Sustainable Living in Durham

Doing Time in the Pen

I've upgraded the security in the chicken coop this summer.  The old pen was falling apart and the chickens were starting to escape daily.  Not that the first priority is to keep them in but rather to keep out the predators.  Fighting off my natural tendency to do a half ass job, I decided to do it right this time.  I actually bought new cedar posts and fencing and spent several days putting up a 26' long, 8' wide and 6' tall pen along the whole backside of the drive shed.  Their coop is inside one corner of the drive shed with a small access door to the pen. 

The fencing around the pen was buried 12" deep to frustrate the skunks who like to dig into the pen and eat eggs and chickens if they can catch them.  I lost several to a skunk one year before I started leaving the light on all night.  Turns out they couldn't see him and he would just walk up to them and bite their heads off.  Not pretty...  Back to the pen-

Eight feet of the length of the pen has a steel roof scavenged off the old barn to give them some dry land in the rainy weather and the rest of the pen roof is chicken wire to keep out the raccoons (otherwise they treat the place like KFC).  I put eavestrough along the rest of the drive shed roof where it butts up with the wire pen roof to keep the pen drier and collect the water for my peach trees.  To complete the set up, I put in some perches and a century old door to give me access so I can feed them garden scraps. 

While I was building this pen, I put up a temporary pen on the other side of the drive shed with snow fencing.  This worked really well and turned out to be a good way to give them access to grass for free ranging.  Next summer I'll set up a fenced in area on each side of the drive shed and rotate them between the two  every few days.  Unfortunately we can't just let them run around the whole property as they make a big mess of the gardens and eat all the greens.  They seem to like the new digs!

Cheep, cheep

A little more than three weeks ago, I moved our broody hen into the dog cage I have set up for hatching chicks and set her up on eight eggs.  A couple of days ago the first one hatched, pretty much right on the 21 day gestation.  Since then 3 more have hatched but one didn't make it for some reason.  The picture below is the first chick two days old.  The first day they can't walk too good but it isn't long until they are up and around looking for something to eat.  They stay cute for a few weeks and then they get rather homely with feathers poking out here and there and an ungainly strut.  Just your typical teenager I guess.

The "mother" (probably not the genetic mother) is one of the chicks that we raised last year.  This was the second time I tried to get her to hatch some eggs this year.  The first time, not one hatched at all.  There are still three more eggs that she is sitting on but it doesn't look like they are going to hatch now.  I'll give up on them in another two days.  We're really hoping for more hens than cockerels this time.  Last year we got one of each.  Having more than one rooster is not very pleasant.  They try to kill each other if they are kept too close together and have a crowing competition every morning before sun rises if they are separated.  We've had our two separated all summer and that's why I've been getting up so early!

We're Generating!

We finally raised the tower yesterday!  This is a major step towards meeting our goal of sustainable living by the end of 2010.

It wasn't easy though.  We tried raising it with my old tractor with Dave's pick-up tied together but it was still lifting up my tractor.  We couldn't believe it.  We'd already had it up with no special effort without the blades on and we couldn't understand why the blades made so much difference.  But obviously it wasn't working so we had to find something bigger and better to use as an anchor.  I called up a neighbouring farmer who was extraordinary helpful and dropped what he was doing and came over with his big Moline tractor to help out.  Once he was hitched up he started to pull up the tower with only an idle going.  At about the same point where we ran into problems I noticed that a cable was caught up on an anchor pin.  No wonder we couldn't raise it up higher!  Once I un-snagged the cable the tower was up in 10 minutes.  We didn't notice the snag before as we were in line with the tower and the cable was behind it.

After the cables were given a final adjustment we threw on the breakers and a few minutes later the blades started to spin.  It takes a few minutes for the generator to start turning once it senses an electrical connection.  It actually won't work when there is a power failure as it could send a charge up the line to the repair crew.  The generator ran for about 20 minutes and then the wind died down to nothing for the rest of the day.  This was just what Corinne and I had joked about as we waited over the last few months to get this thing installed. 

