Euro Blog 2011 Part 1a

I arrived yesterday in good ole Deutschland (germany) and after forcing myself to stay awake by walking around for too long, I am overcoming the inevitable jet lag and getting ready to teach here in Austria later today.

The first few days here are always (I've been doing this since 1992) filled with unique transitions and observations.  After a few days, I am so immersed in the culture, I actually start thinking in german!  As I am typing this I have the Austrian ORF2 TV channel on in the background which has continuous webcam loops of the hundreds of ski areas and some major cities around here with Tyrolean music.  I love that station and its Alpian meditative qualities.  I could easily jump on a local ski bus and within 40 minutes be on the slopes outside of Kitzbuelh.

On this trip I have sworn to not partake in my usual morning breakfast routine - it is the glutenous start to unhealthy eating (by California standards) and will be focusing more on locally bio-dynamic dark breads, jams+jellies, and non-red meat items.  We'll see how that goes.  For the first time in two decades, I am obsessed with losing rather than gaining weight on this trip... good luck with that!

They have a 'Fasching' Fest(ival) this week - I guess it is Lent or something, but more like a toned-down Mardi Gas.  Thankfully I  am not in a northern german city where it's non-stop partying - or maybe I wish I was?  Last year, I remember drunken youngies getting on the trains and just havin' a good ole time with open containers and raucious singing.

Since this is supposed to be sort of an eco-blog, I need to focus on all things eco + green.   My personal transition from american culture to what was my childhood germanic culture, sometimes appears backwards and regressive when in reality it is more forward thinking and appropriate for lo-carbon living.  My first few days are always filled with new observations that quickly fade as my brain + heart transcend and absorb.  Yesterday's arrival was greeted by many car advertisments touting a car's low grams of CO2 per kilometer.  Yeah baby... it's all about emissions, all the time - without the guilt factor.

This morning's local Tyrolean paper was filled with biomass, PassivHaus, solar hot water and eco-electricity advertising, like we would see clothing and supermarket ads.  I have already spotted at least 3 exhibits, open houses, and conventions that I may check out for all things green and groovy here.

Something noteworthy that struck my interest was an academy sponsored by a local (3 countries) Bank and Industrial park investment group called IG Passivhaus network  (  www.igpassivhaus-tirol.at  ) whose motto literally says 'We build and sanitize homes of the future' !  How's that for transitioning to the language over here... sanitizing homes really means renovating - as they focus on retrofiting existing homes to healthier + cleaner homes with higher quality IAQ and way lower energy use.   This network was also advertising their PassivHaus exhibition in May.  Their link is to a german site for Passiv Haus.   (www.passivhaustagung.de )  This was a FULL-PAGE advertising in the local paper.  It's intent appeared to be about educating potential home owners and renters about the best building technology.  The mascot they used was an 'active owl' - too cool.

Another event I picked up on was by the local bank for a 'Build + Live Forum' next week.  Free admission, focus on PassivHaus financing, in Innsbruck - somebody twist my arm :-)  .  The event that I will most definitely attend is the 'Building and Garden' show at the big Innsbruck convention center next weekend.

On this trip, I am will be more focused on energy commons part 2, permaculture and learning about raising my own food in a biodynamic way - and this area has been the epicenter of that for over a hundred years.  To me, PassivHaus, Biomass, solar, wind, etc are so yesterday here.  I am always looking for the next new thing out of here.

This part of the world combines the world's best lo-carbon, hi-tech, modern lifestyle with ancient culture and really fires more on the Triple Bottom Line - especially the social aspects.  Over the past twenty years I have witnessed leading edge concepts from the German-speaking countries and Scandanavia spreading globally 5-10 years later.  So this is one of the ways that I stay ahead of the curve and add value to USA students and professionals... sshhhhh... don't tell anyone :-)

Ok - so now to walk along the river and enjoy saying high to all passers by and immersing myself in cultural transitions.  I gotta get ready for the students this afternoon and there's no better way to get started than to walk a few kilometers where their shoes walk and observe. Maybe there'll be beer and pizza later tonite after class - sound familiar SFM CSUS students?  fun...

