Hey Blog,
So, I just wanted to say, it's been real, it's been fun, it's been stressful. But overall, a great learning experience.
I have to admit, you served a similar purpose as a cool new shirt. At first, I was really excited to write in you and was so sure I would write in you often, even more than the prescribed three times per week. But then, as I started to "wear" you, per say, I got a little tired of you and was not as encouraged to write in you as often...much like how the "newness" of a new shirt wears off sort of quickly.
But, you were a very important part of my growth during this project. Though I may not have the funniest or quirkiest blog personality, I still felt like I developed one through you, which I didn't know I could do. Also, in years to come, I can look back and read through all of entires and see my whole thought process shift. If I'm building my own earthship someday (which I hope to do), then I can also look back here for some information!
I hope, when I give my presentation, that I plant some sort of a bug in people. Get em' hooked on the aspect of sustainable living and encourage them to think more consciously about how they live and maybe just take more notice of those sustainable communities here in Ithaca.
I hope that when I attend Ithaca College next year, I can join some sort of a club pioneering sustainability at the school and stay active in this issue (I will primarily be studying piano performance and psychology).
I'm glad to say that even though I quickly got tired of the architecture/designing part, I never grew tired on learning about sustainable living, and I hope to make it a big part of my life from here on out.
So long, fare well, auf wiedersehen adieu.
Love,
Katie
Thursday, June 11, 2015
More Presentation Ideas
After I gave my tiny presentation on Sunday, Ms. Z said she had a lot of new ideas for me and how I could organize my presentation. I got very excited when I heard this (maybe not outwardly at the time, because I was exhausted...) because I can always count on her for her creativity and her well thought out, well-meaning plans. So when she sent me an email earlier this morning, I was so excited to see how long it was! So many ideas are flowing and I love that she took the time to write an extensive email explaining them, so thank you Ms. Z :)
Here are a few thoughts from the email!
- Give a hook-get the audience excited about what you're going to talk about.
- Explain why you were inspired to dive into this project. This adds a personal element.
- Basic overview of Earthships. Don't dive into a lot of the specifics because it can sound wordy.
- Other examples of "uniquely sustainable living" (talk about EcoVillage, Carrie and Mike's house, etc.)
- Your WISE experience: timeline, challenges, changing focus, etc.
- What you learned about sustainable living, yourself, etc.
- What you hope is next for yourself in terms of sustainable living, as well as your hopes for Ithaca, larger communities, etc.
I wanted to use the timeline aspect of April's presentation, but maybe that won't necessarily work. Maybe I can talk about briefly how my project changed at the beginning, then go with this sort of a plan.
Also, Ms. Z suggested that I really focus on the title of presentation. I originally thought to change my title, but number one, it might be too late for that...and two, it might actually still work.
The designing part might not actually be designing the home, but designing a lifestyle. The Unique part is all about making one's home and lifestyle unique to their needs, while keeping those of the environment in mind. And the home part is very distinct from the house, as Ms. Zsryski talked about. It's not just a structure, but a friendly environment that sits at the core of one's character.
I've also heard numerous times that circling back to my own passions for sustainable living is key. Always making sure this presentation is personal and not to factual will definitely help.
Eeee geting excited!!
Here are a few thoughts from the email!
- Give a hook-get the audience excited about what you're going to talk about.
- Explain why you were inspired to dive into this project. This adds a personal element.
- Basic overview of Earthships. Don't dive into a lot of the specifics because it can sound wordy.
- Other examples of "uniquely sustainable living" (talk about EcoVillage, Carrie and Mike's house, etc.)
- Your WISE experience: timeline, challenges, changing focus, etc.
- What you learned about sustainable living, yourself, etc.
- What you hope is next for yourself in terms of sustainable living, as well as your hopes for Ithaca, larger communities, etc.
I wanted to use the timeline aspect of April's presentation, but maybe that won't necessarily work. Maybe I can talk about briefly how my project changed at the beginning, then go with this sort of a plan.
