This section is devoted to the information that will be useful in the creation of a Kin's Domains.
The Secret Language of Toddlers: What Their Behaviors Mean
By Hagar Scher
Two-year-olds act out their emotions in some pretty bizarre ways. Let us help you crack the toddler behavior code.
Your toddler is becoming a verbal, opinionated little person. In fact, he's downright bossy - he tells you where to sit, which pants he wants to wear, and exactly what he'd like for lunch. But when it comes to communicating more complex thoughts and emotions in words, he still has a way to go, which means you're often forced to interpret some weird behavior. We asked experts to help us decipher the hidden meaning of common toddler tantrums and body language.
He wants to take all of his stuffed animals into bed with him.
Translation: "I'm scared."
Not too long ago, your baby cradled his fuzzy blankie and slept soundly. Now suddenly, he demands to take so many comfort objects to sleep each night that his bed looks like a modern-art project. This is the age when a child's imagination takes off, and he starts having nightmares and populating the closets with monsters. Keeping familiar objects nearby makes your child feel secure as he drifts off to sleep or wakes up in the middle of the night.
Your response: Two-year-olds are literal beings -- the monsters they've imagined seem incredibly real, so it doesn't help to show them that there's nothing lurking in the closet. They'll just think you can't see monsters.. So let your child surround himself with as many comforting things as he needs. If you're worried that he'll roll out of bed, appeal to another toddler trait: the desire to make his own decisions. Ask him which three animals, two board books, and one toy he wants as bedmates that night.
He lifts his shirt over his head when he meets a new person.
Translation: "I'm anxious."
Think about the last time you went to a social event where you didn't know a soul. You probably talked yourself through the discomfort in your mind - It's good to be out with other adults. Oh, she looks kind of cool. I like her top; maybe I'll walk over and chat with her - and grabbed a glass of wine so you'd have something to do with your hands. Consider your toddler's behavior the age-appropriate equivalent of an adult's social awkwardness. "Your child's not yet able to work through his nervousness, so he negotiates the situation in a purely sensory and physical way. Some kids will chew on their shirt or tug at their pants, while others might clutch your leg, suck their thumb, or drop to the floor and bury their face.
Your response: Gently coax your toddler turtle out of his shell. "Young children look to their parents for cues on how to react to new situations. Relax your own shoulders, smile, say "Hi" to new acquaintances, and give your child a reassuring squeeze. This lets him know that his surroundings are safe and friendly. Then, give him time to warm up.
She won't look you in the eye.
Translation: "I'm embarrassed."
When babies avert their gaze, they're telling you that they're overwhelmed and need a break from being the star of the show. But sometime around her second birthday, your toddler develops the capacity for self-conscious emotions like shame. For instance, she knows that you're angry because she kidnapped her baby brother's teddy bear again. "When a young child refuses to look at you, it means she realizes that her actions may have disappointed you.
Your response: Acknowledge what your child did wrong in simple, short sentences -- "We don't rip books, "We never push" -- and offer up a way to make it right, like taping a torn page or giving a crying pal a hug. You want her to know that everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but it's important to take steps to fix the damage.
She hides behind the furniture when she poops in her diaper.
Translation: "I want privacy."
This common toddler behavior indicates two things: first, your kid is clued in to her urge to poop and knows there's a BM coming, and second, she's observed that adults do the deed in private. These are two positive signs that she's getting ready for potty training. But the number-one indicator? She immediately asks to have her dirty diaper changed. If a child doesn't care about sitting in her poop, then she's not ready for potty training." Most kids become interested in using the toilet between ages 2 and 3.
Your response: Encourage your toddler's search for privacy, but steer her into the bathroom. Just getting a child into the right room of the house is a positive step -- there's no need to pressure her to sit on the potty yet.
She transforms into a total brat - throwing food, hitting, breaking toys.
Translation: "I'm feeling out of sorts."
It's shocking - and troubling too - when your normally sweet, kind 2-year-old turns into Super Evil Child. But it's important to understand that her bratty behavior is probably just a reaction to the current situation and not a sign that her personality has changed. Usually, when kids this age act out, they want to tell you, "I'm bored," "I'm tired," or "I need attention!"
Your response: Try to figure out what's going on. If she's acting out because she's bored, bust out the Legos and play together or head out to the park for a change of scenery. A time-out may also be a good idea. "Toddlers need to learn that there are better ways to get your attention than throwing a fit. Putting your daughter in a two-minute time-out - she sits alone in some place that's boring - sends a clear message that you won't put up with inappropriate behavior." Then come up with a fun activity to do together.
He pitches a fit while you're cutting the strawberries she just asked for.
Translation: "I want it now."
Babies are born impatient as a matter of survival. They fuss and wail to be fed right now! Changed right now! Cradled right now! Your toddler's inability to hold her horses is a reminder that, though she's growing up at the speed of light, she still has a toe or two in the baby years. The prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain responsible for self-control - including the ability to cope with a delay in having her needs met - starts developing most dramatically somewhere between the ages of 2 and 7.
Your response: Do not indulge your toddler's need for instant gratification by moving at warp speed to meet her every demand. Instead, tell her you've heard her request and will get her what she wants as soon as you can. Then gradually begin to draw out the time it takes you to fulfill her commands, talking her through the specific steps you're taking. Say, "Mommy's finishing the dishes, then she'll dry her hands, open the fridge, and pour you some apple juice." You're teaching your toddler a valuable skill - patience - by insisting she wait for things.
He yells, "No, my mommy!" when other kids approach you.
Translation: "Pay more attention to me!"
Clingy behavior could signal that your child feels like he's not getting enough of you, especially if you've been working long hours or have recently welcomed a new baby to the family. In the absence of any changes in the status quo, such possessiveness is probably part and parcel of your 2-year-old's blossoming sense of self. "The 'mine, mine, mine' phase is annoying, but it's actually a good thing because it means that your toddler is making progress figuring out who he is as a person. At this stage, his self-image is tied to the things that are most valuable to him, and Mom is right up there."
Your response: Hug your child, and tell him that, of course, you're his mother and you love him. You could also use this as a quick teaching moment about sharing. Say, "I'm your mommy, not Betsy's, but I can still be nice to other kids and say hello."
http://www.parents.com/
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How to Help Kids Deal with Their Emotions
By Cynthia Ramnarace
In the first few months of life, an infant's range of emotions is pretty limited, but within just a few years, he'll experience the gamut. He won't understand what he's feeling, however, or be able to label emotions. Parents can help by translating feelings, putting a name to them, and teaching kids the proper way to react.
The First Three Months
If there is one skill a newborn has no trouble mastering, it's the heart-wrenching sob. Your baby is communicating a need - "I'm hungry" - but also an emotion: "I'm upset!" Newborns have two basic emotional states: happy and unhappy. "A content baby is sleeping or just observing what is going on around her. Everyone knows the features of an unhappy baby: tears, screams, and writhing. It's a full-body experience. All those theatrics are your baby's way of saying "Help me feel calm again." When you fulfill that need, you're teaching an important first lesson in emotions. When she's unhappy, a person who loves her will take care of her.
After crying, smiling is the second expression of emotion. Real smiles start at around 6 weeks of age. Just like adults, who can flash a polite smile to a person they pass on the street and an overjoyed grin to a beloved friend, babies have different kinds of smiles. The true "I'm so happy" smile requires the use of a muscle near the eye, a muscle that very few people can manipulate voluntarily. It's reflexive and controlled by the part of the brain that is responsible for emotion.
3 Months and Up
Starting at around 3 months of age, your baby's motor skills will improve, and he'll figure out all the fun things he can do with his body: roll over or kick at a dangling toy. The previous "good or bad" world of emotional experience is deepening and widening. These new emotions include curiosity ("Wow, I could stare at my hands all day!") and surprise ("Where's Mom? There she is! Peekaboo is fun!"). In addition to increased physical skills, cognitive skills have advanced to the point where he can set goals. This growing emotional intelligence allows him to feel the joy of success or the frustration of failure. Consider an 8-month-old whose hands are reaching toward a desired toy. If you stop a baby from trying to get something, that is going to make him mad. They have a goal, and they do not like that you're keeping them from it.
Fear is another emotion that appears before a child's first birthday, usually in conjunction with stranger anxiety. This new emotion is another sign of higher thinking. It's hard to be afraid of a stranger if you can't figure out whom you recognize.
Toddlers
As your baby reaches her first birthday, she'll feel excited about new adventures - walking up and down stairs or riding the slide at the park - but will also be apprehensive about doing it all by herself. On the one hand, she doesn't want any help, but she melts down easily when things don't go her way. Frustration is not a new emotion for a toddler, but there's an added layer to the babyhood version. An 18-month-old, told it's time to leave the playground, isn't just mad because she's not getting what she wants. She's also mad because she understands that Mom could give in but is choosing not to, which enrages her even more. Not surprisingly, this lack of emotional control, which increases between ages 2 and 3, is really a cry for help. Your child simply doesn't know how to handle the intensity of her emotions.
Consider what happens when you slam your finger in a drawer. Pain, anger, and maybe even fear will flood your brain. But you quickly sort through these emotions: your finger hurts, but you know the pain will subside, so there's no need to panic; you shake off your anger; you rule out fear because you can identify the severity (not very high) of the injury.
Toddlers, however, don't yet have this power to rationalize. They don't know which emotions to ignore and which ones are justified. This is why when a child falls, her first reaction is often to turn and look at Mom's face. Do you look afraid? Sad? Angry? This emotional referencing helps your child learn the appropriate responses to difficult situations. Kids need to know, 'I am feeling something but I am going to be okay'.
Toddlers are also becoming more self-aware. Put an 18-month-old in front of a mirror with a little rouge on his nose, and he recognizes himself and will try to remove the rouge. Before 18 months, they don't.Burgeoning self-consciousness brings with it several new emotions, such as embarrassment. When your potty-training 2-year-old has an accident at daycare and is laughed at, he understands that others are making fun of him. But this new emotional understanding also has a positive side: Your toddler now can experience the pride that comes from a job well done. Praise him for a colorful picture he drew or a tower he carefully built, and he'll smile brightly and puff up his chest.
But just because your child is experiencing these new feelings doesn't mean he can name them. At age 3, a child still describes his emotions in three basic ways: happy, mad, or sad. Ask a beaming child how he feels about his painting, and he'll likely have a one-word answer: "Good." When a parent says, "You must feel very proud!" you are then helping him develop the words necessary to articulate all the different kinds of "good" emotions he feels.
