Riverstone Studios - Leaving the Grid

Tomorrow...

2011-04-27T22:50:00.000-07:00

It is with sadness and joy that I walked away today a retired 40 year old. I realized today that I gave 1/2 of my life to a company...correction, I gave 20 years of my life to getting involved with people I truly loved being around, in an industry that lives the motto "Feast or Famine", creating stuff that sometimes defies some of the natural laws of physics. Come on, tell me where else you can build a sign with grass that was air freighted in from Vancouver in April. Have you ever watered a sign before? (note to self...sod is brown when it arives off the plane...and no, spray paint doesn't work...we tried). Or how about building an electric hammer. Imagine shortly after 9/11 a client walks in and wants you to modify a claw hammer to have a cord attached complete with case and instructions as you find out he is flying to the US and taking it as on-board luggage as part of a presentation! Needless to say, it has been a ride. As I say goodbye to an industry of plastic I helped create for the last two decades, I now look forward to the next two decades and beyond

Tomorrow begins with waking my wife with a kiss, starting the day with a shot of expresso in a mocha and helping direct our two kids with the day for homeschooling. Next comes our regular Thursday business meeting (Auds & I plan for the following week), followed by chores and a photo shoot. The afternoon is spent again, with our boys, an hour working on rebuilding a generator, followed by photo finishing for another client.

Tomorrow begins a new paradigm. From a life of less...to a life of more.

Tomorrow we die to our old "fast paced" city life and embrace clean, wholesome slow paced acreage life raising, tilling, and harvesting organic food that we can be proud to enjoy with others at our table.

Tomorrow we give up our consumeristic ways of wanting more and begin cleaning out the house of the things that steal our time, our money, and our joy of not being or having enough; realizing that God is enough.

Tomorrow we give up the utility grid...we trade in dirty coal fired power delivered from a plant 400 km from our house, Natural gas piped 600 km from here, and treated water laced with known carcigens. Instead we become farmers and oportunists; We harvest our power from the wind and the sun. We use it to not only power our house, but to heat our water. Tomorrow we work on using wood destined for the chipper to heat our house next winter, and tomorrow we start capturing the rain that falls and purify it for drinking without the use of chemicals.

Tomorrow we simplify our lives and give up the comfort of a paycheque; we are getting off the hamster wheel and, in turn, we gain a life of far more.

May you follow your dreams!

Off Grid Winter Adventures...

2011-01-29T06:56:00.000-08:00

Jesus says, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own". Wow! Deep or what! 40 years later in my life and I've begun to live that verse and have come to realize that God loves humour!

A few days before Christmas, Audrey, I, and the kids went to visit my parents first to be met with icy roads and blizzard conditions and secondly, to come home to a exhausted battery bank which looks like this: No battery = no power. No power = no furnace. No furnace = 4 days of Kelly trying to restore water to our house. Our main water line supply from the cistern froze. I now know from experience what a "jetter" is and how to use one...For 4 days it was like we were in a casino gambling; we'd get the water going, wake up the next day and listen for the water pump. What were the chances? Were we "lucky" or was the house going to win?...One thing you should always know about gambling...the house always wins! We finally did come out on top but not without loosing our shirts...I think the above ground solution looks very pretty as most people I know have water lines strewn across their front yards and buried in straw bales, insulation, and heat tape. I'm thinking of making it permanent...Audrey might have something to say about that though.

Armed with new found knowledge and experience, we again left for New Years only to come back the next day to a cold house and more frozen water lines. This time, the pilot light on the furnace blew out. It's never blown out before and has not blown out since so we figure God loves a good joke and we are learning to embrace and enjoy His sense of humour.

Winter is also hitting us with unusually large amounts of snow. As I get closer to my 40th birthday, I'm getting chills down my spine of what happens when you get older...forgetfulness. Mine isn't age induced though, its snow induced. Everything in our yard is playing this warped game of hide and seek with us under the snow and I find myself daily saying, " I know it's here somewhere"... And I'm sure in spring I'll find whatever I was looking for again! Even our wood pile is covered over so deep, it just looks like the rest of the snow banks. A cord of wood is about 4'x4'x8' We have 4 cords of wood left and can't actually see any of it!

In the words of Canadian comedian, Ric Mercer, "This is the land of the cold, the strong, the North, and the free, and we get winter! Shut up, get a toque, and embrace it!" And that my friends, is how we are choosing to live!

Even the snow blower is having a tough time in the snow

Drywall is finally getting done

Drywall and built in cabinets

We decided to build all our own light fixtures. We love it

Audrey hard at work in her favorite office - the living room

Josh hard at work shoveling snow

Recent Photo Shoots...

2010-12-06T20:13:00.000-08:00

I keep having to remind myself that the reason for this blog is to share with others our struggles, trials, and the small steps forward we make as a family wrestling to live in a way that is so polar-opposite to the world around us. The reason my wife and I post on two seperate blogs is to share different view points from our lives with you the reader. To help encourage you and to let you know that you're not crazy. Yes! There are more of us out there living simple lives so that others around the world can simply live. To live within our means and to live out life creatively, vibrantly, and passionately with every part of our being. We strive to follow what God has placed in our hearts as a family in the way we live, the friendships we share, and the way we run a business.

