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Saturday, April 30, 2016
Getting Back to Grandma: Ditching the Dishwasher
As you read my blog you might get the idea that our little two acre homestead is a very nice place . . . An oasis of ideal self sustaining organic loveliness situated near one of the most livable cities in the
United States. Every inch of it fruit orchard blossoms and happy chicken tractors near botanical gardens. But this is not so. We have a long way to go before our grand design can even break ground. Homesteading on a piece of rescued land means that most of what we are doing is entirely aspirational until we can get a house built. Building will take money we have yet to find. As we search for the cash and clear the land, planning seems to be one thing we can do nearly every day which doesn't tax our already thin resources. Visualizing the future and writing in the present tense is more fun than simply telling the truth. The truth costs a bunch more money, is a lot more work, and gets mud on your boots.
As we begin making real plans for our homestead farm there are at least a million decisions to make: the size of the house, the dimensions and spacing in the orchards, how many chicken tractors, etc. . . The broad strokes are easy. Each individual decision: not always so easy. Whatever you call it: "going green" or "sustainable design", or "getting back Grandma's house", means re-thinking everything we do or have done.
Adding a principle such as: only include things which serve more than one purpose, or: use the smallest amount of resources possible, or if Grandma didn't have it then we don't need it, all helps to whittle the big ideas down. A great many things we have had in our lives simply don't pass some of our well reasoned tests, and you can't simply follow the rules all of the time, especially if you are slightly hedonistic and into creature comforts. And then there are necessary exceptions to every rule. Rules can save a lot of money resources and, maybe more importantly, the precious space resource.
"Getting small" is a big goal of our farm project and also journey with no definitive end. Building minimally should mean making do with less. Building our home (smallish (at 945 square feet)), and planning space allocation sufficient for the necessities (and luxuries which seem necessary) means holding everything up to serious scrutiny. One thing which popped up immediately when talking about our kitchen layout, was where to put the dishwasher.
A dishwasher is a modern labor saving device and thought by many to be akin to having a washing machine or clothing dryer. Our first drawings placed the new dishwasher right next to the extra large multi-use sink, our dish cabinets were above the whole thing. Very efficient use of plumbing, wood, and man hours. This seemed one of those things which didn't fit our principles (especially the Grandma principle) but somehow we weren't going to simply give up because nobody would build without a dishwasher, just as nobody would build without a sink. The truth is: we never thought about leaving the dishwasher into our plans. But we've had time to think things over since then.
Since making the decision to ditch the dishwasher we have found that many related decisions are also changed such as: if we don't entertain sixteen people, and the dishes don't stack up in a dishwasher waiting for machine efficient fullness, then we won't need the sixteen place settings and forty glasses and cups. So now the dishwasher space planned for the new home, the thirty precious linear inches of cabinet in a kitchen which is too small, will be reclaimed to become a much more useful cabinet to hold home canned goods or canning pots. We can plan for less, do more with the less we have, and perhaps live a little better.
United States. Every inch of it fruit orchard blossoms and happy chicken tractors near botanical gardens. But this is not so. We have a long way to go before our grand design can even break ground. Homesteading on a piece of rescued land means that most of what we are doing is entirely aspirational until we can get a house built. Building will take money we have yet to find. As we search for the cash and clear the land, planning seems to be one thing we can do nearly every day which doesn't tax our already thin resources. Visualizing the future and writing in the present tense is more fun than simply telling the truth. The truth costs a bunch more money, is a lot more work, and gets mud on your boots.
As we begin making real plans for our homestead farm there are at least a million decisions to make: the size of the house, the dimensions and spacing in the orchards, how many chicken tractors, etc. . . The broad strokes are easy. Each individual decision: not always so easy. Whatever you call it: "going green" or "sustainable design", or "getting back Grandma's house", means re-thinking everything we do or have done.
Adding a principle such as: only include things which serve more than one purpose, or: use the smallest amount of resources possible, or if Grandma didn't have it then we don't need it, all helps to whittle the big ideas down. A great many things we have had in our lives simply don't pass some of our well reasoned tests, and you can't simply follow the rules all of the time, especially if you are slightly hedonistic and into creature comforts. And then there are necessary exceptions to every rule. Rules can save a lot of money resources and, maybe more importantly, the precious space resource.
