Concrete Cloth: Why didn't I think of that!?

Probably because I am not a chemical engineer...

Anyway, have you heard about this stuff?  If you haven't, you should. I stumbled upon concrete canvas when I was looking for another solution for a quickly deployed, minimally structurally intensive low-income housing solution.  Turns out the company designed shelters made out of this stuff so that they could get refugees into suitable housing quickly in the event of a natural disaster.  Weird thing is that when they return to these refugee locations years later they are finding that the concrete canvas shelters are not only still there, but have been continuously inhabited and are standing up to the elements remarkably well.

The beauty of this stuff is that it is basically already reinforced.  It doesn't need any iron bar or mesh to hold it together.  It has two layers of really strong synthetic canvas holding it together and then the rest of the thickness of the product is an interwoven matrix of hollow tubes impregnated with dry concrete mix.  Dang.  That is soooo incredibly smart.  Picture thousands of interwoven pixie sticks... except they are full of concrete.  You get it wet, it cures in the shape that is given and badabing.  You have yourself a finished project!

It is being used in the UK for ditches, water erosion, even putting down foundations for structures... oooh, that sounds intriguing! Since it rolls out like cloth and is moldable, you could use it for just about anything.  

The problem:  well... as with any new technology, there are some costs involved.  

First of all, there is one company making this stuff in the entire world.  Their headquarters is located in a medium sized town in south Wales, and they can only make so much of it.  They have one distributor in the US as of right now even though they are prepping to enter the US market, thus their product is extremely expensive!  One of the shelters that they make, which provides 852 sq ft, costs around $30,000!  Yikes!  Since they mainly get government contracts in England and Wales, they have no need to lower their prices either because the governments get a good deal because it lessens man-power/wages.  

With all of that said though, they have won dozens of awards and are producing this stuff with almost the same invested energy of traditional concrete, which is still a lot, but this product doesn't need any more energy put into it once it is manufactured!  

This stuff also weighs more than a literal ton... actually about two tons for one of the shelters.  A roll of this stuff is so heavy that it requires special loading and rolling equipment to get it to the worksite.  Once it is there though, two workers can pull it off the roll or stake one end down and just drive the loader away and it will unroll itself.

Will this change the game for housing?  Probably not.  Not unless we can find a way to get it locally or manufacture it locally so we don't have to ship it thousands of miles to use it.  Will this change the game for other applications?  I am sure that it already is.  The name of the game is going to be local production though.  So, if Concrete Canvas wants to start up a manufacturing plant in Minnesota I think that would be awesome.

Just think of all of the cool practical jokes you could do with this stuff too!  

The Free Cabin: What, Where, How?

 The other day I saw on the local bulletin board, Boreal, that someone was selling/getting rid of a small 13'x17' cabin up by Devil Track Lake.  It was the original cabin on the lakeshore, but now the family has rebuilt and just need the structure out of there.  I called the person and went out to take a look at it and I was really excited by the structure.  Problem is I can't figure out WHERE to put it that would be a good fit!

A little about the structure:
The building is a pretty solidly built stick-framed (2x6) shed-roofed situation.  It has single glazed windows in it, which would likely have to be replaced, but the inside is just WAITING to be stripped down, insulated, paneled, and beautified!  Imagine your own little sauna shack!  But oh, I am getting ahead of myself...

 It has a shed roof on it, meaning that it has one angle to the roof.  Pretty popular with cabin builders of old because it required less wood and hardware than other methods.  It has a nice rustic aesthetic to it as well.  Because of the shed roof we would be able to trailer it without too much trouble, but to where!?

Ok, let's get to the nitty gritty:
I want this thing for a sauna.  It is too big for a sauna i.e. it will NOT fit in my backyard.  Also, in order to get this thing in good enough shape to be a sauna I would have to a.) strip it out b.) insulate it c.) build a drain in the floor d.) put in a chimney (or wire it for electricity, which would likely happen anyway) e.) build a sauna room and changing rooms f.) you get the picture... a lot of work.