With that being said, I don't have any pics of updates we've done on our Guest house, but I do have pics of what we've been busy with over the last few months...

Needless to say, we love our jobs. Wether it is throwing pottery, capturing life through a lens, building sustainably, or helping encourage others with their passions in life, once again, there is no where else I'd rather be.

Next time...pics of the guest house!

Cheers!

Leaving the grid - Eccentric or Smart? You decide.

2010-10-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

I find it interesting how of late I've been crossing paths of various people and finding the divide is growing. There are more people embracing new technologies and those of the follow-the-status-quo pack. Ultimately our family's view is one of embracing what is best for our family - that includes health, finances, and ultimately, the environment around us. We follow what is in our hearts and lead by the way we live. It has frustrated us that every government incentive to be greener has forced us to be islands in the middle of the prairies. There are government and private initiatives available for upgrading an older furnace, or grid tied power, but doing proper math makes the initiatives almost not worth the effort...so we continue to build off-grid, and continue to rejuvinate old discarded doors and windows to be energy efficient pieces of art. I scratch my head because of the types of programs and initiatives available. I find almost every initiative available in Canada to be tainted and slanted with specifics that leave me wondering "why" at the end of the day. What I have learned is to peel back the layers of the onion. What looks nice on the outside will eventually make you cry the further in you get. Before you jump into anything that sounds like free money, ask yourself, "Who stands to benefit financially from this initiative and how will this "initiative" affect your family?" Will you have to get a loan to pay for it? Will both parents be working longer hours to "afford" this "upgrade"? What happens to the old products that get thrown out to make room for the new and improved? One incentive that we took advantage of here in Saskatchewan was a $50 rebate to upgrade older 11 and 20 litre flush toilets to 4/6 litre low flow toilets. Now owning two of these toilets in two different homes, we find both be be a waste of water and money. A much better alternative would have been to save a toilet from going to the landfill and retro fitting it with a better valve and bladder system to use less water and still have good pressure.

So now that my rant is done, I ask what you think? Do you do what you do because its the best for your family and the environment...or do you do it because it looks like a carrot on a stick? Ultimately I always ask basic retorical questions like, "Would I take financial advice from someone who was broke, in debt, and continued to get deeper in debt year after year" because they can't live on what they make? If so, maybe Canadian and U.S. governments do have some good green initiatives...right? Ouch!

My Own Little World

2010-10-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

Today I was estatic, bewildered, dumbfounded, full of joy, and heartwrenched with sadness. This past week has been one of the best and one of the worst of times and I am floored at God in the midst of all of it.

Have you ever wondered why things happen the way they do? Why do jobs fall through, plans change, things don't work right. I'm beginning to understand that it's a little bit bigger than just me...or just you. I'm beginning to understand that many small things must happen all around us everyday to play this orchastrated symphony called life. We all have a great purpose (the solist) but without our everyday small parts being played out, the song is lacking. Sometimes duets, and quartets are more beautiful than a solo.

We sometimes get stuck looking inward, and sometimes we get stuck looking outward too far. For today, I realize that I need to start with my family...for when they are strong, they carry me with them and God uses our talents and abilities to touch many clients, many friends, and many others we are priveledged to get to meet along the journey. We constantly find ourselves being connected with people for very specific reasons...but this last week, I have had to stand back and watch my wife deal with our beautiful son not being able to cope with changes to his schedule. (He is in the Autistic Spectrum which means he needs VERY rigid schedules). I've watched his younger brother run out of the house afraid of his older brother's yelling and verbal abuse. I've had my wife ask me to leave the room because I don't have the same patience for him...and I've watched my wife walk in pain from tearing more adhesions from a bad fall a few days ago...and then to add the whip cream to the top of the cake...get hit with a throat infection.

As I leave my family to be in Saskatoon with a full plate of work over the next few days, I realize the most important work God has placed before me has to do with my hands and knees. I need to pray for the ones I love most so that we in turn, can go out strong as a family to do the work God has for us. "A chord of three strands is not easily broken" and in this case...four.

Two Steps Forward...No Looking Back

2010-08-16T19:31:00.000-07:00

When my wife & I dreamed of what it would be like living off grid...we can honestly say we were naive, whimsical, and love struck with the idea of what it would be like. We anticipated hardships and joy, struggle balanced with success...but nothing could possibly prepare us for the past two months. I keep saying how there is no place else we'd rather be, but that is only a cliched phrase that I coin all too often to describe this life as a whole.

After leaving my family once again to head back to work in the city after a week long break, I'm saddened to leave behind our new life to go back to city life fighting through traffic. Today I was told I'll be working the full week, which means 5 days away from my wife & kids. The place I work at is filled to the brim with great people to work with, and compared to rush hour in San Diego, Vancouver, Chicago, or even Calgary, the traffic ain't that bad, but I don't feel like I belong to that city life anymore. It's funny because when I was a child, I couldn't wait to leave the farm and head to the bright lights...now I can't wait to get away from them.

