we're just trying to be people

My freshman year of college started on a Monday. By Wednesday of the next week, I was laying in a hospital bed with my roommate, Wes. He had been placed in the bed, and I in a chair facing him. Once the nurse left, I wobbled across the floor and climbed into the tiny bed, squeezing myself in between my friend and the safety bars that were in their upright and locked position.

The sleeping pills had worn off just enough for me to cognitively process about 14 percent of what was going on around me. Wes was probably around the 5 percent mark.

Laying in the bed, cradled by the cold metal bars, we simultaneously had a sudden urge to urinate. Wes fumbled for the nurse-call button. He pushed it.

"Hey, we really need to go to the bathroom."

"Ok, someone will be right there."

Minutes, possibly a few seconds, passed. We rang again.

"We still need to go to the bathroom."

"Just one moment, sir."

One moment passed. We rang again.

"Look, I don't mean to be a pickle in your butt," Wes said, "We just really have to pee."

The nurse's response falls into that 86 percent that I didn't cognitively process.

We decided to take things into our own hands when the nurse failed to escort us to the bathroom after a third request. We stumbled out of bed, and began to tiptoe through the hospital corridors, searching long and hard for a white porcelain oasis. The Mission Impossible theme song was playing audibly in my head as I peered around corners and skipped past scrub-clad henchmen.

I remember coming to a door that our brains told us was an acceptable place to relieve ourselves. Whether it was an actual bathroom or not is impossible to tell. All that I can say is that we both urinated somewhere in that maze of hospital hallways.

A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins

I just finished reading this book. It is the true story of Peter's journey from Alfred, New York to New Orleans, Louisiana. As a young man, Peter had become very disillusioned with his country and with himself. Before he gave up hope in himself and in this land of the free, he wanted to really give it a chance - to really get to know it.

In the autumn of 1973, with his loyal half-malamute dog, Cooper, Peter began walking. Near the end of this section of his journey (the rest is retold in the next book, A Walk West) Peter reflects this way:

"From my first searching journey out of Alfred, I had lived a life of extremes, I had starved my way through the Smokies and stuffed myself Southern style. I had frozen my feet in West Virginia and boiled my brains in Alabama. I had shared outer and inner spaces with a hermit mountain man and been nicknamed Albino by a loving black family. I had almost died in a storm-pounded shelter on the Appalachian Trail and had shoveled horse manure on an Alabama ranch. I had loved and lost my forever friend, Cooper Half Malamute. I had been elevated by a nameless man who gave me five red apples on a Virginia mountaintop and befriended by a gutsy, generous governor named George. I had strained my back in a North Carolina sawmill and lived leisurely in a Montgomery mansion. I had lived on a long-haired commune in Tennessee and had learned how to pray at a far-out revival in Mobile. I had started out searching for myself and my country and found both. I had come face to face with God and accepted Him as my own."

I found myself continually pulled into Peter's story, not only because of the adventure in journeying through unknown places with just a pack on your back and dog by your side, but also because Peter seemed accessible. He was not a writer. He did this for himself - the book was an afterthought. He had a deal set up with National Geographic, where he would take photos of his travels, but he never intended to write an extensive retelling of the story. But he did, and in his imperfect description, and elementary word choice, I am able to throw myself in the middle of it. I can be there. I know where that is.

Of course, my favorite part of the story is how important his dog was to him. He would not have been able to survive without Cooper - both physically and emotionally. Cooper saved his life more than once. My favorite quote from the book comes during Peter's time living with a poor black family in Murphy, North Carolina. A young boy he met playing basketball has invited him home to eat with his family and the mother (Mary Elizabeth) reluctantly decides that she wants Peter to live with them for a while because she believes God has sent Peter there to test her faith.

"Weeks after I'd become one of her sons, Mary Elizabeth told me how she had been kind of scared the first time her boys brought me home for dinner with my sun-bleached long hair and untamed red beard. But when she saw how Cooper loved me and I loved him, she knew I was alright. 'Dawgs don't lie,' she said."

