Hot Daniel's Eco/Ego

School Bus transmutation in streams of conscience. We've turned a bus into our traveling home and living experiment. Journeying towards self-sufficiency. Spreading ideas for a sustainable future. Always seeking joy and community. Nurturing and...

[hotdanielthebus]

When plans get thrown out the window

well hey there internet world, it’s been a while.  Maybe you’ve been wondering what ever happened to Hot Daniel the Bus, maybe not. Either way, I’m here to finally update the story. It’s been a tough period of adjustment for us this winter, and that it because we (the passengers) are on the east coast but The Bus is on the west coast. It goes like this...

As we updated last summerish, we accepted an offer to help a friend with self-sufficiency goals to start up a homestead/farm on a new piece of property in Oregon. We spent the year growing an abundance of fruits, veggies, and herbs from seed, as well as caring for chickens, goats, and one wonderful hog.

We lived on the bus on this property, but were graciously given access to the farm house as well. During this time we learned a lot of firsts that will help us towards our own sustainability-oriented life goals, including but not limited to: how to build a greenhouse, how to build and garden with raised beds, how to build livestock structures and fencing, how to set up and maintain a drip line watering system, how to care for ruminant livestock, how solar power systems work...the list goes on!

It was an abundantly amazing and unmatchable experience for which we are so grateful.

It wasn’t without its challenges, of course, and I am mostly talking about the various pests that come along if you basically grow a grocery store in the middle of the wilderness. Jackrabbits and deer WILL overcome whatever obstacle lies between them and specialty food items. Unless you can afford the most epic permanent fencing, i guess. Anyways the point is, the wildlife ate well while we lived there.

At the end of the year, I (emma) was feeling pretty ready to be amongst my dearest family and friends again, having missed the previous holiday season. So we bid farewell to the beautiful mountain farm and set out on the road again, eyes looking eastward.

First on the list of stops was a mechanic, as we had been sitting for a while and had noticed some coolant leaking when we routinely turned the bus on to keep things healthy. Turns out, Daniel was not so healthy. At some point on the journey we had acquired a cracked radiator. As a 1990 bus from piedmont NC, I guess that isn’t a surprising occurrence, but it also isn’t cheap or even necessarily possible to rebuild, at least where we were. We were prepared to make a quick drive home using a leak-plug goo as a quick fix, but had had some driving troubles between farm and mechanic, keeping us down as low as 5mph on inclines... let me tell you going that slow in an intersection or on a highway is horrifying and very dangerous. This seemed to be a transmission issue. Unfortunately, there was only one mechanic in the area who could even possibly address our issues, and there was a big-ass mountain pass between us and anywhere else. With the mechanic unavailable for several days,and holidays looming, not to mention the financial reality of these mechanical issues if they were even fixable, we spent a sad but beautiful couple of nights with the bus at a park before acknowledging that we had to leave the bus behind for the winter if we wanted to see our loved ones.

So we parked him in an RV lot and Uhauled ourselves and our animals and plants on east. Then we had to figure out where to be, now finding ourselves homeless and not financially ready to try and fix the bus after the new year. We landed in Boone, NC to join a couple of dear friends with similar visions. Begrudgingly, we had to join the rent game again :( We don’t know if we can get the bus back. Adam will go out to reassess towards May/June, but Daniel may have to become someones west coast home. I can’t say it doesn’t feel like a failure, but I haven’t for a second considered myself to be off the path of sustainability. This just has to be a part of it right now.

For now, we are working, continuing to seek experience and adventure that can lead us to our goals, immersing ourselves in the heavenly Appalachian mountains, and saving up money so that when we find the right place for it, we can try our hands at building a new sustainable home.

This has been a lengthy post so I won’t dwell, but I will say that one thing this experience has taught me is that rather than “self-sufficiency”, what I should seek, and what I dare say we all should seek, is community-sufficiency. We are social creatures and this is a complicated world. No one can grow or provide everything one needs, but a community working together could do that and so much more.

Thanks for supporting us, sorry if you feel some kind of way about it but it ain’t over y’all! It’s just different!

“we can rely on each other, uh huh!”

[hotdanielthebus]

Babies everywhere #growyourfood #growyourmedicine #greening

[hotdanielthebus]

Spring wildflowers I’ve spotted on the farm property so far. Woodrat Mountain, in Southern Oregon

[hotdanielthebus]

Chapter Whatever, Bus Life, Year Two

In which Jack and Jane become Oregon Farmers!

Here we are in Jacksonville, Oregon. Hot Daniel has his most epic parking spot to date, and spring is trying really hard to spring despite random snows

Yes, we made it up Woodrat Mountain here in southern Oregon, and things are freakishly beautiful. We are currently working as full time resident farmers for a wonderful group of friends with a shared vision of sustainable, off-grid living and land stewardship.

The move just happened in March, so we are all in haul-ass mode to keep up with the season, get some food and animals growing, and start fixing up the property for a big happy community to thrive in this beautiful valley. We live on the bus but get to partake in the perks of the fully-equipped house on site. Oh and we have a puppy! His name is Finn and he is made of magic.