Snow at sea level?

While I am getting ready to head across the pond, I am amazed how everyone in the Bay Area was looking forward to falling snow. Ah... the flatlander romanticism of those white water crystals.  But it was not to be. Yesterday, it was 30F in Berkeley, and dewey ice all over - wonderful slip sliding away time, but no snow - just crystal clear blue skies and calm waters. What a postcard view. I could've gone sailing!

News from the WinSol3 front: A few days ago I had to do a quick turnaround for unloading, battening down the hatches for a while, and loading up for the trip. For 8+ days, I watched the weather satellite maps, radar displays, and actual weather station stats from Grizzly Flats - I thought for sure I was going to experience 4 feet of snow. But it was just over 1 foot deep. The two days of warm weather was melting everything. I was able to drive my RAV in that last 1/4 mile, courtesy of some nice icy road tracks.

The new, large deck was a pain to snow shovel. I probably didn't need to shovel it clean, but there are several more storms lined up for the month of March, and thought it might be good to clear some of the weight off the deck... but mainly it was great exercise! Cross-country skiing was not an option with the icy topping.

I hooked up a new solar controller (a 15 amp unit) and cut my solar panels in half to avoid overcurrent issues. With all the power outages going around, I always smile with my solar system running all my toys, printers, lights, etc. No op cost and 100% reliable (as long as we have sun).

Over the past couple weeks, I have planted over 120 new strawberry plants from Peaceful Valley Supply, and Berkeley Horticulture Nursery. That's in addition to the 100 plants already in the greenhouse. The outside strawberry plants are now cozily buried in the snow, along with the 40+ transplanted blackberry roots I relocated over the past month.

This spring and summer should be a real blooming and prosperous + bountiful harvest. More than ever, I am motivated to grow 80% of my own food and share it with friends. Organic (real ones) farmers markets are getting more expensive. And I like biodynamic gardening more.

The next entry here will probably be a month away, as I go learn more from life across the pond, and oh yeah!  I gotta go teach the young'uns over there about our SFM+ practices.   My real journey will be to learn about community energy commons, tri-generation systems and spend some time at Sieben Linden.  I can't wait!

C'est la vie!

mid February update

The six weeks of wintertime summer are over. From 65F to 40F in two days. It's nice to have winter back. I didn't believe the weather reports yesterday that upped everything by one day, but the first wave of many low pressure fronts has arrived. The wind was howling.... a few gusts well over 80mph... ripped a couple chairs off the deck... again (sigh). That's great for the wind power. This morning it was snowing while it was 41F outside - go figure.
I was finally able to get some strawberries (80+) from Peaceful Valley Farms in Grass Valley and in the freezing rain and snow put them all into the new raised soil beds and covered them with 3" of straw. They should be ready to pop after my euro sojourn.

So it's batten-down-the-hatches time. And when the goin' gets tough... Fred goes to the low-lands... I think I'll sit this coming snowstorm out and enjoy the confines and warmth of the Bay Area. Hopefully there will be a fair weather window to return and cross-country ski in next week.

Progress report: The greenhouse ponds is coming along nicely - although VERY slowly. Putting that round river rock bed into a cement bed on top of the liner is a work of art and takes about 2 hours for each 4 sq.ft. area. But the shape and purpose is coming together organically without any preset plans. There will be a nice waterfall and large pond inside the greenhouse this summer.
Each year the courtyard, vegetable area and greenhouse keep getting more eye popping, comfortable, bigger and productive with vegies and color. This coming spring/summer should be the best ever. I hope ya'll come and visit!

