In less than a month, we’ll be fearlessly led by our maestro Tom Cundiff in assembling the beautiful timber frame that you see above during our 10 day workshop. This is going to be a particularly slick design, and rather unique for several of its features. The foundation plan is highly irregular — read: non-square, also read: organic, wild and crazy, funky. It’s a small structure, about 300 square feet in size, and a great learning model for folks interested in small house living. Read More
This will soon become a long-lasting timber frame house…
This pile of wood will soon undergo a magical transformation. With a team of builders, the timbers will be laid out with squares, levels, and chalk lines. The wood will be cut with saws, and struck with axes and chisels. Later, the once seemingly random logs will be snugly fit together like a giant puzzle. And then, what was once a big pile of raw logs will become a magnificent timber frame, the skeleton for a small house.
Yup, all of these locally harvested black locust trees are material for the roundwood timber frame we will build during the 2013 Timber Frame Workshop. I love to see a pile of wood and realize the potential for a completely new life for that material!
There is a little less than one short month until our Extra Early Registration for the 2013 Timber Frame Workshop at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage ends. You can save nearly 25% off the cost of the workshop by applying now, so don’t wait any longer!
Roundwood timber framing implements whole trees, eliminating the waste from milling larger trees into dimensional timbers, and offers a host of other benefits in the realm of timber frame construction.
Our Timber Frame Workshop this year will focus rather heavily on roundwood joinery and techniques, which I do believe is rather unique to this class. If you’re curious about implementing whole trees in natural building, you’ll have your chance this summer.
People often write me and ask how to get into or learn about natural building and living a more sustainable lifestyle. Unfortunately (?), the answer is fairly predictable, but all the same, it is worth addressing here. The answer is this: the best way to learn whatever you want to do is to get firsthand experience. Sorry to say, but it’s that simple.
When to comes to a specialized skill, there is no replacement for getting firsthand experience. Reading books and looking at images online is one thing, and one thing only — a mere taste, a slight dip of the spoon. All of that goes out the window when you try the thing (say, building) itself. Because putting an idea into practice is an entirely different experience from intellectualizing or daydreaming about it.
But that is the “business” I feel most passionate about, and want to encourage more than anything to the readers of this blog, to the people I meet, and to anyone who has an itch to do anything new. Go out there, get experience, create connections, and give it a try.
We are very pleased to announce a new Timber Frame Workshop for the summer of 2013, as part of our natural building workshop program! Based on the success of last year’s class, we’ll be hosting another workshop here at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage to teach folks all about the beautiful craft of timber frame construction.
We are happy to announce our first building workshops of 2013 — come learn how to build your own backyard, wood fired oven in our Cob Oven Workshop.
In September and October, visit Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Missouri for our latest three day natural building course — learn cob oven construction essentials, and get a great glimpse into sustainable living in a well-known ecovillage community in the process.
Outdoor ovens are extremely popular, and for good reason. A cob oven can be built with inexpensive natural and recycled materials, and the results are fantastic. No pizza party will ever be the same again!
After such a successful 2012 Natural Building Workshop season, we are already planning for next year’s courses and classes in 2013. Planning is an on-going process, and especially for events like these, we need to organize very far in advance to be able to structure our time and energy for the year. We hosted one Straw Bale Workshop and a Timber Framing Workshop this year, after months and months of planning, but next year may see the introduction of newer courses in the offering. I’m excited about the possibilities, and I hope you will be, too.
Things should be ironed out over the course of the fall season (the best time to do anything, really). Keep an eye peeled. Sign up for our email list to be the first to know.
Our lovely bunch of straw bale workshop participants
We just finished our awesome 10 days of the first Year of Mud Straw Bale Workshop — what a blast! We had yet another great batch of students, and there was ample opportunity to get lots of progress made, and learn all the ins and outs of working with straw bales. I think everyone went home energized and enlivened, and probably a bit tired too…. and definitely full from tons of great food.
I personally came away from this class with my love once again reignited for natural building, a wish for continuing to learn and challenge myself, and a strong desire to keep working in this invigorating format. It is so great to be surrounded by and working closely with people curious, excited, and enthusiastic about natural building and alternative living.
Fresh first coat of earthen plaster in our future bedroom
The fact that we’ve come this far during the workshop makes me very happy. Here’s looking at our future bedroom, with a fresh base coat of earthen plaster, and our first trimmed window with embedded black walnut window sill. It looks fantastic. The students have been loving the mud. I love that they love the mud.
Things are good. The workshop has been a blast. Today is our last day!
About The Year of Mud
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.