When I wrote above about being naive, whimiscal, and love struck...I wasn't talking about not understanding the hardships we'd go through in the process. We knew it was going to be a hell of a job getting to this point the first time we hit 50 mph winds for week straight. Jesus says, "A man doesn't build a house without first counting the costs". And its true, we knew building 2nd hand and unconventional would be labourous and painstakingly slow. We definately underestimated our time line, but we need to balance a working life to put food on our table too. What we couldn't possibly imagine though was the overwhelmingly thick blanket of peace and contentment that comes when you watch your wife find purpose in life caring for baby chicks. Or when your children stand in wonderment and awe watching a 10 minute summer storm pour down from the sky with tons of marble size "snow" in it and watching them in anticipation for it to stop so they can go out and taste the hail that has formed a large pile at the bottom of the down spout. To wake up at 6 O'clock in the morning to the sound of the wind turbine shutting down because the battery banks are full. To be humble enough to realize that even though you can't touch or see the wind...it is producing all of our electrical needs at this point...clean, free power...and that is a gift from God. To bless your children as they sleep and to lay your head down at night holding your wife as you drift asleep to the poetic songs of a million crickets, and to awake in the morning to the sounds of birds, hungry kittens, and giggling boys, we really did underestimate all of this. Don't get me wrong. I'd hate to disappoint anyone by thinking we live in a fairy tale...There are a lot of things that really suck on a daily, sometimes hourly basis (like applying stucco), but once again, I'm led back to my old cliched phrase...There is no place else I'd rather be. God Bless!

Although this little stinker looks cute, the fact he ate two baby chicks with us not even 50 feet away meant he unfortunately wasn't going to see his next birthday. Nature is cute where nature belongs. We don't enjoy the cost of feeding the local wildlife.

Grinding Audreys concrete counter top to expose the agregate.

This is what we are after in removing the surface cream from the cement.

Next a coffee coloured acid stain is applied then rinsed off with ammonia and water to neutralize the acid. A food safe water based acrylic gloss sealer is then applied to protect the counter from spills and stains. Finally, a paste wax is applied and buffed for a final leathery look and feel.

Audrey's kitchen is finally taking shape. We are absolutely sold on Concrete counter tops.

Audrey grinding grain for the chickens.

Good bye Garage...

...and hello guest house!

A 10 minute summer storm left a large amount of marble sized hail throughout the area. A lot of crops were damaged...including Audrey's garden.

Slate tile goes down in the entrance area where the wood stove is...more pics to come!

The daunting, slow, messy, horrible task of applying stucco...did I happen to mention it's not my favorite thing to do in all this construction?

It's a humbling site to have our turbine up flying again. The 35' pole is made from 1/4 " thick 8" tubing with 1/4" guy wires. The pole hinges and counter-balances in the middle so we can raise or lower it without the use of gin poles, vehicles, or large amounts of muscle. It just got a taste of Craik wind the other day with 23 mph winds gusting over 30...Even running an aircompressor (13 amps) and the stucco mixer (11 amps) all afternoon, we still produced too much power for our needs.

Our boys are in the habit now of reading before bed. Our youngest son Joshuah was just a little more than tired out from the day on this evening. Audrey couldn't resist getting a pic.

A place to Call Home

2010-06-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

Well, after almost 2 months of not blogging, I find myself with nothing to say. I am happy, I am content, and all is well with my soul. As of June 25th, 2010, we, the Taylor-Faye clan officially declare Lot 4, Craik Eco-Village, Craik, SK our official home...and we are all so much at peace with it!

There is still so much to do, but we trust it will all come together in it's own timing. Other peoples timelines fight against our own timelines, and so I have to give in to believe that "The Big Guy" is in control more than we are, and so we do what we can, when we can, earnestly, and prayerfully and things work out. I can say, however, being semi-retired, I don't think I could go back to full time work without it killing me. Between fixing vehicles, working 28 hours of overtime at a "part-time" job, doing photoshoots, trying to build, be a dad, be a husband, be a farmer, find time to visit family & friends, plus find my schedule yanked in a moment because of some disaster or someone elses disaster, I'm one tired puppy. Having said that, here's where we're at:

Working on the kitchen, here I've just poured Audrey's concrete counter top. This was an extremely tough pour from the standpoint that the cement is a VERY dry mix and it has to be worked hard to get it placed well without getting alot of voids. It's one of those hurry up and wait things. Now that it's poured, we have to wait a few weeks for curing before we grind, stain, and seal it.

Since putting in the cistern, we've yet to have to fill it. We've had 8 inches of rain over the last 2 weeks

Which brings us to another problem...sprouting bales. When life throws you lemons, you got to just suck it up and make lemonade...err, um maybe oatmeal!

Smiles On Our Faces

2010-05-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a few weeks since the Catagory 1 winds hit and destroyed most of our yard. In the midst of losing almost everything we've worked for over the last few years building our dream house and studio in Craik, , we've had to take stock on where our lives are at...

- We've got two beautiful, wonderful children
- We have wonderful friends
- We have good, wholesome food on our table and in our freezer
- We have more determination and will power to continue than ever before.

So what did we lose?....We lost some stuff! We lost some "stuff" that can be replaced, but the things that can't be taken away are still in our hearts, and we wear them in our smiles...

And so the building continues...