But this book is extra special because it was given to me by my Dad this past Christmas. He read this book years ago when he was at a "crossroad" in his life. Peter's journey itself was taken as a decision at a crossroad, as is most every turn he makes along the way. My Dad knows that I am at a place in my life where I am at a crossroad. My struggle is, and always will be, to figure out where to go when there are so many different roads to take.

I do know that when I "settle down" someday, that I will always have a quiet place with some shelves of special books. Thanks Dad.

contact information

This was wrong last time I posted it, so I changed it. This time it is right:

I probably should have done this a while ago, especially after several people have asked me for it, but here it is - better late than never:

Ben Rucker
PO Box 1007
Frederiksted, USVI 00841

No mailing address, just a PO Box. Once a week or so, we'll go into town and someone will check the box to see if anything is there. Yesterday I got my new knife in the mail! I was still able to use the Bass Pro Shop gift card that the Alston's gave me for Christmas - thank you again, Mr. and Mrs. Alston!

Also, we don't have any cell phone reception on the farm. So I can only call on weekends when I am at the beach, or somewhere else in town, down outside of the rain forest.

That, my friends, is why I get on this thing as much as I can...

goodbye, late night with conan o'brien

My favorite television show host isn't exactly leaving television, but he is leaving the setting we all know and love, Late Night. So, to pay homage to Conan on the day of his last show, here are three of my favorite moments (there would be several more posted if NBC would wise up and make their footage more available...):

don and dan

This past week, we received a new addition to the farm in one Don Young, an energy expert who will be here for the next few weeks. Don met Ben several years ago at a permaculture gathering in Asheville, NC, and they have kept in touch over the years. Don comes to visit the farm for a month or so every winter. Last year, he began setting up a biodeisel lab in the container pad. Ben hopes to continue working on the project and eventually get the farm off of fossil fuels.

Don has a background in electrical engineering and computer electronics. He spent a few years in the late 80's designing computer chips in Japan. He eventually got into solar power after becoming disillusioned with the inefficiency and decadence (among other things) in the industry. He even became disillusioned with the solar power industry after spending several years installing very large solar systems for rich people who didn't care to reduce their consumption, but merely used the fact that they consumed solar power as a way to justify. That is where cognitive dissonance comes in... but I digress.

Don has been teaching me so much about the way energy works. It is definitely something that I think most people in America take for granted, and it has been enlightening to realize exactly how governments have chosen to distribute energy throughout the world. People like Nikola Tesla discovered that the universe is literally pulsing with energy, but their work was disregarded, even burned, and they were ostracized, while people like Thomas Edison were praised for their (far less advanced) work because someone saw a way to gain economically from it.

So it has been a blessing to be able to learn from Don everyday. He brings out the voracious learner within me, which is something I never want to squelch. As Don puts it, so many people are satisfied to learn for a while, find their niche, and then "fart, drink beer, and watch football."

My other main teacher, Dan Glenn, is my focus area adviser.


Dan has been living on the farm since the beginning, about 5 or 6 years ago. He and his finacée, Jen, will be moving back to his family farm in Georgia after their wedding in May. Dan has already given me a great foundation for learning about electricity. It has been inspiring to see the system he has set up at his home here on the farm.

If nothing else, though, Dan has reignited a lost passion of mine: chess. Almost every night for the past two weeks, there has been a highly competitive chess match after dinner. Dan is usually involved, and Dan always wins. Except for one time, when Marshall somehow pulled out a victory - one that required much bloodshed. Maybe when I get back home I will spend my free time carving a personalized chess set.

agriculture and food fair of the u.s. virgin islands

St. Croix has three major holidays - St. Patrick's Day, Mardi Croix, and Ag Fair. I think the first two are pretty self explanatory, but Ag Fair is a little different.

Basically, 30,000 people travel to the island for the weekend (some of whom stayed in cabanas on the farm and proceeded to use curling irons (???) that overloaded our solar system and left 20 people without power for 24 hours, but that's another story) to walk around and eat good food while shopping from Rastafari booth vendors and a large farmer's market. ...Okay, I guess that's a simplistic point of view - there is also a lot of music, animals, and Obama t-shirts.