I was up before dawn this morning and it was humming away.  It sounds like a bicycle coasting down a hill.  We can't hear it from the house even with the doors and windows open and a passing car drowns it out.  It was awesome watching it turn with the half moon in the background in the early morning light.  Let the wind blow!

 

One Step Closer to Wind Power

This past Saturday the wind generator was fully assembled and we made an attempt to raise it.  Unfortunately, the added weight of the blades was just enough to tip the balance when using my small Ford tractor as the anchor.  The wind mill was raised with a grip hoist (manually cranked hoist) anchored to my tractor with just the nacelle (the part with the generator in it that the blades attach to) attached but once we put the blades on, it started to move the tractor and lift one of the wheels off the ground.  Since it was about 6PM that day and we were both tired from manually cranking the tower up and down a couple of times to level it, we decided to put it off until another day.  Working when your tired tends to lead to mistakes and accidents; something we don't want to take a chance with a 70 foot tower.

If all goes well it should be up by the end of the day today! 

Raising the Wind Generator Tower

We raised the towers for the first time last week!  The gin pole (the shorter tower to the left in the picture below) was the first to go up.  It was quite a challenge with my old tractor as the brakes were too weak to hold the pole up.  The tractor would roll backwards whenever I pushed in the clutch and the pole would crash back to the ground.  After about 5 tries we finally got it up.  The gin pole is cabled to the main tower that holds the wind generator up and its purpose is solely to raise and lower the main tower.  That's what's happening in the picture below.  I think it looks rather like a ships mast...

The tower has to be raised by itself first to adjust all the guy wires and then lowered back down to attach the generator.  That job is planned for today.

 

Ready the Tower!

This is a picture of the wind generator tower that is just about ready to go up in our front yard.  We should be generating our own electricity any day now!  The tower pole is 70' long.  The gin pole in the foreground is 35' long and is used to raise and lower the tower.  The wind generator will sit on top for the pole at the far end in the distance.

Can't wait!

Wind Farming

Last week Corinne and I attended an open house for a proposed wind farm in the area.  The wind farming company  www.energyfarmingontario.com (see www.canwea.ca/index_e.php for more info on wind farms )  proposes to build 14 large wind generators somewhere in the surrounding area of Orono.  The information at the open house was fairly basic and was aimed at introducing wind generation to the community in order to address some of the concerns people might have.  There were no details of where, when and what was going to be put up. 

I was expecting many of the local farmers to be very interested in this plan as they can make money leasing their land.  I was quite surprised that so many people seemed to be against the idea.  I believe that to be a result of some of the bad press about wind generators that has been around lately.  For instance, I saw a so called documentary on CBC several weeks ago about how some people were experiencing head aches and the noise was bothering them.  I get the same problem when 50 loud motorcycles rumble down our road every Sunday morning...  If noise was a serious issue we'd have no highways or airports or much civilization at all for that matter.

Seriously though, I've been around dozens of wind generators when we lived in Germany ten years ago, and I don't remember hearing anything bothersome.  The small town (about the size of Orono) where we lived put up two huge wind generators just outside of town while I was there.  It took about two months to put them up and get them working.  We used to ride our bikes out to them and stare up at them as they rotated away.  I only remember hearing the wind in my ears and feeling thrilled that this small town had the foresight to put up these amazing structures that generate electricity with virtually NO POLLUTION.  Something most methods of electricity generation can't claim.

Another of the complaints I heard at the open house was about how they affect the visual landscape.  There is no doubt you can see them for miles but I think they are usually sleek and graceful as far as man made structures go.  The cell phone tower they built a couple of years ago in the middle of our bucolic view out the back yard certainly isn't too appealing.  Same goes for the highway, utility poles, high tension towers, the cement factory, etc, etc.  We can't have our modern lifestyle without having to look at it sometimes.

I think we have a get our priorities in order when it comes to energy.  Avoiding air pollution, nuclear waste and CO2 emissions has to be the first and foremost issue.  This means we need to get behind the wind in a big way; perhaps up to 30% of our energy needs.  Our cousins in Europe understand this and have tens of thousands of wind generators installed around the continent. 

