an indefinite stay of limitless potential

Moving

2009-09-26T18:09:00.000-07:00

I've moved my blog to a new (and exciting) location.

Head update

2009-09-24T18:14:00.000-07:00

The concept of the 6 1/2 by 6 foot house had been floating gently in the back of my mind since earlier in the summer. As of last week, I find my brain space being consumed! The 6 1/2 foot dimension is based upon the length of my sleeping body (plus a bit of extra wiggle room). As I look at the carpet squares in my sister's apartment (20 inch squares), it occurs to me that I could actually get away shaving off some square footage - 60 by 80 inches appears sufficient.

This would be a house for me to live in for just a year. Here is what I think will fit: a sink, food preparation/cooking space, seating for 3, enough floor space to sleep, storage space (kitchen stuff, books/writing supplies, clothes), and a small Rumford fireplace. I have decided that it is (arguably) impractical to also squeeze in a shower and toilet. Instead, these functions will have to be available right outside the house - in winter, I'll enclose them, greenhouse-style.

I plan to start building in Spring. Up until that point, I see myself wasting huge chunks of my time in further planning of this tiny dwelling. I expect it to be especially cute because it will appear so awkwardly unbalanced in its height-to-width ratio. It will also feel very den-like because of its small volume in contrast to its massive 18-inch-thick mud walls.

I finally have a new camera, and am heading back to the cob cottage tomorrow to take exciting new photos.

Shelving visitors

2009-09-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

I had a feel good week at the cottage site, and was thrilled to have Elaine (sister) and Ian (nephew) come visit and see what I had accomplished. It was an inspired 5 days. I didn't actually get much done in terms of preparation work for plastering, because I was too busy building things that were never in the plans.

A saw a piece of slate sitting around, and thought it would make an adequate bedside table. Margaret (the future dweller) commented that she much prefers a two-tiered bedside table so that she can store her current reads on the bottom shelf. After a bit of searching, I came across a matching piece of slate. I "cobbed" them into the existing wall, but needed some support on the suspended corners. Here was my chance to use roundwood. After shaving off the bark, planing down the knots, chiseling out the notches, and drilling holes for the horizontal roundwood braces, the support post was ready to perform its function.

I was happy with how the peg joint turned out.

I found a nice forked length of roundwood to use as a hanging support for this shelf, which will be above the end of the bed.

A fantastic space to store books, or little boys. Notice, also, the new little niche carved into the wall near the tall, vertical window. This will be a good place on which to perch a candle, or a statue, or glasses during sleep.

Here is Ian, in his hunter-gatherer mode, collecting stray chunks of dry cob.

I've spent a bit of time every day thinking about how I might go about creating a door to fit into a very strangely-shaped opening. The problem was that there are bumpy foundation stones along one side of the door opening, a bumpy threshold stone, and a curved top arch. To build a door that would swing shut into this negative space and still keep out drafts was an overwhelming thought. After 5 days of letting the problem marinate in my mind, I gave up on the near-impossible, and decided to retro-fit the cottage entrance with a wooden door-frame.

The horns at the top of the frame are integrated supports that perform two functions: they add extra strength to the frame, and create a support structure upon which a shelf will go. This way, when Margaret slams the door, everything on the shelf has a good chance to come crashing down on her head. Notice the 3 "deadmen" attached to the right vertical of the door frame. Deadmen (usually gnarly tree branch cut-offs) are used to secure something into a cob wall, in this case the door frame. The more strangely-shaped and gnarly they are, the better - they'll have more "tooth" (grip) into the cob. I used a hammer to chisel out the cubbies in the wall into which the deadmen are places. Then I screwed the door frame onto them.

Below, I have begun to bury the deadmen (you see where the term comes from) in cob. The pieces are bamboo are in place to keep the door frame evenly-spaced and plumb while the cob dries (at which point it won't budge an inch).

Pull-up.

I like how the shelving looks with things actually shelved on it. You can see the stove pipe entering the building near Ian's head.

Eventually, the little boy escaped, and we all went home.

I'll be back on site tomorrow, getting serious about plaster prep. Next weekend, we'll host a "plaster party" to coat the interior walls, and the following weekend will be the party for the exterior. If everything goes super-smoothly, we might get the floor poured in the between week.

still standing

2009-09-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

I'm back in North Carolina. As I got closer and closer to the state, my hungry anticipation at seeing how the cottage withstood a lonely summer grew unbearable. Come and feast, as I have feasted:

Not such a lonely summer after all! I learned that these pipe-shaped mud formations are the nests of the harmless, humble (and talented) Mud Dauber Wasp. These strange little creatures sting a certain kind of spider, fly the dead spider body up to a potential nest site, and proceed to build these little clay pipes around the spider. Then they lay eggs in the spider's dead body. Each pipe is actually a series of compartments (like bamboo), each compartment representing one egg-filled spider carcass. I find the nests to be terribly beautiful, and rather appropriate for a cob cottage. It leads me to wonder whether one might be able to organize these mud daubers in a great enough force to build cottages for human use.

In general, everything looked great. There were no signs of water damage (a punctured roof membrane or seepage in through the North wall was my biggest summer worry). Everything looks dry and solid. Give swords and a year's time to one thousand warriors and see if they can crack those walls.

I really like how the built-in shelving unit looks, regardless of whether Mike thinks my waist-height sculptural details mimic urinals. The bottom three shelves will remain as exposed bamboo. The top three shelves are ugly lumber that will be covered up with earthen plaster when we plaster the interior walls.

The sub-floor looks and feels better than I ever could have imagined, considering how wet and expediently An and I slapped it down in June. It has a cracking pattern that matches where our screed boards were (the boards that allow a builder to ensure that a floor is level as it is poured), but the cracks aren't big enough to be a worry.

The green roof held up pretty well. Transplanting the living community of plants in June - right as the hot North Carolina summer was beginning - wasn't the best timing. The plants got hit hard with heat and drought before they were able to take over and flourish. Luckily, 50% of the surface area is still covered by the hardiest of the hardy. As fall approaches, I expect that cooler temperatures + rain will give us our green.

The way that light dances so softly around that window...

peek-a-boo!

The Rumford Fireplace is still alive and well, with its white god-rock aloft the highest flame-tower.

Today I started gathering the purest clay I could find - this will be used for plastering, and for the finished floor. Luckily, we have (at least) two colors on the property. I think the lighter shade will work well on the interior (to brighten up the space with natural light). That bright orange-red is going to make for a gorgeous exterior plaster.

The longer the clay gets to soak in water, the better the quality of plaster. I'll stir this mixture every morning, and it will be creamy and perfect by the time plaster party day arrives.

It's always comforting to return to the earth.

cob if you want

2009-06-11T07:08:00.000-07:00

There are some angles on the land from which the cottage looks particularly spectacular in its shape, and make me wish that I had a camera. If I was up on my sketching, I would have captured these vistas on paper, and then scanned them in. But alas, people find the camera to be more truthful than the hand anyhow.

Here are some photos I have procured from friends and fellow builders that provide a similar story to mine through different brain-eyes.

Here is the Green Roof from the garden, holding the weight of a sleeper (Mike on his last night):

This is perhaps my favorite angle to enjoy the roof line from:

An in-your-face capture of some green roof residents:

My sister encouraged me to post this photo to explain more clearly how the rafters are "cobbed" into the wall:

Here is the first floor layer, which is a drainage layer - made up of about 4 yards (!) of hand-harvested stone and gravel from around the land, hauled back to the site in wheelbarrows and buckets. It's a very glorious emotion that I feel when I consider how hard we worked to move all of that geologic material, and how much money we saved and ecological damage we avoided responsibility for by not purchasing gravel.

The second layer of floor is a 2.5" subfloor layer, made of grit, sand, straw, and clay slip. The straw will act similarly to the rebar in poured concrete.

I wish I had a photo of the finished subfloor. It looks gorgeous and smooth and is amazingly level (we'll see how it settles over the summer).

Glory shot:

I noticed on one of the last days in North Carolina that An had written on her shirt in German. She told me she woke up in her tent with a pen nearby and felt like some shirt-writing.

"Cob if you want"

And she did.

Now I'm back in Syracuse through Monday, at which point I will be heading to Stony Creek Farm in Walton, NY. I will occupy my time there with more building, both in the structural sense as well as community... until August, when I return to North Carolina and finish what I started.

my camera's last words were

2009-06-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

Today was my final Uncle Monday for this round of North Carolina. Yesterday was my last teaching day, as we finished up our Green Roof Workshop (strong and biologically). This week will be a mad dash to get an adobe floor poured, and then on Friday I skip town with my sister, nephew, and An - zipping north.

I put my camera through a lot over the past year: living in tents, held with the muddiest of fingers, accelerating at 9.8 m/sec^2 onto hard ground. It has shed much of its skin of chrome buttons and aluminum casing. How fitting that it should breathe its final gasp of air right before the roof is finished. Photos just allow us to physically separate ourselves from the things we know we should see. In a photograph of the cottage you can't hear its beckoning whispers: "hop through my arch" or "nap on my roof." A walk is worth 1,000 pictures.

In any case, below are some captured moments of time.