What else could it be used for?  Is there anyone out there that needs a project cabin or something to put on some rural land?  I had initially thought that I could put it on a trailer and have it as a "really big tiny house" that I could rent out to people buying land until they have their home built, but it is legally 1 foot 6 inches too wide for that!  I am sure that I could work something out to get that all squared away though!

It is set up on nice square timbers so moving it wouldn't be too much of a problem, but getting it to sit on a trailer and be properly attached?  Umm, that might be a bit of a chore.

Let's talk planning and zoning for a little bit... riveting I know!  You learn a lot about these things when you are living in a yurt... Up here in Cook County you can put a building like this out in the woods without a foundation with only a special use permit.  If you want to live in it full time then you are starting to look at more technicalities (septic, homestead, etc) and thus I think it would be worth your time to put in a foundation and get it registered as a structure.  I am looking for alternatives though!

 So that is the question of the day, friends.  What can this little gem of a historic North Woods cabin be used for?  How can it be reclaimed/repurposed?  If someone comes up with a really good option other than what I mentioned in the blog I would love to help make it happen!

Getting up to Speed... November to November

Well, I certainly have been playing the part of the Prodigal haven't I?  Too much riding bike, not enough writing blog posts... (Ennis loves his pink bike by the way).

*I can say for certain that this will be the most boring blog post that I will write this year, but I want to get some groundwork done before I launch into NEW, BEAUTIFUL IDEAS!



Since I last worked on this blog my life has changed significantly to say the least, but many of the ideas and concepts I have had in my head have only gotten weirder!  Let me explain:

When I wrote that last post "Update from Up North," I was writing sitting next to a nice warm wood stove and was starting a new adventure of a simple life on a CSA farm living without modern utilities and/or facilities... Very pioneer of me, definitely.  Tonight I am writing this post sitting next to a nice warm wood stove in my own house again starting a new adventure!

I can say with certainty that living in the yurt was a great learning experience, one that will color my life for the rest of it... I can also say that living in the yurt was not as much work or hardship as one would think, but what hardship there wasn't was often replaced with anxiety over the unknown.  For instance:

The first night that we spent in the yurt the temperature was about -30F with a gusty 30mph wind.  Rose and I said many a prayer that the yurt wouldn't blow over and that we wouldn't be swept away into the dark cold of winter... But we were relatively happy and warm.

We starting going to sleep pretty much when Ennis went to sleep; it proved difficult to stay awake in a pitch dark circle when everyone else was asleep... We needed so stop relying on our computers and phones as well because battery power was fleeting.  Add all of that up and it looks like a pretty calm, balanced life... with lots of sleep... strange how it never really seemed to be enough, as illustrated by Ennis's "selfie." (I can't believe I just wrote "selfie." Oh I did it again!)

There are many things that weren't quite perfect though... Once we upgraded our woodstove from a metal barrel to an airtight stove I didn't have to stoke it 4 times a nightas many chilly butts.  Once we got our food and town routine down we were able to feel like human beings again.  But, I had to continually scrounge for firewood and keep a constant vigil on the status of our life to make sure that we didn't lose our health or our investment in the yurt.  That was the most exhausting thing!
.  Once we got our bathroom situation taken care of there weren't

*This is the philosophical part:
We have all been a part of one of the greatest conspiracies in the world.  This conspiracy is to remove so many of the day to day concerns that plagued our ancestors only to replace them with modern concerns that really have no consequence in our greater physical life that we forget our own creative power in living and are willing to settle for whatever standard is on the market and worry about things that don't have any real consequence in our actual lives... More on that later if you would like... (You should put a comment up if you would like to hear more about my thoughts on this or if you would like to broach this topic.)

