And Now It's Time to Say Goodbye

The weather has changed quite a bit in Mendocino County - it's much colder in the morning and evening.  Darker too (thank you, daylight savings).  There's a noticible chill in the air even when the sun is out, letting us know we are most definietly into fall, on our way to winter. The timing feels appropriate for the intern program to come to a close.

It's crazy how fast 6 months went by. 

Eric was the first to go.  He left a number of weeks ago for Bali.  (I know, we feel real sorry for him ;)  He found an awesome job in Ubud, using his architecture background to design and naturally build a meditation-permaculture-spiritual retreat/oasis.  They needed him sooner than later, so off he went.

Then, Brittany left for Atlanta. She went home for a long Thanksgiving break.  Though, she will be back in CA to attend a Permaculture Teacher training in December.  After that, she'll join Eric in Bali.

Cassie left last week.  She's heading back home to Carmel Valley.

Next on the chopping block was David.  He left soon after Cassie, on his way back to Maine for Thanksgiving & Christmas.  In the New Year, he'll be starting a building internship at Yestermorrow.

And then there's Vaughn.  He's been MIA for a number of weeks, working in solar and house-sitting in Ukiah.  He has plans to head to Nicaragua in December for the Power to the People event, where they'll be installing solar panels for communities without electricity.  Karen, our Workshop Director, will also be attending.

That leaves me and Brandon.  Since home is not too far a way for us (the bay area) with no immediate plans (a few things brewing), we're a bit more flexible.  I think it will come down to how long we can handle the chilly nights in an uninsulated cob building.  Bring on the long johns ....

So, that's it for the 2011 interns at SLI.  I think I can speak for us all when I say our time here has been inspiring, challenging, fun and educational.  We wish the next round of interns the same and more (and hope they finish our Hybrid House.)  So, until April 2012 ... this is the Intern Class of 2011 signing off.  See you next year!

Interns with Joel Salatin (woot!) 

Moondance

- Kathryn, Brandon, Brittany, Eric, David, Cassie & Vaughn

The Hybrid House Project

You know I had to save the best post for last.  Well, this won't be the last post, but just about.  We've come to the end of the intern program, but I'll fill you in on all that later.  This post is about the coolest project the interns worked on this year.  It is called: The Hybrid House.

The initial foundation + stick frame

What's a Hybrid House?  It is a small, naturally built structure utilizing various building modalities and materials, such as cob and straw bale.  It was built using completely natural (dirt, sand, straw) and recycled (wood for stick frame, metal roof, etc) materials.
 
It started out as Cassie's idea.  The interns had to move the foundation for the tee-pee to the south lawn, right across from the intern village.  It was a sizable foundation, and with a few tweaks, would be suitable for a building.  This all happened right around the time of the Straw Bale Building Intensive.  We wanted to expand on the 2 day course and use this new foundation to actually build something that would stay there and be finished, as opposed to setting up the framework and then tearing it down (which is what happens every time that course is held.)

There wasn't enough time before the course started to make it happen, but that didn't deter our ever-eager interns.  They all put their heads together to design the most energy efficient unit they could, and were determined to find a way to make it come to life.  And come to life, it did.

Once things got rolling, Eric stepped in to spearheaded the project.  He studied architecture in undergrad and has quite a bit of hands-on natural building experience.  The project began in June, and after 5 months of hard work, the exterior is 95% done. 

Some of it's features:
This house was designed to be comfortable in the winter by retaining and maximizing heat.  Currently there are no buildings on site that do this well - many were designed to withstand the hot summer and remain cool (such as The Real Goods store, and Pachamama), but they don't do so well in the winter.  I'm pretty chilly now in Pach and it's only November.

The hybrid house has a bunch of windows on the south facing wall to allow maximum sunlight during the winter.  The sunlight will enter, heat up the earthen floor, and the straw bale insulation on the north and west walls will hold the heat.  The south awning extends down and blocks the sun rays from April through August, keeping it cooler during the summer months.  The east wall has a window to help wake up the room and warm it up in the morning.

Brittany cobbing the north facing, straw bale wall

The roof itself is pretty unique as well.  It was designed with a valley down the middle of the building to allow for maximum rainwater catchment. Rain will collect in the middle and run off towards the lower corner.  Wind will also move through it effortlessly - the "dip" in the roof allows for the NW and SE winds to pass over it easily.  The roof is made out of recycled, corrugated metal - not easy material to work with.

