Around the House

I thought it might be fun to take everyone on a virtual tour around our house to give those who haven’t visited us an idea of some of the things that we do to promote sustainability. Most of these things we’ve done for free, or almost free, with only a couple of major purchases.

The first major purchase we made was an investment in solar panels. We had them installed in February, and we haven’t had an electric bill since. In fact, since we are still “on-the-grid,” we are a solar energy producer, and we get a check from the electric company every month. The largest check was around $120.  When you factor in the loan payment to the solar company, we have a net cost of about $10/month average for electricity.  Sorry, I’m not brave enough to climb up on the roof during the little ones’ nap, so I don’t have a picture of the panels, but this is a picture of our new electrical box system. 

And this is the component that we can watch tick backwards as we produce more kilowatt hours than we use. It’s all a bit industrial looking, but there is nothing better than listening to the whirl of that inverter while I’m hanging clothes out on the line.

I haven’t really used our dryer since May. I refer to it as the “diaper fluffer” because I like to toss our cloth diapers in the dryer for about 10 minutes, so they aren’t too stiff after hanging on the line. I wash diapers twice a week.

The second real cost we incurred was a chainsaw, which was The Hubby’s Father’s Day gift. It is the gift that keeps on giving!  Here is the firewood he’s collected and chopped since then.

Our goal is to rely solely on firewood collected from downed trees on our property and on adjacent properties. We have permission from the owners to remove downed trees. It is actually quite beneficial to remove lots of fallen trees because it reduces the risk of a quickly spreading wildfire.  We had the propane tank filled, but I hope not to use any at all this year.

This is our wood stove (with a lovely piece of The Hubby’s recycled can chicken art on top).  The wood stove is actually much kinder to my skin and everyone’s sinuses than the furnace. We have a couple of tea kettles on top, which we keep filled with water and a few drops of essential oil (I love tea tree oil), to keep the air moist all winter long.

And here is the piece we found from a thrift store that welcomes the ladies (and gentleman) home.

That’s the door of the chicken coop, and below are pictures of the inside, the chicken run, coop foundation, and exterior. The Hubby constructed the entire coop from materials we already had lying around, except for the poured concrete floor. Coyotes will dig under a coop to get to the chickens, but with rebar through the vents and concrete and stone foundation, our ladies are safe and sound all night long.

The stone stairs The Hubby constructed with stones found on our property, fortified with a little more cement.

In return, they earn their keep with faithfully provided eggs. This is one of our four laying boxes today.

Here are a few of the Cornish Crosses that The Hubby purchased from a kid who raised them for the fair. They are pretty terrible birds to have around, but I hope they’ll be delicious. The Hubby and Company will be sending them off to “Freezer Camp” after a backyard ceremony sometime in October.

Just in case any predators dare challenge the chicken fortress, though, we have Roxie, the fearless mutt who will take on anything, except a bobcat apparently. For that battle, she called in the reserves (aka The Hubby), who learned that he needed to keep an arsenal handy to throw at any stubborn predators ready to attack. The current arsenal consists mostly of strategically placed horse shoes (also found on our property).

Roxie’s other back-up is the not-so-fearless Opal. Really, though, what would a homestead be without one worthless old hound dog?

There are lots of other great things I’d love to show, like the piñon trees that are just beginning to open their cones and share their nuts, and the prickly pear, whose fruit we plan to use for jelly and wine this year. Perhaps there will be a Part Two to this post, if anyone is interested. (Are you interested?)

It’s a wonderful wide world out there, and when you’re working with your surroundings rather than against them, it’s amazingly simple to feed (and provide heat) for a family of five for (almost) free.