The man in charge is currently working on setting up a solar-powered system that will power the entire farm, but right now with spotty internet on only at night, our web communications are limited to brief town outings. Our days have been spent working on farm infrastructure, preparing for animals, and finally, seeding! My favorite form of therapy.

I’ve been seeding the heck out of some vegetables and perennial herbs, like a kid in a candy store! kind of

And last but most excitingly, our first new charge as livestock handlers, the beautiful, jazzy, silly and PREGNANT Jezebel, a Berkshire sow. She enjoys chatting, tossing pine bows, and belly rubs.

The Hot Daniel way is to learn by doing. Adventure time is all the time. Next on the list, goats and sheep. Wish us luck!

[hotdanielthebus]

A new hog farmer and his new lady Jez. She is due in July! #smallscalefarming #sweetsow #sexyfarming #Oregonfarms #DIY #buslife #farmlife

[hotdanielthebus]

To a would-be mechanic

He failed to document the incident, that much was true. And the snide gleam in every eye that heard his story could not be helped. He found no fault with the listeners. Had they only been closer, even intimate—there was proof enough.

Early on—before the country blurred into a cityscape and childhood adventures shifted from the easy green of ground to treetop into hard-edged corners and asphalt burns—an older brother, Burton, stumbled upon a stray dog that had stumbled upon wild pig tusks from the bloody look of it. He was the only body in earshot which translated to restraining attendant as Burton tended to the beast's ruin. Less of a mystery if he would ever bother to ask the reason, Burton had, since adolescence, never left his residence without a first aid kit (antiseptic gauze, sterile bandages, tape, sewing needles: small and large, sterilized thread, isopropyl alcohol (90%), scissors, hydrogen peroxide, 1000 count match box (strike anywhere), Bartlet's book of quotations). The dog ceased struggling against Elmer unable to break free of his grip and chose instead to bite and claw. When Burton finished his healing ministrations upon the mended animal, which slumped away to live or die under an impressive bush of holly, he tended Elmer's varied, not-quite-to-the-marbled-meat lacerations.

That story could not be told without gasps and twinklings of genuine empathy but change the feral canine to a retired school bus and warm smiles chilled. "Of course," they guffawed, "a wild animal will fight you, even if you're helping it. But a bus! A bus isn't reticent to have it's oil changed!"

Elmer's scars etched the scene of a more complicated reality where inanimate objects enjoyed rich, inner lives and were no better disposed to dispatch the tumult of sensibility than their animate counterparts. Oil change. Oil changes.

oil changes robots inspiring sovereign metal immune responses dex sins tral turn based fight faux white blood cell mechanics

His first and only tanka, Elmer was unaware of his tacit participation in a decadently long, exceptionally perfumed tradition of poetic singularity. He had not, in point of fact, intended to write a poem. Elmer, in desperation at the panopticonic Berlin Wall of disbelief spanning even as the horizon all points within purview, ran to the higher ground of a solid bulleted list. The structural integrity of this attempt notwithstanding, Elmer never revisited his work, bothered to number the syllables, amend the list.

All five of the filters properly lubricated, pre-filled (or left empty) and screwed in he crawled from beneath the hulking mechana, moving slowly to conserve what residue of strength remained to run the engine and insure the result serviceable. It ran. It roared. It rumbled sussurant and slow.

Inside his recession-aftermath apartment the off-white walls gleamed practically eggshell. Perhaps an angel of the lord was materializing, message of import—no; word of thanks on the burning lips of the living coal filled mouth: the Metatron itself booming with gratitude and the origins of gratitude. Likely, though, these were the outer-edges of DMT coached passage from life through death. Mortified by shame he failed to visit a hospital. Memories of half-gleaned medical treatment watching Burton proved insufficient. Septic, yet unstatistically spry, Elmer raised the still good arm in greeting to his iridescent visitor or commonplace living room; utterly ordinary except for the smiling, slumping, sliding, prostrate mass: casual as a coat discarded in the haste of impatiently awaited sex.

[mellowlyraging]

Repost via @africanunification Power to the People #NC #Greensboro By @soulrevision “Matthew King, a graduate at NC Central University had an idea of creating a non-profit that would bring sustainable food sources to low-income communities & vowed to return home to Greensboro after graduation & have an urban farm program up & running by the end of 2013.

Everybody Eats is a movement created from the collective efforts of his non-profit, Vision Tree CDC & their for-profit entity, Triad Food Hub. Through these two businesses, they are creating stronger local food systems for the 21st century with a focus on urban farming & farm produce.

Most of the energy has been focused on the Warnersville community, Greensboro’s oldest African American neighborhood. Warnersville has no supermarket within a two mile radius and has one of the highest poverty rates in the county.

