Now that I have move into my home and am starting to travel, this blog will be devoted to telling you about the different features of the Vehicle itself, and the adventure of living in it, while the story of my travels will be told at my main site. 

I will also be starting a Q&A column so if you have questions about materials, construction, specific health concerns etc., please fee; free to ask.  I am working on an eBook that will tell the whole story of the Vehicle along with diagrams, drawings, materials lists and a lot more, but in the meantime, this is the place to find those things out.  
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Just because it's fresh in my mind, today I'm going to talk about electromagnetic pollution and how I set my house up to avoid it.  EMFs have a wide range of documented effects on human health.  

From emfcenter.com:
"While there still is great controversy, studies suggest that EMFs may be linked to a variety of health problems including leukemia, lymphoma, brain and nervous system cancers, melanoma, breast cancer, miscarriage, birth defects, Alzheimer’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease, depression and suicide. Anecdotally, EMFs have been associated with symptoms such as nausea, headache, fatigue, anxiety, dizziness, mental confusion, memory loss, sleep disturbance, seizures, tinnitus, changes to blood pressure and heart rate, itchy or burning skin sensations, and skin rashes. Anecdotally, there are increasing numbers of people who report “hypersensitivity” to electromagnetic fields, similar to the way that some individuals have become “hypersensitive” to chemicals, often as the result of over-exposure in the past."

In the past I have been highly sensitive to EMF fields, including cell phones, wifi routers and "Smart" utilities meters in California, so I was concerned about making sure my house didn't expose me to them. 
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My primary consultant on EMF (electromagnetic field) protection was Michael Neuert of EMF Center.  Michael helped me plan the electrical design of my vehicle to minimize EMF pollution.  Because my home is basically an aluminum box, I am pretty well shielded from external fields, except through the windows, but I need to be careful about generating fields indoors, as they will bounce back and forth between the walls.  We decided all the electricity in my bedroom would be 12 volt DC power, which doesn't emit fields, that all wiring would be run through steel conduit which contains EMFs, and that I would have a DC refrigerator.  Along the right side of the Vehicle I have two clusters of AC outlets, in the kitchen and by my desk.  

I am not able to completely avoid EMFs, but have isolated myself from them as best I could.  For instance, I do have an inverter, which converts DC power from my solar panels to AC, to run my computer, blender and a few other appliances, but it sits inside a metal lined battery cabinet.  I also have an electric fridge, because, for me, having no propane inside my living space was a higher priority.  I traded my desktop computer for a laptop, which uses less power and generates less EMFs.  What it does generate is mostly directed down from the base.  My laptop sits on a raised base so the screen is at an ergonomic height and I use an external keyboard to type. This keeps me farther from the EMF fields. It's also against a window, so I don't have the bounce effect from the metal wall.   ​

Someday soon I will go through the Vehicle with my gauss meter and see which appliances are generating fields and will start the process of switching out their power cords for shielded ones.  I also have a grounding rod, which I still need to read the instructions for, which, when used correctly can reduce EMFs from the AC circuits.

The issue I was most worried about was wifi/cell access.  I really didn't want radio and microwave frequencies inside the Vehicle.  Right now, I have to go sit on the stoop or the deck to make phone calls, and I'm ok with that.  If I end up in a cold place in winter, I will feel differently, I'm sure, but I plan to avoid that. 

Today I had my long awaited consultation with Chris Dunphy & Cherie Ve Ard of Technomadia, to get their help setting up my internet system. As a writer who blogs, both in print and on the radio, and conducts a lot of her work and social life online, I need reliable internet access to make a living.  Cherie and Chris came up with a great package for me, taking all my access needs into account.  

I will be using a Verizon hotspot and a router, connected to an antenna on my roof. But the wifi capacity will be turned off, and I'll use an ethernet cable to connect me to my cellular data so everything that is indoors will be wired, not wireless. I'll be using a Verizon data plan that's ample for my needs and will even let me watch some movies.  Cherie and Chris really put some thought into this and took my needs seriously, which, as those of you are also sensitive to electromagnetic fields know, is not a given.

I don't have service set up yet, but will let you know how it goes, and what the gauss meter has to say about my whole set up.  For now, I know I've taken a lot of good steps to keep my home free of EMFs. ​

Well, here I am in my first harbor, Bug Hill Farm, in Ashfield, Mass, where Kate Kerivan grows a multitude of berries, both common and exotic.  My favorites are Aronia berries, super packed with anti-oxidants and mouth puckering with tannins.  I pulled in last Thursday, August 25th. It took me 35 minutes to get here from Greenfield, and an hour to get backed into my parking spot. I had to rush off to Cambridge for some appointments, so I didn't have time to level the trailer, with the result that I am bungee corded to my desk to prevent my chair from rolling away. 

On the way to Cambridge, fortunately just a few minutes out, my power steering failed, and I was unable to turn the wheel more than a few degrees. I am so lucky that this didn't happen in the morning when I was towing a very large, heavy trailer on curving country roads!!!!  My truck is in the shop, and until I get it back, I can't level the trailer, which requires creating a little ramp of leveling blocks and pulling the trailer forward onto it.   

It's been an exhausting year, and I am trying to allow myself some rest, in between learning the various systems of my new home and figuring out what to put where and what to do with everything that doesn't fit.

I am really excited about my photovoltaic system, designed and installed by PV Squared of Greenfield, MA.  I spent a lot of money on it, but I will have enough power to be off grid almost all the time, pulling my electricity from the sun.  Even when I use my electric kettle to heat up tea water fast, the battery levels only dip for a short while.  The glorious sunny weather is letting me use my crock pot and even my toaster oven.      
I am also very much looking forward to my consultation with Chris and Cherie of Technomadia, who will advise me on what internet system to set up so I can stay connected, and upload photos and audio. At the moment I am going through my iPhone data plan like a hot knife through butter.

I have a steep learning curve ahead of me on many fronts. I need to learn how to use my Kimberly wood stove, turn on the propane water heater, set up my new system of data backup for my laptop, learn how to use my new digital recorder, my special RV GPS, reset the codes on my digital door lock (where did I put those instructions?) and the tire pressure monitor that will keep me safe on the road, practice hitching and unhitching until I don't have to consult the notes each time, inaugurate my Sun Oven, and finish securing all the drawers and cabinets so things don't go flying when I drive.  I also need to do my best to shift weight toward the back of the trailer, which isn't easy given how I had it built. Ooops.  

But today I filled my water tank with a very long hose, and did my first load of laundry with the tiny Wonder Wash hand cranked washing machine which I only had to turn for 2-3 minutes, and the spin dryer, which gets clothing almost completely dry in 3 minutes!  My clean clothes are finishing drying in the sun.   

The most challenging part of this process is sifting through belongings and letting go of so many objects that carry memory and identity.  To make things more difficult, some of the boxes I put in storage got wet, and the unit is now smelling musty, which means I have to get vulnerable items out of there asap before they are permanently contaminated.    

In the meantime, I go to sleep each night in my elevated bedroom, with stats in my windows, and wake up at dawn to birdsong. Early morning, the open ended greenhouses are full of bees and birds among the ripening raspberries.   The adventure has begun.