This is a good demonstration of the free-form nature of cob. That's a rectangular window, with a cob makeover.

Do you see the koala face?

This is a nice photo by Mike, taken right after we placed our six long full-spanning rafters.

Here is An fooling around with the placement of the radial rafters.

And the shadows they make.

It's a constant process of tweaking rafters, jumping down and stepping back for a true view, checking whether the roof line is voluptuous enough, and repetitive tweaks until it's right.

Radials again. It's easy to get sick of rectangles and lines and boxes, but not so much with curves. (said the hopeful natural builder to the beautiful lady beside him)

Putting on the "bender-board" decking. Each trapezoid is custom-cut.

If Mike and I ever start a building group, we have a photo to put on the tri-fold brochure.

Thank you to my friend Jaimie (the blonde head sticking above the roof line)! She came down to help for four days, and contributed some great sculptural work on the interior of the building, as well as roof work.

The dumpster behind the carpet store in town provided us with rugs and carpet underlay galore (some of it brand new, wrapped in plastic). This was used for the 2 cushioning layers of the green roof that sandwich our salvaged pool liner. Aside from the wood members, and metal fasteners, our green roof was completely free.

Here is Ian from Iowa (An's husband) screwing on some of the fascia boards, which function to hold the layer of soil/plants, as well as accenting the shape of the roof and making it sing.

And here are two color-challenged photos taken with my other camera, which apparently has a bad lens. There are in-progress shots of the green roof workshop.

I'll be putting up finished roof photos next week.

I can't believe how many hands this tiny cottage represents. Everyone has put so much of themselves into it, and the feedback Mike and I have received is some of the most meaningful stringings of words that I have ever known to exist. This project has brought thousands of wheelbarrows full of love into this world.

Water chestnuts

2009-05-17T07:12:00.000-07:00

After a tussle with a tin can of water chestnuts on friday night, this next week on the cottage (the last push of cob!) may be even more exciting and demanding than I had previously anticipated: an opportunity to master one-handed cobbing.

We've been receiving great feedback from the workshop!

Nita was our oldest participant, weighing in at 6 decades of life. She drove from Boone, NC in her little Honda Insight, and was (I think) the hardest worker of the bunch. She was often the last to leave the site, and volunteered her energy whenever we needed some extra help with clean-up, or tarp-tying, or gathering materials. She put together a really nice slide-show of all the photos she took:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqR0Igs63G8

Danielle was not only great during the workshop, but she lingered at the farm for a couple days after, and will be back again this wednesday for a "work party!" She took some really nice photos, and compiled them here. Danielle is involved with her husband and two friends in starting a small-scale organic gardening operation in Silk Hope, NC. She will be putting up a cob house within the next two years. We took a field trip to her land during the workshop and found the most amazing collection of clays, so I can't wait to see what she does.

nephew update

2009-05-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

The cottage isn't my everything down here in North Carolina. Here's a photo update of my time spent with nephew Ian.

What a well-behaved, angelic little eater. That is my sister's hand on the spoon, not to be confused with the hand of a cobber.

I'm trying to get Ian interested in building and structure from a young age, so our toy of choice is his colored wooden block set. Try as I might, he seems to be more into deconstruction than anything else.

Consider how much larger my brain might be than that of the little boy.

A top-of-the-stairs shot by Elaine. All subjects are satisfied: me with my watermelon, Lilo with my watermelon droppings, and Ian with access to my most tender chest hairs.

the three yeast and the rising

2009-05-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

The workshop is over, but the building process is not. Luckily, Mike and I have a third member on our team as we continue to sculpt :

This is An. She is originally from Austria, and has been living in Iowa with her husband (an Iowan) for the past year and a half. Just last week, she got the good news that their land dreams will be coming true. Congratulations! She'll take the mud knowledge to the Midwest, and create some beautiful cob houses, I have no doubt. An is a phenomenal fire-builder, knows her edible plants, and has a very solid and creative design mind. I feel completely comfortable leaving her with a project, and letting her make decisions and execute. It's really important to have a team of folks whom you trust. She just started a wild yeast culture over the past week, and sent some back with me to my sister's place, so that I can make for Ian his first ever sourdough pancakes!

We got a lot done this week, including a lot of detailed interior work: the bamboo shelves, slate bench, and sculpted window ledges. The arch is strong enough to walk over, 3 out of 4 windows are in, all the strawbales are up, and we have the desk spot ready-to-go (still searching for the actual desk-top itself). It feels like a cottage!

(mother, notice the bottle of sunscreen on the bamboo shelf)

When looking at the wall and thinking "Hmmm... looks pretty rough and bumpy and uncivilized," be aware that in August the earthen plaster will cover over the cob and change everything. There's nothing more beautiful than a sculpted and plastered hobbit hole.

Success

2009-05-10T22:54:00.000-07:00

The workshop ended with a bang/gust/downpour on Saturday evening, as we all stood soaked in the kitchen, looking out onto the weathery mess of a sky and laughing as a line of maggots migrated among our feet like lemmings. All day it was sunny and the clouds were puffy and innocent. But as we slowly lumbered back to the site post egg-salad snacking, drops starting falling, and before long there was a circus of flexing winds and rain blankets that had come without warning. We were scattered but quick in our efforts to cover the half-finished hobbit hole that had arrived on this earth seemingly just as fast as that storm.

The week was an incredible success, and a very inspiring combination of quick community, determined efforts, and quality results. It makes me want to do it again.

We started off on saturday with a quick cob-mixing demonstration:

As expected with such a democratic material, folks picked it up quickly and we had a good amount of material on the wall by the end of a day:

It's not often that you see a sleeping baby swaddled across the chest of a construction worker:

The cob really shows off that stone foundation:

Starting to form the built-in cob bench and desk supports:

We had a very loose schedule, letting the workshop evolve around questions and bodies and weather. To take a break mid-week when people were starting to feel drained, we took a field trip to Danielle's nearby start-up farm (where she plans to build a cob house someday soon) and ran a siting exercise, to help pick the perfect spot for her future dwelling. We got out her shovels and dug holes everywhere, and were pleased to find many different colors of pure clay all in different veins within her tiny plot of land:

This long and clever piece of glass is at the foot of the bed area, so that Margaret's bed view will encompass the ground all the way up to the stars:

Sean bugged us all week to rent a gasoline-powered mortar mixing to assist in speedy and foot-saving cob mixing. Both Mike and I were skeptical, but wanted to give people the experience, and it ended up working really well and raising morale from people's toes on up. Below, Mike is taming the devil, as it spits out cob from it's dark and gated belly.

Strawbale/cob hybrid walls:

Check out the thickness of those walls! The "spine-and-ribs" technique (the blocky/bumpy style of building you see on the close wall below) allows the wall to dry faster and lock in to the next layer of cob. The holes in the wall also speed up drying, help weave straw together between adjoining cobs, and will provide some "tooth" for the plaster when it goes on in August.

The arch gets built little by little, and is a very delicate process, over which people often fall in love:

We were really happy about how the whole thing ended. We were planning to have a candle-lit dinner inside of the half-house with cheese and wine and chocolate and ice cream and beer. For ceremony's sake, we were going to steal a mason jar from the kitchen and create a time capsule to "cob into the wall." But because this is so corny and overdone at cob workshops, Mother Nature obliged to take over and send us our storm, ripping down all sorts of things around the farm, but leaving our little house looking as if nothing had happened. It passed the test.

More photos to come next weekend.

iCandy

2009-04-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

You might remember this January original:

Below are the latest editions, sketched onto photos of the real existing foundation. I love bringing these daydreams to life on digital paper, although it never seems quite worth the time because the house will evolve into what it wants to be. I hope it wants a Canary yellow door.

The great and unnaturally-green American "lawn" perched atop this one is brought to you by Scott's Turf Builder:

So I suppose this workshop is the culmination of my last 5 months of effort. I hope that the sky gods behave when cooking up next week's weather, and that some unemployed & brilliant muse steps out of retirement and into my soul starting saturday. Thanks to all that have helped, and all those who will be here soon - a special thank you to Elaine and Doug (my sister and brother-in-law) for providing me with a home (and food, and tools, and a projector, and a scanner, and...) for various lengths of time during my stay here, and having the child that brought me here in the first place. Thank you mud, for freedom.

people next to the wall

2009-04-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

For all of you out there dying for a reference of scale, I stole a photo from my nephew's blog, from his Sunday visit to my stone wall. I am holding Ian, and my sister Elaine is enjoying the Northwest corner of the building, where Margaret's bed will go.

it could be a castle

2009-04-26T20:06:00.000-07:00

Next Sunday evening there will be no new blog post, because Mike and I will be two days into the week-long workshop that we are teaching! At this point, every feeling filling me up is the purest extract of excitement - no nervousness or stress thus far, a good sign.

This past weekend there was a "FARM TOUR" going on in this area of North Carolina. It's like a big farm open house, and people drive from farm to farm, picking and choosing the ones that they wish to see. On Saturday we had 400+ people come by! Sunday was more of the same. So it was a good opportunity for Mike and I to answer a lot of questions, and talk about Cob, and explain our design strategies... a good guinea-piggish run-through of what we'll be experiencing for 8 days straight next week.

Today was big, because we finished up the stone work! And I have the photos to prove it.

That's pretty much what it looks like now. The North (back) wall is about 5 1/2 feet high at some points, and sturdy as a mountain goat's tendon matrix. The stones on that back wall are BIG. Some I'd imagine would tip the scales at around 250 or 300 pounds. After a combination of pickup-trucking some to the site, and rolling others up from the woods, it was time to try "the method" (with stones that I just couldn't lift off the ground, not even a nano-inch).

The method worked. I got 3 enormous rocks across the trench and onto the wall using a stick-bridge, and without any falling down onto my toes. However, at one point I was using little "chinker" rocks to stabilize a big guy, and the big guy had a friend balanced on top of him, and the friend (an isosceles triangle with a sharp point) took a jump into the side of my head. A quick trip to the ice-box, and some quick mental arithmetic success left me feeling fine.

I love the complex pattern of shapes, shadows, and planes that the marriage of rock wall + sunlight provides for us:

Here is "Yoga Mike" testing the holding power of a bridge-stone:

Here is some additional detail work on the interior exposed hearth wall. The cob will just drip around all these little chunky stones, like melting chocolate on a pearl necklace:

Most of my Sunday was spent filling in the gap between the two faces of stone that we layed on-edge. The main filler was our trusty sand-clay mortar. To save on mortar, create some insulation value, and salvage materials, I raided the recycling bin and integrated some bottles and styrofoam into the filler:

The (glass) bottles themselves aren't any good for insulation, but the pockets of air that they create will be.

On to a week of tying up loose-ends before the workshop participants arrive and demand their money's worth of learning. I'm looking forward to a visit from my good friend Jeremy Curtiss, a fellow Industrial Design graduate. He'll be coming up Thursday or Friday and staying on through the workshop to be an assistant teacher, and help document the project. He'll also be trying to find himself, I'd imagine, and what better place than this?

, and what a wall it is

2009-04-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

You can scroll down to the previous entry to examine the level of the wall at the end of last week. On your scroll, your eyes might not be able to ignore

HOW

BIG

IT IS

NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's Mike (above), testing the threshold. He has this habit of jumping onto the wall whenever he gets a chance, and hopping from stone to stone, with his bare little feet. I'm the type of person who's too timid to walk on my own work, for fear that it might tumble apart and damage my pride (and require more extra hours and backbones to re-assemble it than I have available). When he prances across a new section of mine, I have learned to hold my tongue, and appreciate his doing what I am not man enough to do.

Below, please feast your eyes on the most precious stonework in the house, the interior hearth wall. These grandfather stones didn't just jump onto the wall and dance into a unified puzzle. They spent thousands of years forming unique personalities, all very independent and rugged beasts. It took some perspiration and a 2.5 pound sledgehammer to coax them into the idea of a tight-knit community.

The ugly gray "stones" (concrete) on the left side of the photo will be covered up with cob, and a poured adobe floor will eventually cover up the bottom 11 inches of wall. The beautiful big ones that makes up the right 2/3 of the photo are the ones that will be left exposed, with cob running along the top profile of them. Not only will they look nice, but they will soak up the heat from the stove, and allow it to slowly dissipate throughout those long winter nights.

We like to treat ourselves one day a week with some local brews, which aided me in my ability to visualize negative spaces and pair them up with the fitting physical stones. I used the timer feature on my camera, because Mike was off in the woods, tent-snoozing for hours and hours (couldn't handle the solar power on his body).

Fitting together stones has proven to be one of the most satisfying things I've ever done. Saturday was a day in which my current pursuits in life were affirmed to the fullest extent (whereas sometimes I've thought: "why the hell have I been digging for months in the winter without paycheck or companion?"). I felt alive deep down in my body, and my mind was breathing through my skull. There was quite simply nowhere in the world I would rather have been than on that site. I don't want to work for anyone I don't love, and I don't want to work on anything that doesn't get me out of sleeping bag happy and inspired.

You can see, we've just about reached ground level on the high North side (2 1/2 feet). That wall still needs 18 inches more of height, to keep the cob safely off the ground.

Now that we're at the point of that wall that will be visible above ground, we're using our most beautiful stones (that we've been stingy about saving along the way) in an upright band, to really show off their gorgeous faces. Because they're stacked on edge, it's important to secure them with "bridge" stones (shown in the photo below). The weight of the cob walls will push downwards, and these bridges will hold everything together as a solid unit.

Here I am testing out a bridge stone, giving it all the body I've got.

Mike and I worked about 42 hours in 5 days, which is quite a bit of stonework. On Saturday, we took a much-deserved break for a trip into town to the farmer's market, and food co-op. The town of Carrboro is a free wireless internet town, so Mike and I were able to sit out on the lawn in front of the food co-op and use our computers to check e-mail. It seems to be the most popular place to be, and is always crowded with townsfolk eating ice cream, sampling wine, having picnics, and asking me to watch their dogs while they shop.

Next week, we should finish up the wall, and then have one more week to tie up any loose ends before the workshop on May 2nd!

Just more of the same

2009-04-12T18:38:00.000-07:00

This was a short week for Mike and I: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. We ended up fitting 27 hours of stone-work into those three days (we need at least 25hrs/wk to earn our food stipend, and doing just the bare minimum would embarrass fellows like us). On Friday, Mike headed up to NY for a long Easter weekend with his folks, and he dropped me off along the way in Virginia to spend a weekend with Margaret's family and friends.

Needless to say, by the end of Thursday's session we relied on beer and the Rolling Stones to help us build the vertical rock puzzle at a worthy pace. My back wanted this four-day weekend just as much as nephew Ian wishes my nipples would squirt milk when he pincer-grips them with wide eyes.

Below you'll notice how strangely some of the rocks are shaped.

It takes time to build these challenged shapes up into level courses, but will you just look at that bubble?

The wall is definitely looking good. Well, part of it looks bad. Ugly. But that is the part that will live below final-grade, and never be seen. It all feels really good. I'm very proud of this creation. Mike and I do a good job walking atop it often, stomping like madmen, chanting and panting, to make sure the rocks are going to be there for 500 years. It wouldn't surprise me if he urinates on it when I'm away, as a kind of acid test.

We have about two more weeks before the workshop, and much to accomplish: finish the foundation, gather materials, organize the schedule, clear campsites for people, prepare lectures, etc... It's going to be an exciting fortnight.

Below is the Rumford fireplace in action. I spent a good 3 hours just sitting in front of it alone, mesmerized by the colors and sounds, and welcoming the heat into my torso. Near the end of the gig, I couldn't resist turning a lonely apple into a late-night treat by throwing it into the fire wrapped in foil, and then dressing it with butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar.

In Virginia this weekend, I took the opportunity to jump in Margaret's mother's pottery studio. The pots I had made last time had since been bisque-fired (the initial firing), and were ready for the next step. And so I glazed, and with a whole new theory. I hope they turn out well, but I'll have to wait until my next visit to find out. I can't extend enough thanks to Betsy for her gift of studio, supplies, time, mind, and clay!

dry, on the rocks.

2009-04-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

Every stone must be

Collected. Organized. Lifted. Memorized. Stacked. Stood upon. Pressed upon. Scrutinized. Dropped. Picked up. Placed. No. Dropped. Picked up. Placed. No. Dropped. Lifted. Maneuvered. Ball-bustingly heaved. Placed. Not quite. Shaped. Chiseled. Smashed. Massaged. Spoken to. One more time. YES!

Such is the way of the (modified) dry-stack stone foundation. I say modified, because we are using a sand/clay mortar. We aren't slopping it on like cake decorators, though, we're just using it to fill in gaps in the wall through which drafts or mice could potentially enter the house. It's still a rock-on-rock situation.

My help is here. His name is Mike. He's a white skinny guy with glasses and curls, much like myself, but carrot-topped. He's the last real American man. We work well, slow, and quiet. Here he is channeling energy into a stone. He'll wiggle it, tickle it, then walk on it, until it calls him daddy.

The big, rippled rock is the "threshold" (on top of which the door will go). There's no getting in or out of the house without her permission. She's probably 400 pounds, and she's not afraid to look you in the eye and ask for the magic word. If you look close, you can see the sand/clay mortar between the rocks in the middle of the photo.

When Mike had first arrived, we began laying the stone foundation on the actual site. After day 1, a rainy and demoralizing day, we realized we didn't know squat about stone-stacking. So we took down what we had done and began playing around with rocks elsewhere, making test walls, and monuments, and getting a feel for what is solid and pretty.

We have two types of stones: Virginia stones, and local stones. The Virginia stones were shipped in years ago from a historic Virginian house site, and have been used extensively around the farm. There was a small pile left, and I got the go-ahead to use it on my cottage. They are beautiful stones: flat, nice edges, gorgeous colored faces, and bow ties. Our local stones are much different. They are jagged, pointy, randomly complexified, and might take your life from you if you fell on one at the wrong angle. We've been told they might be a type of flint, and probably what the Native Americans in this region used to fashion arrowheads. They're difficult to stack. Here is a test wall made by Mike, using Virginia stones.

Here I am, shaping one of the local stones. It keeps saying "no," and I just keep telling it "yes."