Gardening 101 @ 4500ft

There are many differences gardening here at WinSol3 given the altitude, climate and surrounding national forest.  At 4500+ feet, with heavy winter snows and scorching summer heat along with ravenous wild animals – it’s been a challenge. Over the past 30+ years, I have learned a few things – just a few.  There is a lifetime of learning left, and that won’t even scratch the surface of nature’s delicate complex weave.

The most important design and operational element at WinSol3 is water.  Rainwater harvesting was the reason for the huge roof and much of the site layout for gravity water feed year-round.  Each week of gardening at WinSol3 is preoccupied with collecting, saving, and reusing water.  It's a precious resource without which most vegetation would die in the hot summer months.  In priority there are the roof + ground rainwater collection systems, cisterns + uphill storage tanks, the grease trap and GHS pond, drip systems and automatic timers.

Then there are the plants, flowers, shrubs + trees, and a tiny courtyard lawn area (a real luxury!).  Over the years I’ve grown quite fond of lavenders,  blackberries, yarrow, sage,  and their multitude of uses and adaptability to WinSol3’s location. Once established they hardly need any water or care.  Every 2-3 years I split them up and replant them in other areas.  I love harvesting the lavender each autumn, and find its aroma more soothing than red cedar tree branches. Now, if i can figure out how to control blackberry brambles....

Current update (1/30/11) @ WinSol3

From 65F summer days in the ‘dead’ of winter to a one-day snow ‘event’.  The artic trough slipped down for a 24 hour visitation.  Last nite the howling wind swept rains turned ominously quiet as the whipping rain pellets turned to gentle, heavy snowflakes.  There’s supposed to be about 5” of snow today and then get right back to warming up again with clear days.  So at 8am with 5” already on the ground, another 8+ hours predicted, I moved my car up to the access road – just in case… lesson learned from too many mis-steps and snow shoveling  On Tuesday when I need to go to town, I’ll probably laugh at all the melted snow and clear roads.

There were countless bulbs, rose + tree buds getting a sneak peek at spring – I’m sure this artic event will put quite a damper on their spring break.

Last 2 weeks (Jan 15-30)  progress report:

Work continues on the GHS pond, with the large flat area river rocks being embedded in cement.  The 5^th step (each step has 180 lbs, 3 bags of hi-strength concrete) down the east side of the GHS was poured.  The blackberry brambles were burned and the entire fence north of the GHS has been taken out.  I installed a deer proof gate on the west side of the garden area.  The mudroom was totally emptied, cleaned-out and the walls were insulated and dry-walled.  Deep shelves were put in, the cast iron mudroom sink was relocated. I started blazing a new path out from the high car parking area to the NFS road.  The hot water shower is working beautifully.  I put in a very functional sitting bench in the bathroom. I’m also cleaning out a LOT of old papers and magazines and mostly doing hi-heat burning and spreading the ashes on the garden. Bio char production in the fire pit happens about once a week. Oh yeah, moved the big green tank down below and piped it to the top cistern overflow and it started filling with yesterday's storm.

This spring WinSol3 will really have a celebration of bloom and delight!  I can't wait!

Late january update

News from WinSol3:  Summertime and the livin' is easy... oops it's January dawg awn it... It's been 65F consistently high above the fog and the garden and greenhouse things are popping up already.... global weirding.  As any old-timer, I am bracing for the next winter wallop, knowing that an extreme cold front could come knocking at anytime.
Thankfully I transferred those 2500 gallon tanks and filled the one supplying the greenhouse and the big white dude is 80% filled.  If we don't get anymore rain (highly unlikely) i can still manage for the coming summer - barely.
The solar PV controller seems to be out for the count... so I've shorted the PV panels directly to the Trojan batteries.  This is feasible as long as there's no risk of overcharging (and overheating) the batteries.  So at least i have plenty of power now. 

The update on small projects is now confined to doubling the raised beds in the garden, finishing up the upper level greenhouse pond + steps, and redoing the entire mudroom.