Creque Dam Farm used their booth this year to educate children. In past years, we sold plants and produce with little success, so this year we decided we would speak to our main mission, which is education.


We taught the kids who came to our booth how to make seed balls, which is a very simple way for them to learn the importance of soil building. The balls are made of clay, compost and seeds - the kids can literally just throw the ball into their yard and watch a plant grow. No planting or watering necessary. We used the seeds crotalaria, sun flower, and pigeon pea plants, which are all legumes, enriching soil through nitrogen fixation. Bam!


We also had friction fire demonstrations, basket weaving, and other fun activities for the kids. The local boy scout troop was right next to us, and let's just say that we could probably teach them a thing or two. I'm just sayin...



Man makes fire...


On Friday of last week, our class was split into a three different groups to prepare for the fair. One group prepared the decorations and signage for the booth. One group gathered and harvested seeds and other material that would be used in our demonstrations. And one group designed and constructed a structure that we could set up our operation under/around. I was in that group.

With the help of one Don Young, we designed a structure modeled after our hoop house on the farm. The hoop house is made of PVC pipe covered in cloth, and it's where we keep germinating seeds and small plants before they are taken to the nursery and eventually planted into the earth. Our Ag Fair "hoop house" was constructed out of bamboo, twine, and canvas.


We spent the morning harvesting bamboo and cutting it to length. That afternoon, Marshall and I rode in the dump truck with Ben to construct the booth at the fairgrounds. One piece of bamboo that Marshall found was about 30 feet in length and 6 inches in diameter, and in the very middle of the length, the bamboo turned at a 90 degree angle. It had fallen during the hurricane four months ago, but continued to grow upward, causing the angle in the stalk. This monster stalk caused for an interesting dump truck ride, especially down Creque Dam Road: a windy, skinny, pot-hole-riddled forest route that can barely pass as a street.

The structure took a couple of hours to assemble, but all the hard work paid off. I was extremely proud of it, as I'm sure the other guys who worked on it with me were.


Notice the flag waving. It is hanging off of the top of the monster bamboo stalk...



Rey (Reylbeck Leonardo Mercado Vacca) working the booth:


Ashley working the booth:

Bohio

Bohios were structures where the native Taínos (pre-Columbian inhabitants of most Caribbean islands) lived. We are building one right here:


We used the process of constructing the bohio in our study of sustainable building this past week. While we learned about amazing ways of keeping houses heated and cooled without having any kind of central heat or AC system (even in relatively extreme climates), and about alternative building materials like rammed earth tires or cob, we used the hands-on experience of building the bohio to learn the basics of construction.

The first thing we did was to dig a swale - a ditch dug on contour - that will catch any runoff or erosion. We placed it downhill from the bohio site, and uphill from the pond. The swale will allow the rainwater to seep back into the ground without taking any of our soil with it. It is a great place to plant because so many nutrients are carried here by the runoff.




We planted seven moringa trees and dozens of other plants - crotalaria, jack beans, black eyed peas, etc. You can already see our growth...

Then we were ready to start the foundation. Since our structure is primitive and has a relatively small amount of load to bear, the foundation is simply leveled and tamped earth. Once the foundation was laid, we put up the center post.


This was more difficult than it looks - our auger is only 3.5 feet long and the hole needed to be 5 feet deep. Unfortunately, our post-hole digger is 5 feet long too, so to get those last few inches was quite a workout.

Next, we measured out a perfect circle around the center post with eight stakes spread evenly around the circumference.


Time to dig!


With this many people working, it took no time at all.


The next day we put up the beams that attached the posts together in an octagon. This meant I got to use a portable skill saw, which is pretty awesome, except that I don't have a picture documenting it. But the best part of the day was the sense of accomplishment I got when I could finally climb on something. When you're building something and you can actually start to climb up onto it, you know you're getting somewhere.