Also, Ms. Z suggested that I really focus on the title of presentation. I originally thought to change my title, but number one, it might be too late for that...and two, it might actually still work.
The designing part might not actually be designing the home, but designing a lifestyle. The Unique part is all about making one's home and lifestyle unique to their needs, while keeping those of the environment in mind. And the home part is very distinct from the house, as Ms. Zsryski talked about. It's not just a structure, but a friendly environment that sits at the core of one's character.
I've also heard numerous times that circling back to my own passions for sustainable living is key. Always making sure this presentation is personal and not to factual will definitely help.
Eeee geting excited!!
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Earthship Interview/Tour!
So guess what folks...we got ourselves an earthship in Freeville!! Yes we actually have one 30 minutes away!! I'm so excited about this because while earthships are very revolutionary in design, they are not very common to build, and we have one! Also, after talking to Chad Devoe, one of the inhabiters of this earthship (along with his wife and new baby!), there's ANOTHER one being built in Brooktendale, which I had no clue was happening...and as he said, these two are the only earthships he knows of in New York State. I did a bit of research and I found one currently being built in Adams, NY, and there are plans to build an earthship in NYC (sounds crazy, but here's the link explaining how it will work. http://ecobrooklyn.com/earthship-project-york/), but other than that, we have 2/3 of the earthships in NY state right on the outskirts of Ithaca. That says A LOT about how progressive this town really is and makes me ever more grateful that I live here. Thank you parents for letting me grow up here!
A little prerequisite information:
-Chad has wanted to build some sort of sustainable home since college. He and his wife were originally going to build a strawbale house, but then, when he found out about earthships in 2008, they just had to build one. They mainly researched earthships online, because the books were outdated at that point, and still are.
-The ultra-cool thing, in my opinion, was that Michael Reynolds and a building crew of about 10 people actually came out here 3 years ago to help build this earthship!! He was actually here!! I wish I knew about these earlier so I could've met him when he was in central New York. Chad got the blueprints from Reynolds (they built the global model, but with a few tweeks), and after Chad and Courtney started building some of the easier stuff, Reynolds and the crew came out and helped deal with a lot of the technical stuff, like the catch water system, the solar panels, etc.
-850 tires, 3000 glass bottles, and 15,000 cans were used to build this house. They got the tires from a car shop in Dryden, which they didn't have to pay for. However, they did have to pay for the cans that they got from the dump. I mean I guess that makes sense, if they were planning to make money by getting rid of the cans, they can't give several thousand away for free. The Devoes are off grid, different from Carrie & Mike.
-Here's the list of bills they pay: Mortgage, internet (connected to Clarity Connect), cell phone, propane ($200 a year). That's it. Nothing else. My dad has to pay at least $300 per month for his NYSEG bill, and that's saying something.
-Chad's daily duties include changing the water filters (monthly), washing out the water filters (weekly), watering the greenhouse plants, and in the winter time, brushing off the solar panels.
1. This can+cement fixture mainly just serves as a filler. The cans help to take up space so they don't have to use more cement.
2. This is the water organizing module, but Chad usually just calls it the water pump. The grey water is filtered twice through the first two pumps. Drinking water is filtered two more times in the last two pumps.
3. This is just some beautiful stone work in the bathroom. All tile is recycled
4. Now THIS is how to repurpose glass bottles. All of those colorful circles are made from glass bottles to provide a stain glass effect. This is in their guest bedroom
5. This is the green house, where a good portion of the plants grow. They have an avocado plant, a lemon tree, lettuce, and many other plants. It also stays fairly warm in this part of the house because this is the front face of the sunlight that hits the house, and since it acts as a greenhouse, it has to stay warm. This never gets below 42 degrees, even in the winter time.
6. Here's an example of what some of the walls look like with the combination of the cement and tires. Chad plans to plaster this over the summer.
7. Just some cool tile artwork on the back patio.
8. Up above, those seemingly green things on the ceiling, can be opened up to let a breeze in, since this greenhouse area gets so hot.
