Memphis DemocratJuly 27, 2006

Ted here at Dancing Rabbit. The ongoing heat wave last week was a test of will power for me. Air conditioning at Dancing Rabbit comes in a few forms; one of the most successful and common is earth contact, buildings whose thermal mass is connected to the ambient ground temperature, which hovers between 45 and 55 degrees all year. There are two earth-bermed structures here-- Dan's house and the Common House. The former has proven itself in the past year to be among the most comfortable in all weather; the latter, bermed to a lesser extent, is better than average but somewhat less effective at holding a relatively constant core temperature. Sara's and my house, though it has an earthen floor in contact with the earth beneath as a summer cooling asset, also has an attached greenhouse which gains extra heat during the day, and is not shaded from the hot afternoon sun, which heats our whole western wall and thus the interior as well; so it performs well in winter for holding ambient heat but not in summer for holding coolth. And now we have a baby who is wonderfully effective at keeping herself and anybody holding her quite extra warm on these hot days!

As I bent my will toward trying to continue working through the hot days, I mused and schemed constantly day and night about what form of shade awning to erect on the west wall of the house. I'd also love to plant some shrubs and fast-growing vines there to create a cooler microclimate, but we plan an addition on that side, so I can't plant anything there. We built an experimental cooling system into our house, basically 6" tubing that starts at ground level, goes in through the foundation, down into the cavity around the cistern about five feet below ground, and then comes up through and emerges from the cob half-wall that separates the house from the greenhouse downstairs. The idea was that when a vent in the flue upstairs was opened and all other windows and doors kept closed, a draw would be created which would pull hot air from upstairs up and out the chimney while drawing cool air in through the deep tubing. We've found that it doesn't work passively as hoped. This week I finally wired a small DC muffin fan (the kind used to cool computers) near the tubing end in the house. When running, it does blow cooler-than-ambient temperature air in, but it didn't seem to be as cool as I would have expected, leading me to wonder whether the ground water was high enough to be blocking the deepest run of the tube, halting air flow (though that seems unlikely given our generally droughty conditions for the past year); or whether it just needed more inducement, another fan blowing in at the tube's inlet outside, perhaps. Research continues, so stay tuned...

One common pursuit last week was watching movies in the evening. Monday night, still recovering from the sugar crash after Amy's birthday desert dinner, I showed The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eight Dimension, a decidedly oddball but hilarious sci-fi comedy that is one of my favorites. Having seen it before though, I found the approaching storm at sunset a bigger draw, and slipped out to watch the amazing lightning show. Friday Molly showed some Monty Python, one TV episode and one of the movies, always entertaining, and promised more this week.

Alyson's friend Toby, a Brit who'd visited DR previously, departed mid-week trailing tantalizing rumours of coming back to live here for a while. Down to three longer term visitors at DR this week, the atmosphere was a little quieter. Michelle departed only to return a couple days later, Chris found a good walking stick to help nurse an ankle turned in a frisbee game, and David came to stomp and help cob on Ironweed's chicken wall several days despite the heat. For some reason a good number of us still thought it was a good idea to play ultimate frisbee several mornings starting at seven, though it was already 90 one day by the time we finished. I heard Tony leading a workshop on consensus for both visitors and some DR residents one day while washing diapers in the common house.

A whole team of folks gathered with various sharp tools Saturday afternoon to go cut lespedeza on our land. Lespedeza is an invasive weed once thought to be good for erosion control and forage, but which in fact discourages other, native plants from living amongst its thick colonies. and we've been on a multi-year campaign to strongly discourage it from growing on our land. Skyhouse ramped up construction efforts again, preparing for the installation of finished floor, walls and all the trimmings downstairs in advance of Amy and Juan's wedding in September. Sara's parents came down for another, longer visit to see Aurelia and help out, but we spent part of the weekend traveling down to Columbia for the sad purpose of gathering to remember a college friend of Sara's who died this past week.

With the refreshing cool arriving late in the week, I started to feel more myself again, and was happy to fall asleep one night in need of a blanket and needing to put a hat on swaddled Aurelia. The additional rain seemed to wash away the accumulated sweat and stickiness of the heat wave, leaving me quite refreshed. The heat is returning now (it is Summer, after all), but I think I'll make it. I'll have a little mental sun block this week as I start to gather brassica and other seeds for the fall crop. We're enjoying the last, best bucket of last fall's kim chee now, just as we plant the substance of this year's batch, chinese cabbage, diakon radish, and scallions. The garlic crop has already come in in the past few weeks, and now our tomatoes are coming on full strength. Never a dull time of year, July!

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