cultivating stillness

"to meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer the universe. i call it stillness, but it is a jewel of many facets: that stillness is also joy, and it is love." -eckhart tolle

the power of now is amazing.

i'm overcoming some of the painful stories i've come to tell myself. and remembering some of the beautiful stories i've had as a young'n and at various other points along the way. down with down, up with up.

on the more physical plane, there's now a little community blossoming in our little home in culpeper, virginia. there are seven adults and one asher baby living on the third floor of the medical arts building, a few blocks from downtown. (just about 3 blocks from the amtrak station if you're thinking about visiting...)

there's also 90 acres in nearby etlan that we're planning to build and garden on this summer. hopefully we'll have lots of work parties and events in the warm months for y'all to come out to. nudge. (:

and we're going to some hot springs on a visioning retreat next week to figure out how to fit all of our dreams into the span of our lifetimes. or something like that.

veggie oil conversion

i've been working on converting our truck, *bonnie blue*, to run on vegetable oil. i ordered a conversion kit from frybrid, which is based out of seattle, wa. they have a very good reputation for the design of their conversion kits and for the quality of the components they use. they also happen to have a pretty rotten reputation for delivering orders in a timely fashion. my kit took 9 weeks to come instead of 4 like the website advertises. but, it finally arrived last week, and i've been working long hours every day to try and get it all finished up so we can proceed with our eastward trajectory.

veggie oil filler cap

converting a diesel vehicle to be able to use veggie oil as it's fuel requires a few pieces:

- a second fuel tank for veggie oil
- a means of heating the oil to around 160 degrees prior to injection into the engine
- valves to switch between regular diesel or biodiesel and veggie oil
- a dedicated fuel filter for the veggie oil

in my case, the second fuel tank is a 60 gallon aluminum tank in the truck bed.

the oil is heated using the waste heat in the engine coolant. there are five different places where heat is exchanged from the coolant to the oil: a coiled final fuel exchanger, a dedicated fuel filter, an in-tank heat exchanger, and both the fuel supply and fuel return lines, which are jacketed in coolant hose.

in addition to the two valves controlling the fuel supply and return, this system has a third valve that controls fuel purging when switching from veggie oil back to diesel.

the veggie oil fuel filter is heated to increase the efficiency of the filtration and increase the life of filter elements.

i'm about 85% finished with the installation. i re-plumbed the stock diesel fuel lines, installed the new tank, installed new fuel lines for the veggie oil, tapped into the coolant lines and plumbed coolant to the various heat exchangers. now i'm in the process of making all the electrical connections and installing the system controls inside the truck.

it looks like i should be able to finish up tomorrow, which is exciting not only because then we'll be able to start dumpstering our fuel again and running our truck on a waste product that burns cleaner and smells better, but also because i'm over being a full time auto mechanic. the insides of cars are really filthy and filled with toxic goo. and my hands are all banged up. oh the price we are willing to pay for our mobility... but at least now, bonnie will be a little less toxic and a little more friendly to us and to the earth.

veggie oil tank

fuel tank heat exchanger

saving seed

when beth was up here last time, she helped gather seeds from around the gardens. then over the past couple of days, i've been collecting whatever else i could find that will be nice to plant in, well, ya know, wherever we end up having a garden again... i'm not sure whether some of these things will even grow from seed so i'm experimenting.

what we've collected so far:
- 4 varieties of eggplant
- sunflowers (giant edible kind and pretty black ornamental kind)
- amaranth
- chard
- brocolli
- some type of white bush bean
- borage
- bachelor buttons
- arugula
- three kinds of mint (apple, chocolate and something else)
- lavender
- lemon balm
- plantain
- rose hips
- three kinds of peppers
- okra
- tomatillo
- basil
- echinacea (with help from my mom and logan)
- ten varieties of tomatoes
- job's tears
- rosemary

lavender

plantain

apple mint

job's tears

amaranth

today's lesson

it keeps coming up
you'll never live today again
live it now

how to build a better veggie oil collection system

i've been in the process of designing and building a new vegetable oil collection system for our new biodiesel truck, which i'll be converting to run on veggie oil. this system builds on the lessons learned from the last three versions i built over the past few years. it's actually very close in design to the last system i built, which bj and i decided to give to bradley and nada along with our old bio/veggie truck and the trailer.



i think this is a very versatile and robust system, so i've decided to share the details and the process for others who are interested in building their own. i took cues from what i thought were the better aspects and design features of several commercially available collection kits such as the one-shot sold by golden fuel systems. it's portable, so it can be used for mobile collection and/or filtration or it can be used to pump at home. it has a 3-way valve that allows for pumping through the filter directly into the tank, or bypassing the filter for faster collection of oil to be filtered or settled out later.



the heart of this system is the heavy duty pump and filter. everything else is in place to help them do their work. here is a list of the components that i used:

- small, light-duty hand truck from my local hardware store
- 12" x 24" scrap piece of 3/4" plywood
- 12v 15 gallon per minute Fill-Rite fuel pump
- Racor 1000fg turbine series fuel filter
- 25' of 3/4" biodiesel compatible fuel hose
- (1) brass 3-way tee
- (1) brass 3-way valve
- (1) brass fitting with a 1" male thread and a 3/4" barbed hose connection
- (2) fittings for the racor filter (fitting part no. 913-O10-H12): 7/8" male thread and 3/4" barbed hose connection
- (7) brass fittings with a 3/4" male thread and a 3/4" barbed hose connection
- a hydraulic suction strainer for the inlet end of the collector hose
- trailer electrical connector
- teflon tape
- utility clamps

this is how i put it together:

(1) start with the hand cart. attach the plywood board, the scrap piece i used was about 12" wide by about 24" high.




