Dirt Floor

ecological fitness-fusing forms

2009-07-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

The three forms which merge into ecological fitness:
European/Asian/NY City living
Country living (global)
Fitness (drawn largely from crossfit methodologies)

Brief outline of each:

European/Asian city Living
Travel
The foot as a primary means of daily travel
The bicycle as the secondary means
the train as the third
Gathering/food
the neighborhood as marketplace within range of primary,secondary
Food can come from outlying growing regions to farmers markets
Work/school
Within tertiary range
Social
Public space accepted as extension of personal (sidewalk,park, river, library,museum, pub/bar)
Fitness
Walking, cycling, personal sports (dance, gymnastics etc)

Country Living
Travel
The foot as a primary means of daily travel
The bicycle as the secondary means
the van/truck as the third
Gathering/food
the regional marketplace within range of secondary (with effort) or tertiary
Food can come from outlying growing regions to farmers markets and be at least supplemented by personal gardens and livestock
Work/school
Within primary (uphill ten miles in snow both ways) secondary or tertiary range
Social
Public space accepted mostly as the privet home and idea of guests, farmers market, PO, feedstore,Bar
Fitness
Building/Farming

Fitness
Achieved by using more energy than is needed for the tasks at hand

Problem
How to incorporate fitness into the two lifestyles

some proposed projects for self

2009-03-08T23:34:00.000-07:00

Wear 1
suit
trousers
button shirt
tee shirt
underwear
socks
pair shoes
sweater

Put everything else away for the month and see what it's like living at home just as I would on a trip.
Might this help me cull the crap?

ecological fitness

2009-03-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

My brother in law (Andrew) and I had a nice time carrying beams up to the house and thinking about fitness, especially as it applies to this type of activity. Five kids under five were running around on the deck and playing, swinging on the apple tree and generally having a five under five type of time. So we are having our heady conversation when two short people poke their heads around the corner and ask what we are doing. "Staking these beams" I tell them" At that moment I realized an opportunity in line with the type of fitness I'm trying to describe. As expected they asked to help. My first thought was, this is going to slow me down, my second was how funny I am. I said sure, you can help, nodding to Andrew, both of us thinking how enlightened we were becoming. Letting go of ideas like mass and time and integrating community, teaching and quality into the concept of fitness. I told them the two to follow me and we could move a long 2x8 tongue and groove fir floor board. They followed, down the slope and over the hand dug stairs. I picked up on end of the board, "you two get this end" I looked up. I saw two backs and a cowlick disappearing back around the stack of lumber. "we don't want to actually" There is another type of flexibility, one that promotes an interest, that emphasizes what is important, but that at the same time recognizes the constructed meaning in all of our actions. I didn't need them to help, and perhaps they new this.
A half an hour latter one of them was back, this time with another friend, a girl and my cousins daughter. They too asked what we were doing and again, we told them we were heading down to the bridge to get more lumber. Would you like to come and help I asked. They nodded and began the trek down the trail. We walked more slowly, Andrew and I slightly quieter, a bit less pontificating. At the bottom I picked out two nice pieces of firewood for them to carry. " Bring this to Adeline's grandma's house OK" They made off, really quit proud of helping. I'll show you were to go I heard the girl tell the little boy as they passed above us on the trail.

