The Sustainable Home

Time to crack down.

In light of recent events – like the weather for instance – and our climate for sure – the concept of The Sustainable Home has been rolling around my head.

The whole thing from architecture right through to waste disposal. I think we can take back a lot of the control. Living in the suburbs out here in California has taught me how dependent a family can be. How temporarily we are thinking. And I don’t like it.

I am not particularly interested in high tech, or long life batteries, generators, gizmos, or banks of freezers for buying in bulk or any of that stuff. Or solar power unless it is drying my clothes on a clothesline. I am not a dooms-day prepper. Though if the power does go out it is a good idea to have one solar bank to charge the phone. (and yes I know that is pathetic but chicken steps!!).

Think sustainable. The things we do every day.

I want to design a lifestyle and environment that I follow that is hung on the premise that we need to make permanent sustainable changes to joyfully live in a changing world. Simple routines and methods that allow us to take back some of the power in our home environment.

We are so dependent on power being pumped into our houses. Wi-Fi for everything. Endless runs to the store to stock up. Rolls and rolls and rolls of paper towels and toilet paper. Refrigeration. Air conditioning. Bottled water. Milk in plastic lined disposable cartons. Fabrics made from plastic. Artificial materials cladding our houses. Wine bottles make me nervous. ( Are they really being recycled?). Wet wipes. The subject is almost too big !

These thin walled little cracker box houses we live in are not going to withstand long term heavy weather. The weather here in Visalia is so hot, over 100F almost every day for months, no rain since before Christmas and there are (and should be) pretty major water restrictions, so the vege garden in this bereft city soil (all the top soil has gone here in the suburbs) has dried right up and died. I can grow desert herbs like oregano and rosemary but they are small and speechless from heat exhaustion.

And so many people live in these inhospitable climates. Enabled by cheap housing and cheap electricity for air conditioning. Is it going to stay cheap?

Is there a machine for turning all these cardboard boxes, that our deliveries come in, into something useful. Like pellets for the garden. Or toilet paper. Or writing paper even. Do you know of such a machine for the household?

By the time I left the mill, cardboard boxes were becoming harder to procure so that machine might be outdated fairly fast.

Buying pallets of bottled water is getting harder now. The plastic bottles themselves are caught up in a faltering supply chain (which is a good thing in my opinion – most of our water is fine to drink after it has gone through a filter). But there are a number of regions in the USA and across the world that have polluted water – so what of them?

Yes! It is a convoluted subject. So I am going to bring my spiraling thoughts back into control and begin to design my Sustainable Home – room by room.

I need to focus on the day to day. I need to focus on small things that save money, water and energy. Room to Room.

Where shall we start? I want to start in the bathroom. Keeping in mind that I am doing all this as I travel my gypsy life. So my Sustainable Homes are in a number of countries of the world. I am not fussy. Because this is important.

And yes! The sustainable farm is smaller now but still fills plenty of bellies. Two weeks and I rotate back to the farm.

Cecilia! Focus! The Bathroom! What are your thoughts on washable wet wipes. How shall we set those up in our bathrooms. Maybe the first thing to do is start that old fashioned rag bag again!? What about flushing?

What are your thoughts on the bathroom in our Sustainable Home.

Cecilia