All of that from living in a yurt?  Sure!  Mainly because living in the yurt and not having much for resources available to me made me HAVE to look at things a little differently.  I got a pretty good job working in a field that I am passionate about, low-income housing, but it is only half time and doesn't pay tremendously well, Rose and I ended up buying a house contract for deed only after convincing the seller that we were worth the risk, and we started up a business in that house because it would be the only way that we could afford to live in it... That was a little thinking outside the box and a LOT of serendipity.

So, where are we?  We are now the owners of Art House B&B in Grand Marais (come and stay with us!  Blog reader's special!), there are more ideas in my head than ever before, we are still thinking outside the box and trying to apply it to everyday life, we STILL don't have a proper heating situation (the boiler in the house is non-functional), but we are working on that and I am cutting firewood again!

Stay tuned for an update on the Grand Marais Brewing idea, the Cook County Housing Cooperative idea, a sewing company I am starting, MANY tiny home ideas (including a renovated Winnebago), MANY considerations on low-income housing solutions, and some projects I have been working on (Renovating Rose's studio, trying to build myself some work space, etc)!
*By the way, the floating shelter was built by a bunch of Norwegians... Big surprise!

Update from Up North: Foundations in the snow!

*I just logged into my blog account after not using it for several months only to find this unfinished blog post waiting to be published.  I seem to recognize this ever-hopeful young man who is writing, but feel like he is a few decades removed from where I am right now! 

Needless to say I will work on a "getting up to speed" blog post to cover the time in between yurt life and our current situation, but I thought that I would still post this for humor and reminiscence...
Enjoy!

--
As I write this the wind is blowing about forty miles an hour and the windchill is around -40.  I am sitting on the couch across from a warm woodstove with a cat asleep on my lap.  Not bad for the moment!

If you would have told me a year ago that I would be sitting here right now, I would have told you that you were crazy, but here I am.  Around this time last year I was sitting on the beach in Goa, India watching cows graze across the sand and crabs burrow into it.  Since that time my life has known little stability, except in moments, and I feel like Rose and I are finally making arrangements to provide the stability that I seek and the lifestyle that we have been chasing.

Part of our arrangement to encourage a more stable lifestyle has to do with a previous potential arrangement to move onto the homestead of a few friends of ours in Grand Marais.  In exchange for this privilege we will help them with their community supported agriculture garden, maple syrup production, firewood splitting, producing bio-diesel, and other farm related developments.  Considering that these are all things that I want to be doing anyway, I feel that this is a pretty good arrangement!

The people that we are going to be "re-homesteading" with are old pros with much of the details that make homesteading up here possible.  They produce a good chunk of their electricity with solar panels, they have built their entire homestead around passive solar principles and seek to be as easy on the land as they can be while extracting as much of their living from it as possible.  This sounds as close to an Ox Cart lifestyle as possible for right now.

Rose and I have been making the comment to one another that we would like to live in a yurt for a while, both as an experiment and as a life choice, so we have been exploring that.  I built a 20' square floating (meaning it doesn't have sunken foundations) platform for the proposed yurt and was going to get to building it as soon as possible when we found this 24' yurt for sale on Craigslist!  We talked it over and decided that even though it would be a little more expensive than building a yurt if would be worth it to just be able to set it up and then it would be an asset we could move around no matter where we end up.  So we bought it.

Now we are homestead sitting for our friends while they are sailing down the Baja coastline (rough) and working on getting the yurt set up while trying to re-incorporate ourselves into the community in meaningful and productive ways.

Overall our lifestyle seems to be getting closer to the ideal that we originally planned for and although there will be significant trials on this path, the investment of energy will yield great results both for our family and for our future.  When we get the yurt set up we would love to host anyone who would like to visit.  Let me know and we can set it up!

All of the best from the North Woods!  It isn't that harsh up here by the way.  The weather may be cold, but our hearts are warm!

The Grand Experiment: aka the dissonance of existence...

Ok, so forgive me if my title waxes a bit long-winded and melancholy, but the past weeks have been more than a journey, they have been a trip!

