Another 'living by the sun' lesson: UV

As a delayed spring cleaning is happening, it occurred to me that one of the best ways to disinfect things is with ultraviolet radiation. UV is usually used to purify and disinfect water, air, etc.  ....   and it's also a movie!?

 Here's more info on UV... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet

I usually try to avoid UV since it's one of the most damaging natural elements out there for buildings, human skin and countless other things.  That's why i use steel, stone and dirt as much as possible in my building plans - those three are impervious to UV. 

 and now, the rest of the story...

A common laundry dilemma is what to throw in the washer and what to soak/hand wash and what to take to the dry cleaners (yuk factor here for many reasons).  I occurred to me that i have the best antiseptic cleanser right outside:  the sun.  So i put all the down comforters out there in full direct sunlight for a few hours and then place them into large plastic bags filled with home-grown biodynamic lavendar buds.  So I get a germ free (i mean what bacteria/bugs can survive hours of UV? yikes, I don't want to know!) and sweet nerve-calming lavender smell.


As a side note, I discovered a couple years ago that most critters hate the smell of lavender as much as they hate cedar.  Who knew? Why do stores market up cedar based closet boards, cedar soaked whatevers... when the sweet, calming smell of lavender does the same?   For the last couple years, I split my lavender plants each year and have several varieties abundantly  growing.  They don't need ANY maintenance!  no watering, no pruning, no nothing... my kinda plant!

2012 Spring

This is the 3rd year for the little garden that keeps expanding.  Last year there were 50+ grape globes and lotsa rhubarb... and from the look of it this year there will be hundred's - amazing what a bit of pruning and proper bracing will do.
Straw bales are truly amazing.  i wish I had discovered them decades ago.  It saves SO much de-weeding work, it's wonderful to walk on barefoot, it protects runoff and soil, decomposes in 5+ years and adds nutrients to the soil, it's cheap!, can be used as building and sitting blocks, on and on... 

So the construction of the iLc begins.  It's a momentus decision to pour the first footing.  There should be some sort of a celebration or ribbon cutting.  This iLc (international learning center) will shape not only the future of WinSol3, but also a future eco-village (i call it Sieben Linden West) based on living by the sun.

Felling four tall fir trees the other day gave me pause to admire the beauty and bounty of trees.  Sometimes I wish I would re-incarnate as a tree - they are so buddha like.  There's a wonderful buddhist saying:  'the Banyan tree even gives shade to the person that cuts it down'.  I am careful which trees I harvest in thinning the forest, I use every little bit of the tree (lotsa biochar from the slash), I debark them immediately when the sap is running, and then they dry for a year before they become the long-standing main supports for the iLc. 


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Of all the seasons, Spring is by far the hardest working and most joyous time.  Farmers used to celebrate the spring planting and fall harvest seasons, and gardeners relish the daily observations of newly sprouted blooms and growth.  Each year the flowers and shrubs and trees seem to multiply ten fold.  


There are irises, poppies, rhubarb, grapes, lilacs, lavender +++ blooms just exploding here every day - almost too much to handle, not!  For the first time in 9+ years, I have my 100+ strawberry plants back.  I tried a supermarket strawberry the other day:  tasteless, methyl iodide, and unnatural - yuk!  But for me, one of my most relished rituals is to pick fresh strawberries from the garden each morning with cereal bowl in hand.  ahhhhhhh..................

And straw bedding makes it easier and so much less work!




 

Living by the Sun

This will be an on-going posting about lessons learned from over 30 years of living by the sun.  We all live with the sun - more than we know.  Everything we use and are, originated from the sun - our star.  Ultimately we are all from the same star dust. 

Each day that I have lived at WinSol3 has provided me with new teachings about how to live more closely with our star.  And that has made all the difference.


For instance, in the last couple days, I've noticed that the crazy weather and solar angles are getting weirder all the time.  if I had to design this structure today, I'd do it a lot differently.  The fall and spring are no longer the transition zones between winter and summer, but contain within themselves elements of winter and summer.  So I would design some slidable louvers or large exterior panels to accommodate the cold days of late spring and summer or the warm days of late autumn or winter.

We are getting warmer mornings in the summer and weird weather patterns that I believe are being kicked up here by some of the hurricanes off Mexico's waters.  The last couple days, WinSol3 could have really used some strong sun through the windows... but usually this time of year it's very warm: Sacramento's music festival usually has 100F temps ... so WinSol3's structure passively allows not ONE single ray of sunlight inside from Spring to Fall solstice... the sawtooth western roof allows for a little late afternoon sun in the fall, but that's about it. 

wet + Wild

Leaving WinSol3 early this morning was a blessing in disguise...with my power systems drained ... and no sunshine for at least 2 weeks... it can snow up to 10feet for all I care....but of  course it won't do that!  ...only when I am there and have important meetings to get to.
A couple weeks ago we got close to 2ft of snow (first big storm of the year that I experienced).
One of the reasons I haven't blogged here in a while is that I only have about 2 hours of max power each day to charge my laptop and do important web work... and guess what? this blog ain't in the top five!  :-) for those of you keeping up with my 'life'... go figure.

