Santa Cruz Mountains Transitions

Hello everyone! It's been quite a while since we've last posted - bus-life is still good. We've been hunkering-down in the Santa Cruz mountains for the last few months. We thought we'd be well on our way with our veg-conversion by now, but after finally settling and re-orienting here in sunny California, we realized that in fact Holiday Market was just around the corner! We've been busting out tons of new products to sell at this year's crafts fair - we'll be vending Dec. 13-14 and 20-24 in Eugene, OR. Come see us if you're in town!

There hasn't been too much major bus construction since we've been down here, mostly a lot of dreaming and many random repairs. The first big storm we had this Autumn, our wall flooded again. We tried leveling the bus better, but water somehow was still getting down into the wall and making all our lovely eco-insulation soggy. We've had to take the wall down more times than I care to recall now and air things out. But, I think we finally figured out the problem. We think that when the bus is even just a tiny bit un-level, water drips right into the side window channels and overflows the inside ledge. We did some more caulking so hopefully we won't have any more troubles.

Other miscellaneous bus things - we replaced our composting toilet vent-cap finally. No more funky back draft when we drive. Another dream/plan that's been in the works: once we get a more settled spot, we're going to build a small scale constructed wetlands to treat our grey water! I did some initial research about this and it is quite excited. Once we seriously get into it I'll post more specifics.

We've been keeping things toasty warm with our wood-stove. We scored a nice stash of firewood. Here's a pic of it it keeping dry underneath the homestead:



Well, that's it for now. The last few months we've been mountain-living home-bodies. It's been nice. We're both looking forward to figuring out our next steps after Holiday Market (it is pretty all-consuming at this moment). Many warm solstice wishes to everyone!!

- Julia