November 2009 Update
www.eco-sense.ca

First the technical stuff…our humanure compost pile is maintaining a steamy 120*F (49*C) and our root cellar is slowly dropping and is currently at 44*F (6*C). All of this achieved with mud and shit…mud for the root cellar and human waste resources for the compost. Highly civilized, low tech, and affordable.

We have included our most recent net zero energy graph. This graph plots our weekly energy numbers by subtracting what we use from what our solar panels produce on a weekly basis. This graph is a cumulative total. We started keeping track Feb 2, 2009. In April of this year we starting producing more electricity that we consumed. Our goal is to be net zero in a 12 month period which means that by the end of this graph (Feb 1, 2010) this line will be above the zero line.

The next graph is great too because is really shows the seasonal differences between what we produce and what we use.

BCSEA Eco-celebrity award: We were recently honored at a BCSEA sponsored event at David and Norma Butterfield’s place in Victoria. Other “Eco-Celebrities” attending were Brandy Gallager, Andrew Weaver, Joe Van Bellingham, and Kevin Pegg. It was actually quite humbling for us to be included in such a gathering, but to be honest, it was the inspirational boost we both needed. So, we cleaned up a bit and headed out for a really fun evening of socializing with so many of the movers and shakers trying to make our world a better place. There is so much positive action going on right here in Victoria/Vancouver Island. It gave us hope…because as Elizabeth May said at a recent indoor Climate Action Rally attended by over 1000 people…Hope is a VERB and looks like people with their sleeves rolled up. All the people at the BCSEA definately have their sleeves rolled up. Check out http://www.bcsea.org/blog/tom-arnold/2009/11/19/celebrating-local-climate-heroes to see the full story.

Emily writes a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper: Never to be left out and not do her part, our daughter Emily, who is 9, is also rolling up her sleeves and took it upon herself to ask Mr. Harper to help with climate change. She hand wrote this in a kids workbook and then typed it into the computer.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper

I Thought for Christmas instead of asking Santa for the best present, I know about Santa I know who he is, even if Santa was real he couldn’t provide this gift. So I’m asking you to help my generation and (if you have them) your kids generation. Please help with climate change. I have heard lots of horrible things about it and my brother and I have cried about the things that have happened. Think, people have died. I want help, I don’t like animals dieing from climate change. What if you were them? What if you were suffocated? I don’t just want you to go out and say “All right everybody turn off your lights for two minutes every year” I want real help I want something to live. Although I care about myself I want other things to live too. So I’m asking you one more time PLEASE help with climate change.

Will you help?
Please answer all my questions.

Sincerely,
Emily
Age 9

Arcade Journal (Architecture and Design in the Pacific Northwest): We have also been practicing our writing skills for an article on Rain water harvesting for this amazing architectural journal. Issues are available on line and we will post on face book when the article comes out on Dec. 2, 2009. Check out http://www.arcadejournal.com/public/currentIssue.aspx for current issues. We were invited to head down to Seattle for the celebratory launch of this new issue with guest editor Jason McLennon, but decided it was best to stay home.

Website update: The Eco-Sense website will be updated in a couple days with more info and policy work that we have done. Our links and resources section will also be redone to keep it current and will include a section for downloads. www.eco-sense.ca
Falling apart: Ice sheets disintegrating, CO2 levels rising, floods, storms, ocean acidification, droughts, rising sea levels, and even a bit of lime plaster falling off our house. But we all saw it coming…no surprises. Our brown coat plaster was way too smooth on parts of our home’s east wall and for three months we have been waiting for a loose piece of lime plaster to fall off. We were just praying that it wouldn’t fall off during a tour we had a couple weeks ago with a group of enthusiastic VP’s of banks from Ontario and Quebec. Well the plaster finally fell of during that big wind storm last week to reveal beautiful smooth and completely dry brown coat plaster. See photos below. The good news is that because this is a cob house it’s mainly cosmetic. A house like ours without a lime plaster would probably only last 100-200 or so years…as opposed to 500 or so with the lime plaster. The section will be re-plastered next March with the addition of an expansion joint as this is the area where the first and second floors come together. If anyone out there would like some more technical advice for their own jobs to avoid this same issue, we would be more than pleased to share our experiences here.

101 solutions to global climate change: Guy Dauncey’s new book is out and it is an excellent read right from the sobering facts of the problem to the inspirational solutions. Our family photo (below) made it into the book for solution number “Solution 1: Calculate Your Carbon Footprint”. Our calculated footprint is about 2.85 tonnes each. For comparison the average Canadian carbon footprint is 18.8 tonnes. The average footprint world wide is 4.5 tonnes. The science tells us we need to drop to a global average of 1 tonne per person. See the latest science released this week at http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/

Local food: Eating local has been a passion of ours for many years. From organic to a lot less meat we have explored the local eating opportunities. I have also just read the 100 mile diet and would recommend this book to everyone. (Thanks Joy for passing this book on to me). It made me laugh until I cried and it was so comforting to read something that I could really relate to. The challenge and the fun that comes from getting to know your local farmers, preparing food, the excitement of the always changing seasons, and the frozen hands out harvesting winter veggies in your own garden are the simple joys that truly give meaning to ones days. We have become so much more in tune with food and the seasons and have discovered some amazing pleasures such as the first taste of every bit of seasonal food…and who new that fresh roasted acorn squash seeds are better than potato chips…and that so much emotion could be attached to sharing our only cauliflower with a mouse. I have come to realize that the simpler my tasks are the happier I am. And I don’t mean to imply that growing food is simple; it’s damned hard work; but just that it’s a basic task related to my food, my health, my environment, and my family dinner time…my own simple pleasures! It’s a lot more rewarding than fighting with my computer and an outdated operating system.

If you do anything for climate change…eating locally (and preferably organically) will have the biggest impact on your environment, your community, and your health.

GST refund for owner built home: I have been working on claiming the GST credit for our cob home…Very challenging paperwork indeed as every purchase (all 402 GST eligible purchases) has to be placed into one of the standard categories…there is no category for solar, and I am still scratching my head as to where to put all that sand…wall framing, wood floors, exterior finish, interior decoration…? Thank goodness I didn’t pay GST on the horse manure. I ended up putting the solar PV, solar thermal, and the rain water system into utility connections – after all, our home is connected… to Mother Nature’s bountiful utility.

Embodied Energy: One of the most disturbing revelations for us is realizing that all the carbon calculators out there from municipal to personal conveniently omit the GHG’s that come from the raw extraction, manufacture, and transport of all of our stuff. This is huge! The atmosphere does not have a gate and decide which CO2 molecules to allow up there, but we decide which ones to include in our calculations. I am told that people can’t agree on how much that it should be…so, while we debate this issue it’s best to just not include it. I am also told that the general population can’t handle this reality. So am I to understand that the public would view the carbon footprint of a pair of runners made in China as the gas they expended to drive to the store to purchase them, how stupid! So for now all of the data on GHG emissions is based almost solely on direct operations. Meanwhile CO2 levels continue to rise. Once again, check out the latest science at http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/

To see a really entertaining and informative lecture by Saul Griffith, an engineer who specializes in embodied energy of STUFF, check out this link. http://www.poptech.org/popcasts/?viewcastid=243

Facebook: We have finally succumbed to social pressure, I mean social networking tools, and are becoming quite active on facebook. If you want to hang out with us and share rants, spews, and other relevant and or fun postings on this crazy reality we call life we would love to have you join us. This is a powerful tool to share news and events on what is really going on locally and around the world.

And now…the reality rant…Life in the Twilight Zone!

We wade through the news, the email lists-serves, the internet, and keep an ear open listening to people, credible people like Andrew Weaver saying that we have to transition to a near zero carbon planet NOW. This means a total carbon footprint of less than 1 tonne per person globally within the next 10-20 years. (Our family is at 2.85 tonnes each). This data doesn’t come from some financially motivated flake spewing unverified pseudo science. This is PEER review science backed up by hard cold facts from the most well respected scientists on the planet…not the entertaining headlines of the national Enquirer. If we don’t achieve this reduction in GHG emissions the science tells us that it is highly probable that by the end of THIS century we could hit a 6 degree Celsius rise in global temperature, obliterating life as we know it. The threat doesn’t get any more real than that!

