Background:

Ever since Chad and I watched the documentary Garbage Warrior, he was in love (with earthships, that is... he had fallen in love with me earlier than that). Luckily, as Chad's partner, I was willing to live in a house made of "garbage," and our dates turned to dumpster-diving for unique glass bottles, collecting cans at parties, and getting covered in muck searching through piles of old tires for the right sizes. We took a road trip from New York state to New Mexico in August 2010 to visit the original Earthships of Taos, and stayed in one overnight. It was on that trip that Chad proposed, and one year later in August 2011 we married under an oak tree. Now in August 2012, our dream house is coming together as we educate the community about this type of housing.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

LOTS of Updates for you!

Once again, we've been working hard and I haven't updated the blog in awhile.  When I don't get to it Sunday night, I end up starting a new project throughout the week and think "I'll update it after this project so I can include it in the posting"... so here's a month's worth of our earthship projects!

giving "Sustainable Cortland" a tour

I installed the star lamp my mom got for us

we decided to stain the entire dining room/kitchen dark

I raised our bed up



and added this handy shelf since the wall slants backwards

we started framing out a closet in the back hallway

I polished up the "circle floor" back airlock

Chad's been working on the greenhouse ceiling


airlock bottle art

I cemented around the orange tree and built a little ledge on the far end so we can walk on that to access the greywater pump

I built a little mudroom coatrack thing out of extra wood and scraps





the finished product!

sunrise bottle light at the eastern doorway


before: last coat on the greenhouse planter cell tire wall

after: brown concrete! (We bought a concrete pigment that mixes into the mud from Direct Colors Inc.)






















our beautiful focal point with the right sun angle to shine straight through it!

baby oranges!


snap peas 
summer squash

strawberry blossom

tomatoes 

baby lemon

avocado tree covered in buds

more strawberries

we have 3 large vents in the greenhouse to let out the rising hot air
they are held down by ropes, and when we release the rope...


the vents are counterweighted on the roof and open


looking back into the 100-foot greenhouse
someone got outside!  our indoor cat Darin loved the sunny grass!  Sorry darwin...
Chad's been working on an outdoor vegetable garden
the orchard and chickens


peach tree blossoms

a close up of the beautiful peach blossoms!



our "parking lot": when we needed more subsoil to pound tires, our excavator scraped the topsoil into a big pile and dug up some subsoil 


the topsoil pile, rock pile, and brush

me on top of the topsoil mountain, looking at our backyard view!

earthship view from the topsoil mountain


brush and cutoffs ready for a big bonfire!


a view from the corner ("parking lot," topsoil pile, earthship, barn)

future awesome back patio!


our beautiful tree trellis made by Jacob from the earthship crew.  Chad planted cantaloupe in there, which will have little net hammocks to support them when the fruit grows


driveway: swales with berry trees to help with surface water

little snapping turtle slowly making its way to our pond!


view from on top of the vault: bottle wall and garden





evening sun shining through the living room bottle wall


brush/cutoffs pile bonfire!





I spy burning viga cut-offs



front view of our earthship at night with the greenhouse lights on






in the greenhouse with the lights on at night




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