9. This is the roof. It's more flat than most earthship roofs, but you can see it's metal and slightly slanted so all the water can flow off of it easily. Also, you can tell from this that half of the house is earth bermed.
10. The little pathway leading up to their roof
11. These are where the cooling tubes begin. They have about 5 total, and this is what cools their house in the summer
12. Those two green things are called scuffers, and they catch all of the water and allow it to drain under those two brown things. Since we have a lot of rain here, they often have an excess of rain water (which isn't the case in New Mexico where most earthships are built), so during a thunderstorm, Chad often closes the drains (which they are now) so the water can just drain into the surrounding field. They have two cisterns they can fill up with water, which is plenty
13. That little gray pipe on the right of the gunnel is a glycol heating tube, similar to the one at Carrie's house. This is placed in the gunnel so the rain water has no chance of freezing. This also melts the snow that falls
14. Here's the front view of the house! Notice how the solar panels are positioned at a different angle than the windows. This is so they can get maximum sunlight. The windows don't need to get maximum sunlight all the time, as there would be overheating.
15. This is the inside of the separate greenhouse they have. Another great portion of their plants are grown here, such as rice, lettuce, basil, etc.
16. Here are some hens!
17. Here are some cute duckies they have in their inside green house!! The ducks are actually used for slug control, not just for pure enjoyment, as one might think.
17=8. This is the view from the front of the house. Pretty incredible, right? Yes.
Here's the link to the earthship biotecture blog about this earthship's build.
http://earthship.com/blogs/2012/08/ithaca-new-york-build-week-3-day-13/
And here's the link to Mr. Devoe's own blog about his continuous earthship building/touching up experiences
http://freevilleearthship.blogspot.com
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Last WISE Class-In Class Journal Entry
Sadly, I was not able to attend the last WISE class, as I stayed home from school sick yesterday :(
I already wrote an entry about April's sample presentation...but it doesn't hurt to write another one reflecting on her work! Here it goes.
Q: What would you like to borrow from the sample?
A: I would like to borrow the food portion of her presentation...I'm not sure if I will use it as an incentive, but I will definitely have food. I might also include a timeline, like she did. My slideshow probably won't be set up that way, but I'll talk about what I did in chronological order, I think.
Q: What was a particular strength of the sample?
A: April included some statistics in her presentation on how much she exactly had to write in a certain amount of time, and it really let the audience know how much work she had to do, which was a lot!! Including the pros and cons of the different processes was very effective, as well. Also, April's speaking skills, of course, were another strength.
Q: What would you do differently?
A: I'm probably going to give more factual information and share more of my research rather than primarily talk about my process. That's what my project calls for.
I already wrote an entry about April's sample presentation...but it doesn't hurt to write another one reflecting on her work! Here it goes.
Q: What would you like to borrow from the sample?
A: I would like to borrow the food portion of her presentation...I'm not sure if I will use it as an incentive, but I will definitely have food. I might also include a timeline, like she did. My slideshow probably won't be set up that way, but I'll talk about what I did in chronological order, I think.
Q: What was a particular strength of the sample?
A: April included some statistics in her presentation on how much she exactly had to write in a certain amount of time, and it really let the audience know how much work she had to do, which was a lot!! Including the pros and cons of the different processes was very effective, as well. Also, April's speaking skills, of course, were another strength.
Q: What would you do differently?
A: I'm probably going to give more factual information and share more of my research rather than primarily talk about my process. That's what my project calls for.
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Presentation #1: Check!
Welp…I just completed my little mini earthship presentation! Yaaaaay!
So since we planned to do this last week..it was a bit last minute and not on a big scale (which is definitely fine with me), but we made it happen, and I'm just so happy about that.
We ended up having this at the church I go to (St. Paul's United Methodist Church) in a small conference room. Jacqueline (who's husband I interviewed a week ago), created a Facebook event, and we ended up calling it Ecovillage and Earththips: The Future of Sustainable Living.
