Too Much Stuff

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by stuff at the moment, I have way too much stuff, the other day while emptying a box of tools into some storage drawers I realized that I have duplicates and triplicates of most of my tools.
A long time ago a chap who was probably the same age that I am now told me that everyone should move out into the middle of the street once a year. Doing this move would cause us to think hard about what we burden ourselves with. This all comes down to what I am afraid of... I am beginning to think that being afraid of being worth something. This worth being measured in goods and chattels is fed to us from an early age, and I also think that it is cultural. I am getting much closer to being able to let stuff go without regret. There is no point chastising myself for accumulating all this stuff, I will work at letting go of my fears. I have worked hard and spent a lot time earning money to pay for this accumulated store of stuff, most of the time being numb to the bigger picture, that accumulating stuff doesn't create a real sense of well being, but a condition of entrapment. I am responsible now for this stuff, it has mostly outlived its purpose for me and now my responsiblity to recyle it.

Dealing with the End of Winter

The winter is melting away and the results are showing me where I need to address the land to be better prepared for the same time next year.

The house also needs to have the gutters installed and rain barrels at the corners.

The septic has got to be pumped out for the third time this winter, the system froze early and I think that until the ground thaws I will continue to have the same issue.

One concern is that we likely do not put enough hot water through the system, that might be a problem or it might just be my own guess and lack of knowledge about how the system works.
We have used less than 250 gallons of water since March 18. One thing that I will do is to insulate the ground around the opening and also prepare an insulated cover over the lid.

Working with a limited budget has the effect of helping me find creative solutions to design problems. The design I had in mind was not avaliable in the store. The design needed to have some contrasting materials that would be simple to build and be easy to service. A old salvaged clear fir door that had been trimmed down yielded some fine clear fir. A piece of clear quarter sawn fir that I had left over from a previous house renovation provided the solid square in the centre of ceiling plate. some 1/8th inch brazing rod and a small section of brass rod cut into a large washer type ring that the rods could attach to were all that I needed. An inexpensive globe fixture was used as the foundation of the finished fixture. The final result works well for the room, there are four fixtures with a 9watt bulb in each. My fixtures cost $15.99 each plus the enjoyable time designing and fabricating the additional elements.

Something old Something new

I spent a couple of hours yesterday cutting up some of these old pallets, it would have been better to have used a hand saw instead of a power circular saw. The wood would have warmed me twice then according to Thoreau!

The pallets are nailed together with spiral nails which makes it difficult to pull the nails, and many of them are rusted in place anyway. A good number of these do get recycled and a very large number of these pallets wind up in landfills around the country. A society that thinks it is economical to make pallets that often get used only a couple of times then gets rid of them often wastefully, needs to rethink what is truly economical. When time becomes more important than resources that are part of the ecology of our planet we need to rethink what the longer time implications are.

I will use these pallets to help me keep warm and to help keep my use of propane lower. Now I have to rethink how i deal with the ashes because there will be nails in them. Now I will need to make a sieve.

Framing Our Behaviour

One of the things that really bothers me is the way we refer to ourselves and our behaviour. The word that frames us most often "consumers" makes me cringe every time I hear it used, what ever happened to all the people who bought things that they needed? when they needed them. The other term that is overworked, just like the planet is the term "exploited" I wonder what percentage of the rest of the natural world of living creatures on our small planet consume and exploit their way through life.

Precious few I would care to guess.

It will be a great day when the citizens are again refered to as citizens and people instead of exploiting consumers. I thought that "consumption" was a wasting disease.