The story of selling our house

We saw the financial chaos coming when we were living in Dallas, Texas. The housing bubble had already started to pop a year before, though gently at first and only for areas that had the most dramatic rises, but we knew it would make its way to Dallas (and everywhere) soon. One reason for our certainty came from the frequent walks I took around our neighborhood. I liked to walk to work off the frustrations from my wage slave job, and after walking down one block after another, seeing house after identical house helped convince me that the suburbs are doomed. What an unnatural way to live! We knew that these endless tracts of suburban houses would drop substantially in value, but we also anticipated other problems like wide-spread layoffs and even interruptions in the supply of food, and we began to feel like remaining in our suburban house was a trap of sorts. So, we decided to sell it.

We put our house on the market in early 2007, and--because we were in a race with time--each month that went by we lowered our price by $10,000! (This caused some big arguments in our household, I should add.) We didn't have many showings, but after two months we received an offer, although it was so low-ball we refused it. Apparently, these buyers thought we were desperate, but we weren't desperate--just determined. Eventually, this person came up to our (low) price and so bought our house.

We sold at the last possible moment because immediately afterwards the housing market began to fall in earnest. When the press gave the phenomenon a lot of attention house sales plummeted. At the time of our closing we felt we were cheating ourselves of profits, but when we walked away from it and we were completely out of debt for the first time in many years, it felt good. And it still feels good!

Debt-free is the correct posture to be in for the period of economic chaos we are entering. If you do have money it is a good idea to put it into REAL things like land that can support a big garden and skills and tools that will help you make a living during hard times. We are entering a period of chaos that will be unlike anything any of us has ever experienced. You should try to join or build a local community of friends and family who will hang together. That's certainly what we are doing.

Zoning is a problem for communities

One reason there are not more intentional communities are zoning laws (true grammarians won't like that sentence--sorry). These were set up to control how land is used and they have their place much of the time. Who wants to live next to a cement factory, for example?

But zoning laws make it illegal for groups of people to live together on a piece of land. This presumably “keeps property values high” and it ensures more tax money to the government. (Notice how the money system lies beneath every official rule.) Unfortunately, it means that friends and families who come together to form a community must do so illegally.

The above picture shows a typical situation where land is subdivided, and each parcel is owned by a different person. Each property must have a clearing within it for a house. Each property must have its own well drilled, its own driveway, and of course each property must be patrolled by a large, noisy carnivore to make sure no wild creatures come near (sorry you dog lovers). You probably couldn't dream up a more damaging system to the local ecology than this.

And on each property sits a single, solitary family.

They are called “homesteaders” and they are some of the busiest people around. This is because living out in the country is a ton of work. Nothing happens automatically like in a city, so hauling trash, chopping wood, clearing and patching roads, and endless trips to town are a basic fact of life. Then throw in all the things that people who move to the country want to do, like raising chickens and goats and horses, growing herbs and vegetables, raising honeybees, building outbuildings, etc., and you are occupied full time. To make matters worse, most homesteaders have to leave their property to earn money to support the whole affair. This means, basically, that the average homesteader is working two jobs: the money-earning one, and maintaining the homestead itself!

In a community, of course, these tasks would be shared among the members, which gives rise to the old saying, "Many hands make light work". The search to find a part of the country where zoning laws allow a community to form and grow unhindered led the Dancing Rabbit folks to move to the hinterlands of Missouri, which certainly wouldn't be my first choice of places to live.

We have found that sometimes homesteaders are agreeable to having cool people live on their land to help them with their property, providing work in exchange for rent. There are also farmers who need help with growing their crops, packing vegetables into boxes, and selling at markets. Sometimes a property owner needs help with a specific project, such as constructing a new building. Some of these situations are very short term, and sometimes long. I have to say that most of the people doing work trade are young, twenty-somethings, but often a family can be accommodated and sometimes a family is specifically advertised for. Here are some websites where such matches are made.

http://attrainternships.ncat.org/

http://www.wwoof.org/

http://www.organicvolunteers.com/

Zoning laws derive from a model of property ownership that was invented by the banking industry. Owning one's own land is a highly appealing idea, but this current system of one family per plot is an obstacle to a healthier way of living for humanity and the natural world. I see no hope that this system will change until industrial society slams into an ecological wall. I wish I saw a more hopeful path. In the meantime those of us who seek to form eco-communities will have to do so discretely in the hinterlands.

End of summer 2008

I've not posted a lot lately because I've been busy living a life in the country and typing our latest doings into the internet has seemed less important.