The past two weeks have been eventful, fruitful, frustrating, wet, hot, cold, rainy, dry and all around tiring and oh so satisfying. We've been working on trying to finish off services in our guest house and after months of work, we're finally there. Two weeks ago, we finally had warm enough weather to finish trenching the cistern in for our water system. It was +22 C the day I chose to dig the trench and hole for the tank. To my surprise, I still found frost at 3 feet deep. After carefully removing the layers of silt that had washed down my trench from spring run off, I also managed to find the sewage pipes I laid last fall...and like all good plans, I found them with the teeth on the bucket of the backhoe. Ce la vie! It took about 3 days to finish tunelling, trenching, laying pipe, wrapping everything in insulation, tieing in, priming pumps, pressure testing, and finally bringing the water and sewage systems on-line. Oh what a treat! All of the plumbing is finally complete and the bathroom is fully functional. We still have tile to do in the shower but hope to have that completed before the end of May.

This past weekend was met with traditional Craik spring weather. We had 4 solid days of rain and snow mixed with 40 - 50 Km/hr winds. I made the mistake of tearing out the brick fireplace on Thursday. We chose to replace it instead with a wood stove. We've been waiting for warmer weather to do the change out and since Audrey and the kid's stayed in the city an extra 2 days this week, I thought I'd take the opportunity to get the cement poured. Thursday was a day of enormous work and at 11:30 pm, I found myself still trowelling wet cement. I planned on hitting it one more time with the trowel for a glass finish and figured it would be ready at by about 1:00 am to do...unfortunately, the next thing I remember is waking up at 6:00 am the next day seeing my breath. It was just above freezing, and my cement was well on the way to curing. Later that day I installed the new stove and started warming the guest house up before the rest of the family got there. It was so rewarding to stand back and finally see months of work finally coming together. There is still so much finishing work to do, but at least we can see light at the end of the tunel...and I'm pretty sure its not a freight train!

A huge thank you to our very good friend Lee who drove all the way from Prince Albert to help us do clean up after the storm. We hit the mess at 10:00 am and by 10:30 I was done. I wanted to be anywhere but there...Lee kept telling me how much we had accomplished, how good everything looked, how much was salvageable, and by the afternoon, he had me back on track of believing in what we were doing. We all need some good friends like that in our lives to keep us going when we feel like packing it in. Thank you my friend!

Another huge thank you to the Katimavik team that came the next day. The group above did an amazing job of digging trees, pulling nails, sorting straw, yanking out broken beams and again, encouraging us to continue. Thank you to this amazing group of upcoming adults.

Our cistern gets sited in the excavated hole. It will be buried 6 1/2 feet deep to withstand the winter freeze. The top foot will have to be insulated and covered over with wood. Because of the type of tank complete burial for frost protection would result in it collapsing, so we need work arounds for it.

Another picture of the lines running up to the guest house

The hot and cold water manifolds installed, pressure tested and waiting to come on-line

The new wood stove. We made a combination of mistakes with our masonary burner. We did not line the fire box with fire brick or steel, plus over fired the stove to almost 900 degrees a few times trying to warm the place up this past winter. The result was cracked mortar joints and brittle bricks. We could write a book on the things we've learned NOT to do :)

Audrey waiting patiently for her hubby to finish taking photos so we could get back home to Saskatoon.

With plumbing complete it's onto the next task of electricals and flooring. Because we are living / storing / building in this place, EVERYTHING is done in small steps and everything is worked on in small stages together since something always has to be moved out of the way to work in that area. We've learned to do as much in an area as we can to minimize the amount of "stuff" moving we have to do.

In the midst of everything else, we've started incubating 69 eggs from our chickens. After a week we candled some of them with promising results. Stay tuned to see if we have some peeping or "ripe" eggs in a few more weeks :)

7 Years of Marriage

2010-04-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

I joke with my wife Audrey that when I vowed I would love her for better or for worse, I meant it...but does it always have to be for worse? :)

It seems we've had a lot of ups and downs over the last 7 years and so many struggles in so many different areas. Diversity is great, isn't it? It keeps you from focusing on just one problem...but there is no where else I'd rather be and with no one else I'd rather be there with. Words can't describe the love I have for my wife or my 2 children, but this song comes close...

I've struggled so much with losing so much of our work over the last year to a storm, and Audrey has honestly been the reason I haven't quit. It's because we are trying to build a better life for our family TOGETHER that I've continued to get up each day this week, go to work, go the the acreage, and carry on. We still have so much to be thankful for and she helps me not lose sight of the blessings we have in the midst of what we call "Life happening".

Struck Down But Not Destroyed

2010-04-12T18:50:00.000-07:00

There is a song by Darrell Evan's that has been stuck in my head all day...

