New Beginnings

This week has been full of new beginnings. Gaia University Southeast is meeting here on The Farm for their orientation and end of year functions, as well as hosting some permaculture courses. Many of the new associates are staying with us here at the EcoHostel during that time. Their energy is so upbeat and optimistic, which makes it a bunch of fun to sit at the breakfast table with them and listen to the chatter about rain water harvesting, herbal medicinals, and the best way to cook (insert favorite vegetable here.)

Four new ETC apprentices also arrived this week, yesterday in fact. Jessie, Emily, Jordon, and Martin are settling into the Hodge Podge Lodge just fine, and are looking forward to getting to work tomorrow. Today has been filled with orientation for them, as well as a tour of both the ETC site and The Farm. They, too, have a great vibe around them. I know that the next two months will provide them with some amazing learning experiences. Apprenticeships of this nature give you a chance to learn as much about yourself as they do about permaculture skills. They can be both a mirror and a canvas. Every nail hammered, every egg gathered, every weekly community check-in is a chance to get to know your own dreams, your own limits, and your true self.

Paul, one of our apprentices for the June-July session shared this lovely poem with the staff after he left. My hope is that these four new community members, as well as the two that will be joining them shortly, leave here with the same feelings that inspired this.

Looking out the window of an earthen dwelling…
A blue-tailed skink scuttles
along the lumber
A gentle breeze sways the bamboo
A deer frolics far
across the forest

Hearing the conch call in the distance…
Pass by
berries and a blooming red rose
Be greeted by smiling faces
Holding
hands around the table

Feeling the magic of a fire at night…
Under a
blanket of stars
Drums intoxicate
Float out of the chair

Living
at the ETC…
Where QOL > GDP
There's time to develop skills
Forget
what day it is
Remember what’s truly important...
Being immersed in
nature
Connected to community
A chance to be fully human

A Rainy Morning at the ETC

We're in our dry season here in middle Tennessee. Of course, I use that term lightly. Paul, our most recent apprentice, would probably shake his head in amusement. He's from the Phoenix area, where it can go for months without rain. Around here, it's more like a couple of weeks at the most.

Last week, though, we had a lovely morning shower. The gentle rain woke me up to the soft sound of "sshhhhhhhh" as the droplets hit the surrounding trees. After feeding the chickens, ducks and my calico kitten Cleo, I picked up my little camera and headed out into the yard to get some pictures and video of the beautiful site. I hope you enjoy the resulting video.

How to Beat the Summer Heat with Thermal Mass

Well, it's official. It's August. The heat here is astounding, and the humidity is giving the heat a good run for its money. As we have no air conditioning in the old farm house that is the Ecohostel, we are not taking reservations this month.

"But, surely people lived in the southern United States before air conditioning," you may exclaim. "It can't be that bad. And don't you have passive solar heating and cooling? Isn't your place a working model of how to create comfortable living spaces without the need for large, noisy, electricity-guzzling machines?"

"Yes!" We reply, to all of it. People did live here before air conditioning. n fact, people have lived here since before Europeans landed on this continent. What did they do to keep cool? They built for the heat. The Cherokee of the area built wattle-and-daub dwellings for the summer, taking advantage of the temperature regulating properties of earth. The European settlers of the area used techniques such as tall ceilings that allowed hot air to rise above head height, and front porches with big overhanging roofs for shade to beat the heat.

Today, people around here have forgotten how to build for their climate. The cheap energy we so enjoy here allows developers and architects to design houses with no consideration for working with the environment. Instead, the modern thought is to create a sealed off, air tight building, then pump it full of machine regulated air.

The buildings here at the Ecovillage Training Center work a little differently. Take the Hippitat, for example. It's a small, one room sleeping cabin built using a natural building technique called earthbag. Long tubes of bags are filled with earth, and stacked on top of each other to create the wall structure. These bags are then covered over with a beautiful natural plaster. These bag walls act like a constructed cave, keeping the inside temp cool in the day and warm at night.

The bags of earth do not insulate, which is a way of stopping the tranfer of heat by creating air pockets. Instead, they maintain comfortable temperatures through thermal mass. During the day, the mass of the thick walls is struck by the hot sun. The walls heat up, but very slowly. While the outside of the walls are heating, the inside surface of the walls stay nice and cool. So many visitors comment on the rush of cool air that meets them when they open the door to this little builing. Even during the peak of a summer day, when the outside temperature is 90 - 100 degrees Farenheight, the inside of the Hippitat is lovely and cool.

By sun down, the warmth that has been collecting in the walls all day is slowly released into the inside of the building. Fortunately, this area of Tennessee has cool nights suring the summer. Even now, when we are baking during the day, the nights usually dip back down into the 70's. The walls of the Hippitat get a chance to release the heat that's been slowly moving through them, and create a cozy sleeping environment just warm enough to relax you to send you off to dream land. Then, in the morning, after they have released the heat of the previous day, they are ready to do it all over again.

