motorcycles, tiny houses and... humanure!?

hey, my darlings. i'm sorry the posts have been less frequent than normal lately. i've been sleeping like a bear in winter, and eating salad.

lots of salad. 

in the pictures shown, i've been using a balsamic vinaigrette and olive oil dressing, sometime i blend it with herbs, miso and garlic. the greens are spinach, and 3 different kinds of lettuce from the garden, along with herbs. the ones above are dill, oregano and ... ? i can't remember the name of the last one.

then i load on tomatoes, cucumber, olives, figs, avocado, and we had baked potatoes one day so i used that. yum!

here's a recipe, if that description wasn't enough. 

i've also been researching for the motorcycle trip my dad and i will be taking at the end of summer. i'm so excited! you can see the route we're following here.

so far i've just been finding veg-friendly restaurants we can eat at along the way. happy cow is a terrific website for finding vegetarian and vegan eateries all around the world. i can't wait to get to jasper, because i discovered they have a raw vegan cafe there called gratitude cafe! how cool is that. here's some of their food:

i've found vegan places nearly everywhere else too. next - finding camping sites. originally we were going to hotel it, but it's going to be the perfect time of year to camp, and it makes the whole trip more interesting. any chance to be closer to nature and i'm there!

i have also been getting increasingly stoked about building my tiny home. you know what i'm talking about. i think the weebee is my favourite model from tumbleweed tiny houses.

it's 102 square feet - just right, not too big and not too small. i sound like goldie locks here. anyways, i am planning on buying the building plans but tweaking them for my personal desires =)

that means i'm going to use recycled materials and antique windows, have no need for an oven/stove, have a closed water system, install solar panels, and have a composting toilet!

composting toilet? huh?

i know. sounds a little weird... and smelly. but not to fret. apparently they're the greatest. check it out! it's called "humanure". you can see humaure's book online for free here. aren't their chapter titles great? all you do is build a box around a bin/bucket and make it look like a normal toilet. you do your business and cover it with wood shavings.

 it doesn't smell at all! this means i won't have to figure out plumbing. i just dump this stuff in the forest or bury it in the dirt wherever i will be living. and hey - after a year i can use my compost as, well, compost! circle of life, my friends.

don't you judge me. everyone should do this!

where SHALL i live?

Oh... the places I'd like to go. 

There are too many. I am fortunate I've already been to such a large amount of them because my family and I travel so much; especially me and my dad (on his BMW motorcycle).

Those bike trips are some of the best experiences I've had in my life, along with all our giant family road trips. Travelling for me is a time of learning - either completely new things, or realizing the truth about things I already knew about. Since you're in a unusual environment your brain thinks differently and you're able to look at things in a refreshing new light. I've had most of my epiphanies on the back of the BMW.

Travelling also gives you more knowledge about yourself; like all experience does. When you are in a new situation, your reaction to it is also new. That reaction is a part of you that you didn't know about before. In other words: you won't how you feel about something until you experience it! Thus the more you experience, the more you know abut yourself. I think this is vitally important in human life. It is a main reason I am who I am; because I've learned so much about my own soul-being on all my travels.

Now, I am on the subject of travelling to new places for a reason! Lately I have been thinking increasingly about building my tiny house, and where I want to settle down in it. I would LOVE to start building this summer, and then just use the portable home for road trips with friends (can you say FUN?!) until I actually move out, which shouldn't be for a few years at least.

I know generally what the layout of the house will be, and I want to use solar panels for electricity. I'm looking into self-composting toilets (... I know, okay) that I heard about from a reader. If I don't want to install plumbing, I can simply use filtered rain water - closed water system, hell yeah. 

As for my future place of residence - who KNOWS?! That's what this post if about. My criteria is that this place needs to:
- have a warm, sunny climate
- be excellent for growing a variety of fruits
- have tons of cheap fruit and veggies
- close to the ocean (it is the earth's heart!)
- have cheap, large and isolated properties that are still beautiful and in nature!
- have a rich cultural history
- be full of kind, wise, hard-working, welcoming people
- speak a wee bit of English so I'm not totally lost before I learn their language
- preferably be on the same continent as home (Canada)! This means easy travel with my house, and I can     drive to see my parents whenever I want.
- be fairly politically and economically stable (...)
- hmm... I can't think of anything else

So with that list in mind, I've narrowed my options down quite a bit. Currently I have my eyes set on: Costa Rica, Mexico, Hawaii, or Thailand.

