This, my friends, is Tiny House humour! BAHAHA!
Monthly Archives: June 2012
Did You Hear Me Squeal From There?
OK… you already know that I am irrationally afraid of giant spiders. It is embarrassing how many things I am afraid of because I am from a farm and should be desensitized. I also never got used to eating meat, so I guess my family did a pretty good job of NOT desensitizing me to stuff.
Now you know the truth about me. I am a bleeding-heart sissy!
Another one of my (many) phobias is giant garden slugs. THIS was on my compost bucket when I went to pick it up. Now you know what that noise was. Actually, I did not really scream, but I did make the face from the Edvard Munch painting and the sky did turn colour. OK, not really, that last part was just how I felt. They are so slimy that I also wanted to throw up.
Really?
Yes, unfortunately.
Similar ones were all over Germany and Switzerland when I lived there, so I learned to always look before I touched and also not to step anywhere without having my eyes on the ground. In Ontario these don’t actually exist. They are invasive species that have been accidentally introduced from Europe. I guess, now that they are here, I will have to keep my eyes on the ground again.
If you like this sort of thing, you can look it up.
If I was not so scared and grossed out by it, I might have murdered it. It is an invasive species and much the same as purple loosestrife and trees of heaven they are not supposed to be here. I just can’t do it. Hopefully it does not carry away one of my dogs.
Categories: Nature, Ontario, Open your eyes
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Rubbish Books Re-use
While in Gananoque a few days ago I stopped in at a cafe called The Socialist Pig. I won’t go again even though they have internet and the coffee was good. The reason, I did not enjoy it is because the smell of bacon from the place next door was overwhelming. I was with a person who eats meat and even for them it was “too much of a good thing”. I wanted to use my computer so I stayed for a quick coffee and while I was there I witnessed four other people pivot out instead of sitting down, for just this reason. I don’t know if anyone else finds that the chemical used curing bacon takes your breath away while it cooks? I really cannot breathe at all when I smell this. Perhaps it is another in my long and dragged out list of chemical allergies?
While I was not a fan of the smell of the cafe, I thought that they had an interesting idea for dealing with old unwanted books (instead of sending them to the land fill).
Of course, Tiny House Ontario has no use for a bar that would hang out of the ends of the house because is is so huge, but I think, if I ever have the opportunity to build that 380 square foot straw bale “green” home that I am always dreaming of, I may very well use this idea as the dividing wall (or part of one) between the living room and bedroom.
Categories: Environmentalism, Materialism, Ontario, Re-Use, Simple living, Stuff
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Clean & Tiny
Doing laundry off grid when there is no nearby river or lake is something that has to be planned because all water has to be caught or brought. I have a few techniques for dealing with this.
I do a little bit of wash on the old glass scrub board if, for example, there is something that might stain. Otherwise I put it in my Chicken Little backpack and drive to town to throw it in the wash at Lavergne’s on Montreal Street in Kingston. I only want to do one load at a time because I bring it back to dry and have only so much fence to hang it on. In wanting to allow only let one load get dirty, I have to decide what to wear by the week. What I mean, is if I choose to wear red then I stick to red/pink/yellow all week, like wise, blue/purple/green and black/grey/brown… in order to keep my clothing from being dull and yucky from mixing them all in together in a load. In other words, my laundry dictates my weekly wardrobe. When it is time to wash the bedding, I remove my spare helmet put this under Baby’s seat, I don’t like to do this because one never knows if they will need to take an extra rider, but I also don’t want to have to take two trips to the city. It makes it a bit squishy with two loads, because I only have so much fence to dry things on. Maybe I will put in a clothes line?
To save money, I bring my soap with me and when the wash is done, I bring it home and hang it out to dry. I like to be back with it by noon so that it can dry in the afternoon sun.
Categories: Forest, Money, Off Grid, Ontario, Tiny House Ontario
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Wild Thing!
In the forests in our area of Ontario there are a lot of places that grow prickly bushes and thorn trees. The Tiny House Ontario forest is no exception to this. We have hawthorn, wild roses, black cap and raspberries growing wild as well there are several varieties of thistle including one that tricked me into thinking that it was a soft lovely plant… until it got spikes growing out all over the place.
We also have loads and loads of what we locals call “prickly pear”, I know from looking it up that prickly pear is actually the name of a cactus that grows in the Southern US, but it is not what I have here. The canes range from ground level to 6 feet in height but they bend down as canes do so the canes can actually be about 10 or 12 feet in length. They do not have flowers or berries, they have no detectible smell, but they are vicious when you try to walk through them. The sharp spikes go right through your clothing and dig into your skin. They take hold of you like velcro and it is difficult to get away. Walking through them is not, at all, fun.
Even though they are wild and unruly, Tiny House Ontario was built right next to a huge stand of them which is both long and wide because many wild animals make it their home and I want to witness them.
In the cloth porch you can always hear them scurrying through. I stop, listening and hoping to catch a glance. Sometimes, I see a chipmunk, red squirrel, black/grey squirrel, robins, black snake, and garter snake, woodpeckers, grouse, partridge and loads of other bird varieties, rabbits, coons and even deer and escaped chickens. We have also heard wolves, coyotes and fishers many times but not caught a glimpse.
I love all animals, and wish they would come out more frequently but I know that our scent keeps them as well as the more dangerous coyotes, wolves and bears back.
Fishers are about the only exception. I don’t like them or trust them to stay back. They seem to have no fear and can confirm I have heard them right up next to the Tiny House screaming like Dementors (from the Harry Potter series) in the night. These little killers worry me because of my tiny dogs and sadly they are also not natural to here. I understand that the Ministry brought them in to control the porcupine population. I grew up here, and know that porcupines are around because we had a dog that was always getting quilled and also because they are sometimes dead on the road. I know about these little critters, but I am not afraid of a porcupine who need not be feared unless you try to get to close. I wish that people would just leave wild things alone.
(UPDATE AUGUST 18, 2012 Prickly Pear is Devil’s Walking Stick!)
Categories: Cloth Porch, Environmentalism, Forest, Nature, Off Grid, Sustainable living, Tiny House Ontario
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