Because it's not easy being Green

It’s National "TAKE YOUR TURKEY OUT OF THE FREEZER DAY!"
Today is the Monday before Thanksgiving and it is time to start defrosting.

If you take your bird out of the freezer or buy a frozen bird, and put it in the fridge today, it should be fully defrosted by Thursday. This way you will avoid the misery of trying to thaw your bird in a giant pot of cool water on Thursday morning.

This depends on size, if you have a +20 lbs. frozen bird you are already in trouble.

Bonus items:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml04/04041.html
Consumer Safety advice on how to use a turkey fryer without burning down your garage, setting yourself on fire, etc.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/FactSheets/Lets_Talk_Turkey/index.asp
Food safety basics for turkeys; thawing, stuffing, cooking, and leftovers. Remember to refrigerate the leftover turkey (stuffing removed) within 2 hours after it comes out of the oven.

Please spread this message. Send it to friends, family, and those you know who are in need of a clue. The dinner you save may be your own.

Have a happy holiday! I'll be in the kitchen.

Qualifier; Habitat does a lot of good work, but they are a nonprofit ecumenical Christian organization. Not everyone is aware of this. Find your own comfort level.

Habitat ReStores are outlets that accept donated goods for resale. While every ReStore is a little different, most focus on home improvement goods—furniture, home accessories, building materials and appliances. These donated goods are sold to the general public at a fraction of the retail price to help local affiliates fund the construction of Habitat homes within their communities.

Materials sold by Habitat ReStores are usually donated by local retailers, contractors and individuals in the community. ReStores provide an environmentally and socially responsible way to keep good, reusable materials out of the waste stream and simultaneously provide funding for all of Habitat’s community improvement work.

If you want to shop or if you or your company have materials to donate, contact your local ReStore.

Listing for Massachusetts stores

Carver
72 N Main St
Carver, MA 02330 Phone: (508) 866-4199

Fitchburg
1 Oak Hl Rd
Fitchburg, MA 01420 Phone: (978) 729-7961

Worcester
7 Gold St
Worcester, MA 01609 Phone: (508) 799-9259

http://www.habitat.org/cd/env/restore.aspx

I just found out that November 9th was also the 20th birthday of Wallace and Grommit.

http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/happy-20th-birthday-wallace-and-gromit/

Specifiers' Properties information exchange (links below). The SPie system is a system for integrating BIM with specifications. It is likely to be adopted as the national standard, given that one of the participants is the National CAD standards folks (buildingSmart Alliance is a council within the National Institute of Building Sciences, NIBS). It is based on the Omniclass system, which is already integrated with MasterFormat. BIM stands for building information modelling (any 3D drafting system, but usually Revit by Autocad)

The SPie project site,
http://www.buildingsmartalliance.org/index.php/projects/spie/

Explaination of the SPie template format,
http://www.wbdg.org/references/pg_spt.php

The SPie's founding organization main page,
http://www.buildingsmartalliance.org/

The Omniclass main page,
http://www.omniclass.org/

Related system: Construction Operations Building information exchange (COBie, a facilities management data collection system)
http://www.wbdg.org/resources/cobie.php

This is the SPie search engine site,
http://www.wbdg.org/references/pg_sptsearch.php

The Beta demonstration project is scheduled for December 2009. The SPie system is free. It is being developed by private building science groups and several federal building departments.

Link for the demo beta project,
http://www.wbdg.org/references/pg_sptdemo.php

http://www.cctvcambridge.org/node/29774

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091029161253.htm

http://jackieocean.deviantart.com/art/Phillip-vs-Maleficent-65449731

Jeffery Thomas' "Twisted Princesses" gallery at deviantart. I particularly love the Snow White.

http://jeftoon01.deviantart.com/gallery/#Twisted-Princess

http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/case-studies/cs-0016-concord-four-square-retrofit

http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/digests/bsd-139-deep-energy-retrofit-of-a-sears-roebuck-house2014a-home-for-the-next-100-years?full_view=1

Done by the folks at Building Science Corp. in Westford MA.

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Store-Root-Vegetables-in-Boxes-in-a-Cellar

This is a pretty good article that covers all of the basics of making your own root storage box. I like these because is gets around the two most common problems of storing outside; freezing and rodents. Using clean builders sand or sandbox sand also means that these root boxes are not subject to rot and can be reused from year to year. My farmer uses this method, but he uses wooden boxes that he made himself. I've even seen one article by an apartment dweller who keeps some sand boxes in her basement storage locker.

2 green racer pumpkins
1 traditional orange pumpkin
2 butternut squash
2 acorn squash
1 1/2 qts string beans, green and yellow
salad greens
turnips
radishes
cabbage
2 garlic
8 shallots
4 lbs potatoes (red and white)
parsley, cilantro, tomatillas, and hot peppers
2 lbs carrots
1 1/2 lbs peppers
2 celeriac (roots with celery still attached)
1 lb spinach

cheese (cash)
apples and plums (fruit share)
2 popcorn cobs (gift)

http://www.dowsolar.com/

Not out yet. Will hit the new construction residential market next year.

Yes, it's thin film. Yes, that's less efficient. This product seems to be going for plug-n-play status. Shingles are plugged to each other (presumably in series) by the roofer. All electrical work gets done by an electrician who gets to stay on the ground. This avoids the most common bonding and insurance issues, no one is working outside their comfort zones.

Linked here so that I can keep track of it and follow up when/if it hits the market. I'm not making anything here, FTC.

Something beautiful, for anyone who is having a rough day.

This was the first class that I taught at the Divine Proportions event two weeks ago. Attendance was light, but everyone seemed interested, and it was chosen to be in the theme of divinely inspired proportions.