About 15 people showed up, which was the perfect amount of people. All of them I knew in some way or another, so I didn't feel as bad about how un-perfectly my half of the presentation went. First, I told everyone why I wanted to give this little talk and gave them some context. Then, I briefly described what earthships were, then continued to go through the systems and how they worked. Then talked about where a few of them have been built for relief purposes. Very simple. The Arlene talked about Ecovillage, how it's run, and what it's main goals are. No added pictures or anything, very casual and supportive environment.
However, let me paint a picture of what/how I was doing the day before/the day of.
June 6th:
Noon-4 pm. This day finally came, it was PROM day! My mom and I were running around getting nails done, getting last minute accessories, a corsage and boutineer, all that good stuff. Then it came time for me to go get ready at a friend's house.
4 pm-11pm: Getting ready (which surprisingly didn't take too long), then going to take pictures at the plantations, then going back to the house I was at and taking more pictures (readers out there who already went to prom, any flashbacks yet?). Then the actual prom at the Farmer's Market, which was just lovely. It felt very at home/Ithaca-esque, and the Blind Spots played (they're an AWESOME local band, check them out!!) and it was a fabulous evening.
June 6th-7th
11 pm-4 am: We had a sleepover back at my friend's house and stayed up verrryy late.
June 7th:
4 am-7 am: sleep in a tent outside
7 am-11:30 am: went home and did as much work as I could for this presentation. I had very little time the week before to prep for it, as I had other priorities that came first. So that was rough.
Basically what I'm trying to say in as interesting of a format as possible is that I was very tired and unprepared for this mini presentation. While I was talking (thank goodness I got to sit and only use my computer to show a few pictures), I had a hard time coming up with the right words to say and was very sluggish in my thinking. I was stutter-y and not boisterous enough, I thought.
I can be sure, though, when I give my actual WISE presentation, that I get a good night's sleep the night before, I prepare all week, and I fully rehearse what I'm going to say. I'm glad I got the jitters out of the way and now feel more ready for the big presentation next week.
We're gettin' there!
So since we planned to do this last week..it was a bit last minute and not on a big scale (which is definitely fine with me), but we made it happen, and I'm just so happy about that.
We ended up having this at the church I go to (St. Paul's United Methodist Church) in a small conference room. Jacqueline (who's husband I interviewed a week ago), created a Facebook event, and we ended up calling it Ecovillage and Earththips: The Future of Sustainable Living.
About 15 people showed up, which was the perfect amount of people. All of them I knew in some way or another, so I didn't feel as bad about how un-perfectly my half of the presentation went. First, I told everyone why I wanted to give this little talk and gave them some context. Then, I briefly described what earthships were, then continued to go through the systems and how they worked. Then talked about where a few of them have been built for relief purposes. Very simple. The Arlene talked about Ecovillage, how it's run, and what it's main goals are. No added pictures or anything, very casual and supportive environment.
However, let me paint a picture of what/how I was doing the day before/the day of.
June 6th:
Noon-4 pm. This day finally came, it was PROM day! My mom and I were running around getting nails done, getting last minute accessories, a corsage and boutineer, all that good stuff. Then it came time for me to go get ready at a friend's house.
4 pm-11pm: Getting ready (which surprisingly didn't take too long), then going to take pictures at the plantations, then going back to the house I was at and taking more pictures (readers out there who already went to prom, any flashbacks yet?). Then the actual prom at the Farmer's Market, which was just lovely. It felt very at home/Ithaca-esque, and the Blind Spots played (they're an AWESOME local band, check them out!!) and it was a fabulous evening.
June 6th-7th
11 pm-4 am: We had a sleepover back at my friend's house and stayed up verrryy late.
June 7th:
4 am-7 am: sleep in a tent outside
7 am-11:30 am: went home and did as much work as I could for this presentation. I had very little time the week before to prep for it, as I had other priorities that came first. So that was rough.
Basically what I'm trying to say in as interesting of a format as possible is that I was very tired and unprepared for this mini presentation. While I was talking (thank goodness I got to sit and only use my computer to show a few pictures), I had a hard time coming up with the right words to say and was very sluggish in my thinking. I was stutter-y and not boisterous enough, I thought.