The next day we attached the rafters, stretching from the 6-foot-tall beams to the 20-foot-tall post in the center.



Once all the rafters were up, we headed into town with the farm dump truck to collect palm branches. We walked through a couple of different resorts and condominium complexes with machetes in hand, looking for good leaves to use for a thatch roof. We collected all afternoon and probably got enough to fill a quarter of the roof.


All the hard work will be worth it, though, when we can look up at a ceiling full of this:


While others worked on the thatching process, I worked on making bamboo blinds. First we had to split the bamboo.


Then we cleaned them, pieced them back together like a puzzle and tied them up using cordage we had all made the night before.


It looks great close up.


We have a long way to go with the finishing touches. And we still have to build the earthen floor (a clay, soil, and straw mixture poured over gravel and treated with linseed oil and beeswax). But it is definitely coming along... soon we will be sleeping inside the bohio in our hammocks.


For now we have to resort to the ground.

I don't want to spoil what it is - just watch...


From his solo show in Champaign, Illinois on January 31.

sustainable energy project: providing Kyle O'Keefe with a working solar system

In order to complete the Ridge to Reef program, we must each complete a final project and present it to the class. Patrick and I will be designing and installing a solar energy system for a home currently under construction. After one week of work, we have consulted with Kyle twice and come up with a good estimation of his energy needs and a quote for the price of a sufficient system. Most of the supplies are already on the farm, but we are working through this process from start to finish in order to gain experience.

On Thursday, we had a second consultation with our client, Kyle. Before the meeting, Patrick and I had to prepare by sizing and pricing a system based on the things he had told us in our earlier consultation.

We knew that he needed an AC (alternating current as opposed to DC, direct current) system that would provide power for:

• a ceiling fan during hot summer nights
• a laptop computer
• a CD player
• compact fluorescent lighting (with future expansion for front porch and compost toilet)
• halogen lighting
• cell phone charger
• possible electric single-burner stove

We used a sizing worksheet copied out of the Solar Living Sourcebook to calculate his energy needs. Based on average wattage for the above appliances and electronics, we guesstimated that he would use 936 daily watt-hours. This amount of energy would demand (based on St. Croix's solar climate) three solar panels providing 19.5 amps of energy to a battery pack of six batteries providing 36 volts. He would also need a sufficient charge controller that could convert the 36 volts into 12, and an inverter that could handle the amperage. All together, this would cost Kyle approximately $4,187 (not including a few hundred dollars worth of extra supplies and accessories).

A diagram of a solar system using both AC and DC:

We met with Kyle and ran through our findings. We gave him the initial quote, but made sure to note that if his energy consumption could be decreased, we could knock dollars off of the price. We were generous in the amount of daily watt-hours he would need when we sized his system because we figured it was better to be safe than sorry. But after our second meeting with Kyle, he let us know that his usage would be less than we had planned for, so we went back to our sizing worksheet - this time with these numbers in mind:

• ceiling fan for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week (only during summer, but must be considered year-long) - 320 watt-hours/day
  
• laptop computer for 4 hours a day, 7 days a week (a generous amount, but he scratched the CD player in lieu of Pandora or Itunes) - 140 watt-hours/day
  
• 13-watt yellow compact fluorescent for 2 hours a day, 7 days a week (for inside mood lighting - the porch light was not considered as it will be a future addition) - 26 watt-hours/day
  
• 2, 20-watt halogen lights for 3 hours a day, 7 days a week (as task lighting) - 120 watt-hours/day
  
• cell phone charger for one hour a day, 7 days a week - requiring little to no wattage
  
• (The electric stove was nixed after research showed the energy requirement to be very inefficient. Running one of these for two hours a week used more energy than running the ceiling fan for 56 hours a week - Kyle settled with his trusty propane stove instead)

These numbers, while still generous enough to give Kyle and ourselves room to work with, allowed Patrick and I to cut back his system considerably. After our second time through the sizing worksheet, Patrick and I found that Kyle would only use 680 daily watt-hours instead of the previous 936. This meant we could knock off one of the three solar panels and two of the six batteries. We could also get a much cheaper charge controller now that we didn't need one to convert the system voltage (the new battery pack could be wired at 12 volts, the usual amount needed to power appliances and other electronics).