This was a monumental moment: the completion of the first course! It took days, because we used the biggest, heaviest, and most strangely-shaped rocks (the reasons being that this course will not be seen, heavy rocks are good to have on the bottom to spread the load of the walls, and we want our work to get easier and easier).

I was thrilled to again have Jess visit me. We had talked about her coming early last week, but never set a day or time. I was surprised by a Wednesday morning text message along the lines of "I'm in PA, driving south, ETA 7:00 PM." Jess did everything we did: rock-shaping, mortar testing, mortar laying, muscle-flexing, and stone-stacking.

Jess also got a little burnt, because she didn't want to rub clay all over herself.

On Saturday, Jess and I took our weary bodies into town and spent all her money, and none of mine. We bought a white sweet potato and a regular sweet potato at the farmer's market, did a lot of biking, checked out the "really really free market," stopped in a pottery store, and a bookstore, and a thrift store (new shirt), found a playground cove in which to do Yoga, ate our traditional Weaver Street Market meal of bread/hummus and an ice cream pint in the sunny grass, and watched squirrels in the highest and most delicate limbs of the UNC campus trees. Back at the farm, we chopped wood and built a Rumford fireplace, in which we had a blazing fire spitting flames around two tin-foil packages full of sweet potato, onion chunks, and chives (that we harvested earlier in the day from under Jess' butt in a yard).

The god brick sits atop the Rumford, encouraging the army of bricks beneath it to send directional heat out towards the camera, and smoke up towards the moon.

Thanks, Jess. And it's really great to have Mike. I'll be heading back to the site tomorrow, with the intention of putting up another couple courses of stone this week.

SITE UPDATE

2009-03-14T22:32:00.001-07:00

Last week, it was Jess who stepped up to the plate and into the mud. This past week, my friend Lena spent her Spring Break with me. I almost feel as though I must have scammed her. I suppose she got the traditional idea of Spring Break half right. Head far south of Syracuse and into the sun. But manual labor all week?

It turns out that Russians are a sturdy and rugged people. I threw her on all kinds of loops getting from the airport to the farm. I tested her will with (unintended) starvation. I even told her we could go hiking on Thursday, and then must have cleverly disguised shoveling gravel into a trench as hiking well enough that she didn't mind, or was too tired to remember our agreement.

In any case, she was an incredible, and much-appreciated volunteer. Just what I needed with the economy the way it is.

We finished digging the drainage trench, down to the nitty-and-very-gritty details. We tested the flow using a hose and real water.

The idea is that the slope of the trench should send any groundwater/rainwater/floodwater around the trench (under the future walls of the house), and out the drainage tail and away from the house. In this way, the drainage trench creates a theoretical "island" of subsoil upon which sits the living space. Think like water.

If there is ever so much water in the ground (such as during a 10,000-year flood) that it starts rising in the trench, it's good to have backup to get it out quick. So immersed in the gravel is a system of corrugated + perforated drain pipe. In Lena's "TRENCH-CAM" shot below, I am checking the slope of the gravel layer before laying in the drain pipe (enough slope is essential for efficient water-removal).

Here, we manufactured a T-connector from two scrap corner pieces, a hacksaw, and duct tape.

After the pipe was in, and pinned in place with rocks, it was just shovel, shovel, dump, and repeat.

At the conclusion of our week, we had filled the trench completely. We covered it with woven plastic grain bags, which will act as a water-permeable membrane (letting water into the trench, and keeping out as much soil/clay/silt as possible, all of which will find their way in eventually and clog the trench over time).

We started filling in the drainage tail with broken chunks of concrete, rocks, and other rubble.

Next week I, alone, will continue with the rubble infill, and will then move onto the stone foundation. This is representative of one of those points that separates boys from men.

You can't take the artist out of the designer.

2009-03-14T22:18:00.000-07:00

Lena is the justifiably proud owner of a big, fat SLR camera, and a finger that is trigger-happy. Here are some of the shots she took when she dodged her duties and wandered off site.

Perhaps the most scar-filled life is that of a telephone pole in a college town.

Kaia is the 3.5-year-old daughter of Megan and Tim (owners of Pickards Mountain). She just recently took a pair of scissors into a dark corner and lopped off her curls.

Back at the wheel

2009-03-14T21:42:00.001-07:00

It's poor form to build a cottage just for the hell of it. I've designed this little mud lair around the needs of a lady who grows good food and answers to Margaret. She'll creates opportunities for massage out of thin air. In this particular instance, she made an ambiguous claim about the link between sun and skin cancer, with sunscreen in hand. She followed it up with a pouty face and indicated through interpretive dance that her elbows don't bend in a way that allows her to rub her own shoulders. My elbows bend as far as an owl can turn it's head, but hey, I'm my own man.

In the end, Karma worked in my favor, as Margaret offered me a weekend's stay at her parents' house near Richmond, Virginia. Her mother happens to be a potter. She's a twig of a lady, but with enough energy to fill the void between any polar bear and the closest wild banana tree. She got me seated at a wheel, threw me some clay, and let me loose. I made 8 pieces on Saturday (shown below). On Sunday they had dried enough so that I could "tool the foot" of each. I am in eager anticipation of my next chance to visit, so I can glaze and fire.

Mrs. Krome has been a production potter for 34 years! This blue glaze is what people want, sales have indicated.

A snapshot of the family. Mr. Lukens is also a hell of a guy. He imparted upon me all kinds of stories from his youth, from his 3 years living on a sailboat to his time out West, and bits and pieces of what living is all about (namely, having a prize-winning beard).

Why stop here?

2009-03-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

I've gotten more than two or three comments in the past week about the level to which I take consumption of an apple. Below are the remains of my midnight snack.

What puzzles me, is that this particular specimen would surely glean comments - "Greg! Geez! Just eat two!" - but I see an almost embarrassingly large amount of fruit still there, staring back at me with it's seedy eyes.

The SITE

2009-03-08T22:20:00.000-07:00

I started to write an elaborate post about my travels in the past three weeks, and it drained me before the halfway mark. It's in the works. Here's a quick update on the building site. The mantra continues to be "slow and steady wins the race."

(mid-January...) The site was finally level, so it became time to stake out the shape of the building.

I'm always rubbing clay on my pants, but it doesn't always end up looking better than half the art in the MOMA.

Two considerations that are always on my mind when deciding on my next move are: "am I being trendy?" and "How can I stay in the confines of my 1G budget?" Below, I have the Gator parked on top of an old, abandoned building site. Around the gator is a trench filled with gravel, and drain pipe, much like the drainage trench my building needs. So I spent Inauguration day, and the day after, digging out the gravel and pipe from this trench, and carting it up to my site in the gator. Re-use is both trendy and fiscally sound (in this case to the pretty tune of at least $200 in savings).

Here I am digging the trench, into which the rescued gravel will soon go. This was how I left the trench before taking a fortnight vacation up to NY. "Oh, you should build a little cob castle in the middle, it looks just like a moat!" people tended to comment.

Upon my return from New York, nature had made a similar comment, substituting water for words. Initially, the standing water was about 2 inches from the top edge of the trench. By the time of the photo, my friend Jess and I had created enough of a drainage tail that we had dropped the water level substantially. There was a sense of urgency, because the longer the water sat, the more the trench would erode (we were reminded of the urgency by consistent "plops," the distinct sound of earth eroding and plummeting in the moat).

Here is Jess at the end of the drainage tail, pulling orange mud along the bottom of the trench to allow the water to flow to freedom. This muckraker of a girl was a HUGE help, in lending both her time, companionship, and every ounce of strength she could muster (as well as providing me with the 12-hour car ride back down from NY). Try as I might, I wasn't deft enough to get a photo of her face.

It was a job for bare feet, because I didn't want to ruin my boots. The problem was that the water temperature was close to freezing (it had a cover of ice upon our arrival), so a couple times I had to hobble to the kitchen and heat up water on the stove to bring feeling back to my toes.

After all the water was drained, we spent the rest of the week doing other things (moving earth to appropriate places, making some cob!, and collecting stone for the foundation). The trench was left to dry out, so that tomorrow I can clear out the lose, eroded material. Then it should be ready to fill with gravel (and drainage pipe).

This marks a big step in the building process, the point at which I stop working DOWN into the earth, and start building UP from the earth. My friend, Yelena, from the SU Industrial Design program, should be arriving tomorrow to graciously (and naively?) spend her spring break on my site, helping me.

It feels so good to admit that I can't do it alone.

Slow and Steady...

2009-01-29T14:44:00.000-08:00

Here's some of the stuff I've been working on from my current house project. I can't wait to give it a name, but that will have to come much later once I really form a relationship with it, and after I embed the tongues of my old Pumas in one of the walls (the shoes that biked me to Oregon, and cobbed with me all summer until the very end).

First, the floor plan. Notice the rocket stove near the entrance. The rocket mass heater stove is a type of stove designed by Ianto. It can be made in a weekend for under $100. There are a lot of ideas behind the concept, but one of the coziest ideas is that the pipe exiting the stove is run through big massive elements of built-in furniture (in this case the window seat, and a step below the desk), and heats up these masses. So when you're stove is running, you can sit on a heated seat, or rest your feet on a warm step as you write at your desk. These masses heat up, and then store the heat and let it off slowly over time, so your window seat will be toasty for up to 2 or 3 days after the fire is out. Some people have run the pipe through a built-in bed, and enjoyed the comforts of heated sleep.