Improving verbal ability also results in another skill: negotiation. A 3-year-old, knowing that Mom and Dad are going out to dinner, might try to talk his parents into staying home. Though he may not be conscious of his reasoning, he knows one thing: I am going to feel upset when Mommy and Daddy go out. This is because a child of that age now has a new capacity: "He can anticipate the emotions he will have in a certain situation because his ability to remember has developed. As your child ages, and you go from kissing boo-boos to helping heal broken hearts, his problems will become more complex. But one thing will remain the same. What he wants to hear more than anything is, "Everything is going to be okay."
http://www.parents.com/
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Parenting Tips for Healthy Kids : How to Identify Emotions in Kids
Organic vs Genetically Modified Foods
G.M.O./G.E. Foods
This post will examine the difference between organic and natural foods and the G.M.O. or G.E. foods now being engineered and flooded into our food supplies. G.M.O. stands for genetically modified organisms and G.E. stands for genetically engineered. These are interchangeable terms and indicate that a food, meat or plant food sources have been genetically engineered by modern science.
The idea is promoted as a manner to alter the natural DNA of an organism with DNA molecules from different sources, which are combined into one molecule to create a new set of genes. This DNA is then transferred into an organism, giving it modified or novel genes. Some touted modifications include food crop plants with newly added defenses against insects or the resistance to heavy applications of pesticides. This seemingly beneficial application of recombinant DNA techniques is questionable at best and seems laden with negative side effects. There are many studies that indicate how the compounded effects of including G.E. foods in one's diet truly are negative and unhealthful.
A Very Brief List of the Dangers of G.M. Foods
Recorded Deaths from GM
Near-deaths and Food Allergy Reactions
Cancer and Degenerative Diseases
Direct Cancer and Degenerative Disease Links
Infertility and High Infant Mortality Rates in animals fed GM
Viral and Bacterial Illness
Superviruses
Antibiotic Threat Via Milk
Antibiotic Threat Via Plants
Resurgence of Infectious Diseases
Increased Food Allergies
Birth Defects and Shorter Life Spans
Interior Toxins
Lowered Nutrition
It should take very little research online or reading such excellent books as Seeds of Deception by Jeffery Smith to understand how harmful G.E. foods are and how they have no place in one's diet.
Organic Foods
"Natural/Organic" foods are foods that are minimally processed and do not contain any hormones, antibiotics, sweeteners, food colors, or flavorings that were not originally in the food. This include fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and meats. In the Western Countries especially the U.S. it becomes important to seek out organic foods. Processed organic food usually contains only organic ingredients. Label reading becomes a mandatory skill.
Labeling
Look for Labels that expressly say "100% Organic" as there are label laws that allows food producer to mark labels as follows:
- Single-Ingredient Foods- On foods like fruits and vegetables, look for a small sticker version of the USDA Organic label or check the signage in your produce section for this seal. The word "Organic" and the seal may also appear on packages of meat, cartons of milk or eggs, cheese, and other single-ingredient foods.
- 100% Organic Foods bearing this label are made with 100% organic ingredients and may display the USDA Organic seal.
- Organic. These products contain at least 95–99% organic ingredients (by weight). The remaining ingredients are not available organically but have been approved by the NOP. These products may display the USDA Organic seal.
- Made With Organic Ingredients. Food packaging that reads "Made With Organic Ingredients" must contain 70–94% organic ingredients. These products will not bear the USDA Organic seal; instead, they may list up to three ingredients on the front of the packaging.
- Products with less than 70% organic ingredients may only list organic ingredients on the information panel of the packaging. These products will not bear the USDA Organic seal.
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So it is easy to see how confusing the labeling system in use by the USDA is currently. Also note that some seemingly healthy food choices like soy are not so healthy if not 100% Organic. It is interesting to note that the largest G.E. crops in North America are soy, corn, cotton and sugar beets which are processed into sugar. It is also interesting to note that many G.E. foods are in the feed given to livestock. This of course will adversely affect any consumers of G.E. fed meats.
Negative effects of Soy
Soybeans and soy products can not be considered a healthy alternative to milk or meat. It is ironic that soy is touted as such a great healthy alternative to dairy or meat. Soy is one of the top genetically modified crops in America right now. Something like 80% of the soy grown is G.E. The real harm is the phytoestrogens in soy also have a detrimental effect. Soy should never be fed to a child or infant. Feeding a baby soy formula will deliver through the phytoestrogens, the equivalent of approximately 5 birth control pills per day. The damage is incalculable. Soy in adults is linked to thyroid issues, infertility and cancer.
Go Organic
Organically grown foods are generally recognized as being superior in the nutrition they provide. These beneficial nutrients include antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and amino acids. The process of preparing foods through cooking, industrial processing, gassing and irradiating all destroy the nutrients in raw organic foods.It would be a shame to buy Organic then to over process the food through conventional cooking. This depletes and deters from the purpose of healthful food. Consider adding Organic Raw Foods to your diet for the most health gleaned from your foods.
Be Aware: Organic is the manner in which food is raised. This means the use of conventional non-organic pesticide (including insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides) is excluded. However, G.E. plants can be raised organically so it is important understand the definitions of these words and to seek out natural or heirloom organic plants and produce.
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GM food toxins found in the blood of 93% of unborn babies
By Sean Poulter
Toxins implanted into GM food crops to kill pests are reaching the bloodstreams of women and unborn babies, alarming research has revealed.
A landmark study found 93 per cent of blood samples taken from pregnant women and 80 per cent from umbilical cords tested positive for traces of the chemicals.
Millions of acres in North and South America are planted with GM corn containing the toxins, which is fed in vast quantities to farm livestock around the world – including Britain.
However, it is now clear the toxins designed to kill crop pests are reaching humans and babies in the womb – apparently through food. It is not known what, if any, harm this causes but there is speculation it could lead to allergies, miscarriage, abnormalities or even cancer.
To date the industry has always argued that if these toxins were eaten by animals or humans they would be destroyed in the gut and pass out of the body, thus causing no harm.
Food safety authorities in Britain and Europe have accepted these assurances on the basis that GM crops are effectively no different to those produced using conventional methods.
But the latest study appears to blow a hole in these claims and has triggered calls for a ban on imports and a total overhaul of the safety regime for GM crops and food.
Most of the global research which has been used to demonstrate the safety of GM crops has been funded by the industry itself.
GM: Ninety-three per cent of samples from pregnant women and 80 per cent from umbilical cords tested positive for traces of toxins.
The new study was carried out by independent doctors at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, at the University of Sherbrooke Hospital Centre in Quebec, Canada.
They took blood samples from 30 pregnant women and 39 other women who were not having a baby.
They were looking for residues of the pesticides associated with the cultivation of GM food.
These include so-called Bt toxins, which are implanted using GM techniques into corn and some other crops.
Traces of Bt toxin were found in the blood of 93 per cent of the pregnant mothers – 28 out of 30. It was also found in 80 per cent of the umbilical cords – 24 out of 30.
In the non-pregnant group, traces were found in the blood of 69 per cent – 27 out of 39. It is thought the toxin is getting into the human body as a result of eating meat, milk and eggs from farm livestock fed GM corn.
The Canadian team told the scientific journal Reproductive Toxicology: 'This is the first study to highlight the presence of pesticides associated with genetically modified foods in maternal, foetal and non-pregnant women's blood.' They said the Bt toxin was 'clearly detectable and appears to cross the placenta to the foetus'.
Calling for action, the team said: 'Given the potential toxicity of these environmental pollutants and the fragility of the foetus, more studies are needed.' The director of GM Freeze, an umbrella group for community, consumer and environmental organisations opposed to GM farming, described the research as 'very significant'.
Pete Riley said: 'This research is a major surprise as it shows that the Bt proteins have survived the human digestive system and passed into the blood supply – something that regulators said could not happen.
Regulators need to urgently reassess their opinions, and the EU should use the safeguard clauses in the regulations to prevent any further GM Bt crops being cultivated or imported for animal feed or food until the potential health implications have been fully evaluated.'
Biohazard: Millions of acres in North and South America are planted with GM corn containing the toxins, which is fed in vast quantities to farm livestock worldwide. The Agriculture Biotechnology Council, which speaks for the GM industry, questioned the reliability and value of the research. Its chairman, Dr Julian Little, said: 'The study is based on analysis that has been used in previous feeding studies and has been found to be unreliable.' He said the toxins found are also used in other farming systems and gardening 'with no harm to human health'.
Dr Little said: 'Biotech crops are rigorously tested for safety prior to their use and over two trillion meals made with GM ingredients have been safely consumed around the world over the past 15 years without a single substantiated health issue.'
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The Future of Food
10 Surprising Times to Hit the Gym
By Dr. Mercola
I have long extolled the benefits of a regular exercise program, as it offers improves virtually every aspect of health, from boosting brain function to helping prevent cancer and slowing the rate of aging.
There are many misconceptions about when exercise is appropriate, however, with some mistakenly believing that if you have a cold or arthritis, for instance, you shouldn't work out.
The truth is, there are many surprising scenarios when, while you might be tempted to lounge on the couch, exercise is actually just what the doctor ordered.
Everyday Health has done a great job of compiling 10 such examples, and I want to expand on each one of them below.
1. Recovering from Surgery
Hitting the gym after you've had minor surgery can be highly beneficial, helping to both decrease side effects and get you back into the swing of your daily life faster.
This includes cancer patients, who often receive surgery as part of conventional treatment.
A report by Macmillan Cancer Support notes that cancer patients and cancer survivors should exercise at least 2.5 hours a week,i and cites an excerpt from the American College of Sports Medicine consensus statement on exercise guidelines for cancer survivors, which states:
"Exercise is safe both during and after most types of cancer treatment... Patients are advised to avoid inactivity and return to normal daily activities as soon as possible after surgery, and during adjuvant cancer treatments."
You will, of course, need to be mindful of the level of intensity and avoid exercises that may stress a surgical incision or repair, but generally speaking the sooner you can get moving after surgery, the better.
2. You Have a Cold
Two long-forgotten studies from the late 1990s indicate that not only is it safe to exercise when you have an upper respiratory tract infection, it could actually make you feel better -- even if it doesn't speed up your recovery.
In a nutshell, the studies found that a cold virus had no impact on participants' lung function or ability to exercise, and did not alter how long it took to recover. That said, those who exercised were more likely to report that their workouts helped relieve their symptoms.
