A Collection Of Totally Random Stuff

Some totally random stuff that I've been meaning to post.... starting with Demetri Martin. A very funny young man.



Denman Island Trivia
I came across this archived newspaper clipping of a ship that wrecked near our house in 1903. The article ran in the New York Times.

Boo Radley (our cat) mastered the art of bird capture a few weeks ago. Picture a scene as Sylvester catches Tweedy Bird, only to be smacked on the back of the head until said bird has been spit out. This is pretty much what happened and indeed the bird did fly away. A few days later, birds of another feather flocked to our back yard and even climbed the stairs, where the now "belled" kitten decided: maybe wild turkeys could have a free pass.

That American Presidential Primary is something to behold, isn't it? After campaigning for two years and spending tens of millions of dollars, it comes down to a popularity contest. While watching American Idol I was thinking, why not just phone in a vote for your favorite candidate. Chances are, that long before November rolls around and a new American President is elected, we'll have a new Canadian government, (perhaps by June). (We like surprises.)
I've been labelled (at times) as anti-American on this blog, I deny it and I do post the comments that are clean and worthy of a response. What I see on TV, are Americans that are exited about change and candidates that give them a real choice and above all, hope. "Fear is easier to instill than love and hope" Richard Nixon. Good luck with that down there. (can I still come visit?)

We went to see Alex Cuba at the hall on Friday night. This two time Juno winner kept the house rockin' with those infectious Latin rhythms. check out his music video...


Straw Bale House Update: The weekend's sunny weather was perfect for cleaning up the building site. As with most of my projects, the cleaning up is the hard part. The last of the beams have been milled and delivered, including the two cedar lunkers that will adorn the front entry. Now, all we need is some staining weather. A hydro transformer has miraculously appeared on the lot! This is incentive to get my act together and apply for a temporary power permit.

Our "ferry hill" is a construction zone. As the road to the ferry is only two lanes wide and ferry traffic must line up on the road, it has not allowed for easy access to the ferry if dropping off foot passengers. Traditionally this has lead to a form of ferry hill frogger where one must drive on the wrong side of the road before or between oncoming traffic. Islanders have become very adept at it over the years, but perhaps the ferry corporation has realised there could be a liability factor. Soon there will be a third lane to remedy the situation. Soon we will have a second ferry to help out until we get our regular ferry back. The "Klitsa" (an unfortunate name for a ship says Kari), shall arrive mid March.

Where's the straw?

So, a trip to the city has delayed the blog... I must say, I don't miss the city. I dislike the smells and the traffic and the bombardment of the senses. I did indulge in shopping at one of my fav stores: Princess Auto. A great store for tools, saw-blades etc... not too much to do with princesses or autos, so can't explain the name. We returned home to foggy weather and temperatures cooler than predicted. At times it was nice and sunny at the site, but much cooler and foggy just below.

The weekend before we left, we lucked into one sunny day and took advantage of it. I wanted to explore a trail I hadn't been on before. It was a beautiful mossy trail, (that I expected to lead to Grandma's house). No bad wolves were spotted, but we did keep an eye out for our resident cougar that was seen in the trail area recently.

StrawBale House Update: Hmm... where's the straw? I know readers wonder about a bale house with no bales.... There are two basic methods of building with straw. A weight bearing or "Nebraska" style house uses the straw bales as the house structure and roof support. The other method is to build a skeletal balloon frame or a post & beam frame and "infill" with straw bales. The second method is preferable in rainy climates where a sunny building period can't be depended upon. I'm building a modified post & beam home that will have a roof on it to protect the baling process from the elements. As soon as the roof is on, I can pour the finished slab. The dry interior then becomes storage for the bales.
The round dormer trusses were cut out last week, thanks to another generous islander with a warm shop and band-saw. The pieces were assembled and then raised into place.
The odd sunny day has allowed for some beam staining. I'm not sure what's in the stain that attracts the flies, but even near freezing, the little kamikazes can't resist dive bombing the wet stain.

Carbon Tax? Our provincial Government has announced a new carbon tax. This means it's time to pay the piper. The offset is a reduction in income tax in all categories. It'll be interesting to see what the reaction will be..... and even more interesting to see what will be done with the (I suspect increased) revenue flow. Each BC'er will also get $100 this summer to start our green initiatives. This seems a little hokey to me and smells like an election ploy. The biggest polluters like concrete manufacturing are off the hook for now. I do think this is a positive move, although shallowly thought out. A much more effective way to entice consumers to buy green products is to eliminate tax on them entirely... (as is what's currently done with bicycles)

Just keeping it clean

Straw Bale House Update: This week, work began on the dormer. The 26 foot LVL (laminated veneer lumber) beams that will support the dormer roof were (painfully) hoisted into place. (I'm still suffering a little from that) The window wall was framed and the side walls which are built on top of the beams have been started. Once complete, the rounded trusses which will make up the roof framework will be built. As you can see in the pictures we had another dump of snow. While the east side of the island had no snow, the west side (5 km away) recieved about 5 inches (on site). The rarely used road to the house, which is a full kilometer from the first intersection and 2 kilometers from our nearest neighbour was plowed the next day. (maybe it's who you know, if you know what I mean).