"Getting small" is a big goal of our farm project and also journey with no definitive end. Building minimally should mean making do with less. Building our home (smallish (at 945 square feet)), and planning space allocation sufficient for the necessities (and luxuries which seem necessary) means holding everything up to serious scrutiny. One thing which popped up immediately when talking about our kitchen layout, was where to put the dishwasher.
A dishwasher is a modern labor saving device and thought by many to be akin to having a washing machine or clothing dryer. Our first drawings placed the new dishwasher right next to the extra large multi-use sink, our dish cabinets were above the whole thing. Very efficient use of plumbing, wood, and man hours. This seemed one of those things which didn't fit our principles (especially the Grandma principle) but somehow we weren't going to simply give up because nobody would build without a dishwasher, just as nobody would build without a sink. The truth is: we never thought about leaving the dishwasher into our plans. But we've had time to think things over since then.
Like most of the consumer appliances made after World War Two: the clothing dryer, microwave, coffee machine, can opener, stereo, television, etc . . . the dishwasher was a modern convenience that seemed to free up time for the happy home-maker. Energy was cheap, life was busy, and there was plenty of money in suburban America. These new appliances became fixtures in every home because they not only served their intended purposes, they were also a status symbols reminding everyone that the owners of these fine appliances were as good as anyone else.
Nobody can question that the washing machine gave women better lives. And in the United States few questioned the need for the clothing dryer to site next too the washing machine even though the laundry hung on lines for free, and the clothing dryer didn't really save all that much labor. Industrial know how engineered cloth so that it performed better when put into a clothing dryer, making a clothing dryer into a thing which removed both hanging out laundry and ironing from the house wife's busy day. The dishwasher, like the clothing dryer, seemed another logical extension of the labor saving wonder, the washing machine. These all made the "little women's" life a little bit easier.
In the seventies, when the dishwasher became ubiquitous throughout the urban United States, women were being liberated and returning to work outside the home so the dishwasher made sense. But not all of the new labor saving consumer products made as much sense. The microwave oven is a sad little oven which cooks food which might better be prepared using nearly any other method. Still and all, we all have a microwave oven. The same goes for many conveniences. Consumer appliances will probably count for a large chunk of our farm home budget. But a dishwasher won't be one of the things we will invest our cash in.
A few weeks back our dishwasher blew a gasket and this event opened our eyes to the possibility of removing the dishwasher from our lives.
The gasket thing was not expensive, but it took three days for the part to come in (exactly one day longer than our dishes could pile up). We were forced to wash our dishes by hand at a time when life was a bit too busy to add another chore to the schedule. Both my wife and I grew up in an era when people sat down to dinner and then washed up afterwards. We both agreed that we hated doing the dishes every night as kids and would have to bite the bullet to get the job done. We didn't have one of those dish strainers which sat on the kitchen counter of our youth, so we put out a few kitchen towels flat on the counter-top and got started. Then, after the part arrived we restored dishwasher services and the strangest thing happened: we never loaded the dishwasher again.
We found that the dishwasher didn't really do all that much labor saving, but did cost more than it was worth. We also found that doing the dishes by hand was a benefit to our lives in many ways.
Nobody can question that the washing machine gave women better lives. And in the United States few questioned the need for the clothing dryer to site next too the washing machine even though the laundry hung on lines for free, and the clothing dryer didn't really save all that much labor. Industrial know how engineered cloth so that it performed better when put into a clothing dryer, making a clothing dryer into a thing which removed both hanging out laundry and ironing from the house wife's busy day. The dishwasher, like the clothing dryer, seemed another logical extension of the labor saving wonder, the washing machine. These all made the "little women's" life a little bit easier.
In the seventies, when the dishwasher became ubiquitous throughout the urban United States, women were being liberated and returning to work outside the home so the dishwasher made sense. But not all of the new labor saving consumer products made as much sense. The microwave oven is a sad little oven which cooks food which might better be prepared using nearly any other method. Still and all, we all have a microwave oven. The same goes for many conveniences. Consumer appliances will probably count for a large chunk of our farm home budget. But a dishwasher won't be one of the things we will invest our cash in.