When you exercise while you're fighting off a cold, the "dose" of exercise is very important. Over-exercising can actually place more stress on your body, which can suppress your immune system, so it appears you should keep the intensity of your workouts on the moderate level if you're sick. As noted in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews:
"Prolonged intense exercise causes immunosuppression, whereas moderate-intensity exercise improves immune function and potentially reduces risk and severity of respiratory viral infections."
So you might just go for a brisk walk if you are coming down with a cold, or simply tone down your regular workout. As far as prevention goes, there is evidence that regular, moderate exercise can reduce your risk for respiratory illness by boosting your immune system. In fact, one study found that people who exercised regularly (five or more days a week) cut their risk of having a cold by close to 50 percent.v And in the event that they did catch a cold, their symptoms were much less severe than among those who did not exercise.
3. Headaches
Inactivity is actually a risk factor for headaches, as physical activity works to alleviate headaches in a number of ways, such as:
Releasing pain-killing endorphins
Reducing stress and improving cardiovascular fitness
Improving blood flow to your brain
Reducing muscle tension and fatigue
4. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
If you have the lung disease COPD, exercise can help to improve your circulation, helping your body to use oxygen more efficiently. It may also help to strengthen your heart, improve your symptoms, and boost your energy levels so you can perform more daily activities without fatigue or becoming out of breath.
5. Pregnancy
If you are healthy and your pregnancy is normal, regular exercise can improve your and your baby's health, offering such benefits as:
Eases back and other musculoskeletal pain
Lowers maternal blood pressure
Reduces swelling
A lower risk of gestational diabetes
Improves postpartum mood, including sadness
Research also shows exercise during pregnancy has a beneficial impact on your baby's heart by reducing fetal heart rate and increasing heart rate variability, and may also help you maintain a healthy weight, and have an easier labor and faster recovery from birth. One way to look at exercise during pregnancy is that you are conditioning your body for labor and childbirth. As with most physically demanding things in life, if your body is in shape, you and your baby will have a much easier time of it.
6. Osteoarthritis or Joint Pain
If you have joint pain, exercise is a must; it helps prevent and relieve joint pain through a number of mechanisms, including strengthening key supportive muscles, restoring flexibility, improving bone density and joint function, and facilitating weight loss.
The notion that exercise is detrimental to your joints is a misconception, as there is no evidence to support this belief. Quite the contrary, actually, as inactivity promotes muscle weakness, joint contractures, and loss of range of motion, which can lead to more pain and loss of function, and even less activity. To break this potentially devastating cycle, regular exercise is essential.
If you have osteoarthritis or joint pain and you find that you're in pain for longer than one hour after your exercise session, you should slow down or choose another form of exercise. Assistive devices are also helpful to decrease the pressure on affected joints during your workout. You may also want to work with a physical therapist or qualified personal trainer who can develop a safe range of activities for you. If the exercise causes pain that persists longer than several hours it most likely was too much.
7. Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
Dietary strategies are key for healing irritable bowel syndrome at the foundational level, however exercise can help improve IBS symptoms, as well. In one study, exercise led to improvements in problems like cramps, bloating, constipation and diarrhea, with, 43 percent of exercisers showing a significant improvement in their symptoms.
8. Menopause
Just three hours of exercise a week has been shown to significantly improve both mental and physical health in menopausal women, including relieving symptoms of menopause and improving quality of life. While ideally you should simply continue your exercise program through menopause and beyond, it's virtually never too late to start an exercise program. So if you're nearing menopause and you're not yet a regular exerciser, now's the perfect time to start.
9. Chronic Pain
Exercise can help with long-term pain relief for a variety of conditions, including osteoarthritis, back and musculoskeletal pain. Furthermore, because exercise often leads to improved posture, range of motion and functionality of your body, it can help treat the underlying source of your pain as well as help prevent chronic back pain. Exercises that can be particularly helpful for chronic pain include stretching, resistance training, and swimming.
10. Quitting Smoking
Exercise is a potent ally in your decision to quit smoking, as withdrawal symptoms and cigarette cravings decrease during and after exercise. In one study, published in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 25 male and female smokers, who had smoked for an average of 19 years, received a brief smoking cessation counseling session. They were also given nicotine patches. They were then randomly assigned either to an exercise resistance-training group or a "contact control" group. Remarkably, the exercise group was TWICE as successful in abstaining from smoking compared to the control group.
Are You Ready to Get Started?
There's an overwhelming amount of evidence confirming that exercise is a key player in disease reduction, optimal mental, emotional and physical health, and longevity. It's really a phenomenal way to get the most out of your life! After reviewing 40 papers published between 2006 and 2010, researchers found that exercise reduces the risk of about two dozen health conditions, ranging from cancer and heart disease to type 2 diabetes, stroke, dementia and depression. Exercise also slows down the rate of aging itself, even stimulating the regeneration of the energy-producing mitochondria in your cells, providing perhaps the closest example of a real life fountain of youth as we will ever find.
Ideally, you will have made exercise a regular part of your life long before you reach your "golden" years … but if you haven't, there's no better time to start than the present. Research has shown that regular exercise, even initiated late in life, offers profound health benefits.
Many public health guidelines still focus primarily on the aerobic component of exercise, but this limited activity can lead to imbalances that may actually prevent optimal health. This is why it's so important to maintain a well-balanced fitness regimen, that includes not just aerobics, but also strength training, stretching, and high-intensity interval training like Peak Fitness.
If you're exercising with a specific health condition present, always remember to listen to your body and if you feel you need a break, take time to rest. Even exercising for a few minutes a day is better than not exercising at all, and you'll likely find that your stamina increases and you're able to complete more challenging workouts with each passing day.
http://fitness.mercola.com/
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Exercise and aging: Can you walk away from Father Time?
The clock ticks for all men, and with each tick comes change. For men who manage to avoid major medical problems, the changes are slow and gradual, but they do add up. Here are some things that aging can do to you — if you give up and let Father Time take his toll.
Some of the changes of aging start as early as the third decade of life. After age 25–30, for example, the average man's maximum attainable heart rate declines by about one beat per minute, per year, and his heart's peak capacity to pump blood drifts down by 5%–10% per decade. That's why a healthy 25-year-old heart can pump 2 1/2 quarts of oxygen a minute, but a 65-year-old heart can't get above 1 1/2 quarts, and an 80-year-old heart can pump only about a quart, even if it's disease-free. In everyday terms, this diminished aerobic capacity can produce fatigue and breathlessness with modest daily activities.
Starting in middle age, a man's blood vessels begin to stiffen and his blood pressure often creeps up as well. His blood itself changes, becoming more viscous (thicker and stickier) and harder to pump through the body, even though the number of oxygen-carrying red blood cells declines.
Most Americans begin to gain weight in midlife, putting on 3–4 pounds a year. But since men start to lose muscle in their 40s, that extra weight is all fat. This extra fat contributes to a rise in LDL ("bad") cholesterol and a fall in HDL ("good") cholesterol. It also helps explain why blood sugar levels rise by about 6 points per decade, making type 2 diabetes distressingly common in senior citizens.
The loss of muscle continues, eventually reducing a man's musculature by up to 50%, which contributes to weakness and disability. At the same time, muscles and ligaments get stiff and tight. Although men have a lower risk of osteoporosis ("thin bones") than women, they do lose bone calcium as they age, increasing the risk of fractures. One reason for the drop in muscle mass and bone density is a drop in the male hormone testosterone, which declines by about 1% per year after the age of 40. Though most men continue to have normal testosterone levels and reproductive capacity throughout life, many experience a gradual decline in libido and sexual vigor.
The nervous system also changes over time. Reflexes are slower, coordination suffers, and memory lapses often crop up at embarrassing times. The average person gets less sleep in maturity than in youth, even if he no longer needs to set his alarm clock. Not surprisingly, spirits often sag as the body slows down.
It sounds grim — and these changes happen to healthy men. Men with medical problems start to age earlier and slow down even more. All in all, aging is not for sissies.
No man can stop the clock, but every man can slow its tick. Research shows that many of the changes attributed to aging are actually caused in large part by disuse. It's new information, but it confirms the wisdom of Dr. William Buchan, the 18th-century Scottish physician who wrote, "Of all the causes which conspire to render the life of a man short and miserable, none have greater influence than the want of proper exercise." And about the same time, the British poet John Gay agreed: "Exercise thy lasting youth defends."
Exercise is not the fountain of youth, but it is a good long drink of vitality, especially as part of a comprehensive program. And a unique study from Texas shows just how important exercise can be.
The Dallas Bed Rest and Training Study
In 1966, five healthy men volunteered for a research study at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. It must have sounded like the opportunity of a lifetime; all they had to do was spend three weeks of their summer vacation resting in bed. But when they got out of bed at the end of the trial, it probably didn't seem so good. Testing the men before and after exercise, the researchers found devastating changes that included faster resting heart rates, higher systolic blood pressures, a drop in the heart's maximum pumping capacity, a rise in body fat, and a fall in muscle strength.
In just three weeks, these 20-year-olds developed many physiologic characteristics of men twice their age. Fortunately, the scientists didn't stop there. Instead, they put the men on an 8-week exercise program. Exercise did more than reverse the deterioration brought on by bed rest, since some measurements were better than ever after the training.
The Dallas study was a dramatic demonstration of the harmful consequences of bed rest. It's a lesson that's been learned yet again in the era of space travel, and it has helped change medical practice by encouraging an early return to physical activity after illness or surgery. And by revisiting the question 30 years later, the Texas researchers have also been able to investigate the interaction between exercise and aging.
A second look
The original subjects all agreed to be evaluated again at the age of 50. All five remained healthy, and none required long-term medication. Even so, the 30-year interval had not been kind. Over the years, the men gained an average of 50 pounds, or 25% of their weight at age 20. Their average body fat doubled from 14% to 28% of body weight. In addition, their cardiac function suffered, with a rise in resting heart rate and blood pressure and a fall in maximum pumping capacity. In terms of cardiac function, though, the toll of time was not as severe as the toll of inactivity; at 50, the men were far below their 20-year-old best, but they were not quite as feeble as when they emerged from three weeks of bed rest in 1966.
The researchers did not ask the 50-year-old volunteers to lie in bed for three weeks; that could have been hazardous. But they did ask them to begin an exercise program, and they wisely constructed a gradual 6-month regimen of walking, jogging, and cycling instead of the 8-week crash course that served the 20-year-olds so well.
