Our Net-Zero Life
Green Living for Everyone
Most Recent Posts
The Subject Is Windows
The subject is windows. Much of what we experience in our built environs is illumined through windows. In our certified Passive House we have eighteen. Our kitchen window looks to the front drive where we stand on tiptoe to see who’s coming to visit or look across...
Passive House the Sequel: Here We Go Again!
In September 2015, we sat on a pile of gravel, announcing the build of our forever house—a certified Passive House—in McMinnville, Oregon. If you’ve been following our story you know nothing is forever. We did the house. We lived in it 4 years. ...
Things I Should’ve Known, Especially Today
How will/did you spend Martin Luther King Jr. Day?!? Last blog I was just learning my ancestors owned slaves. For MLK 2022 I’m sharing some facts of Black History I’ve learned way too recently, things this Old White Guy should’ve known way before now, but I just...
Building Our Own Private Wetland
**This is the 3rd post in a series on our rainwater system. Read Part 1 and Part 2*** Returning to...
How to Save 45,000 Gallons
**This is the 2nd post in a series on our rainwater system. Read Part 1*** Do you know how many...
Net-Zero Water: Capturing the Rain
In the day the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the...
Father of the Groom (and Brides)
This is the year of weddings for our family. Nephew Tim and Amanda got it started May 20 in Boise...
New Song: We Resist, We Build, We Rise
On April 29, with 200,000 others, I marched in the 2nd People’s Climate March in Washington DC to...
Forever Home, Part 2: Pulling Nails
I love this picture of Jessi and I holding the bags of nails we pulled from the boards of the...
Forever House One
We lived 4 places during the construction of our Net Zero hacienda. To distinguish among them, Amy...
Viva La Vulva
Respect My Existence or Expect My Resistance Respeta Mi Existencia O Espera Resistencia **This...
Grizzly Bears, Epiphany, and Hope for the Future
Today is January 6, 2017, Epiphany on the Christian calendar. I hope you’re having one. In the...
Lift Us Up: Songs of Resistance & Hope
This is Part 3 of my Trilogy of Hope +1 series. Read Part 1 and Part 2. In my world there is no...
















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