I found an interesting quote from Henry Ford in 1934 foreseeing a future of Biofuels and Biomaterials.

“I foresee the time when industry shall no longer denude the forests which require generations to mature, nor use up the mines which were ages in the making, but shall draw its raw material largely from the annual products of the fields,” he declared.

“I am convinced that we shall be able to get out of the yearly crops most of the basic materials which we now get from forest and mine. We shall grow annually many if not most of the substances needed in manufacturing.

“When that day comes, and it is surely on the way, the farmer will not lack a market and the worker will not lack a job. More people will live in the country. The present unnatural condition will be naturally balanced again. Chemistry will reunite agriculture and industry. They were allowed to get too far apart and the world has suffered by the separation.”

I realized some of you may be wondering what exactly we are planning to build up int he mountains.  Well, here is a rough outline of what we are looking to build.  It is going to be a bit more contemporary with the shed style roof and will have lots of windows (we are in the mountains after all).  In terms of exterior materials we plan to use a mix of stone veneer on the bottom portions of the house and the rest will be a fiber cement siding made to look like cedar siding (the recent San Diego fires made us rethink real cedar!).  There will also be about 600 sqft of decking which isn’t clear in the pictures.  We welcome any comments on the design as we are always looking for new ideas!

 

Well, we finally have one small victory! Today, in a very official unanimous vote, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors approved the abandonment of the last 96 feet of Walla Walla Trail! This theoretically enables us to build the septic and house in the locations as planned.

Next major hurdles are the site approval, which is currently under review, and to obtain a variance on the setback requirements, which is under review as well. I’ll report back on any progress on this front.