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.
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.