These three changes alone dropped the price from $4,187 to $3,028. A difference of $1,159. Any client would be thrilled to hear that!

Our next task will be to decide on a reasonable inverter for his system. We need to shop online and find one that will fit his needs (a pure sine wave inverter with a sufficient amp rating). We also need to finish talking with Kyle and decide on our final location for the panels - because his home is surrounded by trees, the panels will have to be located on a stand in the field in front of his home. There are at least two possible locations. We must work through the pros and cons of each location in order to decide.

More on that next time...

mahna mahna

This was the first sketch for the series premier of The Muppet Show in 1976. For some reason, it has been stuck in all of our heads for the past two weeks. Maybe it is because Jeff makes a tremendous trumpet sound with his mouth. Either way, it makes me laugh really hard:

running to stand still

My favorite U2 song covered by Elbow:



The song will appear on a charity music compilation put together by War Child called Heroes. From their website:

We asked 15 ultimate icons to select a favourite song from their classic back catalogue and to nominate the new act they most trust to create a unique interpretation of that hand-picked track. This album is the result.

Let's hope this song can speak for the whole.

permanent culture

Last Monday, January 26, I figured out why I am in St. Criox. Obviously, it was a question I was asked a lot when I was making my plans to come, and I don't feel like I ever really had a clear answer. Basically it all boils down to my "problem" that I noticed a few years ago. Only now, I am not angry or sad or 20 years old - I am excited and inspired.

I get caught up, like most people do, in society and culture and all the normal ways of doing things. And I think I've come to grips with the fact that just because something is normal doesn't mean it is bad. Besides, the cultural definition of normal changes from day to day, from place to place. It's just that as long as I can remember (and I hope it never changes), I have seen the pitfalls in conforming to something just because it is the norm. This all sounds very nonconformist I know, but that's what it is. I guess its just a little weird saying it because I'm not some brash punk or bleak goth. I'm just a dude... anyway, back to my point.

So I try my best to look at things outside of the box - and not just to scratch a creative itch - I really think there are better ways to do things than the ways that have become adopted as the norm. And that is why I am here.

Last week, we took an in-depth look into Permaculture. In short, Permaculture is a way to design agricultural and cultural systems that are based on the relationships found in nature. Instead of constantly fighting against nature in order to gain some kind of marginal benefit, we can use natural cycles and symbiotic relationships to gain a great benefit - for us AND for our surroundings. And the great thing about it is that it can be applied to almost anything - farming, our home, our relationships, city planning, etc, etc, etc. A simple example of Permaculture in action is the use of solar energy to power a home.

Growing up, I found that I couldn't get away from the fact that our culture seems to be based on competition. It is everywhere. And it is depressing. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a little friendly competition, and it can force people to strive to be better and it often helps to give "the best" a showcase - but what about everything trampled underfoot?


COOPERATION NOT COMPETITION

For example, here on the farm, we use what are called chicken tractors. These movable chicken coops keep the chickens located over a small area of grass that we want to be mulched. The chickens eat all the bugs, grass and weeds in this area in a couple of days and then we move the tractor. What is left behind is rich soil that is ready to be planted in. No harmful soil erosion or nutrient loss through tilling. No harmful chemicals in industrial fertilizer. Little need for chicken feed. And best of all: little work! It is very exciting, I promise.

So, I don't know if I explained it very well, but I figured out why I am here. I want to learn how to harness the endless power and energy that we have all been provided and have access to in nature. Although it may be harder for people in urban environments, everyone has the ability to use the gifts that God has given us in creation. Instead of raping and hoarding to get what we need, we can go with the flow that has already been established. There is plenty to go around, you just have to know how to get it. I want to learn how to get it, and I want to give it to others.