My Passive Solar Nautilus House

It has been a struggle for me to post the pictures of the floor plan and the model I'm constructing of my Nautilus House. Generally, anytime I (or anyone) mention something different than the accepted mainstream beliefs, we end up being ridiculed and thought totally weird. The concept for this house came to me from Spirit, in a meditation about 10 years ago.

The shape of this house is based ion a Fibonacci Spiral, or Phi:The Golden Number/Golden Mean/Golden Ratio.

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Putting that aside, there are still many, many questions still to answer in fine-tuning in the plans for this house. The changing pitch of the roof in each section will be a real challenge to build. The "public space" of kitchen, dining and living room are planned to be one large open space, with probably a kitchen counter/bar as a visual separation. Then there are the things not definable, like the energy contained within the Fibonacci spiral shape.

There are a number of things I see built into this house. First off, it is basically Passive Solar, with the long exterior window-wall of the living room facing south. I envision radiant hot water pipes in a well-insulated concrete slab floor, now that hot water heat with long flexible lengths of piping to prevent leaks at junctions is possible, and affordable.

Some sustainable considerations include: a greywater system, composting toilet, earth cooling tubes, rocket mass heater, solar chimney, solar heated water, possible passive solar greenhouse attached, sustainable forestry adjacent to the site, and a sheet-mulched, no-dig permaculture / edible food forest garden.

I envision this as a long term project that includes other eco-buildings, food forest gardens, aquaculture ponds, coppicing and possible timber production depending on the site, a classroom for courses and workshops, orchard, cider making facility, wild food, wildlife refuge and maybe even part a future small sustainable community.

This house is only 1 bedroom, with slightly under 900 square feet of living space, but could be built to include one more turn of the "nautilus shell" so there are 2 bedrooms. Alternatively, there could be a loft bedroom above the private spaces (laundry/pantry, bath, and bedroom) without increasing the footprint. I didn't even consider a 2 bedroom mock-up since there is so much interest today in smaller houses, rather than McMansions.

I looked into several different types of exterior construction... from straw-bale, earthbag, and cob to a cast-in-place sculptural form like Flying Concrete. In the end I decided the transition to a passive solar non-conventional shape would be more readily accepted by using conventional stick-building techniques. The large vaulted, open (public) space with exposed wood beams supporting a wood tongue and groove ceiling would be striking, with a strong feel of "mountain getaway cabin".

I am hoping to interest some university (or perhaps private) schools with sustainable and/or alternative energy departments into considering this house as a hands-on teaching project.

Bartering and Crop Swaps

Kate, over on Living the Frugal Life, recently wrote a nice piece on bartering, which prompted me to review some "crop swap" information I had downloaded earlier.

Barter Theater, photo courtesy of Southern Foodways Alliance

Bartering achieved some notoriety around here locally (in the next county south of me) in 1933 when the price of admission to the  Barter Theater  was 40 cents OR an equivalent amount of produce. Four out of five Depression-era theater-goers there paid their way with vegetables, dairy products and livestock. (It's still an active live theater today, but I don't think they barter for admission anymore.)

So Bartering and/or Crop Swapping is nothing new, but perhaps our ideas about it deserve another look in the light of the current economy. The USDA now reports that storable foods costs have risen by 60% in the last year. Many vegetable crops are easily stored: cabbages, potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, carrots, parsnips, beets, rutabagas, turnips, and more. Those should all be pretty easy to grow, store and/or barter. 

It might be harder to barter for sugar, salt, flour, or toilet paper unless you live near a processing facility and know one of the workers who may be able to get "seconds" which are generally packaging defects, not product defects. On the other hand, a surplus of those staples might be quite valuable as trade items if those things really get scarce.

I'd be interested in starting a trial crop swap group on a small scale here where I live... but I don't know enough people who might participate for it to be worthwhile. That's sad, actually. I threw away about 400 pounds of winter squash the first year I had a garden here; the food banks couldn't take them, and I didn't know any of my neighbors or any other place to put them to good use.

Sarah Henry, over on the shareable network blog, has written a few posts on how to set up crop swapping, including one directed at some of the legal aspects. I also know there is a barter section on Craigslist; unfortunately none of them are near enough to me to be to be economically viable. I did trade some cheese I made from goat milk to the farmer who supplied the milk, but it cost me $10-$12 in gas every time I went to pick up just 2 gallons of milk. So it wasn't the best good win-win situation; had he been closer it would have been wonderful.

I'd barter cheese or something else in a heartbeat for frozen free-range duck, even it it meant postage (which is still cheaper than gas). Actually I'd consider bartering lots of things, duck just came to mind because no one local has free-range duck to sell.

Anyone have suggestions or experience with bartering?

Edited the day after Thanksgiving to post a link from a friend on Barter Sites.

Letter from Sendai, via friend to friend to friend...

From my cousin in Sendai, Japan where she has lived for the past decade teaching English. Very moving!!

"Hello My Lovely Family and Friends,

First I want to thank you so very much for your concern for me. I am very touched. I also wish to apologize for a generic message to you all. But it seems the best way at the moment to get my message to you.

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.

During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.

Utterly amazingly where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."

Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often.

We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not. No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.

There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun.

People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.

Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled.

The mountains are Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.

And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my friend's husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.

Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself. This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.

Thank you again for your care and Love of me,

With Love in return, to you all."


My friendly source.