A Quiet Building Site

Lois and Bryan used good 'ol block and tackle along with a gin pole to erect the post and beam frame of their Colorado cordwood masonry home. This eliminated the need for cranes and noise!

Timber from the Property

With the post and beam frame complete... now to construct the 40 R-value compound-angled SIP panel roof and wrap the frame with bunk wrap available free from many lumber yards. Then it's on to mixing masonry with paper slurry and stacking the 16" thick cordwood-masonry, 28 R-value, walls.

Cordwood Masonry Wall Infill

Infilling cordwood and masonry around a hanging window frame. Make note of pre-dried cordwood supplies along with the blue flexible electrical conduit for future wire runs.

A Winter Break

Lois having a sled ride blast in front of thier Colorado solar thermal heated home. Note the house before it's deck. Deck vegas cantilever to the center of the house. Part of the original design.

Low Maintainence House

Nothing to do now but sit back and... well no sitting back. Let's build a greenhouse.

High Altitude Greenhouse

The only way to farm at 9400' above sea level. This greenhouse incorporates some subterranean heating methods. It is covered with twin-wall Solexx panels. The Solar Thermal Collectors on the barn roof provide ~90% of the home's heat and hot water needs.

Main Menu

High Altitude Gardening

Friends Strawbale Home

Friends Montana CWM home

2010 Seminars 4G-Living

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Welcome

The Perfect Picture of Patience. That is what you will find within these web pages. Two people who dreamed of self sufficiency and sustainability. We found so many resources and direction from so many sources, we wanted to pull that together to help others reach their goals as well.

Juana Lose Weight?

(Imagine someone with the name Juana Lose Weight?)

Fat Burnerś Café

Your Heart's Preferred Fuel

Homestead Experience

Currently the term 'homesteading' applies to anyone who utilizes back-to-the-land practices and who chooses to live a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading remains as a way of life. A new movement, called 'urban homesteading', can be viewed as a simple living lifestyle, incorporating small-scale agriculture, sustainable and permaculture gardening, and home food production and storage into suburban or city living.

This website name, 'infolightandliving' was sparked during much reading from the latest quantum science and theory material. Information and light (photons) are the building blocks of our universe. What we choose to tap into for information (never limit your sources) and how we visualize and picture (picturing is the light part of this equation) from there determines how we "make our living"... thus the name... Info, Light and Living. Within these pages we are spewing our thoughts and actions on so many topics. You are invited to travel around our 'holodeck menu' of choices. We hope this information (our text), light (our photos) and our living experiences enhances your life in some wonderful, universal way. Thank you for viewing.

Enjoy!

Solar Thermal

It is very Zen-like not to have expectations and it was that attitude that got us through six years of weekends to complete our house. The truth is we must have had expectations because the performance of the house far exceeded them. The 16 inch thick cordwood/masonry walls and the solar thermal heating system we installed allows us to enjoy $24/month utility bills all year round. The seven 4'X10' solar collectors do the majority of the heating for the entire winter here at near 9500 feet elevation in the Rocky Mountains.More

High Altitude Greenhouse Gardening

Learn about high attitude farming. Are you interested in hands on training in some of the methods we used? Look for upcoming workshops in this and cordwood masonry building, solar hot water systems and staying in shape to do the work! More

Exercise

How do you work this hard without injury or burnout? Lois has been in the fitness industry for 25 years and used her knowledge of body mechanics to keep her and Bryan injury free.More

Recent Blog Entries

Mar04 Baking bread, watering the garden, feeding the birds, getting breakfast and lunches made, hanging the laundry and debarking trees for a future out building all before 10:00 a.m. Sounds like a scene from the 1800's. May sound like a nightmare to some but this is my wonderful life! Our lifestyle saves a tremendous amount of money allowing us to spend less time tied to a paycheck. I love the fact that I do not have to "go to the gym" because everyday activity does the job for me.
Posted 04 March 2009 by Lois

Mar04 Too soon to feel like Spring at 9500' elevation. It has been a dry winter thus far yet we have been harvesting from the greenhouse throughout. Posted 04 March 2009 by Lois

Mar11 Checked my heart rate on my morning run to make sure I'm still hanging in "the zone". I have the perfect ups and downs to keep it there. Beautiful morning indeed .Posted 11 March by Lois