Obliterating life as we know it! Hmmm, adaptation strategies don’t cut it. If we don’t change, kids born into this world now will die prematurely from the direct and indirect effects of climate change. Not a thought a parent relishes, but unless the human species completely changes now this is what is coming.

So given these highly probably global outcomes what do we see in our culture… we see people talking about a crib recall after four children have died, while the headline news should have been the release of the newest science from the consortium of (IPCC) scientists discussing highly probable environmental collapse. What we should have been hearing is a recall on carbon… not cribs! Let’s see…four babies (terrible)…all babies (unthinkable). Which is I guess why the majority of people can’t think about this…we can deal with the crib…just improve it a bit, and create some more regulations…but climate collapse…head in the sand…or the bottle…or the TV.

Had enough yet…to go on… the latest science says we absolutely have to stop emitting CO2, yet the news is all about trading carbon. Wait a minute… why would we want to trade something we shouldn’t have… shouldn’t this be illegal? Simply put, there is money to be made trading carbon by the few who understand this financial perversion. We vote for a carbon TAX.

I asked our kids if they ever have anyone else in their lives discuss climate change with them, teachers, friends, their other parents (we have them half time)… nope again! “Why do you think this is?” I ask. They respond with “because parents don’t want their kids to be different at school and be called climate nerds.” “Nope!” I respond. “It’s because parents don’t want to scare their kids.” Then I questioned myself, and thought instead that too many parents would have to do something if they acknowledged climate change existed. Our generation and those before us created this problem and we must stand with them. We are abandoning our children…this is not what parents normally do.

We listen to all the tragic decisions coming out of Ottawa, the list is long, and yet the conservatives are gaining strength? Climate denial adds on CFAX from the Friends of Science (funded by Exxon Mobile) when 99.5% of the science supports climate change? Even the Fraser Institute has you tube videos denying the science, and then there is that guy on Cross Country Checkup… with the huge head… the martian guy.

There is this huge gap between what is physically occurring to our planet and the global ignorance of human civilization. We don’t get it and regularly question our own sanity. Why do we observe something so terrible yet others do not? Its like reality doesn’t exist, the plane we exist on is one level removed from the rest of civilization where we have this one way looking glass and can watch this zombie society knowingly destroy itself; watching them smile and unquestionably walk into a CO2 gas chamber. It’s like one of those really terrifying childhood nightmares where we are screaming the warnings but our voices are nothing more than noise.

The world doesn’t have to be like this…the future can be joyful and beautiful. But we have to accept some realities first; take a deep breath and get to work. The science tells us we have a bit of room to transition to this better world and we need to use our allowable quota of oil and GHG emissions wisely. Our entire world society needs to re-tool, build transit, grow local organic food, create a sustainable economic system that mimics ecology where resources evolve and change but do not grow, and most of all we need to share our full creative potentials in this fully engaging expression of humanities beauty.

What can you do? Demand climate change deals at Copenhagen, and all levels of government. Write letters. Get involved politically. EAT local organic food. Eat less meat. Buy less stuff from the old economy and spend your money locally on more sustainable products. Drive less…a lot less! Celebrate and protect nature. Join local groups for friendship and support; join non profit groups trying to make a difference. Create your own group. Talk to your friends and family about climate change.

Remember…HOPE is a VERB and looks like people with their sleeves rolled up.

HELP!

Ann and Gord

Prime Minister Stephen Harper

I Thought for Christmas instead of asking Santa for the best present, I know about Santa I know who he is, even if Santa was real he couldn’t provide this gift. So I’m asking you to help my generation and (if you have them) your kids generation. Please help with climate change. I have heard lots of horrible things about it and my brother and I have cried about the things that have happened. Think, people have died. I want help, I don’t like animals dieing from climate change. What if you were them? What if you were suffocated? I don’t just want you to go out and say “All right everybody turn off your lights for two minutes every year” I want real help. I want something to live. Although I care about myself I want other things to live too. So I’m asking you one more time PLEASE help with climate change.

Will you help?
Please answer all my questions.

Sincerely,
Emily
Age 9

August 2009…on the verge…of something…

We continue to be inspired and disturbed, optimistic and pessimistic, excited and depressed. Seems that we are also not alone in these oscillating waves of emotion. But what is clear is that it’s emotion in the form of love, passion, and fulfillment that is driving us towards a sustainable future and giving meaning to our lives. We feel driven to do what it is we do. Check out the end of this email to see our latest ideas…

So here’s a quick snapshot for the goings on here at Eco-Sense.
• A busy summer building the cob bathroom (with composting toilet) at the local lake. So far we have about 150 hours of volunteer time invested.
o Donations are being accepted to the “Highland Park and Recreation Association”. Tax receipts issued for amounts over $50.
o There has been a great deal of publicity on this project (and composting toilets) including the Goldstream Gazette, CBC radio, Monday Magazine, and Chek TV. It’s been busy around here!

• We have completed the cold storage (root cellar) here at Eco-Sense and had a series of workshops throughout the summer. We have met so many wonderful people that have become friends. The little cob building is so beautiful decorated with frogs, lizards, snakes, and dragonflies. Thanks to all that helped and learned.

• Harrowsmith’s photographer was here on a holiday Monday at 6am to photograph our home at sunrise. The issue will be out next spring. The home is looking great with all the gardens.

• We have been interviewed by a few people who are writing books, and filming documentaries trying to create a more sustainable and fun world. Check out the trailer for the upcoming documentary film “Powerful” by David Chernechenko”. www.livinglightly.ca/powerful/
• Gord built a solar dehydrator

• We are busy canning and drying food from our garden to support our goals of eating local…not too mention the cost savings in line with our small income.
• We installed an earthen floor in a bathroom at Highlands Twin Flower Park. Ann was without a vehicle for the commute home, so she simply walked home a couple times…over some mountains and through a valley in Thetis Lakes Park. She loved it.
• We have made up bobcat cob, and more rototiller cob and have even done some cob delivery to Victoria for the building of a cob bench.
• Eco-Sense is busy applying for grants to fully study the energy systems of our home. We will keep you posted.
• Gord gave a course at Our Ecovillage www.ourecovillage.org on grey water resource recovery and the living biofilter.
• We changed our filter for the grey water system. Wow working great. Check out all the worms in the old filter.

• We are spending our fall doing some desperately needed paid work as well as a few projects here at Eco-Sense such as building a wood shed and a cover over the back door to the house. We are also hoping to squeeze in a short kayak trip early this fall.
• We continue to be involved in various community groups. The Highlands Sustainability Task Force, the Community Centre Task Force and the Highlands Stewardship Foundation.
• TOURS: Next public tour is Sunday Sept 6th, 2009 from 10am to 12:30pm. $20. There will also be a public tour Sunday Oct. 4th, 2009, but we will take the winter off for public tours. Private tours and consultations may still be booked. Please check out the website for rates.

And finally…what if…
• What if there was a large parcel of land near Eco-Sense that had lots of arable land for farming, grazing land for animals, protected wetlands, trail access to the Galloping Goose, and a spectacular valley with magnificent rocky viewpoint outcroppings.
• What if this could potentially become a permaculture farm (agricultural reserve) with 10 small dwellings
• What if these dwellings could become a sustainable net zero energy, net zero water, and zero waste community.
• What if the land was co-owned by the residents and the dwellings were individually owned
• What if these dwellings were luxuriously simply…Simply luxurious earthen buildings; some cob, and some post/beam light/clay. All local, all natural, all less life stuff…MORE LIFE STYLE.
• What if this was affordable?
• What if Eco-Sense was the developer?

If this vision sounds as interesting to you as it does to us…

Comments?

A Societal Shift -Take ten

It has been three months and the update has been re-created maybe 10 times, each time with a stalled release. One might almost think we were attempting to write it by committee. We have been excited by the inspiration of those coming through the house, frustrated with lack of Global progress on climate change, overwhelmed with huge swarms of students, and tired by the plague known as “busy mind syndrome” (BMS) resulting in lack of sleep. Ann had a particularly difficult month with BMS coupled with PMS. There is no doubt that this update could be easily classified as having “multiple personality disorder”. With this said we pre-warn you that you may be amused and abused by this update.

