Tiny House Ontario

The Lightbulb Above My Head

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Laura

So, I finally started the hooking up of the solar system.  The battery is hooked up to the panels and hopefully charging/charged. After reading about solar systems a quite a bit, I decided to put in a full 12 volt system into THO and use 12V LED lights and install only a single outlet for the inverter which I can use when I wish to charge my phone, computer, or run a small vacuum – whatever.  I decided to go this way because then I do not waste energy on adapting to a different form unless it is in use.  This, I decided on a long time ago but I found that finding LED lights was something that was nearly impossible to do.  The on line companies that I looked at seem confusing and really meant more for cars than off grid situations.

Yesterday when I was putting the battery into the yacht battery box (to keep it dry) the lightbulb went off in my little head!  Marine supply!  Of course!

I promptly called the good people at Vandervoort Hardware in Kingston because they carry a good deal of marine supply and spoke to the man who runs this section.  He said, yes, we have them.  We carry lots of LED lightbulbs, and a couple of lights, basically you come in and order what you want and in three or four business days they arrive.

This morning I arrived at Vandervoort’s just as they opened and he pulled out the catalogue.  Turns out that THE marine supply store in Canada is called Brewer’s, and they are located near one of my favourite cafe’s on Guise Street in Hamilton, Ontario.  Oh the irony!  This is just a few blocks from my house there.  The guy said, you might as well go there because there you can touch them, look at them and also see the price tag.  Gotta love a small business man who sends you somewhere else when they know you can do better there.  He also said that there are three distinctive types of LED lights so I should be mindful when I select them because it will make installation easier.   So, I guess I will take a trip to Hamilton next week!   It will also give me the opportunity to look a the Dickenson marine stoves too and since I want to see my niece and nephew off to Germany, it works well.

 

Categories: Environmentalism, Off Grid, Ontario, Simple living, Stuff, Tiny House Ontario | 3 Comments

Kitchen Update

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Laura

Yesterday Tiny House Ontario had the kitchen removed by yours truly.  There are a bunch of reasons why I this needed doing.  One is that the floor is not level so I needed to level under the cupboards.  I also wanted to get the counter tops in their permanent location despite the fact that the two existing cupboards are not staying forever.  The next reason I did this is I think that by raising the base of the cupboards two inches (plus the amount needed to level them – another half inch).  I believe that this will give enough clearance for the drawers when I eventually install the permanent floors, because the cupboards will not have legs. I sawed off the base of the current cupboards too  because I want to have some room under the counter top for a few things.  In this space I will, eventually install the sink, and a two burner propane unit. I will also do as my grandpa did when he build his kitchen which is to install a pull out cutting board.  This will allow for a little extra counter space that can be pulled out when I want it, just like a drawer.

The job is not done, but at minimum it is in a more completed state of transition. I was one board short to fix up the top and also when I took it apart I realized that I am a very crappy painter… sigh.

I thought it would take a half hour but it took three hours.  Still it looks pretty tidy now, so it is awesome!  I am glad to have it behind me.  Well, most of it anyway.

I got things put in there and as soon as I did, The Bad Little Wolf went sniffing at the cooler… I thought it was a pretty funny reaction when I asked him what he was doing!  So I include this image as well.

Categories: Dog, Off Grid, Ontario, Tiny House Ontario | Leave a comment

George LED

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Laura

It is not easy to take a photo of an LED light at night.  I took about 50 of them to try to get a good one of the LED light that George (the Kayaker) gifted to me when we met by chance up on 14 highway on the day of the odyssey.

It casts a great light and actually runs all night long every night so I now have a night light which is really very cool.

The chance meeting with sweet George provided me with enough information about how these lights work that I feel pretty comfortable taking them apart now.  I also started to put together the solar panels that I purchased a few weeks ago.  A little at a time and very cautiously…

Here is the best of all the bad photos.  Where can I find a good photographer when I need one?

Thanks again George it is a great gift for a Tiny House woman like myself.  