Slow but steady endurance training carried the day. At the end of the six months, the men averaged only a modest 10-pound loss of their excess weight, but their resting heart rates, blood pressures, and their heart's maximum pumping abilities were back to their baseline level from age 20. All in all, exercise training reversed 100% of the 30-year age-related decline in aerobic power. Even so, exercise did not take the men back to their peak performance after 8 weeks of intense training at age 20. The clock does tick, after all, but exercise did slow the march of time.
The Dallas scientists contributed a great deal to our understanding of exercise and aging, but they did not seize the opportunity to evaluate many of the changes that men experience as they age. Fortunately, other research has filled in the gaps. To avoid gaps as you age, construct a balanced exercise program.
Endurance training. As the Texas studies showed, endurance exercise is the best way to improve cardiovascular function. It helps keep the heart muscle supple and the arteries flexible, lowers the resting heart rate, and boosts the heart’s peak ability to deliver oxygen-rich blood to the body’s tissues. A related benefit is a fall in blood pressure.
Endurance exercise is also the best way to protect the body's metabolism from the effects of age. It reduces body fat, sensitizes the body's tissues to insulin, and lowers blood sugar levels. Exercise boosts the HDL ("good") cholesterol and lowers levels of LDL ("bad") cholesterol and triglycerides. And the same types of activity will fight some of the neurological and psychological changes of aging. Endurance exercise boosts mood and improves sleep, countering anxiety and depression. In addition, it improves reflex time and helps stave off age-related memory loss. All in all, many of the changes that physiologists attribute to aging are actually caused by disuse. Using your body will keep it young.
The Dallas investigators prescribed walking, jogging, and biking for endurance training. They could have achieved the same benefits with swimming, racquet sports, rowing, cross-country skiing, aerobic dance, and even golf (as long as players walk the course). A variety of exercise machines can also do the job, but only if you use them properly. The key is regular activity. Start slowly if you are out of shape, then build up gradually to 3–4 hours a week. A program as simple as 30 minutes of brisk walking nearly every day will produce major benefits.
Resistance exercise using light weights or exercise machines will enhance muscle mass and strength and preserve bone calcium. You'll need to learn what to do, and instructors can help. But with simple directions and precautions, most men can develop a safe and effective home program for themselves.
Flexibility training will help keep you supple as you age. Stretching exercises are an ideal way to warm up before and cool down after endurance exercise. Like strength training, 20 minutes of dedicated time two or three times a week is ideal. Yoga classes are very helpful, but most men can learn to stretch for health on their own.
Exercises for balance will also help retard some common effects of aging. They will help you move gracefully, avoid injuries, and prevent the falls that cripple so many older Americans.
Helen Hayes was right when she proclaimed, "Resting is rusting." But although exercise can do much to remove the rust of aging, it can't do it all. Even a balanced exercise program won't keep reading glasses off a man's nose or prevent cataracts from forming in due time. Exercise can't keep a man's prostate small or his testosterone levels high, but it can reduce his risk of erectile dysfunction.
To keep your body as young as possible for as long as possible, keep it moving. As usual, Hippocrates got it right about 2,400 years ago, explaining, "That which is used develops; that which is not wastes away."
Exercise, illness, and longevity
A proper exercise program will help men delay many of the changes of aging, particularly when they combine it with other preventive measures. And the same program can help ward off many of the chronic illnesses that too often tarnish a man’s golden years.
Heart disease is the leading killer of American men. Because exercise helps improve so many cardiac risk factors (cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and stress), it should have a powerful protective influence on heart attacks — and it does. Back in 1978, the Harvard Alumni Study found that men who exercise regularly are 39% less likely to suffer heart attacks than their sedentary peers. It was a groundbreaking observation, and it's been confirmed many times over.
Stroke is the third leading cause of death in America. Like heart disease, many strokes are caused by atherosclerosis, which is why heart attacks and stroke share so many risk factors. It's no surprise, then, that exercise can reduce the risk of stroke. Twenty-four years after its report on exercise and heart disease, the Harvard Alumni Study linked mild exercise to a 24% risk reduction; moderate to intensive exercise was even better, reducing risk by 46%.
Cancer is different — but exercise can also help fight the nation's second leading killer. Colon cancer is the clearest example; Harvard's Health Professionals Follow-Up Study found that highly active men are 47% less likely to develop the disease than their sedentary peers, and many other studies agree. Although the evidence is far less conclusive, regular exercise may even help prevent prostate cancer.
Helping to prevent heart disease, cancer, stroke — exercise is worth the effort. And there's more. Physical activity can help reduce your risk for many of the chronic illnesses that produce so much distress and disability as men age. The list includes hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, and even Alzheimer's disease. It also includes "minor" ailments such as painful gallbladder attacks and bothersome symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia. And if that's not enough motivation, consider that the Health Professionals Study linked regular exercise to a 30% reduction in a man's risk of impotence.
Regular exercise helps people age more slowly and live healthier, more vigorous lives. And it also helps people live longer. Calculations based on the Harvard Alumni Study suggest that men who exercise regularly can gain about two hours of life expectancy for each hour of exercise. Over the course of a lifetime, that adds up to about two extra years. Maximum benefit does require regular exercise over the years, but it doesn't mean a trip to the gym every day. In fact, just 30 minutes of brisk walking every day will go a long way toward enhancing your health.
Calculations are one thing, observations another. Scientists have evaluated men in Hawaii, Seventh-day Adventists in California, male and female residents of Framingham, Massachusetts, elderly American women, British joggers, middle-aged Englishmen, retired Dutchmen, and residents of Copenhagen, among others. Although the details vary, the essential message is remarkably uniform: Regular exercise prolongs life and reduces the burden of disease and disability in old age. In reviewing the data, Dr. J. Michael McGinnis of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) concludes that regular physical activity appears to reduce the overall mortality rate by more than a quarter and to increase the life expectancy by more than two years compared with the sedentary population's average.
It's never too late
One of the most impressive things about the Dallas Bed Rest and Training Study was that the men responded nearly as well to exercise training at 50 as they did at 20. In fact, men can benefit from exercise at any age, though senior citizens do need to take extra care, especially if they are just getting started. Perhaps the most dramatic example comes from a Harvard study that demonstrated important improvements in 87- to 90-year-old nursing home patients who were put on a weight-lifting program. This study evaluated muscular function, but the Harvard Alumni Study examined mortality. The latter study found that previously sedentary men who began exercising after the age of 45 enjoyed a 24% lower death rate than their classmates who remained inactive. The maximum benefits were linked to an amount of exercise equivalent to walking for about 45 minutes a day at about 17 minutes per mile. On average, sedentary people gained about 1.6 years of life expectancy from becoming active later in life.
Studies from Harvard, Norway, and England all confirm the benefits of exercise later in life. It's important research, but it confirms the wisdom of the Roman poet Cicero, who said, "No one is so old that he does not think he could live another year."
Beat the clock
Aging is inevitable, but it has an undeservedly fearsome reputation. No man can stop the clock, but most can slow its tick and enjoy life as they age with grace and vigor. Jonathan Swift was right when he said, "Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old." Regular exercise, along with a good diet, good medical care, good genes, and a bit of luck, can make it happen.
Exercise and longevity — it's Darwin redux: The survival of the fittest.
(This article was first printed in the December 2005 issue of the Harvard Men’s Health Watch. For more information or to order, please go to www.health.harvard.edu/mens.)
http://www.health.harvard.edu//
Image Copyrights: http://www.doctor.kz/; http://vokaknado.ru/
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Is fountain of youth tied to exercise?
Masanobu Fukuoka's Natural Farming and Permaculture
Larry Korn
Masanobu Fukuoka is a farmer/philosopher who lives on the Island of Shikoku, in southern Japan. His farming technique requires no machines, no chemicals and very little weeding. He does not plow the soil or use prepared compost and yet the condition of the soil in his orchards and fields improve each year. His method creates no pollution and does not require fossil fuels. His method requires less labor than any other, yet the yields in his orchard and fields compare favorably with the most productive Japanese farms which use all the technical know-how of modern science.
How is this possible? I admit, when I first went to his farm in 1973 I was skeptical. But there was the proof - beautiful grain crops in the fields, healthy orchard trees growing with a ground cover of vegetables, weeds and white clover. Over the two-year period I lived and worked there; his techniques and philosophy gradually became clear to me.
I had not heard of permaculture at the time, but I can see now that Fukuoka's farm is a classic working model of permaculture design. It is remarkable that Fukuoka and Bill Mollison, working independently, on two different continents with entirely different environmental conditions should come up with such similar solutions to the question, "How can people live on this planet sustainably and in harmony with nature?" Both claim that the principles of their system can be adapted to any climatic area.
Mollison and Fukuoka took entirely different routes to get to essentially the same place. Permaculture is a design system which aims to maximize the functional connection of its elements. It integrates raising crops and animals with careful water management. Homes and other structures are designed for maximum energy efficiency. Everything is made to work together and evolve over time to blend harmoniously into a complete and sustainable agricultural system.
The key word here is design. Permaculture is a consciously designed system. The designer carefully uses his/her knowledge, skill and sensitivity to make a plan, then implement it. Fukuoka created natural farming from a completely different perspective.
The idea for natural farming came to Fukuoka when he was about twenty five years old. One morning, as he sat at sunrise on a bluff overlooking Yokohama Bay, a flash of inspiration occurred. He saw that nature was perfect just as it is. Problems arise when people try to improve upon nature and use nature strictly for human benefit. He tried to explain this understanding to others, but when they could not understand he made a decision to return to his family farm. He decided to create a concrete example of his understanding by applying it to agriculture.
But where to begin? Fukuoka had no model to go by. "'How about trying this? How about trying that?' That is the usual way of developing agricultural technique. My way was different. 'How about not doing this, and How about not doing that?' - this was the path I followed. Now my rice growing is simply sowing seed and spreading straw, but it has taken me more than thirty years to reach this simplicity."
The basic idea for his rice growing came to him one day when he happened to pass an old field
which had been left unused and unplowed for many years. There he saw healthy rice seedlings sprouting through a tangle of grasses and weeds. From that time on he stopped sowing rice seed in the spring and, instead, put the seed out in the fall when it would naturally have fallen to the ground. Instead of plowing to get rid of weeds he learned to control them with a ground cover of white clover and a mulch of barley straw. Once he has tilted the balance slightly in favor of his crops Fukuoka interferes as little as possible with the plant and animal communities in his fields.
