Looking at my mind mapped notes I see a symbol that, sadly, I’ve used a few times today.  It’s a gravestone with the letters RIP.   Because, if we don’t stop and rethink, revise and regenerate our way of being on this earth.. ALL THE TREES WILL BE GONE in 2050.

If you have ever walked in a forest, smelt the pine, crunched your feet on the mulch of leaves and twigs, stood in a circle of trees and felt the energy or watched the pines waving in the wind you will probaly recall just how precious that feeling is.  But our personal forest experience is but a tiny jewel in an Indra’s net of magnificence compared to the vital role trees play in all life on earth.

Our notes described trees as ‘interfacers, transformers of energies of wind, water and sunlight.

If our grid electricity were turned off tomorrow, we’d all be up in arms, rioting in the streets, demanding that the service is returned immediately.   Many people would die.   It’s the same with trees, only it’ll take a little longer. Rather like the difference between a quick slice and dice death and a slow lingering one.

There probably isn’t a person in this so-called ‘civilized’ part of the universe who hasn’t heard of the plight of the Amazon Rain Forest.    We humans are not only short sighted we’re unconsciously suicidal.  We cut down trees to grow crops to feed cattle so that we can make ourselves sick on burgers in pursuit of short term satisfaction yet we ignore the plight of the trees.

Trees stabilize global temperatures, store carbon, enhance water and preserve offshore reefs and marine life. They are a vital source of nutrition and medicine. They provide a habitat for animals and other plants. Trees offer shade, protect us from wind, warm us with their wood, provide lumber, glue, nuts, pollination, fix nitrogen in the soil, aerate it and offer spiritual solace.  Trees can even make rain!

Traditional agriculture is Earth’s worst enemy.   We cut down our precious trees, turn the soil up which destroys topsoil to grow rows and rows of wheat or corn.   The pests look at it and see a buffet of food readily available, so we drench the land with pesticide. The topsoil degenerates so we cover her with fertilizer.   If  the likes of  ‘So NOT Man’ have their way we’ll destroy the very hand that feeds us and they’ll be sitting in their decaying mansions with a fistful of dollars.  Ever tried to eat a dollar bill or a gold coin?

Down deep and dirty

My father imported toys for a living, so my bro and I had a lot of toys and yet our favorite game of all was to be out in the garden making fake ‘dinners’ with mud, berries and twigs.    I only recalled this fondly after an afternoon of building a swale.   Swales are kind of dams that divert the flow of water to make it more appropriate for both the land and humans.

Bob took us over to an area between two buildings where, after a heavy rainfall, water flowed in a particular path, making it muddy and difficult to transverse.   As we looked over to one building we could see that the broken gutter was the source of the water flow.   So we set to building a dam to avert the water flow using earth from another project on site.

After we’d shovelled heaps of earth and tramped it down, which reminded me of a version of wine making, we had to make sure it was level.    I love repurposing so I was squawking with delight when I saw what I now know is an A-Frame level.  It was made out of discarded bits of wood, a stone, some string and a couple of strips of tape.    It worked perfectly.

The exercise was a reminder of how important planning for all needs is.  Sarah, who lives in the community and is attending the course, pointed out that the dam was all very well, but what about the people who wanted to get up in the middle of the night and cross the path to get a snack from the kitchen.      So we set to making a step arrangement from some old concrete stuff.    Hmmm.  It just didn’t work.  And then someone came up with the bright idea of creating a path round the dam.

Chuck, our lead trainer, showed us that this was an example of how important it is to plan.  This was what he calls a ‘small mistake’.   Big mistakes in permaculture are ones that we have to live with for years.  Rather like a neighbor who build a big house on a hill and didn’t put in the silt dams.   In a few years the hillside will start to erode and wash down the hill, the pond below, which is full of fish will be full of silt, the fish will die and his house won’t be so steady…  Everything has a consequence for more than just our own individual desires.

Planning and design are the keystones. If we get the plan right, we’ll have trouble free living for years to come and if we don’t.. we’re screwed!

