We recently wrapped up our September Natural Building Essentials Workshop. Fourteen folks came out to participate, traveling from Texas, Florida, Kansas, Illinois, and beyond. It was an enjoyable ephemeral community for the week — everyone was eager to jump in the mud and help out. I enjoy this workshop format because it’s a chance to spend some quality time with the basic building blocks of a natural home — clay, sand, and straw.
Read ahead to view a photo gallery of the workshop!
During the course, we built a light clay straw wall and did a scratch coat of clay plaster, built a cob oven mockup, practiced various plasters and clay paint, and spent a full day touring the local community and visiting various straw bale and other off-grid homes. There were lots of good questions, enough to keep me on my feet. I tried my best not to say “it depends” too many times. But really though, it depends…
See some of our work and photos from the tour day below.
I’m already scheming up plans for our 2018 Essentials Workshop… Hope you’ll join us next time.
The gallery was not found!
My family comprised three of the fortunate fourteen who attended the September 2017 workshop. Based on our discussions on the way back to Illinois and in the days since, I would have to say this was one of our best short vacations ever. April’s meals were easily worth the cost of the entire workshop. Ziggy’s classes were well organized and included everything from tool selection to cob ovens to finished walls. The tour of four natural houses was amazing. It’s one thing to see natural homes on YouTube but an entirely different experience to visit them and have a chance to talk with the inhabitants. Six muddy thumbs up for the entire experience!