This is not to say that Fukuoka did not experiment. For example, he tried more than twenty different ground covers before noticing that white clover was the only one which held back weeds effectively. It also fixes nitrogen so it improves the soil. He tried spreading the straw neatly over the fields but found the rice seeds could not make their way through. In one corner of the field, however, where the straw had scattered every which way, the seedlings emerged. The next year he scattered the straw across the entire field. There were years when his experiments resulted in almost a total crop loss, but in small areas things worked out well. He closely observed what was different in that part of the field and next year the results were better. The point is, he had no preconceived idea of what would work the best. He tried many things and took the direction nature revealed. As far as possible, Fukuoka was trying to take the human intellect out of the decision making process.
His vegetable growing also reflects this idea. He grows vegetables in the spaces between the citrus trees in the orchard. Instead of deciding which vegetables would do well in which locations he mixes all the seeds together and scatters them everywhere. He lets the vegetables find their own location, often in areas he would have least have expected. The vegetables reseed themselves and move around the orchard from year to year. Vegetables grown this way stronger and gradually revert to the form of their semi-wild ancestors.
I mentioned that Fukuoka's farm is a fine model of permaculture design. In Zone 1, nearest his family home in the village, he and his family maintain a vegetable garden in the traditional Japanese style. Kitchen scraps are dug into the rows, are crops rotated and chickens run freely. This garden is really an extension of the home living area.
Zone 2 is his grain fields. He grows a crop of rice and one of barley every year. Because he returns the straw to the fields and has the ground cover of white clover the soil actually improves each year. The natural balance of insects and a healthy soil keep insect and disease infestations to a minimum. Until Bill Mollison read The One-Straw Revolution he said he had no idea of how to include grain growing in his permaculture designs. All the agricultural models involved plowing the soil, a practice he does not agree with. Now he includes Fukuoka's no-tillage technique in his teaching.
Zone 3 is the orchard. The main tree crop is Mandarin oranges, but he also grows many other fruit trees, native shrubs and other native and ornamental trees. The upper story is tall trees, many of which fix nitrogen and so improve the soil deep down. The middle story is the citrus and other fruit trees. The ground is covered with a riotous mixture of weeds, vegetables, herbs and white clover. Chickens run freely. This multi-tiered orchard area came about through a natural evolution rather than conscious design. It still contains many of the basic permacultural design features. It has many different plant and species, maximizes surface area, contains solar sunlight "traps" and maintains a natural balance of insect populations.
Fukuoka invites visitors from Zone 4 anytime. Wild animals and birds come and go freely. The surrounding forest is the source of mushrooms, wild herbs and vegetables. It is also an inspiration. "To get an idea of the perfection and abundance of nature," Fukuoka says, "take a walk into the forest sometime. There, the animals, tall trees and shrubs are living together in harmony. All of this came about without benefit of human ingenuity or intervention."
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| Author Larry Korn with Fukuoka |
What is remarkable is that Fukuoka's natural farming and permaculture should resemble each other so closely despite their nearly opposite approaches. Permaculture relies on the human intellect to devise a strategy to live abundantly and sustainably within nature. Fukuoka sees the human intellect as the culprit serving only to separate people from nature. The "one mountain top, many paths" adage seems to apply here.
Natural farming and permaculture share a profound debt to each other. The many examples of permaculture throughout the world show that a natural farming system is truly universal. It can be applied to arid climates as well as humid, temperate Japan. Also, the worldwide permaculture movement is an inspiration to Fukuoka. For many years he worked virtually alone in his work. For most of his life Japan was not receptive to his message. He had to self-publish his books because no publisher would take a chance on someone so far from the mainstream. When his experiments resulted in failure the other villagers would ridicule his work. In the mid-1980's he came to a Permaculture Convergence in Olympia, Washington and met Bill Mollison. There were nearly one thousand people there. He was overwhelmed and heartened by the number and sincerity of the like-thinking people he met. He thanked Mollison for "creating this network of bright, energetic people working to help save the planet." "Now," he said, "for the first time in my life I have hope for the future."
In turn, permaculture has adopted many things from Fukuoka. Besides the many agricultural techniques, such as continuous no-tillage grain growing and growing vegetables like wild plants, permaculture has also learned an important new approach for devising practical strategies. Most importantly, the philosophy of natural farming has given permaculture a truly spiritual basis lacking in its earlier teachings.
Fukuoka believes that natural farming proceeds from the spiritual health of the individual. He considers the healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit to be one process, and he proposes a way of life and a way of farming in which this process can take place. "Natural farming is not just for growing crops," he says, "it is for the cultivation and perfection of human beings."
Text and images copyright 2003 Larry Korn
http://www.permaculture.com/
The Scoop on Poop
Although not as glamorous as compost and other organic fertilizers, animal manure is a good thing for the garden. Manures offer lots of soil improvement advantages to an edible gardener. They help build the organic matter content, add nutrients, increase microbial activity, and improve drainage in heavy soils and moisture retention in sandy soils. The key to using animal manure is knowing what type you have, when to apply it, and how to spread it. So here's your guide to the scoop on poop.
Compost That Poop
It's best to either compost fresh manure or used well-aged manure that’s been sitting for at least six months. Fresh manures can contain bacterial pathogens such as E. coli and parasites such as roundworms and tapeworm that can infect humans. If composted properly to 140 degrees F, these hazards are minimized. Check here for the proper technique on building a hot compost pile.
If you're having a farmer spread fresh manure on your garden, it's best to apply it the fall before you garden. This will give it time to breakdown. If you must apply undecomposed manures in spring, do so 120 days before harvesting any leafy green crop or root crops and 90 days before harvesting any above ground fruiting crops. Never use uncomposted animal manure as a side dressing on existing plants.
Not All Poop is Created Equal
Not all animal manures are used the same way or have the same in nutrient content. Some, such as chicken and bat guano, are "hot" manures, high in urea nitrogen. These should be used carefully on plants even after they’ve decomposed because they their high nitrogen content can burn tender root systems.
Cow, sheep, and horse manures are not as hot, but because they are often mixed with high carbon bedding such as sawdust or hay, they are best used composted so all the materials have a chance to break down. Other manures, such as cat, dog, or pig, should be avoided all together because they may harbor diseases that can infect humans even after decomposition.
If you have a small garden, consider using worm castings. These are high in soluble nutrients and can be used directly in the garden. You can buy bags of worm casting, but raising your own worms is fun, although you'll need a lot of worms to produce enough castings to amend a large garden.
A better way to use worm castings is to make a compost tea. The tea water is rich in nutrients and is a great way to give your plants a quick boost as a foliar fertilizer. In fact, you can make tea from any manure. Here's a little more information on making manure or compost teas.
Which manure you use may also be a matter of availability. Horse, cow, and chicken manures are probably easier to find in the community than sheep, bat, and rabbit. Buying bags of composted manure is easy and safe, but it can get expensive.
Here are some tips on the benefits of various types of manure.
Cow Manure
This is a good all purpose manure. It has a good balance of nutrients, but they are low in quantity. It's more often used as a soil conditioner to improve soil structure by adding organic matter than as a way to deliver lots of nutrients to plants. However, because of its low nitrogen content, it tends not to burn the roots of tender plants as easily. Since cows have 4 stomaches and their food is well digested, the organic matter and weed seeds are well broken down.
Chicken/Bird Manure
This manure is highest in nitrogen and phosphorous and the nutrients are quickly available to plants. The urea nitrogen can easily burn plan roots, so this must be used carefully around plants. However, the high nitrogen content makes it great for leafy greens. It has few weed seeds and diseases.
Sheep and Goat Manure
This manure is drier than other manures, so it’s easier to use. It has a low odor and is a richer source of nitrogen and potassium than cow and horse manure. It doesn't burn plants, but can have weed seeds.
Horse Manure
Probably one of the easiest manures to find locally, it's a good all-purpose product, but like cow manure, not necessarily high in nutrients. Since a horse only digests one-quarter of the grass and seeds it eats, its poop is high in weed seeds.
Worm Castings
A great source of macro- and micronutrients, it's odorless, doesn't burn plants, even if applied fresh, and is good at stimulating microbial growth in soil. You can buy worm castings or raise the worms yourself. However, you'll need lots of worms to make enough castings to feed your garden. It's best to stretch the castings by making a tea out of the castings to feed plants more readily.
Exotic Manures
As people start raising other types of animals around their homes as pets or for commerce, you may find more exotic manure available. Don't shy away from trying their manure in your garden. Rabbit, alpaca, and llama are just some of the exotic animals that produce usable manures. If you're near a zoo, you might find elephant and rhino poop for sale. Now that's some good organic matter.
How Much Poop?
As a soil conditioner, generally you can use 40 pounds of composted manure per 100 square feet of garden. That's about a bag or two of purchased composted manure. If applying composted manures to existing beds that are already very fertile, a 1- to 2-inch thick layer is probably sufficient. On poor soils, double that amount.
http://www.garden.org/
Images copyright: http://www.clemens-hobbytec.de/; http://www.animallaw.info/
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How to make your own compost tea
Earthship Construction
So, what exactly is this thing?
Christened an "Earthship" by designer/architect Michael Reynolds, literally hundreds of these homes (made primarily from old automobile tires and beer cans) have been constructed in the Southwestern U.S. This project is the first Earthship constructed within the state of Ohio.
The concept is pretty cool - taking advantage of the natural heating and cooling properties of the earth, the passive heat of the sun, discarded and problem waste materials and mixing these with an embracing attitude toward your environment - the result is a comfortable and peaceful place to live. If you want to find more background on the concept (and a whole lot more), check out the source at www.earthship.org.
Our Experience
After attending a workshop put on by Solar Survival, reading all the books, and purchasing a set of generic blueprints... we were ready to go. We decided to give this thing a try, taking our vast background in construction (in other words... none at all) and figure it out as we went along. It became our summer project for a number of years. Progress was interrupted by work and a few years in Europe, but we returned in the autumn of 2004 prepared to finish this project and build a sustainability center in the process. This was the beginnings of Blue Rock Station.
Back sometime in the early 90's, Annie was listening to our local radio station in Tampa (a great little community radio station called WMNF) to an interview with Michael Reynolds describing an interesting house he had designed for actor Dennis Weaver. She looked into it a bit, then suggested we consider building one on some property we owned in Ohio. Foolishly I nodded my head and soon found myself in Taos, New Mexico - out in the middle of the desert pounding dirt into old tires.
