The project planning has been undergoing several modifications. Due to the fact that during the survey and design phases the level of detail in regards to options, materials and dependencies has not been researched in enough depths it now turns out that we are short on time and would implement something we would not feel good about and cut too many corners in our sustainable living intentions. In order to be able to bring the main focus areas, the front yard and the food growing to a near completion we have been rethinking our timing and decided to postpone tasks and sub-projects, including:

• Rainwater catchment and water tank
  At this point we don't know what the best location for the rainwater tank would be. We also have not completed our research what type of storage system and tank we want to use. Additionally we will need to replace the existing roofing material and have not decided and researched enough what the best option in regards to catching rainwater would be. As we are also thinking to install a greywater system and need to improve some of our irrigation, it became clear to us that all which has to do with the water system and the house-roof will need to be researched, discussed and designed during the fall and winter time and implemented next year.
• Deck
  When we started to research the material options for the deck it turns out that it needs a more thorough review. Originally we were thinking to use composite materials (like Trex), we found out that these kind of materials have one major handicap: once the reclaimed plastic and the sawdust are mixed it cannot be separated again. Also, when deconstruction this material it cannot be recycled again. There is 100% recycled full plastic decking material, which can be recycled again. We do not know enough about this yet. William McDonough and Michael Braungart recommend in their concept of separate cycles for biological and technical nutrients (see "Cradle to Cradle. Rethinking the Way We Make Things" ) to keep them strictly separated. Also, the area under the deck is a potential location for a root cellar or water tank. All this needs more thinking and will be designed in the upcoming fall and winter season.
• Solar systems
  Any of the solar systems will require most likely changes to the front and roof areas of the house. With our current insights it makes more sense to do these changes at the same time when we are re-roofing and prepare the rainwater catchment systems and then also work on the structural requirements for solar PV or hot water panels.
• Indicator tracking
  This is a great idea - the only problem is that for the time being we are gong to have so much more use of resources in every form than before we started this phase of the implementation that it does not make a lot of sense to track most of the indicators. Another issue is that there is simply not enough time to set up the tracking systems and actually collect the needed data.
• Micro Enterprises
  The micro green growing business is actually fairly easy to set up. Here the issue is that without using an automated water misting system as well as having the time required for harvesting, cleaning and selling at the market or store, it takes currently too much time away from other projects.

It is obvious to me now that the project plan had too many tasks packed into it. It was based on the assumption to hire help that is more experienced in the type of work and projects we are doing. As this is not the case for many of the tasks I feel to want to be present to a much greater degree than I had hoped. I also underestimated the demand of my other commitments, including the work for my IS/IT clients, preparing the outputs, family live and just taking care of my well-being.

I think the overall project plan creation was very helpful in getting a full picture of this project, doing a preliminary prioritization, deciding on the main phases, and coming up with an estimated budget. It was very helpful for the first part of the implementation. As many things are indicating that the second part of implementation does not work as originally designed, I decided to make a project plan that only contains tasks and projects we want to complete during this part. There is always the option to include more tasks from the general project plan if we should be done earlier than expected and still have more resources available.

During this part I also found myself several times going over the project plan and creating a daily work plan that helped me to communicate to Daniel and Noah and any contractors what we plan to do as well as make sure needed materials, tools and information is available. It is also a good idea to always have a few extra tasks planned, so in case there is a temporary hold up for some reason, something else can be done.

When hiring help in the future we will need to be quite clear what the agreements are, specially when it concerns family members that are living in the same household. In the believe that we can work it out once we are all together, certain things were not agreed upon and have been a little bit compromising to me, including the work hours and days of work, the occupation and level of tidiness of the shared living space, required work attire, any dietary needs and the level of skill using tools and doing the expected type of work.
Overall the experience was very positive and full of learning opportunities for all of us in regards to ecological thinking and practices and personal growth. We frequently got into short discussions ranging from natural building, gardening, design, permaculture, reusing and recycling, governance, working with nature and sustainability in general that were quite inspiring. I noticed the deep passion I have for all this when suddenly everyone listened. We discussed often details of a task at hand and why choosing one option over another, sometimes maybe not the most sustainable one. We talked several times about what sustainability is. I received a few times feedback in how our time together planted seeds and made an impact in the way of thinking about things. This became obvious over time as I started getting "out-thought" on specific details or tasks in choosing options and thinking about a design. One time we talked about how what we are doing is combining ways of former days, like reusing everything we can, with the ways of today, being on the forefront of restoring natural systems.

For this output the near agony of producing it has almost subsided - now it is only the experience of time crunch and the frequent switching between reporting, implementing and researching that makes it sometimes uncomfortable. I did not expect this and feel happily surprised. I cannot quite nail it down yet what made the difference. It has to do with that I am quite comfortable using the system getting it all into a certain format as designed on this web site. Another factor is that I used a mind map to structure the output - something I did the first time for the last output after having difficulties to distinguish between all the project work, including all the thinking, planning, designing and doing on one hand and preparing an output for a project phase. And of course, there is the fact that some tangible things have been implemented and I feel comfortable to report on that using text, pictures, drawings and other means.