Through this project they will: • Construct food production projects within food deserts by using growing methods such as greenhouse farming, community gardens and aquaponic farming. • Implement educational instruction in urban farming, nutrition and cooking demonstrations. Teaching urban agriculture as a trade will empower citizens to be more in control of their food supply. • Redirect food by pursuing partnerships with large food suppliers like K-12 schools, universities and restaurants in an effort to collect unused food and serve the homeless population. • Create jobs in the community and provide hands on experience in urban farming which will provide community members with skills & knowledge needed to pursue their own entrepreneur venture in agriculture.

[liligiworld]

I want to see this play out and then contact them and bug them about a step by step of what they did from start to finish so it can be recreated.

[fieldhandblues]

EXACTLY; there is an urban farm in the middle of Englewood, Chicago and they sell primarily to downtown restaurants and North Side farmer’s markets because if they sell at prices affordable to the community, they don’t turn enough profit to stay open. They are supposed to be partnering with the upcoming Whole Foods and the existing Culinary School to make the farm viable for the community and turn the area to a destination WITHOUT displacing the current residents….while the politics and economics of scale are certainly different in Greensboro vs. Chicago, hopefully this shows that at least the theory is viable.

[hotdanielthebus]

Oh San Francisco! #rainbow #crosswalk #Castro #love #gaypride #beauty

[hotdanielthebus]

Things outside #California #mountainlife #arrowhead #crystals #quartz #buslife #walkoutside

[hotdanielthebus]

Oh honey! #honeymushroom #pacificnorthwestheaven

[hotdanielthebus]

chicken thinks she is dog #farmlife #barredrock #sweetlady

[hotdanielthebus]

[hotdanielthebus]

#calendula #saintjohnswort #salve #DIY #herbalremedy #plantmedicine #makingmedicine #herbs #naturesremedy

[hotdanielthebus]

#mushrooms #mycelia #shrooms

[hotdanielthebus]

#mushrooms #fungi #mycelia #naturefamily

[hotdanielthebus]

Troutlily watches over sick Adamdad #cuddles #kitties

[hotdanielthebus]

A Heroes' Journey for the modernist mind

Fiction's genius is not solely in teaching the mind to associate abstraction with potentiality, but in that memories collude (unconcerned with the distinction of internal or external origins) to create a cohesive narrative. As though your mind were an ovary, your actions a sperm, time the womb and the ever-present-waking-moment-you the bright bundle of joy. Alchemical!

-Jack Friday

It is well known that time comes from the Chronos mines of Pluto and we have all laughed that it requires 10 minutes of effort to procure 5 minutes of flux-ore but where, I ask you, does time go? 2 weeks passed under the archway of the Ram Dass-anexed now, true. Yet, who would betray the ever-present moment to watch the fortnight depart? Still, we who know less fear than wonder seek answers that could be and find them satisfactory.

Perhaps, fleeing hungry pursuit of tireless flames that grew in speed even as they grew in girth, we found ourselves in the shelter of valley and stream.

The waters held court with the assembled moss-and-rock smallfolk and tadpole gentry. Stealing into their counsels we began to fathom the depth of our hydro-sonic ignorance but enjoyed the cool respite their company promised. Small bands of scavenging fish made a leisurely outing of swimming in place, picking at the abyss between rock and rock and creekbed. Sunlight made fair provision of itself here and the moon, in due course, set out the good china for her evening tea; if pressed one would admit yes, that was yesterday and here we are today. However, the ethnographically inclined might wish to know: we regarded the hours spent here as docking from that greater river of linear progression to an actual shoreline. A space from which to consider it, relish its simple music and plunge in to enjoy the shock of the insertion-side of introduction. Before climbing the hill that, sharp edged and steeply inclined, inevitably opened the way to the numbered days and nights currently in account.

Falling in step with the going guys and gals we marched in fine order into an area, really, rather than a place where function didn't follow form but would come by if invited. Chairs for miles in no mandated pattern and use was flexible as interpretation, a bamboo civilization.

This Golden Pup was the Lama of our nomadic gathering there in the highlands. At his side we came to taste the sweetness of routine, the plushy comfort of predictability. Once ,Sisyphus taught us that existence itself is a great labor and recently, Golden Pup showed us that labor demands rest. And so, faithful participants in the common good, we sought work and ease in lopsided measures. All seemed well and was for a measure of moon cycle but then we awoke one day to find ourselves besieged.

Bugs of grotesque appetites for human flesh appeared without warning. Bitten, scratched bloody and karmically indebted 100's of bug lives we turned away from Golden Pup, content to be and let be, and sought a lesson from our mother, Nature.

Scenario: A bug is provided with plants to eat and other plants with parts repellent to the beasts. A micro-balance is achieved. Then human interests intermingle with their flora fauna cousins' and the defensive virtue that protected the plant from being eaten alive by the bugs elects it for martyrdom to the cause of quality of life considerations for the humans.

Nature is a kindergarten teacher or a liberal arts professor, all hands-on metaphors and vivid colors. The insect spray worked, however, so I believe we got the gist. After the bugs fled one thing led to another which brought us to here where we must part. We've had ourselves a time and will now give it a rest. You can take yours when you go.