I can be sure, though, when I give my actual WISE presentation, that I get a good night's sleep the night before, I prepare all week, and I fully rehearse what I'm going to say. I'm glad I got the jitters out of the way and now feel more ready for the big presentation next week.
We're gettin' there!
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Interview with Carrie
On Tuesday afternoon, after all the rain and gloomy clouds disappeared, I drove out to Carrie's "green" house and got the full tour! I was mistaken and thought that her house was more of a tiny house, but it turns out that while originally their house was minimal, they added onto it later when they moved. Yes they actually transported their house to a new area, it was was so tiny. So now their total square footage is 1800 sq. ft. I'll go through a step-by-step process of how their house is all set up!
1. The solar panel canopy. Their whole roof is covered with 72 solar panels. They used to all be hooked up to a battery system in the lower level of their house. This meant that they had 72 humongous box-like figures in their house. This allowed them to live off the grid. After a while, they started to be fussy and overheat, so they got rid of them and went back on the grid, meaning they're connected to NYSEG and they erected the solar credits system (which I explained in my second to most recent blog post).
I got to go up on their roof! That's how I took the next couple of pictures!
2. The evaculated glass/metal solar tubes (what the finger is pointing to in the picture below). This is the primary way their house is heated. At first, I thought, "How the heck do these things work??" I've never heard of them before! What happens is that there's a glycol tank in their utility room just outside of their house. The glycol is pumped up to these 48 tubes on the roof, gets heated by the sun, then flows back to the house into three smaller tubes. These three tubes then travel to concrete slabs in different areas of the house and the heat rises up through them. While the tubes emit no CO2 or any other harmful substances, they were at least as costly, if not more, then your average water heater/furnace. Each tube cost $125, and there are 48 of them, so the total for the tubes was $6,000, not to mention the added metal glycol holding storage tank.
Below are pictured the three different tubes the glycol gets transferred to
3. The area surrounded by the circular metal mesh if their ho
me garden. They grow and eat virtually all of their vegetables in here from May until October, including lettuce, carrots, potatoes (not a vegetable, but a staple food), tomatoes (also not a veggie, but a staple), asparagus, and more. They also have a few fruit trees surrounding the garden, and some cranberry bushes!
4. This is the invertor, where the electrical current produced by the solar panels gets inverted from D.C. to A.C. Again, this whole process was explained in my second most recent entry.
5. You may be thinking, "Why would they ever store food, especially a pineapple and an orange, in a drawer?" Well the fancy thing about this drawer is that it has air conditioning! Meaning it's a fridge... This way of storing non-perishable food items is actually much more efficient because when you open the door, not all of the cold air immediately comes rushing out, keeping the food not as cold as it should be kept. Since cold air sinks, the air naturally stays within the drawers.
6. The little sun-room dining type room shown here is significant because if you look at the accordion-folded doors on the left, this room can be closed off during the winter months, meaning it doesn't take as much heat to heat the house as it would if this room was open.
7. The circular piece of wood you see here is actually the primary form of insulation for this house. They're called SIPs (Structural Insulating Panels) and made out of old tree bark. What makes these so efficient is one, they're made from recycled tree bark, and two, when stacked together to form a wall, there are no gaps. The only con about these is that they cost $12,800 to install.
8. This blue foamy looking stuff here is the other type of insulation they use, which is 100% cotton and made out of recycled blue jeans! Don't worry, we were NOT dealing with fiber glass insulation. They cost nothing to install.
9. This is the other main way Carrie and Mike heat their house, with this Masonry stove. It's located in the lower level of their house (which I forgot to mention was earth bermed). The stove basically goes crazy for a couple of hours while they fill it with food to burn, then the heat radiates out of it without them having to put a lot of wood in for a while. They also use the top oven to heat their food in the winter time.
10. Below is the tile job of their upstairs shower, which was completed by Carrie and her son, Sam. I just thought this was so beautiful I had to post a picture of it :)
11. The sink counter-top is a slab of stone they just found on their property, so Mike carved out a space for the sink. Maybe I'll learn how to use some serious power tools and do this myself someday!