I'm pressed but not crushed persecuted not abandoned
Struck down but not destroyed
I'm blessed beyond the curse for His promise will endure
And His joy's gonna be my strength

This past Friday we were humbled, broken, and at moments, we feared for our lives. We were pressed, struck down and felt cursed beyond belief. It all started Thursday night. Our neighbour mentioned that a storm was coming overnight with winds upward of 60 -70 km / hr. We shut down our wind turbine as a precaution but went to bed unmoved. These types of winds are not uncommon in our area this time of year and nothing we haven't had to fight through before with a few fallen bales here and there. Throughout the night my family continued to awake being afraid of the sound of the wind. Although a bit louder than normal I kept assuring everyone just to go back to sleep. 6:30 am Audrey was awakened by a crash. By 7:00 am, we had all gotten up. Tearful, we peered out the windows at the sight of our wind turbine lying on the ground and large parts of our house/studio laying in shambles. Heading outside, we were met by the discovery that our chicken coop had not faired well either. We raced to build temporary shelter and round up the chickens that had survived the coop's 180 degree roll over. The sleet hurt so bad, it felt like each pellet was piercing our cheeks. 4 days later now, my eyes are still sore to blink. As well there was so much debris flying around us we had to watch for pieces of tin that were being torn off of neighbour's roofs. The 70-80 km/hr winds also came with gusts that lasted sometimes over a minute at over 100 km/hr. These gusts were strong enough to cause you to lose your balance. For a few hours we took refuge at our friend's house in town, but for the most part, stuck it out throughout the day, night, and next day. The winds finally settled by Sunday morning, but the damage done in those two days will take months...possibly years to restore. In the end, we are 1. Not abandoned, 2. Not destroyed, 3. Blessed beyond the curse, and 4. His joy IS our strength. We have a home, we have our family, we have good friends, and material things can be replaced and rebuilt stronger, better and more beautiful than before.

What our house/studio looked like on Thursday

What our house/studio looks like after the storm.

The repairs on the turbine are going to hurt. The blades alone will be $3000 plus there are about another

$1000 of parts needed, and in additon a new design and cost for the tower. One that not only telescopes but also can be lowered safely while in the middle of a storm.

This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Flew the coop!" It's painful, but you have to find at least a glimse of humour each day. The coop is already rebuilt with help from Audrey's parents this last Sunday. It was so good of them to come down and help us put the pieces back up.

Other damage Around Craik

The large 16'x24' highway sign for the Eco-Centre

One resident in the town of Craik lost their roof to their addition

Massive large trees and many spruce trees took the most collateral damage.

Unfortunately, there is not a single turbine left flying in Craik.

Yet another.

The Eco-Centre faired well, but it too had some cosmetic damage.

This is an earlier shot of one of the buildings in the Eco-Village. Throughout the remaining day of the storm, more than half of the tin had left this side of the building.

A large majority of homes in the town of Craik have some type of roof damage.

Small Screen Success

2010-03-24T22:28:00.000-07:00

Oh the stories we'll tell our grandchildren...like the time we watched a camera man running through 3 feet of snow to catch a shot of us driving onto our acreage...Audrey let out a scream as we watched him disappear into a 5 foot deep hole we had dug for our plumbing tie-in's that was now covered over with blown snow. Or another time when I emptied the back-hoe bucket on the pile, swung the boom around to take another scoop when the hair on my neck started to stand on end and I thought..."where's Ian, he was here a moment ago filming"...only to discover him laying in the trench trying to capture the perfect shot of the bucket coming toward him. Sigh....those were the days...but alas our mini stardom in our 2nd documentary is done and it aired tonight here in Canada.

We were very nervous with all the reality TV shows that are out there that our new community, our neighbours, and ourselves would be portrayed in a way that was less than honourable. We live in a green community...what that means is a handful of the 400 people living there embrace this vision, a few are dead set against it, and the majority just want to live there own lives and not want to be bothered with all this talk and stuff.

Leif, Ian, Leslie and the gang at Zoot Pictures as well as CBC have done an absolutely beautiful job of story telling about the struggles and success our family, and our friends have been walking through trying to do something that no inspection authority approves, no government grants or funding recognizes, no construction, engineering, or architectual firm, wants to be involved in (I say that as a generalization...we got shot down by 5 firms when we went looking for help on engineering and architecture, but I'm sure the law of averages says there must be some firms out there) And at times you wonder if the local community even wants you there. Nough said, Here is a link to Zoot's web site. More info can also be found at CBC's web site. It aired tonight on CBC News Worlds "A Passionate Eye" series so I would imagine it will air at regular intervals over the next year and at some point this year be available on their web site link above for internet viewing.

Craik is a beautiful little town that is getting missed by everyone speeding to get between Saskatoon and Regina, and I am amazed at the number of people who come here to visit from outside of the province and the country who know about what is taking place here. Documentaries like this one will continue to spur crazy, passionate people, who want more than what society is selling to go out and take the steps to make it happen.

K

Tales from the plumbing department...

2010-03-13T07:15:00.000-08:00

At times, building a house from scratch is challenging, sometimes it is hard, and sometimes you just have to stand back and laugh at the predicament you got your own self into.

Currently we are working hard at installing the plumbing on our guest house. This will be our house we live in for the next couple of years while we continue to build our main house and studio. It's only 600 ft2 so It's not that complicated...a very small bathroom and kitchen that has 1 shower, 1 toilet, 1 bathroom sink and 1 kitchen sink, oh and a set of laundry taps. Not that complicated!

