Lake House: Solar Initiative

I just finished writing a report for my solar energy class. For the report I had to determine the energy usage of our house and design a photovoltaic system to supply its needs. I was able to design a system to supply all of the needs of the back house. Here is a short video from the report showing what they system will look like. I am excited to say that we are going to go ahead and start building it. But for right now we just need to figure out how the heck to fund it. The total cost will be around 2 thousand dollars. If you have any ideas or suggestions please contact us.

House Day: September 2011

Once each month, the whole lot of us Lake Housemates spend the day together. Very often we spend the time doing some kind of work, a project for productive bonding. This September's house day saw us working on our property to streamline the needless clutter, and to take better care of what we have.

The endless summer finally comes to an end

It has been an intense summer, filled with projects and plans. Here is a recap of all of our project related accomplishments over the summer:

1. Painted roof white (which really helped to bring down the temperature within the house)
2. Got the aquaponics system back up and running (no tilapia, but we have plenty of apple snails)
3. We built the solar hot-water heater.
4. We built the trellis system on west side of house to block out the evening sun (now we are waiting on the plants to grow)
5. Finished setting up the mosquito netting on all the windows and doors
6. Mortared up the bricks in the St. Francis garden.
7. Topped off the gardens with fresh mulch and compost for the winter season
8. Installed a ridge vent in the attic
   
9. Cleaned out and organized shed
10. Built a better chicken run area
11. Moved the dryer outside
12. Finished installing the dual flush toilets
13. Bought a new energy and water efficient washer machine
14. Installed the crazily efficient dish drying rack
15. Installed a better lighting system in the kitchen

I am also amazed by how much we haven't done. I am impressed by our collective will to sacrifice things.

We haven't:

Used A/C (except for during homechurch and during a visit from a close friend)
Used the dryer, ever since it was moved to the front porch (maybe 2-3 months)
Used hot water...that was until the solar hot water heater was finally built.

It has been wonderful.

Solar Water Heater

I woke up this morning at 3 am. The August heat just wouldn’t let me go back to bed. Rather than waste time tossing and turning, I decided to finish making the connections for our solar hot water heater. I had spent countless hours the previous day gluing PVC and twisting iron pipes, but I only ended up flooding the kitchen and leaving the house without water. The few hours of sleep had given me some clarity and I attacked the problem from a different angle. By the time the sun started to peak its head over the horizon, all the connections were in place and the solar hot water heater was officially up and running.

We used to pay 60 or so dollars a month to heat water. That means we paid, the earth paid and those that live in coal producing countries paid the burden of the simple luxury that is hot water. That’s now a thing of the past. Rather than using up the earth’s resources, we have decided to hire the sun do what it does best: blast everything with is warm embrace.

The technology isn’t perfect; we will have to shower in the evenings (when the water is at its warmest), we will also have to deal with cloudy days and winter’s wrath. But, it’s a technology I can be proud of. It is another step towards having a sustainable and just existence. I am always blown away by the simple fact that if everyone on the planet had something as simple as hot water (the way that we normally produce it in the US) there wouldn’t be enough coal and oil to do anything else (including transportation, industry etc). Using the sun to heat water paints a very different picture, everyone should be able to do that…

Let us learn to use the things God has given us intelligently and justly. Thank God for the sun. Thank you Jamie Trahan, Jim De Mauro, Alex Lin, Mike Bair and all the others that have helped with the success of this project.

Prayer, Hospitality, Community, Sweat, and Initiative

So yesterday I woke up early to pray and eat breakfast with my community. We all gathered in the family room and had a great time of prayer. While we were praying 'Empress' Mary came to the door. Natalia went and sat with her while we continued praying. We just met Empress Mary the other day through a guy that was crashing at our house for a few nights. She is also on the streets and we have been doing our best to find female friends to put her up since we can't really host women guests in a house full of guys. She dropped in to get a shower and spend some time with us. We all chipped in after prayer to make a big breakfast to eat together and had her join us. It really was an awesome morning and I realized later how opportunities to love people literally just knock on our door. I am so grateful.

Its getting hot in here....

So there is so much happening right now. Our friend Jason has just returned from prison and we are so grateful for his return! We have been trying to make some time to spend with him to catch up on all the fishing, eating, and just walking around he has missed out on over time. Also Erica and I have been working hard on our first catering gig for the Mama Africana Banquet this saturday. We are cooking for 150 people and are so excited to do it. This is a beginning for us as we continue down this journey with food. (If any of you need an event catered I would love the opportunity to serve your gathering in this way. Just let us know)

I have been teaching a class for the Underground Institute called Jesus and Urban Gardening. The class has 30 students and has met twice so far (out of 8 total meetings). Each week we spend an hour outside learning and practicing some basic gardening skill that are useful in the context of the city and our second hour is spent in our friend Derick's house diving into an ecological theology of liberation. This is by far the most personally challenging (and fulfilling) teaching experience I have had. I hope to do this much more in the future.
There are many other projects and undertakings as cliff tinkers in the kitchen and robby keeps tackling the heat in the house through creativity. But alongside all of what is happening there is an ongoing and challenging conversation and debate. Last night I walked into our smoldering hot house to find the guys sitting around and having what sounded like a pretty heated debate. It was about the AC. Some of us are uncomfortable but proud of that fact. Others, who are troopers, have wavering conviction or possibly more questions than conviction at all. How can someone put up with this heat unless they are driven too? As i walked in I heard one of our guys say something to the effect of 'Are we just supposed to come in here and die?' as if being hot (uncomfortable) was a deadly thing. I didn't jump in to the conversation but just kinda listened as they had it. I recognize that it is getting hotter every night and there is a really good chance that we will break and turn on the AC at some point in the near future but I hope we don't give in until we are able to call it a luxury. Until we realize that the majority of the world lives there entire lives without AC and they are not gathering in their houses at night to argue about the merits of it because it isn't a choice. The fact that we even have a choice on this matter points to our wealth and privilege. People throughout the world, and many up and down our own street don't have AC and they still gather together and enjoy each other, there lives are still beautiful and appreciated, and they live lives that are not consumed by this discomfort. It is my belief that as long as we can hold on, through our discomfort and frustration, God is faithfully purifying us. Breaking us from our addiction to comfort, freeing us from our dependencies, helping us walk in solidarity with the poor, deepening our community through the ordeal, and bringing what is ugly in us out so that we can deal with it together. It is so much deeper than AC. Some of us hold convictions strongly and are still insensitive jerks, others are struggling with strength in the face of trial, others bottle up frustration and allow anger to conquer them, some of us just don't care or think enough about what is important. These are not fingers to point but realizations about my own sin and ugliness and I sometimes recognize it in my brothers as well.