I went down to Sapiago Creek the other day, and was amazed at the destruction that the early storms caused.  A monster tree by the swimming hole caved in and blocked the lower road, along with countless other downed trees.  There was a county tree cutting crew feverishly working on clearing the road, mulching the branches, and leaving wonderful firewood - free for the taking.  Ahhh... the abundance of the forest. :-)

WinSol Overview + intro

(copied from earlier blog in mid 2010) 
 

It just dawned on me that some readers of this blog have no clue to what WinSol3 is.  WinSol is 'Winning Solutions in Wind + Solar. Here's a short history of how WinSol buildings got started:

I am a big fan of solar energy and Bucky Fuller dating back to my junior year in college and thanks to a great teacher in advanced thermodynamics.  At the end of my college ‘career’,  besides getting a BSEE degree, I was also 6 hours short of a math degree. I loved Bucky's geodesic domes and math.  What turned me onto math was a class called ‘abstract algebra’. It was a pretty advanced class with high order differential equations, but I thought it was cool to create your own multidimensional universes.  I went a couple dimensions higher than 27 (tensors) – try writing the rules for that universe!  At that time (1973) I was fascinated by computer modeling for weather predictions and tensors – which nowadays look ancient. This eventually led to my first geodesic dome.

Note: Having great teachers really makes a big difference down the road!

In 1977 I purchased some land in Trinity County (Douglas City + Weaverville) with my vision to create an intentional community (no, not a commune) and to have a little in-city lot for future retirement.  It was pretty idealistic and naïve - I thought I could make a living there. Turns out if you’re not in the lumber industry or own an airplane, you are SOL.  Nowadays with the internet, I wish I still had those properties.

I built my first small (12’ diameter) geodesic dome out of electrical conduits with a swimming pool liner cover using a small solar collector + battery for lighting.  This was in 1978.  The next geodesic dome was a monster 36’ diameter built from 2x4’s with wooden dowels (not a single nail in the framing!) and plywood skin.  I learned that if you make a ¼” mistake on cutting a couple of these geodesic framing members, the dome won’t come together on the top!  Fun! Bucky Fuller’s math was genius!

Eventually the dome's foundation got sheered by large snowdrifts – first failure and lesson learned: always beef up the foundation more than you need – shit happens, law of unintended consequences.  Years later, when remote fun seekers started ripping off my house, I sold the property and focused on my downtown Weaverville lot.

The lot was located a couple blocks from the center of Weaverville right next to the creek and I had one of the last water meters in place before a moratorium.  So starts the history of WinSol1. 

After reading more Bucky Fuller books, I was intrigued with his concept of a Dyaxiom House: where all the utilities and building operations are located in a center triangle and lsnake out like an octopus into adjacent rooms.  Seemed like a no-brainer compared to our mainstream floor layouts - having all plumbing and electrical in one center utility area.

Along this same time I discovered and followed Ed Mazria around after he published his passive solar book.  It’s amazing what he’s doing 30+years later with architecture 2030. Long live Ed!

Cutting to the chase, WinSol1 had a long sloping shed roof opening up to the south and SW blue sky areas with the back roof slope positioned to deflect winter winds, and collect rainwater.  

I got to know Jeff Shields pretty well at the Planning Commissioners office in Weaverville, and told him I couldn’t afford an architect and a structural engineer. He said that if I submitted detailed stress and deflection calculations, they’d review it and it could perhaps be approved.  They really wanted to see this house built in their town.  I still have the original, approved blueprints.  WinSol2 and WinSol3 also have this feature.

Then came the reality of plopping down $600 or so for the permit and promising to have substantial completion within a year.  I wasn’t ready to take out a bank loan (nor did I want to), willing to travel from SF to Weaverville every weekend, and purchase building materials – yet. So when it came time to step up, I stepped back.  Years later  (1984?) I sold the property easily with the last legal water meter in the city.  Now when I go look at that area, I’m glad I didn’t built it.  There are ticky tacky balloon framed apartment buildings adjacent to a busy street.  When I bought the plroperty there was nothing around except a school, ½ mile away.  Progress.  My life took a few interesting turns between 1984 and 1987. In 1987  I purchased the property called 7L where WinSol2 and now WinSol3 was built.

