Can You Live With Less? - Third World Consumption in a First World City - Part 2 - HOW

Thank you so much for all the support that we’ve gotten in encouragement, help, and pledges of support for this microlending fund raising project. I will have more details and descriptions as well as my journal entires up very soon, but here are some photos to begin with:

(L) Platform built of reused deck siding and scrap wood to keep me off the ground and insulated. (R) Tent that measures 4 feet wide by about 8 feet long with a 4 x 4 foot vestibule.

(L) Here are my living accommodations. Pretty cozy. I have a few milk crates for bookshelves where I store my dry goods, and books for school and work. I have a few wool blankets I picked up from Kaplan’s Army Surplus for about $12 a piece that are keeping me insulated from the cold. (R) Here is my laundry machine. I soak some clothes in about a gallon of water with some Broner’s soap, and then wring it out, then soak it in some water heated from my solar oven, then I’ll wring them out again and hang them to dry.

(L-R) Cold storage, or outdoor no-energy refrigerator. That’s a 5 gallon bucket in the ground, surrounded by about 2 inches on all sides with sawdust as insulation. Everything stays very cold during the warm days we’ve been having.

(L) Shungikee, or edible Chrysanthemum, that I found growing as a “weed” in Golden Gate Park. This was the only specimen I saw so I didn’t pick it, besides I have tons of it growing in my backyard. (R) Wild radish does grow a plenty, all around San Francisco, so I pulled these nice roots to add to my meals of rice and beans.

(L) This is my 5 gallon a day water supply. I also have another 5 gallon bucket I use for my sink (photos to come soon), though together I still haven’t used 5 gallons in a single day. The closest I got was when I was doing my laundry. (R) This is how most of my cooking has been done. A rocket stove, which reduces heat loss and smoke/emissions and is able to burn hot with very little biomass. I got the scrap metal, bricks, for about $3 from Building REsources in San Francisco. The wood I’m using is from an 1/4″ redwood lattice that has fallen apart. I mostly used leftover wood from an FSC certified furniture builder.
     
(L) Rocket stove view from above, you can see it is just a 4 inch pipe set in an 11 inch pipe with perlite and ash in between as insulation. (R) The fire chamber should have a shelf, like the bent piece of metal in this photo. That allows a clear path for oxygen to come rushing over the fire. See how little sticks can create an intense fire.

(L) These are my new (as of Feb 12th) staple food items. California grown “Pebble” beans from Rancho Gordo from Rainbow Grocery, a California grown multi-grain blend from Koda Farms, also from Rainbow, and Quick Oats. I also have about 1 cup of California cold-pressed olive oil, coriander seed, turmeric, cumin, and about a 1/2 cup of sea salt. These foods come out to less than $3.50 per day, and aside from the spices, I’m supporting California farmers. As a former volunteer, I am also getting “would be composted” left overs from Other Avenues, such as carrots, lettuce, or other produce items not fit for sale to customers. (R) My quick and cheap solar oven. I made this out of about 5-6 free cardboard boxes, a piece of double paned scrap glass for free from Paige Glass, and about 6 feet of heavy duty aluminum foil. Within a couple hours the temperature is up to 150 degrees and with some improvements, I could be baking cookies in there (if I could afford the ingredients). For my application, it greatly reduces my need to rely on my rocket stove to cook my beans and grains which would normally take over an hour. Now I’m able to cook my breakfast on the rocket stove, and then right away put 1 serving of beans and grains in a pot to boil for about 10 minutes before placing it in the solar oven to finish up a few hours later.

(Center) Besides my staple foods, I have a garden full of veggies to pick from. It’s a little light because of the winter but I have artichokes, swiss chard, kale, Shungikee, snow peas, some lettuce, mustard greens, and lots of herbs as well. Come summer time, my apple, peach, and plum trees should bear fruit, as well as my huckleberries, elderberries, serviceberries, boysenberries, raspberries, osoberries, thimbleberries, goji berries, and Chinese hawthorns. Mmmmm.