Tiny house

Decisions & Heated Rant

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Laura

Susan B. Anthony once said that “cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations… can never effect a reform.”

Recently, I have been distracted by some changes happening both within me and also with regard to the decisions that I have made.  Some of the things that I am thinking about are personal while others are directly to do with Tiny House Ontario.

A couple of days ago I posted about my regret for not putting in a fruit cellar.  Now I have to confess that my mind might be changing regarding the type of furnace that I want to put into THO.  I have always, since the beginning of the project thought I would go with a Dickinson Marine Stove.  About $1,200 US +++

A couple of days ago, while checking around on the internet for other Tiny House stories, I noticed a stove that appeals to me visually a lot more.  The Mini Franklin Woodstock Soapstone.  About $1,200 US +++

I like this one visually a lot better because the vent pipe goes STRAIGHT out the back to the chimney.  No silly, wobbly, silver, tube climbing up the wall to find the exit.  The chimney too, if that is what they are called on propane stoves.  It also looks to me as though they offer a different sort of tidy looking chimney which sits flat against the exterior wall.  Both of these look so much tidier in my opinion.

The cost is about the same for the two stoves I am not sure that the cost of shipping is similar, nor am I sure if the cost additional things, such as: wall mount, vent, pipes, chimney and so on, is similar.  I am also not sure if the Mini needs a 12v electric hookup or even if it requires any electric at all.  I can’t find this on their website.

AAAAUUUURRRRGGGHHHH!  Rant…

I found it easy to navigate the Dickinson site and they have the manual right there for you to print and read.  Which I have done and but truthfully, I feel as though, with this Dickinson I know what I am getting because so many Tiny Housers use them.  Their website, though, is not ideal.  I don’t know what beyond the stove I need to order; nor what it costs for these things I need to hook one up.  I would like a nice neat package.  I get that they are somewhat unique for every home BUT there are no images provided there either.  In short they don’t make things nearly as clear as I want them to be.

The Soapstone Mini makers are not even as clear at the Dickinson people.  Right down to the image they provide being so tiny that it is hard to see. I know… I know, you think I like tiny things, but this is really, really TINY.  No manual either.  You have to write them to find out more.  I am not too wild about that idea, I hate it when companies are vague.  Basically, if they just put the stuff on the site then I could do my own homework.  I don’t want to talk on the phone or spend weeks chatting back and forth via email.  The most frustrating thing is, I don’t know what questions to ask because the product information is basically just size and colours and the shipping method.  I mean, I want to know about size… all we ladies do… I might also like to choose a different colour… but seriously who cares how they ship it?  I don’t want to bash them totally, in fact, they had some things better on their site.  They do provide a few (albeit TINY) images of the types of hook ups and this was most appreciated.  Like Dickinson no packages with the extra stuff in it.  They give a nice 360* (TINY) option I can see a tiny wire coming out of tiny bottom of the tiny back — unless this is a tail.  In truth it is such a small image that I can’t see.

Before I have some knowledge I am silenced by not feeling I know even enough to ask a simple question.

So what do I want?  I am going to assume that these businesses are both dealing with a lot of DIY people.  I heard that Dickinson sells far more stoves to Tiny Housers than they do boat owners, so I would like to see them cater to our DIY philosophy!

Key stuff for me is I want user friendly, diagrams, images and explanation options in click out bubbles.

Examples would be more and larger images.  Diagrams of the various packages that are needed to hook one of them up based on the sort of place that they are going into.

They know better than I what I need!  In my naivety I think I will require a:

A wall mount thingy: $x

A going through the wall tube: $x

A turning up elbow: $x

A chimney of length x: $x

A bunch of other thingamabobs that only they know about: $x

Screws/nuts/bolts/any unusual drill bits etc: $x

Why do they not have a package that looks like this that has a nice little diagram showing you what you are going to have to do with the stuff when it arrives?

Ideally too, they could also provide VARIATION to those packages based on different roof heights, wall thicknesses and slopes.

Then and only then would I want to be told to contact them personally if I have questions… once I understand what I need.

I can’t be the only one who is like this?

______________________________________

If you are a Tiny Houser, I would appreciate a ball park on the costs of the other stuff and shipping.  Also if you have a Soapstone Mini… what electric system do you need for her?

Please comment on this one…

Thanks for listening to me rant!  xo L

Categories: Building code, Money, Off Grid, Simple living, Tiny house, Tiny House Ontario | Tags: , , | 10 Comments

Who Wants This?

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Laura

I just started cooking supper now.  A fall vegetable and red lentil stew of my own creation.  The house smells really great as this simmers in the large pot on the stove.

It would be so much more satisfying to be in the forest to eat this meal.  It is 11 degrees in the Kingston area now.  A little bit cloudy and damp.  Imagine a long, well paced walk in a forest, while it is preparing for its long winter nap.  You can smell and see the changes that nature brought us in the past days.  A few chipmunks gather the last of their stash, the hornet nest preparing to sleep, birds call as they are flying over you going south.  You are just a little out of breath coming back after the hour, but you can smell the light spicy aroma as you approach the cozy Tiny House.  Keen to see how it looks, you all fresh and rosy cheeked peek into the pot and see this just as the open pot reveals a deeper scent of onions peanuts and peppers.  Mmmmmmm!

Food tastes so much better after a bit of time with the natural world.  Anyone else want to be doing just this?

Here is what is in my fall stew:

1/4 cup grape seed oil

3 chopped onions

Fry to brown then add

3 chopped red peppers

6 chopped tomatoes

1 chopped head broccoli

1 chopped head cauliflower

2 chopped big potatoes

4 smaller squashes (I used white ones but it does not matter)

3 small nappa cabbages

8 cups water

1 cup red lentils

1/4 cup TVP

1 cup natural peanut butter

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 tablespoon pepper

salt to taste (I used about 3/4 of a tablespoon)

2 tablespoons mixed herbs parsley, thyme and sage is what I had.

