Feedback on HOME SWEET RECYCLED HOME
January/February 1973
By the Mother Earth News editors
Meegwetch, MOTHER! (That's Cree for "thank you".) For five months I've been using Mark Gregory's recommendations on old-house-finding (MOTHER NO. 17) to locate a place in the country for just me and my animals. Sure enough, Method No. 3—scouting the back roads—worked . . . and now, while the dark wind heaves heavy snow upon this northland, here I sit by my wood stove, the coals purring . . . quiet, warm, happy.
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What a deal I found! I'm renting an old Finnish homestead near Nolalu, Ontario. There's the house (two large rooms), a huge barn with a floor in it, a woodshed, a sauna (Finnish stern bath), a root cellar built right into the hill, a well with a bucket-on-a-pole, and an outhouse. And all of this is mine for the using at $5.00 a month plus the cost of fuel.
Because the Finnish people knew how to carve a good life out of a hostile environment, my home was built for the wind, the sun and the cold. For example, there's a heavy clump of white spruce and Scotch pine planted squarely to the north and west of the house. Why? Well, the prevailing winds are nor'westers, and when I look out there today I'm sure glad of that bank of trees . . . that wind, she must be pushing up to 60 across the fields. Both doors have wind-jambs, too, so the door won't blow off when you open it to the gusts, and there are little front and back porches so that less cold gets in when you go out.
The crawl space under the house has an opening at each corner and the air circulation down there keeps the base beams dry to prevent rot and insect infestation. The attic, which must be almost five feet high, is filled with a two-foot layer of sawdust for insulation. There are lightning rods on the roof, too.
Although the house has no electricity, it provides for basic needs in other ways. A space heater warms the living room, and I have the trusty company of the wood stove in the kitchen. (Wood ashes, by the way, can be used in the outhouse to take the odors away and make it look nicer. I don't know if they speed up the rate of decomposition. Anyone who's going to try this, be sure the ashes and coal are dead cold, and store them in a metal container to be safe.)
