Elisabeth Demeter, Author at follow your wild heart

Move your ass!

Even though I wrote before that I needed the toilet to be fully functioning for me to move in, the whole process of building my toilet overlapped with moving in, since I just couldn’t wait any longer. So the big question was: What do you really need to live?

Well, “need” is defined a little different by each person at each point in time. But since I experienced that being too radical or fast in certain steps of a transformation can turn me off the path completely, I did “allow” myself to stretch the meaning of “need”. read more

Winter is coming…

or is it?

I do like the motto of the Stark family in the Game of Thrones books, and I do like winter, but the season have been in transformation for some time now. This year, winter seems to be especially undecided. At christmas it had +15°C, only a few days later it was below 0 and looked like this:

Only a week after that, it was sunny and warm again.

I read a while back in a book called “The Vanishing Face of Gaia” (by James Lovelock) that the climate change will result in extremes. I guess that means that not only are spring and fall cut short, but also during the seasons the temperature changes rapidly and unpredictably in any direction. No adaptation periods. I can only guess, but this can’t be good for neither plants, animals or any other living creature. Well, we’ll see what’s to come when it’s here… What did you notice about the weather and climate in your area? read more

Shit

After sleeping in my new little house for two nights in a row, it became apparent pretty soon that the next thing before really moving in had to be the composting toilet. There is a house right next to my new home where I can use the toilet, but it’s winter, and I do want to have some luxury…

I found some leftover wood in the attic so I started to build my wooden box for the toilet. The separating toilet seat I had already ordered and received months ago from Separett .

So I started to build the box for the toilet. I’m sure that any carpenter would be horrified by the way I did it, but being pretty or doing it the “correct” way was not high on my list of priorities. I just wanted it to be stable and do the job. First, I built the frame. read more

Walk on wood

The walls are built, the roof was already there. The part that was missing up until now was the floor. I wanted to have a nice wooden parquet floor, but didn’t want to pay too much. So I turned to the internet once more and found small amounts of different types of parqet floors. Leftovers from flooring projects. I got a few squaremeters maple, walnut, and oak – all new – for €90 all in all (probably half or less of the original price). Still not cheap, but a price I can live with. read more

I’m … growing … a wall

after putting up a wall not so long ago, I decided that one of my inner walls should be cork. Even though technically the cork grew before and then I bought it, but I see it as a first step to growing a wall.

The cork – compared to the clay – was a rather easy job. First I tried out some cork tiles that were already used once and still had glue and plaster residue on them and on top were lacerated on some of the edges. To say the least, I wasn’t really happy with that.

But soon after putting up just a few of them as a test, I found someone selling new cork tiles for a good price from a sharing platform. The amount he sold was just right for the part of the wall I wanted to cover. Definitely a great gift. read more

Every day holds the potential for MAGIC

Magic … like a big and potentially energy-consuming meeting being postponed out of the blue on a day where you feel like you couldn’t have handled it.

Magic … like someone smiling at you when you were so much inside your head, you only saw problems and sorrow.

Magic … like a majestic owl diving soundlessly for its prey right in front of you.

Magic … like one of your favorite musicians playing exactly the songs you were hoping to hear at his amazing concert.

Magic … like a really good friend just being here and listening to whatever you need to talk about – however dumb you might feel it sounds. read more

I’m building a wall…

As I already wrote about in my previous post, the next step of re-doing my container is to put up a clay wall. Since pictures sometimes tell more than a thousand words, this one is going to be (mostly) a foto-story:

I had already bought the dry mixture for the clay. My decision in the bying process was random, because I can’t really tell the difference at the moment anyway. So first, I had to fix the soft fibre boards to the wall. The woman that had sold me the clay recommended I “stick” the boards on with clay. So I started mixing the sand-mixture with water – having no idea about the needed consistency, and started putting it on the soft fibre board (lying on the floor). read more

My tiny house project is still running

Finally, some updates on my tiny house (container) project. It was a little quiet on that front, because first nothing much actually happened, and then a lot happened, but I just didn’t take the time to write down everything, because I wanted to DO. Since I’m now almost finished with the first step, this is going to change.

I decided a while back that I didn’t like to keep the walls of my container the way they were, because they look (and are) cheap and also don’t create a good interior climate. Since the whole thing is a big experiment on tiny living, tiny experiments are always welcome. That is why I decided to try out putting up a clay wall inside my container. Just one wall for now, but if I like it – and also want to invest the money – a second wall might follow. read more

Of mice and men

For some time now, I wanted to have a certain type of small animal as a pet. But life somehow sometimes plays twisted jokes on you… Or me at least. The last few weeks (or maybe even more than that) a small family of mice joined my living quarters. However, not caged but free-roaming. Eating everything they can get their teeth on. In the beginning I thought it quite cute, even seeing one or two of them now and then. After some time they got less and less scared of me and almost got cocky in their appearances. read more

lessons and new adventures

My last blog post about the potential transformational power of traveling was mostly inspired by two trips I took recently. Very different, and yet very similar at the same time.

One included a visit to a couple living in a tiny house in the middle of nowhere, completely off the grid. No electricity, no gas, no running water. Watching them interact with each other and their surroundings. And getting a small taste of how it could feel to have a life where everything you do is in direct response to ones needs for living and surviving. read more