As we creep into winter, I am reminded how awesome the thermal properties of an Earthship are. The low sun quickly heats the place right up. On overcast days, we start a fire in the wood-fired oven. We cook in it a lot though so its pretty much on every day. The oven-powered radiant-heat floor in the back hallway keeps the granite slabs in the floor hovering around 80 degrees - warming the rest of the 'Ship. This saves us around $3000 a winter on heating costs.
In the greenhouse, we're raising this year's batch of egg-layers. They'll be laying in March.
The exterior greenhouse is pretty much done (done enough for the winter anyway). I need to thank Courtney DeVoe for putting in overtime taking care of Solara while I finished it up. Early data suggests roughly an 8 degree difference in nighttime temperature between the South-end entryway and the earth-bermed tirewall North end. I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs in sub-zero temps. My cold-hardiest citrus (navel orange and mandarin) are already planted at the south end. They can handle down to mid-upper 20s. At the North end will be the more sensitive citrus (Limes and Grapefruit) to take advantage of the passive geothermal heat.
In the end we used 150 tires, about 2000 cans, and about 2000 glass bottles. Thanks to everyone that saved us bottles. This is also the beginning of a multi-phase farming experiment that will hopefully help establish a college fund for Solara.
The chicks have been moved into the exterior greenhouse until they are big enough to ride out the rest of the winter in the coop.
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