Chuck reminded us that in permaculture ‘the opposite is also true’.    What works in one situation, might not work in another and there are many solutions to our design challenges.

We were wondeirng what we could do to divert the people from crossing the dam instead of using the path and innovative solutions such as putting a brush pile by the side of the path, or planting paw paws or other suitable plants would not only make it pleasant, offer edible pickings but also keep them on the path!

Carbon Footprints

After dinner we adjourned to the library where Bob and Isabel put up the website www.myfootprint.org where you get to figure out your impact on the earth in acres.   Fascinating fact was that when Bob, who lived in Bangladesh for 3 years, calculated that even living like a king there, his footprint was lower than living in the States.   Know what the most heavy-carbon factor is?  OWNING A CAR.

Maybe it’s time we got a horse and cart like the Ingalls in Little House in the Prairie. Rural dwellers are at a disadvantage for travel because we have to travel so far. So maybe it’s also a reminder that LOCAL LIVING is gonna be the only way to go.

Bob and Isabel are my homesteading exemplars.  They live in the middle of a 40 acre forest somewhere in mid Georgia.  They treated us to a slideshow of their homesteading journey.  All I can say is that to me living in a home made of cardboard, surrounded by a jungle of edible and medicinal plants, with chickens and goats in pens made from dumpster diving materials j[as was a lot of their 'cabin']not to mention the ‘swimming hole’ constructed from discarded plastic & living coppiced trees that grow shade in the summer, is my idea of heaven.

Meanwhile, it’s 8am and time for class to begin. It’s pretty cold here and even the delicious breakfast of home harvested sausage, quiche made with a crust of cooked brown rice and ground up seeds, coconut rice porridge, kefir and home grown grapefruit can’t keep out the bite.

This course has been totally inspiring.  I find myself jumping up and down with delight at the potential, at the information that is so vital to spread out into the worldand the idea of building our own repurposed living quarters in the middle of an edible jungle of plants and trees all working together in perfect harmony.

Blogs- check out one of our chef’s blogs

She’s also posting the daily menu on Facebook if you want a gustatory thrill go friend her.  http://www.facebook.com/#!/ms.milkweed?ref=ts

© 2010, Sunny Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you don’t pretend it’s yours for commercial purposes

Building and Growing with Nature

Earth builders and forest food gardeners who follow the permaculture principle of learning from the natural environment, observing patterns and using that to create  a design for the optimal needs for that environment, have got it right…

Bottom Line – We cannot fight with nature.  We tried that already and we’d be well to remember the Easter Island experience and how they decimated nature to create stone statues to their gods turning their home into an uninhabitable wasteland.

 Nature has much to teach us about harmonic and most productive design. 

The nature-harmonized earth house

We speak often of earth houses in general but there are many types of earth houses. What works in one environment superbly would be a disaster in another.

Naturally Right Building

Every style of natural building such as cob, log, straw bale, earth-ships, bamboo huts, houses on stilts, yurts and more, all evolved as a result of a direct relationship with and understanding of nature and natural design.

The design that works best for you is one that takes into account the natural ingredients of the specific location.  It may not always be the design you are locked into.

Early earth home builders studied the natural climate, land structure, soil type, vegetation and human and wildlife interactions and needs.

The Mandans of the Upper Missouri in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains designed log structures worked perfectly for and  with the natural contours and components of the Plains.

In the desert climes, thick-walled adobe structures painted white and thick walled serve the purpose of sheltering humans from the harsh sun and protecting them from colder extremes of temperature.  Damp is NOT an issue. Water was precious so they focused on water catchment and well systems.

 The log structure that works so well on the Plains won’t necessarily be as functional in hilly wetter climes without adaptation.   It is up to each builder to know how the area works by basing his design on what works in nature.

There is a harmonic building structure and design that is perfect for each unique climate and micro-climate and contour. 

 Evolving and Adapting

Given how bright we humans are and how much technology we have at our fingertips, we will quickly learn to adapt and evolve ways of earth building that take this into account.  Permaculturists are doing it already.

