by mannytheseacow » Wed Jan 15, 2014 3:10 pm
Haha, quite the opposite. Sorry, I’ve been rather absent from the web lately. I’ve been taking a break from the cyber world, and a little from the “real world” too. I was in Central America with my daughter for a while, staying in a little shack in the jungle, foraging for fruit and cleansing my soul in the surf. I met some wonderful folks down there doing the permaculture thing that made me feel like quite the amateur. It's a little easier I guess when the temps never drop below 70* F. Very inspiring though! The highlight of the trip was learning to make chocolate from scratch. Let me just say I’ll never buy chocolate at the store again.
I have been spending too much time in this dream cyber world and not doing much in my community and that bothered me. So since my return I’ve been organizing some things, finishing up some research to present at an event this spring on the west coast, cleaning up my old hog paddock to get ready for planting almonds, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, 7 varieties of raspberry, goji berry, honey berry, kiwi, josta berry, paw paw, plums, cherries, and pears. I’ve also been working with the USDA to participate in a program that will pay for a high tunnel which will hopefully let me provide food for my community through much of the year. If you can’t beat ‘em, bite ‘em (aint that right mista Collins?) I’m thinking maybe even a RMH for the high tunnel, but we’ll see. One step at a time.
Oh right, and we were talking about the RMH, weren’t we? Yep it’s still keeping me warm. Never mind that I’m stubborn as an ass and had a couple of cold nights. While I was out of the country no pipes froze and I was back in time for the -20s last week. The coldest I saw was -19 but a friend had -30 down in the valley. Actually, the RMH is working better than ever. I recently purchased and installed an air exchanger that draws air from outside and vents it into my existing heat ducts and takes stale air from inside and uses that to heat the incoming air. It’s energy star rated and since the sun makes my electricity I don’t care anyway. My house is sealed up like a zip lock and super insulated, and I’ve had serious moisture issues since I’ve lived here. This air exchanger has dropped the humidity dramatically and the big benefit is that is circulating the interior air all through the house, so the heat from the RMH is getting distributed much better. It's still hard to keep up, and I've still got a cook stove in the upstairs somewhere in development. But no, the potbelly has retired.
Blah blah blah…. Where’s my George Washington? Haha. Hope you’re all doing well, and encouraging you to get out there be that change in your own small way! Happy 2014.
"Knowledge is power. Arm yourself."