Finding Normal

What’s “normal”?

As I get older, I discover many new definitions. My parents had a “normal” which I learnt as a kid. When I went to Bihar where my parents originally came from, the “normal” there was completely different. The dutch “normal” is again very different and takes some getting used to, and yesterday when we visited Tanya’s friend’s all American family, we were exposed to a whole new “normal”. All the normals that I have seen so far seem, well, pretty normal!

Luckily for Johan and me, we have sought to create our own normal. Our elf land, as we have started calling it, embodies it. Unfortunately or fortunately, it is far from normal. We live and work primarily out of our home. Our kids are growing in a TV free, and hence an ad free environment. They seem just a shade more childish than their peers. In the next few weeks, I would like to describe our few different projects.

Johan has recently installed an evacuated tube solar hot water collectors. This is our primary source of hot water. It is along a sun facing outer wall and makes quite a statement.

Solar Hot Water

We also have an “automatic” vegetable garden watering system (no electricity involved!). We collect rain water into rain barrels. From here the water is routed by gravity to our vegetable garden. We have dug in a soaker hose in our garden that connects to the rainbarrel system and keeps it wet all day and night long. So as long as it rains every 5 days or so, we don’t have to water the garden. Talk about lazy!

Johan just rigged up an additional spout from the rain barrels. So now I can tap it and get a little bit of water out of the system.

Form meets function. Vege garden tap.

The butterfly on top was an old metal butterfly that I colored using melted crayons. I just used old crayons and a hot gun to melt it on. It is a terrific idea for outdoor coloring, since it does not get affected by rain.

When life gives us bamboo…

… we make bamboo reading rooms!