The earthbag stemwall goes in at the off-grid straw bale cabin site
To be really honest here, foundations are the least exciting part of any natural building project for me. Most of the fun stuff like timber framing, building with straw bales, applying clay plaster, or building with cob represents the “glory” of the natural building world. Foundations don’t have the same sex appeal, for lack of a better phrase. However, a good foundation is one of the most important parts of a home.
These Sandflex grit blocks are handy for bringing rusty tools back to life
If you’ve read my “Essential Timber Framing Tools” article, you might be digging through an old relative’s garage or planning a trip to the flea market in search of some antique goodies to build up your tool kit. It’s easy to look past some potential winners based strictly on appearances…. you know what I mean. Rust. Rust is the perpetual enemy of steel tools, now and forever. But don’t despair. Just because a tool is rusty, doesn’t mean it’s beyond repair. I know it’s hard to look past it sometimes, but all it takes is some time and you can turn an old tool right around.
Highland Woodworking published my “Building Our First Shaker Blanket Chest” article on their Wood News Online publication. I wrote this a couple of months ago when April and I built a dovetailed cherry blanket chest for the first time. It was a fantastic furniture-making experience, and our first time cutting dovetails.
Hopefully this chest was the first of many more projects of its kind. Yeehaw.
Coperthwaite striking an iconic pose in his canoe
Bill Coperthwaite is an icon among the likes of the Nearings and Harlan and Anna Hubbard, an individual known for his simple living ethos, yurt design and construction, advocacy of craft and creativity, and his 50 year journey living on a remote homestead on the Maine coast. He lived without a telephone, without road access, without many of the physical things we often deem “necessities” in this era, yet he was a highly influential teacher and role model until his untimely death in 2013 at the age of 83.
In A Man Apart, husband and wife Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow document their two decade relationship with Coperthwaite in his later life, sharing a powerful portrait of a man difficult to categorize. It’s part tribute, part biography, part memoir, and full of meaningful insights and lessons for all of us about what it means to live your life according to your values.
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.
