Urban Harvester

quick images from san francisco

2012-02-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

working on a precedent analysis out here, looking at multi-family housing, markets, restaurants, and gardens...

Colorado Springs

2011-10-06T05:36:00.000-07:00

I am in Colorado for a few days with my design studio, yesterday was our first day and we have already seen some absolutely amazing art and architecture.

I wish Raquel and Ezra could be out here. It would be so much fun to share this, we are going to have to make a trip out here together soon. (Especially since Raquel's Dad's family is from here) I walked through the farmers market at Colorado College, so many people out with their young ones, it hurt not to have you guys with me. My heart just aches for you.

Here's a taste of what we saw, more to come.

"Stickworks": Cottonwood and Elm cutting sculpture at Colorado College in Colorado Springs by Patrick Dougherty.
http://www.gazette.com/entertainment/dougherty-43388-work-know.html

"Stickworks" with the Cornerstone Arts Center in the background, designed by AMD architects out of Denver.
http://www.predock.com/Cornerstone/Cornerstone.html
www.amdarchitects.com

Recent Pictures of the Treehouse

2011-06-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

Poop

2011-01-25T15:41:00.000-08:00

While reading a post from Edible Geography, I was reminded about how at home here at Urban Harvester,GrittyPretty has come up with some pretty fantastic ways of dealing with, you know, baby poop.
The post illuminates not only the courageous life of a "flusher" of London's pipes but also what I think is pretty clear: the concept of "the sewer", not unlike the concept of "away" (you know... the place one throws things?), needs desperately to be rethought, and definitely to be re-designed. Here's an excerpt:
"With the air of a connoisseur, Rob uses his shovel to point out the difference between congealed "old fat" and more yellow-toned "new fat," picking out rats, condoms, and the offending wet wipes, which remain intact throughout their journey, and which, "believe it or not, we have to wash and compact and put into landfill." The rest of the fatberg will be broken up using a jetting unit, which simply "stirs it up and blasts it through."

...If the ways in which a city is supplied with food are often hard to visualise, the infrastructure through which that food, transformed into metabolic excretions, is once again removed are usually even better hidden..."
This reminded me of another post I read recently which illustrates a related point: waste = food. All that fat(oil) could be powering... something... other than the cost of city "utilities". It is completely possible to design our "waste" streams to function like any output does in nature, supplying vital life giving nourishment to a living organism or ecosystem:
"... say your electricity came not from a dirty coal-steam plant but from algae that grew in a wetland cell that treated the effluent from your kitchen and bathroom? Suppose that once you had wrung out the algae mat for its rich gardening nutrients, you separated the oils from the biomass and refined those into fuel for your car. Then you took the leftover biomass and fed it to a pyrolyzing stove, which cooked your meals, heated your house, made your electricity, and left you not with ash but biochar — recalcitrant carbon ready to enrich your garden for the next 1000 years, staying out of the atmosphere all the while. Cool food, cool fuel, cool waste treatment, cool climate."
So while we don't yet have the financing (or the code approval) to install a wetland cell or composting toilet at the homestead, we at least have a good solution for how to avoid the troublesome wet-wipes. So I thought I'd share that with you.
To complement our one-size-fits-all re-usable diapers, GrittyPretty made a whole bag full of cloth wipes made from scrap soft cotton fabric. We get them wet, use them and easily just wrap them up in the poopy diaper and throw the lot in the wash (with some vinegar to help keep things healthy). We use a water efficient Asko front-load washer and a great strong yet gentle biodegradable HE detergent called "Country Save" and have had no problems with either. I can attest to the fact that they work every bit as well, and are even a bit easier than the wet-wipes. And I don't know if Provo City has flushers, but if they do, I know they're not picking wet wipes out from pipes clogged with congealed fat, rats and condoms on our account...

The changing table with bag of clean, reusable wet wipes.

putting together the portfolio

2011-01-18T10:58:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of pages I put together for my grad school portfolio that have to do with some of our projects over the last few years.

BACK TO THE BOOKS

2011-01-18T07:15:00.000-08:00

It's back to school this winter (for the first time in 6 1/2 YEARS), with physics one and two. It takes me back to when I read the Tao of Physics while riding the bus to work a few years ago - a life changing experience.

I was reading it as part of my study of the use of "pattern languages" in Permaculture design, and have subsequently read several books by the author. Fritjof Capra is right at the top of my list of favorite thinkers. As a writer he has a talent for making science understandable, relevant and soul changing.

