New Light

Harish and Uma planting beets in the green house

The Energy of spring is beginning to infuse the land and all its inhabitants with fresh new life.  Each day the light is brighter and there is more and more activity.  We had a sweet visit from our friends Harish and Uma last Saturday.  They love natural living and green building and help to keep me updated on new green technologies.  They are going to take what they have learned about Earth-bag building from last summers workshops and travel home to India where they will build the first circular Earth-bag home in their city!  Harish has been working on his own simple design for a small family dwelling.  I really like to highlight them because it's a perfect example of the creativity and self sufficiency natural building inspires.  You CAN build your own home!  The dome's form seems to inspire us all to live in more beautiful and creative homes.  It's a joy to share our natural home with so many other people who have a common vision.

Vicente, Marcella, Herman & Logan

I have been working for a sweet local family using earth bags to terrace some steeply sloping land into permanent garden beds.  It's another neat way to utilize this simple and strong building technique.  The small crew of three people was just enough to keep the work flowing and our spirits high, but when we added two more folks we were flying.  Within our crew of five people, three of us were from Mexico and two hardly spoke english.  But the language barrier was no trouble at all!  With hands on work you simply show the process and clarify with hand gestures.


It took only half a day before the basic process was completely understood and we worked like a team.  This experience was very inspiring, like we could take these skills and teach anywhere in the world!  I hope this summer we get some more interns from around the globe.