Edible food forest gardens mimicking nature

As students of permaculture and permaculturists know, nature has a perfect design for every part of the land.  The forests are living examples of eco systems.  By taking into account the natural design and what works, food forest gardeners learn the purpose  of patterns and structure and allow this to inform  their design. 

 They never try to impose a design that is contrary or counter-productive to natural workings because they know, in the end, it won’t be the most beneficial for nature or themselves.

They know they need canopy trees and they know they need ground cover. In the tropics mangos and coconut trees form the canopy layer whilst in Northern Georgia apple and pecan trees serve the same purpose.

In the same way when builders use natural designs and structures the structure is fluid enough so that someone building in wetter hilly lands can begin to devise a way to dam and reflow the water so that it doesn’t run back into and under the house. 

 Someone building in the desert of Nevada will design what works in a water-scarce desert. They won’t worry about excessive water flowing under or flooding the house because what little there is has been redirected to a water catchment system.

 The ultimate aim of both is to capture water without damaging the natural contours and flow.

 The Miracle of Nature-based Building

Mike Oehler, r-evolutionary author of  ‘The $50 & Up Underground House Book’, does not design cellars, mole holes or dark gloomy homes.  He designs homes that are functional and suited to the environment.

The home is constructed to reach below the frost line to protect the fragile structure from frost damage. 

It is a place where all the workings like pipes and wiring are underground in an easily accessible space.  This keeps them protected from freezing and other hazards of being exposed.  It also makes repairs and reworking easy as no structures have to be disturbed to get at the pipes and wires.

The merits of ‘underground’ housing are, according to Mike Oehler – author of ‘The $50 and up Underground House Book’ pretty fantastic.

If you are into natural building and could design and create an ‘earth’ home that is synchronized with the natural environment, and have all of these amazing facilities.. why would you choose any other way..????

Benefits of an ‘underground’ house

• No Foundation
• Less building material and labor
• Less Tax
• Warm in Winter, Cool in Summer
• Better view
• Built-in Greenhouse
• Ecologically sound
• Increased yard space
• Fallout Shelter
• Defensible
• Concealable
• Close to Source of Water
• Relatively fireproof
• Pipes never freeze
• Superior flooring
• Can be built by anyone
• Weatherproof
• Less maintenance
• Soundproof

We recommend this book and here’s our Amazon link to it.   

 The $50 and Up Underground House Book: [How to Design and Build Underground]

If you click here, and you do decide to buy, you are helping us as we re-route money energy from the machine towards supporting a more ecological cause!  Feed The Future – A food forest garden in every community is doable and could alleviate world hunger in 10 years.

Mimicing Nature is the Only Way

Builders who study the contours of the land, the rainfall, the flow of water or indeed where water, the position of the sun and all the natural ingredients, will design structures that work perfectly with nature and offer relative to that environment all of the above features. 

In Oehler’s book he points out all the mistakes people are making when they design earth houses and all the things they can do to create a successful, secure, warm, sound structure that utilizes the natural situation to the best advantage of all concerned including their needs.

For example he has come up with an amazing design for housing set against a hill.  He finds a way to avert the flow of water from the hillside, have it run down beside the house without ever reaching the house.  He describes how to create drains that naturally pull the water back into the house.  It’s not just a question of catching water or sloping roves, it’s creating roofs that contribute to the above qualities..

 His designs have been called ‘radical’, ‘revolutionary’ ‘unique’ unconventional’ ‘practical’ ‘masterpieces’.  

 They are based on pure physics and a study of natural design and purpose. 

For instance, It makes sense to have the kitchen garden, greenhouse as an extension of the kitchen and not an external entity. 

The greenhouse captures the suns rays while being protected by the house from winds.  In turn we get  easy accessibility to foodstuffs as they grow.  Nipping in and out of the greenhouse as you cook, you are more in tune with how it is growing and take more care of what’s there.. as it takes care of you by producing more abundant offerings.

