Panjawasi Coming Along
I spent a good part of the rest of this last week working on the house. The house has a name: “Panjawasi” which is the name of a neighborhood in Bolivia. The creator of the house does his research there.
I designed and built some kitchen shelving, using completely re-purposed wood (a torn-apart futon frame, some lumber from the street trash in NYC, etc.) and put together some other shelving from some of the miscellaneous lumber and shelf-like things that were here before we painted. It’s coming along and starting to feel like home. It’s humble, but very cozy, and we’ve set up the kitchen pretty well, which of course, is the most important thing for me.
I still have a few other projects that I want to get to, but I’m enjoying doing this. I can’t help but think that I’m fixating on these sorts of projects because they’re something that I know, and can handle. Out there is the forest and the garden and the farm and big heavy animals and electric fencing and so on. And of course, my “real life” which has to start to filter back in, a little, too.
I spent a few hours working this week, and went to Ithaca to see some office space. I found what seems to be an ideal fit. It’s right downtown, on a pedestrian-only street, in an old building with a tall creaky staircase. It’s cheap, it’s in a good walking neighborhood, so I think I’ll take it, move in, and see what it’s like having an office again. I look forward to it, actually.
I’m angry about the driving, though. I really don’t like driving. I still can’t get over feeling that it’s dangerous, though obviously everyone around me takes it completely for granted. They get furious if I drive near the speed limit, in the dark, in the rain, and pass me against the double line, too-close, when there are visible cars coming in the other lane.
I guess that sometime in the last 13 years, everyone else got a lot better at driving, or I just got a lot more cranky. I just can’t help feeling like I’m in a metal box going way faster than a human ever could, while other similar boxes swish by 3 feet away at 2x the relative velocity. And that’s just the country roads. Ithaca traffic ain’t bad, but I’m just not used to the rhythms of the roads, intersections, turn lanes, and half-attentive drivers; it stresses me out.
And of course the gas. It seems foolish to be living off-the-grid, but then burning 2 gallons of gas a day. And the way shopping works: I’m used to walking a few blocks, picking things out, walking home. Maybe making an afternoon of it by walking across town. Now, there are traffic lights, merge lanes, frontage roads, parking lots, one-way roads aplenty, PARKING, and that’s before you even get to the shop. I don’t like it, this semi-suburban life. How can a town of 30,000 people have a suburban life? Who thought this was a good idea?
And why does each store have to have its own access road and separate parking lot with berms between? Would it really kill them to cooperate by allowing the street to pass from one parking lot to the next? Is it really more safe for me to have to exit the lot, merge into traffic, get back into the right-turn lane, and enter the very next lot? Please. Corporate mentality at its best: oh no, can’t share a street with the neighbors.
But I’ll be driving to work in Ithaca, it seems. At least I can walk around for lunch and errands while I’m there. I had a nice bowl of soup at a café down the block, and there’s a neat old five-and-dime type place across the “mall” for office supplies and such. It’s also like my beloved State street in Madison (actually, this is “State street” too) with crazy people talking to themselves, Tibetan monks having a literal hunger strike, jugglers, that sort of thing.
But back to the house. Yesterday I read through a “manual” left behind by the house’s creator. It had some troubleshooting information about the hot-water system. We still don’t have hot water. I’m surprisingly ok about the infrequent showers (two so far, since we moved here) but really miss hot water for washing my hands and dishes. The spring water is less than 50° and the cold soaks right into your bones, not to mention it doesn’t clean or rinse worth crap. We’ve started cooking sink water to make it hot enough to wash dishes, but there’s not enough to rinse hot too, so our dishes never really feel clean.
Tonight we met some previous inhabitants of Panjawasi, and they told us that you really needed high summer days and/or several hours of roaring wood fires to get hot water. We’ve had neither. We don’t have enough wood for the latter, and of course the former isn’t up to us.
I guess that soon I’ll need to learn how to chop and split wood.
I’m excited about the electrical system. There’s more than enough power for the way we’re living now. My work computer isn’t here, and we don’t have a tv, vcr, stereo, but we have a little set of portable speakers, a walkman, and some little lights, and for now, that’s enough. I’m learning (remembering?) a little about DC electricity, and it turns out that almost all of the gadgets that make up what we would like to have (wireless internet, music, battery charger) eat DC 12V, which is what the solar panels and batteries make. So we can just hook right in and avoid the noisy inverter, after I get some wire and connectors from town.
It feels “free” somehow… like we’re putting on over on the man, or something… being able to listen to electrical speakers without electricity (well, without “normal” electricity). You should try it. It’s cool. And maybe a little dangerous; I need to read up a little before I get too ambitious.But the house itself is really starting to feel like home. It’s humble, but very cozy, and we’ve set up the kitchen really well, which of course, is the most important thing for me.
But here’s a ridiculous chicken, for the road:
Tags: chicken, strawbale house
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