Let me explain a little about what I mean.  My time working at the hotel has truly come to an end.  I pulled the plug for a few reasons, not the least being that I felt my soul was being sucked through my eyeballs because I did not see the purpose of the work that I was doing.  I was not doing the things that I feel called to do and although my physical and financial needs were being met, my spiritual and emotional ones were not... not in the least.

Thus the dissonance:

Do I continue to work my time in exchange for money and security for my family, but not have much space for creativity and growth of my own ideas

OR

Do I take a smaller paid position with much greater "free" time and flexibility so I can pursue other endeavors and engage my creative side, but with greater financial risk?

Everything in me tells me to go with the first option.  My side of the family has always done the responsible thing, worked good solid jobs, saved up a lot of money, and had a comfortable life.  This doesn't sound too bad definitely, but I feel that my nomadic spirit doesn't fit in with it very well.

I joke that I should have been a farmer because that vocation would fit me well...

Well, that might just happen.

I have chosen the latter option.  I have gotten a great job working with a community of people in Grand Marais that will be enough to pay our bills and give us a decent amount of saving every year.  It pays twice per hour what I am earning at the hotel, but overall pays less. Our expenses are going to be lower because we are going to be living on the homestead of a wonderful couple who live outside of Grand Marais and have a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) garden, chickens, make maple syrup, produce most of their own electricity, and are working on making their own bio-diesel... amongst many other projects.

This was and is my Grand Experiment.  I tried to work in the commercial sector and quickly realized why I have worked for non-profits my entire life.  If you are going to be in the commercial sector the best person to work for is yourself I believe.  In addition, the pace and atmosphere of some of the businesses up here is very unhealthy and overly stressful.  I don't believe that this is necessary for a successful business, but I am not the one to criticize other people's business practices.

The latter part of the experiment is still to come.  Building my own shelter.  Living purposefully without some of the "luxuries" that we have become so accustomed to, but living in the lap of some of the most forgotten "luxuries."  I trade limitless electricity for solitude and the flicker of candle-light.  I trade full flush toilet facilities for the sight of fresh deer tracks in the snow and trees all around.

I am willing to make these trades.

If any of you are wondering, Rose was the one who re-introduced this route to me.  We had been considering doing this immediately when we returned from India, but felt that it was a better idea to work for the hotel.  I don't disagree that it was a better idea to start at the hotel, but I feel that we are finally finding our way to some of our goals and that is a beautiful thing.

You are all invited to come up and stay in the yurt in the sugarbush.  Just don't plan any visits until February because I still need to build the yurt...

See you soon!

Barn to Barn: Journeys through Southern Minnesota...

Happy Thanksgiving to the world!  I hope that your day will be filled with meaningful family traditions or whatever soon to be traditions fill your heart with happiness and, of course, thankfulness.

Rose and I have once again made the trek south to the homelands of southern Minnesota to spend this holiday with our respective families.  My family on Thanksgiving itself, and Rose's family on Friday.

A wrench was thrown into our plans by the bad news that my last remaining grandparent's health is waning and that the prognosis is potentially not very good.  With the members of the DeCoux side of the family it pretty much comes down to stubborness.  I swear that my Grandpa DeCoux stayed alive for about 8 years longer than he should have simply because my grandma told him to.  My grandma, on the other hand, doesn't have that influence in her life any more.  She does have the affection and concern of her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, but somehow that doesn't seem to work as well as your spouse for 60+ years... go figure...

Anyway, she is in the hospital and that means that instead of the planned dinner (which is in the middle of the day for those of you who did not grow up on a farm) and hangout will become an abbreviated dinner and a trip to the hospital.  Usually not as fun as the other option, but hey, let's give it a go.

So what does this have to do with anything?

I always feel really sleepy when things like this happen.  When my mom passed away I slept for about 6 hours in the middle of the day, waking up to a house full of family and meat and cheese plates (many, many of them).  When my step-mom had a heart attack I slept for 18 hours straight, through the night and half of the way through the next day.  For those of you that don't know me, this is unusual.  Tonight I was feeling very sleepy and decided to lay down, but I couldn't, despite my best efforts and tricks, get my mind to stop.  I wasn't directly thinking about my grandma though, I was thinking about BARNS.