Thanks to Keith Walker for the new Denman weather spot on the sidebar. Keith records weather information for Denman Island. I can't help thinking that if he lived on the east side of the island, no snowfall would have been reported last week.

More on Masonry heaters. When researching for the straw blog last week , I came across this article on Masonry heaters:
Mark Twain, travelling through Europe in the late 1800's, discovered the virtues of masonry heat. Here's a little of what he wrote about it.
"To the ininstructed stranger it promises nothing. It has a little bit of a door...which seems foolishly out of proportion to the rest of the edifice. Small-sized fuel is used, and marvelously little of that. The process of firing is quick and simple. At half past seven on a cold morning the servant brings a small basketfull of slender pine sticks and puts half of these in, lights them with a match, and closes the door. They burn out in ten or twelve minutes. He then puts in the rest and closes the door...the work is done.All day long and into the night all parts of the room will be delightfully warm and comfortable...it's surface is not hot; you can put your hand on it anywhere and not get burnt.Consider these things. One firing is enough for the day; the cost is next to nothing; the heat produced is the same all day, instead of too hot and too cold by turns...America could adopt this stove, but does America do it? No, she sticks to her own fearful and wonderful inventions in the stove line. The American wood stove, of whatever breed, is a terror! It requires more attention than a baby. It has to be fed every little while, it has to be watched all the time; and for all the reward you are roasted half your time and frozen the other half... and when your wood bill comes in you think you have been supporting a volcano.It is certainly strange that useful customs and devises do not spread from country to country with more facility and promptness than they do."

I washed my phone last week. It didn't recover. So, the search began for a replacement. I'm tired of telus and their "plans" and "contracts". I wanted to try the prepaid card thing, as I don't use my phone a whole lot. After extensive research, I switched to 7-eleven. No joke.... they have a great card plan (where the cards don't expire for a year) in denominations of $25 and up. Promo right now is $50 or 100 bucks for the phone including air time.... with no contract obligations. You walk out of the store and make a call... no passwords, no personal information given or hoops to jump through. If you loose your phone or run it through the washing machine like I did... you're out fifity or (100) bucks max. Too good to be true... air time twenty cents + long distance at thirty. I bought the $100 deal.... VGA camera, with video, bluetooth + FM radio. Upload and download wirelessly through bluetooth from your computer.... so no charges for ringtones, wallpaper etc. I must have been living under a rock, not to know before this.

Straw Talk

Straw Bale House Update: I've been asked how we became interested in Straw Bale and what resources we used. The net was a great place to start. We stumbled upon on this site which offered up some basic plans... although our house plan is totally different, we liked the roof and wall lines lines of this house. We asked people that had homes we liked, who designed their home and found the designer was receptive to learning about strawbale construction and adapting our vision into a workable plan.

The best book I've come across is Serious Straw Bale. It's a great read regardless of what type of bale house you're interested in. (I ordered ours though Amazon.) Andrew Morrison's site, http://www.strawbale.com/ has lots of free information, (although I did buy his cd's. + well worth it). If you think building Straw Bale is going to save you money, think again. This type of construction will likely cost you 20% more than a traditional balloon framed home. The savings (hopefully) will come with reduced power consumption. Our home is basically one large thermal mass for heat storage in winter and cool storage in summer. Our finished floor will most likely be concrete (although Hempcrete is interesting and more enviro friendly). The interior walls will be one inch thick lime plaster (limestone), for even more thermal mass and the main heat source is a super efficient Crossfire masonry heater. The heater should be able to heat the home with two, one-hour fires each day. More mason heater info.

More eco-chump (ism).... Is must be more environmentally friendly to vacation in Mexico every other year for 2 weeks rather that every year for one week. There must be some way to justify a vacation next year.

Saturday, a Denman Island Fire Dept. call-out had a tragic ending as a reported van fire was fatal to it's owner. The owner (who lived in the van),was a familiar face to all that live here and was certainly part of our diverse culture. Coincidentally, only two days before, I had given him a ride from the ferry to the village.

A tribute to Volunteer firefighters, well said.

I'm an eco-chump

Straw Bale House Update: A week of decent weather was a great help in framing the upper floor partition walls. The picture is taken from the upstairs common room, looking at the bedroom and bath. The stained beam is a collar support for the round dormer roof that's next on the list. A round roof sounded cool at one time, now I'm not so sure.

I think I may be an eco-chump.... This question came up while grocery shopping the other day... Is it better to buy regular carrots farmed in your region or from a "certified organic" farm hundreds of miles away? Take the chump challenge.

