Learning about Fund-raising

I am wrestling my mind and heart around the option of on-line fundraising for the solar equipment and honey comb sub-flooring for my home. I have what is called "slow-credit" and can't get traditional loans. I have only ever worked for what I have and spent what I had, never gone into any kind of debt, and I have a huge streak of independence.. so I rarely ask for help unless I REALLY REALLY need it. One thing though that I want dearly to learn surrounded by the stability of my own home is how to be less independent, how to ask for what I need and want, to give and receive... The thought of making clothes and pop-up books for people who want to donate to an Indiegogo campaign is thrilling, but I have huge anxiety about how to get my heart in the right place to ask. I know that I am going to do it, step by step, create the campaign, promote it and see how it goes. I just watched this amazing video Ted Talk by Amanda Palmer on the art of asking
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/04/amanda-palmer-on-the-art-of-asking-ted/

My friend David is coming to the trailer on Tuesday to help me make the video, and I am writing to business and individuals asking for support in promoting the campaign. If you would like to help me, please let me know.

Isn't money really the best tool for metaphor. People use it all over the world to share our ideas and shape our collective reality, and more than anything I observe that it is used as the expression of our deep desire to co-operate. Aside from being extremely useful it can also be very spiritual.

I was walking in the forest on St. Patrick's day with my dog and I found $144 lying on the path!
What better song could there be for such an event?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCE0z4V3USQ
"Everybody has Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey!" by The Beatles
"Come on and set your joy, come on and set your joy, come on and take it easy come on and take it easy! Your outside is in when your inside if out, the higher you fly the deeper you go, so come on! Everybody has got something to hide except for me and my Monkey!"

Sycamore Drop-Leaf table

 Jack Hudson is building the only piece of free moving furniture I will have in my home, a narrow drop-leaf table that will store at the end of the chest freezer that is my fridge, and when out will extend to be about 7ish feet long. There will be stools that fit under the table. I love to cook and I love to have people over for dinner, and this will be my dinning room table! It is made from locally harvested spalted sycamore that some knuckle-head chopped down and left to rot when he cleared bog lands for his horses. It was starting to rot when the person called Landus Bennett of Watson Springs to come and mill it up. I can't wait to see the finished piece, and see the house that it will go in. I had better get back to work!

Jack, it's beautiful! I feel so honored! I can't wait to have people over and serve them some home made ravioli on the plates you turned for me, on this beautiful table!

Plumbing is happening! WAAAAAA!!

Steve Carson is the fellow who has agreed to come and work with me to install the plumbing for my home. We are staring in the front, installing the kitchen system, as it is a simpler version of what will happen in the back. First, I built a metal frame to elevate the tank so that the lowest point is above the exterior drain outlet door, and I covered it with a used yoga mat donated by cal Clements at Rubber Soul Yoga. Thanks Cal, I don't want my tank to get all scratched up!
Here you can see the pitch of the tank, one side is higher than the other. Next a piece of PEX tubing is installed into a brass fitting in the tank, using only pipe dope. If you use Teflon tape on plastic fittings it will expand the fitting and might cause it to crack, so only use pipe dope on plastic fittings. This is a picture of the inlet side of the tank, but the outlet to the pump is the same, a brass fitting with a compression ring over the fitting barb. next in-line, before the pump is a shut off valve.

 After the shut off value, before the pump is a filter/strainer to keep any debris from getting in the pump( and is also necessary for the pump warranty). It's the black thing there to the right. After this strainer we are using tubing that is the same size as the smallest fitting, which is on the in-line biological filter.

 Here are the PEX compression fittings in the pump. They just push together..so simple!Then comes the biological filter and the charcoal/clarity filter.