 It makes sense in Tony Wrench’s underground house to grow grapes on the eaves of the house. The roof offers the grapes space to climb and protects the house while providing on tap food and with a little processing natural wine!

It makes sense to have a composting toilet that collects human waste and with very little effort other than facilitating natural process, it turns in to rich, natural fertilizer for the garden in less than two years.

It makes sense in some locales to have French drains that through a natural filtering and siphon system reclaim good water and direct it into the home.

 Forest Food Gardens – Natural Wonders

 Food Forest Gardeners observe what works in nature, how water flows and how to guide the water to where it is needed most and is kindest to the land.  

 They have a structure from nature of layers and inter-actions between different species for the greatest good.  They apply that structure to local specifics and as a result the forest becomes healthy, lush, self-sustaining and abundant. 

It makes sense to cover the ground with abundant, local herbs and beneficial plants because they offer not just nutritious food and medicine but also keep off invasions of unfriendly weeds.

It makes sense to plant mutually cooperative species because the system requires so much less maintenance after the early labours of reconnoitre, design and planting and pruning, the system starts to take care of itself and become independently inter-dependant.  The only ‘labor’ that remains is that of walking through the forest collecting the fruits – Tough eh!

It makes sense to let chickens run around in the forest [while protecting tomatoes from them!] and let them peck at fallen fruit and pests … while keeping down the tree pests, the chicken’s manure sows seeds and fertilizes the earth.

It makes sense to contour and dam water flow so that it is distributed in a natural way to where its needed most and away from where it can cause damage by accumulating.

So much of this just makes plain natural sense.   And all it takes is for us to get off our backsides and get into action.   We can’t argue with nature any more, so why not use her system to our advantage.

Here in the USA, the pioneer nature of the people is emerging to meet the needs of our changing times and the opportunities of re-contouring building and growing in a way that works for all perfectly. 

This spirit  genetically evolved and a part of our history, will save this nation.  When other countries, areas, look back to what worked and use what they know now to merge the two and alchemise new workable ideas.. the world will begin to flourish again.

 We simply have to stop being afraid, take that leap and JFDI

Recommended Books:

The $50 and Up Underground House Book: [How to Design and Build Underground]

 An introduction to permaculture (Design course series)

© 2010, Sunny Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you don’t pretend it’s yours for commercial purposes

While the rich go green at great cost, the rest of us can jump on this bandwagon

In the next few weeks, we will be featuring a series of blogs called ‘Going Brown’  inspired by an article by the cheap-ass curmudgeon.

By MICHAEL VAN HALL with additions by Pierre Soleil and pictures from Tony Wrench’s earth house

Michael Van Hall [the cheap-ass curmudgeon] is looking for people who live in low-cost to no-cost housing, by choice, to feature in his next book, titled Shacking Up. When he asked blog readers to send him leads,  he was disappointed with their responses.

He didn’t get examples of housing as featured in the picture above.  He got ‘green’ ‘sterile’ ‘fancy’ houses.

Mainstream fancy eco-housing

Van Hall realized that people’s definitions of eco-living did not correlate with his own.

“Why not ? you ask. It’s green, smallish and built with all the latest sustainable building materials. It probably even has a dual-flush toilet or two. So what’s wrong with that?

You’re right, there is nothing wrong with that—as an example of the mainstream’s definition of eco-friendly housing. And yes, it’s probably even LEED certified.

I understand the thinking out there in the “green community.” There are benefits to using all these new building materials. Even though they cost a fortune, they are mostly sustainable.

So go ahead, install a $olar voltaic system to help reduce your carbon footprint. Use all the new technologies available to reduce your damage to the environment and our dependence on fossil fuels. I will applaud you.

By all means, go green. If you’ve got the money and want to live cooped up in a sterile box, go for it. Living in an expensive non-toxic box may be better than living in a cheaper toxic one. I’ll give you that.

Many companies have made it possible to go green and remain pristine. You no longer have to sacrifice luxury to relieve your guilty conscience.