ecological fitness

2009-03-08T22:59:00.001-07:00

is as new as farming, gathering, hunting- Not new at all. Lift a little more, carry it a little further, feel colder in the morning, and get the warmth your movement created. It has been called everything from life, to country livin or mountain living, back to the land. I think there is a twist. The twist for today is that I'm speaking to those of us whose lives are not ecologically integrated. I can't imagine that is not each of us. Even some solar powered chamie shined anarchist living on bed bugs drove to the "land" they bought with a bond extricated at the top of time. Forget shame but dont sham we are historically situated (I've been told this is so). We have so much delivered to us by near slave labor.
Ecological fitness begins where we are. It doesn't require leaving, and understands we are "in the country" right now, always. So, as much as being a fitness program, this is an attempt at re conceptualizing our articulation with and of the environment. How do we move in our environment? What is both the internal and external milieu, How is it supporting us and we it. Are we it distinctions useful?
What might some basic tenants of Ecological Fitness look like? If you have a wood stove, your workout is getting firewood. If you can carry one piece, that's your workout. If that keeps you warm, an integration has happened. If your still cold, you might continue to collect more firewood, developing fitness in the domain of staying warm. Perhaps you need help getting firewood. Your neighbor might help you. That neighbor has now integrated fitness again, now bringing community and perhaps even caring into the equation. She is now stronger, both of body and whatever name we apply to those other domains. Simply Country living? Perhaps you are hungry in the city. You walk to the corner store rather than drive. Now, instead of conceptualizing this simply as a fitness regime, it is extended. You see your neighbors, they see you. A child sees you talking to his mother and his world is changed. Perhaps on the way you notice some litter. Tomorrow you carry a small bag and pick up a piece of recycling. An integration has occurred. Neighbor(hood)s are connected, body is strengthened, and those other domains, the ones with names like mind and spirit are altered. Ecological fitness is a recognition that the world and ourselves are always already in a natural state. The idea that city and country are somehow qualitatively discreet is dismantled or ignored. The belief that we and our world are either natural or industrial is recognized as the convenient construct that it is.
Might ecological fitness be a movement? Sure. We can create workouts. An example goes something like this. I imagine you can be far more creative. Carry your neighbors groceries home two blocks, or, if you need it, let your neighbor help you. Perhaps talk with one and other en route. Advanced workouts? Boot camp becomes a month long volunteer project in your neighborhood. Do the labor. Feel the labor. Rather than simply trying to get the work done, re conceptualize it. It is making you stronger, it is integrating you ecologically.
Clearly many are and have always done the workouts. As I said up front, this has gone by many names. Most of all I'm trying to create a new conceptual framework around fitness. This new model will include variable long valued and promoted. The only novel idea is that fitness is not only about the the movement of mass over time. It begins to employ or be made up of a more complex set of variables.
You might argue that there is no need for this. It is fine to continue to define each concept in narrow terms. Fine to let fitness be about mass over time, and leave the other stuff to concepts of community, faith, love etc. One argument in favor of integration relates to time. If there is value deemed in community and love and faith, why spend not integrating those concept into our life. Why not integrate?

the end of the great pretend?

2009-02-26T22:27:00.001-08:00

what will go by the wayside when the end of the great pretend presents itself with hunger
what will become of trucker caps-key chains-tight jeans-soft hands-rough hair-acres of keds-fix bikes-what will become of art school?
What will become of-bumper sticker toting volvos-navel gazing whole foodies with an egg shell satisfaction of farmers market austerity and sanctimonious would have done it different had I not been finishing that remodel-
What will become of south east Asia- More importantly, how will the kids "really see the world" without it?
What will become of all that volunteer work when it no longer gets you to the front of the professional school line
What will become of professional schools when brain drain starts here and there is one doctor per gazillion.
Who will we be at the end of the great pretend?
I know I know I know a new theater will open, one always does. Some sort of earnest humorlessness probably.
Something must lie between pith helmets and unspeakable worse.

Embracing Cold Hunger and Dirt

2007-11-11T13:24:00.000-08:00

The blogcrastinator is back.
So, early in the fall I decided I need to think about and engage in activities and choices that will bring me closer to the title. Well, I live in Canyon and it's November now. My Polarguard 3D red suit is in full use (you either know or you don't). Wait, wearing a warm suit to embrace cold? Right, and I burn madrone too. But cold mornings are. Dirt: Ever been to my house, or walked up the trail through the mud? No hot water heater for the past month. Did I embrace this or did it embrace me? Not sure but I'm lucky th ehouse didn't burn down. I know going to grandma's for a bath is much easier than when I was a kid. And, it is not once a week. My daughter likes bathing there, and she likes the sponge baths I give her. Here is how it works...stand in the bath tub, towel is heating in the oven, and wrap child in a cotton towel that has been soaked in very warm water. Scrub scrub. As it begins to cool, about a minute, get the warmed towel and replace the wet one. Dry dry. Uses about a quart of water, is a bit cozy, keeps the kid clean. That said CPS, she does get her baths, and the towel in the oven thing...just kidding, it's on the stove. My attitude about this follows: We do have hot water, we can heat it in several ways, so what is the big deal about not having a big hot water heater?
Hunger: From 167 to 147? My wife has said "enough, don't loose any more weight", I'm not the man I used to be I guess. I'm at fighting weight I say. I have a one pack if I kind of twist to my left and suck in and down at the same time. A one pack!! really, losing almost 20 pounds when I was not big in the first place is interesting, but what is much better has been my turn to eating real food. It took several months to go from pint of B&J's to horrible fat free sugar free pudding, to a piece of fruit for desert (fuya persimmon). The change has been organic and while I make errors and get super hungry, it happens very rarely. Mostly I ( who love fast food, cookies, ice cream) eat real healthy food. I embraced huger and now I'm not.

In the future things I will think about: Building with local materials. I live in a bay forest and have found that there isa way to build with cordwood that does not require straitght non twisting wood. I plan to build a sauna first to see how this goes, before I make MY castle of trees.

What is the interface between science and art? I am not trying to get at the aesthetisization of science, but an epistomology that utilizes and recognizes art. Not just the aesthtic, the conceptual. Is there a relationship between praxis of caring, epistomology and art?

Canyon

2007-06-10T10:26:00.000-07:00

For those of you out there, my many readers who have the book Canyon:last rural community in metropolitan America (notice the acedemic colon), I recommend a few sections. There is an amazing paragraph under Canyon Cinema where it's founder Bill Baillie describes the house we grew up in. He's a good writer adn it's a bit spooky is feelng about the place. But, of relevence to this blog is what another neighbor is quoated as saying in the book. I guess there were some thieving issues in Canyon back then (1960's) and his respose at a community meeting was "don't have anything worth ripping off". Sometimes I wonder if the hippy dream doessn't live just a wee bit in us. As silly as they were, they were not silly at all those parents of ours.
One of my readership pointed out too, that houses are not fortesses anyway. I agree. On a much less idealistic note, or at least a practical one, isn't this what Safes were designed for anyway. So your valuables go into a safe. You can afford it with a canvas house. Being out here in Canyon, my biggest issues are simply put, insulation. Anway, I'm leaning toward Polarguard Delta! These are basic issues that Yurt livers have already been dealing with. Maybe I can get some input from Yurt/Tipi pros?

Next post... School Buses for living...

Just kidding.

Theft

2007-06-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

My neighbor and I were talking and he wondered if theft would be a problem with a canvas house. This led us to a conversation and some thoughts about contained preciousness. what is rally in our homes that can and would be stolen? High mass fortresses were initially established by those who were intent upon steeling from others. We are in the lineage of those thieves, and our excess is all that makes us vulnerable. Not unlike with ultralight backpacking, Low mass additions may require a systemic view of consumption and ownership. Look around your apartment or home and think about what could or would actually be of value to a thief. I for one would support a very warm thief. We build fortesses to house gold. Can we shed our need for both?
zp

Canvas Additions

2007-06-05T01:06:00.000-07:00

I'm getting into the idea of low mass. Well no kidding, but not for backpacking or alternative living spaces, but for home additions. Living in the SF bay area has led me to disdain all talk of remodel, and picture windows. But, it is the talk of the town and I find it hard not tho think about how my own home could be cool, more useful. The thing is, all the green architecture in the world is still adding more mass and resources than doing nothing, except insulation i suppose. So, while I am interested in smallness, I want more room. Hum, an American. So, how about additions that are made of canvas. Now, I like Yurts and everything, and despise domes, you would have to know me a long time to understand exactly why, and it has little to do with wet patch. But yurts and domes just don't jive with my sense of line. I like straight lines. I'm a mid century modernist by disposition, or at least sensibility. So, on with it, clean straight line structures skinned with canvas or other cloth. The coolest thing about indigenous homes it turns out is not their hippy dippy circle shape (which I do like for its own sense), but really what they are about is low mass. Low mass. I guess I have to address the earth ship issue. I like them, I guess. Do I want to live underground? Maybe. I wont rule out earth ships, but until then, how about a kitchen addition made of canvas?

Request Thrift-gear

2007-06-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

Tell me your size, the particular piece of kit you need, and your use (temp range ect) and I will send you a piece free.
My basic premise for establishing this practice is to promote the idea of a new relationship with material culture around outdoor recreation. It's my hope that if you don't need the piece you will give it away or return it to a thrift store, and hope that you tell people about Thrift gear.
Zimparka

Ultralight school

2007-05-02T13:14:00.000-07:00

Is it time for an ultralight backpacking school? Where would the gear come from? Do you give the students a gear list? I don't think you can do that.

Thrift Gear

2007-05-02T12:11:00.000-07:00

More thrift pack

2007-05-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

thrift pack

2007-05-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

Gear List and thoughts about safety

2007-04-21T15:56:00.000-07:00

Gourmet Gearlist for solo tavel through the woods

Pack-Golite Breeze-12
Garbage Bags-.25
Sleeping bag-summer-Western Mountaineering Iroquois
fall-WM Badger
Water Bottle x2-2 oz from grocery store
Shelter-Homemade sil-nylon-15
Groundcloth-Tyvec-10
Pad-Z-rest cut down-8
Fishing Pole
Windshirt-Patagonia Dragonfly-3
Rain jacket-TNF diad-9
Wind pants-Golite-5.75
Warm hat-Thriftgear fleece-1.25
Headlamp-Zippka-2
Stakes-3.75
tights-smartwool-2.5
Warm Jacket-Micropuff-11
Socks -15
Warm Shirt-Capilene-6.5
Medical kit-2.75
Windscreen-1.5
Pot handle-1
Stove-Esbit-3
cord-1.75
Cup-Thrift-1
Pot/cozy-1 liter-5.75
Fire/emergencyKit-3
Gloves-TNF powershild-2
123oz=7.68Lbs

I have found as many have, that a basic ten pound base weight is easy to achieve without any undue risk or deprivation. It is gained primarily via a reduction of tent-backpack and sleeping bag weight, although everything really does go together as a kit. I want to emphasize what many know but what I think some may still be concerned with, which is safety. If your worry is bugs and you don't camp in a jungle, then I can't help you and your a weak american

This kit is for three season, sleeping below treeline, and without continuous snow.

However, there is a certain amount of common sense and skill that must be followed (I believe rigorously (my wife might say facistically) in order to assure safety.
1) Drink enough water throughout your hike. Either be sure you can find water easily ( as in a wet year) or carry a little weight penalty to make sure you have some if you make some wrong designs) Not only does an extra liter of water greatly extend your chances of survival, but, it helps your mind relax to know that you can just sit down and heat some water for tea or coco.
2) Have the ability to start a fire in the rain. This means that a little extra weight in the form of dry tinder, matches, a lighter and some third means in a third area of your kit is needed. Remember, this is for that river crossing where you slipped in, your bag is dunked, your cold, and it starts to hail, all in a matter of ten minutes. This is not unusual or unlikely. I have found that in addition to carrying tinder, it is worth the effort to carry a fanny pack full of dry sticks (I use this as a support for my belt-less pack) up to an inch and a half in diameter if there has been or may be bad weather. If the weather is clear dont sweat it. If it begins to rain, pick up some dry skicks and carry them with you- Esbit tabs make the best wet weather tinder in my experience.
3) Keep a set of warm clothes in a dry (garbage) bag in your pack,and DO NOT remove them until you have a shelter up. This can be a difficult rule to stick by, but I think it is critical. Your hiking along all day in the rain, and are getting a little cold. You know that you could get some more mileage if you just warmed up a bit with your warm shirt or jacket. My rule would make me throw up my tarp between some trees before I take out the insulated jacket. I can then brew up in the dry with some warmth. If then I decide to continue, I put the micropuff back into its bag, take down the tarp and venture back out. My warm (kept dry) cloths are of course dependent upon the geography and season, however it includes at least a light weight fleece shirt, synthetic or down pullover, socks, fleece hat, and usually although not always long underwear. Of course a sleeping bag can be considered part of this kit. There are those who would argue, not without merit, that the sleeping bag could serve this purpose alone. This however is my personal margin of safety and weight penalty for my skill level and confidence. Also, having a good synthetic jacket and extra dry clothes is the reason I can carry down for sleeping while knowing that I would survive if the bag did get soaked. (Put up tarp, put on dry clothes, build fire) You can see that keeping your sleeping bag in its own garbage bag separate from dry clothes (and for me also inside a silnylon stuff sack) adds to redundancy in two areas, and demonstrates the importance of dry warm insulation.
4) Not imperative but useful: When stopping in bad weather to eat, take the time to put up your tarp, and put on warm clothes. There is something to the diligence of this approach that is useful.
As you can see, none of the above rules have anything to do with carrying a heavy tent versus a lightweight tarp. In fact, as many others have said, carrying less weight enables you to perform several important activities.
1) move up, over and off a pass, to below treeline before bad weather hits.
2) be less exhausted, therefore more focused and creative in the face of changes

The only difference between a tent and a tarp is the need to camp below treeline in a storm. Clearly that is were you should be anyway, but I will emphasize here that I agree with many on this. Sleep above cold katabatic air but in the shelter of trees, preferably in the soft duff of pines. However, do be careful of very dry pine duff in downpours, as if you are in the wrong place, the water will run right off and under your tarp. You need either absorbant soil or a high spot for a safe tarp pitch.

Garbage Bags: You notice I have already mentioned two, one for my sleeping bag, and one for my dry clothes. I usually have two more. These can serve as sleeping bag covers, vapor barriers, ponchos, and can be filled with dry or partially dry duff to serve as insulation. Point is, always have a few large glad bags.
So, you see, the weight I save by going ultralight actually allows me to be more cautious and to have a greater, not a smaller, margin of safety. I don't fret about two pound or extra water (although I try to avoid this by planning) three ounces of sticks, an ounce of plastic bags, or even an extra warm shirt. I never go out with the thought that a change in the weather would be dangerous. In fact, I expect it, and in my heart of hearts, hope for it.

Taking a kid camping

2007-04-21T12:39:00.000-07:00

It seems that for many people, backpacking ends when children come, and doesn't start again until the rascal reaches about 7 years old. I have found that ultralight technique is well suited to camping with little kids who can't carry their own gear. the following is a little description of our current approach to camping with our three year old. We first took our daughter to Desolation Wilderness when she was 4 months old, and in many ways that was the easiest time because she didn't complain much, was still light enough to carry, and I could use my clothing as her sleeping gear, saving more weight. I think on that first trip she slept in a Patagonia puffball jacket, while I was in my Western Mountaineering Iroquois under our Tarptent Rainshadow. I carried her in front in a large piece of fabric called a Didymos http://www.didymos.de/english/index_e.htm and on my back carried my Golite Breeze. My wife carried the G4. The Rainshadow is still our shelter of choice. Henry Shires http://www.tarptent.com/ makes perhaps the best ultralight shelters in my opinion, and the Rainshadow is his three person tarptent. I have been thinking about a large pyramid however, given my now three year old daughters propensity for jumping up and down in the tent, and her utter lack of concern for things like mud and wet tent walls. My current approach for her sleeping bag is a north face beeline which I pull to shorten from the inside, giving her a 19 oz bag with an entire extra two layers over her (three layers total). She sleeps on a car windshield reflector and never complains. I know, my wife thinks it's cruel, but kids don't really need padding, their bones are still soft. Because she sleeps in pajamas she is never cold, although I bring along a little down suit just in case. My concern when she was younger, that she would slide out of the bag and get cold at night is no longer a problem. for those with infants and kids under two, I think a nice down suit is a great option for ensuring their warmth. Someone needs to make some nice kid size Polarguard and Qantum suits! My wife and I share a Western Mountaineering Badger used as a quilt, with a piece of Epic fabric pinned along the zippers to decrease drafts and give us something to lay on. We also have a Golite Fuzz-2 that I like, but it's heavier and not as warm as the Badger, so...it ends up staying home. We started sharing a sleeping bag with pinned in fabric on the JMT using a Mountainsmith Vision, which is a great bag that is no longer made, giving us easy 25 degree comfort at two pounds.

Carrying

This is a bit of a work in progress, and my dream of a single wheeled sled a-la Bob bicycle trailer meets snow Pulk (see the pictures above) is in the works. In the meantime however, My wife carries all of our gear in a GVP G4, www.gossamergear.com at about 25 pounds max. I carry our daughter and the food in a thriftgear Snugli backpack carrier which has a big integrated bag. On our most recent three day 32 mile trip this worked relatively well, although I was carrying 40 pounds in a crappy bag. More reason to get to making my land-sled.
So, backpacking with a slow moving kid means carrying her if one wants to make any distance. She did alot of running and then "carry me" which was fine. My approach was basically for her to have fun the whole time, and for us to learn how to have fun within a new set of contexts and expectations. In both domains we were successfull.

Dirt Floor

2007-04-09T22:18:00.000-07:00

Dirt floor is the name given to a movement whereby I'm attempting to understand, articulate and generally theorize about life simplification. I enter this pursuit with the presumption that my life, and I believe many others, is incredibly complex and an interest in understanding why, and how that may change, toward simplicity.
Beginning with an inquiry into material culture, I am attempting to locate my need for and pursuit of comfort. The premise is that comfort very quickly becomes psychological and emotional after ones physical needs are met, and that these needs are insatiable after one begins to pursue them.
Dirtfloor essentially asks then, at what point am I physically OK, and when is any additional material comfort simply a layer of psychological and emotional comfort-er.
While I am an avid (occasional) ultralight backpacker, who is highly influenced by the aesthetics of minimalism, Dirt-floor is primarily about drawing the simplification of ultralight backpacking to the domestic sphere.
I live in a house proud culture, where one is judged, or judges himself, upon his ability to create and maintain a ship size environmentally unsustainable home. Even someone who spends months backpacking along a pristine trail, likely has an expensive home, car, and computer to return to. I do ( Well, my car is not expensive, but I wish it was).
My thoughts and experiments:
What would happen to me, in all of my domains (psychological,emotional,spiritual,intellectual) and to the world, if I turn off the power to my home one evening a week? So many people around the world have no power for much of the day, and yet instead of thinking how we can emulate them, understand how they manage, and how this experience may be beneficial. We seen only interested in demonstrating to the world that more comfort is better.

Dirt Floor

2007-04-09T01:46:00.000-07:00

What is Thrift-Gear?

2007-04-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

Thrift-gear is dedicated to the discovery and creative use of lightweight and ultralight outdoor gear found at thrift stores.

There are three primary veins of gear development and distribution for lightweight and ultra lightweight outdoor gear. First there is the cottage industry, which through individual creativity defines the cutting edge of lightweight possibility in terms of design, typically utilizing highly technical materials. Next, homemade gear, often related to the cottage industry, and owing thanks to the generosity of those designers who provide either inexpensive patterns and materials or open source design often leads to new cottage companies, or simply to an inexpensive albeit laborious access to cutting edge gear. Finally, there are mainstream companies that utilize their technical advantage and access to economy of scale materials and expensive talent to sell high end gear at the very top of their product range. Typically these companies also offer a huge range of less than cutting edge gear, which may support the "top shelf" equipment. However, the larger companies often are a season or more behind the cottage companies in producing the most cutting edge gear.

There are problems with the above approaches to lightweight and ultralight gear acquisition.

Although often a great piece of gear can be found from any one of the above designs outlets, all of them use new materials, which are typically newly manufactured petroleum products (with at best a small percentage of recycling) and are typically shipped from overseas of diesel powered barges.
Even the most inexpensive home made equipment then, is not as low impact on the environment as one might hope.
The cost of homemade high quality gear, while far cheaper than retail, is still expensive, with a kit costing around two hundred dollars, and many hours of sewing.

I support all three of the traditional design outlets. I especially think that the time spent on home made gear is not wasted, and puts an outdoors-person in touch with their equipment in an important way.

However, I wonder if some of the creative verve of making ones own gear can be found through thrift-gear, with a much lower cost to the environment and the pocket book.

A second purpose of thrift-gear is to help me, and anyone else who becomes involved, in moving away from the type of gear fetishization many of us currently occupy. Clearly it's only another type, but my hope is to strip myself back, not only to light weight, but to simplicity. Starting at zero, what does one actually need to have fun (maybe a new kind of fun) in the wilderness? What strange preexisting gear will satisfy my safety needs? I think the industry has in a sense been good to us, and offered some really fun items. Thrift-gear this is just another way of accessing some of the creative impulse involved in intimate participation in gear.