We are trying to condense the highlights of our thoughts over the past three months, and in doing so have sadly left out some wonderful stories, humorous episodes, and acidic rants that will remain in our minds haunting us until they find an outlet. So to begin lets talk about some bad language.

Bad Language
We firmly believe that the language we use paints the path on the roadmap we follow into the future. Here are a couple examples where we have tried to alter language diverting from a dangerous path to a sustainable path. I guess the first example of a bad use of words would be “road map”… unless of course we see our future filled with roads, Hmmm how about using “trails and transit map”.

Participatory Land Planning – We are presently trying to influence our community in their vision by replacing the term “Land Use” with “Land Participation”. The word use, implies consume whereas the word participate implies to co-operate with others (human and non-human). All our cities and municipalities write their official community plans supplanted around land use patterns, or should we clearly say land consumption patterns. This implies we are separate entities from the land, therefore not part of the ecosystem. Instead we think that all municipalities need to begin to talk about “Land Participation” or “Participatory Land Planning”. We are participants with the land and the living systems and need to work co-operatively and play by the rules of the ecosystem.

Resource Recovery – All our building codes are written to define ways to deal with waste, underpinning policies that focus on waste disposal systems and sanitary sewerage. Have you ever wondered why there is no term in the code called resource recovery? If there is no waste in nature then why do we create a language to allow such? I guess waste is another “stupid human concept” (SHC). We suggest “resource recovery” replace “waste disposal” as an alternative.

For that matter while on the topic of SHCs, turning back to sanitary sewers… are they sanitary? And for whom… the fish, the rats, the workers that fix/clean them? Are they sanitary when they get plugged up? Are they sanitary when rains fall and create floods? Are they sanitary when the outflows reach the beaches, become absorbed by the shellfish? Does a Sanitary Sewer dismiss the existence of a sanitary compost, or sanitary greywater re-use? It is hard to convince the authorities of an alternative when they only know one concept and view it as “sanitary”. Sanitary…my Ass.

“Green” Development – Won’t even go there.

Changing language is part of a societal shift, but committees don’t make this happen quickly. Here’s an example…give a small committee a single question such as… “How do you skin a cat?”

Is there a right way and a wrong way to skin a cat? Should you start from the tail and work forward, or start from the head? How would a committee decide… and what if there was a cat lover on the committee… and a dog, a bird… a butcher and a taxidermist?

Obviously something seemingly simple becomes infinitely more complex with endless problems with many equally valid points of view.

The complexity of the endless problems we face as small local communities and as a species seems to be as intricate and interwoven as the planetary ecosystem that is collapsing. The differences in opinions and varied visions to skin the same cat, either by starting from the tail or the head result in our committees continuing to dissect the issues and compartmentalize the problems loosing track of the underlying problem as a whole. It seems we continually try to solve these endlessly divergent problems and instead of arriving at converging solutions, we create increasing complexity. Our approach just doesn’t seem to be working.

Emily’s Answer to this question over dinner one night…she’s 9.
We posed the question to the kids at the dinner table. In a flash Emily had an answer that Ann and I were stunned with. Here it is…”The group all shows respect for the cat and the cat lover, the taxidermist skins the cat and gets the fur, the butcher gets the meat, the dog gets the tail, and the bird gets to watch.” Simple.

Now, how do Adults deal with divergent problems?
We are part of a public email list that focuses on sustainable energy. (Surprised?). We recently had two people respond to our comment that we need to use less energy before we build more power infrastructure in BC. Here is the more polite of the two public responses:

Saintly ideas of voluntary simplicity, no travel and minimal commuting is not a reality for most people, and likely will not be. If you have already resigned the profane, mainstream social narrative to a destruction scenario, and aren’t responsible for anyone else’s well-being other than your own, than its easy to dismiss the construction of major new renewable energy as just “feeding the consumer lifestyle, the green edition”. But simple dreams of co-operative urban farms, solar panels, candlelight and peace festivals isn’t going to cover the scope of it, as lovely as that sounds.

Yes, I am sure all who know us are aware that these email comments do not even slightly reflect what we are doing or trying to accomplish. We actually have never participated in a candlelight or peace festival…though these both would be admirable pursuits…better than going shopping at the mall with over extended credit cards to fill empty voids.

Here are some saintly words of wisdom from Paul Hawken.

Paul Hawken – part of his Commencment Speech to the graduating class of 2009 of the University of Portland:

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

This provides a nice segway to …. Hmmm how about one of our profane, mainstream social narrative experiences. Yes what a great idea.

Profane or Profanity… TV
We had visitors here this past month on a “visit” who besides talking about solar heated swimming pools and million dollar homes with self opening windows and ground source heat pumps, asked, “Where is your TV?” Ann said “We don’t have one”. The instantaneous response of the visitor was “What do the kids do?” The short answer should have been “They THINK damn it”, instead Ann just stood there stunned at the question.

Turn the clock back 12 years.
Gord turned his TV off 12 years ago, a time when work started at 5 am and ended at 6pm, doing a job where there wasn’t 30 seconds during that day wherein he had his own time in his own head for himself. Coming home landed him in front of the TV to try to unwind himself. Funny enough the TV also didn’t offer any time for him, instead removing any such needed time completely from existence. With the bold step of turning off the tube, all of a sudden there was time to read, create a garden, and draw house plans… there was time to get off the brainwashing train and dream.

Move the clock forward to today.
What do the kids do without a TV? They read books, use their imagination to make up games, (inside and out), they talk more (maybe Emily should be placed in front of the TV), ask questions, want to spend time with you, they draw pictures, cut out cardboard and make sustainable towns, they play in their little garden plot, look at snakes, observe the baby birds’ goofy flight patterns, learn what wild plants they can eat, report on the compost temperature and the list goes on. They have long since lost the desire for things they don’t see in the advertisements… those things that tell you what you are “supposed” to have or be… or those things you “deserve” to have.

Our kids befriend other kids not exposed to TV, quickly emerging into imaginative game creation and not games revolving around TV characters. They seem eager to accept novel new games to play… they are rarely bored… original imagination and creativity dominate because they are used to doing something with what they have… their brains.

BUT… The dark side has power!
This said the TV has this unspeakable power. We went into the credit union to open an Eco-Sense account and sat in the lobby; 15 feet away were three TV screens and no sound. What were the kids and Gord doing? Staring blankly. A month later when Gord and Emily sat in the walk-in clinic there was another TV screen showing something… with no sound… and what were Gord and Emily doing? Watching with glazed eyes…

Gord turned to Emily after a couple of minutes and said “Don’t you find it strange that we are looking at the TV and not talking, not knowing what is happening on the TV, and we are just glued to it?” At that moment we consciously made the effort to not look. That is when Emily started talking again. Gord quickly ran for the remote!

The Real Problem
The problem is not Peak Oil, climate change, food sovereignty, energy security, GHG’s, transportation, social justice, carbon sequestration, watershed management, sustainable energy, run of river hydro, adaptation, affordable housing, water, energy and resource conservation, habitat loss, or green building. The REAL problem is how we live as human beings, on a regional/community level and a global level. The underlying ramifications of how we live cannot be fixed by increasing complexity within the same framework. If we do not address the causative factor we will only continue to create more issues to try and remediate. We need a societal shift wherein we are not always expending our energies trying to fix the consequences of our actions. Quite bluntly IF IT HURTS, STOP DOING IT.

The message of sustainability has become so complex that it is increasingly difficult to unite and engage the public.

The message needs to be simplified, personalized, and tangible results achieved in a short period of time. We need a complete overhaul of our taxation system from municipal right up to federal. Sustainability in ALL forms needs to be rewarded. Tax the bad, and reward the good. A simplified tax system is essential. Use the best of Capitalism and Socialism to create Sustianableism which fosters sustainable green economies and focuses on strengthening local communities.

To accomplish the seemingly impossible we need leaders with vision to inspire and lead the people with a SIMPLE clear and achievable vision with goals that personalizes the message so that citizens can unite in a common vision. We need to stop adding layers of complexity to an already complex set of rules, but throw the rules out and start anew. Anyone ever heard of “The Law of Diminishing Returns”?