Yes, BARNS.

Driving down today I saw dozens (yes, dozens) of barns that are falling down, nearly falling down, or that are piles of timbers and lumber.  This always makes me feel sad because I know that these buildings were once the backbone of the agricultural system in their areas and now are in the lurch without a direct use or purpose.

Solution:
Re-purpose them.  This idea came while I was laying sleeplessly in bed and I think that it isn't half bad.  Demolish or disassemble the barn, salvage the usable timbers, wood, siding, tin roofing, hardware, windows, and build a new legacy building from the old materials (and a few new materials to help with stability).  My original idea was to build a garden shed of some kind out of the materials, but the options are really very broad: garden shed, guest house, workshop, ANY kind of outbuilding would work.

There are numerous organizations around the country that are dedicated to saving the history present in American barns and I believe that this could be a great way to assist in doing this.  I have a potential taker on this idea that I could do next spring, so if any of you know of any barns or barn owners in Minnesota or Wisconsin that would be good candidates for this kind of a project, let me know!  I am seriously considering this as a hobby profession!

Alright, coming full circle now: What does this have to do with my grandma?  Things falling apart is not a new concept.  It is part of existing.  My grandma said the other day that if she died tomorrow she would have lived a great life and she would be happy.  She will be gone, but her legacy is almost perpetuated through the teaching, loving, (disciplining for some of us), and living that she has done.  Likewise these once grand structures that are now at the dusk of their lives can be perpetuated in a new way, a way that passes on the beauty and meaning that went into them in the first place.  Repurposing is not a new concept either, and one that could help preserve a big chunk of history.

So, in closing, I am thankful for those that have come before, and for those that will come after me.

*There is another post in here that I will tackle soon having to do with the lowly status of the aged amongst us, which is completely wrong if you ask me.  VALUE the aged and everyone will benefit... Anyway, that is for another day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My Week As a Single Parent...

First of all, before I start with this brief story and contemplation, I want to make it clear that I am in no way wanting to be offensive to anyone, whether you be a single parent, a single person, or someone in a committed relationship... well, I might want to be a little offensive to people who abandon children in any way, but that is a different blog post altogether.  All in all, this is MY experience dealing with a week of time spent as not only the main caregiver, but the only caregiver for our little boy, something that taught me a great deal!

Rose has performed at the Hostfest in Minot, North Dakota for over 10 years.  Her roles have changed from Astrid Lindgren's heroine Pippi Longstocking to a tomte (Scandinavian elf), to a seven foot tall troll, to a short old woman troll.  Pretty cool stuff if you ask me; it has been a mainstay of her income as a performer year after year.  This year was no different and she has returned re-invigorated to begin again in the world of story, this time by leading writing workshops and doing personal coaching.  Check out the link to see her upcoming retreats!

She left on a Saturday, during Ennis's nap, so when he woke up it was all guy time from that point onward... We spent days in our underwear eating chips and watching movies, burping whenever we felt the need and only getting up to use the bathroom...

Just kidding.

