S Haze

Hello Court!

Have you found the help you were seeking yet?  I probably wouldn't prioritize helping with your project since I'm already more than booked up for the next year or so but I'd offer at least some advice and assistance if it would help you move the project forward.

While I'm not an engineer I do have some education in that area and have built my own passive solar home with the help of an architect.  If you'd like to visit this winter we could go over some of your ideas or concepts and start to analyze them for feasibility if you haven't done so yet.

Hopefully you're already moving along but send me a message if not!

-Scott

Hello from MN!  I'll get a proper post up soon on this forum.  45, feeling great, and building an amazing regenerative farm!

Having a landline to me feels almost luxurious in a way!

One big reason I never plan on giving it up is having it as phone number that I don't need to guard as carefully.  It's on my website, I enter it into forms that require a phone number, and I can share it with anyone or any company if I don't want them to have the ability to interrupt me as easily as they could with a cell phone number.

Most obnoxious, unsolicited communications are through text so they're automatically filtered.  If I am home and the phone rings I can check the caller id.  Guess you do that with a cell phone too but the landline doesn't follow me everywhere I go!

All the preparedness stuff is totally valid too!  We don't have all the same risks for various types of disasters here in MN but having several ways to send and receive communications is always a good idea!

Since this experiment began I think the understanding of how artificial light and its parameters like wavelength and flicker rate affect us has come a long way!  The image is one I've seen before and sums up why CFLS especially might be not-so-good for us as biological organisms.  The webpage I pulled it from seems fairly comprehensive and legit too.
https://iristech.co/blue-light-filters-ultimate-guide/

Both of these poems moved me to tears when I recently heard them recited.  They seem to fit well with the theme here.

The first is written by Aubrey Marcus and is inspired by Alison Nappi's: A wild woman is not a girlfriend. She is a relationship with nature, which is also copied below.  Enjoy!

A wild man is not a boyfriend, he is a force.
Can you love me in the blinding heat of a birthing star, when I shower warmth on distant moons?

Can you love me in the hole of the cosmic Black, where no one can reach me? Not even you?

Can you love me then too?

Can you love me when I drag buffalo skulls through the dirt for days, to the rhythm of an ancient drum?

Will you love me if my beard hides the scars in my heart, from battles I cannot explain?

WIll you love me when I lack courage, when I am defeated, when I won't let you patch my wounds?

WIll you trust me when I smell of sweetgrass and sage, and when I stink of whiskey and sweat?

When I drink from the cup and play in astral light, will you anchor me to Home?

What happens when my words don't work, and I can speak with only my eyes?

Can you love me enough to let me go, without asking me where I'll be?

I am no poodle to lay groomed on a leash at your feet. I am the wolf that fetches the bones of truth.

A wild man is not a boyfriend. He's not built for animal husbandry. He is a force. He is a cause for an effect. He is a mission.

Are you afraid to let me inside you? Not just my flesh, but my soul. The wild man is neither burglar or vandal. I will not take anything from you. I will not trample on sprouting seeds or pick flowers as a trophy. I am the sun on flooded fields and the fire for tangled webs.

Don't be scared, lover, mother, maiden, crone. Take me as I am.

Even if I have the power to destroy worlds, I will not destroy you.

A wild man is a protector. A father. A warrior for all that is good.

When the chaos seeks to obliterate you, sheering your flesh from bone, I will hold all the pieces together in love, until you are ready to reassemble.

When your seas boil, and your winds throw cars at corn fields, I will wait patiently for you to catch my eye, so that both of us can laugh.

When Hell opens up the fiery gates, and sends all the cosmos against you, I plant my heels deep in the ground. I lay my shield low. My sword is sharp then, my love. The steel sings sweetly. With a smile, Hoka Hey! My last breath a farewell kiss. Today is a good day to die.

For ours is the oldest love affair. The greatest story ever told. Cupid and Psyche, Shiva and Shakti, You and I.

Same same but different. Would we have it any other way?

A wild man is not a boyfriend. He is a force.



Allison Nappi's poem:

A wild woman is not a girlfriend. She is a relationship with nature.

But can you love me in the deep? In the dark? In the thick of it?

Can you love me when I drink from the wrong bottle and slip through the crack in the floorboard?

Can you love me when I'm bigger than you, when my presence blazes like the sun does, when it hurts to look directly at me?

Can you love me then too? Can you love me under the starry sky, shaved and smooth, my skin like liquid moonlight?

Can you love me when I am howling and furry, standing on my haunches, my lower lip stained with the blood of my last kill?

When I call down the lightning, when the sidewalks are singed by the soles of my feet, can you still love me then?

What happens when I freeze the land, and cause the dirt to harden over all the pomegranate seeds we've planted?

Will you trust that Spring will return?

Will you still believe me when I tell you I will become a raging river, and spill myself upon your dreams and call them to the surface of your life?

Can you trust me, even though you cannot tame me?

Can you love me, even though I am all that you fear and admire?

Will you fear my shifting shape?

Does it frighten you, when my eyes flash like your camera does?

Do you fear they will capture your soul?

Are you afraid to step into me?

