That’s right, folks, we’ve got an integral part of our indoor plumbing installed and functioning! And what a beauty it is. A little drywall touch-up, bamboo trim, some caulking around the base of the toilet and a TP holder and it will look perfect. We purchased this Royal Monterey Dual Flush toilet from Overstock.com and installed it yesterday. The European-sized fittings caused a few extra trips to the hardware store. Aside from that-and Scott smashing his finger-the install went pretty smoothly.

We also planted three fruit trees this year. April Garden Center in Deer Park was having a “buy two, get the third free” sale so I picked up a Bartlett Pear, Coral Peach and Braeburn Apple. I’ve been really wanting to get a few trees started since they can take a while to produce fruit. The apple tree actually already has two apples on it! I’m not sure if the location I planted them in will be their permanent home, but it will do for now.

Update 9/2/10:

This is the first tasty morsel from our garden. It’s a little small, but we’re still proud! We chopped it up and ate it this evening

To read about the start of our garden, see “Raw Dirt & Organic Seeds”

The trail camera snapped a photo of this little cutie. Are those ears great or what?!

And from our other game camera, a member of the Moosicorn Midnight Chorus:

Among others, Pine Siskins and Red Crossbills visit our feeder:

I had been eagerly awaiting the Marisposa Lilies’ arrival. I think they are so exotic looking!

This year, I’ve also encountered many flowers I’d never seen before. This is due partly to the fact that we are living here full time, but is also due to the large amount of spring rain we received this year. These two orchids are new to me and fairly uncommon in this area. The first is Hooded Ladies’ Tresses and the second one I still haven’t identified for sure yet. It could be Piperia elongata  (denseflower rein orchid), Piperia unalascensis (Alaska rein orchid, slender-spire orchid), or Platanthera stricta (slender bog orchid). Please leave a comment if you know.

Although summer arrived cautiously, it is finally here. We’ve had some fun enjoying the heat and sunshine. And yes, I wear a life vest in the kiddie pool…not ashamed of it either

I’ll leave you with the sunsets. Not many words are needed to describe the photos below. I think “wow” will suffice.

Instead of doing the drywall ourselves, we hired a contractor to make the process go faster and with skill. We thought the money was worth the time and mistakes we’d save. Unfortunately, the exact opposite occurred. It ended up being money out of our budget, four times as long as planned, full of mistakes, and it never actually got finished. The worst part of it all was that he lied to us. He asked for a draw to pay his laborers (which was not part of our agreed upon contract), but never paid them. Weeks later, they still haven’t been paid. He’s literally hiding from them: parking his truck down the street from his house, not answering his phone, etc. After giving him more than enough chances, we paid him for the work and product received and went looking for someone else to finish the job (he pocketed that money and still hasn’t paid his workers, by the way).

We’re back on track now, though. We hired a crew (Tim Goad) that was highly recommended and they’ve done a fantastic job of fixing the previous contractor’s mistakes. I wish I’d kept count of all the outlets and light fixtures that were covered by drywall.

Since the original drywaller didn’t put down any building paper or plastic, we had quite a bit of cleaning up to do. The floor underlayment would be unlevel and won’t adhere to the subfloor if it’s covered in chunks of drywall mud. So we went at it with loud music, a scraper and a vacuum.

Scott and Randy (one of the guys the drywaller never paid) worked together to lay the floor underlayment. We used EcoBond zero VOC adhesive (and screws).

After seeing the space so bright with only white primer on it, we began to reconsider our color choice. The saturated blue/gray was gorgeous, but the openness of a light color felt right. We ended up choosing a Parker Paint low VOC gray color called Womb. It’s not cold or icy. Today Tim and Adam finished painting. It was so exciting to see paint on the walls. Unfortunately, today we also discovered that we missed two can light fixtures covered over by drywall, so we’ll have to cut those out tomorrow. I guess we should be happy we found them now! I wonder what else we missed…

This week we also installed our passive air vents. Because our doors and windows don’t have vents in them, we had to install three of the air vents in our house to bring fresh air in.

Next on our agenda is to finish the underlayment, re-connect all electrical stuff, construct our cabinets and lay flooring. And somewhere in there we’ll be figuring out exactly what we’re going to say at Gnomedex.

Yellow Hawkweed (Hieracium caespitosum)

Rosy Pussytoes (Antennaria microphylla)

Spearleaf Stoncrop (Sedum lanceolatum)

Needle Navaretia (Navarretia intertexta)

American Speedwell (Veronica americana)

Large-flowered Collomia (Collomia grandiflora)

Slender Tarweed (Madia gracilis) & Syrphid Fly

See all the flora, visit our Flickr Flora Page.

That’s why we decided to go with a traditional septic system.  We will adapt some smaller scale gray water recycling into our system where we can.  Such as a sink to toilet system pictured to the right here.  (Click on pic to purchase.)  And perhaps something that recycles water from the laundry.

Here’s a link I was just sent by a friend on FriendFeed for a system that I would love to try one of these days when we find a use for the gray water.  http://www.homegrownevolution.com/2010/06/laundry-to-landscape-20.html (Thank you WorldofHiglet!)

So that being said… here’s our septic system going in:

After clearing the area (only 1-2 trees with larger than a 3in. diameter trunk had to go), they begin digging the trench from the building and the hole the tanks will go in.

Next, the tank truck arrives and deposits it’s load, where we will too one of these days…

To save some costs I ran all the electrical for the system and installed the pump controls.

Then the lateral line holes were dug, they were lined with rock and the piping was installed.

Finally the inspector was called and they preformed a pressure test.

