Newsletter: New Water Storage Book,
What Next?
May 2005
Water Storage is here!
Our new book, Water Storage: Tanks, Cisterns, Aquifers and Ponds for Domestic
Supply, Fire and Emergency Use, is now shipping!
It is a do-it-yourself guide to designing, building, and maintaining water
tanks, cisterns and ponds, and sustainably managing groundwater storage. The
book also includes detailed guidelines for how to make several styles of ferrocement
water tanks. It will help you with your independent water system, fire protection,
and disaster preparedness, at low cost and using principles of ecological design.
See Water Storage (book) for all
the details...or click to order it now:
 |
Author: Art Ludwig, published by Oasis Design. 2005. 8.5x11, 125 pages, 43 figures, 128 photos. ISBN 0-9643433-6-3. $19.95 |
What Next?
Finishing the Water Storage book feels like getting to the top of a mountain
pass after a long, hard slog. We've got a great team in tip top shape, and now
a whole array of enticing potential paths stretch out before us into different
parts of the landscape below...
So which path to take?
An astonishing sequence of powerfully transformative experiences have washed
over me the past few months. Like this exchange, with Ianto Evans:
Art: We've finally finished the Water Storage book. You know what
a grueling experience it is to write a book...
Ianto Evans: Art, instead of identifying the product you want, then
enduring whatever it takes to achieve it, why not identify the process you
want to live and then harvest the fruits of that process?
Art: [brain snapping, crackling and popping] You mean to say
that I've been running my life and work exactly backwards?
Ianto: Yes. Think about it: Nature doesn't do products. It is all
process...
Later, Satish Kumar put it this way:
"What is this thing with you Americans 'pursuing happiness?' Why not
just be happy?"
So...what process do I want to live? Good question. I'm surprised at how hard
it is for me to even think this way.
Here's what I've come up with so far:
- Spend time with extraordinary people
- Identify key voids in the design and construction of alternative society
"lifeboats"
- Discern my greatest skills and insights
- Work with a team to apply these to the voids
- Maintain balance in the dance of family, friends, work, celebration, body
and nature...I think for me this balance starts with moving my body.
Which still leaves the question of which of these enticing paths to proceed
on. Can you help? Here are some of the options. Please let us know your Feedback
as to which you think we should do:
Finish another of several half-written books:
- Living with Nature (the world according to Art)
- How to Live Really Well on Almost Nothing (money management)
- Rainwater harvesting and runoff management
- Natural Camping/ Wild Water Wisdom (how natural systems work and how
to fit into them)
- Toilet Alternatives (composting toilets, alternative septic systems)
- The Way of the Bicycle (bicycle designs and use tricks, interspersed
with stories from three years of travel in 22 countries)
- Water Systems (water system design principles with extensive examples)
- Understanding Water DVD (interactive video to sharpen water understanding
and intuition, starting with natural systems, then camping in them, then engineered
water and wastewater flows, with extensive computer graphics showing how water
quality changes each minute and each foot through the system)
(You can vote for these and others at our Vote for new books & articles page)
Do classes/ presentations:
- Water System Workshops (water system principles, design & construction,
micro-hydro, drinking water treatment, bathhouses, greywater systems, edible
landscaping and microclimate modification— in Oregon, and California)
- Wild Water Wisdom/ Natural Camping (backpacking journeys)
- Greywater Plumbing (workshops in New Mexico and Arizona)
Designs to develop:
- Best Bicycles and Accessories in the World (a suite of bicycles and
accessories for commuting, traveling and mountain biking)
- Eco Luxury Bathing Chamber (twenty minutes steamy, relaxed luxuriation
on the water and energy otherwise used for a five minute military shower with
an anemic low flow showerhead–available for consulting clients, would
eventually go in a book)
- Branched Drain Septic Systems (sustainable reuse of all household water
and nutrients in a permittable septic leachfield/ orchard–available for
consulting clients, would eventually go in a book)
- Water Quality Graphical Representations (a new technique for making
water quality data visually accessible)
New web stuff:
- Ecological Systems Design Forum (visitors share questions, answers and
ideas)
- Composting Toilet Survey (why does the same composting toilet work perfectly
for one family and melt down disastrously for another? Perhaps a detailed
survey of users would turn up some answers)
- Do It Yourself Education in Systems Design (reading list, suggested
thesis topics & independent study ideas)
Or take a year off for the global eco village tour...
Feedback
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