Some more options are Australia, Bali, California, Peru, Brazil, and Tristan da Cunha. As of this moment, I really like the sounds of Mexico or Costa Rica. They are SUPER cheap, still virtually untouched by development and industry in a lot of their land, right beside the ocean, on the same continent, I can easily grow/buy fruit here for next to nothing, needless to say their cultures and climate are incredible, and their people are kind. They both fit all my criteria. After my visits to Mexico, it is my favorite right now. 

I think if Thailand were on this continent it would be my first choice without a doubt. But sadly it's very far away, and I cannot own land there unless I'm married to a Thai. For those reasons don't think it will be my eventual home. New Zealand is also a little expensive compared to my other options, plus it's not close by. 

And I hate to say this but... Hawaii is PERFECT for climate, except that it's in the US, a little pricey and far away. I also would rather not live in California for the same reason; it's in America. Too many people! There are more people in Cali than in ALL of Canada. Too bad, because California is no question the best place to live for it's raw vegan community and climate for fruit-growing. 

As for the other options, they are all still on my radar. Tristan da Cunha is actually a pretty random one,and more of a joke than serious. It's the most remote and isolate island in the world, it's near South America, discovered in the 1500's, and only has 275 residents - all of whom are farmers. No new people are allowed to move there so there goes my chance. (Click the link to read more). Just interesting! =) 

Here's some good links if you're veggie and also looking for a new place to call home that's affordable and beautiful! Green Traveller Guides, Cheapest Destinations Blog, Buzzle, Best Places to Live For Raw Vegans, The Most Veg-Friendly Cities in North America, and Open Travel. 

Questions for YOU: where do you want to live? Where do you think I should live? Am I crazy? 

i want to live in a shoebox

Howdy folks. So if you read my blog regularly, you probably have figured out I'm a bit of a hippie. Okay, a lot of a hippie. I can't help it - I am the quintessential flower child. And I ain't changin' any time soon.

Now having said that; what do you imagine a dirty, kale-munching hippie living in? Perhaps a colourfully painted VW microbus, complete with peace signs and psychedelic flowers? That WAS one of my original dreams: drive around the world in one of those puppies, with a bunch of friends, good music and no plan. I think I'll still do that sometime, but the plan has changed a tad.

No, I'm not going to live in a dumpster, or be homeless, wild and free. NOW, I have the perfect plan for my future living situation. One of these babies.

They're super tiny houses! I'm going to buy the plans for one of them (haven't decided which one yet) and use salvaged wood and materials to build it for cheap! This is so ideal for me, though it might not be the best idea for most people. Do you:

- want to save money?

- not like doing housework?

- not like paying the mortgage, or other monthly bills?

- love to travel? 

- like to build things?

- love the outdoors?

- are comfortable with smallish spaces?

- don't have too many people to take care/live with?

Then this is for you!!! I hit all of those criteria on the mark, so I don't see me doing it any other way. 

I used to want to save up a butt-load of money and build my own off-the-grid, renewable energy-run zion house, complete with garden and forest. Something like this: 

This house is actually the most energy efficient in the world, and it's in Victoria!

But then I realized it would cost me about $500,000. I don't wanna spend that much of my life working to make that much money. One of these tiny houses will only cost me $20,000 TOPS. I'm thinking it'll be more like $5,000 or $10,000. Very do-able. In fact, there's tons of videos on YouTube about people who have done this for under $4,000. Check them out here.

I've been serious about doing this after I move out for several months now. I don't know WHEN that will be, but I'd like to start building one of these in the next few years! Then all I gotta do is grab a friend or find a romantic companion (or not...) and hit the road! Driving wherever I want, buying fresh produce along the way.

Anyways, just wanted to let ya'll know what my living conditions are gonna be... in case you were wondering =) I'm gonna go make a green smoothie now. I want that lettuce IN MA BODAY.