Sunflower River

The Humanure Handbook turns out to be surprisingly compelling reading. because it’s self-published by a person who is more interested in education than profit, you can read the whole thing here: http://jenkinspublishing.com/humanure.html

and a super gallery of composting toilet photos:
http://jenkinspublishing.com/photo_albums/toilet_album/index.htm

and a beautiful outline of the whole process, with photos:
http://jenkinspublishing.com/garden_gallery.html
and here:
http://jenkinspublishing.com/bucket.html

did you know that the largest producer of groundwater pollution in the united states is septic systems? i’m doubly glad we’re going over to composting, as this place was on septic until the city brought the sewer lines down a year or two ago. that, fortunately, included the 20 years in which it sat vacant, and we can safely presume the septic system to have been unused during those years. which should reduce the liklihood of contamination pretty significantly (and the well report showed no signs of bacterial contamination of any sort, nor any nitrates from pesticides; nothing wrong with the water but high iron levels).

a spirit of the land is eating our chickens. or something is, at any rate. it doesn’t burrow under fences–there are no holes, no disturbed wire, and the available evidence indicates that it probably doesn’t go over them. thinks it’s a hawk. we’re missing two chickens, Cori (the little poofy one), and one of the brand new Rhode Islands. Ora, being smarter than i am about this, is roosting in the barn, on top of a pile of boxes–possibly because danger came out of the sky, and the barn is securely roofed. the hens have an enclosure with a roof, but it is 3-walled, and they don’t stay in it. we did find an egg, and i asked her to keep laying in the spot where we found that egg. it was precisely centered on a large blue roll of batt insulation. very picturesque. it would be nice to know where she’s laying, so we can reliably find her eggs, at least. i hope she is willing to continue laying there. alan’s willing to acquire and string up deer netting. when i stop feeling traumatized about the chickens, i may be up for helping. unless i’m digging greywater trenches.

john (bugeye) rescheduled for the 15th for the greywater replumbing. go, mercury retrograde. this at least takes the pressure off to get the trenches 100% complete by this thursday, which was turning out to be not possible. and by the time we divert the water, it would be good for the trenching to be in place to carry that water to plants. ideally, we’ll get all the digging and arranging done (the whole 1″ per foot drop in the trench for optimum water movement, and all that), and the pumice & compost/soil mix ready to go in, then he’ll come over, we’ll spend several hours crawling around under the house and diverting the pipes, then i’ll run some water in the sink and make sure the water moves. then i’ll either dig around in the trenches until things do move properly, or set it up. next is putting in the flowerpot/rock/mulch basins around the drain outflows, the pumice into the trench 8″ deep, the topsoil/compost mix into the top of the trench, and planting the plants. i was hoping to have this done for the party, but bugeye’s schedule is crazy, my schedule is crazy, and it really does make sense to give it another week or so for us to get the trenching ready and for him to be genuinely available. and for the mercury retrograde to end. this astrological aspect doesn’t seem to be terribly compatible with plumbing.

and in the process of talking about the plumbing, i got called “a studly babe.” actually, that was for informing him that i’d crawled around under the house and cleared cobwebs. i laughed, and said it was because i’m the smallest person, who therefore fits under the house best–it really is a crawlspace. besides, was fixing the chicken coop. i think i’ll tell bugeye how much he reminds me of my uncle john next time we talk.

still, we do have to get the compost for the herb gardens this weekend, while we’ve got jaime’s truck. and western organics got a hell of a lot closer when we moved.

other pressure for greywater is still on; there are unwarranted six-leggeds invading the house by way of that unwanted city sewer connection. disconnecting entirely from that system is going to go a long ways towards mending the cockroach problem here. at least they’re not those enormous UNM special roaches endemic to the university area, just little bitty local ones, and a heck of a lot less of them than around the UNM area. got half the box for the compost toilet built last weekend, and hopefully we can finish it this coming weekend. that’ll get one main source of roaches–we’ll pull out the flush toilet, cap the pipe, seal the hole in the floor really well, and set the sawdust toilet down on top of it. and type up a nice sign explaining how to use a sawdust toilet, to hang on the wall across from it, for the benefit of visitors.