And the elevation view(s), the original and revised together (my plans were revised after a good long phone call to Ianto and my physical experience at the site):

Here is a cardboard sketch model to show the complex shape of the roof and determine how well and where it will shed rain runoff.
This has been my staple food, raw collard green salad with nuts, sprouts, seeds, and soy sauce:

It snowed last week! It was so cold at night that the tent just wouldn't have done the trick, so gardener Margaret allowed me a warm floor in her yome (below) upon which to rest my weary body:

My little tool shed is standing up to the elements quite respectably:

The earth here is a healthy mix of clay and rock. The color is beautiful. I had to stop digging and put my grubby hands on the camera for a shot of this chipped rock... look at the primary colors in it (top middle). I wish every day that I had paid more attention in 9th grade Earth Science:

Here is what the site looks like. I almost hate to put up a photo of it, because it really makes it look like I've spent a month doing a whole heck of a lot of nothing. But it's ready now. Earth-moving and planning take a long time. The main grass that you see is called Broom Sedge. It seems like a perfect candidate to plant on the living roof, because it can survive without much topsoil. So when the roof is covered in it, not only will it really blend into its surroundings, but it will look like the house has hair, a desirable characteristic.

And to finish it off, a poster for the green roof workshop I'll be teaching in May, which will be the finishing touch on the house! (I'm also co-teaching a cob workshop the first week of May with my fellow cob cottage apprentice, Mike, in which we will hopefully get the walls up):

BEDROCK

2009-01-29T14:26:00.000-08:00

I was going to give up on blogging. But then I'll just start giving up on everything. So to prevent this imminent danger, here are some photos of the house I helped build over the summer. And a link to more of them. FINALLY! I've been waiting for these. There are about 2,000 photos packed away on a camera in England, in the hands of a potter named Jo (she was our designated photographer). And I'm hoping to get a CD of them in the mail from her soon, so that I can actually show some of the in-progress shots.

Notice the clever name: Bedrock. Two reasons: there's a huge boulder built into it (and the boulder is just the tip of the iceberg; a protrusion of a large expanse of bedrock). And also: we built the bed on top of this rock. It's my favorite part of the house - so unique. It almost like a natural geo-thermal system. The rock should moderate the whole temperature of the cottage.

I talked to Ianto and Linda (owners of Cob Cottage) a week ago, and they say that the main windows are in, the roof is green and full of flowers, the fire has been going, and people have been staying there and commenting on its charm. It will forever be one of my favorite spaces.

The exclamation window is on the East side and at the foot of the bed, so that you wake up in the morning with the sun shining through and yelling "WAKE UP!" And notice the foundation stones - it's broken up pieces of concrete from the floor of a cheese factory that we hauled in a truck, and then in wheelbarrows up a hill. And the window in the door is one of Linda's blue plates that we stole while she was gone one day. Reuse at its best.

Very excited about life

2009-01-18T08:31:00.001-08:00

I had a little talk with my sister, Elaine, last night about finances and living plans for my next step after this North Carolina gig. I was just looking at some housing concepts by an Australian architecture group online, and got started thinking about a tiny little living space that would fit on a pickup truck bed, and could be attached to two canoes, catamaran-style. So you could drive it in your truck to the water's edge, and then paddle it out to an island and live there for a little. And after it was set up on the island, you could use the two canoes as transport (back to the truck, and to a nearby town for food) and recreation vehicles. Or you could just float it as a houseboat when you felt like it. It would of course be super-light, probably a stick-frame wrapped in stretched canvas (so you could paint on it, and it would be like living in three-dimensional fine art). I could build it almost for free I bet, just from scraps and miscellaneous hardware. The canvas would be the expense. It would be a multi-function sleep-space, cook/eat-space, read/write-space, shower space (a solar shower with a showerhead on the exterior of the building gravity-fed from a solar-heated tank on the roof that you would fill up once you reach the island). I guess a 6x8 footprint. Maybe an aluminum roof for romantic rain sounds.

In any case, I'm going to sketch it up in the evenings this next week, while I'm living at Pickards Mountain (hopefully getting a lot of trench-digging done on the house site). There's more to the idea that makes it a bit more practical; the canoe-catamaran/island idea is just one blue-sky facet of a bigger diamond.

The equally exciting part is that the way I'm figuring it, living as a single person with no pets, children, or wives, shouldn't require even close to a full-time job. If I can live off of $1,000/month (including health insurance, car insurance, gas, food, miscellaneous, cell phone bill, etc...) then I only need $250 a week. And if I can pull in $300/week, then I can put the extra $2,400/yr into savings. Of course I need to gather enough funds in the next year to buy a truck, and start a garden (and get some land). I gotta win a lot of contests.

"What about if I want to have a family!?"
Well that would change everything, wouldn't it. So I will look forward to that change someday, but I don't see a point in planning my current life around it (just need to keep saving,but my grandma went through the depression so she has taught me well).

Natural Building

2009-01-06T20:40:00.000-08:00

If you're into astounding data, unbelievable photos, and unparalleled natural building, check out this unarguably interesting list of animal architecture.

At first, I was thinking to include the phrase "real natural building" somewhere in here, as a knock to what mankind builds today. But that would really discount a lot of what humans have built in the past, and build today in other cultures (not to mention what I intend to build). Mud is still the #1 building material in the world. Take a sneak peak at this hogan:

But I find animal structures to be just mind-blowing works of form, size, and community effort.

Rainy

2009-01-06T14:30:00.000-08:00

The rain gods do not want to see another building go up on the canvas below them. It was pouring all day long, and is predicted to again tomorrow. So I used today as a car day (the benefits of which are greatly increased cargo capacity and dryness over a bike). I need to get all my essential tools to the site, so that I can both start using them, and figuring out what I need and don't have.

I went back to the old house (which is not yet on the market) to scavenge through Doug's collection of tools/materials in the garage. It was a bit overwhelming for me. I expected to be in and out quick, with a wheelbarrow, a couple levels, and 3 tarps. I instead felt like I was on a shopping spree in a hardware store (of course it was a bit different, because all of these things still belong to Doug and Elaine). Everything I looked at appeared as if it might be useful, and when I would then pick an item up, there would be 3 more underneath that had just as much draw.

I packed the car, drove to the farm, and on the way thought about how I had nowhere to then store these tools. I remembered a big pile of scrap lumber, intended for burning, out of which I thought I may be able to concoct a tool shed. A quick phone call to Margaret left me with a "yes, go for it." And so a portion of this:

is now this:

which isn't much, but it gave me something to do in the rain, and it will keep all of my tools dry (once I get a tarp over it, and some pallets on the ground). So nothing got done on the actual house site, but I'm realizing how much prep work I'm going to need to do to get this project off the ground. No worries, though, just awareness.

it has begun

2009-01-04T18:10:00.001-08:00

On New Years day, I had a meeting/presentation with the deciders at Pickards Mountain. It went really well; they seemed genuinely excited about the look and feel of my cottage concept, and we walked the land and decided on a site (which was, thankfully, the site I had my heart set on). We also came to a conclusion about who the space should be designed for. Rather than having it serve as a home for transient visitors - as was the original intention - it will instead be the more permanent residence of the "garden caretaker." Right now, that is Margaret, and she intends to stay for a good while. I'm looking forward to this, because I'll be designing the space around a person that I know well and will be interacting with on a daily basis. We can throw ideas back and forth, and she can be my feedback oracle. It's always more satisfying to design something that is specific, as opposed to general.

I biked to the mountain this weekend, in order to start working the site.

This is what the site looks like from a bit of distance down the hill.

Starting to clear the site.

What it looks like when I left on Sunday. The evergreens around the cleared site are a dream come true: three on the West side (far right in the photo) to block hot evening sun; one on the north side to block wind; and one on the East side to keep the bed space (intended to be on this side of the house) cool during the hot summers. Of course, right now they won't do much because they're young and puny. But this works to my advantage, because if they were much bigger now, they'd just be in my way.

The next step is to figure out the dimensions of the building more clearly, and then stake out the shape of the walls, and do some earth-moving to level the appropriate surfaces.

concept1

2008-12-31T15:58:00.000-08:00

It's called "Bilbode."

Whisk Whisk Whisk Whisk

2008-12-29T14:23:00.000-08:00

...a taste of Ian's Christmas laughter, as he is enchanted by culinary tools and their associated names

Doggedly exploring

2008-12-29T11:58:00.000-08:00

Elaine, Doug, and Ian left on Friday for Long Island, and are gone through New Years Eve, so I am here in charge of the dogs. I have been trying to provide them with long and enjoyable walks; 45 minutes of feeling wild again. Of course, this has the potential to be tedious because there are two of them, and I find it best to take them separately.

