Earth home tour

Earth homes demonstrate a way to live in more harmony with the planet. Let's take a look at one:

Some of you that know me on a personal level know that I recently* went to Wisconsin for a week. My good friend and former Green Drinks partner, Laura, moved back to her home state about six months ago*.

sunlight shows through a banana leaf
in the solarium of
Ann and Wayne's home.

Awhile ago, we had been discussing her aunt and uncle and the fact that they had built an Earth Home. I've been fascinated with Earth Homes at least since I was in college. I don't remember how I first heard about them, but I do remember this crazy hippy book where someone had basically built themselves a shelter out of whatever they could find in the woods. I've read a ton about them since then but had never actually been inside one. I casually mentioned to Laura that I'd love to see their place if it wasn't too far. It was luckily only about 1/2 an hour from where we were and her Aunt (Ann) and Uncle (Wayne) were gracious enough to let us wander around and take photos of their home.

I took lots of photos, but a few came out blurry and I also somehow neglected to take a photo of what the whole house looks like from outside. (How could I have missed such an important shot? Well, my only defense is that I was so excited about touring my first Earth home, I just plain forgot!) Originally, I was going to post a bunch of shots in this post, but I think it makes more sense to just link you to the web album and let you enjoy the photos at your own pace.

I want to say a very special Thank You to Ann and Wayne. They are such sweet and gracious people. This was one of the highlights of my trip!

Enjoy the tour! If you want a full travelog of our trip, scroll to the very end*.


*Sometimes I suck as a writer. I get an idea in my head of how I want a post to go and then the post ultimately suffers for it, because it never gets published. (Perfectionism, much?) I'm sure this is true of all writers, but I sincerely wish it hadn't happened to this post. I wrote this post I think almost a year ago (sheesh!!!) and am finally posting it today... I had wanted to get it "just right" but ended up just never posting it, period. Shame on me. At least you can now enjoy the photos. Also, the travelog was something I had intended to post as well, but that got dropped half way through the trip (was having too much fun) and it has a bunch of missing data. Anyway, I had a great time in WI-Laura went way out of her way to pack a ton of fun into my trip and I'm happy to say I get to go back at the end of this month to see her again.

Reused items in yard art

Here's a submission from a friend.

Curt made his mom these yard art pieces. 

The materials used: 

Rebar - Purchased

Wire - Found on side of the road

Hub cap - 75' Land Cruiser

Fan blade - '70 Land Cruiser

Amazing what you can do with some reused materials and a little ingenuity!

Artist Profile #2: Half Moon Farms

Artist: Brenda Lee Calvert 
HalfMoon Farm 
Brush Prairie, WA 

Beekeeper & Artist:  
I am a self-taught artist working out of my studio at my flower and produce farm (HalfMoon Farm) in Brush Prairie. 

My work encompasses many recycled materials; glass, metal, clay, wood, and plastics. Working with such diverse materials lets my creativity and imagination soar. Several different lines of artwork have come from this mixed media including functional, garden and decor. My use of texture along with great attention to color and basic shapes add to the design element of my art.
 
Beekeeping:  I and my husband Bob took up beekeeping around 7 years ago and just love it because it fits into our misson for our farm. We grow a lot of heirloom vegetables, herbs and fresh cut flowers. We also run pasture chickens for fresh eggs. We have 15 Bee hives this year and hope to eventually keep 25-30.  All of our honey is sold in glass containers for better recycling and our honey is Raw. (not pasteurized)  Our goal is to be good stewards of our farm and respect it by using organic practices. 

And now, for some good news

The other day, I was on my soapbox about waste and the damage we're all doing to our beloved planet and I felt kinda bad for regaling my audience of one with all the doom and gloom. So, I later sent her a couple pieces of good news to try to make up for it.  This was one of them.

What a cool program!

Potting benches made from reclaimed materials

My friend Alex (I've mentioned him before) made* these totally awesome potting benches at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. If you are in this area, I highly recommend taking a trip down to the ReStore to check out all the fantastic items they have down there. I'm always amazed by all the new stuff and how quickly items change over there.

* A little birdy told me they might start offering classes soon!

The Reuser's Garden Pt. 1

I've been working on a planter garden for a little over 2 years now. What that really means is that a little over 2 years ago, my brother helped me pick up some planters and it's taken me since then to actually get them drilled, placed, filled and planted. I had always meant to post about them, so here's Part 1.

Planters await the drilling of drainage holes

Ever since Dear BF sent me some information about square foot gardening, I've been intrigued by it. I also really wanted to reuse something for garden planters. My first thought (that I still think might work) was to reuse large pipes/tubes of some kind (culverts?) and cut them in half and set them up somehow so they'd make a half-pipe sort of garden. I was talking about this project with a County Solid Waste employee and he mentioned that there were some "concrete forms" on 2good2toss. I went over there and checked it out. What I saw was even better than what I had imagined.

Those suckers are water-tight! (Before drilling the holes, the boxes all filled with water and were too heavy to lift. Here, I am bailing water out of them.)

These concrete forms (which my brother thinks might have been used to top large concrete pillars) are about 4' square and 3' deep. They're made from fiberglass (which I asked the Master Gardeners about and they didn't seem to think I'd have any problems with chemicals leaching into our food.) Best of all, I would be reusing something that probably eventually would have become landfill and they were FREE! All I had to do was go pick them up. I enlisted the help of my oldest brother and his work truck and after a somewhat-scary trip out to Washougal and back, I had my planters.

"Whacha doin' mom?" Our male dog watches curiously as I remove
some plywood spacers and nails from the concrete forms.

Then, he decides that he'll come "help." Here, you can see him peeking from behind me.

I knew I'd need good drainage (it rains a LOT here) so I started to drill holes. Even the largest drill bit we had wasn't making much of a hole through the three layers of fiberglass and plywood, so I eventually had to buy a special drill bit to make sizable holes.

Cooling down my weapon of choice-notice the nice drainage holes in the planter behind me?

The drilling of the holes took me about 5 weekends to complete. (each hole took about 45 seconds to drill completely.) After the holes were drilled, the planters sat for about a year and half. I slowly picked up things along the way that I wanted-some large cardboard here (for killing weeds around the planters) some block foam there (for filling the bottom half of the planters) but mostly, I just ignored the project. (I've mentioned before that I'm notorious for starting but never finishing projects...)

Here, I've finished one side of drainage holes and am flipping the box to work on the next side.
These could be lifted with two people, but if you're moving them by yourself,
the easiest way was to roll them over on their sides.

A close-up of the drainage holes

Dear BF was patient, but eventually he wanted me to poop or get off the pot, as the saying goes...

Read Part 2.