there are a lot of things we need to get done before the party. building composting bins–anybody got any spare pallets laying around? we could use some more–; sharpening the chipper and shredding a couple piles of weeds into buckets for the toilet, the toilet itself, the fire circle, indoor cardboard box elimination, hanging art. and then the whole long list of other things to do, upcoming projects–painting the pump house, clearing dead wood out of the ritual circle, clearing saplings out of the ritual circle, stacking deadwood, clearing the deck area for the yurt deck, then building the yurt deck so we can set the yurt up on it. that will make the house bigger.

ETA: Correction: Make that Sunday, November 18th. And this saturday, the 3rd, 11 a.m. until time to get ready for the Witches’ Ball.

Sunflower River will host two more work parties in November, on the 3rd & 17th 18th.

This coming Saturday, Nov 3rd, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., we will be working on the greywater system (breaking up the ground around the house, digging the trenches for the pumice wick), finishing construction on the composting toilet, and setting up both sets of compost bins (digging & building). Other available things to do include hauling deadwood out of what will soon be the ritual area, stacking wood in the newly-designated woodpile area, painting the pumphouse, shredding weeds for the composter, digging/building the fire circle for upcoming parties & jams such as the Appreciation Dinner/Party on the 10th, and more playing with wire on/around the chicken coop, for further houdini-chicken-proofing.

Apologies for the short notice on this weekend! We just decided, hey, we’re going to be working around the farm all weekend, we might as well let all those people who keep offering to come down know that we’re doing that, just in case this is a good time. :) We’ll have a big pot of beans going for lunch, and some snackables for sustenance during the day.

And, we’ll also be having another regular work party on Sunday, November 18th, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Whatever we haven’t gotten done from the above list will still be on there, with additional possibilities of clearing the deck area for the yurt deck (busting up the foundation of the old broken one and removing it), thinning scrubby little elm trees away from the soon-to-be ritual area, weeding behind the barn, and whatever else comes up between now and then. There’s already always something. :)

A million Thanks to everyone who has already come out to play/help at work parties! We appreciate your involvement so much!

Grandmother Cottonwood in the late afternoon

Grandmother Cottonwood, looking east across the meadow.

The view from the back door.

We’re gettin’ moved in.  Alan on his way to work.  books unpacked, kitchen at about 80%.  in the foreground, my shiny wonderful new backpack on Jenny’s chair. 

The other side of the livingroom.  Characteristically, it looks different now than it does in this photo—no more boxes!  all the books are on shelves, the shelf at the back there is up against the wall again, and some of the general disarray has been addressed.  a little more every day.  we’ll be ready in time for the appreciation party Nov 10th.  if you’ve been helping us do stuff–moving, work parties, all that kind of thing–expect an invite soon!

weedlessness, from the barn to the bridge over the ditch: work done by ezra, leslie, dave, & zed. 

The grandmother cottonwood tree, seen past the chicken coop.

The chicken coop itself, featuring super powerful immovable wire weaving performed by marianne, zona & foxwoman.

Weeds:

Before:

Undifferentiated mass of 6 ft tall weeds from slightly in front of the barn, all the way back past the cottonwood. 

And After (apologies for poor-focus twilight photos):

we may let goats just eat those elm trees by the barn door next summer, thereby solving that little problem with a minimum of effort.  i hear goats like elms.  i’m looking forward to that part.

we’re also giving ourselves a prettier living room:

coming up this weekend: prying the baseboards off, painting peach under them, painting the baseboards white, and re-attaching them, considerably closer to the floor than they currently are. :)

and that floor is getting prettier: this is most of the way through the first coat of polyurethane.  coat two is going on tomorrow, and three on sunday.  hopefully we’ll get a fourth on there next week before moving in.

more to come next week, including, hopefully, tile photos!  we’ll be working down there again tomorrow, and preparing to move in next Sunday.

“Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
– Margaret Mead

Not that we’re out to change the world, at least, not all at once.

But we definitely changed the floor.

Before:

After:

first, removal of the old boards, featuring crowbars, hammers, and a fair bit of hand strength, and our friend Jim, who is a perfectly amazing, skillful and generous human being.

then, cutting new boards and placing them into the slots.

the shiny-new boards (paler) are brand new red oak from a 1×6 from home depot (yeah, i know); the more polished-looking darker ones are used red oak flooring from the ReStore. we bought all they had in stock–one bundle–and supplemented from there.

then nailing in the boards, and insetting the nails so they wouldn’t catch up the sander:

then we went along the floor with scrapers, removing all that accumulated paint & drywall compound that was everywhere. then we coated the floor with a thin layer of red oak filler compound, which is mostly sand & sawdust, and looks rather like paint. or peanut butter. while doing so, we worked it into all the cracks between boards, and low spots, and rough areas where replacing the board was too much work but it still needed some help. by then it was after 8 pm, and we’d started around 10 that morning.

having let that dry overnight and gone home for a much-needed exhausted collapse, we then rented a belt sander and resumed work early the next morning. The sander has a 24-grit belt on it, roughly the texture of a gravel driveway, and is taking off a solid eighth-inch of the floor everywhere it goes. given the floor, this is a good thing.

thus, the floor is gradually revealed, with much going-over of low spots, cupped boards, and rough areas.

Jim headed home sometime around 3 or 4, and Tristan took over driving the sander, while i put the palm sander–called a corner-cat, for it’s rather iron-like shape, to good use, with jenny’s help.

note dust motes, and dust masks; there’s ear protection going on, too. as Jenny said, it’s great working all night with a group of people who can’t hear each other and whose facial expressions you can’t see.

this is my favorite picture. as alan said, some people pay for expensive photo editing software to get effects like this. we just used sawdust.

increasingly, as the night wore on, there was room for group effort. here is tristan with the big sander, alan cleaning up behind and before him, to make life easier and for dust-control, jenny with the small sander, and me filling in holes in the floor with more filler. Fox took this photo, and the some of the others, including the sawdust one i like so much, up above. :)

The rough-sand being done, we performed a general sweep while Tristan changed the belt on the sander to 80-grit.  Because there are four of us and we were multitasking, rather than doing this sequentially, the filler was more or less dry by this point.  Generally, one would now put the filler in any egregious holes (we still had 6, even after all that—the stuff shrinks and has to be re-applied to particularly low areas), then wait for it to dry, then do the final sand.  Instead, it being around midnight at this point, we leapt straight into the final sand from here.

Alan’s holding the cord out of the way and sweeping, enabling Tristan to make the next pass walking backwards, rather than turning the sander with every pass. i thought the cord collective was amusing, in particular the action shot with the broom here.

and voila! 29 hours and lots of sweat later, it’s a brand new old floor!

The *complete* set of photos, and a whole lot more besides, can be found here:

http://pics.livejournal.com/yarrowkat/gallery/00020egd

i don’t know about you, but i’m in love with it.

Wonderful People,

The next Sunflower River Open House and Work Party will be this coming Sunday, Sept 30th, from 10 a.m. until whenever. If you didn’t get a chance to come check out the land last time, here’s another opportunity! We would love to see you and show you around the place, all glorious 3.5 acres of it, and show you what we’re envisioning for it. And of course, for those who are interested, we’d still love help with some projects! (Or lemonade. Or cookies. We’re actually pretty easy.) :)

Projects on the list for sunday include a lot more weeding, refinishing the livingroom floor (thank you, Jim S.!), probably laying tile in Alan’s bedroom, painting the pumphouse and kitchen shed, building the compost bins, and stapling chicken-wire around the henyard. Probably other things will occur to us once we’re there. :)

Drop a comment for address/directions/phone numbers. :)

Hope to see you there!

Much love and blessings,
Kat.

&  in the doorway; on the floor rolling up the carpet.  the lovely fashion-trend-setting dust masks are to protect us from the amount of dust we were kicking up pulling out that carpet. you can see the hallway to the right. 