Once this is all soft and ready I took it off the heat and added a small can of coconut milk for the under flavour.

Categories: Environmentalism, Food, Forest, Nature, Off Grid, Ontario, Simple living, Tiny House Ontario, View | Tags: , | 6 Comments

Vegan Trapper

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Laura

RIP Mama young feral lived to October 19 2012

I am sorry to let my readers know, Mama the feral cat that I wrote about in early August was hit on the road in front of my Hamilton house on Friday at ~ 6:00 am.  We brought her to the Burgess Emergency Vet, got her some good pain medication and had x-rays done.  She was totally broken up so we had her euthanized.  The problem was not the cost of recovery but with her being totally feral.  Even if she were to be operated on, and repaired, the vet explained that she would need daily pain medication and care for the next eight months because among other things including internal injuries, her crushed pelvis would need to repair itself.  Due to the fact that Mama would just as soon bite you as look at you, this would be an impossible task.

The next issue is her three kittens.  They are about 10 or 11 weeks old and thus weened but two calicos mean that there are two more females who can add to the feral population and because we live downtown there are vehicles everywhere, including ambulances rushing to the hospital.  I hate to see them suffer a fate like this.  “A stitch in time saves nine” are words that my grandma often used.  In other words try to deal with things before they become a problem.  So, I put out word to my community here, got a trap and a carrier and tried to catch the kittens.   I know that there are some programs here.  A barn buddies program, a feral rehab and homing program, a feral colony on private land up north of here also takes cats after they are fixed if there is specific danger for them.  Too there is a catch/fix/release for feral cats.

I caught the first kitten on Friday night in minutes.

An hour later I caught the next one.

The last kitten was not too keen on being trapped.  But finally on Saturday night when I went to the cage I saw the little grey…

… well large… grey opossum looking back at me.  They are not native species here, but recent immigrants.  A lot of people here have never seen them, including me.  So it was sort of an ordeal.  Contrary to what I read about them, this one at least seemed pretty happy to see me and accepted my opening the trap and letting her/him out with no aggression at all.  Just squeezed out of the opening and waved its tail bye-bye as it disappeared into the former inlet.  Still, the last kitten seemed to understand that I was trying to take its freedom and would not go into the trap to get the food I left for her.

I asked all those who feed the feral colony to please not do so on Sunday, and so, in the evening when I went out the kitten was waiting in the spot where we feed them, I set down the cage and took a few steps away and she walked right in.  I gave her back to her siblings and then brought food out to the colony as well as to the skunk an opossum who we also apparently feed.

All three of Mama’s babies are safely housed in a 4x4x4 cage in my shed with two carriers made up as beds.  They have food and water and we now wait for the agencies that are involved in helping them to get back to us.

I heard that about 3000 cats met their death last year just in our local SPCA.

I urge you to please fix your pet and also to take a proactive stance on your local feral cats.  Find out if you have any catch and release programs in your area and have the wild cats fixed.  After all human beings have caused this problem.

_______________

Letter back from Hamilton Burlington SPCA this morning – pasted below… now what?

HI Laura

Unfortunately our Trap Neuter Release program is closed to new applications for this year.  With the Winter approaching we have closed the program and will start accepting new applications in the early Spring.  You may be able to find a Vet that will be able to do them at a reduced cost, I would suggest calling around to a few different ones and see if anyone is willing to help.  At this point we are also not accepting anyone new into our Barn Buddies program as we have a number of cats that need to still be placed and not enough people with barns who are looking for a buddy.

                You may want to try contacting some local rescue groups in the area to see if they would be able to get the kittens spayed/neutered through vets that they use.

Sorry we could not be more help at this time.

Take Care

Michelle

________

Update 9:30 pm Monday

Just went out to check on the kittens – the cage is empty. I guess my crappy eye sight it was latched but not in the catch. Three little feral siblings are at large again… Sigh.

Categories: Food, Money, Open your eyes, Tiny House Ontario, View | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments

One Tiny House Regret

Posted on October 20, 2012 by Laura
I love this! I strongly wish I would have done one of these under Tiny House Ontario. I would only have been able to go down four feet because of the stone under, but even so this would be loads of space for food storage.  I decided this summer after discovering that I have a dairy allergy that I don’t need a fridge after all – but this would have been so great to store all my garden produce even though I would have to stoop down there.
Sigh….
Do you have any regrets about your Tiny House build?
This is mid way through a stand alone cellar project which can be seen here.  Due to the fact that I did not have the foresight to build one under THO, one like this is also on my TO DO list.
_________
I am not sure why there is a problem with the link… you may need to cut and paste this in your window if it does not work for you.
Categories: Food, Off Grid, Ontario, Simple living, Sustainable living, Tiny House Ontario | 4 Comments

Tomatoes

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Laura

 

Everywhere I look right now in my small house there are tomatoes… green ones.  Thankfully, my friend Marilyn is going to take some off my hands because she likes fried green tomatoes.  I made a baked variety with coconut milk and gluten free crumbs which were pretty yummy, so I thought the 300 green cherry tomatoes would work similarly.   I roasted them too but they seem to have too much solanine in them because they don’t taste good at all.  What a waste!   Even too bitter to be enjoyable after I ground them up, put onions and curry and more coconut milk in… sigh.

I kept a few in varying degrees of redness out and put some bananas near them to keep them ripening.  The others which were ripe or ripening I am stewing as I write.

As for the other quarter bushel of green tomatoes?  I don’t like chutney, or relish… I have no good ideas.

 

Categories: Food, Nature, Ontario, Sustainable living, Tiny House Ontario | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment