The Red Earth Journey

The End of the Season

2009-12-09T19:33:00.000-08:00

It's been more than a few months now since I have left Missouri. At the time of my departure, Mark and I were getting ready to start cobbing in the rocketstove.... The days, and especially nights, were starting to become much colder and more harsh, and Alyson, Mark, and Cole were ready to be moving into the barn.

At the Colloquium I attended in late October I had to chance to share what I did this summer and put together a few pictures that showed the progress of the barn. It was put together to focus on certain aspects of the process that I found to be of interest. Here are the slides:

Rural Missouri

The barn as it was when I arrived...

Reclaimed sub-floor from an old torn down gymnasium....

Roof truss sections constructed out of wood from pallets....

Jig assembly of the first roof truss...

Fourteen finished trusses...

Squared and plumed.....

Completed endoskeleton......

Sheet metal up, door and window bucks installed....

Earthbag foundation......

Corner detail....

Last of the details before putting the bales up....

Earthen adobe floor...

Three feet at a time...

Shaving the stacked and pinned bale walls...

Roof insulation....

Interior, this is the raised kitchen area with force
water pump retrofit....

Rocket stove test......

The barn just before external plastering....

Gooseberry Barnhaus

This experience in a work trade position, in which I actually lived and worked with a family who were so loving and open enough to sharing their home with me, has been truly unforgettable. In exchange for my time, labor, and ideas I received an empowering opportunity to work daily with one of the best natural builders I have come across. Not only that, but also have the chance to participate and be a part of the Gooseberry family, and that of the whole Red Earth Farms community, which was something that filled me and brought me to a newer level of living...... one of sharing.

Week 19

2009-09-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

It is hard to imagine that six weeks has gone by since the last post. A lot has happened, both with the building project and personally for me.

The week leading up until my trip back to Michigan, we worked on constructing and installing an outdoor kitchen at Gooseberry. We trucked over the fridge, stove, and all the dry and stored food that was still at the trailer by DR. The kitchen sink that will be used for the barn was fitted into a table and plumbed for greywater runoff behind the army tent, into the dried creek bed.

When I returned from my two weeks away, the first story bales were completed. I arrived back just in time to work on the upper gable ends of the barn. Putting up strawbales is extremely easy and fast. Mark designed the dimensions of the barn to fit the bales, which meant less cutting and resizing. Rebar was used for 'pinning' the bales together, with a bar positioned vertically on both the interior and outside. After the wall was up, we then 'sowed' them together using bale twine and long metal needles. This helps to keep the wall secure until the plastering is applied and dried.

After finishing all the bales we then moved to installing the windows, doors, and flashing, which we are just now wrapping up. Yesterday, we moved the solar panels onto the roof and relocated the power system from the outhouse/toolshed to the second story of the barn. We did some calculations to figure out different positions for angling the panels for different times of the year, to track the sun for maximum sun catchment.

Things that are about to happen are the plumbing, rocket stove, moving the kitchen, and plasturing. It is looking like everything else on the list will have to wait until next year for Mark and Alyson to finish, as fall is quickly approaching. The main focus is to get the things done that are nessesary for them to be moved in for the winter.

It is hard to imagine that I will be leaving in less then a month. My time here living and working with Alyson, Mark, and Cole has been so rich and rewarding, I will be sad when it is time to leave. I am planning on going to the Natural Building Colloquium in Oregon right after this, to meet and talk with other Natural Builders in the field. That, I am excited about.

(More pictures on the Flikr site.)

Week 13

2009-07-26T13:15:00.001-07:00

The Fun has begun. I have been waiting to be at this point along in the project since I have arrived here at Red Earth. Up till now, the work has been predominately more conventional based: framing, roofing, carpentry, etc, which are important steps and I am glad to have more experience in those areas, but it is not what I’m mostly interested in. I came to learn how to work with cob, strawbales, adobe, earthen plasters and to get down and dirty doing it.

This past week we started pouring in the first layer of the earthen floor. The floor will contain three different layers, a rough 4-inch sub floor, a second 2-inch layer, and then the finished floor which is about half an inch and will finish smooth as tile. The sub floor is an adobe mix that is made up of clay, sand, and straw, at 1-1-1 ratios.

Mark created a soaking pit for the mud to sit in, which allows us to set a batch for soaking over night to be ready for the next day. We set up mixing stations, laying down a 9x9 foot tarp that is close by to the pit and to the site. Using 5 gallon buckets, we found that 2 bucket loads of each material was a good amount for mixing and moving. We start with laying down the clay and sand on the tarp and then use our feet to stomp and mix the two materials, and then lift one side of the tarp to turn and roll it. After a round or two or stomping and rolling, we then add in the straw, which is presoaked, and mix it all together really well.

The process is extremely fun and messy, and with the accompaniment of some music, you soon find that dancing and stomping in a rhythm is the best way to mix. A batch takes about 10-15 minutes to mix. It is then wheel-barreled in and poured on top of the previously tamped gravel. Using a long 2x4 screed board to box in the section we are working in, the adobe mix is then toweled in evenly and smoothly. The mix is about the consistency of wet cement, and when it dries, will be nearly as hard as well.

After a full day of Mark, Josh, and myself mixing and pouring, we looked and had only completed a section that was about 4x14 feet....which at that rate would take us over a week just for the sub floor. We soon realized that a work party is the best way to get it done quicker and not get burned out doing it all by ourselves.

The next day we managed to round up about 5 people or so, with others randomly stopping by, to get three mixing stations going and crank it out. We got snacks, drinks, and had some music playing, and everyone had fun getting all muddy and sweaty. Within under 3 hours, we had nearly tripled the amount of floor that just the three of us had done the day before. We are planning on having a couple more work parties this upcoming week to finish it up. After that, as the floor is drying, we can work start working from the outside putting up the strawbale walls.

At the nearby Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, there are 4 houses going up that will be using strawbales for the walls and insulation. A couple of the projects are ready for the bales to go up and so Mark was asked to do a demonstration on working with strawbales.

The class went for about an hour, during which Mark talked about the basics of building with strawbales. He showed everyone how to thread different size bales using some homemade bale ‘needles’ out of some metal strips. When using bales, which are usually 2x3 feet, you will encounter areas along in building that will require a smaller size bale. In this case, using some extra bale twine and needles, you can ‘sow’ and tie off a new size bale to fit the dimensions for whatever you need. He also showed everyone how to notch the bales, which is handy for fitting a bale around framing or anything else that is running up through the walls. The class also was Josh and mine’s first introduction in working with bales.

When designing his barn, Mark specifically made the dimensions of the walls to match that of the strawbales. He did this so the walls could be quickly thrown up with as little reshaping and cutting as possible. When the time comes, the walls should be up within a week at the most. I of course will be leaving for two weeks in early August and so it looks like I might miss out on putting up the bales...but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

This last week or so, before moving onto the earthen sub-floor, we also finished the stub plumbing and did some diagraming for the houses’ interior and exterior plumbing, which I found rather interesting. He will be catching and collecting rain water that will be fed into an underground cistern. That water will then be pumped in by hand using this antique force water pump that Mark found at the Dog and Gun flea market. This thing is amazing; with only a dozen or so pumps, the whole water system for the house will be pressurized, and with the tank we just picked up, will provide about 19 gallons of water at a time. We harvested an oak stump from a nearby Red Earther’s homestead and buried half of it in the ground, which we will use to mount the pump onto later. Mark’s family will have access to the pump right there in the kitchen, which will be nice during the winter.

The previous week I was mostly sick, resulting in a lot of sleeping and minimal eating. There was a bug going around, or maybe it was the Lunar and Solar Eclipses we had, in either case, most folks here were feeling really run down and needing rest. I missed out on the trip to St. Louis and in participating in the “Show Me State” games playing Ulitmate Frisbee, which was a bummer.

Being mid summer, the energies are high here and people are really starting get things done. I’m finding myself not having enough time in the week to get to all the things I want to do. Even though we are really moving now on the building project, I am looking forward to my visit back to Michigan in August to spend time with friends and family.

Week 10

2009-07-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have gone by really fast, with much happening, lots to process, and lots of building happening. We’ve completed the earthbag stem wall foundation, started adding some additional bracing to the outer posts, put on the exterior fascia along the edge of the gable roof, moved in half the gravel for the sub floor, gutters up and working, started and have nearly finished the sheet metal roofing, completed the toe-up along the stem wall for the strawbales to sit on, and put on the foam insulation and corrugated metal along the exterior of the earthbag wall.

Things now are rolling, with good weather (if you can stand upper 90s some days), more help and a renewed sense of momentum on the project. In the past weeks we’ve had 3 interns leave, Betsy, Kris, and Monica, and recently gained another, Josh, who is from Buffalo, New York. Mark’s younger cousin, Jasper, has also just arrived and will be with us for a week or two to help out.

It has been interesting to be here for the ‘changing of the guards,’ with interns coming and going. I am grateful to have the time and availability to be able to stay here for a longer extended period, and know that it will have a much longer lasting effect and impression on me, as opposed to just coming here for a while and working a bit.

In the mean time, during the last couple of weeks, the usual has happened: lots of wonderful food, Ultimate frisbee games, dances, birthday parties, meetings, long hacky sack sessions, potlucks, and making new friends.

I’ve worked on building a thatched sun screen to provide some shade for sitting under just outside my tent. The wall was constructed out of fallen osage and walnut branches, and held together with screws and wire. I have yet to gather material for the roofing. At first I was thinking of just doing a willow weave to diffuse the sun’s intense light, but now i’m leaning more toward a thatched roof. I plan to cut a bunch of grass, let it dry out, and then bundle bunches to use for ‘shingling’. Many cultures around the world use thatch to cover the roofs of their homes. I’m mostly experimenting with this small project, and don’t really know if it will last during the heaving rains, and am hoping to have a cool place to hang out in my free time.

Other exciting things in the works are a semi-vacation/road trip next weekend, where a carload of us are going down to Kansas City for a concert, up to Columbia for an Ultimate frisbee tournament, and then another show in St. Louis. I’m excited to see the different urban community projects that are happening in Kansas City and St. Louis.

I am starting to think more and more about starting some kind of sustainable urban project in Detroit, to expose others to natural building, permaculture, and community spaces. I feel places and cities that have bottomed out are ripe with new opportunities and are much needed. There are many abandoned resources in Detroit, empty houses, factories, plots and fields of land, that are just waiting to be utilized to create something new and beautiful. The only way we can shift from what is falling economically, is by putting energy into something that is creatively different and that will revive and transform the current social paradigm.

In the meantime, here are some photos of the work we’ve done these last weeks:

Kris leveling out gravel.

Gravel sub floor. The wooden blocks sticking out
of the earthbag wall will be the level of the earthen
floor when it is completed. The blocks are used to
nail in the baseboard for the floor.

Mark nailing on the fascia, a finished
detail that will be stained with linseed oil to
help preserve the wood.

Installing the first section of gutter.

Along with the metal roofing,
the gutters will collect rain water that
will be directed and stored into a large
underground cistern.

The metal panels are installed in
3 foot sections and are a nice
shade of purple.

Dinner I prepared: spiced black-eyed peas and
potato, beets from Dandelion garden, rice with
onions and carrots, a sauteed bunch of
chard (not pictured), corn bread, and a yummy
carrot cake.

Why Natural Building?

2009-06-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

When I finally realized that I didn’t want to make a living sitting behind a computer for 50 hours a week, I started to ask myself, what is it that I truly want to do. For the past 2 to 3 years, I have been on a quest to find that something, something that will not only support me, but would also provide an outlet to help make a positive change in the world that I live in. This journey has taken me on interesting and exciting adventures. It’s led me to live in the progressive Berkeley area in California, in hope of making change by being socially and politically active, to moving to Central America to start a new life, with a desire to learn how to grow food and live closer with the land. I’m finally just now discovering what “it” is that I have been looking for. It is what I am here to do, and what I can contribute to benefit my local community, and ultimately, to benefit the rest of the world around me.

Natural Building has revolutionized how I choose to live upon the Earth. It opens up so many more levels to living, it helps me access a part of myself that has been neglected and quieted while living in the contemporary, prefabricated society. It fills in the missing ‘holes’ in my life that a consumer culture seeks to take more of. It puts back into my life an excitement to be alive, and ignites a passion to co-create with the Earth, and with each other.

After finally getting an opportunity to have direct experience with helping to build using natural building methods, I am finally starting to understand what was drawing and pulling me, like a magnet, toward working in and doing Natural Building. I’ve read numerous books and have heard about what it means to others, why and how they got started, and the reasons why it’s so needed and important right now. This helped to motivate me to seek out a longer opportunity to really learn and get experience in this field. And after thinking about and trying to pin-point what it is that has attracted me to doing this, I feel I finally understand why I think it’s important, and want to share some of these reasons.

One area of life that Natural Building fills for me, is the sense of community it offers. It brings people together and helps make connections with others that can be deeply rich and meaningful, as well as creative and fun. It takes a lot to build a home, and a lot more to make it comfortable and enjoyable to live in. Natural Building unites people to work together for a common cause. We can find a more fulfilling life by knowing that we helped another person in manifesting their dream of building their own home, and have the opportunity to celebrate that with them for the rest of their life.

Which brings me the next reason of why I love Natural Building: choosing to have the opportunity to plan, design, build, and ultimately live in a home that is your own. In today’s culture, we are told that we can’t build our own home, that it should be left up to the ‘professionals’, that we don’t have the time to build and create what we want. Natural Building can be done by anyone, regardless of age. It's intuitive, safe, fun, and is an excellent way to stay healthy and fit. By having to pay out high cost to have others build our homes, we are forced to become in debt to a bank, for a mortgage that will take 30 years or more to pay off. If we didn't have to pay rent or make a house payment every month, just to have a basic need such as shelter, then we would not have to work as much and have more free time to seek out activities that we really care about and truly interest us.

On an economical level, Natural Building makes much more sense to the insanity that our current situation offers us. Building a home out of materials that are directly from the Earth, that involve little to no energy to harvest and prepare for use, and that will last for thousands of years, seems more reasonable to me. Simple and natural materials such as dirt, sand, clay, grass, rock, and water are all in abundance, and are also in our own very backyard. The majority of people living on this planet live in homes made out of natural materials.

One third of the total amount of energy that the U.S. consumes, goes strictly into extracting, processing, and converting raw materials into what our building industry uses to make our homes and other buildings. That does not include the petroleum to truck, ship, or even fly the materials to other parts of the country or world, nor does it factor in the mad amount of waste that this industry produces or what happens to it afterwords. Twenty-five percent of landfill in this country is from industrial building waste. Seventy-five percent of all cut trees in America are used for the construction industry. Our current systems are only designed for high and fast production, and mostly focus on profit.

Taking the time to look closer into how our society is structured and functions, it is easy for one to see that this cannot just go on forever. We are running at a speed that doesn’t allow for us to slow down, to take a look at what is really going on and to discover how distracted we are as a culture. Natural Building seeks to completely reverse our lifestyle from all the over producing and consuming. It teaches us to seek new and creative alternatives, ones that are more sustainable and positively long lasting for our children and for the generations that will come after them.

So back to building your own house. Building a home doesn’t need to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. A home that is constructed consciously, sourced locally, and uses natural building methods, shouldn’t have to cost more than 5 to 10 thousand dollars, or less. Some Natural Builders do it for as little as $500, some can manage it for free. By reclaiming and recycling materials that are still perfectly usable, such as wood, windows, doors, metal, etc., items that would normally be trucked and buried in a landfill, one can cut the cost of a home in half, and even less. Homes, businesses, factories, and buildings that are unused, foreclosed and falling apart are everywhere, and can be converted and reused to create new things. We just have to look.

As a society, we need to demand that these resources become more excessable and easier for us to locate and utilized. The major reason why it isn’t possible now is because it doesn’t really provide much profit for the companies and corporations that seem to run our reality. We need to wake up and look at what’s available and how we can use it, instead of just going to a store and buying whatever we want without thinking about where it came from and how it got there on the shelf.

Naturally built homes can not only free us from financial slavery to a bank, but also to the utility companies. The methods that our current industry uses to insulate, heat and cool our living spaces are some of the most wasteful in the world. A home built out of wooden boards, fiberglass, and drywall not only take more energy to make it reasonable and comfortable to live in, but are also not very durable or long lasting. For the rest of our life, we pay extra in utilities, just so we could have that quick convenience of fast assembly.

One thing that our ‘cookie cutter housing’ situation is missing or lacking, is how to maximize one of the most obvious and long lasting sources of energy we have: the sun. Designing a house in relation to where and how the sun moves across the sky, to maximize and utilize it’s light and heat to the fullest, is called solar passive design. In simply orientating one’s house to face south, and having the south faced wall contain most of the windows, one can have a cool home in the summer, and a warmer one in the winter, without having to turn on the air conditioner or crank up the heat.

In the summer, the sun is higher in the sky, which, in a solar passive home, the orientation of the home would prevent the sun’s rays and heat from directly coming in through the windows and help to keep the temperatures down inside. In the winter, the sun is lower on the horizon, and would shine in through the windows. If an earthen floor is installed, then the amount of sunlight that would hit it during the day would be retained and stored, and would then radiate out during the night, when the temperature drops.

A home that is insulated with the width of a straw bale and 2 to 6 inches of earthen plaster on both sides, would provide so much more protection and warmth (or coolness) then what our homes are currently made out of. Earthen plastered walls would act as the same as the earthen floor, they can be charged by the sun’s light and heat to be released later over time. Strawbale and Earthen homes also remain considerably cooler in the summer time, cool enough to not require air conditioning. Outside temperatures could be in the upper 80s to lower 90s, and the temperature inside an earthen-strawbale house would be in the cool upper 60s, without having to do anything.

Installing a more efficient heating system, other then using gas, electric, or propane, would also help to free us from being dependent on paying the utility companies. Even in using a conventional wood burning stove, most the heat is lost up through the chimney. You only get the radiant heat that is coming off the stove, not to mention they are also really inefficient and require a lot of wood to maintain over time. There is a certain kind of stove, called a Rocket Stove, that will work more effectively, offer more heat longer, and use a far less amount of wood.

A Rocket Stove is apart of the home. It is constructed into some large amount of thermal mass, usually through the walls, or most popularly, through a cozy earthen couch or bench. It’s flue pipe is often 40 feet or more, and winds and coils back and forth through the earthen walls or couch. This allows for all the heat and energy that is normally wasted through a short flue, which goes straight up and outside, to be stored into the walls of the house for later use, kind of like a battery. The wood is fed into the stove vertically, so that as the fire at the bottom burns up the wood, the upper portion just falls down and is practically self feeding. In comparing a family using a conventional wood burning stove to a family that has a rocket stove, the conventional users, on average, would use about 4 cords of wood a year, while the rocket mass heater would only need about 2/3 of a cord annually.

Rain catchment systems, wind turbines, solar cell panels, and motors that run solely on opposing magnets are also easy and effective sources of free energy. We need to start investing in people and companies that are providing the means to become energy independent, and not in those who are only interested in making us financially dependent on them.

There are many more reasons why a naturally built home is more economical, but to get back to designing and building, creating a home using natural materials allows for a larger spectrum of creative expression, much more than designing the boxes we call homes ever will. If we look in Nature, we see wonderful and organic shapes, curvy and spiraling lines, in all different kinds of shapes and sizes. For some reason, us humans spend so much time trying to square everything. We take a round and cylindrical tree and cut it into square boards. We try so desperately to have perfectly straight and boxed walls. Nothing in Nature is squared or plum or perfectly at 90 degree angles. Why not make a space that can be anything else? Why not round, arched, curved, windy, or anything that you want it to be. There are no restrictions as to how or what you can create. Working with earthen materials, such as cob, gives you complete artistic freedom to literally sculpt your house into whatever forms you’d like.

Natural Building helps to reawaken a creative process within us and gives us a direct outlet to channel it. It opens and engages us to think about the world around us and how our choices not only effect us and our neighbors and the cities around us, but how they also impact others who are on this planet as well. It empowers us to become free from financial slavery and to redirect the amount of power and wealth from a few companies and individuals back to us, our families, and our local communities. Natural Building dramatically reduces our imprint on the Earth, and motivates us to be creative and use what’s already here. It helps us to connect more with the Earth, and ultimately, more with each other.

The first time I walked into a natural building I didn’t want to leave. It felt completely different then anything I’ve every experienced before. It felt as if the Earth itself rose up and opened itself up for me come right in. The space was so comforting, with no sharp angles or corners or hard lines. It was smooth and rounded, gentle, and calming. Just walking into the space instantly and spontaneously centered me, and I knew that the home that I will someday eventually live in, will be made out of natural materials, and will be made by me.

Week 7

2009-06-26T11:44:00.001-07:00

Heat, humid, hot, sticky...pond, coolness, hydration, sanity: these were the two distinct patterns this last week. Temperatures reaching past 100 degrees, with a humidity you had to swim through.

On Monday, a bunch of us drove into town to run errands. Later in the afternoon was a triple birthday party for Kim of Red Earth, Apple, who is at Sandhill, and Nathan from Dancing Rabbit. The event was held over at Dandelion, which was nice because I didn’t have far to go afterwords. Besides a festive crowd of folks, food, and drinks, there was a planned kissing contest.

Two of the birthday stars, Kim and Nathan, acted as the judges. They were blind folded and waited as those who wanted to show off their kissing abilities drew numbers. Pairs were formed and each person had 10 seconds to kiss both Kim and Nathan, one at a time. After each kiss, the judges would then whisper into the coordinator's ear their results so she could keep score. After everyone kissed, the scores were added up, with Hannah and Ted coming in first place in a tie. That of course meant a final kissing showdown, with an increase of kissing time from the previous 10 seconds to 15. At the end of it all, Ted proved to be the better kisser, although some say it was just the mint he ate right before the event.

A little later in the evening, after diving into the pond a few times, I noticed that one of my amethyst plugs had fallen out into the water. I was a bit bummed, but made the resolve to finally make my own. When I was doing dishes in the evening, I noticed a nob of honey locust from a scrap of wood in the kindling box, which I thought was perfect for carving into a plug. Within a very little amount of time, I had sanded it down to the right gage and then oiled it to cure and preserve the wood from drying out. The plugs turned out so well that I am planning to harvest some oak or walnut to make another set.

The next day we moved some heavy, thick wood from the storage barn over at DR that will be used for the fascia details along the outside of the barn. The wood was from an old kitchen floor at the ‘Dog and Gun’ flea market. We had to cart it in onto the property due to the wet ground from all the rain this past weekend. We used the HTM 2000 to cart in the long planks along the path to the barn. HTM stand for the Heavy Thing Mover, which is made out of wheels from an old tractor trailer. We ripped the boards into the desired width and washed them in pond to clean them up. The task took most of the day and I was spent by the afternoon.

Wednesday we started the third course of earthbags and got halfway around the foundation. Later in the day I walked over to DR to drop off a pack of warmer clothes that have been taking up space in my tent. There is a double-wide trailer that is on the other side of the road from DR that Mark and Alyson stay at during the winter, until the barn-house gets finished. I stored my pack in the trailer and then stopped by Cob’s house to pick up some beer for this weekends Land Day/ Solstice party at Red Earth.

Thursday morning we added a period for stretching before starting work. Today was so hot and muggy, it felt like we were breaking every hour for a cool-down in the pond. We finished the third row of earthbags. I biked over to Sandhill for the weekly community potluck, practiced some knitting with an intern, and came home with a wonderfully full belly.

Friday we tamped down the course of earthbags we finished the previous day. We had two loads of gravel delivered from the local mine, which is just a couple towns over. By that time we were so done for the day, due to intense heat and humidity. Mark surprised us all by taking us into town to Zimmerman’s for ice cream. I ate a whole pint of carmel praline Rice Dream ice cream and never felt so good.

Later that afternoon, my partner and best friend, Laura, made it in from her drive from Ann Arbor, Michigan. We walked over to Dancing Rabbit and I gave her a tour of all the buildings and a little bit of the history of the place. It was so good to see her again after nearly two months of being out here.

Saturday was the first ever Farmers Market in Rutledge, which was organized by a committee from the three communities and others in the area. Farmers Markets are such a great way for people to make money and also support local food production. Food sold in local farmers markets is usually fresher and in season, which taste really good in my opinion. All the Gooseberry interns, Kris, Betsy, Monica, Laura, and myself all got up early to make the 2 mile walk into town. There is a short cut for people walking and biking that goes through a massive field. By the time we got into town, the sun was blaring down in it’s full on intensity.

The Market was small, and consisted of Alyson with homemade sour-dough rye bread that she baked in the earthen oven, and Mrs. Zimmerman. The goal is to get at least 6 vendors by the end of the summer. Mark, Tamar, and Penn brought their guitar, fiddle, and banjo, and jammed out some amazing bluegrass music for everyone. Folks from Sandhill had a face painting table going too. It was a fun and festive time and a lot of people showed up.

Sunday was the Summer Solstice and there was much anticipation for the festival that was to happen later. I did some ear candling to help remove some water that had been clogged up in my ear for most the week, and following that, received a killer massage from Laura.

The festivities soon began. There was home-brew beer from Sandhill and DR, and Alyson and Mark were cranking out pizzas from the earthen oven that were absolutely delicious. After swimming in the pond two or three times, a group of us got together and played a round of horseshoes over by the worksite. Having everyone from the different communities here at Red Earth was such a treat. The evening was really laid back and relaxing. It was one Solstice to remember.

Week 6

2009-06-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

The amount of rain and lack of dryness made it very hard to get any work done. I enjoyed sleeping in and having more time to knit, play music, and retreat inward.

Monday morning work was canceled due to the powerful thunderstorm we had during the night. I awoke in the middle of the night to find water had collected on the roof of my tent, creating a mini pool, and had been leaking inside for some time. Luckily, I had my comforter blanket laying directly below it, which acted like a big sponge and prevented my whole tent from flooding.

Since we couldn't work until later in the afternoon, until it was dry enough around the job site, I had time to work on a needlepoint patch for the side bag I use daily. It depicts a figure in meditation, with the roots of a tree growing out below and anchoring him down into the earth, along with branches growing up and out into his environment, with a nice scenic landscape in the background and a bright golden sun above in the sky. I designed and created it as a reminder to ground and root myself, as a tree does, before attempting to grow and interact with the world.

In the later half of the afternoon, Mark and I finished installing the roof purlins on the north-side of the barn. We also did some blocking along the outer trusses to close up the gaps that would be created when the metal roofing is installed, with the intention of preventing any critters or small mammals from nesting up in the roof later on.

Tuesday night I awoke in the middle of sleeping to find myself having a severe asthma attack. After trying to calm it with an inhaler, I had to resort to the best medicine I had available: meditation. The tightness and stress of trying to breath immediately left my body and mind, and I was so awake after that I ended up staying up for the next three hours reading, knitting, and writing.

We worked a full day, mainly trying to finish up the truss blocking on the north-face of the roof. That went until lunch. We normally work from 7 to 11 am, break till 1 pm for lunch, then resume work until 4. As the summer heat increases, we are hoping to start earlier, or maybe work a little bit in the evening. After lunch, while Mark was at a community meeting, Monica, Kris, and I busted out some earthbags. There is something about moving and packing dirt into a form that I seem to really love. Building with earthbags goes really quick, which is very satisfying to see.

That evening was the tri-community potluck, probably one of my favorite nights of the week. While feasting on an array wonderful food, two more people expressed interest in learning to knit socks. I am excited that a craft that is simple, creative, and practical, such as knitting, has so many people interested.

Wednesday was another raining, wet day. I was able to sleep in and meditate for most the morning. Earlier in the week, I started to eat more raw/living food to help increase my energy levels and feel fuller after eating. I would set a blend of grains, nuts, and seeds to soak over night to eat for breakfast and lunch for a couple of days. Eating food that is uncooked helps to maintain the plants enzymes, which help the human body to break down and absorb the nutrients more efficiently. When eating cooked food, the plant's enzymes are cooked out (temps above 118 degrees will kill a plant and it's enzymes). When this happens, our own bodies have to take from it's personal reserve of enzymes to break down and absorb, causing a decrease in our over all energy levels, and ultimately our health. A few summers ago, I ate a completely 100% raw vegan diet, and I felt the most healthiest and alive during that time. Until more veggies are in season and ready to harvest, I will have to rely on more sprouting in the mean time.

Since the day was too wet to work on the barn, we were able to make an arching trellis for the grapevines that are planted just outside of Mark and Alyson’s army tent something to grow up. We put on our tall muck boots and trekked out to the back of the property, into the wooded area, to harvest some fallen Osage branches to use for the trellis. Osage is a super hard wood that is very rot resistant. There are Osage post in the area that have probably been there for at least the last 50 to a 100 years and are still kicking it.

Tonight was my night to cook. I had trouble getting a fire going, due to the wet wood that was available. After about 35 minutes, I got the fire up hot enough to heat the cobbed oven to bake in. I made two large pot pies that were filled with lentils, rice, potatoes, and carrots. In addition to the pies, Alyson harvested a ton of salad greens and some chard for me to prepare, and I made some cornbread muffins to finish it off.

This week there was a family visiting with the interest of potentially moving here to homestead. Currently, Red Earth Farms has two families, two sets of couples (one pair who are expecting a baby in two months) and another individual who is by himself. There are three or four other plots available. Usually, someone will become a resident and live here for a minimal of six months or so, which provides enough time for the members and them to get to know each other and see if they are a good fit. It also is necessary to be on the land for most of the year to see how your land responds to the different kinds of weather, especially rainfall, and also for site plan development.

That night, there was another crazy thunderstorm, which flooded everything, again, postponing work on the barn. Since the ground was soaked, it was perfect for putting in the post for the grapevine trellis. We laid out the collected Osage branches to get a rough layout for how it would look. After picking out the four corner posts, using a sledge hammer, we pounded them into the soft earth. We then notched the posts with a hatchet to help lock in the main branches that we attached for the bulk of the arch. Wiring was used to hold the branches together. The whole thing took us only a hour or two to finish, and now the grapevines have a place to grow and expand onto, as well as a shady cozy little place to sit under to get out of the sun.

After dinner, Mark, myself, and a previous intern who is working over at DR now, Ashley, carpooled into Memphis to Shelley B's to watch a playoff game between the Lakers and Magic. On the way to the bar, I said that it'll be nice to have some time to work on my knitting while watching the game, and Mark joked back that it would probably instigate a fight with the locals, which, at this bar, are mostly men. He said he would watch my back. I replied semi-serious that I don't want to go anywhere that I can knit. Needless to say, the game was good enough to distract me from pulling out my sock.

The last of the work days involved us doing roofing and more earthbags. We decided to replace claybags with gravel ones under where the door will be, to provide a little more support for all the future traffic that will flow through there. Friday afternoon, Mark pulled out the horseshoes and we measured and made a course to throw down. I managed to get two ringers in a row on one round... seemingly the peak of my shoe-throwing career to date.

Saturday was the once a month, summer time 'Dog and Gun' flea market right here in Rutledge. After stopping by Zimmermans for some breakfast, we headed to the fair grounds. People come from all over for this thing. You can find anything there, tools, household items, animals in cages (sadly), and of course, guns.... gotta love the midwest. I found a few sets of double-pointed knitting needles to share with others who are interested in knitting socks.

While I was there, I had a deep fried twinkie, on a stick. Enough said.

Sunday we decided to work because of the many days we missed during the week. We finished the 3rd course of earthbags. I attended the weekly co-op kitchen meeting that afternoon for the first time. Chad, Kim, Mark, and Alyson have it every week to just check in with everyone about the flow of the kitchen. Sharing one kitchen to feed 8 adults and 2 kids, plus guest and visitors, three times a day doesn't just happen, there is much planning involved.

Played some more horseshoes that evening and finally finished composing a song that I have been writing for some time now, which I am very satisfied with. (I've redone and updated the flickr page, now with many more photos. Be sure to check it out.)

Week 5

2009-06-09T14:59:00.000-07:00

Time here seems not to exist. The only reference I seem to have is when I think about writing for this blog... Everyday is so full of an awareness of being in the present moment, of just focusing on what’s happening this morning, or in the afternoon, or after dinner. Being enveloped in Nature and becoming in tune with it’s flow has been wonderful and I’m wondering why as a culture we are so interested in creating unnatural and artificial environments?

I’ve been living in tent for over a month now, and in contrast to living in the city, I’m starting to prefer this setup. Waking up every morning to the sun rising and shining through the dome of my tent, a host of birds singing twenty different melodic songs, the fresh smell of wet dew on the grass... certainly beats an alarm clock jarring me awake only to hear the mad rush of traffic outside the box that is my room.

There are obvious advantages to being in a city setting, having access to more resources, as well as much to do and see. But it feels so important to be able to spend time in places of Nature and Beauty. If feeds a part of my soul that the harsh concrete of city life seems to drain out of me.

Things here are much slower, allowing time to savor and enjoy whatever is at hand. There are cool ponds to jump into a couple times a day whenever I get too hot. I get to do a fair amount of walking and ride my bike, and that feels great. The people here open and genuinely care and listen to one another. Every night there is a wonderful, lovingly homemade dinner that I get to feast on....the best part being I only have to cook once a week. I get to learn, hands-on, how to build using methods that are fun, simple, sustainable, and in many ways, revolutionary... I can’t think of a better way to spend my summer.

I have been thinking a lot about what is after this. What is after this? How can I integrate what I am learning and experiencing here and find a way to share it with others? Where will I be guided to go next and whom will I meet? How can I live a lifestyle that is in alignment with what I feel is true to myself, to others, and to the Earth that we all live on? Too many questions.....

Sunday was fun. I went over Dancing Rabbit to meet up with Cob to eat some raw food and brew some beer. Cob is the local brewer for the community, brewing on a small scale of maybe 2 to 4 cases of beer a week, ranging from different types like pilsners, ales, stouts, lagers. I was interested in learning about the different stages of fermentation and seeing the equipment he uses, both which are very simple. I helped bottle up last weeks batch, a ‘purple pilsner’, which had blueberry juice included to give it a blueish-purple tint, and also a chocolate stout that was far out. I learned that adding a sugar to the ferment just before bottling gives it it’s carbonization. After bottling, capping, and labeling about 3 and half cases, I got to have a little as well :)

That evening, there was a ‘no talent’ show that was phenomenal. There were musical performances, skits, on the fly improv acts, and much laughing and applause. One of my favorite acts was with Owen and Thomas interacting together while having someone else’s arms as their own, acting out different gestures as they talked. Each had a person behind them with a sheet covering them, and tucked their arms behind their backs with the supporting ‘actor’s’ arms out in front acting for them. The person covered with the sheet couldn’t see anything and it was hilarious to watch them interact. I laughed so hard I had an asthma attack. It was ridiculously funny. I also enjoyed most the musical performances. A group of women from Sandhill Farms playing guitar, fiddle, and an accordion was one that I enjoyed very much as well.

Monday we worked on some more bracing and putting in the last two joists for the outer trusses to stand on. Work went by quick, and the morning shifted into the afternoon. It was my night to cook, so around 3:30, after a quick dip in the pond, I headed over to the kitchen. The meal was simple: a spicy black-eyed pea dish, curried rice with cabbage, whole wheat tortillas, and some oatmeal raisin nut cookies. Everything went very smoothly and I was able to get the kitchen all cleaned up before 8 pm.

Tuesday and Wednesday was a highlight for me and something that a bunch of us had been waiting for for a while now. Chad, and a friend Ethan from Wren Song Sanctuary over in La Plata, hosted a workshop on scything. Scything is a very old art of mowing with a long curved blade that you swing rhythmically back and forth. Since I’ve been here, I’ve seen Chad working intensely, day after day, on perfecting every aspect of scything. From sharping and peening the blade, to making his own snath handles, to mowing for hours every morning and afternoon (he says its for collecting mulch for his gardens, but I think he just really likes to do it), Chad truly is reviving an ancient technology for this present day. He even has been developing these counterweight handles that provide perfect balance to his custom rigs. We call him 'Scyth Master Chad'.

The first part of the workshop, which was on Tuesday, covered the basics and discussed topics like: differences in blades and snaths, how to set the blade angles for your height and mowing purposes, and proper swinging techniques. Most of the people attending were from DR and Sandhill, who are interested in knowing more and improving their mowing skills.

The other person instructing was Ethan, who lived in Europe for a while in an intentional community there and learned scything from people who have been doing it for generations. Ethan and his friend, Jonathan, came here by bicycle. Since Ethan was not feeling well enough to ride, Jonathan volunteered to carry him on a bike with an elongated back end, called an extracycle, for the whole 43 miles from La Plata to here in Rutledge. Ethan read poetry and sang to Jonathan along the way and said that the ride was by far the highlight of the month for him.

After the class broke for the day, Mark quickly rounded up a crew of people to help us raise the last two end trusses for the roof. With about ten people lifting and setting, we finally finished putting up all the trusses for the roof. It felt like a pivotal point for us on the building project.

Later that day was the weekly tri-community potluck dinner, this week being hosted over at Sandhill. Throughout the course of the evening, a few people found out that I’m really into knitting socks and asked if I could teach them. I thought it would be a good idea to have an informal sock-knitting workshop and arranged to have everyone meet up the following afternoon over at DR in the common house.

On Wednesday, the scything workshop concluded with demonstrations on how to correctly sharpen and peen a blade, and how to carve your own snath. Within about 20 minutes, Chad had a rough one made with a blade fitted on it, which was really fun to watch.

The sock knitting class went really well. I found knitting a much smaller size sock would allow people to learn the different parts of knitting a sock, like the cuff, heel, and toe, in a much shorter period of time. A group of us decided to meet up every day from 5 to 6 p.m., at least for the rest of this week, to hang out and knit. Hell yeah.

Thursday we started working on the earthbag stemwall. I was totally amazed at how simple, quick, and extremely effective this building method is. An earthbag is essentially a building block, much like a brick. They are usually made out of food grade bags, like the ones 50 pounds of rice would come in, and then stuffed with dirt, clay, and sometimes an aggregate material, like gravel. The process for filling and laying the bags is really easy and within a short period of time you can see much progress happen. We got about halfway through one out of the four or five rounds that will make up the foundation wall that the strawbales will sit on.

On Friday, we all got up to go into town to eat ‘breakfast’ at Zimmerman’s, which consisted of their homemade doughnuts and coffee. I had a vegan burger instead. After getting back and only working for a couple of hours on the earthbags and roof purlins, we all broke for lunch and for “Team Intern” to start cooking dinner.

All three of us interns, Kris, Monica, and I decided to take a night and all cook together, and since it was community dinner night, we felt we had to take it up a notch. In an atmosphere of fun and creativity, we busted out a huge bowl of homemade hummus, tandoori flat breads, deep fried black-eyed pea fritters with a special sauce, and some delicious muffins. Others brought a barbecued blackbean and quinoa dish, and the missing element, a salad!

Saturday was a half day of work, fixing and tamping the gravel trench that the earthbags sit on just in time before a moderate rain started to fall. Within an hour the sky cleared to a bright blue and things started drying up...which I was so delighted because that meant I could finally go for a bike ride into town for some vegan ice cream! I had a great time riding around and checking out the local small town of Rutledge. I have to remind myself to take time go for walks and rides for fun and recreation, and not just because I have too. The land here is so beautiful, in a Missouri midwestern kind of way.

That night, as I was turning in from an evening around a fire, I had an interesting experience. I was crawling into my tent in the pitch dark, and I heard a light 'thump' over in the corner, behind my clothes. I quickly turned on my flashlight and surveyed the scene. As I was glancing around, I noticed there were sesame seed crackers all over my tent, half eaten with tiny little bit marks. Just at that moment, a small mouse ran from one side of my tent to the other and hid behind my guitar case. After following it around the edge of the inside of my tent, I discovered that there were two more inside as well! It didn't take me take me long to get them out. I realized that I must have left the door slightly open because there were no holes or any other kind of indication that they chewed their way in. I tried to clean up all the mouse poop, crawled into my sleeping bag and past out.

Sunday morning, as I was waking up and getting ready for the day, I looked up to the screen window to the left of the door...and there was a tiny hole about an inch wide that had been chewed apart. They had gotten in, chewed into some trail mix I had in my sidebag, pooped all over place again, and left...all while I was asleep! Needless to say, that afternoon was spent mouse-proofing my tent. Lesson learned, do not keep food in your tent.

Despite the crazy night of the mice, Sunday was a very nice and laid back day. I was able to make some phone calls to friends and family back home, go for a swim in the pond, hang out and chat with some fellow knitters. I even made a small two level shelving unit out of scrap wood to organize my clothes inside my tent.

Week 4

2009-06-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

This week has been one of rain, relaxation, and much appreciated down time. Since I am writing about the week's events nearly two weeks later, this post will be very short.

The first half of the week was mostly raining, causing us to slow down and hold off on building. Monday we drove into Memphis for supplies, only to find that all the stores were closed for memorial day. Not much else happened that day except trying to stay dry.

Tuesday was the day Kris arrived. He is an architect who is specializing in solar passive design, and is also from Ann Arbor Michigan. His wife, Betsy, will be joining us in a couple of weeks for awhile, and then they will be moving to Viet Nam for two years. Betsy is an international teacher which has allowed them to live in other countries and experience other cultures. They previous lived in Damascus, Syria for a year and a half before being deported because of bad U.S. foreign affairs.

On Wednesday the only thing I can remember now is repairing the outdoor earthen oven. Mark and Alyson built it a month before I arrived, mainly so Alyson could use it to bake bread that she sells to people within the three communities. The oven is essentially a dome that is made out of a mixture of sand and clay, and covered with an insulation of clay and straw. When it completely dries and is fired, it becomes hard as a rock and works very efficiently.

To bake in the oven you start a fire inside, in the middle of the oven, and keep it going for an hour or two, until you get it to the desired temperature. After the fire and wood turns to ash and charcoal, you scrape it all out, lightly wash the bottom a little, and then you bake right on the hot fire bricks. The interior of clay and sand cures and becomes rock solid, and also retains most of the heat that the fire created. The oven will stay hot for the rest of the day and throughout most of the night as well. I was surprised at how well it works. We've had some amazing pizza's and bread that absolutely beats any gas powered oven in my opinion.

As we were mixing materials for the lime-plaster finish, we stumbled upon a major problem with the oven. There had been a small area that was not mortared very well around the top of the door, and as Alyson was firing it up last week, the heat and smoke burned away most of the insulation in front of the oven. It was completely hidden, except for a small little hole in the top. As soon as we started tapping on it, it caved in. Luckily, repairing it was quick and easy. We extended the front out a bit, using bricks to completely seal the wooden door to help prevent the same problem from happening. (I'll get a picture of what it looks like with the lime-finish and new door soon). Alyson was able to use it the following day to bake around 8 loaves of bread, and cook the beans she made for dinner. (here is a link to Mark's Picasa page, displaying pictures of the building process: picasaweb.google.com/markmazziotti).

I really wish I could remember what else happened that week, other then me finally feeling up to par to play Ultimate on Saturday, which was way too hot to be playing in the afternoon.

This is a lesson not to put writing off for too long.

Week 3

2009-05-28T06:32:00.001-07:00

Things really started to gear up this week, as we finally had a stretch of warm sunny weather. We spent Monday to Wednesday finishing up constructing the pallet trusses, for the gable roof. There are fourteen in all. We had measure out and constructed a template to use to make all the trusses the same and to speed up the process.

The jig worked fairly well. We would take four sections that Mark had already made, set them in the jig, nail one side, then flipped it to nail the other side. When we finished one, we would stack them in a pile to one side of the building so that we could set them vertically without running out of room to move them.

By Friday we had finished putting all but the two most outer trusses up, bracing each one in four places to make sure the strong wind would not blow them down before completing the configuration and getting the metal roofing on.

Friday was also my day to cook dinner, so around 3:30 pm I headed over to Dandelion to get the fire going in the community’s cooperatively runned kitchen. The outdoor kitchen is shared by everyone at Gooseberry and Dandelion, which is Mark and Alyson, and Kim and Chad, as well as any guests, visitors or interns. Everyone pays a portion into the food and shares responsibility for the up keep of the kitchen.

I busted out a fabulous dinner of lentil burgers with freshly baked rye buns, rosemary and garlic potato fries, a cabbage-onion stir fry, a special sauce for dipping and spreading, and a vegan chocolate cake with vanilla-cashew frosting... yum. I was rated four out of four stars by Mark. Whoever is cooking has to make enough leftovers for the next day's lunch, and after tripling my recipes, there was plenty for our hungry bellies the next day.

Saturday we worked from morning till lunch, filling and tamping in some dry clay-soil around the post that are holding up the structure. After having a week of dry heat, we figured it would be good to do some tamping before the fore-casted thunderstorm came in. After lunch I headed over to Dancing Rabbit for their bi-weekly extended tour of the place, which was really inspiring to hear about and see everything that they are doing. (I'll be writing another post solely about DR...good stuff).

Then, at 3pm, there was a mud wrestling match at one of the building sites! Most people were too into playing Ultimate to come over, but I didn't let that stop me from jumping in. There was only a small group of us who were really into it and it ended up being mostly a 'royal rumble every person for themselves' kind of match. Afterward, we all ran down to the pond to rinse and cool off. My skin was so silky smooth.

In the evening, back at Red Earth, we had our weekly community potluck with the other residents here. There ended up being four extra guest this week, totaling 16 people there for dinner. Needless to say, it was a delicious fest! After that, I went back over to DR for a movie night and watched 'Brazil', which was made sometime in the 80's and is about a future dis-utopian society and has a crazy ending... a really far out movie.

I'm really enjoying the flow of each day here. We take our time to work on something, if it's hot, we take a break and jump in the pond nearby to cool off. If its raining, we take the day off and relax. It's a much different pace then living in the mainstream or the city. It's like your on Nature's clock, instead of the crazy rush, rush, rush of modern living.

I also really like having community to interact with. There is at least a handful of events going on through the week that helps add variety to the work week. Weekends are always fun, sociable times were people can take a break from all the work of building, gardening, and other things that they might be working on. Being here is showing me that community can really work and that when a group of people come together to create and to live, there is something more to enjoy in life.

Week 2

2009-05-18T17:21:00.001-07:00

My second week here at Red Earth was a bit more low key then the previous. Things seemed so elevated after the Saturday Mayday festivities. I felt great on Sunday from the intense sweat I had done the previous night. And I was excited to join in on my very first game of Ultimate Frisbee.

Ultimate is a fast-pace frisbee throwing game that is very similar to most field games. There are two teams, which can very from 3 on 3, to 7 on 7, with rotations, depending on how many people are participating. The object of the game is to pass along the disc, from player to player, until it is caught within the designated in-zone. The game is played 2-3 times a week over at Dancing Rabbit, and is non-competitive and great exercise!

After playing for about 2 hours, on and off, I decided to play for the last round. As I was reaching out for a catch, my left foot hit a patch of mud and slid out from under me, causing me to twist my ankle...Ouch.

I was wheeled in a cart to someones car and then driven back over to my tent at Red Earth. Everyone was kindly responsive to my needs, and if it wasn't for the crutches I was able to borrow, I would have been completely immobile.

So I spent the next 3 days or so resting and staying off my ankle. I started knitting a new pair of socks. I missed out on the planting of the rest of the trees, but luckily there were two guest visiting for the early part of the week that were eager to help Alyson and Monica. Overall, about 400 trees were planted, which included black locust, nine bark, river birch, hazelnut, dogwood, redbud, wild plum, and blackberry, all of which serve a different and unique purpose on the land.

Mark returned on Monday, after a couple long weeks of being with his mother as she transitioned from of the physical plane. He took a couple of days to rest and reintegrate back into life here at his home.

Tuesday was a fun day. I spent most of it over at Dancing Rabbit to witness the raising of a massive tiber-frame wall on the addition to one of the member's home. Since my ankle was still in bad shape, I ended up being the photographer for 4 people. The process of the bent raising took about 3 and half hours, with the giant post starting to move inch by inch until it was at a 45 degree angle. At that point, it took nearly 15 people to push and pull it upright. Afterward, everyone was rewarded with some ice cold beer that was brewed locally by Cob, who is a member within DR.

The rest of the week we had some major rainfall, causing us to be mostly shut indoors. Friday was the worst of it, with high winds and 4 inches of rain. Both ponds at Gooseberry and Dandelion overflowed into the spill way, causing lots of flooding to the creek and walking paths. Some of the roads were impassable as well. Luckily, the day before on Thursday, Mark helped me to construct a tent platform out of some free pallets and plywood that we picked up in town from a friend.

Saturday was an off day, to let everything dry out and settle down. It was also my first time in the cooking rotation. Cooking dinner takes about 3 to 4 hours, and involves gathering firewood, water from the pond for washing, water from the cistern (which collects harvested rainwater from the metal roof of Chad and Kim's house) for drinking and cooking, getting the wood-stove fired up, cooking dinner for about 6-7 people, and then clean up and dish washing. I made a simple dinner of lentils, rice, a cabbage-radish green stirfry, and some cornbread muffins. The oven is encased in a cob-earthen plaster and is connected to the stove. The metal of the oven is heated up and transfer to the earthen plaster, which helps retain the heat. It was very interesting baking using fire as a source of energy.

Sunday was our first real, full-on day of work with Mark on his house. We spent the day connecting the pallet-wood trusses together that will make up the gable roof. We ended up getting 5 done out of the 14. After we are done fabricating the trusses, we will then roll them vertically and set them in place. It looks like the roof could be finished by the end of this week, which will allow us to move onto finishing the earth-bag stem wall and then on with the staw bales.

Mayday Celebration

2009-05-13T09:08:00.000-07:00

So far, this past Saturday has been the highlight of my time and experience here. It was the tri-community Mayday festival/gathering. Everyone here at Red Earth and Dancing Rabbit made the near 3 mile trek, most walking and biking, over to Sandhill Farms for a day of great weather, wonderful community, amazing food, deep conversation, and lots of fun.

I biked over with a few people and had my day-pack prepared for any kind of weather change throughout the day. Sandhill is located in what used to be Sandhill town. At a time back, the small town grew rapidly with the announced plans that the railroad was to be built right through it. But since the town was at a slightly higher elevation, they decided to put it through Rutledge instead. The town quickly diminished and all that is left is the town cemetery, and Sandhill Farms.

Sandhill Farms is an egalitarian, income shared intentional community. It functions as most small farms do. Along with Mayday, we also celebrated their 35th anniversary. They grow a fairly large amount food, which is mainly for the members (about 6), as well as for the interns, guests, and friends that come to work and stay. They also process and sell sorghum syrup, which is rich sweetener, like honey, which provide for about a quarter of the community’s income. The local food co-op in Ann Arbor, Mi sells it I've seen.

Briefly after arriving, and grabbing some snacks from the food table, I joined a small tour of the farm. It was amazing to see a longer, more established land, with orchards, greenhouses, raised beds for veggies, housing, root cellar, and the small processing barn that they work for the sorghum, honey, and maple syrups that they produce.

Following the tour, everyone, of all ages, shapes, and sizes gathered around for the Maypole dancing. The gathering was a fun time for everyone, people dressed up in creative and decorative outfits. There was a small group of musicians playing the violin, guitar, harmonica. About 60 people each grabbed a rope, (which was made out of thin strips of bedding of multiple colors and patterns), and we danced and wove around each other until all the ropes were beautifully intertwined. The dance and the event had different meaning for everyone. For me, it was a joyous celebration of the time of year and of each other. I had a great time.

Just as quickly as it began, it ended and was followed with a jump into the pond. I took that time to walk quietly around the gardens, with my bare feet on the ground, to take in and enjoy the beautiful nature that was all around me... following that was dinner!

The food was some of the most delicious and lovingly-made food I had ever enjoyed. I had some great conversation in line with another intern, Ashley. After working with him on and off all week, it was great to hear his extended story of where he has been, and what he is working towards. I also found out that he is a part of a group of about 500 people, called the Superhero Alliance, who dress up and take on a persona of a higher quality, like compassion, truth, or love, and then go out into the community and help make a difference. Often, a group of Superheros will get together and travel on bikes across a state and stop at different places to help out. Ashley is "Mr. Okay with Himself Guy," and brings the message of loving one's self regardless of what others might say or think of you. The 'Superhero Headquarters' is located an hour or so away in La Plata.

After stacking my plate high, I went and found a quiet and shady spot under a nice oak to just sit and savor my food. It felt so good to listen to the songs of the different birds that were just chirping away in the tree above me.

Following dinner was some contra-dancing. I managed to finish the first dance, then after getting way too dizzy, jumped into a footbag circle for a good hour our two. Later in the evening, with the Full Moon lighting up the night, many people joined together for the sweatlodge-sauna. Since there was so many people, they started rounds early after dinner that went to late after dark. The sauna was modeled after a Native American style structure and was mostly made of thick straw and earth-waddle. It was circular, and just high enough to accommodate sitting room for about 10 people. The hot bits of stone, iron, and metal were heated up in a nearby bonfire and brought into the hut and placed in a small pit in the center. Water was periodically poured over the stones and metal pieces, creating intense burst of heat and steam. We all sat and sung inspiring and uplifting chants and songs to bring up the vibration.

After crawling out of the lodge, and into the night, most of us ran down to the cool pond-lagoon that was no more then a hundred feet away. We then gathered with other people, most of whom were in the previous sweat group, around the fire for a quiet and contemplative time. With the sky ablaze with the Moon and stars, the night had a magical and uplifting feeling to it all.

I then did a combo of walking and biking back to Red Earth with Monica, checked the mail boxes on the way in (thanks for the awesome care package Bird!), and crashed in my own tent at around midnight, for one of the soundest sleeps I’ve had yet.

(Photos of the event are up on flikr. There is a link up in the orange menu bubble.)

Local Activism

2009-05-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday morning of last week, May the 5th, in the little downtown district of Memphis, Missiouri, there was a county town hall meeting for residents to voice their concerns about a health ordinance that had been recently revoked. Members of Dancing Rabbit, Sandhill, and Red Earth, including myself, all carpooled together into town to attend the meeting.

The court house was packed to standing room, mostly of local farm workers. The board of commissioners gave a brief introduction as to why this town meeting was called and then opened the floor to anyone who wanted to share their concerns about why they thought the health ordinance should or should not be reestablished.

The economy of Scottland county is mostly made up of soy, corn, dairy, cattle and hog farmers. A health ordinance was put in place years ago to ensure that farming practices were safe for the local environment, and ultimately, safe for the people living and working in the area.

Some big concerns, particularly with raising livestock, is contaminated run off of cow and pig manure into the local water. During the winter months, due to the frozen temperature of the ground, manure accumulates and is difficult to deal with. Farmers either spread it on their fields, then till it into the ground, or use a procedure of injecting it. On a small scale farm operation, these methods are much safer. The main concern is geared more for larger size farms.

Another restriction that the recently terminated health ordinance held in place, which is probably the most important, was the limiting of the number of animal units a farmer is aloud to have on site. In removing the health ordinance, this opens the way for bigger corporations to come in and set up their huge operations.

With an economy and community of family and local farmers, this is a major concern for many reasons. One being the take over of the local economy and the concentration of power that the corporate farm has. Big corporations have far more wealth and access to resources (most of which come from other large corporate operations, usually stationed in countries outside the U.S.), which quickly shuts down the locally independent family farm. This also takes the local commerce and money outside the community, and causes it’s economy to become weaker and poorer.

In addition to a local economic take-over is the enormous problem of environmental contamination of the local water and air. It has been continuously found, (yet often overlooked within mainstream reporting), that big corporations cut many corners, and are not concerned with the mad amounts of pollution and health problems they cause to the local environment and peoples. By canceling the ordinance, there is no monitoring of how farmers or companies handle their wastes and what they do with it.

The morning quickly turned into early afternoon as many concerned people got up to speak about what this situation means to them. There seemed to be a rift between the crowd, those for and those against the health ordinance. The issue of a big-agricultural company coming in was mentioned quite often.

One farmer who actually lives in a different county came to the meeting to try to encourage the residents to act now, before they are taken advantage of, as in the case of his own county. He shared that it started in his home town just like how it was happening here, the people let it go by unnoticed, then after the company has grown and is intolerable to the local people, it is too late. He expressed that he hopes the residents of Scottland county take action now, when they have the chance.

This situation was very eye-opening for me in the sense that, yes, this happens all the time, everywhere. I’ve read about how big corporations move into areas and completely shut down every local, independent, and family-owned business in the area, like Walmart. But to be in a remote farming region, to meet and see the people, and to understand the potential of it happening here, is very alarming to me. Hopefully the residents of this county can draw up a new health ordinance that will not only regulate the harmful pollution that affects the environment and families health, but one that will keep the financial tyrants from ruining this community’s life.

Week 1

2009-05-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

Well, I've made it almost a week...before cutting all my hair off. Between the heat and the ticks, there was no question about it (could it also be the Full Moon activity?...hmmm, I wonder). Although I've grown my hair out and then cut it off at some point, this was the first time I’ve done it myself. Very liberating. Looks good too.

This week has gone by rather fast. I’m finally feeling more integrated into the ebb and flow of the days, adjusting to the meal schedule and local food. Many people here try to eat what is called a “hundred-mile diet’, which simply means trying to keep their food consumption within a hundred miles of where they live. This does many things: cuts down on fuels and pollution for flying/shipping/trucking the food to one’s region, helps keep the money within the local economy, the food is fresher, more local, helps you connect with local gardeners and farmers. More info can be found here, www.100milediet.org.

With Alyson and Mark gone most of the week, Monica, the other intern here at Red Earth, and I spent a couple of days helping out with some building projects over at Dancing Rabbit. Early Tuesday morning, a group of us helped to raise two walls of Jane’s new strawbale house. Later the same day, I helped with Bear and Owen in connecting and laying out some massive timber frame post and beams. I’m looking forward to being there when they finally are ready to raise the frame sometime next week.

On Wednesday, Monica and I worked on a few things here at Gooseberry. One fun and interesting task was to inoculate a couple old logs with Maitake mushroom spores. The process involved drilling holes along the log, then plugging them with 1-inch dowel rods that contained the spore, finished with covering the holes with wax to protect the cultured dowels from outside critters. The Maitake mushrooms take about 3 years to grow.

Later that same day, we ventured out, a mile or so, to the local town of Rutledge on bicycles. The town is small, with most buildings vacant or falling apart. The main features are the local post office, and Zimmerman’s grocery store. The store is run by local Mennonites and, to my joyous surprise, has just about anything you could every need.... including 3 flavors of Rice Dream ice-cream :) There is a really good selection of health food goods also, in response to Sandhill Farms, Dancing Rabbit, and Red Earth's community needs. Many food co-op groups with the communities order their bulk foods through Zimmerman's at a great deal of 5% of the wholesale cost.

As we were sitting down for some lunch in their cafe, it started to rain. “Oh, well, no big deal” we said to each other as we started to ride back. But just as we rounded west on the last stretch of road, the wind and rain started coming at us sideways, right in our faces, changing into freezing pellets of hail pelting painfully against my sun-burnt face and arms. I nearly fell off my bike numerous times. Twenty minutes later, after making it back into shelter and trying to dry off, it was bright and sunny out, like it was a completely different day....the saying goes, “if you don’t like the weather in Missouri, wait a half hour.”

On Friday, in preparation to planting some trees, Alyson showed us the site plans for their property, and the permaculture designs that her and Mark intend do with the land. After being there a week, and having time to see and connect with the land more, it was very exciting to see the plans for orchards, gardens, housing, greywater systems, sauna, tree-houses, paths, and bridges they intend to work towards. Permaculture is a term that means ‘permeant culture’ and refers to a whole-systems approach in how we can work and live with the land and utilize both our own energy and the Earth’s in a regenerative and efficient way. So that in 50-100 years from now, the place where we have lived is not only still there for our children and their children, but is much better off. I'm eager to come back and see what the place looks like a couple of years!

Alyson, Monica, little Cole, and I then planted 25 out of the 400 or so trees that came in the mail through a local conservation group. They promote information about the different kinds trees and charge only $4 for 25 sapling trees, which are about 3 feet tall. We planted Ninewood and another variety along a small creek towards the back end of Gooseberry to help with the erosion.

Even just after a week, I can honestly say that I am really enjoying my time here. I am finding that putting myself with other individuals who share a similar life-passion is very inspiring, and has boosted my own aspirations for being a better human and living more harmonious with the Earth. I believe as humans, we are meant to be a part of some sort of community, and is important to physical, spiritual, and emotional levels of our lives. Having grown up in America's fragmented and disilluioned culture, I started feeling disconnected from everything and very unsatisfied on a soul-level. I wanted to find my nich in the world, and I started to search for where I could fit in with other like-minded individuals.

For a time, I lived within a large spiritual community in California. At the time, it was a rewarding experience, diving deep within to explore the spiritual dimensions of myself. But the community was mainly focused on that level of living, (and was a specific, already defined spiritual path that I found was too restricting for me), and was less focused on the other aspects of human life. I am finding here, among the many different people who are dedicated to what I would like to work towards, I see a more holistic and integrated kinship in living together and with the Earth.

(photos coming soon)

The Journey Begins!

2009-05-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

Greetings! You are welcomed here to read and hear about my summer as a natural building intern at the breathtakingly beautiful homestead land of Red Earth Farms. I will be apprenticing on the construction of a two-story strawbale house that combines other various natural and sustainable methods of construction as well.

I have been interested in learning about natural building for close to three years now. This last year, while living and working in Ann Arbor Mi, I had the chance to work on a few natural building projects. The projects were fun and simple, yet lacked the level and scale of building I had been wanted to experience for years: a completely finished and comfortable home.

As the year started winding down, I made the resolution to make my desire of learning and working in natural building actually happen. I applied for several internships at communities that have been building and teaching for years, most of which were along the west coast. Through corresponding with the wonderful folks at Emerald Earth, in Boonville Ca, I had received a referral to a friend of theirs, Mark at Red Earth Farms, who was looking for help this summer with the completion of a house for him and his family.

This is my first weekend here at Red Earth. I arrived on Friday, May 1st, in the late afternoon and was welcomed by the community with a wonderful vegetarian dinner, which really hit the spot after snacking on car-food all day. There are currently two families living here on the land. Mark, Alyson, and their wonderful daughter Cole, whom I am staying and working with at Gooseberry, the name of their homestead. The other family, Chad, Kim, and their bright young daughter, Nina, live close-by on their section of the land, which they call Dandelion.

The land, which is 76 acres in total, is a place for people to live on the land and be closer with Nature, in a way that helps and benefits the environment. The community here is relatively young, being only 4 years in the making. The members of Red Earth share edges of their plot of land with the more established Dancing Rabbit Community. DR is more focus on a village model for community living and has many more members then Red Earth.

The house that we will be working on this summer will be the first permanent structure on Mark’s and Alyson’s land. Well, actually, the very most important facility, the toilet, was built first. Temporarily, it functions as the outhouse/tool/solar shed.

Mark and his family are currently living in an old army tent that was generously donated to them for free. They have spent the last couple of summers living in it while they spent time in connecting with the land in order to plan out the locations for the gardens, pond, storage barn, and their house.

Before starting any kind of construction, it’s a good idea to spend a couple of seasons on the land, to learn and understand the local weather patterns, where the most sun exposure is, which areas are more prone to flooding, etc.

During the weekend, I was able to adjust to my new environment. I set up my tent with extra tarping to protect it against the blaring sun and, hopefully, any strong winds and rains, which from what I hear, are in abundance here. I am transitioning from being around many friends and loved ones, to being more on my own. As much as any change takes time to get used to, I know I am really going to love being here this summer :)

Today was my first day of work. Ashley, Monica, (two other interns here at Red Earth), and Tamara, (from DR), as well as myself, worked on completing the tongue-and-groove flooring for the second floor of Marks house. The wood was reclaimed from an old gymnasium sub-floor and still has some good life in it. Mark, Alyson, and their daughter are out of town due to Mark's mother being terminally ill, and won't be back till midweek. At Alyson's suggestion, we all got together today to finish the flooring as a surprise for Mark when he gets back home.