Okay machine.

I am getting ready to finish the floors, as in , pull up the dry fit together wood, finish each piece on all six sides, cut and Kiltz the sub-floor plywood and then put the pine back in. First though I have to get ready to move completely into my bedroom, and Monkey needs to have his room finished so he has somewhere to be. So, I am testing my order of operations by finishing the floor in his room, and getting the trim work done in my bedroom far enough that I can paint and finish installing the wire rack shelf mounted storage compartments.

 chiseling out the recess for the D-Rings that allow me to open the hatch doors

 A-coupla-layas-a-Kiltz

 A-coupla-layas-a-poly

 Some caulk along the trim

 finishing the sand filter installation, finishing the wall paneling in Monkey's room. getting ready to put the floor in for good and teach myself how to do the main room.

Off-grid toilet info graphic

The most commonly asked ? About my house is "what kind if toilet do you have? ". Here us a handy little off grid toilet info graphic i found in a magazine at the free bin in the library . Essentially i built a version as seen in the right but i added worms to speed decomposition and produce black gold.

 Sorry this one is side-ways

Assemble your own trailer break away kit.. ..1/2 the $

Assemble your own trailer emergency breakaway kit for half the price by purchasing each component separately. breakaway switch, battery charger/controller, 12 volt battery, plastic housing box.

The advantages of building with steel

I love building with steel.  it is very easy to make design changes when building with it,  and it is easy to read-use,  so it produces very little waste.  The strength to weight ratio is a benefit that speaks for itself: it won't burn or mold.

I have noticed that the entrance to the master bedroom/storage/Monkey room/loft access needed to be wider,  and it was a very fast afternoon modification.

" Sometimes a girl needs a truck" - Donny Rai

I am not gonna lie,  sometimes a girl does need a truck,  so I called my red-neck physicist Donny Rai. He had some errands to run on the same side of town as the supplies I needed, so we truck-pooled.  I would have had a hard time transporting the 16' rails to mount my solar panels and the plywood for my sub-floor by bike.  Thank you for helping me this morning

Biking to Atlanta to testify before the Federal Election Commission

On behalf of the Georgia climate change coalition today I biked 60 miles from Athens to Atlanta Georgia. I am here to testify tomorrow before the vice chairman of the Federal Election Commission. The public testimony being sought pertains to the Effects of money awash in our political system In particular my remarks will speak directly to the tens of thousands of dollars which has been given to the political campaigns of the governors of Georgia Alabama and Tennessee by a natural gas company Spectra Energy based out of Texas whom the governor of Florida is a shareholder of. Spectra Energy has intentions of building the stable trail pipeline across many states to export fracked gas. Please follow the link below to see photos from this trip.

http://daily.represent.us/activist-biking-60-miles-atlanta


Also today the Georgia Water Coalition released its dirty dozen report. It details the 12 worst threats to water quality in Georgia . See number nine!
http://garivers.org/gawater/dirtydozen2014.html

I am very grateful for the stability having my trailer provides to my life. Housing instability has been an issue for me since I was a teenager , but having provided that most basic need for myself allows me the time to undertake efforts such as this.

Fresh moxie. " This jam is real! "

Thank you Ken Ogletree for being along for the ride for so long, being so familiar with my progress,  that with just a look at my rig you can plainly say "In 9 months you will be done. " Thank you Jean Mi of Poncili Creation for standing my the living room and telling me, while looking up,  " Don't stop.  Keep going! " I can see you and hear your voice!  Today I am getting back to work!

Poncili Creation!!!!!!!

 [ CHAOTIC         TRANQUIL    ]     PONCILI CREATION!!!!!!!

 I met Luis and Jose when I biked recently to Bread and Puppet in Vermont. The performing season there is over, so they hooked up with Puerto Rican Surreal Puppeteering Troupe Poncili Ceation on their tour. They came to Athens, so myself and Logan Shirah rented a room in  small hotel on the out skirts of town, transformed it into a theater and put on a show for them!!!! See more photos at HERE!!!

Thank you for coming to visit me at my house!!!! I look forward to touring with all of you in the future!!!! Paz! Gretchen

Climate Justice Ride

 

At the Atlanta airport..gear and I ready to fly and ride. Bike folds up and gets checked like any old baggage. US Airways and Delta both give me a carbon credit discount because I am a full time cyclist, and was taking my bike as my transport on arrival at my destination.

