Sandy... well.. your hero was in the NY Times today... thought you'd like to read a bit about him...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02...
he says he harvests from his unheaded greenhouse all year.. using solar gain in his rock walls... in the greenhouse I did at mothers.. and had about a 500 gal fishtank to help with heat storage I also had system of paths/ vents through the slab of the house .. where I'd take the hot air out in the day time and circulate it through the house slab and back into the greenhouse some 5* cooler... that heat was left in the slab inside... the entire slab sat on 3" of foam and was wrapped on the outside with foam.. to maintain the heat inside the house..
yes the rural economy is always slow... that was what I was mentioning... mightbe less of a difference.. I'd asked mother how being a child in the depression was .. she said it had been so tight there in the rural area that they didn't notice it being there.. or knew when it had left.. in the family there were 9 kids on a working farm ... I remember it well.. as her parents worked it till the day they died.. and an aunt still lives there... although the big old barn... made out of indestructable cypress lumber.. now sits as the siding on a new house..of one of the relatives that built on the land...