A few weeks back our dishwasher blew a gasket and this event opened our eyes to the possibility of removing the dishwasher from our lives.
The gasket thing was not expensive, but it took three days for the part to come in (exactly one day longer than our dishes could pile up). We were forced to wash our dishes by hand at a time when life was a bit too busy to add another chore to the schedule. Both my wife and I grew up in an era when people sat down to dinner and then washed up afterwards. We both agreed that we hated doing the dishes every night as kids and would have to bite the bullet to get the job done. We didn't have one of those dish strainers which sat on the kitchen counter of our youth, so we put out a few kitchen towels flat on the counter-top and got started. Then, after the part arrived we restored dishwasher services and the strangest thing happened: we never loaded the dishwasher again.
We found that the dishwasher didn't really do all that much labor saving, but did cost more than it was worth. We also found that doing the dishes by hand was a benefit to our lives in many ways.
Washing by hand was warm water in a cold Oregon winter. We got the dishes cleaner (as well as the kitchen surrounding the sink, counters, and stove), and lowered our electricity bill (carbon footprint) and probably our water bill a little bit. But after thinking about it, we got so much more out of the process than simply better hygiene. We got closer to the aesthetic (minimalism) home life we hope for as we move toward farm life. And also we are doing something simple which our Grand Mothers would appreciate. We went out and bought a cheapo dish strainer and wash the dishes by hand after every meal.
Since making the decision to ditch the dishwasher we have found that many related decisions are also changed such as: if we don't entertain sixteen people, and the dishes don't stack up in a dishwasher waiting for machine efficient fullness, then we won't need the sixteen place settings and forty glasses and cups. So now the dishwasher space planned for the new home, the thirty precious linear inches of cabinet in a kitchen which is too small, will be reclaimed to become a much more useful cabinet to hold home canned goods or canning pots. We can plan for less, do more with the less we have, and perhaps live a little better.
Friday, April 29, 2016
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
April 27, 2016 The nuisance ticket
We just got our second notice that the property is finally in our name! The first was a letter from a real estate agent letting me know that: if I was into buying trashy speculation properties, he had a bunch. This indicated that salesmen had seen a change. Still nothing from the County though.
The second came in the form, on the form, of a nuisance citation from the County encouraging us to clean the place up. They gave us two weeks. Before, when the trash was everywhere, not a problem. Now that wee have it piled up to removed . . . A nuisance!
Last year at this time we were having our first tractors days . . .
We scraped and we cut, piled the trash up high, knocked down the buildings, burning scrub brush and tired trees. And twenty years later, after a year of working to clear the land, we get cited to clean the place up? After twenty years of allowing people to trash the place they gave us two weeks? WTF????
Anyway:
We had already scheduled a tractor and dumpster day only eight days after the citation deadline . . .
The County is willing to wait.
The second came in the form, on the form, of a nuisance citation from the County encouraging us to clean the place up. They gave us two weeks. Before, when the trash was everywhere, not a problem. Now that wee have it piled up to removed . . . A nuisance!
Last year at this time we were having our first tractors days . . .
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| This was the back of the house as seen from near to where our front door will eventually be built. |
- The place was covered in trash, widely strewn around. The locals were using it as a dump site.
- Broken glass between torn up plastic, nothing piled up.
- There were derelict buildings everywhere, much too unsafe to let stand once they were uncovered.
- Berries and wide cucumber ruled the land with a thorny fist, noxious plants abounded.
We scraped and we cut, piled the trash up high, knocked down the buildings, burning scrub brush and tired trees. And twenty years later, after a year of working to clear the land, we get cited to clean the place up? After twenty years of allowing people to trash the place they gave us two weeks? WTF????
Anyway:
We had already scheduled a tractor and dumpster day only eight days after the citation deadline . . .
The County is willing to wait.
