This being the first newsletter ever you are all of course taking part in an event of massive historical significance, so massive it has its own gravitational pull, so massive not even light can escape. A time that will be remembered as the beginning of a new era, a time of joy and happiness for all, the time that Greg finally finished building his sawdust toilet.
YES! No more early morning trips to the gas station, no more holding it till errand time. Now (and I know this may be hard for many of you to believe) I can go number two….. WHENEVER I WANT. The sawdust toilet, a wonderful invention, is a two chambered wooden box, one chamber holds coffee chaff (my preference) or sawdust, and the other holds a five gallon bucket. The system is beautifully simple, you do your business in the bucket, and then get a handful or two of chaff or sawdust and sprinkle it liberally over your handiwork and VOILA! You have an odorless compostable substance that when dropped into the outside bin will act like a sponge- soaking up any moisture that falls on it making any runoff or leakage unlikely, and in two years you have rich loam wherein all of your bodies toxins have been broken down. Put it on your fruit trees or even in your garden and watch it grow like crazy. Sawdust toilet, yep pretty neat stuff.
Anyhow let me tell you what has been happening in the life of Greg for the past year or so. The summer of 2006 was a great one for music, I played between 2-5 gigs a week and had a great time doing it. I was certainly glad for fall, and for the gigs slowing down a bit; I was getting pretty exhausted by the end of it. I had one week where I played a two header at the Birch Terrace in Grand Marias, then played three nights in a row at the Gunflint Tavern, that played a wedding at the Lutsen Seaside Resort, THEN played another wedding in Washburn, THEEEN played with the Red Pine Resinators for the square dance after the wedding. WHEEW! I was just about as tired after that as we all are of seeing G.W.'s sorry face on the T.V. screen.
I had a regular gig at The Hurricane Hut in Bayfield every thursday, it worked out well. They only paid fifty dollars but I'd always walk away with at least another hundred in tips and CD sales. Then I could go up to Cornucopia to the farmers market were my friend, Jenny, had a table and I could sit back and relax and spend time with her and her son Glinden. After the market was over we'd all swim and have a big potluck dinner with all of our friends. All the while right next to lake Superior at the sugar sand Cornucopia town beach. Wonderful days indeed.
I worked part time on a small farm in Bayfield call Good Earth Gardens. They specialized in blueberries, and blackberries, but still have a wide variety of other fruiting trees, shrubs and garden crops. I gained a lot of good experience there, and I think I've settled on blueberries, blackberries, serviceberries, and hazelnuts as my main crops on my own place. I'll be putting in another fifty hazelnut saplings this spring along with the thirty surviving saplings I put in last year (originally fifty). I'm beginning to put together a more proactive plan to deal with my mouse and vole problem, the main culprits behind most of the hazelnut die-off. If anyone has suggestions they are more than welcome.
I myself plan to mow much more thus getting rid of the little buggers hiding places, plus using hardware cloth around the base and stem of the plants, sunk into the ground as well. I might also spray with some various recipes I've been researching including dried blood mixed with vegetable oil, Cayenne pepper, urine, borax, or maybe I'll just get a bunch of cats at the shelter and tie each one to a different sapling.
Well in case you were wondering I also now have a HOUSE. This is a new and interesting experience for me, being a connoisseur of couches and floors. I started work on it in July and hired my friend Karl Schwingel to do the slab, roof, frame, and help with the drywall. So for about three months I was Karl's wood cutter and gopher. Karl worked like a crazy man, he could knock a wall together in under an hour, it was an infinitely huge help to have him in charge of the first phase of building. By September we were done with all he had been hired to do and the rest was up to me. I put in the windows and doors, insulated the ceiling, stacked the bales, trimmed them, and then had two great big plaster parties, of which pictures are included below.
For my plaster I used a simple recipe of three parts sand, one part clay slip the consistency of pudding, tapioca I think, not chocolate or, persimmon, and definitely not blood pudding, which if you've had it you'll know that it doesn't go well anywhere, especially not on straw bale walls.
The plaster when dry is about the hardness and consistency of sandstone, in other words it's hard as a rock, I like to call it liquid brownstone.
I painted the inside wall with free latex paint from the paint exchange which was quite a challenge to mix. The first layer of paint I thought looked red-brown, but when it got on the wall it became unavoidably pink, very pink. The next layer I added some more yellow and now the walls are a nice adobe-ish color, or flesh tone depending on your perspective. I prefer to think of it as adobe, it beats feeling like you are living in a giant shaved armpit.
I had my final inspection in January and I was very concerned about drafts and sealing my Tyvec since the unified dwelling code was so concerned about combating the apparently evil presence of water vapor (who knew it was evil, I didn't). So it was negative something outside with the winding gusting at over 20mph and I was scrambling up and down my ladder with Tyvec tape and a caulk gun making sure there was no possible avenue for the insipid evil vapor critters to get in or out of my house so I could finally get the place approved of and start getting things like furniture (which would've been nice after three months of living with a nothing but a couple of buckets.)
My hands were just about frozen and I had almost finished smearing half of the inside of the house with caulk when the inspector walked in. He stopped, looked around briefly, and signed off, approving the final inspection of my house. He didn't even look up in the lofts, or on the Tyvec outside, or inspect my carefully intricate crack sealing masterpieces. Darn it! I thought, the least you could do would be to carefully stare at a section of wall and grunt, or nod in approval or something! But at least it was all said and done.
At the end of February I had furniture, and my stove was hooked-up, and the sunlight was streaming through my south facing windows warming my house and playing off the stone-like texture of the walls and floor. I am reasonably happy here, and enjoyed a spring full of maple syruping, tree planting, soil amending, and the final plaster party.
Stop in any time, I have a hide-a-bed couch, and if you don't mind getting your hands dirty I won't mind the help.
Thanks a bunch! We'll see you down the trail.
Greg Hodapp
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