All three of these books were published (printing press) in Venice in the late 15th, early 16th century. All of them are eventually published with woodcut illustrations. Venice was a major city for these professional illustrators. All of these books are still required reading for college majors in architecture, art history, and the classics. So they are easy and cheap to find on the on-line used bookstores sites such as abe.com or alibris.com.

Vitruvius - the Roman

Free, On-line text of “De Architectura” (The Ten Books on Architecture) – http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/home.html

I think that this is the text that I would most recommend to another Scadian. It has great information on military siege engines, the Archimedes screw for raising water, the principles for making a water clock, lots of good project information. The divine proportions that Vitruvius uses are based on the human body (as later illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci).

Alberti - the Writer

Free, On-line text of “De Re Aedificatoria” (The Ten Books of Architecture) – - http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=89563736

Alberti is a writer who also dabbles in architecture. He is the one who gets the Vitruvius text revived and printed in the late 1400's. He takes a stab at updating the Vitruvius format with his own book, De Re Aedificatoria. He deletes all of the military engineering and city planning that Vitruvius covers. He updates the temple design section for Christian churches. He also tries to take the human proportions of Vitruvius and tries to make them jibe with the ratios of Pythagoras.

Palladio - the Architect

“The Four Books of Architecture” 1570 AD printed with illustration Venice
I have not found any free, on-line text in english available for Palladio, but the publisher for the most common version is Dover. Supposedly MIT Press has a modern English translation.

Palladio influences the next 300 years of architecture with this book and with the beautiful mansions that he builds for the rich elites of Italy. His book is much more focused than the other two. He takes the classical elements of the greeks and romans and turns them into purely decorative elements, and then uses the principles of ancient temple design and uses them to build residences for the wealthy.

Palladio uses the perfect proportions of the rectangle of Vitruvius and Alberti, and adds the square. Supposedly his buildings are so perfect in scale and in height, width, and depth that the human occupant will actually feel it, like a faint buzz.

The class went fairly well. I need to work on my presentation techniques. What did happen that was a surprise, was that everyone wanted to actually try out the Vitruvian man proportions on themselves. I think that if I do a similar class in the future, I will make this a performance piece or workshop with this as the focus.

http://www.art.com/products/p12944815-sa-i2175594/leonardo-da-vinci-vitruvian-man.htm?sorig=cat&sorigid=0&dimvals=0&ui=3cc891da8d6c44708416fe89d7c8ce0f

Note: the Alberti and Palladio english translations are replicas of the original english translations done in the 18th century. Some readers may find this style a bit irritating, with the formal language and elongated "S", which have more to do with the 18th century than the Renaissance.

garlic
leeks
tomatillos
summer squash
peppers
eggplant (including 1 light green and a handful of 2" purple striped babies)
beets
spring turnips
lettuce
escarole
basil
watermelons
spaghetti squash
raspberries (1 quart, Josh picked)
apples (apple share)
plums (apple share)
flowers (I picked)

cheese (cash)
rolls (cash)
raspberry infusion (raspberries sugar and cider vinegar, cash)

signed up for wine share (1 case of mixed wines)
From these guys http://www.turtlecreekwine.com/

Finished my work hours for the year, Yay! (trimmed onions for long term storage)

The folks from the winery seem interesting. They are trying to get the state to allow local wines to be sold at Massachusetts farmers markets. Article in today's Boston Globe.

Tomorrow: West Acton Village farmers market. Close enough to walk to from the house!

A Voyage to Virginia. The actual text, by a probable relative. Colonel Henry Norwood , cavalier adventurer.

http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=J1025.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all

Building Materials Resource Center

http://www.bbmc.com/bbmc/index.html

Vendors of the BreathEasy line of UF free cabinets.

http://www.breatheeasycabinetry.com/index.htm

This is a member owned co-op, and also takes donations of new and used building materials.

http://www.bostonbmrc.org/bostonbmrc/wc/

Link to their E store.

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=7253145&gid=120397&trk=EML_anet_qa_ttle-cDhOon0JumNFomgJt7dBpSBA

Green Build is the largest convention about green and environmental construction in this country. The convention is three days in mid November and hosts seminars on green building and over 2000 venders. Lucky for us, the day after Green Build is done, Kingdom of Atenveldt hosts its 2nd largest event, The Southern Crusades.

Liam, you might want to forward this as well. I know you and I spoke at Roses about helping other architect/Scadians find each other.

Urea Formaldehyde Free Residential Casework Manufacturers.

1. Green Leaf Cabinets (formaldehyde free plywood and FSC wood)
http://www.greenleafcabinetry.com
2. Dwyer Kitchens (GreenGuard certified)
http://www.dwyerkitchens.com/
3. Koch Green Cabinets (Wheatboard)
http://www.kochcabinet.com/green.asp
4. Humabuilt (Wheatboard)
http://www.humabuilt.com/Pages/Cabinets.html
6. Breathe Easy (formaldehyde free and FSC wood)
http://www.breatheeasycabinetry.com/index.htm
7. Alter Eco Cabinets (Grass, Wheatboard, and Bamboo)
http://www.bamboocabinets.com/

I've posted most of this before, but the information was not well organized and I was in danger of losing track of it. In November I'll go to Build Boston and see if there are any new contenders out there.

Yesterday's Farm Share

garlic
onions
basil
cilantro
hot peppers
bell peppers
eggplant
summer squash (7 lbs!)
lettuce, 3 heads
kale
soybeans
honeydew melon
watermelon
raspberries (Josh picked from the field)
italian green beans (Josh picked from the field)
apples (apple share)
carrots
potatoes
tomatillos
leeks
and flowers (I picked)

Separate, from the farmers market
cheese
bread, rolls

After coming home from the farm:
I picked over the soybeans
blanched and froze the kale
put ratatoulie from last week's share into the crockpot

The house is officially s'plodin' with food.