About 12 days ago I entered our earthship project in the So Nice Green Contest.  So Nice is an organic soy beverage company based out of Burnaby, BC. (a suburb of Vancouver).

In those 12 days we’ve gone from zero votes to 250, moving us solidly into 10th place, the last place that automatically enters the final judging round for the grand prize of $5000.

Thank you to all our friends and family for not just voting, but for spreading the word on their Facebook walls.  The contest ends on December 31 and every person can vote once a day until then…here’s the link to vote for educational resources for our earthship. 

There’s a couple of reasons I entered the contest.  The first one was to spread the word about our project.  In my submission I direct people to both our Facebook page and this blog site.  Chris and I firmly believe in sharing our journey and hope to show that ordinary people can  sometimes accomplish extra-ordinary things.

The second reason was that I envisioned a need for educational resources for our earthship.  Over the last 18 months, since we began building our home, we’ve had hundreds of visitors.  Some stayed and helped build, some looked around, but without exception, we talked to all of them. We explained why we use tires, how we are going to heat the earthship passively, our passion for growing our own, organic food in the earthship, the beauty of a greywater system and our admiration for Earthship Biotecture and Michael Reynolds who started it all more than  30 years ago.  Chris has poured over our plans with people, and pulled out all the printed resources he has.  We’ve loaned out our copy of the Garbage Warrior many times.  We’ve drawn in the dirt many times to illustrate a construction principle.

We’ve stood in the midst of our tires with complete strangers and debated many environmental issues, learning much in the process.  We’ve come to know many, many wonderful people, some of whom we remain close to.  Our family and closest friends have helped out enormously and are the ones who come to know most intimately the private nature of our building process.

Chris and I have yelled at each other many times, in tiredness, frustration and sheer stubborness.  We’ve collapsed in laughter more times than I can count, sometimes over people’s reaction to what we are doing!  Believe it or not, we can see the comedy in a life filled with tires, pop cans, humanure toilets and dirt floors.

We’ve been the beneficiary of many pop cans!  People have given us the benefit of their time, equipment and advice. We have not, however, asked for monetary donations, believing that we must build our home ourselves.  We will use cast-off materials, or “stuff” people give us, but we haven’t solicited money for the house itself and we have no intention of doing so.

The So Nice Green Contest gave me a credible avenue to try to convince like-minded folks that a hefty amount like $5000 could go to furthering the green cause…to making it easier for us to explain green principles of all kinds when people visit.  I would have loved to ask for the money to go toward my solar array, but really, I think a generous gift like this should benefit more than one family.

I’ve been intrigued with the power of social media during this process.  I’ve underestimated Facebook, and I’ve really underestimated how many people follow our story. I’m coming to understand and appreciate the fascination people have with what we are doing. 

However, I still felt a bit weird posting my request for votes on a few sites, despite knowing that many people would support us.  I’m generally a very private person, despite the fact that Chris and I share much of our lives on this blog site.

I hesitated for a moment before posting on MLA Lana Popham’s page, but she is all about green building and sustainable living…plus we’ve met her and shown her the house AND she is the daughter of good friends.  As a bonus, she has over 1,500 friends who potentially share our goals. 

I’ve giggled a lot over stories of friends who log in to their children’s accounts to vote for us!  And those who sent me emails asking me to explain how to vote since it wasn’t working – you need to “Like” the So Nice Facebook page first!  I’ve had some nice comments saying that it is an easy contest to vote in, because ALL you have to do is Like the page and vote.  Since asking friends to vote, I’ve had requests to help people win contests too, and I’ve noticed other organizations and companies ask for lots of personal information before you can register a vote. The So Nice Green Contest is nice and easy!

Several people thought they’d discovered a way to vote more than once a day (including our son, Stephen), but I tested it out and it truly is not possible. It’s nice everyone was willing to help us faster, but being the goody two shoes I am I would’ve reported it had there really been a glitch!

Stephen has been stalking working his friends on Facebook to get them to vote.  His strategy is to log on and watch who is on chat and than hit them with the request.  He’ll wait, oh, maybe, 30 seconds before asking them if they’ve voted!  I had to tell him to leave people alone!

Helen has been our Elections Earthship Officer.  She has religiously been going through EVERY submission each evening and logging all entries that had more votes than us.  She has been marking our progress and doing the math to figure out how far we have to go.

Chris looks up from his rocket mass stove design once in a while to ask how the voting is going and is amused at how this contest has taken hold of at least three of us.  But hey, being a TV-free household means we have to get our entertainment where we can. And this to me seems a very worthy pursuit.

Thanks again for voting for us and please don’t let up yet.  It’s still over a month until the contest closes and having ourselves securely in the top 10 is our goal.  If we win (or even if we don’t) please come and see our house next year when we (hopefully) are moved in.

And visit the So Nice website.  They’ve got some cool info on organic foods and green living.  Plus, it’s a Canadian company!  And anybody who knows me, knows I like Made in Canada!