To make it enjoyable for both man and beast, I have been selecting our routes to cover as much new ground as possible. Because the area is so diverse, it's been really interesting to explore the neighborhoods. Within a mile radius of our abode, there are huge houses, tiny houses, projects, signs in english, signs in spanish, signs in graffiti, public schools, montessori magnet schools, black people, white people, litter from fast food, and litter from organic food. It provides residential areas with an interesting skyline to have such a mixture. I almost feel as though I could buy an empty lot and build a cob cottage without it being too out of place.

In any case, one of my favorite finds was the gem below, tucked cozily behind a street of mundane brick projects. I love the shapes and colors: the cut-out profile of the porch with chamfered corners; the orange frames of the first-floor windows balancing the orange door - so often you see a bright door all alone and it's with good intention, but poor result because it's got no other elements to vibe with; the stained wood sheathing; the shape of the second story windows; the gently chopped-off ridgeline.

The Prius is just icing on the cake.

ECG

2008-12-29T11:39:00.000-08:00

On my Tobacco Trail stroll (previous post), I stopped at a trail-side kiosk and, to my disbelief, read something interesting.

It appears as though the Tobacco Trail and other "greenways" (traffic-free paths for pedestrians and cyclists) that I've found sprinkled across North Carolina do not stand alone as separate entities. They are all part of a plan. A mighty plan designed to link the whole of the East Coast through shared green-ness. A traffic-free trail from Calais, Maine to Key West, Florida. An Appalachian Trail for rollerbladers, as it may be.

The project is right now only 20% complete. The remaining 4/5ths is mapped out, but on interim roads, rather than designated paths.

It's a really great idea. The route is mapped out state-by-state using GoogleMaps, with a link from the ECG website. Below is the New York section (if you visit the link you'll find a key to decode the color-coding).

Of course, the completion of the project depends on how quickly the group can raise money.

Tobacco Trail

2008-12-29T09:55:00.000-08:00

One of the selling points for the Trinity Lofts (our new home) was the number of interesting places within walking distance. One of the advertised places to go was the Tobacco Trail, which begins right across the street and under the railway bridge. So today, for little Lilo's daily walk, we explored a mile or so of the trail.

What exactly is it about a draped matrix of electrical wires that has a strong draw for amateur photographers?

Below is the intersection through which Durham's driving instructors delight most in taking 14-year-old kids on their nerve-racking driving test.

There is a particular kind of tree lining the streets here that is just incredible. so big and thick-limbed and bowl-shaped. I'm not yet sure what species it is, but they look like pretty old friends.

It seems like each and every one of these trees is just begging to hold a treehouse. Granted, this is partially because the middles are chopped out to allow for telephone wire to run through, but think of this as a utility feature. If we pretend that there aren't already enough blue sky solutions to the homeless problem, I propose that the city builds treehouses in the sidewalk trees, and then hooks them up conveniently and directly to the electrical lines. Each residency could have one light, and one burner for cooking. It reminds me a bit of the Madison Square Park art installation by Tadashi Kawamata:

Peasants and Farmers

2008-12-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

In anticipation of starting a cob building project next week, and eventually running a cob workshop in which innocent people will come help build and pay money for me to teach them the basics, I decided it would be smart to read up on the bible of cob building: The Hand-Sculpted House: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage (by Ianto Evans, Michael Smith, and Linda Smiley).

I'm not sure whether I forgot how good of a read it is, or whether perhaps I never understood its genius because the time when I originally read it (May) was before the point when I first touched cob and came to understand it. Either way, I highly recommend it to anyone interested in questioning why things are the way they are.

In Ianto's philosophical introduction, I am particularly drawn to these 3 paragraphs, inspired by a talk given by Chilean Ana Stern.

"Peasants, [Ana Stern] said, satisfy their own basic needs: they grow their food, build the houses they live in, often make their own clothes. Most peasants collect medicinal herbs, treat medical emergencies, supply their family entertainment. They experience fully what they do every day; they have time - they feel joy. Their culture is integral and makes sense. Farmers, by contrast, grow things to sell. With what they earn from their products, they buy their groceries, building materials, clothes, entertainment, and medical insurance. They must also buy into a system which demands that they drive to market, pay taxes, perhaps send their kids to agricultural college. Increasingly they must buy machinery, seeds, farm chemicals. Farmers have no time to directly enjoy satisfying their own needs, so they purchase their satisfactions; they buy ready-made clothing and 'convenience' foods.

I've thought a lot about Ana's presentation. Her definition shook my worldview. In her terms we are all farmers - there are few peasants in the USA. I'd always felt comfortable in the traditional villages of Africa and Latin America, and now I understood why. The parts of my own life that I truly enjoy are the peasant parts, the parts I don't pay for, the parts that I create myself. A life of working for someone else and paying for basic needs is essentially unsatisfying. Why? Because our links to Nature are severed when we live that way...

To be complete we need to have a constant awareness of our cosmic bearings, where and when we fit into nature's patterns. If you compost your excrement as the Chinese do, use your own urine for fertilized, and grow your own vegetable seeds on the plants you raise, the cycle is complete. You have inserted yourself into a completely visible ring of cause and effect. You experience the whole natural process, and the better you observe how that process works, the easier you slide into it."

___

A lot of text, I realize. And I don't think much importance need be placed on the labels of "peasant" and "farmer." What's important to me is thinking about how tied into different systems we are, and how dependent many people are on actions that do not contribute directly to their happiness and/or survival.

Anyhow, there's a lot more where that came from (including a lot of practical building ideas). Pick it up for a good read.

my calling

2008-12-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

My dad sent me this 1995 first-day-of-school photo, giving special mention to the inspiring phrase on my t-shirt. I'm the tall guy in the middle with the earthy-toned backpack straps; to my right is Stumpy, and to my left Mr. Jamie Teska, a die-hard dolphins aficionado.

born to build

Here's another old family photo, taken in Jamestown, VA. I really like that building.

barcelona girls

2008-12-20T18:02:00.000-08:00

My good friend Greg Buda just flew into Barcelona yesterday morning to start off his Spain/Morocco Christmas Break grad-school-getaway of sorts. Knowing that I'm on a quest for love, he e-mailed me to share his instant observation that "the girls here are so beautiful that they make the girls in Syracuse, NY look like short, fat, bald men." I'd imagine, then, that those girls are probably eating organic and local.

I can't believe I grew up in the suburbs.

2008-12-20T16:46:00.000-08:00

Below is my humble assembly of things, shown in my shell of a former bedroom.

Why in a little heap? We're moving! (sister Elaine, brother-in-law Doug, little nephew Ian, and me)

From the dull and soul-less suburbs to the urban setting of Durham. Today, we packed all of the big stuff into the U-HAUL, and tomorrow at 7:00 AM we shall drive it to the new and trendy Trinity Loft Apartments (shown below), Elaine and Doug's chosen living spot for the next year or two. Upon arrival, we could be as trendy as this:

But probably will be less so, as we don't (yet) have a large urn to stand beside our couch. Nonetheless, I am very sure that each one of us is very excited for this event. So excited that we just decided two days ago to make the move this weekend.

In general, this gated community (Harrington Grove) has been a bore. But it has become exponentially more boring once Elaine and Doug actually signed a lease on an urban pad, and we're just waiting waiting waiting for the moving day to arrive. Each day I have pondered over how difficult it is to entertain myself and Ian with nowhere to go but upstairs, downstairs, or the backyard (southern homes don't even have basements) - I often found my mind setting aside reality and clinging to dreams of being in Durham with the ability to walk to the park, the store, a museum, the Tobacco Trail, the ballpark, a cafe, an art show, or a strip joint.

Tomorrow, the dream is no longer just that. What a Christmas gift, and what a great time for me to pick living with my sister.

It's important to note the real goal of Elaine and Doug's sudden urge for movement. Simplicity. This is a large-scale exercise in purging, simplifying, and improving quality of life. Less stuff; keeping only things that have proven to be highly functional and often-used, or are considered beautiful by the inhabitants (ideally both). The waffle iron is on the chopping block.

The sad part of the process is that everything we don't take won't just disappear. Sure, it will go through a filter of pack-rat parents, craiglist/ebay, and giving away to friends and acquaintances, but how much of it will really improve the lives of the people who collect it? My experience tells me that most of these things will continue to be seldom-used space-fillers for these people as much as they were for Elaine and Doug.

In terms of my own life, and how much of a stuff-magnet it might be, I really want to become disciplined about not collecting things I don't need or love. At one point this past summer, I got really excited about the prospect of experimentally living for a year without money at all. This, although still appealing, is certainly unpractical. I've decided to set some less-extreme goals in preparation for simplicity. Following is a first shred of thought (and it is very much based on the teachings of my summer instructor in Oregon, Ianto Evans, and almost completely unoriginal). This is what Ianto Evans would look like if he were explaining it to you.

5-point checklist of questions to go through before deciding to buy anything:

*1. Do I really need it? (or know it will be used/adored frequently enough to justify ownership?)
*2. Do I already have one?
*3. Is there someone close (friend/neighbor) who has one that I could borrow?
*4. Do I have something else that can perform the same function?
*5. Can I make something with things I have that will perform the same function?

The green light to buy something is then a "yes, no, no, no, no" answer series.