Are throw-away cars in our future? North American auto manufacturers will have their work cut out for them if cheap cars hit our market. If cars were sold for $2500, what would be the consequences? Millions of more oil depenadant machines, for sure. If anything should go wrong with them, it may be cheaper to buy a new one than to fix the old one. Cars would become disposable. There may have to be a refundable deposit charged or blue-box curbside pickup for your recyclable Tata. Even lower income families could afford a pair of Tata's... (sorry couldn't resist.) People will be able to afford the Tata Nano, but can the earth afford it?

"Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Give a man the net and he'll stay home and blog"

I Don't Care!

I don't care about global warming. It's rather irrelevant. There's a camp that believes that global warming is man made and another that says it's a natural phenomenon. The Inconvenient Truth movie has been found to be grossly embellished. Documentaries have aired that state this (warming) is the earth's natural cycle. To me it really doesn't matter.....But let's face it... global warming is now big business. The big corporations...eg. McDonalds and Walmart can't wait to jump on the big green bandwagon. Is this because they care or is just good business? Our Governments can't wait to give grants and tax cuts for green enterprises because it buys votes. Meanwhile...people... average people, like you and me, we make the real efforts to counter global warming... like recycling, switching our light bulbs to cfl's, buying unbleached paper towels, eating less commercial red meat and buying low-flush toilets. We dream about the 100 mile diet. Sometimes we remember the cloth shopping bags and weather permitting, we'll walk the two blocks to the store.... to negate driving the two blocks to pick up our lazy, TV addicted kids from school. In reality, our combined good deed, global efforts may extend the life of the earth, by about 30 seconds. The mega corporate polluters offset our efforts beyond our comprehension. So, I really don't care about global warming... it is what it is. What I do care about is the earth. Man is parasitic to the earth... parasites eventually kill their hosts and move on. Our problem is we have nowhere to move, yet. The important thing is that we stop poisoning the air, earth and water. If we do that, the climate will take care of itself. But, mega polluters also generate mega tax dollars and are mega employers and that means mega votes come polling day. Food for thought.... In the 1940's teams of scientist gathered to save the world by splitting the atom. (boom) Once again the great minds of earth were assembled in the 60's for the "space race". In the 50's a computer with the memory of the one I'm using, (laptop) would've been as large as a house. Do you think If all the money spent on environmental band aids was spent on research to find another way to make the wheels on the cars go round and power our homes and factories, we could end our nasty oil dependence? It seems like a small feat comparatively. Instead we'll pour buckets of cash at global warming symptoms but none at the real cause... our dependence on oil. "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." H.D.Thoreau.

Straw Bale House update: Work on the roof line is progressing while the weather cooperates. Some days there are real decisions to be made... like what size window you you want there? This weekend we went to Demxx in Coombs to scoop a couple of antique, leaded, stained glass windows. Demxx is a treasure trove of recycled building materials for the enviro-builder. The old windows will be stripped from the original frames and remounted in frames made from the Douglas Fir on the property and stained to match the beam work... something I can do in my spare time? I've been extremely fortunate that a long time resident of the Island has agreed to help me build, (at least for the time being). He's in the process of completing his own home, (coincidentally a design from the same home designer) and is well versed in post & beam construction. So far he has been extremely patient with his apprentice, Moi.

Tar, a sticky subject

Yes, survived the the holiday season and have settled into winter lethargy. Becoming a Denman Island tradition, is the loss of our regular ferry, which has been replaced by her smaller sister. This makes counting on making a ferry somewhat of a gamble... such is island life. A short foray into town last week for supplies was an adventure, as the roads were somewhat treacherous.... note the lack of other traffic.

Canada is host to one quarter of the world's remaining boreal forests. Northern Alberta's Precious forests are quickly being eaten up to make room for oil sands strip mining operations to fuel American Automobiles. Currently an area the size of Vancouver Island has been marked for development. Once the trees have been cut down and the animals displaced, the work of poisoning the air and the (once pristine) Athabasca River can begin. But hey, Alberta is debt-free!

Toxic Alberta - Alberta Oil Sands Raw Documentary

The Harm the Tar Sands Will Do

Straw Bale House update: 34 new posts and beams have been milled on the island for us. This means that there's work to do even on crappy days. Now that the straw is on the island and the free storage ends in June, there is some urgency to getting the roof on and the floor poured before that. It's our plan to begin baling as soon as weather allows for the drying of the lime plaster. Lime plaster is the exterior and interior finish of choice for a few of reasons....

- it sticks to straw. (very important)

- Carbon neutral - It actually recovers the carbon dioxide it took to make the hydrated lime.

- thermal mass for interior heat storage and cooling.

- it allows the free transfer of vapour through the walls.

- nothing will grow on it (moss, mildew etc)

The picture on the right shows the location of our current home (green circle - low) and the location of the new home (light blue circle - high). A distance of less than a kilometer and about 6 kilometers apart by road.