12. Lastly, here is a picture of their house from the front/side view.
I asked Carrie afterwards why she and Mike went through all of this research, physical labor, and money to put this house together. Her answer was very well thought out and compassionate. She felt like there was more she could be doing to reduce her impact on this earth. We all contribute to climate in some way, and we need to be mindful of those other species who are doing all they can reduce climate change. We need to do the same.
Also, they were planning to retire when they got this house, which was in 2008. Mike and Carrie thought it would be fun and adventurous to undergo this big of a project. They ended up moving here earlier than they thought, which was 2010, while they still had both of their jobs, but it was still fun.
They also weren't that afraid to make a huge leap like this, because they weren't afraid of the country, not being close to their neighbors. This house also served them as the new family "dog" when their kids went off to college.
Sadly, they will be moving out of this house in the fall of 2016 because of a new job opportunity. I wish I could make enough money by then to rent it out, because I would love to live out here.
While this isn't a perfect solution (it took a lot of energy to make the solar panels and the evaculated solar tubes), it's a big step in the right direction.
Also, here's a chart of all the features of the house, including the costs, notes, manufacturers, and the location of each one in the house.
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
April's Fabulouso WISE Presentation!
Wow. Just wow. I don't know how any of us are going to live up to April's WISE presentation she gave yesterday..
What I'm most impressed with, and what I am always astounded by whenever I hear her present or talk to a large group of people, is how radiant, genuine, and "easy" of a talker she is. Her words and ideas just kept flowing out with no pause. She obviously put a lot of time and effort into her presentation and summed up her overall experience of writing and filming Living with White Rice really well.
I got a few ideas from her presentation. Here they are!
-Encourage discussion among audience members, either with the presenter or amongst themselves
-Include food! Potentially use it as an incentive
-Include a timeline of sorts, whether it be visual or verbal
-Include numbers in the presentation. April added up how many hours of filming and script writing she went through and that really impacted how I thought about her work throughout the four months.
-Talk about your emotions, but mostly the type of work that you did
-Use excerpt(s) from your journal
And, while I'm sad for April that this question I'm about to state was presented to her "on the spot" and she didn't have time to think about it...I will definitely think about this for my presentation: What changed in me as being a WISE student?
Such a broad, expansive question that can be hard to pin point. April answered beautifully, as she always does. I have quite the amount of pondering to do...
I would also like to add that April and I have been really good friends throughout the past six or seven years and it has been so enlightening to see how she's grown, how she takes charge of everything she commits to, how big she thinks, how truly she speaks, how creative she is, and of course how she remains a great friend throughout the good and bad times in her life. I can't wait to see her final product!!
What I'm most impressed with, and what I am always astounded by whenever I hear her present or talk to a large group of people, is how radiant, genuine, and "easy" of a talker she is. Her words and ideas just kept flowing out with no pause. She obviously put a lot of time and effort into her presentation and summed up her overall experience of writing and filming Living with White Rice really well.
I got a few ideas from her presentation. Here they are!
-Encourage discussion among audience members, either with the presenter or amongst themselves
-Include food! Potentially use it as an incentive
-Include a timeline of sorts, whether it be visual or verbal
-Include numbers in the presentation. April added up how many hours of filming and script writing she went through and that really impacted how I thought about her work throughout the four months.
-Talk about your emotions, but mostly the type of work that you did
-Use excerpt(s) from your journal
And, while I'm sad for April that this question I'm about to state was presented to her "on the spot" and she didn't have time to think about it...I will definitely think about this for my presentation: What changed in me as being a WISE student?
Such a broad, expansive question that can be hard to pin point. April answered beautifully, as she always does. I have quite the amount of pondering to do...
I would also like to add that April and I have been really good friends throughout the past six or seven years and it has been so enlightening to see how she's grown, how she takes charge of everything she commits to, how big she thinks, how truly she speaks, how creative she is, and of course how she remains a great friend throughout the good and bad times in her life. I can't wait to see her final product!!
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