Spring and summer saw many visitors to our home.  Chris and I actually love to give tours and will almost never turn anybody down.  But some of you know only too well that since September we have been turning down all but close friends and family.  There were a few reasons for this.

Summer is always busy along Highway 5 (the Yellowhead) next to the earthship.  If you’ve followed the FB posts over the years at The Darfield Earthship you’ve probably noticed my increasing irritation with the traffic along here, or specifically, the traffic that stops in our driveway.  Drivers and passengers of cars dump ashtrays, A&W and Subway garbage, dirty diapers, pop bottles filled with what looks like urine, and used oil containers and filters.

In some cases, drivers or passengers will hop out to take a leak, defecate (this happened exactly once that I know of) and hold up their children while they do the same right on the gravel pathway to our home.  We’ve also witnessed several out-of-love couples scream at each other. I have no idea why this spot is the choice spot to let loose all human waste, of biological or psychological origins.

We’ve also had people ignore our cable gate and come up to the earthship to peer in the windows.  This last summer we had a family arrive at 10 pm hoping for a tour after climbing over the gate.  We were all walking around in our pjs getting ready for bed.

So I was getting a bit ticked off and made up this sign, which I left at the gate for several weeks.

Unbelievably, one person ignored the sign and STILL came up to the earthship.

Mostly, though, I got razzed by friends and family about the sign.

On the “visits” page of this site we indicate that if our gate is down people are welcome to come up and see us and if we are not too busy to accommodate a visit, we will say so. It also says that if the gate is up, either we are not home or prefer some family time.

After a scheduled tour this summer, one of our kids (who shall remain nameless) totally lost it.  Too many tours, too many eyes peering into the bedroom…too much!

So as much as Chris and I would have loved to continued to give tours, we started to turn people down.  We felt badly about it, but the kids’ peace of mind is more important at this time. We’ve told the kids that we will revisit tours/visits in the spring, emphasizing that tours are an important part of not only educating people, but making contacts with like-minded folks.

So if we turned you down this fall, please try again in the spring!  We have some exciting things happening then, including the installation of our permaculture design!  More on that in another post!