The past three months – a point form update
- Gave a Floors and Counters Course – everyone left with a short booklet and their own countertop.
- Gave a solar PV introduction course
- made and delivered our first batch of tractor-cob into Victoria for a cob bench
- had workshops to build the cold storage with living roof – now completed and drying and getting ready to plaster (this workshop is full)
- LOTS of tours, June was our busiest month ever. (next public tour is Sunday August 2 – call or email to book a spot)
- second visit from Harrowsmith – article due next spring
- involvement with Highlands community groups (various task forces and the Mary Lake Project)
- just started the Cob bathroom at Eagles Lake complete with composting toilet… a month of our volunteer labour.

So there it is…what a blur.

And finally a last minute submission demonstrating the absurd. We have a client on the Sunshine Coast trying to build two small homes for herself and her daughter…small, recycled and sustainable! One home is completely recycled/reassembled, the other a 600 sqr ft load bearing cob home. The major hurdle here is the Home Protection Office – the very same one that has gone bankrupt and asking the BC Government for money. They have told these people that they are not allowed to build these two tiny dwellings for a family to live on the same land, and that they, two single women, have to apply to be builders to build these homes, otherwise they have to build one and then once final occupancy is gained wait 18 months to start the other. It would however be possible, legal, and even much simpler for the mother and daughter to build a monster luxury unsustainable home. And it gets worse…They are told to register as builders, but then they couldn’t actually register as builders because it is not yet possible for a builder to build cob homes…only owner/builders can build a cob home. Huh? Not only is the HPO poorly managed, their policies are anti-family and as we have learned… anti-sustainable. The HPO once showed up here at Eco-Sense (without notice) after reading about our home in a Vancouver newspaper…our home was reported as a duplex where parents lived along side their daughter and family. Can you imagine that…three generations living together! Shame on them! If they are looking for a productive place to improve and ensure the quality of homes, why don’t they focus on all those toxic, plastic wrapped rotting examples of modern energy intensive homes we call “built to code”.

Rant, rant, rant,

Sincerely,
Gord and Ann

Next Tour: This Sunday May 3rd from 10am to 12:30 pm. Please contact us to reserve your spot. ann@eco-sense.ca or 250-478-2680

The Update… a little late
Every month lends to a dilemma, we usually burst into the month with vigor, spewing thoughts, experiences and new found knowledge, feverishly writing our updates early so as the month draws to a close the update will just need a little tinkering. Then the dilemma, we enter the second, third and fourth weeks of the month…and at month end we open up the saved file…. This month has turned into three months without an update.

So what are the topics for this month? Local food…Ann’s rant on Sustainability in the Highlands…Public tours…Workshops…swine flu…and finally…Eco-Sense T-Shirts!

Tours:
If the recent public tour of April 5, 2009 is any sign… it’s going to be long. Our April tour from 10 am-12:30 (2 ½ hours) turned into a 10am… till 2:10 pm. It was foreshadowed when just before the tour Ann turned to Gord and said “OK! I’ll let you talk today.” Then came the group introductions where people briefly express their areas of interest, at which point Gord turned to Ann and said… “WOW… this… is going to be a long tour.”

T-Shirts for the triple bottom line:
This month we wanted to talk policy, food sovereignty, energy decentralization, and the immense amount of interest people have in sustainable everything. But before everything else… to respond to the question that we have always said “NO” to and now say “YES”. Yes, we now have Eco-Sense T-shirts available, despite marketing and logos going against all our values, and being terrible with anything sales related, we have broken down from the requests. I can just see it… Move on over Martha Stewart… it says “Eco-Sense” on that compost thermometer! So for all those interested in their very own Eco-Sense organic cotton T-Shirt they are now available. $20 (Sorry, no thermometers yet.)

Highlands Sustainability Task Force:
Ann is the sole female member on the newly formed Highlands Sustainability Task force that has six month to come up with a plan to present to council. This is proving to be a very interesting process for Ann who is new to the committee method and fears too much talk and not enough action. But those with much more committee experience feel that things are moving very quickly…interesting to observe the different perspectives on progress. But then, Ann and Gord are well known for their rapid progress with Eco-Sense and getting things done.

Eco-Sense and Bare Mountain:
Ann presented some innovative outside the box ideas to the nine member task force last week. It was well received by most, except one task force member, (a Bear Mountain property developer), who repeated laughed and rolled his eyes at the ideas presented.

Last fall Ann started thinking about sustainability in relation to municipal taxes when the family received their 2008 BC assessment on the Eco-Sense home. Basically the family will be paying extra municipal taxes because of their $80,000 sustainable energy investment for all their future energy generation. The PDF version of this power point presentation is available here: http://highlands-sustainability.wikidot.com/heat-tax-presentation

The basic concept for the Highlands Eco-Action Tax (HEAT) is that our homes and the way we live within them impacts “Natural Capital”. These impacts, from resource use to carbon footprint can be offset in three major ways.
1. Environmental Capital (lifestyle changes and efficiencies)
2. Social Capital (volunteerism – personal time and energy)
3. Financial Capital (money)

Check out the presentation to learn about these ideas. It is Ann’s hope that many more ideas will be spawned from this initial discussion.

Changing minds and behaviours:
It seems that our biggest challenge as a species is how to change our behaviors. It is our opinion that people will only change VERY slowly unless there is an immediate threat or a financial stick. Our Sustainability Task Force has to come up with ideas to effect change but it seems that the public doesn’t want to change their behaviours, doesn’t want to pay for their impacts, but wants climate change and green energy to be addressed. We need a Reality Check…the threat from converging catastrophes is not going to have a happy fairy tale ending without some real action. We all need to change behaviours, change lifestyles, reinvent a sustainable economy, and throw tonnes of money at these actions… without this we are living in a fairy tale world. Our politicians are unlikely to lead us here, so we all need to create the movement so the brave politicians can then jump in front of the parade and start to lead.

Teaching about Food Sovereignty:
How do you teach your kids about the importance of food sovereignty, besides giving one and not the other dinner, fend off the hungry one with a dangerous compost thermometer as a weapon and an ORGANIC COTTON Eco-Sense T-Shirt as a distraction? At the Baird house, we don’t actually starve any kids to teach food sovereignty, but we do initiate discussions about food at the dinner table. What better way to learn about food while you are breaking bread together. The other benefit is that no kids dare complain about the dinner contents…

Really local food:
This month starts with deciding to prepare for chickens… (vegans cover your ears)… meat birds to be exact. Yup, we are busy considering the implication of raising a few meat birds while eating our lentil, sesame seed, sunflower seed, and raisin dahl. The discussions include the kids planning to each raise their own chicks. This is a big step on behalf of the kids and Ann (who regularly cuddle the laying hens), all willing to move forward with this plan. Gord, pleased with the level of rational, notes how great it would be, and how special it would be, for Emily and Parker to each have their own special chicken… for their birthday dinner! Ann almost spit out her lentils and the kids both fell silent and cocked their heads as if to process what they thought they just heard… all while Gord spilled into tears of laughter.

Food security starts with knowing where your food comes from, and being comfortable on how to grow, manage and process it yourself or support local farmers doing the same. If one chooses to eat meat one needs to accept that meat comes from living creatures. Eating local for us means eating some local, organic, and well treated animals.

We had some friends over earlier in the month and the discussion arose about the costs of food. In this home we spend $300/month on food for Ann, Gord, Emily and Parker. This includes the $100 spent on local goat milk. We look at our dinners with excitement wondering what innovation will arrive on the table. As Gord makes the kids lunches… there is a more resigned excitement… and when the morning brings oatmeal the kids are surprisingly full from the dinner the night before. We use simple ingredients, nothing fancy, but good and healthy.

One key step to sustainability is learning how to cook with basic ingredients, like beans, and turnip, and spices, and so on. Breads are homemade with ground grains, seeds, nuts and our ladies eggs; we always look forward to a new batch of bread every two days.

Swine Flu:

We are amazed at the speed that the world can act when there is an immediate threat to humans like Swine Flu or the economic threat of DEPRESSION…yes we said the “D” word!!! Flood waters of climate change are a heck of a lot more disastrous than epidemics and not being able to buy a home or new American made car… and no action on this will (is) resulting in much more harm to the many living populations living on the earth. The most dangerous swine flu is the viral pigs protecting their fat hams at the expense of the climate. OOOPS… a rant. (Apologies to the actually pigs that are beautiful intelligent creatures, that unfortunately we have attached negative connotations)

And just so everyone knows…every rant gets embedded into the cob…to be preserved for five hundred or so years. Our email updates from the past year are going into the walls of our cold storage building to be constructed this year…we may even slip some history into the cob walls of the bathroom at Eagles Lake. If anyone has items they wish preserved please let us know. There is SOOOO much going on these days that needs to be preserved for future generations in non electronic format.