When it came time to get the parts, I was totally prepared. I had everything calculated, everything prepared, every meticulous detail worked out. I knew every fitting, every connection, every pipe required. I was ready! I put on my armour, loaded the family and off to Home Depot we went to do battle. Flash forward...thirty minutes into the ordeal, the kids were sitting on the floor, Audrey, my wife (who was very supportive up till then) says, "I'm taking the kids and we're going for a walk" and there I was perplexed, with a headache, and totally baffled. "What do you mean you can't get a tee with a 2" inlet on 2 sides and a 1 1/2" on the other end" I said to the staff member. Nothing that I needed seemed to be made and I found myself having to marry two or three parts to get to what I originally wanted. Occassionally I would see Audrey peek down the aisle for moral support (as well as to remind me how long we've been there). Two hours later, the battle was done and "We" had conquered the plumbing aisle.

Flash forward to now, so far I've spent about 17 hours running hot and cold water lines, main trunks, venting, "P"s, "Y"s, "T"s and other letters of the alphabet only to find large gaps left between parts for fittings that I "somehow" missed getting when I was in the store. Those few "missed" items fill an entire page on my shopping list and I'm pretty sure even after I get them, I'll still be missing more!

I am also short a length of 4" sewage pipe. Back in the fall time, I know we purchased about 10 lengths of it and we were very careful to pile them in a specific spot of the yard where we put all of our building supplies...and I'm sure sometime in the spring I might even find them again...After spending an hour pushing snow with the tractor trying to find the infamous pile, I gave up and added it to the list of things to buy!

The final plot to the story is something that brings us full circle in our building process. You see, we've poured many, many, many cubic yards of cement, all mixed by hand, and we've done some testing to know how good our mix is, but nothing "concrete" to know how much a large pour can withstand. Our guest house was originally going to be our garage, so plumbing was an after thought which means water and sewage lines need to be fed through the concrete floor to get to the connections outside. This required a 12" x 8" hole to be busted out in the bathroom. I began by using a grinding wheel to score the area to be removed. I then used a chisle and sledge hammer to convince the cement that it wanted to leave...then I moved to an air chisel and three hours later came to this conclusion...When it comes to mixing cement, we're good...no, we're very, very good!

The First 3 Years - In Pictures

2010-02-12T15:01:00.000-08:00

Before adding in what is new...I thought I'd begin by showing chronologically where we've been...

July 2006, we received receipt of our land. We literally stood in the middle of an open field. The only view of human activity in this region is a strawbale foundation that had been started and abandoned a year prior and a freshly built grid road.

May 2007, we broke ground as the 1st official Eco-Village pioneers. We set to work setting up the basic essentials to sustain ourselves. What we didn't anticipate is how much effort it would be to do that in this harsh environment. We found ourselves at time swearing at each other...swearing at God...and swearing at the cursed wind that seemed to never come from the same direction twice. Oh that wind! There were days that your eyes burned from the blowing dirt, and your teeth were gritty all day long. There were even times we couldn't talk to each other because opening your mouth, the wind would take your breath away. Luckily, those days only last for about a week each year in June.

We quickly realized that we we needed a place to put our tools while we built so we began the task of building a pole shed...Pressure treated lumber and plywood. This was one of the Ah-ha moments that changed the course of our lives in how we live. Lesson #1, if we were really passionate about what we were doing...and we wouldn't put it in our house, would we choose to build any other building with it? And thus, our straw bale garage idea was born.

Late that summer, we had finally gotten to a point to begin pouring the foundation. I still joke about how we decided to pour a footing and a seperate floor. Originally we were planning on pouring the 6000 ft2 floor in one swift operation. After scaring the local redi-crete company with our plans, they scared us first with the size of crew required and secondly, with the price for that much concrete. It became evident that if we were building with cash, we were going to need another way of doing it.

Plan "B". Some people - correction, a lot of people laugh at this, but to date, we've mixed over 90 cubic metres of cement and have saved about $15,000 doing it this way. Lesson #2 - Fast way with a 30 year mortgage, or slow way with plenty of sunshine and good exercise. We live in such a buy now-pay forever society, the thought of doing something by hand or something taking any length of time is completely foreign.

This is what the footing looked like at the end of the 2nd season in fall of 2008. This was monumental when you realize that the building is 150'x 75' and the footing is 24" wide by 12" thick...all mixed and poured by hand.

We scoured the countryside between Saskatoon and Craik looking for someone to buy bales from with no luck. We couldn't even find anyone who we could convince wanted to bale for us in the upcoming year. We were almost desperate at the thought of not being able to find a local supply and were looking at the absurd notion of having to "haul" bales into a agriculture based community to build our house with when we were Blessed by a wonderful local gentlemen who popped in on us one day to see how the building was coming. What ensued was a battle....Taylor-Fayes VS Wind. Final score...Wind 1, us 0. After spending a small fortune on tarps we finally gave up and said "what will come will come" and 3 years later, we still have a good amount of usable straw. This was yet another straw bale building lesson. All the books say NEVER let your straw get wet. NEVER put the bales in the walls until you have the roof on. What we found is the same wind that was our nemisis became our friend. We've found putting the straw in the walls was a better option than leaving them in the stack. The wind blows through the straw so that even after several inches of rainfall, the bales dry out. In the stack, that can't happen so we began to see losses quickly with the unprotected bale stacks.

