The Time is Coming to an End

October 2010

Eight wonderful months have passed and the first signs our little adventure were coming to an end when our first intern decided to part. Cuatro, our resident natural builder, found a job in Taos New Mexico working for a natural building company and he decided he needed to leave the internship early. We bid him a farewell knowing our turn was coming soon.

Roby and I have found our next stomping grounds for the year 2011, Bolinas California. A cool beach town about 15 miles west of San Francisco off Highway 1. We are going to be the resident Farm Managers at the Regenerative Design Institute. It is a famous permaculture center and run by internationally known permaculture experts. We are excited and looking forward to another year of learning. Our next adventure begins November 15th so stayed tuned.

We will be closer to the City so all must come to visit!!!

West Coast Green

September 2010

As if we had not killed ourselves enough preparing for Solfest, (see Tiny House Blog for event description) the masochists that we are, we volunteered ourselves to help Massey and the "Super Natural Builders" install an exhibit at the West Coast Green Event in San Francisco. This meant after working for 12 hours for 8 days straight we would wake up the next morning bright and early and drive 2 hours to then engage in physical labor for another two days of 12 hours. Oh yeah it was fun!

We helped put together an exhibit demonstrating all the different facets of natural building-bamboo, cobb walls, natural plaster finishes, green roof, and an edible urban garden. Several thousand architects and professional green builders were going to see our work.

Roby and I stayed at my sister Ami's house and I think we scared her when we showed up the first night with mud from head to toe. She walked me right to the shower. Which I do have to say is a sweet shower!

10 days of non-stop work finally came to an end so we decided to relax with a 14 hour drive down to Phoenix!

Crushing Grapes

September 2010

The SLI's permaculture site is flush with food in every nook and cranny. Fall is "harvest" time in Mendo. Our site has several varieties of grape and we had a small window of time to pick them for perfect sweetness. With hectic schedules we all cleared our calendars and spent two days gathering as many grapes as we could to take to the old-fashioned press. We headed to Gini's house and each took turns crushing and pressing until we had 20 gallons of fresh grape juice. What a sugar rush! Mott's you can't compete.