I started taking the courses at SLCC, which was rough trying to get to classes on top of work. But Quellie brought it to my attention that I can take it as an independant study!! So now I will be taking College Physics while I ride the bus!

I'm sure the text is much drier than Capra's, but it will get me into grad school...

Happy Birthday to my darling Raquel!

2009-11-14T03:57:00.000-08:00

The best friend I've ever had,

The best gardening cohort I could ever wish for,

veritable forest sprite,

and best person ever to curl up with.

I love you! Happy Birthday!

Which Yogurt?

2009-08-25T14:50:00.001-07:00

You may not know that I have at times been so obsessed with the wondorous world of milk related foods that I am known in some circles as the "milk man". I've read many books, done much research and networking with local farmers, and have even run the odd semi-legal raw milk cartel! I ache to keep a mini-guernsey in the back yard, but alas!

In the spirit of the threefold ethic - care of earth, care of people, and fair share, this is one of the things we've been doing with our milk lately:

Re-useable glass jar of home cultured yogurt and companion jar of homemade jam courtesy of my lovely GrittyPretty, made from unpasteurized milk, given by very happy 100% pasture fed heritage breed dairy cows under the care of a very kind farmer named Brandon Foote of Redmond Heritage Farms (109 miles away). (Milk now legal and available here).

Rethinking our Urban Surroundings

2009-08-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

Landscape+Urbanism just wrote a great post on urban food production.

Last year, when we were tapping Hagrid for sap, I started learning to recognize maples on my bus route to work and daydreamed of an urban tapping setup, but it looks like someone beat me to it:

We'll have to follow suit this winter.

The Worst Air Quality in the Nation

2009-01-20T15:13:00.000-08:00

Here is the letter I sent to my State Representatives and Senator, the Governor, and the Division of Air Quality Director

Dear _________,

I would like to first of all express my disgust with the air quality of the last few days, today especially. On my bicycle commute through downtown Salt Lake this morning, it was hard even to breathe, I had to slow down, so that I did not need to breathe deeply. The air tasted acrid, bitter and felt thick in my lungs. I was not surprised to find out that we currently have the worst air in the nation.

I am frustrated with the resignation and inaction of our government, our industry and our populace towards our "fate" in this winter inversion-prone locale as far as exposure to toxic, carcinogenic, auto and industry borne pollutants.

Our inversions ought to be considered a blessing, reminding us that we are responsible for what we put into our air, a call to behave ethically. A blessing because it reminds us we're a part of our natural environment, and if we're willing to accept the negative feedback and respond, a harmonious relationship to it is possible. As a community, we need to be dis-incentivising pollution, and rewarding those who choose not to waste. There is no accountability for those who pollute indiscriminately and affect adversely the well-being of all of us along the Wasatch Front. The young among us suffer disproportionately, and because their suffering manifests itself slowly, they and their families are left with the burden and cost of treating it, often without help. This needs to change, and you can do something about it. Do not leave office without changing our course towards a future with clear skies.

Thank you, Oliver Smith Callis

Please take time to do the same!

Embracing the Sun

2008-01-27T14:47:00.000-08:00

In permaculture design, we learn to arrange things so that each element of our lives is supported by multiple natural processes, and we make way for each process to be supported by many elements. This creates a safety net of redundancies where the natural order of things is to have their needs met and if one things fails, there's always something to back it up. Figuring out ways of incorporating the warmth of our neighborhood friendly nuclear reactor, the sun, into these kinds of arrangements is an important part of letting nature work for us when it can.

Our passive solar, straw-bale GREENHOUSE is an example of a beneficial juxtaposition. The hot south facing windows and the blanket of insulating straw and plaster envelop the sun's warmth throughout cold nights, offering plants (and our hungry stomachs) a refuge from the winter. It turns out though, that our birds fit nicely into the system. They're able to keep their toes from freezing, and their breath feeds CO2 to the plants. On cloudy days, their body heat actually does a lot to maintain warmth for the plants. Then there is their poop... which the plants love, and the eggs... which we love! Everybody wins.

