Posts by Lloyd Kahn (241)

I got a robot phone call last night (around dinner time, of course): “Hello, this is not a solicitation, this is about your septic system…”

The object was to sell homeowners on additives that will “…improve septic tank digestion of solids.”

Don’t fall for this scam. Below is what we wrote in Septic Systems Owner’s Manual (There are 5 complete chapters from the book reprinted here, along with other septic info.).

Septic system additives, especially enzymes. (You don’t need to add enzymes; they’re naturally present in the sewage.) Beware of telemarketers or ads hawking additives claiming to avoid tank pumping. They actually break down the scum and sludge into small particles, which are then readily flushed out into the drainfield, increasing possibility of premature drainfield failure. The State of Washington has banned septic tank additives. In Tiburon, California, a homeowner recently added enzymes to a septic system that had been working perfectly well. Soon after, sludge moved out into the drainfield and the system failed.

I wrote an article that appeared in The Mother Earth News in 2008 about the sorry state of septic systems engineering and regulations in the U.S.: www.motherearthnews.com/….

These came in the mail from Kurt Buetow just as we were finishing Tiny Homes on the Move, and I just dug them out.

Hi Lloyd,

As you know, I’m into these hanging chairs. In the forty years since I won the International Canvas Furniture Design competition in Tokyo, I’ve spent time in the woods and find it pleasing to select technology I can kind of deal with, like a hay wagon and bent wood and a ’70s-era electric tractor I charge with PVs.

I like the idea of shelter, but no more than you need. Feet on the ground, the side bows on this umbrella fold up so it becomes only nine feet wide. Nice place to enjoy the rain, there’s a hammock, and a cot, tables, and storage. Maybe somewhere else tomorrow.

Onward,
Kurt

Mode of Transport

This is how I move the rolling hang-out (’70s General Electric). The solar panels are mounted on a steel-wheeled McCormick Deering hay wagon running gear from the ’20s. In summer I tilt them east and west through the day.

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I was skating on the street one day and passed this striking greenhouse truck (for lack of a common descriptive phrase). It’s one of those things that you just GET when you see it. I stopped and talked to Justin Cutter, fellow skateboarder as well as gardener. This isn’t only one of the things you get when you see it, it’s one of those things you instantly LIKE. What a great idea! He takes it around to schools and teaches kids gardening.

www.compassgreenproject.org Read More …

If only I didn’t live so far away from The North House Folk School, I’d be hanging around there a lot. The number of classes they have is amazing. Birchbark canoes, blacksmithing, tool making, timber framing, fiber arts, on and on. I’m just looking at one page, and I’d take the class on making a crooked knife, and another on sharpening. Read More …

I was going over some old files in preparation for working on our new book on 21st century nomadics, and ran across this letter from Serena in Home Work (p. 176). It refers to the 37 Chevy flatbed truck converted to a rolling home by Joaquin de la Luz and his wife Gypsy, and featured in Shelter (pp. 90–91), and in later years used as a bedroom by 4-year-old Serena. It was such a nice example of happy childhood memories, I thought I’d reprint it here.

My earliest memories of the Gypsy Wagon begin when I was three or four years old. At that point, our family had settled down in a little house on the Klamath River, in Northern California. We had all moved out of the Gypsy Wagon but I really missed it. I remember begging my mom and dad to let me use it as my bedroom. Luckily for me, my parents were such free spirits that they could really relate to my independence. The wagon became my room.
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