Nicole Faires

I knew how important it is, but I didn’t truly realize HOW IMPORTANT IT IS.  I have really gotten into cultivating bacteria and it’s so much fun.  It’s also made me realize how crucial bacteria is for the existence of all life.  Without it, everything would die.  

The picture above is today’s batch of kefir fermenting.  Kefir is a slightly mysterious fermented dairy product made from kefir ‘grains’. They aren’t really grain - they are just conglomerated proteins and yeasts that clump into a glob.  You can buy kefir but most people I know are gifted kefir from a friend, and the kefir culture just keeps on living and growing.  Since I’m lactose intolerant, I can use it to make milk I can drink.  It smells like yeast and tastes like plain yogurt or sour cream.  I even made kefir cheese the other day.

Then I’ve got this in the house.  The other day I posted about my worm bin, and here’s what it looks like inside now.  As long as I keep the lid on, you can’t smell all of the magical bacterial processes going on inside.  I’ve got thousands of happy worms breaking down our waste vegetable matter at an incredibly fast rate.  Ok, it’s not overnight, but in comparison to my huge compost pile at the farm, it’s far quicker.  This is partly due to the worms and partly due to the bacteria helping to break everything down.  

Then there’s my kelp tea.  Rather than buying expensive bottles of kelp tea for my greens growing under lights, I buy large bags of kelp meal, and soak some of it in water.  Although the fermentation process is very mild, bacteria helps nutrients leech into the water faster to be soaked up by the plants.  I don’t soak it very long but it gives the plants the kick they need.

This is simple stuff, and helps keep us healthy and happy.  :)

My husband and I didn’t contemplate our decision to move into a bus for more than a day.  We knew why we wanted to become house-free, and so we never questioned whether it was a good idea or not.  We never made a pro and con list, and we never sat down and had a family meeting.  We did it for the same reasons that most families hit the road: cheap living, freedom, adventure, and getting closer to each other.  It just seemed like such a no-brainer.  Get bus.  Move in.  Freedom! 

 We did, however, spend an entire year thinking about the toilet.  Motorhome toilets scared us.  The idea of carrying around our blackwater seemed so inefficient, and archaic.  The toilet is just so central to our family’s life – someone is on it every hour of the day and if it fails our whole world falls apart.

We couldn’t actually afford an RV when we wanted to take on this new life, but rather than save for a couple of years, we chose to do things the difficult way.  We bought a bus shell, parked it at a farm, and camped in it as we built our home from the inside out.  We had access to a bathroom 100 yards away, and so we procrastinated the toilet decision, especially after watching a popular movie starring Robin Williams.

 We looked at composting toilets that are specifically made for motorhomes, such as those built by Sun Mar and Envirolet, but we discovered one serious flaw.   They don’t have the capacity for two adults full time, let alone a large teenager and three children.  The way these work is that the liquids and solids pool together and a heating element evaporates the liquids, but because the tray and heater are so small you can only use them sometimes on the weekend.  Then it has to sit and digest for at least a month before it can be used again.

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Note: If this post is too long and boring, at least go to the end and find out how to support organic farms and our trip.  You want to have cheap organic food, right?

We named our space heater Heaty.  Toasty (our previous space heater), died after keeping us warm on some very chilly nights, and was replaced by an oil radiator which is doing an even better job I think.  It’s not a furnace, but if we keep the door shut to the bunkroom we are very comfortable.

The furnace isn’t hooked up yet because we still need to have the gas man out, which is dependent on getting all the electrical and plumbing finally finished.  We don’t have running water yet, and so it is still pretty similar to camping except that our beloved toilet is now fully functional.

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