Then there is the NATURAL SWIMMING POOL we are building in a part of our garden where there is always a lot of sun, even in the winter. Water is an excellent heat collector as well as reflector. To capitalize on this, we're building a sun trap on the north side of the pond out of rocks and soil to collect even more heat. In this good company, we'll plant fruit trees that need more warmth than is typically found in our climate, like citrus trees and kiwis. Between the rocks, the water and the increased air moisture, they won't get killed off by frosts. The mound will also give us a place to pump water to where it can filter through water cleaning plants and fall over flowforms to become oxygenated before it re-enters the pool. Ducks will be able to swim in it, and it will put water in easy reach of our chickens. And we of course have a place to swim, and relax. Natural swimming pools have become en vogue in Europe because they are easy to maintain and if they are designed well, will stay cleaner than chlorinated swimming pools. Again, everyone is happy.

The better we become at juxtaposing elements of our lives so that they compliment each other naturally, the closer we come to a life where our basic needs can be met by nature and our time can be freed up for helping others and living more creative, magical lives.

this post is the back-story for this post by grittypretty

Bioneers & Permaculture

2007-10-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of the annual Bioneers conference - the single most inspiring and replenishing event in our sun-cycle. What is especially cool this year is that there is a satellite session a little closer to home, in our watershed/bioregion (which we like to call June Sucker Nation). So we had a special opportunity to connect with fellow permaculturalists and people interested in permaculture from our area, as a workshop on the subject was held.

The presenters were Jacob Hansen from Wasatch Woodsgrown, Kendy Radasky from Tree Utah, Alex Parvaz from S.E.E.D. and Chase Fetter from Sage's Way Landscape and Design. It was great to hear about their experiences and projects in Permaculture, and to see some pictures of the EcoGarden - the permaculture demonstration site they've been developing in the Rose Park neighborhood of SLC.

Jacob Hansen is the person who was arranging the 2 Week Intensive Permaculture Design Certification Course this summer with Darren Doherty. These courses are taught to give people a solid footing in the ethics, principles, and strategies of permaculture. Unfortunately not enough people signed up for the course to take place and Jacob had to cancel it. I was one of the people wanting to take the course but unable to pool the resources to pay for it in time. So I want to apologize to Jacob for not being able to step up to the plate when he presented us with the opportunity and thank him for the effort and resources he put into organizing it. I hope we will be successful in convening another course soon, and really get the Permaculture movement growing in June Sucker Nation.

REGENERATION

2007-10-15T22:34:00.000-07:00

I spent some time tonight on this website
I found it on the Blog Action Day resources page. I've worked with several carbon and ecological footprint calculators and spreadsheets before, and of the simple web based ones, this is one of the more useful that I've found.

I want to emphasize though that having a goal of zero isn't all that inspiring, that's why Raquel and I have been working towards the goal of being REGENERATIVE as opposed to DE-GENERATIVE over the last few years. We've got to save our morale people! Visionary Architect Bill McDonough stated it well when he said that "we don't want to leave smaller footprints, we want to leave huge footprints - we just want to leave wetlands in them".

And I am happy to report that according to the ZeroFootprint Calculator we have a "negative" footprint - our regenerative impact is outweighing our de-generative impact. Do we live like hermits in the mountains? All you have to do is read Quellie's blog to dispel that notion.

Transportation: Telecommuting & Motorcycling to SLC occasionally + working within walking distance of home, Lots of Bicycling & trying to go car-less= 1.3 tons CO2 annually

Home: We got an ASKO combo wash/dryer that uses less e for both tasks than an energy star washing machine does just to wash, & a programmable thermostat. Plus we compost a lot, & cut down quite extensively on our garbage & paper intake= 1.1 tons CO2 annually

Food: We have been working towards a 100 mile diet, everything produced organically/ecologically, and lots from our garden. This is apparently worth -4.5 tons of CO2.

I am still working on doing more in depth energy accounting/ self-regulation, but going off this emissions calc. of roughly 2.3 tons of CO2 per year I think I think it is possible to make significant change while improving our quality of life- especially considering that the average emissions per person along our beloved Wasatch Front is a whoppingly embarrassing 29!

Although our efforts to cut back have at times created some frustrating situations, we have generally found ourselves getting through them with increased community - like the time James helped us to haul 20 foot pieces of lumber to our house on a bike trailer and a skateboard because we were too lazy to ride a motorcycle somewhere to borrow a truck.

Back to the Land - in the City

2007-09-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

What does it look like when we reconfigure our homes, our gardens, our lives so that they reflect an understanding of natural eco-systems and actually start to integrate with them - rather than disrupt them? Urban Harvester is the work towards accomplishing this, despite living in a city, working a job and all of the madness that accompanies our fast paced culture.