tropical holiday

This year's tree is the closest I could come to a palm tree. The place feels warmer already. Although it looks like it is resting on the stairs, it's actually hanging from the beam above, with a soup can nailed to the bottom of the trunk for water. Mele kalikimaka (or something like that)

snapping turtle nursery

Since I built the house there is a turtle who lays her eggs against the southwest wall. I'm guessing by the size of her that she's been doing this a lot longer than I've been here, so I work around her. The local indians here were the turtle clan of the Leni Lenape tribe. Snapping turtles are amazing creatures. Like dinosaurs. You can pick them up by the tail if necessary, but stay away from the business end.

steel ball sink strainer

I replaced my kitchen and bathroom sink stoppers/strainers with some old chinese balls I had laying around.

weathering rough cut barn siding

The siding has been on for almost 3 years now. It's not been treated and will weather naturally over the years with virtually zero maintenance. I'm guessing it will last around 50+ years? The house is beginning to disappear into it's surroundings. The Corten steel beams that support the raised porch have rusted up pretty evenly and will also be zero maintenance for the life of this structure and beyond.

passive solar thermal gain

The thaw this week produced a reflecting pond in the depression where the patio will eventually be built. It threw light to the underside of the loft for most of the day. A reflecting pond in front of south facing glazing would be a good set up to add thermal gain to the underside of a poured concrete second floor loft.

storage in the minimal kitchen

Most of my kitchen storage consists of open shelving for pots, pans, dishes, etc. Food storage is divided between a pantry to the right of the refrigerator and a chamber above the oven. Below the oven are drawers for utensils and cutlery in a repurposed tool cabinet. Garbage and recycling are in a pull out unit under the sink.

arctic blast/nordic heat

The weather has been pretty cold of late. Below zero for the past 4 nights. The masonry heater keeps the place around 60+ degrees with 2 good sized fires per day. This morning it was a 70 degree temperature difference between inside (60) and outside (-10)... and that was 12 hours after last night's fire had burned out. I'm beyond impressed.

like a hurricane

Did you ever stop putting stuff away? I did.

flashback 15yrs.

I had a small co-op in the East Village of NYC back in the day. It was a 700 sq.ft. duplex with an unfortunately placed cleanout trap for the building's main drain... in my living room. I removed the wooden trap door that covered it, tiled the whole thing and filled it with water and little 10 cent feeder fish. It worked great til the whole downstairs flooded... 3 times. They fixed the flooding problem and I sold it about a decade ago.