It begins...

I'm out there. In many ways...



I'm researching the most bizzare sounding things for The Silence of Mary Home (SOM) - the woman who runs the home is very concerned about the possibility that electricity, oil, natural gas, food and water may all become unobtainable or unaffordable in the next 12-18 months. For the past 5 months, I have been getting and testing non-electric alternatives to keep SOM going. It started with storing water - each milk jug was washed out and filled to keep our water supplies up. Then I started getting excited. I went to http://www.lehmans.com/ and bought a clothes wringer, picked up big tubs from the hardware store, and started learning how to do laundry by hand. Then we needed to hang it dry - I learned how to do that. Then I was dropping off recycling with my mother when we both noticed some 55 gallon plastic drums off to the side. Now we collect our rainwater!



The latest developments have been a trifle weirder - granted, I bake my own bread by hand, do wash by hand, etc. so my weirdness tolerance is higher than some, but here goes. I am trying to build a solar oven that can be used in the city. It needed to be lightweight, easy to make, and frickin' cheap (single mamas can't shell out the big bucks for something that might get trashed or stolen). So, you can imagine how thrilled I was to find plans for a solar oven made from cardboard, tin foil and plastic wrap!

Yeah, I built one. :) It doesn't work as well as I'd like, so I may have change the design a bit, but it does get nice and warm on sunny days. But that's not the weird part.

I found a way to make my own sterno-type camping stoves out of old candle wax, cardboard, tuna cans and a coffee can! Yeah, that's the weird part! And it works really well, too!

Tune in again to find out how crazy one woman can get in the quest to live free for free!