The livingroom, freed from carpet. Next project: Orbital Sander.

‘s room, soon to have a different floor of some sort.  Quite possibly tile.  Anybody  have any experience tiling floors?

The front of the house, plus all that carpet we pulled out.  Seen from the south, looking north. That’s sitting on the porch, and the back of and , respectively. And, foregrounded, Baxter, the semi-resident chill canine. 

And the favored photographic subject of the day, the Old Barn:

The barn, and what will soon be the chicken coop, seen from the north.  This is before we started weeding on sunday–the ragweed forest is gone from the chicken pen now, and from the whole area in front of the barn.


The cottonwood tree on the far right is the giant Grandmother Cottonwood that overarches the ditch.  The photo includes only a small portion of that tree! THe trees to the back are mostly elms.  Which we learned last night that goats will eat.  Which may be a good thing, given the number of small scrubby elms on the back acreage. 

The old barn, which i’ve been calling the Resource Barn, because it’s less a structure than a pile of construction-related resources.

Isn’t that just the quintessential old farm photo?  ;-D  a fair bit of the lumber is reusable, as long as we’re careful taking it apart.  There are some usable project/work tables inside, too. 

These are the only photos that came out from my camera.  I’m waiting for the photos that and other folks took that day. :)

and from Ezra, some foliage from the back acreage:

This is the Grandmother Cottonwood and some of the elms that surround her.

HUGE THANK YOUS to everybody who came out to see the place and helped do stuff at Sunflower River this weekend! We got a truly astonishing amount of work done–more than any of us expected to finish in one day! We will do this again on Sunday, Sept 30th: this time, more weeding, refinishing the livingroom floor, possibly laying tile in the bedrooms, painting the pumphouse and kitchen shed, building the compost bins, stapling chicken-wire around the now-free-of-weeds henyard, and hopefully the electrical repairs.

For everything that got done yesterday, Enormous Hugs of Gratitude are going out to:

for helping with everything, starting first thing in the morning with pallet-hauling, carpet tearing, trash clean up and the barn, and then hauling trash to the transfer station as well. Not to mention those wonderful peaches! Thank you so much!

Thank you to Scott and Shara for a lovely housewarming gift, plus dehydrator screens so we can double our dried fruit production, and the offer of other household items–we really appreciate it. And thanks to Scott for helping to haul trash! Thanks to Ezra for a lot of weeding, and to for a truly wonderful and supportive amount of delicious lunch and snack food! You really went all-out, and we REALLY appreciate it! Thank you!

Thanks are due to Rhiannon and Micaela (our favorite 4-year-olds) for planting a peach pit so we can grow peaches–thank you, girls! Thanks to Shara, Dee and Ezra for taking care of the kids at various points so that others could help work.

Thanks to for loaning us tools so we could take out the carpet. Thanks to for breaking up the old deck, and to Terren and Saint for digging out the Most Impossible Laundry Line Ever. Thanks to and Heather for bringing wonderful healing & hydrating juices–that ginger was exactly what I needed!

Thank you to , , and for helping get that shed off the trailer and settled, and to for general floor-refinishing advice (we plan to do that on the 30th). Thanks to for bringing excellent snacks and some dinner-food, and for weeding and clearing a path through the back woods.

Thanks to Lionel and for bringing tools, and for checking out the electrical problems and agreeing to take care of them, and for installing the thermostat, and for getting that heater turned off. And thank you for figuring out how to get power to the yurt when we get it set up! And big thanks to Meggie for bringing me get-well food (saltines) so I could recover and pull my own weight by the afternoon! :)

Thanks to Karen for making us lovely treats, even though she couldn’t make the work party! And to for all-around support and love! And to Baxter for being the cutest and most unobtrusive on-site dog all day.

We will do this again on Sunday, Sept 30th! Hope to see y’all there! If you haven’t had a chance to see the place yet, this’ll be another great opportunity!

Love and blessings to all,
Kat.