I am assembling this blog in order to chronicle my experiment in creating a small business that seems to me a bit unorthodox and yet draws upon deep rooted traditions. If I’ve handed you one of my business cards, you may have wondered, just what is ‘permaculture’ or maybe, what is it that makes building more or less ‘natural?’  Well, these are the sort of philosophical questions that provide the reason d’etre, driving me to explore the actual practical, applicable, regionally appropriate things that I can implement to help answer these profound questions. My contributing experience thus far has been primarily directed towards the fields of agroforestry (forest gardening) and natural building (building biology). I’ve gained my experience through hands-on work and through digesting many volumes of literature. I’ve worked in landscaping, on a tree farm, and at an arboretum. I’ve also apprenticed as a timber framer, built an astounding straw bale home in the Appalachian foothills, and served as the natural building coordinator for two seasons at the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm, where I had apprentices of my own.   At this point, I’ve got a kindly amount of experience to draw from and a voracious appetite for expanding my field of expertise significantly with each passing season. So, while I trudge through the often cumbersome initial stages of the entrepreneurial experience, I plan on posting as many photos and blurbs as I can for the benefit of family, friends, potential clients, myself and for anyone else who may find this to be a path worth exploring. Coming into my third year of this endeavor, some serious surface scratching has gone on.  I have learned a staggering amount about the often nomadic business of building and have gained perspective which is helping provide direction in the process of envisioning just what the future may hold for the continued efforts of Heartwood Homesteads.

“Natural Building is any building system which places the highest value on social and environmental sustainability. It assumes the need to minimize the environmental impact of our housing and other supporting systems while providing healthy, beautiful, comfortable and spiritually uplifting homes for everyone.”