The meat-eating plants and flowers armed with poisonous darts are not in my jungle to stop you from coming. Not you.

So do not worry. They belong to me, and I have invited you here.

Stay to the path revealed in the moonlight and arrive safely to the hut of Baba Yaga: the wild old wise one, she will not lead you astray if you are pure of heart.

You cannot be with the wild one if you fear the rumbling of the ground, the roar of a cascading river, the startling clap of thunder in the sky.

If you want to be safe, go back to your tiny room the night sky is not for you.

If you want to be torn apart, come in. Be broken open and devoured. Be set ablaze in my fire.

I will not leave you as you have come: well dressed, in finely-threaded sweaters that keep out the cold.

I will leave you naked and biting. Leave you clawing at the sheets. Leave you surrounded by owls and hawks and flowers that only bloom when no one is watching.

So, come to me, and be healed in the unbearable lightness and darkness of all that you are.

There is nothing in you that can scare me. Nothing in you I will not use to make you great.

A wild woman is not a girlfriend. She is a relationship with nature. She is the source of all your primal desires, and she is the wild whipping wind that uproots the poisonous corn stalks on your neatly tilled farm.

She will plant pear trees in the wake of your disaster.

She will see to it that you shall rise again.

She is the lover who restores you to your own wild nature.

Beautiful looking place!  It reminds me of church at Boy Scout camp only a hell of lot cooler looking!

Here's one photo of the "chapel" at Big Island state park in MN.

ADD strikes again!

The house work continues on and on and ON!  Smaller and more simple would have been really nice!  But life is complicated and messy, just like the bottom photo.  We have the needs and desires of loved ones to consider and then there's all the other REALLY COOL STUFF life hurtles us through.  It would be so nice if the house was completely done but all in all I wouldn't trade it for anything else!  Soil health initiatives on my family's conventional corn and soy farm, agroforestry, raising mangalitza hogs and cattle, and lots of other fun and exciting things have pulled me away from this forum and the at times from the house project.

Progress does continue though!  We've finished interior walls, prepared for exterior stucco, finished the roof and facia, brought the upstairs bathroom to 85% completion, and will soon completely finish the spare bedroom.  Over the next 6 months I hope to at least quadruple the pace of the previous 6 months.  This will be accomplished by keeping myself accountable, enlisting the help of family members and holding them accountable, hosting another cob workshop to wrap up some details, and putting my money where my mouth is by hiring some help from part-timers, handymen, and professionals.  Some of the finishing woodwork details can be outsourced and I've found a local who's really good with a trowel.

Halfway through the winter of 2014-2015 we started "camping out" in the new house, still cooking and showering in the old one but now this is our 2nd full winter.  The firewood supply is growing without effort so it must working! I think we're using about 2-3 cords per winter and it will only get better as we add efficiency measures such as thermal window drapes and seal air leaks around the ceilings.

Hope everyone who reads this finds their own personal best way to make positive impacts on the landscape!

Glare is a fact of life in a passive solar home, at least it is in mine that I'm on my 3rd winter in.  Trombe walls could work but I can't share any personal experience there since I don't have one.  Summer sun is mentioned in the comments here but with good design that can be minimized or almost eliminated.  You probably already know to try to keep it fairly long and narrow East to West and of course the proper overhangs are critical.

Some of the finer design details:  Pay attention to finishes on floors, window sills, and furnishings.  My wife put a clear vinyl table cloth on the dining table and it bounces a bright glare into the kitchen.  Floors can be tricky since smooth and shiney is easiest to clean but relatively matte finishes help out.  We have a tall counter halfway through the house separating the dining from kitchen and this does deflect most of the glare from the floor.  Colors are important too.  As we know, dark colors absorb more and convert to heat while lighter bounces more light off.

Most passive solar architects now know not to over-glaze.  Just having a 5-6 ft wall section not glazed creates a nice pocket to place a reading chair or something in.  Of course the shaded areas farther from the wall shift throughout the day.  We have a living area with a ceiling that goes to the upstairs with the window up high.  This keeps the sun from that window mostly on a dark painted wall halfway through the house or upstairs.

Hopefully by next winter I'll be able to report back how an attached solar greenhouse impacts the performance.  We have section 12 or more feet long with no windows that will be inside the greenhouse, there's a doorway to one side and a double-hung window to the other that can let extra heat into the house if we choose to open them.  I imagine that the greenhouse will reduce the glare we currently get through the door since it will be diffused through the greenhouse glass first.

I see that someone mentioned various curtain arrangements but I can't report on that either since I don't have any yet!  Getting insulating window drapes to close at night should help out a lot though!

Nothing's perfect but I will say that I'm extremely happy with the performance of passive solar in my climate.  Over Christmas I was gone for 8 days and with no supplemental heat in MN I came home to 55 F downstairs and 60F upstairs!
Good luck!  Hope this helped!

Hi Starr,

I still check this out occasionally, missed the notification this time.  I'm not very close to Duluth, much closer to Iowa.  I know of permie groups in the twin cities and there has been a get together around labor day at harmony park north of Albert Lea for several years now.  I'll mention to that they hosted the north american permaculture convergence in 2014 in case you missed it.