In what may become a tradition, we are happy to once again, as another year of activity comes to an end and we move into a kind of winter hibernation, post some images from Bhudeva to remember, appreciate and share some of the new things we’ve been gifted with. In this post we will highlight the changes and additions so if you want to get a fuller picture you may wish to have a look at the 2011 tour.
We’ll start this tour just outside the house. A few days ago we were gifted with a relatively warm and pleasant day and Andreea embraced it and headed outside to butcher some of our roosters (inspired by this lovely woman). We had 9, way too many for our flock (we need 1 or 2 at most), we butchered 5 and will cull 2 more in the spring once we see how the remaining 4 behave and choose which 2 to leave. As usual, I did the slaughtering and Andreea did the butchering:
Which brings us into the hall/kitchen where you can see some of the chicken breasts being prepared for dinner. On the left you can see that we have really taken to hanging things to make better use of the space.
We also added some more stuff around the sink. A backboard right above the sink with a small shelf for sink-stuff and a top shelf with … yes … more hanging … this time for the pans.
I also built a second second door. The first second door is for the warm months – it has netting to keep out flies and friends. For the winter I built a door that has 5cm of foam insulation to keep the kitchen/hall from freezing. It’s still a cooler space (unless we allow some heat to pass to it from the new rocket stove in the living room …. see below) – but so far it has been much more pleasant then last year.
In the bedroom we added a headboard (the shape is inspired by a drawing Andreea made) and two small shelf-thingys on either side of the bed.
We fixed our first rocket stove replacing its metal top with bricks. We moved one of the large book-shelves from the living room to the bedroom.
In the living room the sofa was extended to fill the corner (and can be rearranged to form a double bed). Andreea added her touch by sewing pillow covers for the pillows.
We also replaced the old metal stove that was in the room (and we avoided using it due to its terrible performance = needs tons of wood to heat and keep the room warm) and built another rocket stove.
The rocket stove burning in the background is an audio experience (you don’t see a fire burning) … it’s a sound we have learned to love … however I never get tired of peeking inside and watching the remarkable quality of fire burning sideways.
So now we can (and do) spend days in the living room (last year we spent most of the winter in the bedroom), which warms up very fast (and stays warm) … AND due to a tip from friends, we had an opportunity to purchase a good desktop computer from a company that was closing and selling its equipment, together with an office desk and drawers … and we added a chair … and we now have a decent work-station in the living room. I did not dream this would be possible, even when we decided to purchase the computer, we did so assuming there may not be space for it right now … until we moved one of the bookshelves to the bedroom – and here I am writing this post at it 🙂
Andreea begged me to let her bring Ricky indoors during the cold winter nights (and sometimes days) … she is a small dog and unlike Indy, she doesn’t have much body mass to deal with the cold.
I eventually caved and agreed to arrange a corner for her in the entrance hall/kitchen. And now, she has a very nice corner and the living room right next to the rocket stove … and whenever we open the front door and she feels like it (even if the sun is shining and its warm outside) … she waltzes in and takes a nap. I am ok with it because she knows her place and doesn’t travel around the house … though I am looking forward to the spring and her moving back outside.
The bathroom hasn’t changed much, except for a small electric boiler which we added. It provides us with 10 liters of hot water whenever we need it. We love it … it has been a huge upgrade to our quality of life. We can brush our teeth in the morning without heaving to heat water in the kettle AND we can wash our faces to … and doing the dishes doesn’t hurt at all anymore 🙂
Our pantry is once again filled with foods that will nourish us in the winter and through most of the spring until fresh foods grow once again.
This pile includes sacks of potatoes, carrots, beets, nuts, a few apples and some pumpkins:
A big project outdoors was our Sepp Holzer style Hugelkultur raised garden beds. They didn’t do well because of the drought. After harvesting what was there to harvest we cleaned and mulched them (covered them with straw) and they are now covered with an additional blanket of snow … and hopefully precious topsoil and biological life is growing there right now … so that by next winter we will have good soil and enough water to survive the dry summer months.
We started implementing a mobile chicken grazing system this year. A mobile electric fence and a mobile chicken shelter (red-roofed thing in the image below) will enable us to move the chickens around different plots of land so that they continue to enjoy fresh green food and do not destroy one limited space.
I finally got around to completing our humanure hacienda. This was my first roof-build project, I learned a lot from it (though some of the learning is still in the form of questions) … and I am happy with how it turned out. I still have plans to put in rainwater collection into a barrel so that I don’t have to carry water to it. We have hay in the middle chamber. The left chamber has been resting since late March 2011 … which means that next spring we will have our first batch of home-made fertilizer. The right chamber is built up quite well and come spring we will complete a first full cycle – we’ll empty the left chamber of fertilizer, close off the right chamber and it will begin its year of rest. This is a sign that time is indeed passing with us here 🙂
We purchased 12 cubic meters of firewood this year. We were both kind of overwhelmed when it arrived and thrilled that I managed to make my way through it (chainsaw, chopping, moving, storing …). Most of is cut up and stacked and is slowly drying. We will only be using part of it this year. The rest should last us another 3 or 4 years (yey rocket stoves).
The solar dryers (which I really should write more about … so stay tuned) are still outside, we intended to stow them away for winter, but that hasn’t happened yet (they should be OK outside too). A couple of weeks ago they had about a foot of snow on top of them.
The bee-hives also seem fine (the snow cover they already had on their roofs also melted away). We haven’t checked the bees recently. We checked before winter arrived and they seemed to have an ample supply of honey (we didn’t take any). We will probably peak in once or twice more (on nice sunny days) to see how they are doing.
Last year was very intense. We had just a few months to prepare for winter and we had no experience with … pretty much everything. It was a tight race. The weather was on our side and let us work right up to Christmas (the first snows arrived after Christmas). This year was still a lot of work but less of a race. There was space to take our time, to enjoy the work, to explore, to pick and choose … things needed doing but there was much less urgency.
Last winter was not as restful as we had hoped it would be. We had quite a few problems (water system froze, car froze, chainsaw died, house almost burned down …). This year winter arrived much earlier (by mid-December we witnessed snow that we only experienced in late January last year) and it seems we are much readier (the water system has been insulated, we have a charger for the car to keep the battery from losing its charge in the freezing temperatures … and snow chains …) … so it looks like we will have definitely have a period of rest … which will hopefully lead us into one of the softest years of our life together … as next spring we plan to embark on a leisurely year of playing around in the garden, continuing to develop Cutia Taranului, planning our new house … and enjoying the passage of time 🙂