So just how do you go about building an earthship like this? There are a lot of great web sites out there that do a terrific job in describing the process. There are also a number of books available that are quite helpful if you want to go further, but since you are here - we put together a fairly basic overview to give you a taste:
Pounding the tires...
Pounding the tires...
We all know the problem... hundreds of thousands of tires fillings landfills for generations to come. Nobody pretends that Earthships are the sole answer, but they are a great way to put thousands of these eyesores to good use.
We all know the problem... hundreds of thousands of tires fillings landfills for generations to come. Nobody pretends that Earthships are the sole answer, but they are a great way to put thousands of these eyesores to good use.
We used about 1,400 tires in the construction of our Earthship.
The tire itself is little more than a mold to hold rammed earth in place. It generally takes about two wheel barrow loads of earth to fill each tire. Simply take the stuff that has been excavated from your site, shovel it into the tire and spend the rest of the summer swinging a sledge hammer.
Many people ask if there is any regulatory issue (or code issue) in using the discarded tires. I suspect it varies greatly from place to place - but here in Ohio at the time we were building, we were required to contact the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) since we were going to use more than 100 tires (less is apparently not regulated). The folks there were great to work with and actually provided us with the tires from an illegal dump site. They visited several times to make sure we were storing the tires properly (avoid mosquitoes) and even helped pound a few. Someone was kind enough to share the current regulations, so we will share them here with you.
Beneficial Use of Tires (from the Ohio EPA, GD #671)
After a couple of tires, you will find you develop your own style. Most people end up pulling the inside rim of the tire up with their hands and shoving the loose dirt into the tire. Then you begin pounding with the sledge.
Once filled to the brim, level the tire to itself and in respect to the tires around it. If you do this right, the entire wall should end up standing straight and tall.
The good folks at Solar Survival don't seem to suffer from some of the same difficulties we encountered during this phase of the project. We were told that they often have so many volunteers showing up on site, that they interview them and only accept those that show promise.
We, on the other hand, placed ad after ad in the local newspaper trying to get anyone who could swing a sledgehammer to come out and work - and we even would pay them, with Catlyn supervising.
Admittedly pounding tires is really hard work, but we still managed to go through about 60 "strong young men" during the course of the summer (in an effort to keep 3-4 working at any one time). Some lasted less than a day.
Surprisingly we found the people who lasted longest and did the best work were middle-aged men and young women. I don't know what that says about anything... but I thought I would throw it in for all to ponder.
Laying the Foundation...
After selecting the suitable site, you clear your patch of heaven and lay out a rough image of the Earthship's footprint. All that dirt and clay and rock that is being scraped away is what you will use to fill those hundreds of tires.
The house "floats" on this foundation - which typically causes traditional builders to cringe (they want to build deep footers). I am perfectly happy to buck conventional construction wisdom (as I know no better). Fortunately we did not have to put this theory to the test as we were resting on bedrock after scraping off the topsoil.
One thing that the experts (Earthship experts that is) recommend is that you pile your earth right in the middle of where you will be working. This is good advice, saving miles of pushing a wheelbarrow around before your project is finished.
Of course you need to be very careful in placing your first layer of tires, as everything keys off these. Measure and check and double check and measure again.
Then you just keep building up the courses, ensuring they are level and solid. It is also a good idea to level them vertically as you go, avoiding future work when it comes to mudding.
The Earthship's roof...
Perhaps one of the trickiest challenges we faced in this construction project was to build a roof that didn't leak. Since Earthships were born out in the desert southwest, I suspect the folks out there didn't give it much thought. But here in wet southeastern Ohio, it is a major concern. The unique "V-shaped" design of the roof is especially vulnerable. So take great care.
Once you have finished pounding tires, you must then build a sill plate that binds the top row of tires together. How you do this is outlined in the Solar Survival books (and you thought you were going to learn everything you needed to know from this site, eh?)
The composite "I-beams" span the gap created by the "U-shaped" tire walls. Some folks will use felled trees as rafters - which gives a very rustic appearance. Just remember the span is quite wide and the beam needs to support a great deal of weight.
In the center of that trough, you must build a "cricket" that sheds the water off in both directions. Our design (the basic plan from Solar Survival) has two cisterns that catch the water from the roof, one on each side of the main structure.
In each of the three rooms, we have placed a skylight. These are essential (in our view) as they provide a tremendous amount of light. But they are also a pain - being the weak point where most of your leaking will occur. Be prepared to do plenty of flashing around them. We also coated the entire roof with a Neoprene rolled surface, then covered this with salvaged slate (reclaimed from those old barns we tore down).
And of course, insulate your roof well. We used rolled insulation in the face and blown-in insulation in the main rooms. The Earthship is remarkably snug. We have found that even in temperatures of - 15° F the house stays at 55° F or more, even without a heat source. When we light the wood stove, the entire house is soon 70° F.
Building the face...
The face of the structure (or greenhouse area) is the passive solar heart source of this building. In order to gather in the maximum amount of sunshine, the entire structure must be oriented to south-south east (assuming you're in the northern hemisphere).
The face is also angled based on your latitude, so that on the winter solstice it is at a 90 degree angle to the sunlight (at 40 degree N we positioned it at a 50 degree angle, at 45 degree N you would position it at a 55 degree... and so on).
When we got ready to do this phase of the project, it seemed a bit overwhelming. So we tried to get some "professional" help - but were soon put off by the price. Eventually we were able to do the job for about 1/10th the best estimate. As you can see, we even managed to get it to look somewhat like the diagram.
Actually, the construction of the face is fairly straightforward. You build a wooden frame onto a foundation of pounded tires, setting it at the proper angle and securing it to the main structure roof with really heavy-duty rafters. The wood we used was mostly salvaged from local barns that we dismantled (arranging with the farmer to salvage the wood before he burned them down).
There are some fairly complicated methods for constructing the large windows... but we took the lazy way out. We purchased a number of patio doors from a warehouse (these were returns and seconds). In this way we avoided a lot of problems with leaking that we read about on various web sites. We had the windows delivered before we began framing the face. I have read of problems some people have had matching custom windows with the openings, but we avoided this by having each window right there on site and checking and double-checking before hammering in that final nail.
After securing the patio door panels in the various slots, we constructed three "dormers" where we could place traditional windows that open. This is simply a matter of taste and we have seen a number of Earthships that skip this step entirely. By doing this, you lose a bit of sunlight, but we placed them in the bathroom and the utility room - so good ventilation was more important to us than passive solar heat in these locations.
By design, the face takes the full brunt of all the elements the world will throw at your Earthship. It intentionally takes as much direct sunlight as possible, as well as all the wind, rain and snow your locale can dish out. So worry a lot about drainage and waterproofing.
We addressed this problem by encasing the entire face in coated aluminum, using a gutter break to fit each piece. If you don't do something like this, the different expansion/contraction rates of the various materials will open up micro cracks and water will find its way into your snug little home.
The Wetlands, your indoor garden...
The wetlands are an important part of the Earthship concept. All the wastewater (other than the toilet) is drained into these structures and used to grow your indoor garden. Excess water can even be filtered through the wetlands and used again.
The walls of the wetlands are built using old cans or bottles, these serving as air gaps in the concrete leaving a very strong "honeycomb" support structure. The plumbing drains are then fed into the wetlands at one end, the unit sloped away so that water entering will flow downhill (through a mixture of stone, sand, charcoal and dirt) being purified along the way.
Our home has two wetlands, one at each end of the "face" area of the building. One receives the water from two sinks and the shower - the other from the kitchen sink and the washing machine.
The above grade surface of the wetlands walls can be finished as you like. Typically these will receive a smooth adobe finish similar to those of the interior walls. Our wetlands are not yet completed, but you can see that a few "volunteers" have already made themselves at home.
Building a can wall...
The interior walls of our Earthship are all non load bearing, so there are quite a few options. Typically they are constructed using old cans and bottles, along with cement or mud (depending on the amount of water that will be present - for example we used cement in the shower area).
We built these walls using two main styles - a framed structure (building the frame out of wood and then filling the cavities with the can wall) or free form (just building layer upon layer of cans).
The first step is to create the "mud" - a mixture of sifted clay (from on site), sand and a bit straw and water. Then, nail a few bits of plaster lathe to the wood frame. These will help anchor the can wall to the frame.
Lay down a layer of mud, pressing cans into it. Repeat the process, filling mud between and on top of the cans. It's a good idea to squeeze a small dimple in the middle of the can, so it is no longer perfectly round. That way you cannot "pop" the can out of the dried wall.
At the appropriate level, you press the lathe into the mud, anchoring the wall. You will find you can only do a few courses before it begins to feel a bit unstable - at which point you just let the thing dry before continuing.
After you build up the wall, and it is dry, you can begin to finish the exterior. In our case, we finished the walls with a mud mixture. We will talk a bit more about this process in the section of this web site that demonstrates how to finish the interior tire walls.
Finishing an interior tire wall...
The tire wall is the "heart and soul" of the Earthship structure. This feature, probably more than anything else, gives the home its unique look and feel. When you tell folks about the home, this is the thing they have the hardest time visualizing. So let's take a look at what you do to finish off the interior wall.
You begin, of course with the pounded tire wall. Notice the electrical lines are mounted on the exterior. Slowly fill in the cavities between the tires with a mud/sand/straw mixture, pressing in empty cans to fill in the bigger spaces.
You don't have to be dainty at this stage, and can sling as much mud as will stick (sounds like a Louisiana politician). Anyway, the goal here is to build the entire section out so that you have a relatively flat surface.
Next comes the "rough" coat. Without getting too bogged down in details, the various coats require a slightly different mix of the Mud... this coat just gives you a uniform coated surface. You scratch up the surface while the mud is still wet, so the following coat will adhere well.
There are probably as many techniques used to mud a wall as there are people, and you will no doubt find your own. After you let the surface dry, wet the wall with water, then apply the next layer to the wet area. I found it most comfortable to use a spray bottle and a mortar board with pointed trowel - but some of the guys found it easier to just use a bucket of mud and spread it with their hands (until the final coat, anyway).
As you build out the wall, you will incorporate the wiring as well as the outlets and switches. Below you can see an outlet box (the mud wall will be built out to level... and we will clean off all the mud, don't worry) as well as a switch (where the wall has already been built out).
Plumbing systems...