(2) install the barbed hose fittings into the tee, the 3-way valve, the filter unit, the pump body, and the strainer. apply teflon tape to the male threads and tighten firmly.



(3) now lay the cart flat and place each component roughly in place. familiarize yourself with the relationship of each piece with the rest. pay special attention to how the hose will run between the pump, filter, tee and valve.



(4) bolt the filter unit to the plywood deck. the unit comes with 2 black metal straps, but i found that 1 was sufficient to achieve a solid, rigid connection.

(5) attach the pump to the deck. first, position the pump on the plywood and mark the location of the threaded electrical inlet on the back side of the pump onto the plywood. remove the pump and drill a 1" hole in the plywood where the wire will run through. install the black plastic threaded electrical ferrule into the pump body and put the pump back on the deck. place two straps (i used a thick gauge plumbers tape) around the pump and secure to the deck, one vertical strap around the cylindrical portion of the pump, and one horizontal strap just above where the inlet portion of the pump bolts to the rest of the pump body (this allows access for removal of the built-in screen later for cleaning and servicing).

(6) cut and install lengths of hose one by one to connect all components together. proceed in this order (see image of completed system below for reference): (a) pump to upper leg of 3-way valve (b) filter inlet port (right side) to upper leg of tee (c) right leg of 3-way valve to right leg of tee. be sure the bend of the hose has a large enough radius so that the hose doesn't kink, say 10" or so (d) filter outlet port (left side) to left leg of 3-way valve (e) left leg of the tee to suction strainer. if you start with 25' of hose, you should end up with a final length of suction hose that is around 20', great for reaching out of the way dumpsters or oil containers.



(7) install the electrical cord to the pump and install the male (trailer-side) electrical plug connector. for this to work, you'll need to already have a trailer plug on your vehicle or you'll need to install one. it's really handy and works great. it's the safest, most convenient way to power the pump. i used a 7-pin connector because that's what was already installed on our truck.




(8) install the outlet hose and nozzle on the pump. secure the tee and the valve to the deck. i used some old galvanized pipe straps i had lying around. i use a couple of spring clamps to help keep the hoses organized and tidy.




(9) go collect some free fuel!

frankentrailer

i just finished building this beauty.



it's a conglomeration of an old boat trailer, a lumber rack, and a truck tool box. i got the boat trailer for $50. i removed all the boat rollers and installed a wooden deck. then i built a structure to attach the lumber rack. and finally, bolted the took box to the trailer frame.

this little beauty is going to get us (well our stuff anyways) across the country. yippee!

little woodwork project

the last time my dear friend naosuke was up here in sonoma visiting, he ended up staying longer than he originally planned in order to catch up on some r & r, and also to work with me in the shop, collaborating and learning from one another. he recently took a class on traditional japanese woodworking and learned a lot about the tools and techniques. he shared with me some of what he learned and it was very exciting. it's a very different world than western woodworking that i'm used to.

since then, i haven't had a chance to put to use anything that i learned. but finally, today, i got around to building a little bench/shelf for the shower in the bathroom addition i build for kevin and rosa lee earlier this year. it's a very simple design. it uses no fasteners or glue. only the friction of the two joints where the legs intersect with the shelf. this type of joint is called a mortise and tenon. i used my set of wood chisels, which naosuke showed me how to hone to a razor sharp edge. its was really fun.

learning to build with earth

i recently completed an intensive ten day workshop on cob building- a method for building earthen structures.



bj, asher and i headed up to coquille, oregon between august 2 - 12. it was a big adventure on lots of levels: our first big outing with asher, our first big drive with asher, camping with asher, my first hands-on experince with natural building, and such beautiful country to explore on the oregon coast.

the workshop was really amazing. it was put on by the cob cottage company or run the north american school of natural building. these are the people who started the cob building renaissance in the us. we covered everything from siting to foundation, walls, natural plasters, floors and roofs.

one of the things i liked the most was the underlying philosophy what they're all about:
- use locally resourced natural materials whenever possible
- use human power rather than power tools
- anyone can learn and undertake cob building
- build inexpensively and focus more on living joyfully and in connection

i'm sold. and now i'm excited to learn more about other natural building techniques such as straw bale and timber framing. and i can't wait to get a chance to put what i learned to work building with cob.