Vardo - MC Propane camp stove, possibly to only be used outside. Car batteries for occasional power? Cooler Jugs of water Wash basin chamber pot or composting toilet (or old cooking pot with a handle and a securable lid) Access to under-bed storage from outside Sterno? Enough windows to light the place in daytime What about ventilation? Dutch door, obviously Since it's on a car trailer and not a horse wagon, no ladder is necessary What for the roof? "Road vibration can shake nuts loose, so locking hex nuts & fender washers were used to hold the sides on." http://www.rosettadesign.com/building_vardo/vardo_pages.html Battery-free flashlight and radio. Solar power? /Wind/ power? Collect while driving. Dog crate fans to attach to windows? Really, really want Gothic windows. Windows capable of being insulated in winter; or expensively insulated windows to begin with. A pad of some sort affixed over the window, and then thick curtains. Or just thick curtains. Curtains nailed up with somewhat ridiculous nails, and rolled up or pulled to the side. Candles and paraffin-cardboard things to light in summer, when ventilation is good. Candles in jars, as lanterns? My kerosene lantern? Battery-free flashlights? For light. Or regular battery ones. Some day, if I know I'll be spending a considerable amount of time in the vardo, a Queenie (Queen Anne) stove and solar power can be installed. The stove can maybe come first, but isn't really necessary if I'm not going to use it in winter. For stove: Corn cobs Newspaper Cardboard Wood Tools for emergency repairs. Nails, hammer, screwdrivers, cordless drill? It would hold a charge for part of the trip, and could be recharged at hosts. Books. Useful ones. Craft books, things that can be made to sell. Not a lot. A couple of reference books. As much as possible on a laptop or PDA or even cell phone. Soaps, salves, liniments and medicines. Don't go overboard, you know how you are. Just one of each, or maybe an extra soap; Bronner's and one other. And something simple like lanolin. Towels A retractable drying-rack (the sort in Lehman's or was it Cumberland General Store?), outside Bronner's Basic-H Kiss My Face Liquid Rock Roll-On Insulate vardo with newspapers? Recipe below, or in TMEN archives. --- Food Water Dried meat Dried fruit Fresh fruit Yoghurt Pasta Garlic Olive oil Ramen Dried peas Cured meats Sprouts!! Easily grown in the vardo. Canned (jarred) foods Lettuce Mushrooms Sardines \ Tuna \ Crackers -- emergency snacks Bread / Cheese / Herbs for tisanes Potted food? For making food: Flour Water Honey Yeast Canned vegetable stock For eating food: [The Queenie stove] Propane camp stove Three sets of eating utensils Ladle Metal non-slotted spoon Two or three wooden spoons Spatula Good knife set Sharpening stones Cutting board Kettle Soup pot of some sort Three plates Three bowls Three cups For storing food: Nigerian pot-in-a-pot Regular cooler Crates for canned food Other: Wash basin Pitcher Hand-carved wooden bowl-cup, for drinking and eating randomly, to go on belt (or plain tin cup, until Chris learns to carve wood) Hand-carved wooden spoon, for same Apron --- Laundry A laundry hamper, and laundromats. Or possibly soap, water, and a clothesline. --- Things to sell while traveling: Bottle bread - http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/3022/ Dried food - garlic, herbs, fruit Hand-made rosaries, from plastic to precious-stone chain Other charms Books Honey Pottery Good luck ribbons for 50 cents each, to benefit my feral cats Candles - handmade. can be made on the road, at camps. Dog grooming? Anything else (At flea markets and in parking lots.) Will need a signboard. Things to buy: Food from roadside produce stands Books Anything from thrift stores Things to give away: Digger bread Soup "When I go to garage sales, I often buy a whole box of mismatched china pieces for as little as $1.00. I use them for taking food to a potluck event. After the meal, I tell the hostess to keep the dish. We're both winners because she has a new dish, and I don't have to take a dirty one home." http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/6185/ Muffins. We could make muffins. With Digger bread dough, only heavily sweetened/vanilla'd. Raisins and cinnamon and such. Whatever. Although it would be easier to make it as loaves, and just slice it. Like cake. I just like muffins. And muffin papers. --- Places to go: Portland OR Oregon Vortex other vortices Baltimore The House on the Rock Festivals; stop to sell, and Be Seen. --- Decoration designs: More medieval-French than is traditional, gargoyles and stone-like finish, perhaps. I do like the colourful designs that are more traditional, but gargoyles are more me... Perhaps colourful gargoyles? Heh. --- Keeping warm: Down comforter Kakebuton (kakefuton?) Dogs Hot water bottle Morning clothes wrapped around hot water bottle --- Bedding: Shiki futon/shikibuton Kake futon/kakebuton Down comforter Quilt Sheet Dogs (Heavy curtain covering bed-door.) (Hand made Japanese Kake Futon. Top: Design Area - 100% Cotton Sateen. Border Area - 100% Cotton. Underside: 100% Cotton. Filling: 35% Cotton Batting wrapped with 65% Polyester Fiber.) --- Resources OUR VARDO By Peter Shallcross (A5, 12 pages) A record of the history and restoration of a Romany waggon. Reprinted from Romany Routes Volume 1 Nos 2 & 3. Six photographs. Price including P&P: UK £1.00; Europe £1.60; Worldwide Airmail £2.00. http://website.lineone.net/~rtfhs/pubs5b.html In rural northern Nigeria, there are no refrigerators. Most people don't even have electricity. So perishable food must be eaten immediately, or it will go to waste. Mohammed Bah Abba, a local teacher, has developed an ingenious solution: the Pot-in-Pot Preservation Cooling System. A small earthenware pot is placed inside a larger one, and the space