Our water supply is obtained by collecting rain from the roof. The original design called for 2 - 5,000 gallon cisterns (one on each end of the house).
We have operated for 15 years with only one cistern finished and functional without problem - so we figure one cistern is probably enough given the large amount of rainfall we receive in this part of the country. So we knocked a door through the wall of the other cistern (not an easy task) and turned it into a root cellar.
The water is pumped from the cistern to a pressure tank. All this is relatively conventional. In fact we had a regular plumber create the system and it was fully inspected and approved by the local authorities.
The shower room is separated from the toilet area (European style). The walls of the shower are made of cans and bottles, coated in concrete, and then tiled.
Heating systems...
Our Earthship uses three methods (in tandem) to heat our home. These include:
Thermal Mass - the earth itself provides the lion's share of of the heat (and a bit of cooling in the summer). If you have ever been in a cave, you will know that the temperature feels cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Typically they stay about 56 degrees F year-round. The earth that is rammed into the tires, plus the earth that is mounded against the north side of the building keep the temperature in the home at least 50 degrees F no matter what the outside temperature may be. During construction, we noted one day when the temperature was -14 degrees F outdoors, inside the temperature was 50 degrees F with no sun and no additional heating source.
Passive Solar - the orientation of the home, facing just east of south is key in generating heat within the house when the sun is shining. The angle of the glass is designed to maximize solar gain during the winter solstice (and the weeks surrounding it). Based on latitude, our windows are angled at 50 degrees as we are at 40 degrees N latitude (take 90, subtract your latitude and you will find the angle where the sun will penetrate at right angles on the solstice).
We have found that too much sun, rather than not enough is the major problem on sunny days. If we had it to do over, we would have placed the windows vertically to avoid leaking (windows are just not designed to be placed at an angle).
But the passive solar gain is impressive and the house warms up to 60 - 70 degrees F when the sun is shining, regardless of the outdoor temperature.
Wood Stove - we have one wood burning stove that supplements the heat. This is located in the living room. Since we have about 30 acres of woodlands, securing firewood is easy and free (aside from the sweat and cursing). Running this wood stove will raise the heat in the living room to the mid to upper 70's. We installed a bathroom vent fan at the highest point in the living room, sucking hot air into the center "U" when turned on. There is a second fan installed in the center "U" that can draw air into the third "U". This provides additional heat as well as allows us to move the air around within the home.
Finishing the thing...
It seems that the finish work takes forever. One thing to remember in any building project is that it will take twice as long as you think it will and cost twice as much.
In keeping with the concepts of an Earthship, we have tried our best to use what is available locally. We happen to live in rural Appalachia and so there is plenty of old barn wood (local farmers seem to like to burn them down), slate and assorted other bits and bobs.
We have made our own cabinets and shelves from the barn wood. Each winter I sign up for a cabinet making class at our local high school - which gives me access to their workshop that would make Norm Abrams green with envy.
The roof is slate, as will be the floors (we have constructed slate floors on other projects and they are absolutely beautiful. In one of the rooms we also put in a recycled barn wood floor.
We managed to buy heavy industrial stainless steel counters for our kitchen at auction (when they tore down a local school - we do a lot of tearing down around here and not much building up). Other sinks and materials we bought at various auctions and a habitat store in Columbus, Ohio.
We also managed to find some old pressed tin for the ceilings - bought for almost nothing from a guy who raided a demolition site 30 years ago - salvaging the tin but then never using it.
If you wander the web looking at Earthships, you will find that most are located in the western US and reflect that building style. Our home is quite different - reflecting our locale. You will also find that many of these homes cost a bundle. Ours was constructed on the “cheap” using mostly scrounged or salvaged materials (as it should be, he added smugly).
http://www.bluerockstation.com/
Interview with Michael Reynolds: Earthship creator
Earthship n. 1. passive solar home made of natural and recycled materials 2. thermal mass construction for temperature stabilization. 3. renewable energy and integrated water systems; an off-grid home with few or no utility bills.
Q: I want to begin by asking what caused you to think about using waste products such as tires and cans for building materials?
Michael Reynolds: The idea started almost thirty years ago after I watched a television special with Charles Kurault and Walter Cronkite. This was back in the times when soda and beer cans were made of steel rather than aluminum as they are today. The special showed the tremendous amount of cans and bottles that were littering our national parks and streets. Charles predicted a major garbage problem in the future. That was thirty years ago, before the word “recycle” became part of our everyday vocabulary.
In the same segment, Walter Cronkite talked about the clear-cutting of timber that was occurring in the Northwest, and predicted a serious rise in the cost of wood and housing.
I had just graduated from architectural school, and within two weeks of seeing this on television I was building blocks out of cans. Shortly after that, several buildings were created.
Some years later, when the energy crunch hit, people were trying to figure out how to store temperature in buildings by using thermal mass. Several of us were already building with garbage, so we decided to see if there was any solution to the current situation by finding some type of garbage that we could utilize to fit the problem.
We looked at tires, and found that if we beat earth into them we created thermal mass. We then added tires and solar electric to our experiments with building.
Then, the news started talking about water shortages, and rivers and streams being polluted. So we began catching water on the roof of our structures rather than drilling into the aquifers. We also began treating our sewage in contained systems, reusing the water we caught from the sky, and didn't let anything go into the aquifers, rivers and streams that would pollute them.
So what I'm saying is that thirty years ago we listened to the news and that's where it all began. Continuing to listen to the news has made what we do evolve. And any time we hear of problems, we try to incorporate solutions into our building concepts.
At this point we've been working long enough to have a fully sustainable home built from recycled materials. We call it an "Earthship."
Q: Are there any other materials you use for building besides tires, bottles, and cans?
Michael Reynolds: Yes. We've just started grinding up plastic, since we have a tremendous number of plastic jugs and bottles in our garbage.
Our sewage systems actually have to have an aggregate of gravel or pumice to make them effective. So now we've started mixing in ground-up plastics - kind of like "hamburger helper." We buy less gravel and get rid of our plastic, and it works just fine.
In our 650-acre community in northern New Mexico, we can actually get rid of all our garbage and not have to put anything into the municipal waste dump except for disposable diapers and a few other weird things. And its very successful.
Q: Why use tires?
Michael Reynolds: Well, you can certainly achieve thermal mass in a building using stone, concrete, or several other materials. But we've found tires to be the one material that is actually the best. And tires are globally available, indigenous to the entire planet. But it's not the tires in and of themselves. They are most effective when beaten with earth.
Q: What do you mean "beaten with earth?"
Michael Reynolds: Filled with earth and compacted.
Q: In terms of a waste product, aren’t old tires considered one of the world’s greatest garbage problems?
Michael Reynolds: Exactly. By using tires to build homes you are addressing this problem.
Tires are very low tech. They take no machinery to remanufacture. You just gather them up, beat them full of earth, and use them for bricks.
If you're looking to make changes in our building criteria, nothing hits as many environmental issues as tires, and they are structurally as good as, if not better than, most materials.
I look at it this way. The planet produces trees. We like trees and need them to create oxygen. But we are using far too many of them. This planet also produces tires, and we don't have a use for them, and we don’t know what to do with them. So why not stop building with trees and start building with tires?
Q: Why do you think it’s such a problem to get people enrolled in this idea? Of course there are certain types of people who do get involved, but the mass population does not.
Michael Reynolds: Well, tires have a stigma. They are considered garbage, and people don’t want to have anything to do with garbage.
I say time and time again, "If I were paid a million dollars to invent the best building product relative to a variety of factors, I could not come up with anything better than tires."
To me, a big mountain of tires is like a gold mine. It's a city, it's a forest, it's a fantastic thing to have at our disposal. They are a natural resource and people are slowly beginning to understand this. The idea is growing.
We just recently produced a book called Comfort in Any Climate. Our main objective in this book was to get people to understand that buildings, especially homes, should be made out of thermal mass. We think that no matter how people build, they should do so out of mass, because mass holds and stores temperature. If you put a large amount of warm water in a room, it will heat up the room. It might cool down a bit, but it stays stable for a long time. Like the human body, which is about 80 percent water — when you eat, the body heats up that water a little bit and causes you to be able to maintain a constant temperature of 98.6 degrees. If you had no water in your body you couldn’t maintain a temperature. You’d have to eat all the time to stay constant. You’d wear out your digestive system and eat everything in sight. It’s because of this water mass that we are able to stabilize.
Homes are the same way. You constantly have to feed them fuel for them to stay warm enough for people to live in. If a home is made of mass, you don't have to keep feeding it fuel. If the house has enough mass you can feed it fuel every time the sun is out and that's enough.
Here in New Mexico, it drops considerably below zero at night. However, the homes we are building now don't even have backup heat. We put in fireplaces just for fun and we can plumb them for gas so the owners have backup heat if they want it, but we don't even have to put them in. We are not using any energy for heating or cooling, and this is because of thermal mass construction.
Q: Could we liken it to a cave where the temperature remains constant?
Michael Reynolds: Deep in the earth it's always a constant temperature. A cave will most generally stay about 58 degrees, and that's because of mass. Now, this is not comfortable for a human, but you won't freeze to death, and your pipes won't freeze. So with no sun, mass will keep you alive. Add sun, which we all have some of, and you have comfort.
Of course sun alone just goes away at night, and your house gets cold. But sun with mass, to store what the sun did during the day, makes it. And its equal/equal. You can't do solar housing without mass. Building a house like your body is built is a very good analogy.
Q: I notice one of your homes on your website is built above the ground — the one call the Nautilus.
Michael Reynolds: The Nautilus is a perfect example of an out-of-the-ground Earthship, veneered with straw bales. The reason it's done that way is that the site is on lava rock, and we couldn't go into the earth. If we can go into the earth, we will. Then we are tapping into that 58-degree baseline, and we know the temperature won't go lower than that. Then we introduce the sun, and that brings us up to about 70 degrees. We can even get over 70. It depends on how you manipulate the sun.
Basically, what we say is, the building is designed to encounter the sun, to encounter the mass of the earth, to encounter the rain, to encounter the biological aspects of plants for treating sewage, to encounter the wind. We even encounter other phenomena, like condensation to collect drinking water. So we are basically "encountering" the earth rather than manipulating and recreating the earth or devastating the earth.
I was just sharing an example with someone the other day of how I see people on the earth.
