The following summarizes our attempt towards becoming more self-sustainable at Belfair.
Fully Integrated Gutter System (FIGS) Water Treatment Facility (WTF) A majority of our roof's rain water is collected into a central collection tank through FIGS. It is then passed through several mechanical filters and a final UV bombardment to become the house's potable drinking water.
Vermicomposting With the climate such as it is in Fairbanks, composting for a majority of the year becomes quite difficult. Therefore, we compost indoors using our pet worms. Contact us if you'd like to start your own worm bin!
Chickens!! We have 9 chickens that we keep year round. They are so kind to give us eggs in return for our carrot tops and rotten apples!
Our Recycling System Fairbanks doesn't offer much in the ways of recycling, so we collect all of our glass with the intent of crushing it to use behind the house as backfill. The worms get the newspapers and we use some of our cardboard to light the woodstove. We collect all of our steel and aluminum cans and once a year drive them 20 miles to a collection place.
Brewing We brew our own beer and wine (and use the bottles over and over again).
Eat Locally We have a large garden in the summer and do what we can to preserve some of it's produce for winter. The less we have to ship from "the lower 48" the better!
Lightbulbs All of our lightbulbs are compact fluorescents.
The Belfairian chicks that we hatched from eggs!
The eggs were incubated at 101F for 21 days. They hatched on May 5, 2008!
Oh, the irony! Lars finally got the rooster he's wanted for years, but he's not even half the size of the other hens. We've named him Prince Polo!