between the two is filled with moist sand. The inner pot is filled with fruit, vegetables or soft drinks; a wet cloth covers the whole thing. As water in the sand evaporates through the surface of the outer pot, it carries heat, drawing it away from the inner core. Eggplants stay fresh for 27 days, instead of the usual three. Tomatoes and peppers last for up to three weeks. www.globalfreeloaders.com couchsurfing.com frugalexplorer.com That was the signal for me to slip out from under the snug kakebuton or Japanese quilt. Now a Japanese quilt is quite different from an American one. When constructed of a combination of modern and traditional materials as it now usually is, it consists of a very light nylon covering over each side of aloft (or thickness) of approximately four inches composed of untold layers-of cotton. This quilt is not sewn through like a Western one would be, either. Instead, only an occasional thread-which is not pulled tight-runs from the nylon on one side, through the filling, and to the other nylon cover. What this produces essentially is a big, fat, warm and wonderful, rectangular Polarguard sleeping bag which is spread over your futon (or bed). And the futon is just as uncomplicated as the kakebuton: the bed is simply a padfilled with foam rubber or cotton-which folds into a neat three-sectioned pile for daytime storage. http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/3925/toparticles Reader Jim Burnell creates his own handy little cookers to take along on camping trips or backpacking expeditions. Jim takes an empty tuna can, cleans it thoroughly, then cuts a strip of cardboard 1-1/2" wide and about 24" long. He tightly rolls that cardboard strip, inserts it in the can, and sets a cardboard wick in the center of the container. Next, the resident of Corning, California pours melted paraffin over the cardboard coil, filling the can up to 1/4" from the top. After the wax sets, Jim stores the little stove in his backpack . . . and it's ready to provide long-lasting heat at the touch of a match. http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/6579/ Short of freezer space? "Store cured, smoked hams and slabs of bacon in a cool, dry place in a wooden box filled with beardless barley," says William Hussman of Eagan, Minnesota. "My family's used this trick since Grandpa Lightfield homesteaded in Idaho. And, yes, you can use bearded barley the same way . . . if you remember to wear gloves to protect you from its barbs when you dig into the grain to retrieve your meat." (EDITOR'S NOTE: Oats and wheat will work, too, Bill. At least Indiana farm families have been stashing wrapped, cured hams out in the oats bin for generations. And watermelons too! You just ain't lived until you've buried a halfdozen choice, unblemished watermelons in the oats bin at the end of a good summer . . . and then dug the crisp, ripe, juicy fruit back out of the granary for the annual Thanksgiving reunion feast!) http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/4500/ Cumberland General Store Camper's Laundry Reel Retractable nylon clothesline $5.95 Easy Insulation An old MOTHER issue [December, 1977, issue #48] showed how to make insulation from newspapers. The article suggested using a hammer mill to grind the newspaper and mixing borax with it to make it fire-resistant. For anyone who is without a hammer mill and wants to insulate an attic, I'd like to suggest a simple and safe alternative: 1. Pour a few pounds of borax and a few gallons of water into a washtub or bathtub. 2. Stir it several times during the next few hours (or days). If all the borax dissolves, add more. 3. Soak your old paper in the borax solution. Be sure it all gets wet. 4. Drain the papers and dry them on a clothesline. 5. Use a match to test the paper for fireresistance. 6. Wad the sheets of paper and toss in the attic. When the insulation is about a foot deep, your insulation will make your house safer and more comfortable. Also, wadding all that paper may make you stronger, healthier, and better looking. —John Morton Waco, TX http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/6185/ [MC: Could cardboard be used, too? And packing materials. (Thinking of things freely available from dumpsters.] Recycled Insulation Pierette and C.J. Miller making a warmer home for their chickens. My wife and I would like to tell you what we did to insulate our chicken coop. We knew from the beginning that we couldn't spend much money on this project, but the answer came to us in our Christmas gifts—Styrofoam packing chips! After we saw an ad in our local paper we received a couple of good sources. We loaded bag upon bag into our truck and took them home. We vapor barriered ,starting from the floor up stapling a few feet at a time. Filling the spaces between the studs was quick and easy because the chips poured straight out of the bags. We then used salvaged paneling and placed them backwards to use the unmarked mahogany as sheathing. Voila! A cozy poultry palace and less garbage in a landfill site. It takes an amazing amount of this packing material (in our case a 10' x 13' building) to be used in this fashion. —Pierrette & C.J. Miller & family South Gillies, Ontario http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/6136/ http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/5333/ - Nomad life --- Future freecycle post Wanted: Flatbed Trailer & Planking I'm going to make a living wagon/vardo/gypsy caravan, and will be needing a flatbed trailer and any wooden planking that might be available. The trailer must be at least six feet wide and nine feet long. I would also like a propane camp stove, a chamber pot or a composting toilet, solar panels, and any scrap fabrics, leftover wood stain, leftover paint, or any curly bits of architectural wood that might be lying around.