Workshops and Courses:
We are doing lots of teaching this year from our tours to solar PV to earthen floors and counters, to hands on cob workshops, to resource recovery (grey water and, yes, s*h*i*t, recovery). Check out our website or follow this link. http://www.islandnet.com/~anngord/services.html#tours

Ok, there it is!!!
Ann and Gord

Energy and the Living Building Vision

Gone are the days when the Eco-Sense updates bubbled with visions of our dreams, and anecdotal observations of absurdities in our society. Reality is here; now is when we find out whether all our talk and thoughts amount to much. Reality is always more scary than dreams.

Yes the house is sustainable… it is built with clay, sand, straw and pumice; majority of the wood is recycled; and we are the poster child for pooping in a bucket. But the question that remains unanswered is, “Is our modern high tech. mud home efficient?”

Over a year ago we wrote that “just because you’re green doesn’t mean you’re sustainable”. The general premise of the argument is that green building doesn’t account for the excessive embodied-energy technologies and materials required to make a building efficient, and that a building that is sustainable and “a living building” has greater intrinsic value even if it is less efficient.

Before we spew info that will make all the energy nerds excited we best provide some “energy 101” basics.

All energy can be written in different forms. Electrical energy is measured in kilowatts (kW); BC Hydro charges you on how many kW you consume. Human energy comes in the form of calories; the bathroom scale measures you on how many calories you consume. Thermal energy (heat energy) has many forms, but a common one is BTUs (British Thermal Units). The one thing that can be done with all energy forms, is to translate them into the same unit. We have translated all the energy numbers into kW, as this is the most commonly understood, (and the average hydro customer can put a price on it). More specifically we observe kW in the form of the number of kilowatts consumed over a period of time (kilowatt hours, kWhr), and the space that they are consumed in (kilowatt hours per meter2, or kWhr/m2).

So here we are. Ready? How do we compare to the average, or even to the “Cadillac” of energy efficient homes. (Or perhaps more appropriately, the “Prius” of energy efficiency would be more appropriate. Maybe even in our case, the “bicycle” of energy efficient homes. ) First a quick rundown of some energy consumption figures on housing:

· NRCan’s Nation Energy Use Database (NEUD) shows the BC average at 188.8 kWhr/m2.

· An R2000 home consumes 30% less energy than a standard home, is characterized by a rating of 80 on the Everguide Rating System. This translates into an average of 132 - 139.3 kWhr / m2 per year.

· The Passivhaus standard for central Europe requires that the building fulfills the following requirements:[12][13] (Wikipedia)

o The building must not use more than 15 kWh/m² per year (4746 btu/ft² per year) in heating and cooling energy.

o Total energy consumption (energy for heating, hot water and electricity) must not be more than 42 kWh/m² per year [14]

o Total primary energy consumption (primary energy for heating, hot water and electricity) must not be more than 120 kWh/m² per year (3.79 × 104 btu/ft² per year)

Brief over view of Eco-Sense energy inputs and energy consumption
(This data is gathered over many years… one to be exact…)

(The specifics of these numbers and how they are gathered will be part of the detailed co-authored paper, with our Engineer, Kris Dick , which will be open for peer review).

Annual wood usage

· 2.5 cords hemlock = 11,722.8 kWhr

Annual Solar Thermal Gain

· 60 Mazdon tubes produce annual feed = 2926 kWhr (conservative)

Annual Electrical Energy Inputs

· 2KW array = 4380 kWhr (based on average of 6 hours per day and net zero)

Total energy consumed (by home and its six occupants)

· 19,028.8 kWhrs

· 7.67 kWhr/ft2 (82.5 kWhr/m2), (based on exterior footprint area)

Compared to the Passivhaus standards we use more energy inputs for heating and hot water, at 66KWhr/m2 versus their 42KWhr/m2. But we kick butt on the over all energy numbers where we are at approximately 85KWhr/m2 versus the Passivhaus total of 120 kWhr/m2.

We are 48% more efficient than an R2000 home, the “Cadillac” of energy efficiency in Canada. As compared to the average house in BC we are 67% more efficient. All of this while being more affordable too.

So in summary… we kicked butt!

With all this sustainable and exciting energy news we have finally applied to the “Living Building Challenge” (LBC). During all our tours we talk about our home as being fully integrated into the eco-system that sustains it where there is no division between the dwelling, the occupants, and the environment. Energy and resources flow between them all just like in nature with no waste generated. Maybe we will be the first to qualify for this designation under this Cascadia vision (a chapter of the US and Can. Green Building Councils). But even if we don’t meet all of the prerequisites a great deal will be shared and learned from our experiences.

So we will end the month with a quote we just came across.

“What’s important, is to understand the difference between vision and programs. Programs are inherently reactionary. This doesn’t make them ‘bad’, it just makes them reactionary, meaning that they always follow, never lead…by contrast vision doesn’t wait for something bad to happen, it pursues something desirable. Vision doesn’t oppose; it proposes. It doesn’t stave off defeat; it opens the way to success.” Quote by Daniel Quinn

Ann and Gord Baird

Three Years of Sustained Energy

February 1st is an important date here. It represents Boo’s birthday…he is three. Oh I almost forgot; it is also three years to the day since we moved onto the land and started our new life. On this day, in honour of all the embodied energy found in Boo, we are making this day the beginning of our fiscal year for our energy monitoring for our journey to net zero.

It was three years ago Ann and I moved into the trailer in the middle of a very muddy, wet and cold February and started our attempt at living a more reasonable life. What a difference from this dry and warm February. Looking back over what we have accomplished is… well… hard to describe, as we look at ourselves as being just normal people that just don’t sit down very much. I guess we might have a little bit of embodied energy too.

Charting our Journey to Net Zero Energy

Over the next year we will be charting our net energy use/generation on a weekly basis and sharing this data. This data will allow us to monitor our energy conservation to see our progress. Who knows, maybe we will be a net provider. We have shut power off to the trailers, unplugged our cordless phones, packed away Mom’s rice cooker and electric coffee maker and replaced these with the older and proven technologies of a pot of hot water. Our favorite AC lamps have been converted to DC via cutting and splicing wires and installing DC LED bulbs. We are off and running on our journey to NET ZERO energy so stay tuned to see how we do.

It seems that so far in our multigenerational family the youngest members adapt the quickest and oldest are more set in their ways. Mom practically had tears when we took the rice cooker away…and Dad likes to do beautiful fine precision carpentry…ON THE 240v TABLESAW! Ann has the easiest go of all with her unwavering push for sustainability demonstrated by such acts as unplugging Gord’s vacuum and handing him the broom. She also had a head-start on the rest of us by living off-the-grid for many years.

Energy Waves…AC/DC…radio…microwave…

We had a special guest tour the house last week, Katharina Gustavs, of Rainbow Consulting. Katharina specializes in building biology, and has amazing scientific knowledge of different energy fields (EMF, radio, etc), and the potential health effects of exposure. She has been here on several occasions before, and offered to jump on the opportunity to measure the fields in the finished earthen home. We faired very well because of the 20 inch earthen walls, chicken wire formwork in the clay infill walls, and most importantly, having an energy efficient home with less stuff to plug in. So it seems being energy efficient also has an added benefit of less personal exposure to these energy fields.

There was one point at which Katharina was somewhat confused as she was having a reading going off the chart through a wall, which she thought was clay infill. It turned out it was a very nasty type of cordless phone transmitting through a wood framed wall. (If it had been a light clay infill wall the waves would have been blocked). DSS technology in cordless phones with it’s wonderful long range use, is really rather bad. Other things to be avoided are microwave ovens, extension cords around your bed, and wireless internet. Our laptop running on batteries and hard wired to the internet was just fine…but as soon as we plugged it in to recharge, the meters went crazy. DC items tested well, which, lucky for us is our main source of electricity distribution. Katharina’s website is www.buildingbiology.ca and she can provide many simple solutions and lifestyle choice ideas to reduce ones exposure.

