#extremely complicated feelings about that whole situation but if i'd never met her i would be dead

[kalkydra]

when my grandmother kicked me out my senior year i went to live with my slightly older friend and her older brother. i almost didn't graduate high school first because i was being bullied and then because after being kicked out i just had no drive to do the work for the one class left i needed to graduate. my friend's older brother put together a sticker chart where for every assignment i completed, i got a gold star, and we got chinese takeout when i filled up the chart because it meant i was able to graduate. he drove me almost an hour to and from school every single day, and every single morning as he was dropping me off he would say "in case nobody else tells you this today, i'm proud of you" before i got out of the car. the friend is out of my life forever so i'll probably never see her brother again, but straight up an adult telling me he was proud of me is the reason i didn't kill myself and personal feelings aside, i hope he knows that

[balkanradfem]

hahaha ohhhh, i’m so sorry to get your hopes up! sadly having water at all in our little home was complicated enough, I don’t think we could sustain those kinds of water tables :’)

but yeah, the nice part was that setting up a well with that high of a water table was very easy (and a simple solar powered pump allowed us to have running water when temperatures were above freezing). however it also meant that we had to build our outhouse way too bloody far away (we didn’t have an indoor washroom—I honestly prefer outhouses bc indoor composting toilets ick me out in small spaces). Technically we lived in a dry climate too, but it was situated more or less in the foothills of a large mountain range, so on a biiiig scale it was “downhill”, in a sense. It was enough to notice it in the ground when we were living there.

I know the whole carbon monoxide stuff sounds scary (and it was—I got soooo scared that I was going to be sleepy and stupid forever, and I’m an academic so it feels like my whole identity is about being smart lmao), but overall my year in the cob house was incredible. I’ve hopped around from living in a van, to cabins, a tiny house, etc., and honestly the cob house holds a special place in my heart, I felt really at home there. It’s actually a long-term plan of mine to build a self-sufficient cordwood/cob-style house eventually, but maybe a bit more amenities this time (consistent electricity, consistent potable water, an actual shower…) so that I can settle down there for a while. It’s definitely possible, I’ve met a few people living that exact lifestyle (complete with year-round produce!), and hopefully on the horizon for me :)

It's super cool you had water when the temperatures were freezing :) I haven't even thought that part thru! I was just thinking I'd dig a well while digging the clay for the cob house, then remembered I likely won't be able to waterproof the walls of a well so large, so I'll just use the well water for the garden and plants, and I'll have a roof that collects rainwater and runs it thru a filter, for drinking water. (It's also extremely funny I'm just planning this in an area that gets very little rain in summer). I did do my part in learning how to get water from trees and the ground so that I would never have to be without water even if there's no obvious source!

Carbon monoxide does sound scary and I just got poisoned recently so I'm not rushing into that again. I hope I manage to build a clean fireplace that I can clean consistently and it never causes me a lot of pain! I recently talked with a lady who lived in an extremely poor house, and they had a pipe that would send the smoke outside in a certain direction, and they had a little pedal they had to move by hand every time a certain wind would blow, so the wind can't go into the pipe and push the smoke back into the house! I was absolutely fascinated by her story, even when she was a kid, her duty was to adjust the chimney pipe to point in the direction of the wind, she told me that's how she learned to differentiate the south from the north.

I didn't know carbon monoxide does that;; I hope you remain proud of how smart you are for the rest of your days :)

I also feel the special connection to the cob houses, even though I've never been in one, just looking at them feels like home. Your plans for the future sound great, please if you make sketches come share with me so I can send you comments too!