While Rose was gone I was acting as the sole manager of the hotel, which turned out just fine in the end, but had its moments of angst mainly because when I wanted to move quickly I had to remember that there was a 2.5 year old tagging behind me.  I worked my full share of hours during that week and I think that Ennis wasn't dramatically scarred from working with me (whoofta! Now I have to try not to scar him in other ways...).  I helped out with a significant amount of the work that needed to be done, namely housekeeping and laundry... He was a tremendous helper.  We would sit down at the beginning of the day and I would explain to him what we would be doing, he would acknowledge, and we would go out and do it.  It was magic really.  Ennis would jump on one bed while I was making the other and would help me by carrying the carefully tied shut bags of garbage down the hallway.  I did my managerial duties either during his naps or after he went to bed, making the workday significantly longer and drawn out, but actually not that much more tiring.  I made sure that we had time to go for walks, read a lot of books, play at the playground, really not at the expense of too much of my work time.  Personal "me" time got pretty squished though... Part of how I accommodated this crunch on time was taking on several projects in our apartment that have been waiting... oh, 6 months at least to be done.  I painted our kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom.  I removed the crappy old dishwasher from the kitchen and made a recycling nook.  I replaced all of the towel racks and such in the bathroom and did a few other "tidying" things.  I also found time to touch up the paint on my truck, install a paint-on bedliner (which actually turned out really well!), singled out many items from my life that I am going to downsize, made candles, and cooked a ridiculous amount of food (including a turkey, so many waffles that there still are some in the freezer, and enough stew to feed a small gathering of people who REALLY like stew...).  I enjoyed being the only person to be really interacting with Ennis and giving him instruction/information.  He listened well and asked fun questions and surprised me with his pleasant independence.

This all sound extremely peachy-keen, but there were a few parts of it that made me swallow hard in a comically cartoon-ey fashion.  One of my co-workers kept making comments about how Ennis didn't have anyone to take care of him now and kept giving him candy... That was really annoying.  Also, it seems that when a man is the sole provider for a child that is seen VERY differently than if it is a woman.  It was almost like people were feeling sorry for me even though I was having a great time!  That was an interesting and unexpected reaction... Any thoughts on this one?

The other things was that I realized I was doing this for ONE WEEK and had Rose coming back to share the experience again.  People who are single parents do not have that privilege.  They may employ daycare or babysitters so they can go out and have a life or just get some work done, but by and large... they are the one accountable for just about everything.  That thought made me shudder and made me almost GLOW with respect for single parents who make it work and raise their children to be well-adjusted adults.  These people are un-sung heroes of the highest regard and for those of you out there that may be reading this, I tip my hat to you!

It also made me appreciate the system of parenting that nature and society have raised up.  They say it takes a village to raise a child and I wouldn't necessarily agree, but I wouldn't disagree.  A village of involved, invested, loving, and consistent people could certainly raise a child well, but all that we really need is 2.  Two people, I think, is the minimum to make raising a child easy and safe for everyone (note that I do not specify the gender of either of the parents... this, I feel, isn't very important, but having two dedicated, loving parents is very, very important), especially the child.

So, what about the parents that don't stick around either physically or emotionally?  Well, we all know that this is a great big sticky ball of wax and we all have our own specific feelings about it, but I will touch on it briefly with this frank message:

If I can teach Ennis to keep it in his pants until he both understands and desires ALL of the results of sex, I will consider myself a decent parent.

*I don't want to preach about this because I know that there are quite a few really great parents out there who stumbled into parenthood, but that have fallen in love with it, but I stand by my statement.  I had no idea what I was getting into until the moment that Ennis was born.  When I saw him for the first time something switched inside of me and I knew that I was a father, for once and for all. 

Recently I had a friend send me a message inquiring about good books on fatherhood.  I couldn't think of any because when I did the search for good books on fatherhood I couldn't find any either!  In the conversation that resulted from his question several ideas about fatherhood came out though:

1. If you are looking for books on how to be a good dad, you probably will be one with or without the books.
2. Explaining fatherhood to a man is NOTHING like explaining motherhood to a mother.  (We don't listen in the same way about the subject.)
3. Mothers get about 9 months to get acquainted very intimately with the little one, fathers don't get that physical connection until they are born.
4. The experience of becoming a father is completely different for every man although there are some things that are universal.

Perhaps I will write a book on fatherhood... or at least about the experience of becoming a father.  If you know any good dads, let me know so I can set up some interviews!

I know that my experience as a "single" parent is really in no way valid or even that impressive, but it yielded great insights to me and hopefully it will yield something else that will help to support other parents out there.  Parenting is the most important business that we can involve ourselves in and anything that I can do to encourage people to involve themselves in it I will do!