The south facing wall - lots of windows to draw in the winter sun

Inside, there is room for a kitchen sink and a sleeping loft was built to maximize space.

Inside: what will be the kitchen

I've included a few photos, but to see all of them you can check them out on our Hybrid House Album on Facebook.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to finish this project during our internship (so close!) , so 2012 interns .... you have a project ready and waiting for you!

Aquaponics

This past weekend SLI hosted an Aquaponics course, led by Max Meyers from NorCal Aquaponics. It was one of the most packed classes I've seen - every intern + a full classroom of students!  Looks like word is getting around about what an incredible growing system Aquaponics is.

Aquaponics merges Aquaculture, the cultivation of fish/aquatic animals, with Hydroponics, the growing of food in water (no soil).  The result is a closed loop system generating one of, if not the most, efficient and sustainable food production systems in the world.

How does it work?  Simply speaking, with the help of numerous bacteria living symbiotically with the fish in the tank, the fish byproducts (ammonia, excrement), are digested by the bacteria and ultimately converted into nitrates - nutrients plants need to grow. The plants absorb the nitrates, which also cleans the water for the fish.  A lovely system living in harmony. It's incredibly energy and water efficient too - much more so that conventional farming.

Since this system doesn't require soil, it can easily be implemented in urban areas - and with the demand of food ever increasing and prices going up, it is an excellent way for families with limited backyard growing space to produce their own food.

Bok Choy grown via Aquaponics

What I found fascinating is that this growing method was used centuries ago ... by the Egyptians!  They used natural water ways thought, not water tanks or a controlled environment.  But it was the same principle.  With our advancements since then, we can now have much more control over the process, managing water pH levels and nutrient density, and get even more bounty from our (relatively minimal) efforts.

Because of it's flexibiilty and efficiency, there's no telling how far we can take it - Max shared photos and videos with us about setting up aquaponics in skyscrapers, building the grow beds vertically, or growing in typically unused spaces such as flat rooftops or warehouses (my old apartment in SF would be perfect).  Imagine having your own "farmers market" upstairs? 

Plants up top, fish tank below

Vaughn has been super excited about Aquaponics since he discovered it a few months ago and got SLI a "starter kit".  We have everything that we need to set it up.  Now that all the interns have taken the course, it's next on our to-do list!

Seed Saving

With all of the produce we've come across, be it from our own garden, our neighbors, or from the heirloom expo, we've begun saving seeds of the best fruits, veggies and herb.

Most of the seeds have been taken out of the fruit/veggie, rinsed off (if necessary - think; melon seeds) and laid out to dry.  Once dry, we wrap them up and store in a cool spot.

Can you see the white layer of mold in the jar?

David started experimenting with the tomato seeds.  He read that in order to adequately breakdown the slimy outter layer of the tomato seed (don't know the techincal term so "slimy" will have to do), you're supposed to let them sit in water and grow a layer of mold on the top - the mold will "eat" off the outer layer. This mimics nature - generally, a tomato growing in the wild will vine ripen, fall, rot, then germinate again the following spring from seed.  It would be interesting to compare how seeds harvested this way fare compared to those simply rinsed and dried. 

We cleared off a shelf in our kitchen and it's been deemed the "seed saving shelf" - there are seeds from tomatos, melons, peppers, and eggplant so far.  Seeds from cilantro, valerian, calendula, artichoke have also been harvested - but these dried on the plant. 

It pretty cool that we're able to take the seeds we've gathered from our time here and will plant them wherever we all end up next spring ... taking some of SLI and our experience with us to our next destination - quite literally!

Grapes Galore

For those of you that have visited SLI, you may have noticed that the Oasis is covered with grape vines.  They create a shaded canopy, cooling us when it's blazing in the summer and providing a bounty of grapes - more than we know what to do with.

Grapes in the Oasis

Most of us have been eating them right off the vine - picking a bundle and munching on them between meals. even having them for dessert.  They're pretty seedy, but we don't mind - we crunch right through them.  Some have even begun drying into raisins!  The best are the semi-shriveled half grape, half raisin - they're extra sweet and just the slightest bit chewy.