May the heat purify us, may the discomfort sharpen us, may the sweat cleanse our eyes, may our impurities be removed. God thank you for the rain that you sent to give just a few minutes of breeze the other night just as we were about to give in to our desire for AC. I can't help but feel your presence, your mercy, and your egging us on.

Integration: How do you rejoin society? Thoughts after 30 day local food experiment

Local Food, Sharing Groceries, and Creativity

So as my 100 mile food experiment has come to a close I realize that I am not excited to go back. I look at things around me in our house and just don’t want them. I don’t want to eat food that you unwrap and I don’t want oreos or soda or cake or cereal. At least at this point I seem to have a craving for the foods that I have been eating over the last month. It’s actually quite shocking. I knew I wanted to try to keep eating as locally as possible but never could have anticipated this strange aversion to foods that I have loved and craved. It’s just gone. So I kept my contribution to the houses food money back last month during the experiment so that I could get my own local food to eat. They were fine with that. But now the experiment is over and I need to contribute again and share groceries again. I do want to but am also conflicted about almost everything they normally get to eat. And that’s saying something because I live in a community that has a lot of food convictions already. They strive to find fair trade products and environmentally conscious products. I am still nervous because I read labels on packages and stickers on fruit. Over the last month I realized that all of the fruit that they eat comes from other countries all together (By the way I have nothing against trade with foreign nations but we just don’t need FOOD to travel like that) and all of the processed foods they buy are full of crap. There is nothing natural about Nature’s Valley. I want to share my convictions and continue to experiment with food and I also want to be sensitive to their wants and habits. I requested that my grocery contribution as well as Ryan’s contribution be set aside for us to take care of produce and butter. That means that at least we will get locally grown organic produce and real butter from a local dairy farm. They were game and I will purchase the food and eat it but will also see it used by the guys in the house as ingredients in their own cooking and recipes. As we discussed this option Robby brought up a really great question. Since local food is more expensive then how are we gonna balance this growing conviction with our core principles of hospitality and sharing? I really thought this was a great question for us to wrestle with. It’s one I could see myself asking if it was someone else making the request and I am really glad he put it out there for us to discuss. It is true that we will spend more on less food and it just isn’t enough to say God will provide (even though he always does.) We can’t be buying this food unless we are going to share it freely. We can’t buy food that we don’t have enough of. My response was that he is right but that we solve these problems by creativity rather than compromise. We are growing as much food as we can, I have places where I am looking to salvage ‘local trash’ (I don’t care where food came from once we start wasting it), and we also have a network of gardens throughout our community that we installed and can grow a row to supplement our grocery supply for meals we serve. There are ways for us to hold tight to both convictions rather that feel like they need to be pitted against each other. I am excited to learn new ways and I am excited to be a part of a family that is open to new ways. May God guide us.

Bread

Food is power, produce it!
Waste is waste because we waste it.
Health is life and you can taste it.
Their feedin' us shit and they have laced it
Food is power and they abuse it; Can't be trusted
genetically modified, fertilized and dusted
harvested by migrant workers who's backs are busted, yet they can't afford to eat it
Food is power and we are being defeated
Food is power because we NEED to eat it

The source of our food has been lost in obscurity

It’s about control & ownership, we need food security!
Food is power and we must produce it.
Food is power and we can use it
to be independent, truly free, and juice it
Food is power & we must produce it
Growin lettuce & justice, beets & peace, Some collards & love,
May His kingdom come to these streets.
Give us this day our daily bread

and free us from the snares where we are normally fed.

Dear Composters,

Every year America throws away 96 billion pounds of food; 263 million pounds a day; 11 million pounds an hour; 3000 pounds a second. We live in a society of consumption and waste. Our community is determined to use less and produce more as an act of repentance and justice. What we are striving to do through our composting efforts is to help in the development of disciplines among our community that remember tomorrow and use/reuse every resource we can. We now know that natural resources are not infinite and that they are actually rapidly diminishing. This depletion of the earth’s resources directly, negatively and most severely affects the poor of the earth. Social injustice, which finds itself at the heart of our ecological mindfulness, is the manifestation of violence against the most complex being in all of creation, the human being. Many people in this world go without their basic needs and we as a community are learning compassion. Compassion is generally expressed when need is immediate and clear. (we share our meal, clothes or our house with one in need) We must also consider the needs and rights of future generations as well as the current needs of the earth today.

We know old habits are hard to break especially when we live in a culture that reinforces ecological sin but we must continue to walk out our faith in even the smallest of details. Your organic waste is a gift to our community and it's potential to produce food (which we believe is power). It is also an act of justice on your part. It is a small change but directly effects your relationship with the earth and the poor throughout our community. Thank you so much for your fragrant offerings.

With Gratitude,

The Lake House Composting Co-op