyna-glo that used 1lb disposable cylinders. I'd run the heat for maybe an hour in the evening, sleep snuggled under blankets, and run the heat another hour in the morning to take the edge off. In a structure that small, everything was within reach and I only had to stick an arm out to turn the heat on before climbing entirely out of bed. I generally only used the more powerful Wave heater, occasionally supplementing it with the Dyna-glo if it seemed particularly chilly. Of course, chilly is a relative term! I find that 50-60F is comfortable given enough layers of clothing, above 20F at night given a decent head covering and enough blankets. I was going through a 20lb propane tank a month – I thought roughly $20 a month was a reasonable heating bill!

When I moved to Maine, I built a larger cabin, since expecting more snowstorms than Indiana I wanted to have my toilet indoors. So 8x12 this time, ideally enough extra space for a woodstove as well! Since I was expecting the weather to be colder I used 2” blue foam insulation in the stud bays and on the ceiling, but the woodstove I had gotten for free was too large to fit. Ah well, this is only the temporary cabin anyway, and I pulled out my old propane heaters. But even with the insulation this cabin refuses to hold heat! I was running the Wave more hours, and it started raining inside. Excuse me? Propane is 40% water, which puts a fair amount of moisture into the air. After the heating ceases, the air cools and can no longer hold as much moisture as it could when warm, and it rains. Well crud.

I found a small woodstove designed by the Army for use in the Arctic, now for sale (never used!) to the public for only $200. Ah-ha! So I ordered one, and was surprised to receive it and discover it was a multi-fuel stove, something the catalog description had neglected to mention – probably because the liquid fuel supply system wasn't available. No problem, I bought it planning to use wood. Except the space for the liquid fuel burner system took fully half the already small stove, leaving a teeny-tiny firebox only five inches tall! I installed it anyway, and it actually works quite nicely. It just needs tiny logs, which burn quickly, necessitating feeding it more tiny logs about every 10-15 minutes. And the cabin still refuses to hold the heat for more than a couple hours after the fire goes out. Well crud.

Thus I ended up moving into the main house for the coldest winter months, but once the nights got above 20F again, I was back out here. I still use the woodstove some evenings, but I don't dare use the Wave heater at all. The Dyna-glo does a decent job of taking the morning edges off though, and it's (safely) close enough to my bed that I only have to stick an arm out to turn it on.

Clearly I need better insulation for heat retention, but that opens a whole 'nother can of worms – just how temporary is this cabin going to be? What I do know is that this summer is going to be all about making sure I have a winter-worthy shelter next year. The options between here and there? I'm still pondering...

Cold Update and More Wild Plants

My cold seems to be dissipating nicely, although sadly not as quickly as it came on! I took Linda's advice and had chicken noodle soup for dinner the other night – I may try Yer Mama's version today.

I mentioned the lack of entries under decongestants during an unrelated edible plants conversation, and had it pointed out I should have been looking under the ailment, congestion, not the treatment. A-ha, a dozen results when looking at the correct entry! I was rather amused to find garlic as the first listing in the index, although that's only due to the plants being sorted by flower color. My amusement turned to intrigue upon learning that garlic does not grow wild, there are only domesticated escapees. But many of the same effects are attributed to wild leeks or ramps. But given the many benefits accredited to garlic, I duly noted that I should add a whole lot more of it to my cooking habits.

Part of my trepidation in utilizing wild plants comes from my cultural background. I was taught to read labels. (And to color in the lines, and stay on the trails, but I digress. Frequently.) But not only do wild plants not have preparation instructions or warning indicators, they don't even have a label indicating if you're even looking at the right thing! Is that water parsnip or water hemlock? One is tasty, the other deadly. Apparently red spruce pitch can be used as a poultice to relieve congestion, although it may also cause dermatitis. The bark of the strawberry bush was formerly used as an expectorant, but it may also be poisonous. Is the cure worse than the disease?

Ironically even labeled commercial items can have similar issues. In an online discussion I was reading recently, there were claims that the body burns sugars (simple or carbohydrate) preferentially not because it's the easiest fuel, implying we should consume more of it, but because it's a poison best removed from the system quickly. Wheat gluten sensitivity seems to be practically trendy lately, but I have to wonder how many people are simply discovering their bodies are healthier without the (biologically, evolutionarily) recent addition of grains to the human diet?

So really, how trustworthy are food labels anyway?

I think one of the reasons I'm interested in some of the old ways of doing things is just so that knowledge doesn't die out. While the natural world cannot support our current population numbers on a hunter-gatherer basis, I don't think that's a reason to discard all of the related knowledge, anymore than microwaves and convection ovens relegate cast iron dutch ovens solely to the history books. So even though learning and using wild plants, for food as well as medicine, isn't very high on my priority list right now, it is definitely on there. For now, I'll be concentrating on growing my own plants from labeled seed packets (with additional labels planted in the ground along with the seeds!) and simply familiarize myself with some of the wild ones occurring in my area. And eating more garlic while keeping an eye out for those ramps!