I can't do anything about the stuff I've already acquired other than purge my way through it. What is most important is to not allow myself to pile up more as my life continues. Not hoarding crap needs to become a habit, much like brushing teeth. So I intend to make these questions a habit for my head, whenever I put thoughts of buying something into it.

If I can stick with it, it will undoubtedly save money and a tiny portion of our Earth's finite resources. Ideally, it would also improve my creativity through habitual practice, and maybe create a fragile web of community through occasional sharing of property. The really good thing is that the questions are yes/no, and are in a specific order. If you answer 'no' to the first, you don't even have to remember the next four.

natural tensility

2008-12-16T18:25:00.000-08:00

Tents are so very good. Big, chunky mud buildings have their advantages, too. A hybrid must be born. Any ideas?

Bicycle humor

2008-12-13T05:58:00.000-08:00

Looking for a new bike on Craigslist, I came across this post:

Perhaps the reason that Mike wants to rid himself of his bicycle is that he's been trying to ride it as pictured. "It's just really awkward to ride," he commented with a sullen expression on his face, "I'm probably better off with an extra 75 dollars and walking." Of course, I haven't considered how short Mike's arms might be.

Pickard's Hill

2008-12-06T18:21:00.000-08:00

I spent a good portion of this past week camped out at Pickard's Mountain Eco-Institute, near Carrboro, NC. To my dismay, I was only on top of a geographical misnomer. Pickard's Mountain is not a mountain, but rather the highest hill in its county.

My reason for going (as stated in an earlier post) was to feel out the place and people, and consider whether it would be an appropriate place for me to propose a natural building project. This is what happened:

I arrived on tuesday afternoon, a day-and-a-half later than planned (due to baby Ian's unplanned sickness, and my duty to be his buddy). I traveled by bike, thinking that because of my cycling stint earlier in the summer, I would still be in solid shape. A sore back, a numb ass, and tired legs was instead what I entered the premises with. The first two people I saw were girls, so I played it cool.

Margaret, the garden manager, I had met on my original tour of the place. Samantha is from Ohio, and a participant in the WWOOFing program. They informed me that they had spent most of the day rolling around, and I was instantly unsure of how to feel. I set up tent in the forest, and then came back up to the garden to help pull out dead stuff, and spread leaf mulch.

You can see that the garden is a matrix of raised beds, many of which are covered by white frost cloth to keep the strawberries and greens alive through the cold nights. The soil was trucked in, because the site soil is unfit for gardening. Why? Because there is so much damn clay. The properties of clay that make it horrible for gardening - minimal organic matter content, and mostly impermeable to water - make it an excellent building material. And the clay in this area is especially beautiful in color:

but unfortunately guarded by fierce dogs.

I didn't realize that people staying at the institute are expected to bring their own food. Luckily, Sam(antha) lent my belly some "happy pork." We shaped it into patties and cooked it alongside some of Margaret's pasta, which was later doused in pesto. Only a couple hours in, and I already charmed my way into a satisfying dinner shared with (and paid for by) women. Afterwards, we strolled to Margaret's candlelit yome and relaxed and sketched to music. I went back to my tent around 8:30, read a bit of John Steinbeck's "To a God Unknown" (which I most highly recommend both because of the way that Steinbeck explores the quality of being human, and how intricate his descriptions of the natural world are), and fell asleep around 9:30.

The next day, I went back down to the kitchen (below the green awning) for breakfast.

I had heard that there were three guys also staying at the site, and as I walked up, I saw that they were sitting to breakfast. To my surprise, as I got up close to the table, I realized that Sam Cooper was sitting there. I met Sam Cooper at the strawbale design/build workshop that I took in Vermont a year and a half ago. Not only did I meet Sam, but I in fact nakedly joined him and 4 other men in a wood-fired hot tub under a starry Vermont sky one night. And I remember noting the humor in the situation: "we just met, and we're all naked, and I wouldn't do this with my friends from home," and Sam replied "well, yea, but we'll never see each other again after this course." How wrong he was.

As it turns out, I didn't see much of the guys, because I had agreed to stay at the institute and work, while they spent most of the week in town and visiting neighbors nearby. So I spent most of Wednesday pulling out more dead stuff from the garden, and getting to know Samantha and Margaret. We also harvested greens, and separated good potatoes from bad potatoes. The dinner that I made for Samantha and I celebrated this harvest. I made stuffed broccoli greens (stuffed with creamy smashed potatoes) and sauteed in a pool of meat fat, with sides of mashed potatoes and greens. A redundant, but filling meal. Red wine was a winning addition.

That night I agreed to go with Samantha to "Barb's Place," which was a farm down the road with a semi-transient community of young folk looking to learn about self-sufficiency. We got picked up by Melissa, who drives a car with no passenger seat (which I liked). When I walked into Barb's, I realized immediately I would not have a boring night. Barb fits the description of a crazed genius lady. She's a gray-haired stockpile of information about all sorts of things. She was undoubtedly a flower child in the 60s. Her types of standards might be quite strange to the general population. Her kitchen table is a display of "dumpstered" floral arrangements picked up by Melissa, but the canned pears from the same dumpster were a definite no-no because of their high-fructose corn syrup content. Interestingly, she makes documentary films, and even won an academy award in the early 90s. Before the night was over, I had been invited to friday's "chainsaw party" at Barb's, where the point is both to replenish a good supply of firewood as well as teach newbies how to tame the saws. Melissa was also a very interesting character, who does her own screen-printing with mostly found materials, hops trains, and has been living all over the country on almost no money.

Thursday began with more work garden work, and then at 1:30 I went to Carrboro with Margaret and Samantha to visit Margaret's sister, Anna, who is couched for 6 months after ACL surgery. I treated myself to a new t-shirt at the thrift store, and was blown away by the trendiness and eco-ness of the Weaver Street Market, where we bought food to cook dinner. We then went back to Anna's place and put together a feast for her and a bunch of friends who seemed to filter in and slowly fill up the apartment as time passed. There were baked sweet potatoes, pasta with homemade red sauce, toss salad with dressing options, garlic bread, and cookies. One of Anna's roommates was an art history major, and there were some great coffee tables books, including a healthy collection of Keith Haring work, which I really liked.

Friday I didn't make the chainsaw party because it was an all-day event, and I wanted to get on the road by 3:00, so that I wouldn't be biking in the dark. So another day in the garden.

My conclusion from the whole experience is that I'm glad I'm going back again next week, because I'm very unsure of how I feel as of now. The people were really nice and welcoming, and the land would be ideal for a natural building, but I'm not sure about the hierarchy of power. I really want to be in a leadership position on this building project. This is what I would look like as a serious leader:

Ian

2008-12-06T16:52:00.000-08:00

I enjoy observing change over time: a plant growing from seed; a building being constructed; a ceramic pot being pulled out of a mass of clay atop a spinning wheel. But what I have found to be even more engaging than these examples is my recent chunk of time spent as an uncle to the little boy below:

For an overview of Ian's four months of life, browse his blog.
I'm going to push him to go through the same phases as me:

In all seriousness, I have had a most intriguing and fulfilling time being an uncle. I dearly wish to write eloquently and intelligently about it. However, I find myself filling up paragraph after paragraph - with observations, thoughts, and anecdotes - that I soon after re-read and find completely uninteresting. Someday I will try again.

Ian was the original reason I chose North Carolina as my next place of residence, and he has not let me down, but rather on many occasions lifted me up. If days were lengthened to 32 hours, I might very well consider adopting a child now, but as it stands I will wait for a wife and at least a decade more of passed time.

My, Cabbage, you clean up well.

2008-11-26T20:08:00.000-08:00

If you can draw a red cabbage cross-section and feel confident that you've done the plant justice, then I want you on my team.

my feelers are out.

2008-11-26T17:56:00.000-08:00

Today is Wednesday, but yesterday was Tuesday. Tuesday was in my books as a really good day even before 10:00 AM. I visited Pickards Mountain Eco-Institute in nearby Carrboro, NC. My sister's boss casually mentioned the place over dinner a couple weeks ago, as a place where I might find connections to people who could help me realize my short-term dreams.

I met Megan and Margaret on my visit. Megan made me hot apple cider, and entertained my short biography, while we sat in her breathtaking house. She and her husband, Tim, own the whole place and live there permanently. Margaret, on the other hand, lives in one of these:

It is called a "yome," a clever hybridization of a yurt and a Buckminster Fuller dome. On her table were dozens of origami swans. Margaret is the main gardener, and she gave me a tour of all the animals.

A lot more happened as well, and it was all very interesting to me, which is why I am:
1. going back to tent there for two half-weeks, starting this coming monday
and
2. considering the institute as a potential building site (if I can knock their Crocs off with a kickass idea, and a practical plan to back it up)

That's a photo right off their website. It makes me think that I might feel romantic at a place like this.

I am off-the-wall excited about this opportunity. This could be the break I've been putting off getting a part-time job for. Anyone reading this who might be interested in helping me build a natural building, let me know. The clay in this area is phenomenal, in both its abundance and color (bright red).

I was asking Margaret about cool places to check out in Carrboro on my drive back, and she told me about the Recyclery. From what I understand, it's a place that looks like this:

Where they fix bikes using parts and tools stored in drawers like this:

And one can go there with the intention of learning how to fix bikes, and they will assist you in doing so, and will then allow you to become part of the team, and in the end you can leave with a rock solid bicycle made by you!

The answers always seem to be to the West of me.

Jan's Vans

2008-11-20T20:07:00.000-08:00

The photo behind the blog title is the back of a conversion van, owned by a lady in Arlington, Oregon. I want to refer to her as a "crazy lady," but this is solely an opinion, and it is also just an inference based on how crazy I found her sister to be. Additionally, I really do respect her hospitality, as it would have been a particularly dodgy night to set up tent, in terms of wind speed and legality. I forget the lady's name. Pam? Jan? Something of the sort.

After my windiest day of biking on my cross-half-country bike journey, I wound up in Arlington. Not because I wanted to be there, but because I stopped there for lunch and a nap, and then attempted to go further but was completely vanquished by the wind within a mile of leaving on interstate 84. I stopped at a outlook point, pissed off the edge of the cliff (because it wasn't just peeing), and laid my bike down, and then my body, on the concrete. I called my sister, because it seemed right, but she didn't pick up. I could have cried, but instead just whimpered. I even dipped so low as to saunter up to the 18-wheeler, and ask about how far the next town was, hoping that the driver might light up and say "hey kiddo, just pop your bike in the back, and climb in - I'll take you there!" But it was a dude and lady both, filling the cabin, and looking too gaunt and dismal to lay out an offer like that. So I crossed over the highway, and rode the 1 mile back to Arlington. As a disclaimer, finally having a chance to go with the wind made this one of the easiest miles of the whole trip, physically speaking.

Going East to West, in the wind you will end,
But West to East, and the wind is your friend!

Emotionally, it was a rough mile, because it was admitting defeat. And that day was the closest I came to giving up. My journal entry in the back of that van was in fact a list of all the ways I could give up without too much shame. All because of wind. That night the van was shaking. Can you guess why? ...Try again. 60 mph gusts.

So first I started riding up the huge hill, following the RV park signs, hoping to pay whatever was necessary to get a plot of grass at least as big as my tent footprint. All the spots were full, but the owner was very nice, and pointed me to a trailer owned by someone who she thought might let me set up for free in their front yard - right between the reflective spinning pinwheel and the plastic picket fence, I imagined. I said thank you, but knowing in my head that it wasn't a comfortable situation for me. And I demand comfort. So I headed to the motel. The one motel in town. Really fancy-looking. I think even had my hand on my credit card in my pocket as I walked in, ready for pampering. I'm trying to remember what the lady at the desk said to me. It was stupid. It wasn't "sorry, we're full." It was like "oops" or "try again" or "not me, not now." And so I lied. "Oh, that's okay." I turned around back towards the door, next to which is a window, and for the first time noticed the neon sign glowing "try again." I'm glad not to have patronized such a foolish establishment.

At one point I had tried the methodist church; can't remember whether it was pre or post-motel. The door was locked, so I knocked. No one answered, even though there was a car in the parking lot. I peed between the edge of the parking lot and the beginning of the paved entranceway. I had to, and I did. And the only thing that would've made me feel bad about the act would have been if I drowned or burned an ant doing it.

A followed another set of "RV PARK AHEAD" signs to a second site down by the marina. I headed there, and it was full, just like the first one, and the motel, and my bladder again. I found a real bathroom, then ate an orange, and a granola bar. And I thought about what I might do. Next to where I ate my citrus was a bulletin board. On this board were postings about local events and restaurants. Several churches had put up a notice about when services were, and the pastor's number, and groups that met. First I called the Methodist number, and got an answering machine. Technically, I was raised Methodist. And I'm on this bike trip alone, most of the way across the country, emotionally drained, and the Methodist church was closed and now won't pick up the phone. And in all honesty, I would just like to know: in most cases, is the church just good for Sunday stuff?

The next poster was for the Church of the Nazarene. There were actually only two church posters. So this was my second and last chance. The pastor answered and was very nice. He explained that he lived 15 miles away on a ranch, and so he wasn't of much use, but that he would call around town to try and find someone to put me up for the night. After much work, and many back and forth calls that I genuinely am thankful for, he came through with this three-letter-named woman (Pam or Jan). I called her, and she explained that usually she would give me a bed in the house, but that her 87-year-old father was dying in her house, and so her whole family was over, and it was a small house to start with, and now packed with people, and she didn't want to make anyone in there feel uncomfortable, and would it be okay if I just slept in her van, and she's slept in it once before and it was good for her. Yea, that's awesome.

So I went back up the hill that I had ascended to get to the first RV park - essentially I traversed the entire town of Arlington, from the marina (low point), to Jan's mountain home (the high point) - and followed her directions to her corner house with the car-dealership-looking driveway, packed full of her relatives' automobiles. In the middle was the aforementioned van. And in the van were two woman madly trying to convert the back seats into a level sleepspot. Together, we prevailed. Then they went inside, and Jan's sister, whose name I also cannot remember, put together a hamburger and chips and some sunny D, and brought me dinner-in-van. Which was all very nice. However, she didn't then again go back inside. She chose instead to stay and ask me the dreaded question "So... are you a believer?" I believe in a lot of things, and a lot of good things for that matter; I'm not clear about my religious beliefs, and I'm not sure I ever want to be clear, but one thing I am clear about not believing in is her whackass version of religion. She started in with her father's story. How he went his whole life without the light, and he just recently found God a couple months ago, and now he's set free and everything makes sense, and he's not afraid of death. You might think that I'm wrong in putting this potentially nice and happy topic in a negative light. But I'm confident now in how scared I was then. At the beginning we were chatting through the open sliding door, but it wasn't long before the wind made this less than ideal, and she invited herself into the front seat (fair enough, not my van). She kept up the talk about her father, and tears were streaming down her face, as she looked upward into the proverbial sky of fluffy clouds and muted sun rays. She went on to talk about all the prophecies in the Bible. At this point I was thinking "I should have just confidently said 'yes, I'm a believer' in the beginning." The prophecies are woven so intricately into a book so beautiful that it could have been imagined by none other than a God-like figure. They are all coming true. Soon the western, civilized nations will join forces one last time and march on the middle east. At this point, God will send down a bolt of something to destroy the middle eastern nations (because the civilized westerners need a little help?). And then the world as we know it will transcend into... what the hell lady? Are you crazy? Do you really think I want to sit in your sister's van and discuss this with you? Would you even listen to me if I brought up any counter-points, or wanted to discuss any of these prophecies critically? The answer is no, you wouldn't listen. Because you stated earlier something bogus like "God doesn't want us to be intellectuals. God likes us the way we were. We are supposed to just be ourselves and take the Bible for what it says. He doesn't expect more of us." These are not her exact quotes, but I'd bet a pretty penny that she voted for Bush.

Finally I told her that I was thinking about packing in for the night and doing some reading before bed.

"Oh, what are you going to read?"
"This book I brought about the building technique I'll be learning about this summer. I have to finish it before my course starts."
"Do you have a Bible with you?"
"No. I just have one book. I packed as light as I could."
"Do you want me to go inside and get a Bible?"
"No, thanks."
"Do you own a Bible?"
"Yes, it's at home."
"What version do you have?"
"...the St. James version."
"You mean the KING James translation?"

I know it's still light out lady, but let me go to bed, let me go to bed, let me go to bed. But she had one more thing.

"Sorry, but we've been talking all this time, and I didn't get your name."
"Hehe, your right. It's Greg."
"Well, Greg. I will pray for you."
"Okay... thank you."

I took some pictures after she left of how I would have chatted with her in a world with no repercussions or chivalry.

I set my alarm for 5:00 AM to ensure that I was up and gone before seeing them again. I wrote a very nice thank you note, and left in on the floor next to my paper plate. And like the wind, I was gone.

lamaze breathing

2008-11-20T18:13:00.000-08:00

I cannot recall an exact time or place, but I am very sure that at some point in time I have uttered the opinion: "blogs are stupid." I suppose I must take this back.

This blog is a journal that is always open to read. I can state with certainty that it is less satisfying to look at a screen and type, rather than enjoying all the gestures associated with writing with pen on paper. However, this is more efficient, more connected to the people who I would want to read it, and I'm much more likely to keep up with it.

This is my North Carolina journal. I am living at my sister's house, but not because I'm a loser. Rather, I'm an uncle. And I'm trading uncle duties and various cooking/cleaning duties for this roof over my head and pink walls around my head. I'm here on a mission to build a cob cottage, very appropriate considering that I recently completed an apprenticeship at the Cob Cottage Company, in Oregon.

I'm in a new place, with solid skills, an easy living situation, no snow, a lot of clay, a dashing nephew, and the mindset to do/build/make something beautiful. And craigslist. I have no idea how long I will be here, except it will at least be as long as it takes me to accomplish what I wish to accomplish.

Hence the title: an indefinite stay of limitless potential. I write it here lower case, because this is how I prefer it. It's about this moment, which is the beginning, new, little, and ready to grow. Really this particular chain of words could describe any moment. Opening your eyes in the morning. Starting college. Going on a hike. Opening a cabinet. Getting married. Sitting on the toilet.

And so it begins.