Today I heard a funny story from Ashley, a guy who passed through Dancing Rabbit last September on the Superheroes bike ride.
He told me that while he was here, he and his then-girlfriend were looking for a peaceful, quiet location to have a challening conversation. They decided my house would be a good choice if it was empty, and it was, so they had their talk there to discuss ending their relationship.
We joked about how my house could serve as the go-to place where couples could break up thanks to its soothing atmosphere.
I was amused.
I was surprised to receive a comment on my blog from a foreign reader a couple of months ago. It was from The Bund magazine of Shanghai, and they were interested in doing an interview about building my cob house. Needless to say, I was immediately interested. Surprised, too, of course.
Anyway, I just got a copy of the magazine in the mail the other day. It’s a large format weekly magazine, very glossy, very westernized. Smack dab in the middle of high fashion and pop culture is the article about my cob building, with a photo of me (see above) sitting in my (unfinished) little mud house in a dirty t-shirt. Pretty hilarious. (And opposite that photo? An advertisement picturing Jackie Chan. Trippy.)
Fun stuff.
Here is a PDF document of the article: Cob building interview in The Bund
When all of your energy comes from the sun, and the sun don’t shine for a week, that means there ain’t no power to keep this blog updated.
So. Anyway. Building is definitely winding down and pretty much done for the season. I will put up a few more entries detailing the last of my cob building exploits for the year, and then I will slowly enter hibernation mode.
I would like to keep this blog rolling in the off season, so I am considering creative ways of keeping relevant and fresh content coming even while I’m not working on my house. We shall see.
Nevertheless, expect a little bit about my earthen plastering experience and winterproofing the house in the near future.
Well, the roof decking continues. I’ll probably finish it in another day or two. The shadows have really been great lately with all of the rafters and decking casting shapes all over the walls:
Tony Wrench of West Wales, famous for his hand-built, low impact roundhouse, has recently been deemed victorious over official planners wanting to demolish his home.
Natural builders often have a difficult time dealing with local bureaucracy and its restrictive (and short-sighted) building codes. There’s plenty good reason why Wrench didn’t bother to seek out official permission, which is made clear in this article.
Congrats, Wrench!
(Fun fact: Tony Wrench has been very kind enough to answer several of my reciprocal roof questions via email, and I totally appreciate the time he has taken with me. Check out his book, Building a Low-Impact Roundhouse for the only published information on reciprocal roofs!)
I set a goal to finish the cob walls of my house before I left Dancing Rabbit for a visit to New Jersey come July 12. I thought this would be possible several weeks ago, when progress was very brisk, but with last week’s rain, I suffered a setback. Granted, there is absolutely no reason why I have to finish the walls before I leave… I have plenty of time to finish this house before late fall arrives, but I like to set markers. I get pretty crazy about wanting to get X number of batches by Y date, etc… but mostly it’s all in good fun and I don’t get that hung up on it.
I have some help coming in the form of visitors tomorrow and some guests over the weekend, so maybe I won’t be too far off from my original goal after all… we’ll see! These are exciting times.
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 website 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. In 2012, we started offering Natural Building Workshops, so you can learn essential hands-on skills to build your own natural home.