Living in 120 Square Feet

I am moving up in the world. I decided to send back the shipping container I have been renting and buy a shed. It is the first thing I have put on a credit card in years, but the monthly payments will be less than what I have been paying to rent a shipping container, and in a couple of years, I will own it. In fact, 88% of my monthly payment will go towards ownership. With the shipping container rental, only 0% went towards ownership. So technically I am not debt free anymore, but my situation is better and my monthly expenses a bit less. 

When living in small spaces, it is important to think in cubic feet, rather than square feet. Believe it or not, inside this tiny shed I have an office, a kitchen, a sitting area, and a bedroom. Bunk beds, shelves, stackable containers, etc help to make the space more functional.

I was debating between purchasing a used shipping container or this shed. The shipping container is larger, more durable, and provides a 2^nd life for used material, but the shed won because it is more suitable for living in temporarily and the angled roof also has potential for water catchment and solar panel installation.  I was also considering building one myself, but I have never built a shed and I needed something fast. Since I will be using the shed for water catchment, I was able to claim a tax exemption, saving me about $200. 

The dome will be twice as big, and when I am able to move into it, the shed will be used as a guesthouse and storage area. 

Kibbutz Lotan in the Arava Desert in Israel

I had the privilege to visit Kibbutz Lotan in the Arava Desert in Israel, an area that hasn't received any significant rainfall in ten years. On average, less than an inch falls per year. Ground water, and a world famous permaculture program makes Lotan an oasis in the desert. Their Bustan Neighborhood is a prototype neighborhood, consisting of a dozen (so far) off-grid strawbale/adobe domes. These were built by the students and teachers of the Green Apprenticeship program. I stayed in one of their domes for two days during their very hot season. Here are some photos.

This is dome # 5, the one I stayed in
The inside of dome # 5
The Bustan Neighborhood
Lush gardens in an unlikely environment
A Desert Oasis
Children's playground...there are over 100 children at Kibbutz LotanMud tiled wall made by children at Kibbutz Lotan

Solar Oven Demonstration

Bathroom wall

Bottle Window
Mike Kaplan explaining the natural cycles and how Humans have strayed
Hebrew Class with Avi

update

I skipped the summer in Terlingua this year and have been traveling instead. Highlights include the Kerrville Folk Festival and almost a month long visit to my former state of Oregon.  

Here are a couple of photo albums from Oregon:

oregon1

oregon2

The heat seems to be following me everywhere I go, even reaching an

 all time high in Portland of 108 degrees. I find that the heat is easier to take in the desert, because it is dryer and my body is not constantly trying to regulate between air conditioned buildings and an outside temperature that really isn't much higher than body temperature. Our bodies have an amazing ability to cool themselves off when given the chance. 

Next month I'll be visiting Israel for the first time. I have some cousins there who I have never met. I will also be visiting Kibbutz Lotan, a community living in strawbale adobe domes and practicing permaculture. 

I'll be back in Terlingua in October to play shows and work on the building.

Things have been going very well musically, which is one of the main reasons I left the 40 hour work week in the city and fled to the desert. Here is a picture from the Kerrville Folk Festival of the 3 Trevors (Myself, Trevor Smith, and Trevor Mills):

Reunited

Don's 1st cousin, Ludelle, and two of her daughters, made the trek down here from Abilene to visit Don this weekend. After trying to locate Don for quite some time, they stumbled upon this blog during an internet search and contacted me a few weeks ago. It had been about 20 years since they had seen each other last. I can tell that they were related to Don, because they all had that same genuine compassion for those around them. We gave them the abbreviated tour of Terlingua and the more in depth tour of Domeland. I think that they were all quite impressed with Don's achievements and the word is that they will be back again in a month. 

Here is Don explaining how his jig creates a template, which when assembled, provides the frame for the dome. The dome in the background is about 1000 square feet on the inside.   

Don talking geometry with Ludell's daughter, Janet. 

Brown Recluse Bite

"How are you doing this morning, Don?"

"Very Bad! We must go to Ojinaga to see a doctor about this spider bite. I think it was a brown recluse. My whole arm is swelling up!"

And so I picked up Don, and off to Mexico we went. Don doesn't have health insurance and so a $20 doctor's visit across the border is quite appealing. He has a certain doctor there that he likes. 

Don couldn't quite remember where the doctor's office was, or even what his name was, and so he wondered around the town showing people his arm and asking questions in broken Spanish. We finally found a woman who spoke perfect English who led us to a very modern building and in it we found Don's Doctor. The visit only took about 15 minutes, Don was prescribed some antibiotics, and then we ate lunch and went grocery shopping. I also took advantage and bought some cemento, which is half the price of cement in the USA. 

On the drive home, we listened to Michael Pollan's The Omnivores Dilemma on audiobooks. Since Don is hard of hearing, I panned the sound over to his side of the car and cranked it. Don was excited about Pollan's viewpoint on food production and kept nodding and agreeing with the points made. 

110 in the shade

I never would have thought that 110 degrees would feel pleasant, but it does in the desert, as long as there is shade. Don and I stuccoed for most of the day at above 100 degrees. It sounds hot, but I'd take it over 85 degrees and humid. The nights are still cooling off into the 60s. 

One way to keep cool out here is to dip your shirt in a bucket of water, ring it out, and then put it back on. It is COLD, even when using warm water. This is due to evaporative cooling. This form fitting AC unit is good for about 30 minutes before it has to be recharged. A siesta is also a good way to avoid the hottest part of day, though I still have yet to adopt that pastime.

But the BEST way to cool off around here is at Agua Fria, a year round cold spring about 12 miles from my place. Don and I went there during the hottest part of the day today. Heaven!

Don's Cousin, Ludell, also in her 80s, tracked him down through this blog. She is coming down here next weekend to reunite with Don after about 20 years. 

Anyways, I am getting pretty good at stuccoing. 

Brown Coat Continued

I have been back out here in Terlingua for all of March and April, mostly playing music around the area. Now that the season is coming to an end, I am finding some time to get back to the building. This last Thursday, we had a great team to work on and almost finish up the brown coat inside the dome. Don, Mundo, and myself developed a nice rhythm and got the hardest part done (the center of the dome, where the stucco can fall down on you as you apply it). Since we aren't using any power tools, all the stucco from beginning to end of this project is being mixed by hand, rather than a power mixer. We are also using our own aggregate in our stucco mixture, found locally for free, rather than a pre-mix such as quikrete. In order to prepare for a full workday such as today, all of the supplies must be gathered beforehand. The sand is gathered a couple of miles from my land, where it settles on the road from nearby natural deposits. The road becomes difficult to drive on when the wind piles the loose sand in heaps on the road. By gathering the sand, it also clears the road so that it is a bit easier to drive on. Since I don't have access to a conventional pickup truck, I use my volvo, Ruby, pretty much like a truck by putting  the seats down and then covering the back of the wagon with a heavy duty tarp. There is almost as much room in there as a pickup truck. The sand then has to be filtered very finely. I screen it with both lath and mosquito netting.  We also have to make sure that there is enough water on hand. Stucco gets very thirsty for the stuff. 

Don and Mundo are both expert stuccoers, with very different techniques. I learned a lot from watching them as I mixed stucco. I felt pretty comfortable with stuccoing the scratch coat since it doesn't have to be perfect and gets covered up. But for the brown coat, the part that get seen, I wanted more experienced hands to do the task. 

A long day makes for a good night's sleep, however, I learned later that my slumber was only a few feet away from a rattle snake, the first one I have seen on my land.