And that's just one example of how we work with nature to heat and cool our buildings. We uatlize passive solar techniques in our EcoHostel, and natural insulation techniques such as straw clay slip and strawbales in some of our other buildings. A few of our buildings even have living roofs, a technique that allows you to safely grow plants on the roof of your house!

You don't have to grow a forest floor on your roof to take advantage of energy-reducing building techniques, though. Simple passive solar techniques, such as large windows on the south side of the house (in the norther hemisphere) will help heat the house during the winter. Having a fan in the attic to push out the rising hot air can save you money on air conditioning bills in the summer. To learn more about ways to design a house that heats and cools itself, hop on over to the Passive Solar Building Design wikipedia article.

Zuchini Madness!

Though we're not growing any zucchini here at the ETC this year, we're getting tons of it from our local organic CSA, Mt. Lebanon Farm. This week's share included almost a full bushel of the great, green squash. So, as innkeeper and general kitchen goddess here, I've been trying to find ways to use all of this bounty. Here are some of the ways I've discovered:

1. A simple stir fry. Zucchini tastes super yummy sliced then pan fried in a little olive oil and butter. It's doesn't need much help. I usually sprinkle on a little black pepper and a generous dose of Italian seasoning. If I'm feeling really fancy, I'll hit it with a couple of sprays from the soy sauce pump bottle. That's all it needs!
2. Zapples. To my delight, the recipes that came with this week's share had a great way to make zucchini taste like apples! I'm serious. Simmer your peeled, seeded, sliced (or diced) zucchini or yellow squash in a pot with lemon juice, sweetener (sugar or honey), and cinnamon and nutmeg. Voila! Zapples! I've used mine in zapple muffins and zapple crisp. No one knew it was squash unless I told them. Even then, some people thought I mixed the two together.
3. Pickles. Yes, you can pickled veggies other than cucumbers. I've got some beautiful yellow squash sweet pickles on the shelf right now, and even munched on some pickled okra with lunch today. Yum!
4. Zucchini bread. Ah, the old standard. I like making zucchini bread specialer-than-normal by adding things like diced apple, raisins and pumpkin seeds. What do you like in your bread?

That's all I've done with them so far. Anyone else out there got some tips on what to do with the abundance of squash that summer brings?

Ask the ETC 3: Greay Water Wetlands

Last Thursday, I blogged about our daily habits that help conserve water, such as taking navy showers and using native plants in our landscaping. Instituto de Inglés América left a comment asking:

What do you do with the water used in the shower or from rinsing the dishes? What about the laundry?

In this episode of Ask the ETC Jason Deptula, our site manager, talks about how we filter our gray water through our constructed wetlands.

Click here to listen to episode three of Ask The ETC. Like what you hear? You can subscribe to the podcast on itunes at asktheetc.podomatic.com!

Conserving Water at The ETC

We are experiencing a water shortage today on The Farm due to a temporarily misbehaving water tower pump. The water tower that holds and distributes the water from our on Farm aquifer is only one third full. And, apparently on an average day, the Farm goes through about three quarters of the tower. So, we've kicked our water conservation techniques into high gear. Here's what we do here at the ETC to conserve water on a daily basis.

• Washing Dishes - We hand wash our dishes. Many statistics are coming out now that dish washers actually use less water than hand washing, but only if you don't pre-rinse them. I don't know about you, but I have never encountered a dish washing machine that didn't require pre-rinsing. So, we fill a large mixing bowl with warm, soapy water for washing. The next basin in our sink gets filled with clear, cold water to rinse the soap off. This helps cut down on gratuitous use of the faucet.
• Showering - I love our solar showers! I could easily stand under a stream of the sun-warmed water for half an hour, especially after a day of bread baking or earthen plastering. But, I rarely give into the temptation. Instead, I take navy showers. Named after navy seamen's practice of conserving fresh wash water while on a ship, it is a super simple way to cut down the amount of water used while showering. Turn on your water to wet down, then turn it off while soaping up and/or shampooing your hair. Turn the water back on when you're ready to rinse off. Don't think that will save much water? Try showering with the plug in the tub. Note where the water level is at the end. Make your next shower a navy shower, and compare the water level. I guarantee you'll see a difference.
• Landscaping - We incorporate native plants into our landscaping. These plants are adapted to our annual rainfall patterns, and don't require a lot of additional watering. Planting native plants also helps reduce the encroachment of invasive, sometimes harmful, imported plants.
• Gardening - We incorporate the techniques of synergistc agriculture. Developed by Emilia Hazelip, and based on her work with Masanobu Fukuoka. Synergestic agriculture incorporates a heavy mulch. This mulch helps hold moisture in the soil, cutting down on the need to water.

Know of some other easy ways to conserve water? Leave them below in the comments.

Ask the ETC 2: What to expect here at the ETC.

This week Paul, a current apprentice, talks about what to expect when coming in as either an apprentice or an EcoSoaker for our Permaculture Immersion Apprenticeship at the ETC. He lists off some items he has found useful, then riffs on the learning opportunities available here.

Click here to listen to Episode 2 of Ask The ETC.