But this week I've had a couple of experiences that encourage me to pick this blog thread back up. Two different people--friends I haven't yet met--contacted me to tell me how helpful they've found my postings, something I still find extraordinary...and very encouraging. Breaking away from the dominant system has been a huge leap for us and it remains my hope that others come along after us. Only when enough people abandon it can the dominant system falter.

Since January we have been living on the homestead of some new friends, paying our rent through work trade. This isn't an official "intentional community", but we find we've been doing all of the things we wanted to do, and we are all happy, so here we remain. If you'd asked me a year ago if I wanted to be living in a forest, growing my own food, learning how to recognize wild medicinal plants, building cob houses, and playing my guitar I'd give an enthusiastic yes! We've been busy raising vegetables, learning natural building, and meeting other good folk around the countryside.

For the last couple weeks we've helped with the workshop that built this cob house. People came from all over the place to learn how to build a house made of cob. This was a pretty big structure, and the temperatures spiked right at the beginning of the workshop, so we all worked pretty hard. I'm pooped.

It's also that time of year around here that the blackberries are ripening. We were invited to pick on one of the many local wineries, which we are happy to do because these berries get lots of water and so they are fat and juicy! Now that the workshop is over we'll spend a couple days gathering pounds of them and then we'll can them.

So that's what we're up to lately. Next month we'll go back to Texas and Missouri to see la familia.

Summer projects

We've been spending our summer learning a lot of new things. For instance, I strung up some hummingbird feeders. The thing that attracts hummers is the red cap. The bottles are filled with sugar water (1 part sugar to 4 parts water). And no, the sugar will not make their beeks rot off! Turns out this mixture is not too different from their natural energy drink: nectar.

I helped put the roofing on this pole-frame building. Some friends are doing a lot of building out here in the country and sometimes hire me to help out. I'm fascinated by all forms of building so I'm happy to help and learn.





I also recently helped a friend put in a cob bread oven. This is the third oven I've worked on. She lives in a very rural setting and patiently--over months--dug away the hillside to make space for her oven. We used the excavated clay to build the oven itself, but there was almost no sand. This means the clay will crack, so she'll have to seal the combustion chamber initially, and it's possible the whole thing will collapse. The good news is all the material can be re-used if need be.

Connor spent a week near Mt. Shasta at a wilderness camp. This was a hard one for us, to let our Connor go away for a week. But, now that he's back it's all good. He was one of the younger boys in the group, but as the instructor said, "he was the heart of the group". He learned a lot about camping, outdoor craft, and people, and refers to the course frequently.

More on gardening soon...

Solar Water Heater

I built a solar water heater. It is perhaps the simplest style of solar water heater in that the heating part and the water containing part are together in one unit.

I stripped a water heater down to just the tank, painted it black, put it in an insulated box also painted black inside, and covered the box with glass.

The first picture shows the box during construction where I packed insulation in between the box framing. This insulation came from the original water heater and so did the sheet metal I sealed it in with. The wood was mostly scrap laying around the place, so everything was free!

The second picture shows the box with insulation in place, and the
third picture shows the inside of the box painted black.

The picture missing here (because it's still in my camera which I forgot because we left for town in a hurry and so much for casual, stress-free life in the country, but anyway...) shows the completed heater sitting out in the open under the sun warming up our shower water for free.

Just painting a tank black would provide hot water. Placing it in an insulated box will keep the water hot overnight, and will extend the season well into the autumn.

Capitalism American Style

This Bear Stearns thing has me upset because once again the people got screwed and the perps made colossal fortunes.

On March 12th, Bear Stearns' CEO scoffed at rumors of liquidity problems at the bank:

"Schwartz also denied rumors that the company's liquidity is under threat. Bear Stearns still has a $17 billion cushion against losses, he said.

"Our balance sheet has not weakened at all," he said. "We don't see any pressure on our liquidity."

The day before Mr. Schwarz's appearance on CNBC, somebody made an enormous purchase of put contracts on Bear Stearns stock. A put contract is a bet the stock price will fall. These put contracts were an extremely risky purchase as they would make money only if Bear Stearns stock lost HALF its value within TEN days. The size of this purchase was over 55,000 contracts at an average price of 15 cents a contract at $30 strike.

Of course, if the purchaser was an insider they knew what was going to happen and that there was no risk at all, and they won the lottery, because...

The following weekend on March 16th Sunday, a day when the stock market is closed and shareholders could do nothing but watch, JP Morgan announces they are buying Bear Stearns at pennies on the dollar. Not only that, there is very little risk to them as the deal is "guaranteed" by the Fed.

In just days Bear Stearns stock had fallen from $60 to $2.