I was in the mountains of Nevada a while back where a lot of Ponderosa pine grows. I saw a very healthy pine tree with a little bit of mistletoe on it. Mistletoe is a parasite, and as long as the pine tree is healthy, the mistletoe is healthy. And I looked around and saw a tree with a little more mistletoe, and it was starting to look a bit ragged. I saw another pine tree with a lot more mistletoe on it, and it was literally dying. Then I saw a dead tree with a bunch of dead mistletoe on it.
That's the way I see us humans on this planet. We are basically a parasite. If we do not completely suck the earth dry of everything it's got, then the earth can support us. But if we kill the earth it will result in death to ourselves.
What I'm saying is, we can change our method of relating to the earth, and rather than extracting from the earth, we can simply "encounter" the elements, the phenomena of the earth - especially the phenomena you don't have to worry about running out of, such as sunlight or rain.
It's amazing. People are piping water and damming rivers and making canals all over the place and totally manipulating surface water and aquifers, when almost all over the planet, water falls from the sky. Our Earthship community is in a very arid area, for instance, but we have enough water because we reuse it four times. We actually flush our toilet with water we took a bath in yesterday.
We take a bath in the water, it runs through our indoor system and gets all cleaned up, and then we flush our toilet with it. We cut our water usage in half right there.
One of the things I think is archaic and ridiculous is how we have pipes and wires going everywhere to deliver energy - not to mention the production of energy itself, which is devastating to the planet, through nuclear power plants and coal fired power plants.
With our method of encountering natural phenomenon on site, you do not have to deliver power, water, and sewage anywhere. You encounter it all right there.
Q: What happens to the "black" water?
Michael Reynolds: The black water ends up going outside to the same kind of system that we have inside. It is contained in a rubber lined planter that you landscape with.
For instance, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico, are promoting what they call zero-scape landscaping, where they plant cactus, which uses very little water, and use gravel instead of lawns. Well, that's because we have a water shortage. Yet those same houses using zero-scape landscaping are dumping sewage into the Rio Grande River.
What we do with the Earthship concept is contain the sewage and use it for lush landscaping inside and out. Therefore we don't have to dump it into the river. We don't have to pipe it. We're not polluting anything. We're taking advantage of our own sewage.
Sewage has the same stigma as tires. Sewage is considered bad. But I see sewage as gold. It gives us something to use.
Q: I was thinking of my travels to the rainforest in Ecuador. If you relieve yourself in the rainforest, it disappears within about six hours, because all the organisms of the forest utilize it.
Michael Reynolds: That's the way we should live, and it's what Earthships are trying to do - to simply be like the earth is already.
I have said many times that the earth doesn't care if we destroy ourselves. It will prevail. Once we take it down where it can't support us and we die off, the earth will come back.
It's just a matter of us killing ourselves. If we're stupid enough to do that, then we'll do it. I don't look at it as a moral thing. I just wonder if we are stupid enough to kill ourselves or smart enough to encounter the earth and survive.
Q: What kinds of people have come to you for help in building Earthships?
Michael Reynolds: Many people come wanting to build communities.
One group came to me and we talked about setting up a sustainable community. Then the conversation turned to their need to have underground caves and places to store ammo.
I said that even if they had the stomach to shoot that many people, there was no way to store that much ammo to protect themselves from people who don't have what they have. The best way of protecting oneself is to help everyone have what you have. I think this is a very good global philosophy as well.
There wouldn't be any war if everyone had everything they needed - and by everything, I mean the means to survive. I don't mean gold and oil and wealth and all of that. I mean, if every creature, every human were provided with the knowledge and minor technology that it takes to make homes for themselves, homes that encounter the elements so they don't have utility bills, then everybody would be alive and happy. Then if you want to go be a capitalist? Go for it! But the thing is, most people on the planet don't even have "survival," even though the survival I'm speaking of is very, very available.
In our area we are trying to make the Earthship technology accessible to everyone. We have a school program. We try to illustrate that it can be done. We don't try to cram it down people's throats.
I don't think these ideas are moral or spiritual. I think they're just logical.
Q: Let's talk about cost. It says on your website that the packaged Earthship is the most popular design. So on average, what would the cost be for a one- or two-bedroom Earthship?
Michael Reynolds: The cost really depends on how you approach building it. One of the things we try to do is get owners to participate in the construction. That could bring the cost down by as much as 40 percent.
I can best explain Earthship construction cost by comparing it to conventional frame construction, which is built for the most part by contractors and then sold to consumers.
If you utilize a building contractor, the cost for building an Earthship will be about the same as for a frame home. Prices will vary from area to area. But there is a huge difference. The frame home, in addition to the mortgage payment, will have a $200-$300 monthly utility bill, including water, electricity, and sewage.
The Earthship has no utility bill.
What I see, which is even more important than the price of utilities now, is the availability of them. Not too long ago, the people of California, no matter how much money they had, couldn't get power.
It's going to be that way with water availability and sewage disposal. These problems are going to keep cropping up. We don't know everything that was occurring in California, but we know people suffered and didn't have what they needed. What I'm saying is that people don't need to be in that situation.
We are trying to weave the Earthship concepts into the "real world" marketplace. Banks are finally beginning to loan money for them. We have a company out here called Southwest Mortgage, and another bank that will provide construction money. Depending on what's going on in the world, insurance companies go back and forth about insuring them.
Q: So what I'm hearing you say is that you can compare conventional building prices with contractor-built Earthships "apples and apples."
Michael Reynolds: Exactly. But you also have the option of building it yourself.
A conventional home has so many trades and crafts needed that it is very difficult for everyday people to really build it themselves and do a good job. But the packaged Earthship is very simple, and we have a simple "how to" book that is as easy to read as a coloring book. It would probably compare to the books in the '60s on how to repair your Volkswagen Bug. We are trying to give people the opportunity to building themselves, and probably 60 percent will take advantage of that option. But if they can't, they can have one built for them.
We know that many people can do it.
We have this phrase "putting housing back into the hands of the people." We set up communities where somebody could come by with a hundred dollars in their pocket, and we would show them how to start building their home and provide the land to put it on. Part of our battles have been legal - introducing law, fighting old law, getting in trouble for breaking the law. You know, it's just constant. But we are still alive and well.
Q: If someone were going to build an Earthship, where would they go to get tires? What would be the cost, and how many would they need?
Michael Reynolds: It takes about a thousand tires to build a house, and most places will be thrilled for you to take them away because they have to pay to dispose of them. So if you go to a tire store and ask if you can haul away some of their tires for the next few weeks, they would be thrilled. That’s the way we do it here. We get most of our tires for free.
However, Earthship construction has become popular here in New Mexico, so there have been occasions where a bunch of people were building, and we had to buy them from a place in Colorado and pay 75 cents apiece for them, delivered.
The guy was sitting on 6 million tires in his tire dump, and now he perceives himself as a millionaire because he can sell them for housing.
Q: Are there other communities besides yours in Taos?
Michael Reynolds: There's lots of talk about intentional and sustainable communities, and many people doing solar. Others are doing "catch water," and others are playing with the concept of recycling sewage. But to my knowledge there isn't anyone that is offering an entire package of a home that heats and cools itself, that makes its own power, catches its own water, contains its own sewage, and is built from recycled materials.
Q: I notice the designs are very whimsical. They bring out childlike feelings for me, the Nautilus especially. Do you find that people gravitate to that kind of look?
Michael Reynolds: Some people are scared off by the Nautilus. It looks too fairytale and too strange. Some people want just a simple-looking house that makes no statement at all. Some want their house to look like everyone else's. And for a long time we didn't care what they looked like - we just wanted them to work.
But there are quite a few people - more than half - who are moved by the shapes of the Nautilus. It's a castle. It's a fairytale. And we have a lot of designs that are like that. It's not limited, it can go any way you want it to.
If you're trying to cross the ocean in a boat, your main concern is that it will float. You don't care about what it looks like. And that's kind of how we developed this. Now I have to say that after thirty years we know what we're doing. So now we can play with the aesthetics to a certain degree and try and make it palatable to more and more people, because looks alone will stop someone from going in this direction.
What I want to do is make the Earthship available to everyone on an emotional, physical, and financial level. Then if they don't want it, fine - pay utility bills, be lost in the shuffle when the power goes down, or whatever. It's up to you - it's just logic.
Q: I notice there is one home that is listed for sale. Are there others in your subdivision?
Michael Reynolds: Yes. We just opened the second phase of our subdivision. It's really amazing to have gotten a sustainable subdivision open, because subdivisions are about utilities, and we've got a subdivision without utilities. It was kind of Catch 22 to get the county officials to even approve it. But fortunately they were forward-thinking.
We will always have one or two houses available in different income levels, because we have about 80 or 90 still to build and we will always have one or two available to rent, to show people what it is like to live in one.
We are starting another community about the same size not far from here. It's on highway frontage - and that's a lifetime of work, right there.
Q: Do you host on-site workshops?
Michael Reynolds: Yes, we have about five seminars every year where people come from as far away as New Zealand or Japan.
We have what we call a seven-day demonstration unit. We build a room in seven days that actually shows much of what we've been talking about.
We did one of these programs in Belgium a couple of years ago. We were running around in Brussels to the tire stores and grocery stores getting tires. The TV stations ended up putting the finished room on TV, and people were amazed. It was a beautiful little room sitting in this woman's back yard.
We did a program for the Lakota Sioux in South Dakota and one in Mexicali a few months ago. We've done one in Japan, and one at fourteen thousand feet in Bolivia.
Someone from the UN contacted us a few months ago and is trying to get funding to take this kind of approach to the refugee situation. The idea was for us to teach people to build their own homes, rather than just passing out blankets and food to them, as we do now.
There are lots of different applications. There's the refugee angle, which is down-and-dirty quick survival. And there are people talking about several-million-dollar homes that illustrate the high-end market.
Think of those 10-million-dollar homes in Telluride. Their owners panic when the power or gas goes out because those homes don't work any more. With the Earthship concept you can show the wealthy that they can have their million-dollar homes with all the luxuries, and they will still work if the grid goes down.
Q: So you think there will be a surge of interest soon?
Michael Reynolds: Yes.
Many people think that just because they have money they don't need to worry about anything else. But people are starting to realize after September 11, and after California's energy crisis, that they are vulnerable no matter how much money they have. So we are getting wealthy people building what they call "safe houses." They want to build their second or third home somewhere in the mountains, all beautiful and big and fancy, and that's where they will go when everything fails in the city.
So, fine, if that's the door in, we'll take it.
Q: Michael, thanks so much for the good work you're doing.
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