tiny house life

Living Tiny and living off grid makes you so aware of nature. It is also a more mindful and physical way of living and I love it.

I love the rain because it gives me a full water tank and I love the sun for a fully charged solar battery. I love being so connected to my house, emptying the loo every 6-8 weeks, ensuring the gas cylinders are full enough, and more …..

Let me explain, as I have said before, I am so much more aware of rain, sun and along with that, the water tank levels and the solar panel charge levels. I love giving the water tank a punch on the side and see where the water level is. This helps me decide if a bath is on the cards or not haha. Another thing I have added to that awareness is the need to empty the compost loo and long before I empty it, every few days, the turning of the compost chamber. This is super easy. I just pop out to the chamber under the house, use the crank handle and give it a few turns. It stops “everything” just piling up in one place. Once a week, I fill up my sawdust bin ( for the loo ) in the bathroom, from the bulk sawdust in the shed. It always ends up a double whammy. As I refill my sawdust, I refill the cats litter in the catio.

The catio has been amazing. When I am not home and also at night, the cats can leave the house by the cat door, into the catio and go no further. They have three areas to lounge about a in the catio and two bathrooms. When I am home, one of the cats is allowed outside and he loves the area he can roam in. My other cat is a flight risk so she has become an indoor cat and she has fully adapted to tiny life.

The land I am on is full of Pukeko, Plover, rabbits and other wild life. A few days ago, one of the cats, the one that is allowed out at times, bought me a mouse, I spotted it in his mouth before I let him in luckily 😜 This morning I found a dead rabbit at the bottom of the stairs to my deck. I doubt he was responsible for that as it was a large bunny. Poor thing is now buried.

The last couple weeks have been pretty cold in the early mornings and evenings. I have run the diesel heater for about 20 mins when needed and it is super efficient. If I am running the heater for 20 mins twice a day, every day, the cost is about $8-10 per week in diesel. Not bad a price to be toasty in the tiny 😊 it’s also another example of living physically. If I need diesel, I need to put the can in the car, stop at the local petrol station and fill it up. Same with the gas for the cooking and hot water. I can’t just rely on switching something on and knowing it will provide whatever the switch is for. I have to ensure that switch has access to whatever it is. It’s actually a great feeling to be totally responsible for your own needs.

I will never regret the bath in my tiny house. On some of these freezing mornings, I have given myself the luxury of a quick bath in the morning which warms me through. This treat is only available because of the amount of rain. If I don’t use the extra water, it will simply run off into the ground.

With the recent Blue Moon, the view was amazing. There is no light pollution so the brightness was stunning, as are the stars every night. Photos never do them justice though, do they ?

Until next time ……

Like all of Auckland, I am sick of the rain. I have been out digging wee channels today, diverting water, so that I can step from house to car, and back again in my “going out” gumboots, and not the caked in mud ones. But let me start where I left off…..

I have talked about the solar panels, the generator ( a wee lifesaver ) and how the sun is such an appreciated part of the day. I almost have to limit how many times I open the Solar Usage App, as it can be almost addictive watching the charging figures, hoping the numbers are rolling high like a slot machine, then checking the discharging figures, and placing a bet on whether to turn on an appliance or not. Even on these grey old days, the solar batteries charge up beautifully, and the generator has been used only once in the last week. If there are sunny patches and even some cloud cover, charging will reach the goal of 100%, by sunset.

The other Mother Nature provided amenity is water. I have a 5000 litre water tank, which, with our rather wet winter, is constantly full. The rain is collected from the roof of Lil Pad and with a pump, available at the turn of a tap. This water should be bottled as it tastes fantastic. It also makes a difference to my skin and hair. Nothing added I guess, so it’s just how it was intended to be.

So now to the subject that gets quite a bit of attention, the loo. I have a composting loo, and it has been the biggest challenge. Not a challenge because it’s hard to adjust to, no, it’s actually easy to adjust. I love not flushing away beautiful water. A challenge because I was almost driven mad by the smell that would greet me when I opened the front door after work. Not a “poo” smell, a kind of earthy smell, but even so, unwanted. I knew it shouldn’t smell as I had read so much about the systems, and knew that it was possible to stop this earthy smell greeting me. I use sawdust as the bulking agent, so I read up more on that…all good. I had some rather nice sustainable loo paper and wondered if it was just a bit too nice and didn’t break down as well as those cheap brands, that break down when you don’t want them to…all good. I tried some coffee grounds as well as sawdust, not much difference, but I quite liked the slight coffee odour now joining the earthy smell. OK, I thought, I’ll empty it, probably a little too soon, but I had to try everything. I got myself kitted up in almost COVID style gear and opened the chamber. I was pleasantly surprised, not much smell and it didn’t really resemble what it had been, just looked like compost really, with some sawdust and white bits of paper through it. OK, emptied, put back together and away we went again. Next day after work…..OMG, still smelly!!! anyway, long story short. It was a wee tightening key on one of the pipes that was not as tight as it should have been, so the fan was not being as efficient as it should have been. Key tightened, fan got really sucky and NO MORE SMELL 🙂

Inside the tiny house is just awesome. I love the mezzanine bedroom. The sound of rain on the roof is rather close, but it is always quite nice to be snuggled under a duvet, while it’s raging outside. The cats sometimes get a bit nervous at the sound as it is literally just above us. I don’t have curtains and have witnessed some impressive thunder and lightening displays too.

Next blog, I will tell you about my bath, my heating and my deck. Loving this life and can’t wait till summer 🙂