2009 Eco-Sense Courses

Eco-Sense course schedule is out and we have lots of exciting opportunities. Topics include Solar PV 101, Earthen Floors and Counters, Resource Recovery (greywater and humanure composting), and a series of workshops on building our cob cold storage. We may also put a course together on LED lighting. Details are listed on the website and on this PDF. http://www.islandnet.com/~anngord/downloads/eco-sense-2009tours-090202.pdf Email or phone to learn more or to reserve your spot.

BC Assessment and Eco-Sense

Our beautiful cob home has now been assessed by the BC Assessment office. Initially we were going to appeal that the appraisal was too high…and then we were going to appeal that it was too low as it didn’t take into account the longevity of the home. The appraisal of our home takes into account one factor; the resale or market value of the home. This has turned out to be quite high because the building is beautiful, desirable, safe, energy efficient, and has very low maintenance or energy costs. This is all good… but, ironically, we will be required to pay municipal taxes on the value of all our future sustainable energy. Everyone seems to agree that this is not right as sustainable energies need to be supported and not penalized. It is also interesting that a building like ours can be built affordably and then appraised and potentially sold for a very high profit. But this won’t happen any time soon as builders and developers are not legally allowed to build this type of structure…YET!

Eco-Sense Tidbits:

· Our next update will be very interesting as we have an upcoming home energy assessment with City Green (http://www.citygreen.ca/) to be followed up with another visit with the A-Channel. Gord has been busy doing all kinds of calculations to be summarized next month in the Eco-Sense Energy Report Card update.

· Last week, we were on the CBC radio again with Mark Forsythe. Our website had over 4600 hits in one day and our email got really busy. Unfortunately the open line archives only last for one week so the interview is no longer available.

· Next tour is Sunday March 1 from 10am to 12:30 . Tour is already half full.

· In about a month we will have a few LED lights available for sale.

· A cob bathroom pilot project is being planned complete with humanure composting toilet system…Very exciting project. Stay tuned

· Our two year old humanure compost sample has been to the lab for bacterial analysis. As expected, it is completely safe for use in our gardens with the added benefit of being very biologically active with tonnes of good bacteria.

Rocks in the Highlands

So there you have it… lots on the go and we are busier than ever digging holes in the rocks to plant apple trees, landscaping with rocks and native plants around our home, planning our rock lined veggie gardens, and Gord the human excavator is preparing the rock foundation for our cold storage. To learn more about rocks in the Highlands tune into to hear Pattie Whitehouse discuss the History of the Highlands in a community written book called “Beautiful Rocks: A History of the Highland District” on Saturday at 1pm on C-FAX 1070.

Thanks,

Gord and Ann

Open for Business Eco-Sense December Update
Moving in…sort of

Christmas drew near, and our goal of being in the home before Christmas, make that last Christmas, is almost realized. Unfortunately, we didn’t have Ann’s mom in before Christmas… as nature played the Harper card and prorogued completion, as well as froze 18 buckets of floor mix together, under a blanket of 26 inches of snow. Imagine what 18 buckets of useless frozen horse manure plaster look like at this time of year in Ottawa? Probably a topic we should all elect to stay clear of. Truth be told - we realized in this cold snap it was best to have someone looking after the trailer to ensure the pipes froze and the outside composting toilet seat stayed dangerously chilly exactly like they had in the prior two winters.

How does cob do in -15 C weather you may wonder? Cob is not ideal for a sub zero climate, but this said it performed amazingly well. When the sun is out, for the five useful hours on a winter day, the solar thermal collectors provide the entire top up heat needed, with input off the roof at 120-140 degrees F. With 70 km/h winds and a temperature of -15 BEFORE WINDCHILL, we needed to use the wood boiler once a day. We used up more wood than we expected; and like every other month for the past year, the windows are cracked open to allow the wet floors, plasters, and paints to dry. We will probably eat through 4 cords of wood this year… ouch. But apparently this is better than most homes our size. Also as expected, our truth window shows the walls still retaining moisture and have not yet fully dried. All along we have said we won’t really know how the building is performing until next winter when the walls are fully dry. All in all, our cob home is quiet, warm, and draft free.

What would you do Differently?
We love questions, but there is one that is really hard to answer. “What would you do differently?” So here it is… we would…

- Double the insulation under the earthen floor to gain an R 25 value.
- Add one additional layer of cushion under the roof membrane to provide peace of mind.
- Not build concrete pads at the three doors
- Not agree with Ann’s request to make homemade door latches.
- Put a larger mechanical room in the center of the house to decrease plumbing and electrical runs, and contain the wood boiler within this room.
- Build the mud room door 2 inches wider
- Add anchors to our wooden sun rays in our earthen floor… what were we thinking?
- Not glue down wood flooring to the earthen sub-floor in the upstairs den.
- Build second story load bearing as first floor or use light clay infill
- Create more earthen counter tops.
- Stored more firewood
- Tracked Ann down and married her sooner
- Located the sun tube directly above the stairs
- Put bathroom switch inside the door
- Be more specific with all family members (ourselves included) about the energy conservation and efficiency required to be Net Zero Energy on a 2 kW solar array.
- Be more realistic with our estimates for how long it takes to build and finish a home…optimism won out here over practical common sense

To balance the “would have should have” of above we have added the next question. What do we love about the home? We love:

- The warmth from the floors
- The wonderful acoustics
- The small but numerous windows providing lots of natural light
- The creative earth and wood forms
- The LED lighting
- The awesome kitchen
- Fresh bread most mornings
- The beautiful shower
- The completely odourless bathroom
- Being able to share a queen bed with Ann… in our bed… finally after three years… and we have been married for four! (Ann hated the trailer and slept first in the loft of the den, and then in the unfinished house)
- Meeting numerous wonderful people and sharing what we know
- Watching the kids the first night they spent in their beds in the house
- Having a warm toilet seat to sit on
- Good Scotch (as we write this update…thanks Ben)
- Being reunited with such simple pleasures as Ann’s much missed soup ladle…there was no room in the trailer for such luxuries.
- The amazing feeling of living in a home that is a creative expression of ourselves.

2009
As we rewrite this update deleting all the pre-Christmas day scrutiny (because we were late in finishing it), we find our minds saturated with the reviews of 2008 and predictions of 2009. It strikes us that 2008 was the year when capitalism and environmentalism collided to send debris flying with cascading effects just beginning to be realized. It’s sadly interesting how the environmental issues have taken a back seat to the economic woes of the masses. Those who take a moment to ponder the crises know that the two cannot be separated as they are actually the same. The good news is that “fixing”, or recreating a sustainable economy will also heal our environment. 2009 looks to be a very pivotal year in our opinion, as this is the year when to put it bluntly, the S#!T hits the fan and humanity makes major choices for the survival of our species. We can choose to cling to our disintegrating capitalist self indulgent lifestyle living beyond our global means OR we can choose the path of simplicity, beauty, community, and family celebrating the richness of all life.

We see the first quarter of 2009 start to look good due to the Obama effect then another crash; see some dinosaur companies going under, observe the forced change (or perhaps collapse) of civilizations, celebrate new opportunities for political reform with increased citizen engagement, and witness the peoples struggle with increased poverty both globally and locally. We can change by force, which will be painful and not so pretty, or we can change by choice with empowerment and joy. We choose the later.

Santa Baby
Hey “Santa Baby”… as we listened to Maude Barlow asking for… well… everything… I wonder what Santa’s carbon footprint is. We have a friend with numerous health issues and a son with asthma. Will they make the connection this year that less crap may mean better health. What better gift could you offer other than good health? Maybe it is really health and happiness that the Grinch has stolen from Christmas.

The Grinch of the Christmas season is really the corporate greed machine, where people’s sense of gratefulness for friends and health is stolen by the mentality of consumption and selfish gratification. The Grinch is the marketing machine telling us what we deserve, like more polyphenol-A in our plastics, and tarsand contaminants in the Athabascan river. Isn’t it odd that people feel guilt and shame if they can’t participate in mindless consumption, if they can’t live up to the status quo?