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| This is the back of the house as we found it last year. |
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| These things take time and money. This picture is after the third tractor day. |
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| I got the before and after text backwards. Maybe they saw the picture and got confused? |
Friday, April 15, 2016
Sunday, April 10, 2016
April 10, 2016 Bainbridge Island Adventure Pictures
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| A really nice view from the south end of Bainbridge Island. The Space Needle is behind a tree just to the left. |
We went up there to take the weekend off and still call it research into making our Farm what it should be. We went on maybe the nicest weekend. Summery weather and Seattle didn't have reservations, so it was nearly empty. We went to the Bainbridge Garden Center because it looked promising as a model we might use in planning our retail organization (it was wonderful). WE also went to the Bloedell Reserve, a fantastic ten miles of walking trails through botanical gardens complete with a mansion and plenty of places to sit and watch the world go by.
The trip was a wonderful success, here are a few of the interesting things we found. . .
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| There is at a garden center which was built before the Japanese internment, which had gone to seed until 1989 when the guy's grand-son re-built and re-opened it. This grafted pear tree is just one of the gems on the property. Two pear trees grafted with a pear shaped hole in the trunk. We happened to arrive when it was in full bloom. |
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| This is just a photo notation of a gazebo idea I want to steal. I'm thinking Adirondack reclining styled chairs. |
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| The Garden Center's coffee shop . . . Made me rethink the design of mine because I thought a window shop would look cheesy. |
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| They had a ton of good ideas. |
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| This was an old greenhouse they had converted into rainy day seating for the coffee shop. I would have done it much the same, but this was the only hole I found in their game. Every other inch of the place was product placement (appearing random, but probably not). |
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| A nice pile of aging baskets stacked up on a high shelf unit. It looks a jumble, but everything is easy to find and looking is half the fun. In the bathroom they had signage advertising a "Potopoluza" . . . They had similar shelving full of pots you could go fill with plants and dirt. |
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| Ann's favorite product idea. Tibetan prayer flags gone even more commercial. Each was six by eight and the ideas for good uses are amazing. Every inch of this place was covered in stuff you could buy. None of it looked like they were try to sell you anything. A perfect retail environment is one where the customer finds things by surprise and then buys on a whim. |
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| Once of the things which attracted me to this place was the idea that people ought to come and sit around. I'm sitting on one of the forty benches spaced out all over the place. The longer the customers are in the space, the better it is for them, and for the business. |
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| This was on a wall in Port Gamble. These were real retailers up there. Everything nicely laid out and in very good taste. But they looked like good retailers. Stuff was surprising, none of it a surprise. |
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| One of the walking paths at the Bloedell Reserve. Miles of these trails and a surprise at every turn. The floor is covered in layers of shamrocks, mini-pansies, ferns, and trillium. |
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| A simply wonderful little fence idea. |
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| The impossible reflecting pond. No way to do this. But I will find a way to do something like it. |
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| The entry into the Japanese Gardens at Bloedell Reserve. Nice use of Mondo grasses. Wonderful cheap fence. |
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| The Wishing Bench The had fifty or more benches dotting the paths everywhere. None of them were clean, none of them dirtied your clothes. I have always said that if you really want to see something, you have to sit down and look at it for a while. |
Sunday, April 3, 2016
April 3, 2016 Repost
April 2, 2016 Chipping Away
We spent the entire afternoon out at our homesteader's "Farm" yesterday burning tree debris. It was a nearly perfect day: seventy-two degrees, clear with a light northerly breeze. This is maybe our seventh burning day and burning the mix of wet(ish) berry vines, grasses, twigs, branches, and logs, takes some experience. Note to self: don't just push every damned thing into a pile and hope it will light on fire.
Even if tractor renting days are fun, and they are fun, the time restriction of renting a tractor which only has eight hours of actual work time makes for some bad decisions. This is an economic thing because it is based on a cost benefit analysis, leading us into short term gains and longer termed pains. We now have three large piles of mixed organic debris, totaling maybe two hundred cubic yards (loosely packed). Branches and logs poke out of the piles. The piles have been compacted, so everything is sort of woven together. Heavier things go to the bottom, so it looks from the outside as if the whole thing ought to light right up and burn to the ground. But this immediate success isn't what happened. Not everything just burns because of combined heat, air, and fuels.
We did a few successful burns in Winter, the first was a burn of paper trash from our forty-five foot shipping container full of trash. (You can find notes on this looking through the archive.) We found that it took three hours of sitting in the rain, with gasoline, to get paper to burn hot enough so that you didn't have to pour more gasoline on the fire. Eventually we broke the code and got about five yards of paper, magazines, books, mail, and cardboard to burn in a self sustaining manner.