January 2008, We placed the walls on our garage. This was testing grounds for what the large scale house and studio was going to be like working with the bales. We found a lot of things that worked well and an equal number of things that made us question what the heck we were thinking!

By spring 2008, the garage was beginning to take shape and we continued to wrestle with working 40 hours a week in the city, driving an hour and a quarter out to Craik, then working Friday night till Sunday night 12-14 hours or more each day trying to get ahead on building. Every free moment we had focused on building. This was backdropped by many weeks of the year spent in the hospital with our eldest son. All of this put so much stress on us physically and emotionally that at times we felt like packing it all in. It was also because of our convictions that we continued to press ahead...no matter how hard it was. I always joke that what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger...it also builds Godly character, stamina, and a family bond that can't be broken by anything this world throws at you.

Spring 2008 was also the year we embarked on creating a 1 acre garden. This began the journey of our own sustainable agriculture project that due to health problems has set us back a bit, but we continue to work towards each year.

As we continued building on the house/studio we continued to be torn with finding time to finish the garage.

Mixed in with working on the garage and house and studio, and infrastructure and garden was the realization that trees take time to grow and so need to be planted sooner than later when creating an areage. Lesson #3 - Plant hardy trees and plants that are local to the region. Anything else is going to consume all of your time and will probably end up dying anyway.

By fall 2008 we had started finishing the walls in the garage with stucco. 750 lbs in each 8' section of wall to be exact. All applied and finished by hand. We looked at how much bigger our 7000 ft2 two story house/studio was and were quick to agree that we either need way more friends or bigger equipment!

Winter 2009 we found another building method for moving ahead. Until now, our construction season was limited by the seasons. Now we began building box beams in the city during the week, then hauling them out and erecting them during the weekends.

We had a work bee which resulted in an incredible outpouring of help. The only downside to this was that we were the blind leading the blind! We discovered that round buildings don't play by the same rules as square ones and to date, we are still finding solutions to fitting the bales into the walls. We also found that when you have a large group of people helping, you need to stop working yourself and manage only. Otherwise your help doesn't have the opportunity to do what they are there for...help!

Spring 2009 was met with another milestone in our family's life. I began going 1/2 time at work, meaning I work Monday to Wednesday in the city, giving 4 days to work on construction and life. I joke that at the age of 38 I'm semi-retired but the truth of the matter is, some weeks, going back to work Monday morning looks much more appealing and easier. In the picture above, I really felt convicted to use our garden plot that year to plant a quarter bushel of wheat that was given to us a few years prior by a friend. We were yet again convicted of what our family should be doing a few weeks later as we watched a neighbour a couple miles away spray his wheat for weeds, and inevitablly smelled the overspray in the air for the next few days. What I find amazing is hearing a story from an old friend of how one of his buddies was a elevator rep and in the 1960's a chemical company gave a town meeting on the virtues of herbacide use. The farmers weren't buying into it, so this buddy got talked into drinking a glass of water diluted with the spray to show the farmers how safe it was. It was such a hit, the chemical company hired the man to do this trick on the road to sell other communities in on it. Today, agricultural without herbacides is unheard of...just like the elevator rep who died a few years later of an realatively unheard of disease called cancer.

Summer 2009 was a year marked with many milestones. Pictured above is our cedar chicken coop that began the journey of raising our own poultry for meat and eggs. This journey began in response to Audrey being allergic to penicillen. To make a long story short, we can't eat out in a resturaunt and eat poultry, fish, and a lot of times beef. We had purchased beef from a local farmer and that worked well, but eating in a resturaunt or buying meat, poultry, or fish in a store was and is almost a guarantee of a life-threating allergic reaction. Hmmm...kinda makes you wonder why all commercial meat and fish is laced with penicillin? If you are questioning it, rent a movie called "Food Inc." and you'll understand why.

July 2009 also began construction season on 36' glue laminated beams for our house/studio. These beams are constructed from 2x8 spruce with scarf joints between each piece of wood. Here Audrey is working on building a scarf in the end of a 2x8.

Each beam takes about 40 hours to complete which means we will be building roof beams for some time to come yet. I've had many people comment that we are crazy to do this...but one thing that we remind ourselves of is that "we" are building our house. "We" know every product that goes into it and "We" know how it is put together. How many horror stories do you know of from people who have a house built and then have issues with foundations or leaking roofs or worse. In addition, no offense, but someone tells me "they" built their own house...yet never actually picked up a hammer (rather they picked out the design of the house and the colour of the tiles and then had someone build it for them) drives me crazy! We can honestly say that the lumber used was sourced in Saskatchewan and that the structual glue used is completely inert and non-toxic. Do you know where the products in your house come from? Again, our convictions are different that most people...and that's OK.

August 2009, we dicided to unpack the turbine we had purchased a year prior and start flying it. Lesson #4 - If life throws you lemons, make lemon aid! The wind that is such a curse so much of the times on the open, flat, prairie is now our biggest friend. We realized that each day we sat looking at it in the box was costing us $20 to $40 per day for fuel in our generator. Now the generator runs once or twice a day for less than an hour and some days, not at all.