Not us. For Gord this is the first time in five years of trying to get to that “place” of freedom of shame where a season of expectations has been replaced with a relaxed calmness; a calmness where the kids don’t expect anything; a calmness where the best presents were warm gingerbread cookies and cold milk after playing in the snow, Ann’s sushi on Christmas eve and fresh cinnamon buns Christmas morning. This was our first Christmas where the kids said thanks for spoiling them, in the face of getting two books each and a clothes drying rack for their room.

I am glad our family has reached this place of simplicity, as our prediction for the next few years is rather horrid with food and fuel shortages, rising inflation, rising unemployment, increased homelessness and huge social unrest coupled with drastically reduced social programs to help (we haven’t even put in climate change). Unfortunately it will be the majority of the innocent humans throughout the planet that will suffer the most, and they don’t deserve the fate we have handed them from our greed and our unscrupulous GROWTH economy.

As morbid as the big picture is, we see opportunity in people being forced to change. It has taken five years to become comfortable in not buying xmas gifts, not going on planes for holidays, giving up skiing, not signing the kids up for every activity… it has taken this time for Gord to quit caring what the other parents and neighbors may say because we don’t enroll the kids in lots of activities. We can’t afford these and we choose to educate our kids outside of the box. We expect over the next five years that most of the people in Canada will spend sleepless nights fighting their internal turmoil as they struggle with less…less of all the material things. When you get to this place of voluntary simplicity and stop fighting it we know you’ll be feeling more complete, require less counseling, less Prozac, have healthier fitter bodies, stronger resilient communities, loving families, better self esteem, better lovemaking, more tolerance, and an enriched creativity and appreciation of beauty… remember less life stuff… more lifestyle.

Cabbage, Potatoes, and Carrots
Or is it carrots, cabbage and potatoes… or potatoes, carrots, cabbage? We have spent the past couple months eating what we have, or more importantly what we have grown (while we were building.) Amazingly we have cut our food budget down from $700 to $300 a month for four people… and this includes our fresh milk which is $100 of that.

Ann has made so many wonderful variations that Gord has given up his desire to even try to cook with these three ingredients. The whey from the cheese Ann has been making is used in soups, stews and more. Our evening tea consists of wild mint we found on a hike last spring, our Yerba beuna from the land, local Highlands honey, and a spot of lemon juice.

Now open for business
Ironically in this era of the onset of a depression, as we finish off our first small project (the house), we are eager to start the next. We are open for business. Open to a wide array of sustainable education projects, from books, to tours, to presentations, to house calls, and even toying with a documentary on building a carbon neutral home. (Kind of like the Garbage Warrior…which we have not yet seen).

School Tours
$600 in carbon tax dividends has been donated from generous people, which will be subsidizing six school tours in the coming year. We hope these tours will spawn more school tours or class presentations. Grade sixes seem like a good age.

In Home Sustainability Consulting
We are seeing an interest in people wanting to become more sustainable in their own homes and lives, but not sure quite where to begin. So why not have two rational crazy people in for a session and consult on how to live more affordably and sustainably within your own lifestyle. From learning to cook with basic ingredients, conserving on energy and water, learn if grey water re-use will work in your home, setting up your own composting toilet, rainwater harvesting, to making casein paints, plasters, and learning basic self sufficiency skills, we can help out. Almost sounds like a TV program… “SUSTAINABLE MAKEOVER”. Yikes! Maybe even you are thinking about putting in a suite? We can help you learn what is practical and possible for you.

Specialized One Day Courses
The wonderful alternative energy suppliers are inundated with a lot of questions about the basics… questions and time they rarely can afford to offer unless the customer is really serious. That’s where we come in. We will also be offering one day (4-6 hour) classes covering specific topics on solar photovoltaic energy (from site selection, conservation, efficiency, and the understanding behind volts, amps, watts, line loss, phantom loads, inverters and more). Is PV right for you? We offer a rare opportunity for people to learn about a topic and see how the triple bottom line is applied for REAL!

In the same manner as above we will also teach about greywater, rainwater, solar thermal, composting toilets and more. If you have a group interested in any of these topics and wants to learn about them, in a cozy cob home, just contact us.

Sustainable Building
Onsite teaching of natural building skills, for use in home renos or new construction. We are willing to come and spend a day or more to help people learn about and incorporate sustainable natural methods in their homes. Natural plasters, natural paints, earthen floors, earthen counters, making composting toilets… teaching skills you can use, with materials that are beautiful, natural and inexpensive.

Public Tours
General public tours will continue on the first Sunday of every month…please contact us for reservations. Two and a half hours of applied sustainability, interspersed with laughs and information. It amazes us how many repeat visitors come to see the progress. Maybe they just want a glimpse of Ann in her gumboots. Hmmm… Ann of Green Gumboots? Has a certain familiarity. We put a great deal of time and energy into the info packed tours and will be raising our rates to $20 perperson. The contents of our tip jar will apply to some subsidized tours so please contact us to see if we can offer reduced rates.

Cabinetry
Gord is also craving more custom cabinetry work. This month more cabinets have been made, cabinets with expanding radius curves, incorporating willow (recently brought down from December’s snow), spalded maple for the top, the last scraps of our doug fir for the sides and some juniper scraps from Wise island (the very same juniper our wedding rings are made from). The spalded maple, sanded with 600 grit, is sealed in tung oil and a coat of bees wax from our friend Pattie’s bees. You can’t walk by it without stopping to touch it. This newest cabinet snuggles in to the curved cedar driftwood log that arches up to the ceiling in the kitchen. Pictures will be posted soon. If you have some special wood with history, recycled or milled and want it made into a functional piece of art to enjoy every day just make an appointment to look at our resume of cabinetry in our home, and see what we can create for you.

We also do earthen counters from cob to lime, for kitchens, bathrooms or even desks. And if that doesn’t floor you than we can also do clay floors. And then continue up the walls with plasters and more… OH NO another TV program “This Local Earthen House”

Media update
In the new year Chek TV will be here filming, the Harrowsmith article will be out, and we will receive all the props back from the Royal BC museum. If you know anyone that wants a larger than life picture of Ann and Gord, let us know otherwise we’ll be giving it as a gift to Gord’s oldest brother, Dave, for Christmas next year. (Dave has always been kinda keen to have some of Gord’s artwork on his walls…just kidding).

The last day of 2008 saw Ann lay her last earthen floor in the house. With this project coming to an end, Gord starts the new year scared that with all her free time she’ll catch on that he’s not doing anything and put him to work…

Happy New Year!!! Enjoy the basic things like friends and family and support your community by buying local.

Simply Happy,

Gord and Ann

Getting the Rodents out of Home and Municipal Office

There is no place like home… home is where the heart is. Or should we say there is no place like our “almost” home, and home is where the mouse is.

Inspection

Yes, we passed final electrical inspection, by default because the inspector didn’t show up in the two day window. Apparently a group of inspectors will be coming shortly… this presents yet another educational opportunity. So officially all we need to get final occupancy is the completion of the railing on Merrily and Howie’s deck. We had purchased used fishing net material to fill in under the railing but apparently this does not meet code. So plan B was to use a bit of our left over deer fencing as this is very strong and UV stable…but no go as well as the 1.5 inch toe holds may allow for a child to climb. So once we solve this we can move in…that is after we move a few residents out. With doors being open and all the traffic, our home has had a few guests, which have become long term… perhaps, even a generation or four. There is nothing to eat in the house (clay and sand have no food value) but the squatters like to sleep inside…who could blame them. For months we have been live trapping and releasing outside…they have had peanut butter and oatmeal for months.

Two years ago our trailer was overrun with squatters. It was at this time that Ann moved from the trailer to the loft in the den, and Gord became the door man, carting out cute furry little deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) down the driveway from 11 pm till 4 am, multiple times a night for three months. We were using live traps of course and catering to the mice. After a shear emotional collapse from sleep deprivation, coupled with the incident of Gord chasing a mouse which climbed into Emily’s bunk snuggling in till morning. Gord contemplated mouse-icide rather than mouse-outside.

Our fearless mouse warrior spent a couple hours laying on his back under the trailer painting cayenne pepper and Tabasco sauce on everything that a critter could climb on as per Ann’s suggestion. With burning hands and armpits our problem was solved with never another mouse. Ann’s comment was, “Great, we wont hear them chewing in the walls anymore…just crying”.