Jim Rogers had this to say about the bailout:

You know the reason they did it this way was because, if Bear Stearns had to declare bankruptcy, you'd realize that Bear Stearns paid out billions of dollars in bonuses in January - six weeks ago. If he let them go into bankruptcy, they all would have had to send back their bonuses.

This is what they're doing, they're doing it so they don't have to give back their bonuses. That's why they didn't put them into bankruptcy. Jamie Dimon has gotten a great deal because the Federal Reserve is paying for it. The Federal Reserve is using taxpayer money to buy a bunch of Bear Stearns traders' Mazeratis.

As if this weren't bad enough here's what one of the Bear Stearns executives demanded of his new boss, JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon:

"How will you make me whole?"

How about them apples? If this were the exception to an otherwise honest system that would be one thing, but it isn't. This is capitalism American style.

Illegal maneuverings of this type come to light all the time. For another example, remember the California power crises in early 2001, which it was later revealed were caused by Enron restricting power supplies to make colossal profits? Here is a transcript where an Enron employee asks a utility employee to do something "interesting" and cause a power outage.

POWER PLANT WORKER: Las Vegas Co-Gen, this is Rich.

ENRON EMPLOYEE: Hey, Rich, this is Bill up at Enron.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Bill.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: How you doin’, man?
POWER PLANT WORKER: Junior or Senior?
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Heh, heh, the Third.
POWER PLANT WORKER: The Third! What’s happening, Bill the Third?
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Not much, man. I’m giving you a call. We’ve got some issues for tomorrow.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Are you ready for some issues? You’re just about out of there, aren’t you?
POWER PLANT WORKER: I got a couple more hours, I ain’t going anywhere. All right, shoot. I’ve got pen and paper.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: All right man. I’m not—this is going to be a word-of-mouth kind of thing.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Tonight, when you finish your normal QF, so for hour ending 1, which will actually be tomorrow—
POWER PLANT WORKER: Right.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: We want you guys to get a little creative—
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay.
ENRON EMPLOYEE:—and come up with a reason to go down.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Anything you want to do over there? Any cleaning, anything like that?
POWER PLANT WORKER: Yeah. Yeah. There’s some stuff that we could be doing tonight.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: That’s good.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Yeah, we need to do some—we need to come down and inspect this switch on the steam turbine, this one switch on this induction steam valve that’s been failing us, and we need to be down in order to pull the switch and adjust it.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: No sh-–?
POWER PLANT WORKER: Yeah.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: I like that. And, I don’t know, I guess around 11:00 for hour ending 11—
POWER PLANT WORKER: Right.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: You got to go back—we need you to go back down.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay, shut back down for hour ending 11?
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Yeah.
POWER PLANT WORKER: So, we’ll do our normal afternoon shutdown tomorrow.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Yep.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: But we’re not wanting to have it prescheduled.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Right.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: It’s supposed to be, you know, kinda one of those things.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay, so we’re just coming down for some maintenance, like a forced outage type thing.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Right.
POWER PLANT WORKER: And that’s cool?
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Hopefully.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Because the schedule I just got over here, well, you know what it says.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Yep, I’m looking right at it.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Okay, it’s the new schedule.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: You just got a new one?
POWER PLANT WORKER: It says “new schedule” on the bottom. It’s showing 52 all day.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: Oh, right, and so that’s the one you’re going to want to ignore.
POWER PLANT WORKER: Exactly.
ENRON EMPLOYEE: I knew I could count on you.
POWER PLANT WORKER: No problem. I’m sure I’ll have a good time.

Again, that’s an Enron employee asking a worker at a power plant in Las Vegas to take the plant offline. That same day energy supplies were so tight, Northern California experienced a stage three power emergency, and rolling blackouts hit as many as two million consumers.

It's too bad you can't listen to the conversation. Hearing these smirking chimps is something else. I have a recording, but this bloggin software won't let me upload it for you. Don't use Blogger. Google bad.

Endemic corruption like this might just cause a person to abandon the system and head for the hills, you know?

Early spring activities!

We've been busy this early spring. Here are some of the highlights:

We planted pine trees. Drier conditions are thinning out the Douglas Firs, so these little pine trees should do okay.







We have been building a cob oven. The foundation is shown first. This was one day's work filling bags with sand, filling the donut hole with rock and rubble. I'll post a detailed story on this oven later...so it will be a little hard to piece together what we did from just this.

A layer of bottles forms an insulation layer below the heating chamber. (burp!)







Next we built a sand dome and covered it with a "thermal layer" of clay and sand--no straw.










Once this thermal layer dries a little we cut the door opening and scoop out the sand.















Herb spiral

Just outside our kitchen I built an herb spiral so we can fetch a few fresh herbs for breakfast without getting our slippers wet!