Citizen's Climate Lobby has been advancing the opposite strategy: working to build the political will to implement a carbon tax, where by a person ("person" I mean an individual person AND a corporation) pay more to burn burn burn, in a nut shell. 

Biking around the island that Montreal lives on.

R.I.P. to a cyclist

BIKE POWER!!!

My dear friend Lisa came to spend a few days with my in Montreal with her new baby JULIAN!!!!

Then I started biking south. This is the path that I took to begin my journey.

Biking and camping through the Quebec country-side.

Dog in bike trailer!!!!

ONE LOVE MASSIVE                                            A MOVING MEDITATION

Solar powered Vermont dairy farm.

Wind powered Vermont Welcome Center

Biking and camping through " The Kindgom" in North-eastern Vermont

Sawyer water filtration

ONE LOVE MASSIVE                                                                          A MOVING MEDITATION

Amish Peach farmer

Wind towers on the Lowell Mountain range

Meeting Scott Money, born and raised in The Kingdom.

Arriving at Bread and Puppet in Glover Vermont. The oldest running non-profit theater company in the U.. My friend Daniel lived there this season as the gardener.

To see many more photos of this portion of the journey, including loads of photos of the Bread and Puppet Farm + Theater click HERE

When I left B & P I started cycling through Vermont down route 100. Vermont has done a great deal at the state level to promote clean energy infrastructure!!!!

 Many of the small communities I rode through are fighting small pipelines.

 A little bit of signage is an in-expensive way for the community to create infrastructure and increase the quality of lie for it's residents.

 The Mark Twain library in Redding CT. Totally Solar Powered!!!!

 Where there is a will there is a way to make solar hot water work!!! in Oxford, CT

 I rode to the Nature's Classroom site in Colebrock Ct were my friend Emily Montesinos is living and working this season. I was the special guest and got to talk with the kids who were there for the week abut BIKE POWER and Climate Change.

 I found this guy's iPad on the side of the road. We met in Danbury CT so I could give it back to him

 Guerrilla camping

 The Mark Twain Library in Redding CT

 I cycled through the fancy towns of Bedford and New Canan.. Like an Instructable crashing an issue of Martha Stewart Living

 Then I rode up to Peekskill and over the Bear Mountain Bridge, which connected with 9 down the west bank of the Hudson River, over the George Washington Bridge and all the way into Brooklyn to see my friend and his new little son!

 THE PEOPLE'S CLIMATE MARCH:


So, we all got in our places and picked out our caribou puppet and figured out how to wear it for our own best comfort. I strapped mine to my bike helmet and used one hand to work the head and one hand to steer my bike. Then, under an over cast sky, on a cool day, we waited for the parade to start. It took tow and a half hours of us to start moving. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had. Thousands of people together, sharing food, drink, song, stories and our common cause. At one point everyone in the crowd, from the front of the parade to the back observed two minutes of silence for all those affects already by climate change, and then we all let out a collective cry, an alarm, of anguish, for the pain we all feel in common for what is being done to our beautiful planet. I found that one of my fellow caribou had come up from Athens on the Georgia Climate Change Coalition buses I had helped organize!!! LOGAN!!! Before leaving Athens at the start of September I had made some flyers and ridden my bike around Athens passing them out to anyone I saw that I thought might be keen to come, and one person did! He found me because of my bucket luggage!!!! I saw a fellow from Madison WS.that I had met at the Cowboy and Indian Alliance in Washington D.C. in April!!!

The Bread and Puppet performance in the parade consisted of a herd of 60 white caribou being chased by the Tar Sands Monster behind us... the head and black arms of the actual tar sands being honored and supported by the skeletons of the companies and driven from behind by the skull of GREED OF THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT!!!!! At certain points in the parade a cacophony of sound of begin and the Tar Sands Monster would attack the caribou! We would all get down on the ground, throw our heads in the air and quake while the people in black moved among us blaring dissonant horns and the arms of the tar Sands Monster would cover our bodies!!! But then, from behind the FISTS OF RESISTANCE would rise up and from behind the STOP THE TAR SANDS AT THE SOURCE banner the BUTTERFLIES AT THE END OF THE WORLD would fly in to rescue us and drive the dark figures away, the Bread and Puppet marching band would begin to play When the Saints Go marching In, Biannca would start to play the sleigh bells again and the herd would keep moving forward. We got attacked right in front of Radio City Music Hall!

To see more images of the leg of the journey that took me from Vermont to NYC click HERE