Following on this we tried a few other times to get the wood debris piles to light up and get hot, but three hours following the same protocols didn't make any sort of a dent. Eventually we began to realize that burning in the winter, while it was raining or had been raining, was a nearly complete waste of time. But we had fun trying and a day on the Farm is better than a day not on the Farm.
The next time we got anything going we were simply lucky to get anywhere. I built a fire in a debris pile we had built of scraps from our landscape business, not stuff from the property. Three hours of cussing eventually got the thing lit up and "jetting" occurred for the first time. (A fire jetting up is what happens when the air gets through the fire and makes the excessive heat it take to burn cold, wet, wood.) Once we saw this we began piling light stuff onto the fire, which established a base of coals hot enough to sustain the fire no matter what we poured on. Eventually we made it through ten yards of debris before it got too dark to keep going.
The next successful burn happened after Tractor Day #3 (again, look in the archives). I had dropped a bunch of trees by pushing them over using a ten ton skid steer tractor, but the trees were too large to push into the ever debris growing piles. We got a break in the weather and it wasn't raining, even if the ground was still pretty soggy, so we decided to try. This time we had a plan to build a base fire on a steel screen of heavy wire mesh we found laying around somewhere (the crap lay everywhere). The hypothesis we were testing was that there was not enough air in the fire to allow jetting, ember pile building, excessive heat, and success.
We took twigs sized (1/4 inch or so) branches from a close by and gigantic plum tree, mixed these with paper from the shipping container, doused the thing with gasoline, and lit it up. As soon as the fire took off (jetting) we began loading branches, but I put stuff on that very new fire which was much too large and the fire faltered a bit; but eventually we got it back up to making hot coals and, with the help of Elliot (our cheap but mostly trusty chain saw that doesn't seem to like being called Elliot), we burned the hell out of a fifteen or so yards of plum tree and other wooden crap found laying all over the property. We began seeing the pattern of our behavior, learning seemed possible.
A few weeks back we went out to test our new Theory of Fire with the certain knowledge that would allow us to light a really big pile up and, using fire as a tool, make our lives easier. The plan was simple enough: Build one fire, then another, then another, by the end of the day all of our pile related problems would be solved.
We built a fire right on the side of the enormous West Meadow Debris Pile, now a monument to permanent pile making and so deserving a name of it's own. The fire took off right away (as planned), but the pile never caught on. Eventually we ran out of gasoline, and anything else that would burn, and so we had to get more. . . At the gas station in Banks they sold wood pellets for pellet stoves as well as gasoline. These pellets are little rabbit turds of sawdust extruded into plastic bags weighing about thirty pounds. I bought one, thinking it might make good kindling (and what the heck) and we began making another fire on the side of the West Meadow Pile. The pellets worked the trick and got hot enough to burn nearly anything, but we still found ourselves having to carry wood into the fire anyway, the darned pile refused to cooperate. In the end we spent eight hours and burned only ten yards which didn't make much of a dent in our hundred yard pile.
We did learn some valuable maxims: "That is is more fun to try then not to try". "That being together trying was more fun than not trying alone". "That we would maybe need twenty or so of these ten yard burns to accomplish the task". "That it ought to be done maybe sometime this year if the weather cooperates and we have the time".
Yesterday I bought the pellets first. Brought all of Elliot's necessary fuels and oils. Got the screen set up. And the weather looked good. We built a fine little fire in about ten minutes and spent eight hours chopping away and the large pile of trees and stuff. We burned nearly twenty yards, maybe more.
We brought snacks, should have brought food. We brought lots of beer, should have brought more water. It was sunny, should have brought sunscreen. Don't call Elliot, but do call Elliot "Leo" or he won't start. Lessons learned.
Hagel called the search for true knowledge the "road to despair", he was right (there is no true knowledge, only patterns of regularity which we use to get by as we search for knowledge that ultimately will fail us). The regularities are piling up. Eventually, you should be able to see the flames of my fires from space.