Lessons learned... which have already been taken: don't run ANY big loads between October thru March...double the size of the PV panels.  install disconnect and force total power load shutdown when I'm gone.  That's in place, and should resolve THE big issue.  The other one is to get a Morningstar rather than a Xantrex controller - but that's only for power techies who won't be reading this.

The last two months have been INCREDIBLY warm... have planted a bunch of seeds and flowers are bursting out like crazy... only to be squashed by snow. The greenhouse is looking better and better each day... lotsa bulbs blooming... can't wait for spring!

Grandest Moments + Perfect Storm

There’s nothing like a clear morning after a storm - especially after several cloudy days.  I used to love those only for fresh powder skiing in my younger days.  Now, I am so addicted to the sun at WinSol3 - for different reasons.  The first storm last week was a pain: as unpredicted snow (level was supposed to be 6500 ft with less than 6")... and guess my surprise when I had to drive down to the big city at 6am with 10" of fresh snow.... not a problem, but still a bit of a pain at the hour in the morning when the main roads haven't been plowed.

Then there's the perfect storm yesterday where it was sunny all day... just after sunset the snow storm arrived - dropped about 1" of snow - and blue skies returned just in time for the sunrise - now THAT'S MY IDEA of a PERFECT STORM.  The movie + book by the same name is kinda maccabe... it should've been titled something like the 'Worse possible storm'... but that wouldn't have sold or marketed that well.

There’s something about the first rays of sunlight rising up through the forest and shining its warm rays on WinSol3’s windows.  Even though it’s relatively warm inside, there’s still something magical about the rays of sunlight coming through all the windows here.

Yesterday, I had such a moment, and was overwhelmed with feelings of joy, happiness – no, make that gratitude - , and that wonderful feeling of being alive.  It’s all relative of course.  If it wasn’t for the past few cloudy days, for the last month of being away, etc.  it would not have felt the same.  Walking out on the deck for my morning stretches (tai chi) and down to the Zen Deck and the forest roads always are magical.

In my walk through the forest after the rain, the incredible richness of smells were just intoxicating.  My nose reached out to get every whiff, my brain trying to identify what type of tree it was.  The smells were a cacophony of conifers + pine needles, dogwood, autumn leaves, rotting bark, mountain misery, dirt, water puddles… just plain ole nature in all its glory.

It is the grandest of moments for me.  To wake up next to an endless forest with nowhere to go.  For the last 35 days, I have spend ONE – yes 1 – day in a car.   That’s my measure of my life’s quality.  Talk about quality of life.  Like most of my friends know:  I used to measure the quality of my life by the # of sail and ski days per year.  Now I measure it by how many days I do NOT get in a car.

This grandest moment here at WinSol3 is in contrast to a similar grand moment taking a walk with a friend early morning at the Bay Area marina, and as we approached the end of the headlands and viewed the harbor, the seawall and the Golden Gate Bridge as the sun was coming up... WOW... another grand moment in the middle of a huge urban, asphalt jungle... and my friend commented that he always likes to start his day this way... here, here!

I hope everyone who reads this experience a grand moment tomorrow morning.   With love and gratitude...

Solstice + Ancients

It is always a real joy to be at WinSol3 on Dec 22^nd and watch the first single ray of sunlight (hopefully it’s clear skies!) reach through the forest from the SE and shine onto the entire southern window span of WinSol3.  It is no accident that this first ray of sunlight falls into the bedroom and kitchen/sitting area first.

This morning I absorbed this ritual of the ancients.  At exactly 7:43am the sun’s first rays graced WinSol3’s southern window expanse, announcing that the earth was shifting on its axis.  As I stood out on the deck observing the sun’s rays changingly distributing its bounty throughout the forest, I felt a spiritual rush of the connection with our giver of life.  Realizing that this event was observed for thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of years by most of humanity – until recently - I wondered if perhaps that internal rush was a connection with the ancients.  After all we are all from the same stardust, and we all breathe the same air and all our exhalations.

Then my brain really kicks in with something like this (from Wikipedia):  

The winter solstice occurs exactly when the axial tilt of a planet's polar hemisphere is farthest away from the star that it orbits. Earth's maximum axial tilt to our star, the Sun, during a solstice is 23° 26'. More evident from high latitudes, a hemisphere's winter solstice occurs on the shortest day and longest night of the year, when the sun's daily maximum elevation in the sky is the lowest.^[2] Since the winter solstice lasts only a moment in time, other terms are often used for the day on which it occurs, such as midwinter, the longest night or the first day of winter.

 

I wonder how the ancients figured out the longest and shortest days of the year – were they able to tell time somehow?  They most definitely knew about solar angles and horizons. We'll never know. Why have we lost all records and insight into this ancient wisdom?

In Thom Hartman’s book ‘Last hours of Ancient Sunlight’ he states:  ‘We once knew more than we know now’  Over the years I’ve found this statement to be so true.  Our left-brained, highly technological and scientific world has given us many wonders and lifted many people out of poverty – but at what cost?  Are we happier, more content?  Are our technologically driven communities and children better off?  Yes and no.  Mr. Hartman now blogs about the 'Last hours of Ancient Sunlight' ,his latest about how trees are  the 'canary in the coal mine'  that we are ignoring.

 and now... back to WinSol3 solstice ...

