Speed Restrictions on Housing

Exit door of “Pipe Dreams” at Elefante, handcrafted home structures

I wish that I could claim that I thought of Slow Home first, what can I say?  I didn’t, but when I ran across the idea, I was like, “Well, yeeah.”  As a residential designer, who secretly (guess it’s no secret now) wants to design & build treehouses and garden rooms, I hope the Slow Home movement sweeps the nation.  I hope it brings a new era of building or deconstructing that encompasses environmental restorative design, reconnecting humans and nature, and is a celebration of the human spirit possessing both anima and animus traits.  That is all.

The 10 Steps to a Slow Home 

1. GO INDEPENDENT

Avoid homes by big developers and large production builders. They are designed for profit not people. Work with independent designers and building contractors instead.

2. GO LOCAL

Avoid home finishing products from big box retailers. The standardized solutions they provide cannot fit the unique conditions of your home. Use local retailers, craftspeople, and manufacturers to get a locally appropriate response and support your community.

3. GO GREEN

Stop the conversion of nature into sprawl. Don’t buy in a new suburb. The environmental cost can no longer be justified. Re-invest in existing communities and use sustainable materials and technologies to reduce your environmental footprint.

4. GO NEAR

Reduce your commute. Driving is a waste of time and the new roads and services required to support low density development is a big contributor to climate change. Live close to where you work and play.

5. GO SMALL

Avoid the real estate game of bigger is always better. A properly designed smaller home can feel larger AND work better than a poorly designed big one. Spend your money on quality instead of quantity.

6. GO OPEN

Stop living in houses filled with little rooms. They are dark, inefficient, and don’t fit the complexity of our daily lives. Live in a flexible and adaptive open plan living space with great light and a connection to outdoors.

7. GO SIMPLE

Don’t buy a home that has space you won’t use and things you don’t need. Good design can reduce the clutter and confusion in your life. Create a home that fits the way you really want to live.

8. GO MODERN

Avoid fake materials and the re-creation of false historical styles. They are like advertising images and have little real depth. Create a home in which character comes from the quality of space, natural light and the careful use of good, sustainable materials.

9. GO HEALTHY

Avoid living in a public health concern. Houses built with cheap materials off gas noxious chemicals. Suburbs promote obesity because driving is the only option. Use natural, healthy home materials and building techniques. Live where you can walk to shop, school and work.

10. GO FOR IT

Stop procrastinating. The most important, and difficult, step in the slow home process is the first one that you take. Get informed and then get involved with your home. Every change, no matter how small, is important.    

Potluck

 

Events, daily happenings and course work  have spurred the blogging hiatus, which I’m briefly interrupting.

The graduation of the child and reuniting of all the various step, grand and parental “units” (as my sister likes to call the respective mother / father and their marital partner) went without a hitch.  Well, except the little one involving me making party arrangements at the wrong clubhouse.

Anyhow, there were other graduations to attend as well as a wedding, papers to write, books to read and projects to complete (still completing).

Among the projects is a Neighborhood Cooperative I’m constructing, loosely following a business plan model, with the intent of reuniting humans with nature and their communal roots.

The Blue Bag program is finally under way and there are talks of a CSA or community garden or farmers market???  I say “or” because it’s in the works and the specifics haven’t been revealed yet.

The Green Meets is attracting the attention of a sponsor, no specifics on this development yet either.

Today marked a culmination of these small events that represent a growing body of local, powerful, eco-conscious minded individuals.  The fringes of South Walton County are starting to infiltrate and with some hope and momentum this small corner of the coast may just prove itself in the green department.

Today a group of 14 of us came together for a potluck luncheon featuring local and regional foods.  The tables were set outside in the southern heat, under a canopy of pines, bound together with prayer flags.  The tables were covered with Sari’s and adorned with pickle jars filled with magnolias, produce props and beautifully mix-matched napkins, chairs, plates and glasses.  The representation of food was incredible: Gulf shrimp & fish ceviche, venison burgers, inkberry tea, blueberry-peach chutney over Mahi Mahi, watermelon water, spinach & duck egg quiche, pepper jelly, lima beans, pasta w/ local veggies, peach & basil tea, black bean & soy bean salsas, lemon balm & kaffir lime tea, zucchini bread,and cantelope & cucumber salad.  There were other samplings, though these were the staples.  Great food, great conversation with the majority of food coming from local gardens, farms, the Gulf, Alabama and Georgia.

 

Radishes Abound

The garden is well on its way to realizing its full potential.  One of my earlier goals for 2007 was to increase the garden size, which has been a success, though I’m already thinking of expanding.  Here’s the latest on what’s growing.

 

On the left are miniature white cucumbers that will be working their way up the outdoor shower enclosure.  On the right is the first bed I put in back in November.  This was the one when tested, showed few nutrients and the carrots and beets have been floundering since November.  I’m surprised they didn’t rot away.  Anyhow, this is the hodge-podge bed of purple potatoes, chanterey carrots, garlic, lisbon onions, bull’s blood beets and thyme, all planted a bit too close together.