Even if tractor renting days are fun, and they are fun, the time restriction of renting a tractor which only has eight hours of actual work time makes for some bad decisions. This is an economic thing because it is based on a cost benefit analysis, leading us into short term gains and longer termed pains. We now have three large piles of mixed organic debris, totaling maybe two hundred cubic yards (loosely packed). Branches and logs poke out of the piles. The piles have been compacted, so everything is sort of woven together. Heavier things go to the bottom, so it looks from the outside as if the whole thing ought to light right up and burn to the ground. But this immediate success isn't what happened. Not everything just burns because of combined heat, air, and fuels.
We did a few successful burns in Winter, the first was a burn of paper trash from our forty-five foot shipping container full of trash. (You can find notes on this looking through the archive.) We found that it took three hours of sitting in the rain, with gasoline, to get paper to burn hot enough so that you didn't have to pour more gasoline on the fire. Eventually we broke the code and got about five yards of paper, magazines, books, mail, and cardboard to burn in a self sustaining manner.
Following on this we tried a few other times to get the wood debris piles to light up and get hot, but three hours following the same protocols didn't make any sort of a dent. Eventually we began to realize that burning in the winter, while it was raining or had been raining, was a nearly complete waste of time. But we had fun trying and a day on the Farm is better than a day not on the Farm.
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| The yard debris fire |
The next successful burn happened after Tractor Day #3 (again, look in the archives). I had dropped a bunch of trees by pushing them over using a ten ton skid steer tractor, but the trees were too large to push into the ever debris growing piles. We got a break in the weather and it wasn't raining, even if the ground was still pretty soggy, so we decided to try. This time we had a plan to build a base fire on a steel screen of heavy wire mesh we found laying around somewhere (the crap lay everywhere). The hypothesis we were testing was that there was not enough air in the fire to allow jetting, ember pile building, excessive heat, and success.
We took twigs sized (1/4 inch or so) branches from a close by and gigantic plum tree, mixed these with paper from the shipping container, doused the thing with gasoline, and lit it up. As soon as the fire took off (jetting) we began loading branches, but I put stuff on that very new fire which was much too large and the fire faltered a bit; but eventually we got it back up to making hot coals and, with the help of Elliot (our cheap but mostly trusty chain saw that doesn't seem to like being called Elliot), we burned the hell out of a fifteen or so yards of plum tree and other wooden crap found laying all over the property. We began seeing the pattern of our behavior, learning seemed possible.
 |
| The Plum Tree Fire |
We built a fire right on the side of the enormous West Meadow Debris Pile, now a monument to permanent pile making and so deserving a name of it's own. The fire took off right away (as planned), but the pile never caught on. Eventually we ran out of gasoline, and anything else that would burn, and so we had to get more. . . At the gas station in Banks they sold wood pellets for pellet stoves as well as gasoline. These pellets are little rabbit turds of sawdust extruded into plastic bags weighing about thirty pounds. I bought one, thinking it might make good kindling (and what the heck) and we began making another fire on the side of the West Meadow Pile. The pellets worked the trick and got hot enough to burn nearly anything, but we still found ourselves having to carry wood into the fire anyway, the darned pile refused to cooperate. In the end we spent eight hours and burned only ten yards which didn't make much of a dent in our hundred yard pile.
We did learn some valuable maxims: "That is is more fun to try then not to try". "That being together trying was more fun than not trying alone". "That we would maybe need twenty or so of these ten yard burns to accomplish the task". "That it ought to be done maybe sometime this year if the weather cooperates and we have the time".
Yesterday I bought the pellets first. Brought all of Elliot's necessary fuels and oils. Got the screen set up. And the weather looked good. We built a fine little fire in about ten minutes and spent eight hours chopping away and the large pile of trees and stuff. We burned nearly twenty yards, maybe more.
We brought snacks, should have brought food. We brought lots of beer, should have brought more water. It was sunny, should have brought sunscreen. Don't call Elliot, but do call Elliot "Leo" or he won't start. Lessons learned.
Hagel called the search for true knowledge the "road to despair", he was right (there is no true knowledge, only patterns of regularity which we use to get by as we search for knowledge that ultimately will fail us). The regularities are piling up. Eventually, you should be able to see the flames of my fires from space.
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