Compton Hill Mouse Escapades… part 2

So painting the cob house with cayenne was not an option. This time we started off with a large multiple live mouse trap (a mouse condo) and two snap-kill-the-little-bastards trap. The first night we caught two; one was caught and composted, the other caught and released outside. A couple hours later another was caught in the live trap. Ann decided to capture and mark this unshaven squatter. Lacking the proper mouse tagging equipment she used a permanent marker on it’s… or should I say HIS left ear. (Ann actually has training in live trapping, tagging, weighing, and sexing these cute little rodents – hence Gord has a black left ear and he is confirmed male.) She let HIM loose out across the garden about 100 feet away. Two hours later we caught another, HE remarkably had a black left ear. This time it was Gord’s job to relocate him… about 400 feet away well below the trailers over a steep drop off. In the morning we had caught another well fed cutie… with a black left ear of course.

Parker and Emily were thrilled, especially when Gord told the kids that the mouse was going on a little road trip with them. So down the driveway (about 1000 feet away) and across the road, separated by the large distance and cliffs, “Blacky” was set free.

Three days later, after a quiet lull in the traps… Blacky came home. You should never joke with kids about getting a family pet if you can’t live up to the promise. Luckily the kids understood that if Blacky stayed in a cage in the house, that he would spend his life trying to escape… compared to his normal 8 acres of space. Hmmmm. Maybe it would be best to live in a beautiful park? The kids agreed thankfully.

Blacky now resides in Francis King Park, approximately 9000 feet away, or 21 days of mouse travel time. Stay tuned for front page news and an interview on ‘As it Happens’.

Evolutionary Superiority?

There has not been any activity in the house since. The upsetting lesson learned was that the trailer incident two years earlier was a shear waste on sleep and catch and release. Live trapping is just like a trip to an all inclusive resort. We have developed a huge respect and admiration for these intelligent and adaptive creatures…and the way the world is going these days they do appear much brighter than our own species.

We finally discovered where they were coming in. We have an air intake in the mechanical room which has a metal screen and a one way plastic cover. It appears (as evidenced by the little mouse logs) that they are able to open and close this flap and squeeze through the unbelievably small holes.

We will miss the trailer, with the condensation dripping off the roof vents and the power outages, with no running water or heat, the mice and all. When we started our adventure Parker was 4 feet tall and fit in his bunk; now at age 11, and 5’ 4” tall, with size 6 men’s shoes, he will shortly be able to stretch out in a new bed. Emily’s bunk, which looks like a take off from the rammed earth building method, except where the earth has been replaced by stuffies, books, and not-quite-dirty-enough clothes, lends to a severely decreased bunk space… but warm.

Gord still spends over half his nights in the trailer, possibly still trying to catch up on the lost sleep from two years earlier, or maybe trying to overcome his phobia of little four legged gray ghosts by confronting his fear of the trailer. Ann gets to sleep in luxury… soon to have it shattered by three trailer drowned rats.

So with Christmas coming and the bank account empty it is fitting that we will be opening the storage locker at the bottom of the hill throughout December… discovering lost treasures of clothes, toys, books, and beds that we have forgotten exist over the past three years. How fitting it is for us to be giving ourselves our own recycled gifts of the things we had forgotten we had. Now there is eco-sense!

Natural Capital

As the municipal elections are upon us we urge to all to get out and vote. Our community, our home, is where we have the greatest impact. This local group of neighbors consisting of our friends, family, community, and all other living beings is our buffer and sanctuary from the global pressures that are looming. We need to vote for the people, and all the ecosystems that support us. Natural capital is the resource base from which EVERYTHING ultimately comes…our food, water, and homes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_capital Economic Growth is at the direct expense of natural capital. Virtually all municipal politicians are spouting the key word sustainable in their platforms but few have any clue what this actually means. Economic GROWTH is not sustainable. Anything that depletes our natural capital is not sustainable. What we need are communities truly built on sustainability where economies evolve with a balance between give and take.

In the Highlands.

Our politics have been so nasty here with the big money developers using divide and conquer tactics to split the community and our council, and get what they want…more money. Our natural capital is very large thus the pressures to consume it are big. The lies and manipulations here have created infighting between groups of people that really are not that far apart. We need to strengthen our communities to create local economies, local services, local food, local homes, thus giving employment to all, food to all, housing to all, and community to all.

Here in the Highlands we have created a bumper sticker, “I (heart) Highlands”. However, in this crazy world we cannot display this sticker on our car within 100m of a voting station. Apparently this phrase “I Love Highlands” is considered election propaganda.

Vote local, vote with your heart. We love our Highlands home!

And finally, our BC Assessment appraiser came by this week and you can believe that we have LOTS to say on this issue…but you’ll have to wait until next month’s discussion on the finances of Eco-Sense.

So here’s hoping that we get the rodents out of Highlands council and our home.

Ann and Gord

Old world know-how

By Edward Hill - Goldstream News Gazette

Published: October 14, 2008 1:00 PM

Updated: October 14, 2008 2:11 PM “Eco-sense” house in Highlands on track for five-century-plus lifespanWith trowel in hand, Ben Scott makes lime plastering look easy as he layers ochre coloured mud along a cob wall. In Canada, working with earth plasters is something of a lost art, but done right and the “Eco-sense” house in Highlands could survive well beyond its fifth century.“In the U.K., homes with this exact material have been standing 500 to 700 years,” says Scott, a.k.a. “Scotty.” “Lime plaster and cob go hand-in-hand.”The layer of lime plaster is the last major element for what is now Canada’s most prolific “green” house, built by Ann and Gord Baird. At its core, the two-storey cob building is glorified mud on mud.

The Baird’s project has set precedent for B.C.’s building code, attracted busloads of government officials and sustainability experts, and earned airtime and column inches from media across the country. Royal BC Museum’s B.C. 150th anniversary display has a life-sized poster of the couple and is touring a model of the house with its mobile display. The Bairds “borrowed” Scott from The Land Conservancy, who funded the U.K.-based tradesman to work on a series of heritage buildings in B.C., under a program looking to revive lost or dying trades.The Bairds plan to give two weeks worth of work to the TLC, “ditch digging or whatever they need,” Gord says, for Scott’s plastering time. “I’m not bringing anything new to B.C., but I’m trying to bring awareness back to this material,” Scott says. “ (Lime plaster) is a carbon neutral, completely natural product that protects from moisture rot and gives better air quality.”Layering lime plaster and monitoring as it cures has that feeling of watching paint dry, but it’s a surprisingly detailed process. Properly mixed lime plaster insulates but lets walls breathe, absorbing moisture and carbon dioxide. Minerals in the plaster will flow into small cracks, giving the walls the ability to “self heal.”Modern cement-based stucco is the “fast food” of housing construction, Gord says — it’s cheaper and quick to apply, but doesn’t breathe, doesn’t last as long and isn’t environmentally friendly. “We’re lucky to have met Scotty,” Ann says. “Lime plaster has too many subtleties. It takes an expert to do it properly, but do it properly you’ll protect the building for 500 years.”The project is on year three, a year longer than their estimated construction time, but the pair have done most of the heavy lifting, day after day. Ann says they’ve accomplished what they set out to do: create a house built to code that is “off the grid,” has a vanishing carbon-footprint, while remaining affordable and allowing a high standard of living. The final cost is estimated at $270,000.Solar tubes heat water which in turn is piped through the house for heat. It has solar panels feeding juice to battery packs, uses its grey water for irrigation, among an endless list of “green” designs. With iron-oxide in the plaster, the house tries to fit in with nature, following the colour pallet of surrounding arbutus trees.Dozens of design innovations and building to code has attracted policy-makers and engineers from across North America, and hundreds of people curious about living sustainably.“Key for us was informing the building code and building within the bureaucracy that exists. It’s why the bureaucracy comes and visits,” Ann says. “People see this is a legitimate, comfortable, functional but affordable house. People are going ‘wow this is possible.’”The Bairds are now working on getting the house designated the first “living building,” under the Cascadia Region Green Building Council’s “Living Building Challenge.” A living building needs design appeal, have zero net waste and generate renewable power. The Bairds reckon they are already there. Cascadia first needs to create a category for a single family home. “Getting living building status will help move us into the norm,” Ann says. “Right now we are still outside what is normal.”

For more on the Baird’s house, see www.eco-sense.ca.