The bustling summer and fall seasons are finally coming to a close. We just wrapped up our final Natural Building Essentials Workshop a few weeks ago, gardening season is long past, and it’s nearly time to start hatching plans for 2023 already. It’s been a year to remember.
We’re just about one month out from the start of our July Timber Frame Workshop. Happily, the pieces are starting to fall into place. This year we’re collaborating with Brice of Timber Frame HQ on this very simple and beautiful pavilion design. Brice is doing the drawing work — we’ll have super tight plans that students will be referencing during the course. I’m excited to have these plans available. Clear drawings contribute to a better understanding of the entire layout process.
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.
The number one rule of trying to maintain a homestead seems to be this: there’s always something else you could be doing. Even when there’s a lull, really, it’s just relative to the busier times… because it’s not that there’s nothing to do, it’s just that stuff won’t fall to bits if it doesn’t happen this second. Thankfully, April and I are getting better at not taking on too much at once, and having a toddler has certainly been helping us to hone that skill. We joke that we operate at 40% capacity with Hazel in tow. Well, it’s actually not a joke as much as it is the truth. Naturally, priorities are different now.
Where am I going with this? Well, in our second year on this land, the deeper realities of being a landowner/land steward/enter your preferred term here is definitely settling in. It’s a pendulum really. One moment I feel like there’s no way we can keep things up, and then the joy of even the smallest bit of progress washes my fears away… only to be repeated again and again.
We finally have a name for ourselves…
After many months of head scratching and deliberating, our little piece of hillside in the Kentucky foothills finally has a name: South Slope Farm. Not only that, we’re now incorporated, too. My dream of becoming a corporation is finally coming to fruition… now, isn’t that strange to say?
Actually, South Slope Farm is not just the name of our homestead, but our small egalitarian community in the making. This is more than just a place to hunker down and grow food and plant trees and build cool stuff. April, Jacob, and I have been actively planning to cultivate a small intentional community for a couple of years now, and getting incorporated is just one of the steps towards that goal.
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.