Homestead Update

 Pictured above is my new front garden.  I ploughed up most of my huge front yard and planted a garden.  I was really sick of wasting gas cutting all that grass even though I only cut it a half a dozen times a year.  In the foreground you can see Red Russian Kale in the middle; Brocoli to the left and Tomatoes to the right.  Behind the Kale and Brocoli are several rows of cabbage, three varieties.  The garden is made up of six 15 foot long coloumns by 42 rows (the picture is looking down one of the rows in about the middlle).  Since my Wind Generator is going up in the north east corner of the garden, that part remains unplanted. 

The Wind Generator is still not up but it is getting pretty close now.  The tower poles (5" dia. steel pipe) are here and painted; the 4 anchors have been dug, poured and backfilled; the main foundation is poured and backfilled.  The poles are being assembled this week and with any luck the tower and generator will be raised next week.

I'm gung ho to get into solar PV with the new Feed In Tarrif (FIT) offer the Ontario Government has recently announced but first things first, get the wind generator working...  I'll write about this some more as I gather more details and get my plan together.

The CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) thing is working pretty well so far.  I've been delivering a cooler of fresh veggies every week to my three supporters.  It's been mostly greens and things so far as the summer crops like tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, zuchini, onions etc. etc. are a little behind.  The zuchini have just started the other day but my tomatoes are all still green.  Some warmer weather is needed to ripen them up. 

I've been pulling out the remaining bolted spinach and lettuce from the spring garden up by the house and replanting with fall crops like more lettuce, spinach, bok choy, brocoli, basically all the spring stuff over again...  I plant every week pretty much all through the year to keep the greens coming.  For example, I'm on my third succession of lettuce now.  I planted some green beans the other day too, they should be ready in 50 days, so around the middle of September.  Keeps me busy!

We be Jammin

As you can see in the picture, we made 20 half litre jars of strawberry jam yesterday.  Unfortunately we didn't have enough of our own strawberries to make the jam with.  I've never had much luck with strawberries, they seem to be too fussy for me in fact I haven't grown them in a few years.  This year I bought about 100 plants.  They are producing strawberies but only about a quarter to half litre a day, no where near enough to make jam but just enough for everyone's cereal in the morning!

Since strawberry jam is my wife's and youngest's favourite, she went out bought two flats from Fred's Fruit Market on the 115Hwy just a few kilometers from here.  Fred says he doesn't spray his strawberries.  Two flats cost $32 divide that by 20 jars and they cost us $1.60 each for the strawberries.  Add in another 70 cents for the pectin and sugar (organic cane sugar from the bulk barn) and we are about half way to what a home made jar of jam sells for.  It only took us 3 hours to do them all up with all 6 of us pitching in at times.  It was fun, we talked and joked around while the kids learned all about making jam.  The best part was eating the little left over bits from each batch, yummy!

Sustainable Pioneers

We visited Upper Canada Pioneer Village the other day.  I just love that place!  It's filled with mostly original antiques in period buildings and staffed by enthusiastic characters who love to share their knowledge of Canada in the 1860's.  I learned how to use a buck saw; do a dovetail joint and got some good gardening ideas.

I went in there thinking I would see how people lived a totally sustainable life style back in the "good ol days"  For the most part I wasn't disappointed.  They grew most of their own food; built a lot of their own homes and buildings and cut their own firewood to heat their homes and run their steam engines.  Wait a minute...  Did I hear the guy right who said the one business man sold 300,000 bush cords of wood every year?  The wood was used for steam ferries and trains and for heating and cooking.  After I gave this some more thought, I realized they were no where near sustainable with their energy.  They cut down millions of acres of virgin forests to burn in their very inefficient wood stoves and steam engines.  Just like we've been doing with oil in the last 50+ years.  

After thousands of years of energy use, we are only now learning how to use it efficiently and in a sustainable manner.  Still have a long way to go of course.  Just imagine our great grandchildren going to a 20th century village museum and exclaiming "look how inefficient and dirty everything was! and they actually had the technology available but were too short sighted to invest in it"