A highly insulated straw bale home under construction
If you’re new to natural building, two of the most important fundamental concepts to understand are thermal mass and insulation. Materials for constructing walls typically fall into one category or the other. Understanding the differences will be critical if your goal is to build an efficient, comfortable house appropriate for your local climate. Let’s look at thermal mass and insulation in the simplest terms possible.
One of my big projects this winter has been overhauling this here website after many many years going without a major renovation. I’ve been anticipating tackling this task and I finally hunkered down to do the nitty gritty over the past month or so. It’s tedious and time-consuming work, no doubt. The new design is shaping up nicely and I should be rolling it out soon. So look out. It should make for a better reading and browsing experience.
p.s. Did you know that The Year of Mud is 10 years old this year? Cheers to that. More soon!
“Toddler table” would have been enough, but who can resist some good ol’ title alliteration? Forgive me, it’s late and I’m fully cognizant of the dearth of winter updates on the ol’ blog here. So here’s a little glimpse of at least one tiny project that I completed this winter. This is a toddler table for our little fellow (who will be turning 2 in March, yow).
Much of the past couple months has been imbued with sickness, cold cold weather, and sticking close to home. You know, winter stuff. The woodworking bug tends to hit me hard in the winter, so I try to carve out time whenever possible to make some stuff in the workshop. The time is always more limited than I like, especially now with a kiddo vying for as much attention as humanly possible. So it’s only appropriate that one of my woodworking projects is specifically for his benefit. Well, enough yammering, take a look!
In case you haven’t noticed, I recently posted our full 2018 Natural Building Workshops schedule. This year we have two dates for our popular Natural Building Essentials Workshop, and one Timber Frame Workshop in July. It’s hard to believe, but this is our seventh year hosting classes and year three at our homestead already. (And it’s year ten for this blog, too. Whoa.)
If you’ve been planning to come out and join us, this would be a great year to do so. We find inspiration and room for little improvements every year, and with each passing season there are more projects to see here at our land and elsewhere in the community at large.
Have a look at the full schedule here!
Tools are what make any craft or trade physically possible. You cannot make a house, spoon, basket, or sweater without certain essential tools. And a quality tool makes the experience more efficient, enjoyable, accurate, and safer. As I’ve stated before, I have a particular fondness for using axes, for whatever reason. A few years ago, I wrote Axes We Love to highlight some of the high quality hand-forged axes being made out there in the world. In my second entry in the Axes We Love series, I want to highlight a few more of the talented blacksmiths who are hard at work producing custom forged axes and other tools we need to do our best work.
In November, I traveled to Illinois to help deconstruct a 100+ year old barn. It was not an immense building, but it still took plenty of muscle and ample time to deconstruct. Geez. I forgot how exhilarating it is to wield a pry bar for days on end. Well, the barn finally took the form of many piles of wood after dozens and dozens of hours of nail pulling and coaxing. It was a big relief to walk away from a few scattered foundation stones, the total remaining evidence of the building that once stood. Here are a few pictures of the process, petrified barn cat included.
This summer, April & I were interviewed for the winter issue of New Pioneer magazine. In it, we talk about our natural building journey and experiences living at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage and moving to Kentucky. It’s been a long time since I built the cob house that started all of this business (9 years ago, in fact). And even though it was only recently that we sold our straw bale house, we began work on that structure 5 years ago.
Doing this interview conjures up all those weird feeling associated with time and memory — like, some things feels so far away yet so recent at the same time. Anyway. Jereme did a great job with fact checking and this story gets my “yea that happened” stamp of approval. The article captures our story of learning how to build with mud and straw and all the mistakes and successes along the way.
You can purchase the winter issue of New Pioneer magazine here.
Shofuso House in Fairmont Park
After my work trip to eastern PA in August, April and I stopped in Philadelphia on the way home. We took the opportunity to re-visit Shofuso House, the traditionally constructed Japanese house in Fairmount Park. It’s been three years since we first went to see the building, and it was almost like seeing it with fresh eyes on this most recent trip. Needless to say, I had a blast.
Sayonara, Strawtron
Almost four years ago, April and I moved from Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in northeast Missouri to Berea, Kentucky to try and find land to start developing a homestead. When we left, we put our straw bale and timber frame home, Strawtron up on the market. This fall, we finally sold the house to new owners. (We sold our cob house, Gobcobatron two years ago.)
We are, in a word, greatly relieved. (Oops, two words.) Why has it taken so long? Well, prospective buyers also need to be Dancing Rabbit members, so the pool of potential buyers is downright tiny. We thought we’d sell the house much sooner because the trend had been an increasingly larger population (and a shortage of homes), but that trend happened to reverse shortly after we left. Well, there was now way to foresee that one.
Nevertheless… the house is sold and I’m happy for the new owners. I love that house and I’m sure it will continue to be loved well into the future. Goodbye Strawtron!
https://youtu.be/8Bnjl6unKhw
I was excited to find this video documentary about Japanese clay plaster as it’s currently being practiced by sakan (a.k.a., traditional plasterers). From what I gather, clay plaster is a niche craft in Japan, but the tradition has been unbroken for hundreds and hundreds of years. It’s not practiced as widely as it once was, yet the quality of the work that is done is exceptional. It’s serious business, and absolutely beautiful and inspiring too.
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Hi there, I’m Ziggy. In 2008, I launched The Year of Mud while building my first natural home. This blog is a collection of personal stories and experiences building with clay, straw, and wood over the past 15+ years. A few of the things that get me fired up are natural plasters, timber framing, & Japanese architecture. Since 2012, we’ve been hosting Natural Building Workshops so you can learn essential skills to build your own natural home.