 

Bed 2 (L) consist of Bright Breakfast Radish started from seed, American Spinach from seed and (3) broccoli plants from my neighbor.  I’m trying the square foot method of gardening in this bed, which makes for tidier looking plants.  Bed 3 (R) has Rosa Bianca Eggplants (seed) and Bee Balm in the front (nursery), and Bloody Butcher (seed) and Yellow Pear Tomatoes (seed) at the rear.

 

Bed 4 (L) has the same tomatoes as bed 3, Eggplant, Rosemary and Sweet Red Peppers, both of these from a nursery.  In the far corner are (2) Romaine babies in one of the EarthBoxes.   Final, the second harvest, a handful of spinach and a radish.  I can’t show you the first harvest because we ate it already.  It was a handful of radishes eaten last night with this delightful butter and cream cheese concoction that you see in the corner.  Also in the garden but not ready for a photo-op are Arizona Cantelopes, Black Beauty Squash and another tomato plant in the Topsy Turvy, a gift from T.  All the new beds are a mixture of peat moss, topsoil and predominantly mushroom compost from Thos. Stein’s.

 

Soil Survey and Test

The sandy soil on my land is perfectly suited to growing palmettos and passion flowers, though NOT much else in the way of fruits and vegetables.  Through searching for a soil survey of my county, I discovered that our area, just south of the Choctawhotchee Bay and North of the Gulf is comprised of undifferentiated quartz sands with varying percentages of silt and clay.  Not much in the way of organic matter.

Exoskeleton

Gazing at my potato tops this afternoon, I began wondering if it would be worth the effort to gather up the litter of pine bark detritus left behind from the woodpecker foraging and create my own mulch.  There’s quite a pile all around the perimeter of the tree, in fact the ground is starting to look like an extension of the tree.  There are huge plates of bark still remaining on the trunk, which I decided needed further inspection after hearing what I thought were bark beetles scurrying under the surface.

Garden Update

Not much to report around here, since I’m all into the school thing now, so I thought I’d share my latest purchase from Heirloom Seeds.

Peckers

Oh, I just had a thought…maybe I’ll get a lot of hits with that title.  We’ll see.

This must be the week of photos and birds.  I’ve been on a bird kick lately and for no particular reason.  I guess I was intrigued by the tales of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker and I just started paying closer attention to the birds in my yard.  Not that I didn’t pay attention to them before, I just didn’t make the effort to identify them.  I’ve got this great book, Field Guide to Birds of North America that the M. gave me several years ago, paired with the extinct woodpecker fables, sparked an interest.

Mustard Greens Abound

I’m inclined to giving updates lately, so an update on my gardening attempts is in order.

The two EarthBoxes that I planted Cos Romaine and Mesclun are doing very well.  Although, I didn’t thin the Cos when it first sprouted, so now it has become very crowded and leggy.  That’s ok, as I have taken to thinning it now and adding the baby leaves in with the mesclun for salads.  This is working well as the remaining plants are quickly filling in and becoming crunchier.  The mesclun is also a bit over crowded and over run with mustard greens, which I like but not as the predominant green in my salad.  The mustard grows faster and larger than the other greens so they seem to be fighting for space and light.  Next time, I’ll be more careful about planting the seeds.  Fortunately, Elvis the rabbit really enjoys all my clippings from the garden, even mustard.

The other thing that seems to be affecting my salad greens is this freaky weird, warm winter weather we’re having.  With the temperature between 75-80 the past week, the plants sometimes look a little wilted or like they want to bolt.  They’re just not quite sure what they’re suppose to do.

The peppers are finally done in the third EarthBox, but I noticed today there was new growth and some new flowers.  This weekend they’ll be composted and I’ll start another box of something.  I haven’t figured out what just yet.

In the one raised bed, I’ve started bull’s blood beets, chanteney carrots, lisbon onions, a couple purple potatoes and some garlic.  I don’t have any books on gardening, so I’m really just winging it and finding whatever info. on the internet I can.  I found an interesting site on companion planting which I consulted with before deciding to plant such a hodge podge of veggies all together.  We’ll see if it works out.   

About that letter to Microsoft

I recently wrote a letter to Microsoft Corporation regarding the recycling of a non-functioning mouse and keyboard.  I won’t repeat myself, though if you’re interested you can read about it here.  It was written in a moment of frustration, though after some reflection, I’m less certain about the proper placement of that frustration.  I was immediately frustrated because I thought I was doing the right thing by replacing a tiny little transceiver only to have my efforts thwarted by the company’s planned obsolescence.  I was further frustrated by the thought that I had succumbed to the advertising pressures to be that this was an item I needed, though that purchase was made previous to me deciding to become more proactive in the practice of sustainability.

Fill Sand

This ties to yesterdays post regarding the soil or lack thereof in my yard.  My daughter just pulled an all-nighter finishing up her project for the school science fair.  She’s semi interested in ecology, but really, I don’t expect that will be the direction she heads.  Anyhow, her experiment was to grow wheat grass in three different soils and chart their progress.  The findings were as expected, though it’s still amazing to see the actual results.  Here’s the photo.  The row on the left is grown in sand taken from the road, which is similar in composition to the fill they used for our lot.  The row in the middle is store bought, enriched potting soil, specifically formulated for starting seeds.  The row on the right is compost taken right out of the bottom of our compost bin.  I think the results speak for themselves!