So, what do we do with all these grapes, you ask?  Juice em!

David & Brandon spent half a day harvesting 2 huge coolers worth of grapes to bring up to our friend Jini's house for juicing.  She has an apple press, and we heard that works just fine on grapes, too.

Brandon mid-harvest (I told you they shade well!)

One of the 2 coolers filled with grapes for juicing

We decided to make an evening out of it, as Jini lives in Redwood Valley, a bit north of Ukiah.  So Brandon, David, Vaughn, Mimi and I rolled up there, grapes and empty bottles in tow, to make some juice as well as dinner.

David and Mimi led the pressing while B and I manned the kitchen.  In 2 hours time, we pumped out approximately 9 gallons of grape juice and 10 pizzas.  Now that's teamwork.

The grape juice is so good but it's sooo sweet!  We're talking syrup-sweet.  I'm sensitive to sugars and after 3 large gulps, I could feel my heart rate amp up.  Vaughn had a hefty cupful and started to felt shaky.  Talk about a sugar rush.  We've found the best way to consume is to cut it with some sparkling water.

So refreshing in the hot summer sun

What does one do with 9 gallons of grape juice?  Make jelly, of course!

Family Dinners

One of my favorite things about living in community is sharing meals.  Or, as I like to call it, family dinners. We're essentially our own little family, right?

We started out having group dinners/potlucks every other Tuesday, but that's shifted a bit.  Now we'll plan it on occasion, but it tends to happen spontaneously, when a few of us are in the kitchen making different dishes. We'll join forces, share our respective dishes and end up with a collective feast versus a simple meal for just one or 2.  

This week our theme has been using the outdoor cob oven.  We love that thing.  It hasn't been used much since early spring, but we're bringing it back.  Last night we threw in some sweet potatoes and ranch style beans w/ bacon on top.  The night before we made 2 pizzas covered with heirloom tomato sauce (from where? the expo!), cheese, tomatoes, eggplant, onions, peppercinis, olives, bell peppers, garlic OMG it was delish.  We actually had some extra dough laying around so we made an impromptu pizza last night as well.  Add to that a fatty salad made with freshly harvested with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, basil, garlic, balsamic & olive oil - YUM.  

Since we're in the middle of what appears to be a heat wave - it had cooled off for a bit but now we're back to the 100's - we've been eating and preparing our family meals outside on the picnic benches.  The yurt just gets SO hot - and it's no fun to cook or eat in that heat.  There's also a circular cob bench that surrounds a fire pit out there - we threw some wood in there last week (when it was much cooler) and dined around it as the sun went down.  

Wait - let's not forget about dessert.  Mimi made a zucchini crisp - kinda like an apple crisp but with zucchini.  Nutritious and delicious! 

As you can tell, there's no shortage of fresh food around here, and we're so grateful for it.  As I write this, there's a crock-pot of fresh tomato puree on its way to becoming homemade ketchup.  And did I mention all the apple butter Cassie & David made and canned a few weeks ago from tree-ripened apples?  

I wonder what's on the menu tonight ....

Solar Dehydrator

Cassie built a very cool device:  a solar dehydrator.

It's made out of reclaimed redwood.  How does it work, you ask?   Well, first you load up the trays with whatever fruit or vegetable you'd like to dehydrate - we're currently drying heirloom tomatoes (we had SO many from the expo.)  The main part of the unit - the rectangular wooden box on the right - opens in the back to reveal various racks that hold vented trays lined with mesh.  Lay the tomatoes on top, place unit in the sun and in a few days (depending on how moist your produce is) you will have sun-dried tomatoes!

Heirloom tomatoes slowly drying

Fresh tomatoes on the tray, about to begin drying

The slanted potion of the dehydrator works to capture heat.  It's plexiglass on top, so it allows the sunlight to enter easily, and below it, the wood is painted black so as to attract as much sun as possible.  The heat is captured in the space between the wood and plexiglass, and moves up (hot air rises) into the main compartment where your produce resides.

So far we've dried apples and zucchini slices.  The heirlooms have another day or so to go, but they're looking good.  We sampled on of the thinner slices that was essentially ready - it was super sweet and almost tasted like an apricot.  Love those heirlooms ;)