My usual routine is to light a big bonfire outside and then around 7:30am sit at the indoor granite fireplace bench looking at the ‘X’ mark on the French door glass that says 7:43am.  At 7:40am I am skeptical, there’s no sun to be seen and I wonder if by some strange reasoning I marked it wrong, if the house shifted, or heavens forbid our planet is out of alignment!   Every Dec 22^nd I go through this same ‘Doubting Thomas’ routine.   Then, as I go out onto the deck, sure enough, right on schedule, there is the first sunlight.   And all is well with the universe.

The joy within my heart is immense at this moment.  I feel a connection with the ancients, with a power indescribable, far greater than anything I usually have felt all year (although this year, the feelings I had at the temple ceremony in Indonesia ranks right up there).  Each year, I allow my heart and spirit to linger a bit longer, before my brain kicks in.  It’s getting easier each year to delay my brain kickstart.   But sure enough, after a couple minutes, my left brain hints at the history of this moment going back over the eons – of the Stonehenge + Pyramid architects, of designers and computer software packages that can predict this event within a microsecond at any location behind any shading tree in the world.

Then slowly my mind and heart sift together in unison to realize that our home is right now shifting on its axis ever so slowly.  Usually by the time I awaken from this trance, the entire inside of WinSol2 is flooded in sunlight and the sun has shifted a few degrees from the far SE horizon.

Then slowly I realize the ‘event’ is over and tasks beckon.  I wonder how many urban people even know about this event?  I know the farmers and many gardeners know - their livelihood depends on the sun.

For some reason, I am not that enamored with the counter solstice to this on June 21 each year, when the earth shifts back from the opposite axis shift.

temp Adjustments

Over the past few early mornings at WinSol3 (4300ft elevation) it has been about 50F outside and I am starting to feel warm without the fire stove or dressing like an Eskimo. 

After returning from spending ~20 days at the equator and 88F = 24/7, I was freezing cold at WinSol3.   I remember last winter I was comfortable around 45F, and I’ve  heard other people say the same.  But I know that most people would feel terribly cold at 45F.  A lot of that has to do with our metabolism and cold/warm bloodedness, our age, what we eat, fitness and exercise, etc. 
But I’d like to espouse a whole different reason: over the last few decades,  we've reset our body thermostats

Ever since the invention of instant on-demand heating and cooling systems, we’ve slowly weaned ourselves from our body’s automatic thermostat.  We used to be fine in temperatures from 50-90F with no problem. 
But nowadays, if someone from the northern zone steps off a plane in the southern zone, they'd immediately complain about the god-awful heat (and humidity).  They would head for the first air-conditioned space they could find. 
And then when they got back home to their northern colder climate, they would turn up the heat so they wouldn’t be too cold.  You get the irony here? 
It’s more psychological than physiological.

Let me repeat that: It’s more psychological than physiological.  Notice the word ‘logical’ in each of those.  Is there any basis for logic in the fact that the human body is designed with an automatic temperature control system (brain/heart and veins/arteries)?  Yes! a resounding YES!

Our veins and arteries are very sophisticated heat exchangers trying to maintain 98.6F by opposing flow patterns along our skin.  These are more complex than most hi-tech HVAC units.  Our skin is one heck of a large absorber or adsorber temperature plate. Heck the skin actually forms beads of water on it own if it gets too hot (sweating :-)!  It can serve as an alternating condenser or evaporator coil.  And yet, we like to keep our outside temperature exposure within 65-75F, 24/7,365.  In other words, we’ve gotten too comfortable over the years, and like to luxuriate in this narrow temperature range. 
But this has allowed our body’s thermostat to go on hiatus and in some cases maybe even malfunction.  I used to do this all the time myself: 

Decades ago when I was logging 100k airmiles/year I used to never every take a winter coat to the far northeastern states in the dead of winter - why hassle with it?  I step off the plane into a heated building, into a heating rental car, into a heated hotel, into a heated office building.  In one 24 hour period i'd be lucky if I got exposed to more than 20 minutes of sub-zero outside temperatures.  We've set up our environment to spoil our body's thermostat.

An energy saving tip:  start allowing your body’s wonderfully complex and fully functioning automatic thermostat and heating/cooling adjustment system to work – on its own. Instead of heating an entire room to 70F so that your body (all of 10-20 cu.ft) can be spoiled, let it adjust on its own.  Ok, so maybe you need to grab a blanket the first few days...
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It only took me ~3 days to start feeling comfortable when I first arrived (in Indonesia) at equatorial temperatures of 88F   24/7.  Then it took me ~3 days of adjustments back at WinSol3 to the relatively frigid 45-60F.   Had I opted for air-conditioning at the equator, or full-on heating at WinSol3 (sauna anyone?), my body would not be able to adjust so quickly.

Like an exercise/diet fitness program, we need to embark on a temperature adjustment fitness program – and just think of all the energy savings a 10-20F thermostat setting change would be on your monthly utility bill.