We passed inspection with no hitches and the contractors did a great job of grading out the site.  Alex and I will transplant a myriad of different wildflowers and grasses from other areas of the property to get this area rehabbed as quickly as possible.

We’re still planning on installing our solar panels over the south end of the drain field as we mentioned here.  That way we get double use out of the cleared ground and don’t have to disturb any more areas.

We’re looking forward to having the drywall completed and finish work done so we can experience the pleasures of a flush toilet in our daily lives once again.  Until then there is a lot of work to do, and I better go get after it.  Talk to you soon!

-Scott

I decided I was going to surprise my beautiful and talented wife by giving her the first component to our eventual solar panel system.  A gesture I knew she would appreciate and a functional starting point to one of our favorite aspects of the Moosicorn plans.  So, one day while running errands in Spokane I had made the time to pick up an Enphase Microinverter from the folks at Eco Depot.  I tucked it away under the seat of our farm truck and waited anxiously to surprise her with it on our anniversary.

However, this year Solar Day was June 19th, so I thought hey why not surprise her a little early?  I love getting her surprises and I thought it was such an appropriate way to celebrate the day that I couldn’t resist.  I went down to the truck, pulled out the Microinverter and ran up to surprise her.  She was grinning ear to ear when I rounded the corner.

“What?” I said.

“You’re just too cute.”

“I couldn’t resist.” I told her.

“Neither could I!” She followed.

She went on to explain that waiting at her mother’s place in town was another Enphase Microinverter AND a 230watt solar panel! Now THAT’S love.

Here’s a few pics of us…

Now for the techy bits.  Here’s why we decided to go with the Enphase system…

1. You can build your array as you go.  Funds are tight at the moment, but we wanted to get started.  This system allows you to begin your solar array with an upfront investment of under $1,000 for your first microinverter and solar panel as opposed to $20K+ for a traditional system!
2. 5-25% more efficient than central inverters.
3. On-line monitoring component will allow us to share all energy production stats via our website!
4. Shading on one section of array has no effect on other panels.
5. Extremely long lifespan.  (They say it should last over a hundred years!)

Watch the video to learn more! —>

When we finally made it to Moosicorn, the moving was far from over, though. We’ve been here only three months and have already moved our camp 4 times, with another relocation scheduled for Tuesday. So here is a peak into the life of vagabonds turned squatters.

Our first outpost was much like a fort you build as a kid.  To insulate our structure and keep construction dust out, we stapled moving blankets to the walls and wrapped them over a couple ladders to form a roof. Since snow and temps in the low 20’s were common, we were thankful for the warm sleeping bags and propane tent heater!

Even though it was quite chilly, we did most of living outside. Partly because we love being outdoors and also because we couldn’t (and still can’t) cook and bathe in the building. Our kitchen consists of two coolers, a bbq, and a sink fed by a hose and heating with a tankless hot water heater.

A video tour of our outdoor kitchen:

But where do you go the bathroom, you ask? That’s outside too! The toilet is a port-o-potty set a few yards from the building. We’ve learned to ration our liquid intake in the evenings as walking outside with a head lamp in the cold in the middle of the night to go pee is not the most fun thing to do. The shower is a homemade structure. When its warm enough, we heat our water using solar bags and when its not warm or sunny enough, we fill a bucket at the sink and carry it downstairs. This hasn’t been the warmest spring and so showering in the snow is something we are quite familiar with now. But when its a warm day and the sun is shining, a shower in the great outdoors is one of the most awesome feelings. Pouring the remainder of the bucket over your head at the end is the best part!

Now that it’s July, it’s finally starting to feel like summer, but April, May, and June were unusually cold. Thankfully, we have Sadie who doubles as a companion and eco-heater. Despite the cold, one of the things we love about Eastern Washington is that even if it snowed or rained that day, you still have the opportunity to get a dosing of vitamin D. There’s no shortage of outdoor time here at Moosicorn:

While we were installing our electrical lines, we restructured our little fort. We took the blankets off the walls so that we could access them for wiring and brought in our tent. We draped the moving blankets over the tent to keep some warmth in and dust out.

Then, insulation and drywall started. So we moved our tent out the deck, packed away the moving blankets, and added the rain flap (a necessity considering how wet this spring has been). We were happy that the nights were starting to consistently warm up to the 30’s by this point.

We had the drywall finished in our bedroom so that we could regain some “civilized” space again. As drywall installation continued throughout the house, we packed up the tent and moved our stuff back in the building. Because the wall facing the living room does not go up to the ceiling, we tacked up plastic to keep the debris (mostly) out of our room. But because we tacked up the plastic to keep drywall dust out, we use the exterior sliding glass door to get in and out. So to get into our room, one must open the front door to walk inside, then open the living room slider to go outside on the deck, then open the bedroom sliding and return to the building. A little silly, we know…

Tuesday, we will be moving our camp downstairs in the shop so that we can paint the upstairs. Then we can get started on flooring, plumbing fixtures, lights, cabinets, trim and so on. Then, I guess we’ll move back upstairs? I forget sometimes that we live in the inconvenience of a construction site in order to someday live in a finished building. But really, it’s a little bit of both: we live in this construction site for the finished product it will someday become, but we also live in it to just live in it…to experience it all…

Update July 21, 2010

New Camp

We moved our camp yet again and we are now downstairs in the shop. We moved in order to give the new drywallers some space. Since firing the first drywaller it became apparent that much of the work he’d done upstairs (and the little he’d done downstairs) had to be re-done. So, we’ve got a new (capable) crew here to fix the original drywall work. Once they are finished upstairs, we’ll paint, and install the flooring and cabinets. Then we’ll move back upstairs and have the crew back to finish drywalling the shop.

So here is our spacious new home downstairs in the workshop: