Good evening, Kibitzers!
So today, the National Weather Service has issued me an “Air Quality Action Day for Fine Particulates”. I imagine this is from wildfire smoke, inasmuch as the Tuesday forecast, as of Monday night, is “Patchy Smoke then Chance Showers”. I have to say that “patchy smoke” is a forecast I have not seen before, but I’m afraid it surely will be seen again.
So, as you know, I regularly wander about on YouTube, and they offer me things. They know that I am a sucker for “tiny house” pr0n; I know I’ll never live in such a place, but they’re extremely cute and often whimsical, and I enjoy looking at them.
Accordingly, YT offered me some videos from a channel called Exploring Alternatives. It’s run by a Canadian couple, Danielle and Mat, who sold their own conventional house and started to pursue alternative living some ten years ago. Their channel is loaded with tours of all sorts of alternative living spaces: tiny houses, converted vans, treehouses, houseboats, yurts made of wool… but they also cover quite a few other topics, for those who are not contemplating selling all their stuff and moving to a festively-painted old school bus. I’ve picked out some this group may enjoy.
This is the trailer for their channel, giving an idea of what they cover, I should mention at the outset that they put further information and links on the YouTube page below each of their videos, about the people and subjects covered. [0:51]
Here’s one of the tiny house ones that got my attention. [7:57]
At a university in Toronto, they run a full-blown urban rooftop farm that helps feed students as well as selling produce at a farmers’ market and to CSA customers. [5:33]
A representative of iSolara Solar Power offers a full introductory discussion of solar power for your home, and how it can be combined with grid-connected power. [11:35]
Danielle shares some tips for more earth-friendly, less wasteful everyday living without a big upfront investment in special gear. (I am running right to the kitchen after this and trying out the method for getting the labels off glass jars.) [8:28]
Unbuilders is a company that does demolition in which everything possible is salvaged or recycled from the building rather than sent to a landfill. [12:29]
This couple is doing organic year-round farming in Canada, using a geodesic-dome greenhouse space. [11:31]
These people have built an off-grid water heater from a handmade “rocket stove”. [3:23]
Toronto shop The Green Jar shows some of the products available to help you avoid creating waste, especially single-use plastics. (I was pretty entertained when the young woman shows us, as a revelation, a safety razor made of steel, where you actually change the blade rather than throw out a whole plastic razor! Man, how did we screw up so bad?) [9:44]
This was my favorite so I saved it for last. Just Biofiber makes these construction blocks using hemp, and they look pretty remarkable. [9:02]
This has nothing to do with the rest of the diary, but I love it very much. It’s David Bowie appearing at a Tina Turner show in 2018 to join her for Let’s Dance. It doesn’t start out the way you’d expect. [3:41]