#workingwithnature

Steam from hot springs vents rising over homes. mage from Japan Up Close

Japan has many natural hot-springs, some of which are used to power geothermal plants. However, electricity and hot-spring baths are not the only use people have found for the steam.

Heating Greenhouses

“Hot springs are used to heat greenhouses for different types of fruit and vegetables. At Atagawa Spa on the Izu Peninsula, the Atagawa Tropical & Alligator Garden cultivates tropical plants like banana trees and bougainvillea.” | Nipponia

By piping the heat into radiators, they can heat and humidify the greenhouses with no electricity.

Sand Baths

“This unique experience begins by donning a yukata. Then, allow yourself to be buried in hot sand, and enjoy the sound of ocean waves for the next 10 to 20 minutes while breathing in geothermal steam.”

This might seem odd, but consider it on par with a spa treatment (like a mud bath), mixed with a steam room.

Steam Restaurants

“It is a cooking method using high-temperature steam heat gushing from hot springs, and it has been used in Beppu since the Edo period. Just put the ingredients in a basket, put them in a pot where steam of about 100 degrees called "Hell Steaming Kettle" and cover it.” | Jigoku Mushi

At tables equipped with timers and hot-spring powered steam cookers, you can steam your own food.

Related Posts:

“The woman who turned her apartment into a hummingbird hospital”

Catia Lattouf started caring for humming birds in her Mexico City apartment after the death of her husband.

According to an ancient Mayan legend which warns that the gods will curse any mortal who dares cage a hummingbird, they fly freely in the home.

“Since then, Lattouf’s home has become a makeshift clinic for sick, injured or infant hummingbirds, and after years of patient study the 73-year-old is a go-to reference source for bird lovers across Latin America.”

Image 1, Image 2

For more than 1000 years, the Haenyeo(sea women) of Jeju Island have been free-diving(no oxygen tanks) for seaweed and shellfish.

There is a strict ranking system depending on how long someone can hold their breath, and experience.

They are also all women, and can be the primary or sole income of a family. This created a semi-matriarchal society where the men were expected to do the shopping and childcare while the women worked.

Given the hard lifestyle, industrialization, and youth leaving the island, Haenyeo are fading in numbers.

A similar historic job happens in Japan, under the name of Ama(divers). Typically (though not always) women, they work in groups and collect seafood or pearls.

They are also free-divers and are also dwindling in numbers.

Together with divers from South Korea, they are working to come up with ways to protect this fading way of life.

In the Nock Mountians of Carinthia(Austria) is a little hut with an disappearing history. Called a "farmers bath," it is the last in Europe and was originally built as a bath house for local farmers, but also served as a location people would seek for the mineral-rich healing waters.

The water itself comes from the spring that runs under the house, and, using only the power of the creek itself (no pumps) and strategically placed canals, the tubs can be filled.

The process of heating the baths involve a fire; but the fire is for rocks(and cooking), not for directly heating the water. The rocks are collected from the river every morning and are placed in the fire, then they are poured into the filled tubs, and both heat the water and disperse minerals.

I just thought I would share this because I have never heard of a bath house like this, and there is something beautiful about its partnership and reliance on the creek for both filling the tubs, and providing the rocks for heating. There is more information in the video below(and is also where the images are from).

If you also like this sort of thing, I suggest checking out the valtoare or valylo river-powered washing machines too.

“Dubbed a ‘Living Breakwater,’ every one of the blocks is specially formed to maximize the space for bivalves like oysters to glom onto, while above the water line, depressions capture the seawater and allow for tidal pools to form in the tops.”

After migration routes became unstable for the birds (leading to failing migrations), it was discovered that humans can help them learn new paths.

"An Austrian ornithologist has pioneered an incredible way of wildlife rehabilitation by fostering chicks of an endangered species before re-instituting their migratory practice by leading them along their natural migration route with an ultralight aircraft."