With the design and structural learnings of WinSol1, and wisdom from Bucky Fuller, Sim Van der Ryn’s Berkeley Farllonne house, David Wright,  Ed Mazria and others, it set the stage for the design of WinSol 2 + 3.   

A writing note:  I stopped using semicolons in all my writing, after reading ‘A man without a country’ by my current favorite author: Kurt Vonnegut.  He is truly our modern Mark Twain.  Here’s his quote (pg 23) on semicolons: ‘they are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show that you’ve been to college.  And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not…. ‘ he wasn’t.

Changing weather + solar challenges

Happy New Year to everyone. The winter sun has finally appeared at WinSol3 - it's been over 40 days since there's been more than one day of sunshine in arow.

It's been challenging at WinSol3 for the past 2 months. Partly because I usually don't spend this much continuous time at WinSol3,  and a bigger part due to the unique weather pattern in the Sierras - record breaking! Even the skiing at Kirkwood has been off-limits to me due to avalanche controls at the Carson Spur - and I don't ski in blizzards anymore. That will change tomorrow.

Today the outside temp was 29F at the 7:40am sunrise. Within 5 minutes my outside temp gauge shot up to 59F (hit by direct sun), an hour later it was 87F! I am keeping the sauna fired up each morning at a comfortable 70F. But my firewood is WAY down so I haven't been able to keep the main house as warm - something about building that courtyard and deck all summer and fall. This morning the deck was a great ice rink (frost)- and I didn't even slide off the edge!

Electrical challenges:

Two days ago while watching some of the college football games, I noticed my monitor's voltage at 11.1! Never seen it that low - I was amazed the inverter hadn't shut off on LVD. I fired up the generator, charged everything, and enjoyed the electric heaters - ha! Yesterday I readjusted the PV controller set points, and now the system is back to charging at 13.6+. The wind generator helps - but not as much as I thought it would. Now that we will have 10+ days of continuous sunshiny days, there will be no more electrical issues.
WinSol3 was designed for about 5-7 cloudy days - not 40+! I usually skip off to urban friends - but between roads and other issues, that was not possible this year.

On an aside - I've discovered my itouch music collection and Cambridge sound system use a tiny amount of energy - so great music on stormy days (along with great books + tea) has been the main course.  Between storms I have gone on long forest walks and rediscovered the awesome beauty of pure nature.
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Here's a draft blog I wrote a few days ago....


The perfect winter storm

Finally, a winter storm that was as predicted and up to the hype of a typical 'California-style’ winter storm.  No, this is not a movie/book metaphor – it’s the real, human thing – it’s what I wish all winter storms would be.  Here’s my definition of a perfect winter storm:

1. Not too much snow accumulation and more than just a mere dusting.
2. Assurances that I will be able to drive out of here if needed.
3. Some sunshine needs to happen before, during, and after.
4. Fast moving clouds = fast moving cold front.

After the first pre-Thanksgiving storm of the season slammed the door on an Indian summer, dumping close to 4 feet of snow here, and the sub-tropical monsoonal rains continued like a long column of marching soldiers… it was kinda nice to get a ‘mild’ winter storm for a change.


The weather forecasters got it right! They predicted the variations of rainfall, falling temperatures, snow levels, accumulation – all of it! My satellite internet monitoring verified it. I move my truck out by the county road – just in case. And of course according to Murphy - there was no need to.  Only when i don't move the truck does it snow several  unpredicted feet - like it did before Thanksgiving.


It was absolutely breathtaking to walk in the wilderness the last few days, hug trees, drink from mountain streams, collect oodles of wild mushrooms, follow fresh animal tracks… amazing!