Categories: Art, Friendship, Off Grid, Sustainable living, Tiny House Ontario | Leave a comment

Balance

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Laura

I was up around Toronto yesterday morning and I am happy to report that the vegetation in that area is looking downright lush again.  Here in the Kingston area, I think we must have had significantly  less precipitation to carry us through.  There has been rain, as a matter of fact, it is raining today.  Even so, I think this is too late, we have lost a lot of forest here and I also think that it is way too late for most farmers because the root system is dead on so much.  The balance of need was not met.

We have a few red tomatoes in the THO garden but sadly this is because they are dry rotted on the bottom.  The Zero mile diet has been 99% flop.  I know I will find that the balance here was also thrown off, it will have been an expensive year at THO when I finally do the books this fall.

I am lucky that I have more than one option still and am really pretty happy that I put in a back up garden in Hamilton and this is doing really well.  I have had a number of meals from there already and also I have frozen one huge bag of tomatoes and my potatoes and herbs look really great.  While I was there I put away some Niagara freestone peaches too.  I think I will reap a lot of food from Hamilton considering particularly that I have only about 30 square feet of space to grow in at the house.  Still, I feel terrible for my farming friends in this area whose books will be red with the loss.

Back here at THO, here is some rain on what is left of the ant tree.  I would like to put a bird bath up on that post, one with a drain, so I am hoping I can find something which fits here easily. I am in town now to post this and also to get two 2×4 boards for a small project.  I will write about what I am doing when it is accomplished.

Categories: Drought, Forest, Gnome, Magical, Off Grid, Ontario, Simple living, Tiny House Ontario | Leave a comment

Empty Tummies and Arrogant Politicians

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Laura

It is not the aim of this blog to try and talk the world into becoming vegan, or even vegetarian but rather the goal is to discuss the object of living with less.  Since I started this blog on November 30, 2011 I have discussed a plethora of topics around being a woman/writer/artist who lives part time in a project called Tiny House Ontario and how this huge, but Tiny project is going and is effecting me.

But there is something going on here in Canada and the United States that is too huge to ignore and has me really worried.  Right now we in Ontario and a whole lot of the USA are living through an historic and dreadfully bad drought.  The Canadian government has been nearly silent on the issue but recently I read an article out of the United States which explains briefly the reasoning behind the USDA’s sensible recommendation that citizens give up eating meat on Mondays.  It carries some mind boggling statistics and information in it.  Even so, the article does not go far enough (in my opinion).  The most significant missed topic in the article is that  it does not discuss what the USDA and farmers already know.  Here it is!  Livestock are being and will continue to be “dumped” because farmers cannot afford to feed them.  This means (for those of you who did not come up on farms) that they sell mostly ALL of their animals as livestock for slaughter.  This might seem like good news if you are a meat eater (initially) but here is where you are wrong, this means that there will be a lack of breeding stock next year.  You will start to see huge price jumps at about Christmas for the cost of meat and the price will keep on raising.  Truth is, it will take a few years for the animals and the farmers to catch up.

The hostile and arrogant reaction of the politicians quoted in this article is totally off the mark*.  They flaunt their stupidity on the subject of meat.  Not just on how it is produced but the time of production as well as the costs of production are not noted at all.  These clowns absurdly suggest what they will do, which is to “eat more, put pounds of meat on display and call the USDA heretics”.   What they are saying in essence is we are going to eat it all up until it is gone and leave nothing for you.  It is greed and ignorance at best!

The sad fact is, I am commenting on this subject because a lot more people will go to bed hungry this winter in both the USA and Canada and for the next year or two as well, if there are not GREAT growing years coming our way.  I wish it was not going to be this way, but it is.  Quite simply, we have not had nearly enough rain.  Below is an image from NASA Earth Observatory.  There is more info from them here.

What I am asking, is to buy some food from your most local farmer and please eat less meat for the next couple of years.  I know it sounds cliche, but if we all do a little bit there will be a little bit left over for the poorest among us.

I can’t tell you how much that I hope I am wrong.

*I want to qualify that I am not partisan or even particularly interested in who is who.   These folks are way too far from me to make me even remotely interested in finding out anything about the particulars of the political affiliation.

Categories: Drought, Environmentalism, Food, Money, Nature, Open your eyes | 5 Comments