But these companies and all this newfangled stuff they’re selling isn’t what I mean when I talk about low-cost and no-cost housing.

The word green has always stood for money. These days, if you want to go truly green it costs a LOT of money. If you want to make money, just tap into the green market. If you can label it green or natural, people will buy it—at almost any price.

But nobody seems to want to look at the environmental cost of going green. What environmental price are we willing to pay for the manufacture and disposal of those energy-saving solar panels and those big power inverters? How come nobody talks about that? And what about the manufacture and disposal of all those batteries, which are a huge biohazard?

And the hybrid revolution? Have we all forgotten that in the ’80s and early ’90s, we had more than a few cars getting over 40 miles per gallon and some over 50—all without hybrid electric power plants using all those batteries that we are going to have to dispose of. (The Honda Civic even had an EPA rating of over 50 m.p.g.—and it got it.)

Hybrid cars rely on electricity for manufacture, and whilst they might save oil, they wont be of much use when there’s no electricity.

Real eco transport is using a bicycle or a horse and cart which can also be used for ploughing. When the oil runs out even hybrid cars will sit rotting on the metalpile.

I could go on and on. But why? Is there a better way?

Yes, there is a better way. Go brown!

Come on, fellow greenies. It’s time we changed our colors. You don’t have to spend a lot of green to go brown, and going brown is about as green as you can get.

What is going BROWN?

It’s a hand-built house made of thick earthen or stone walls that never need paint. Why use those new, expensive, NO VOC paints when you don’t have to use any!

How to build a Low Impact Roundhouse An amazing book by one of the early pioneers of brown housing, Tony Wrench

It’s south facing windows with the right amount of overhang to let in the sun in the winter and keep it out in the summer.

It’s a rocket stove or box stove for cooking and heating and water piped from a stream to the makeshift kitchen

It’s living on wood from the forest for building, heating and cooking.  Gathering wood takes up time, but so does working at a sh***y job that you hate in order to buy electricity. Gathering wood provides good honest fresh-air exercise

It’s an outdoor shower in the garden—the plants will love it.

It’s creating your own food forest wherever you can, even on the eaves of the house

It’s a composting toilet—not the plastic ones you buy that hook up to electricity, but the hole in the plank with the straw or sawdust in the bucket nearby so you can turn your poo into fertilizer.

Brown housing is earthen floors, handmade windows, doors and … well, you get the idea.

I just can’t call these things green anymore. No one knows what I mean when I use that word. So I’m going to start calling them brown. Maybe it will catch on, and those of us who love this kind of thing will start referring to it that way.

Now, back to what I have been asking for. I want some examples of brown! Brown houses, brown people—people who have chosen to go brown because they believe in brown living and brown being.

Brown leads wanted by the cheap-ass curmudgeon

I want the real stuff, like Tony Wrench’s Low-impact roundhouse [featured in most of the pics in this postiing]

Now there’s a solar voltaic system I can get behind. They will never have to re-paint this house.

Look at those beautiful, natural, uncut timbers.

Compost Toilet – The compost toilet decomposes the humanure over two years to produce compost for the fruit trees and bushes

See how un-smelly and earthy a compost toilet is

There is no food in the world that will taste better than that which is cooked over an outdoor flame or on a woodstove that also supplies ample heating

If you want more detail on the design and building of this house, please check out ‘Building a Low Impact Roundhouse’ by Tony Wrench, available from Amazon.

How to build  a Low Impact Roundhouse

Look at this gorgeous winter light bottle wall insert

The low-impact roundhouse is a great example of going brown. I need to know about more houses like this one. If you run across any Web sites, have pictures of your own or, better yet, you are living the brown lifestyle, I want to hear from you. E-mail Michael Van Hall cheapasscurmudgeon@gmail.com.

Spread the word—go brown!

Michael Van Hall has been making magic out of dirt and whatever happens to be lying around since 1998. He is the author of The Cheap-Ass Curmudgeon’s Guide to Dirt

© 2010, Sunny Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you don’t pretend it’s yours for commercial purposes