The Heymann Family Journal

Juergen went to pick the kids up from camp. I would have gone with him but Jessica needed a nap. So Juergen is gone, and Jessica is asleep. I'm enjoying a few hours of calm before the loud kids return. I'm looking forward to hearing how it went. I'm sure it was awesome! And I'm grateful Juergen and I had this past week. We got allot done, and we enjoyed each others company. Next week is the last week of summer vacation. We have loads of yard work to do ahead of the big graduation party we are hosting for 100 people. So I think the kids will be glad to get back to school. And eventually I will have my mornings back, as Jessica also goes back to school. So there are good things to look forward to. It was such a nice week. Sometimes things do not turn out how you planned them, they turn out better!

We signed a loan for the energy renovations we are making on our house. We will be putting a thick insulation in the attic, a new gas heater, and a kachelofen. We aren't sure if the bank will finance the kachelofen yet. But the loan should pay for it's self in about 7 years or less by what we save (we have an expensive oil heater). The men are now in the basement putting in a new tile floor. The kids will come home to a new hallway. We have new paint, lights and now a new floor. I'll take pictures when it's done. I forgot the before photo's. Oh well! Juergen and I wanted to go out to lunch, but Jessica isn't interested! Maybe she will be willing to go to dinner? It's just nice to go out when it's just the 3 of us! Tomorrow it will be the 7 of us again. I love my kids, but I would not mind one more week of this quite and ease! It’s amazing how uncomplicated it is to work with out the kids fighting, asking what’s for lunch, or saying they ...

Today I canned another 24 jars of heirloom tomato sauce. And I picked enough tomatoes to can 24 more jars of sauce. I had a big bowl of tomato soup for lunch. I love tomatoes! I think I can pick more tomatoes in one day then I got all last year. It's been amazing! But it is starting to get colder and wetter. So I doubt we will have much of a harvest next month. Juergen did some painting today. He also had to pour this cement like stuff on the floor in the basement. It's to even the floor out for tile. The tile guys come tomorrow and Friday. Hopefully it will be finished when the kids come home Friday afternoon. Sadly our week is nearly over. But it's been very nice. We agreed to buy a gas furnace. It will be put in at the end of September. And we want to have a kochelofen (tile oven) put in too. But We can not decide where the oven should go. We think the best place would be the kitchen. But because we would need to cut off half the front balcony(to make...

I like old stuff. Juergen likes new stuff. I want to buy this old oven that is for sale in the Eastern part of Germany (they would ship it for a very good price). We could hire a local person to build it in our house. I think it would look super in the living room. It's from 1910. But Juergen wants something new. I will just have to talk to him about this one! The new ovens cost so much more, and don’t work as well. And a new oven does not have this kind of charm.

Politics is a passion of mine. This morning I prepared 2 crock pots of tomatoes from my garden and caught up on the political news. Juergen is paying bills. I took these photos with my new camera...the one I lost last summer. I found it in a small basket that was in the attic. I have to learn how to use it again, it's not an easy camera to use. But it's so cool that I found my good camera. So today I keep putting stucco on the back hall walls. Back to work. I wish the kids had 2 weeks of camp because I'm getting so much done. It's so nice to work and not get interupted all the time.

These tile stoves are called Kachelofen in Germany. They are wood burning stoves that burn very hot and clean. The heat heats up the tiles and radiates heat hours after the fire dies back. And you can get a Kachelofen that has water running through it. The water is piped to a water heater. It can be used to heat the entire house, cutting back on your need for gas or oil. I want to have a Kachelofen built in the entrance hall. And we may actually forget about the solar heat. Solar will take 20 years to pay for it's self. A good kockelofen pays for it's self in 5 years.

We dropped Sarah off at her first summer camp. Philip and Thomas are both there helping with odd jobs, and Nicole is a counselor this week. That leaves Juergen, Jessica and I home for one wonderful and quite week. We already painted the hallway in the basement, and began putting stucco on the stairwell walls. We also decide to buy a gas furnace and solar panels. We will also replace a few windows, insulate the attic and have a giant wood oven put in the front hallway. After months of researching options (and there are many different options) we are going for what can be paid off in the fastest time. Pellets would have made us more independent, but the over all investment would have taken 20 years to pay off. Solar and gas together will be paid off in 5 to 7 years. And if we add a good wood oven, we will save even more money. The generators that give you electricity are also pretty cool, but they are pretty expensive to maintain. The sterling motors are easier to main...

Juergen wants us to buy a gas heater with solar. I want to buy a pellet stove. We could do all 3. I was thinking maybe we could put a hydro pellet stove in the greenhouse. It could keep the greenhouse warm, and help produce heat for the house. MCZ has a large pellet stove that can give us 24kw of heat. It has a storage tank that holds 106 kilos of pellets. You would not need to fill it more then once a day on the coldet days, on average 2 times per week. And as a by product, we would have a warn green house I could grow in 12 months per year.

I invited people to come get vegetables from my garden, but not many came. I guess many people already have a good source of zucchini, tomatoes, etc... So I'm making 2 big pots of zucchini soup. I'm adding onions, potatoes, garlic, tomatoes and herbs. I'll can it all for the winter. Sarah and I also picked 5 more gallons of tomatoes. I'm going to chop these up and cook them in the Crockpot. I will make sauce to can. I ate one jar of the sauce I made yesterday. I added some milk and cheese to it and it was an awesome, nearly instant soup. The sauce contained tomatoes, onions, garlic, and herbs with a small amount of olive oil. So if know one wants my fresh vegetables, there are more for me! It's so quite in the house. Thomas, Philip, and Nicole are all helping to set up the summer camp that begins on Sunday. Next week Sarah will also be gone. Juergen has the week off to work on the house. I'm not sure yet if Thomas will stay at camp, or come help J...

We are thinking of heating our water with solar.

Last night Juergen looked at the over all costs of buying a new heating system vs. keeping our oil heater. It cost so much to buy and install most systems, you would not actually see a difference in cost for 15 to 20 years. This includes an increase in the price of oil by 6% a year. An the sad news is natural gas has actually gone up more then oil this year. Most new heating systems run on natural gas. I'm thinking we should insulate the attic, and keep the oil for now. It would be cheaper to just supplement our oil with solar and pellet stoves. I found out today a pellet stove has a fan that blows the smoke out of the house. You don't actually need a chimney, so you can place a pellet stove in almost any room. We could buy 2 or 3 of them, and light them to help supplement the oil. This would quickly pay for it's self with out a giant investment. We could see a return on our investment in just one year, vs. the 20 years it would take with almost every other optio...

We keep hearing about problems people have had with pellet heaters. They have problems getting clean pellets (bio mass). The dirty pellets can cause fires. And a good pellet oven cost allot. So My 2nd choice is this WhisperGen. It runs on Natural gas. It generates heat and electricity. I like it because it has a piston engine. It hardly needs any maintenance and last forever. I just don't know if they make a model large enough to heat our big house. Because we live in a state that is run by the "Green party", there are allot of kick backs for buying the WhisperGen. We could get it for basically half price. It will not take up all Juergen's work shop. A pellet oven takes up allot of space. And if they have a big model, we could maybe buy an electric car. Then we could make the energy for our house and car.

The past few days it has been so hot. And in this weather you don't want to do anything but sit in front of a fan. I have not slept well for days. We are suppose to get some rain soon. I hope we do! My grass is brown! And everything is drying up. I feel so sorry for the farmers in the USA. It must be awful to lose your crops. Philip gets braces today. We also had tile laid in our back hall. Juergen has next week off to work on the house. He was going to put insulation in the attic, but that will be done later. Instead there is a long list of other jobs. I hope we have cooler weather next week. It would be awful to work in this heat. Sarah will be going to camp next week. And Philip and Nicole will be working at this camp. Jessica will spend the mornings with her teacher. That leaves Juergen, Thomas and I to work on the house. We plan to pay Thomas for his work. He is earning money for a new iPod. He broke his old iPod 2 weeks ago while skate boarding. Those ar...

I was thinking about soaking my feet in Epsom salts. Then I saw this about using Epsom Salts in the garden. So I think I'll fill a large bucket, and soak my feet outside. Then I put the water, with the epsom salts in it onto my plants. ....Experienced gardeners use Epsom Salt as a tonic for plants. It supplies readily available Magnesium and Sulphur which are easily leached from the soils by rain. This tonic is particularly useful when the lack of nutrients in the soil is causing yellowing of the leaves. Not only does Epsom Salt provide good nutrition, but it also improves plants utilisation of N(nitrogen) P (phosphorous) and K (potassium) making it the perfect partner for your current fertilising plan. Supplementing with Epsom Salt supports germination foliage and flower development chlorophyll production and improved absorption and use of phosphorous and nitrogen. The major pluses of using Epsom Salt: it’s natural it does not build up in the soil...

I found a high tunnel green house that Juergen said I can buy. Maybe he just got tired of me asking? But he said yes! This will be 4.5 meters wide (14,7 feet) and 6 meters long (19.6 feet). It's 2.5 meters high (8.2 feet), and we will build it on a foundation that is 1 meter high (3.2 feet ). We want it to have both electricity and water. And we also want a heater, maybe even a radiator that is hooked up to our house heating system. Nicole will paint there, so I think Juergen figured it's also for Nicole. Maybe that's why he said yes? Or maybe he just wants the house to be finished? It really will look nicer then the empty space we have now. Or may he just knew I was not going to stop asking for a green house until we get one! Anyway, this is the one he likes.

Last February I wrote a post about using the tent for a green house, and building a rocket stove to heat the space. Nicole wants to paint in the green house. She wants to use oil paint. This is very smelly and we don't want her to paint in the house. She will be wearing a mask when she paints. But it's best not to have that smell in our house. So I want the green house built sometime soon. And before we put the dirt floor down, we want to build the rocket stove. Here is how you build a rocket stove. And here is my tent. I think it would be a good frame for the greenhouse, art studio.