Wednesday, August 11, 2010

We'll never run out


I gotta tell you I love dirt. The stuff is everywhere and you can do so much with it. I played in the stuff a lot when I was a kid. Building little dams, roads and ramps with my toys. I would make tractor noises while pushing a little yellow bulldozer. Then I started hearing all the crap, "get educated, get a career, get money, get stuff"  is what they told me. "Get enslaved to a system that needs you to do your part so the super wealthy can get super wealthier and maintain power while you really get dick" is what they meant. I was one of their robots for decades and barely escaped with my life.

Rocket Mass Heaters: Superefficient Woodstoves YOU Can BuildThings have come full circle for me in a way now. I'm back in the dirt. Now it's not really play time but neither is it like work. Sure it is a lot of physical labour but it is very personally rewarding. You see, my wife and I are building a new home out of the earth. It's a group of five domes made of bags filled with clay and aggregate that are tamped solid. The place will be warmed and cooled to some extent using the earth itself as it is sunk into the ground. Further heating will be provided by a rocket mass heater that we will build ourselves. Rocket Mass Heaters: Superefficient Woodstoves YOU Can Build There is a ton of info about building these things yourself on the internet and all of it from what I can tell comes from this single book. But there is some stuff you won't find on the internet like some exact dimensions and such. I won't give them to you either out of respect for the author and inventor, Ianto Evans. This man is certainly a remarkable character.

My wife and I had the opportunity to meet Ianto and his wife Linda Smiley last year at Cob Cottage. They are both accomplished authors and are extremely knowledgeable about so many things a person wanting to free themselves from corporate slavery needs to know. Showing how to build your own affordable home, heating it, gardening and many other helpful topics are passions for these people. If you ever get the chance to go to Cob Cottage and meet them, you won't be disappointed. Unless you are some sort of ass-kissing middle management type wishing to climb the ladder faster by stepping on peoples throats while you clean them out so you can show your boss (your master) how ruthless you can be and are 'willing to do what it takes' to show a profit this quarter. Then your time would probably be better spent taking yet another business course to further hone your evil.

Back to me and my dirt. We will build a home, an outdoor kitchen, garden walls, pizza oven and other projects all from earth on our site. There is a plenty of it and some has just been laying there for hundreds of years heheheh. Some smart ass business type commented to me the other day that it is a 'finite resource'. Yeah, bite me ass-wipe. This coming from a guy who lives on the prairie in a McMansion made of processed wood from 1000 miles away. We will never run out of earth. There will always plenty for everybody. Soil, well that's another thing all together... Perhaps a future blog ....

2 comments:

  1. Excellent post! All I got to say is pictures pictures pictures.....

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  2. I have not yet figured out how to add pictures to a comment but a lot of pictures and our progress can be seen a the blog my wife maintains at www.canadiandirtbags.com
    I'll have to get off my butt and do a post here with pictures too.

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