By end of Summer 2009 The house/studio is starting to resemble the blueprints and we are excited to think the roof will be erected summer of 2010. There is still the 2nd floor to add onto the house, but the sudio will be worked on first.

I absolutely love this picture! There is something organic and just plain right about the site of me cutting our first crop of wheat with a scithe and the kids gathering the cuttings into bundles for sheafs. Anyone with farm experience might note the abundance of wild oats in the mix...We seperated the wheat from the oats by hand and have a healthy amount of each for replanting next spring. This way of farming is not realistic on a large scale but for us, it is rewarding and just feels right. My doctor has been telling me for years that I need to lose weight. People I work with have gym memberships that cost $500 a year. This past year I dropped 30 lbs and gained muscle mass. For the first time in my life I have defined and sculpted muscles in my shoulders, arms and legs...and I feel 10 years younger. Hmmm...Maybe I should start a "Weight loss and body toning" business?

Winter 2010 was met with our homemade masonary stove. The bricks were reclaimed from a 1970's built fireplace that ironically had "never been fired" since the day the house was built. We felt it only fitting to put them to their proper use.

During a rain storm in summer of 2009, we built a loft in the garage for a bit more space and better sleeping arangements only to realize that our garage could never actually be used to drive a vehicle into as a result of that and so it would be much better utilized as a guest house. Winter 2010 so far has been spent revamping our garage to have full plumbing, kitchen, and proper bedrooms. Once complete in the spring, We'll be moving full time into it as we continue to construct the rest of our house/studio.

Introductions

2010-02-09T18:18:00.000-08:00

After journaling the construction progress of our Straw bale retreat centre and home in Craik over the past three years on our company website, I've had some time to take stock of our lives and have decided to stop putting God and myself in such a small box. My journal and excitement to share has always been from a technical side of construction of what works and what doesn't balanced with sharing the frustration of lacking the time and finances to get our house built.

Audrey and I originally set out to build a home and studio that would be different, unique, artistic, energy efficient, and self sufficient. This included passive solar design to minimize heating and cooling bills, wind/photovoltaic power generation, and natural landscapes for clientele to enjoy. What ensued was the beginning of a journey that has forever changed us and our kids.

So many people have asked us, "Why do you want to go back to the dark ages?" or, "Why do you want to work so hard?", and to be honest, I've always had a hard time answering people. I don't anymore though. You see, people who ask those questions are walking in their own shoes, not in ours, and I can't possibly begin to trace the steps that led them to their decisions in life, just as they can not possibly step into each print left by our family's feet. What I can say though, is that I would not change a day in my entire life...nor any to come. I have no regrets for the man I am, nor for the father and husband I am becoming.

I thought this journey was about building a house...what I found was something else. It was discovering that most of the products we use on a daily basis are made from products that were originally developed to kill people during WWI and WWII. And that many others are made from waste products of other processes...not necessarily because they are good products or "good for you", but because they are "cheap". I've also learned that anyone who has a stake in financial gain, does not necessarily make decisions based on what is best for the environment, or for the people. People might think we're a bit crazy, and that's OK; but here are some convictions that I have:

Formaldehyde: Accidentally invented in 1859 and then rediscovered in 1868. It is one of the most widely found chemical compositions in your home:It is used in fiberglass insulation to bond the fibres together, mixed with urea (ammonia) to produce OSB (subfloors, I-beam floor joists, outer wall sheathing, roof sheathing), K3 particle board (kitchen cabinets, most furniture, most laminate flooring), MDF (window casings, baseboards, interior doors (press board)), Plywood (bases for kitchen counters, some furniture). As well, it is widely used as a fungicide for new clothing you buy (that was manufactured overseas). For such a widely used product, it should be safe, right? To see the "health benefits" of this widely used product, click here and here and here Some people will experience cold like symptoms that last 2 to 3 years after moving into a new home. This is typical of Formaldehyde poisoning through inhalation.

Chlorine: Used during WWI as "mustard gas", Chlorine gas has since been the poster child of "safe" drinking water campaigns in the Western world. What I don't understand is why the Canadian military along with Red Cross, don't use chlorine when purifying drinking water in disaster zones. They instead use sand filtration, charcoal filtration, UV sterilization, or RO filtration. To see the "health benefits" of chlorine, click here and here.

This is just the beginning of what we discovered about products we use and come in contact with each day. There is so much more that we are convicted of, but I need to emphasize that these are our convictions...each of us makes our own decisions, and we never started out to change the world...in fact, we still aren't out to change the world. What I can say though is that we can begin with changing our own paradigms about what is good or bad and that will in turn - change the world around us. There are certain things that happen such as PG&E's total lack of regard for human health or well being that was accidentally uncovered and made famous by Erin Brockovitch - Events and people like this need to be stopped, but the decisions we make with our cheque books day after day have a profound effect on the world. If no one buys a product, it will be gone...and if there is a demand for another...companies will line up to supply it. The most power we have as a population is with our economy. That economy must come into line with our beliefs about God, our family's well being, and the community around us. Alexander Hamilton once said, "Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything"........So what do you stand for?