Sustainability Begins At Your Doorstep!

Make positive and lasting change by learning how to design your backyard into an abundant oasis.

This class series is designed to teach you the basics of home-scale self reliance. Each day-long, mini-course introduces the theory behind permaculture, and offers the student hands-on training in various permaculture projects.

February 4, 2012

Extending the Growing Season $45.00
Cold frames, seed starting,
Cleaning-up and preparing for the new season!

March 10, 2012

Details of Miraculous Mushrooms $55.00
Innoculate your own log ($10)
Take it home to grow fresh mushrooms for years to come!

April 7,2012

Animals in the Landcape (chickens, goats, ducks, etc.) $45.00
Learn to make a chicken coop and chicken tractor and
Practical ways of managing various backyard livestock.

North Alabama Permaculture Center
414 Voekel Road (for directions use map quest)
Huntsville, Al. 35811

Contact: Michele Sneed
MicheleSneed@aol.com
256-858-9694

For more information, visit: http://www.thefarmhousehuntsville.com/permaculture.html

by Robert Frost

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily “Hit them hard!”
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn’t blue,
But he wouldn’t advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut’s now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don’t forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You’d think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man’s work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right–agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.

~

The following photographs offer a glimpse of my most recent efforts in furniture building.  On one hand you will see a densely-designed table featuring a reclaimed heart pine top on a finely-painted sugar maple base complete with dovetail and mortice & tenon joinery.  The other piece featured here is a very simple bookshelf built for Alan Booker’s extensive collection.  It is crafted of locally harvested and milled yellow pine and stained to a nice ‘coffee’ shade with water based stain.

Here in the south there exists an infinite array of fences.  To the untrained eye, any two fences may be just the same.  Yet, upon further inspection, the permutations abound.  One trip through a historic neighborhood could produce half as many types of fences as there are houses on the streets, and each one tells a bit of a story about the neighbor to one side or the other.  Since I started paying attention I have noticed some absolutely incredible fences here in my own neighborhood.  Some of them really make me wonder about the predilections held by whomever commissioned their construction. Still others maintain an almost mystical manner as they rise to meet the challenges of upholding the duties of fence-hood.  On the streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans, I was surprised to see razor wire perched atop the eight foot tall wooden pickets.  I also witnessed living fences on Adam Turtle’s farm in Tennessee made of consecutive rows of blackberry brambles and thorny trifoliata oranges, also known as ‘the flying dragon’.  Neither of the previous examples mean to be welcoming and hospitable.  The former attempts to repel the vandals and vagrants of the French Quarter and the latter intends to keep the deer away from the corn, beans, and squash.  Unfortunately, both thankless tasks are becoming increasingly necessary in many places, especially for someone trying to get a decent crop of produce.

The following photographs offer a few glimpses of a fence I completed earlier in the year at the residence of Michele Sneed.  The cedar picket fence with an arbor welcomes guests to the house, while the game fence bordering the three sides facing the fields and forest will deny access to the burgeoning and hungry deer population of the area.  With a few ripe muscadines dangling from arbor out front, hopefully this fence will remain welcoming and hospitable, meanwhile keeping those hungry deer at bay.

Jump on over to the link to see more about the series of three courses being hosted on the Sneed Farm in Huntsville, AL, where I’ve done a lot of my work (more posts pending).  Cliff Davis of Spiral Ridge Permaculture will be leading each of  the following one day courses:

It’s a great value and, hey, where else in North Alabama are you going to find a backyard permaculture workshop?  See you there.

Let me go ahead and say that one need not be completely irrational to travel into Mexico.  Las Cañadas offers a top choice as a destination for an eco-geek like myself in need of a winter R&D trip to a tropical clime.  On many levels, my dreams for Heartwood Homesteads are embodied by their cooperative business.  One look over the list of courses reveals a well-rounded approach to community self-reliance.  The instructors (guests and staff) are well-versed in the likes of renewable energy sources, bio-architecture, bio-intensive gardening, edible forest gardens, healthy cooking, cheese production, animal husbandry… the list goes on.  Another attractive attribute was the semi-tropical location in a cloud forest ecosystem, which is ever so rare upon this increasingly homogenized planet.  The temperature generally rode a mellow diurnal cycle between 50 degrees F and 75-80 F.  Low cloud cover was a constant presence, permeating everything with abundant moisture and biological activity.  When the skies were clear, the vistas were made that much more spectacular by the long absence of the distant mountains, most notably Pico de Orizaba.  The people were generally wonderful and kind, and the local culture refreshingly down to earth.

In spite of all these glowing bulbs on the marquee, I would never have known heads or tails of this amazing place, with its totally spanish website, had it not been for a course I attended on Forest Farming.  During this course Eric Toensmeier, co-author of Edible Forest Gardens, made several references to the remarkably productive systems that Las Cañadas has been able to establish over the last fifteen years.  With Eric’s help, I realized that I had an excellent reason to make my first trip beyond the borders of the US and into the less-frequented mountainous region of Veracuz.

Eric put me in touch with his good friend Ricardo Romero.  Instantly, I was drawn into Ricardo’s story, also the story of Las Cañadas.  Ricardo’s father is the man whose cattle overgrazed the land that comprises the farm today.  Upon inheriting the land from his father, Ricardo’s astute powers of observation began to inform him that careless grazing practices were certainly not improving the family’s land, even though at that point he knew very little about the alternatives.  Ricardo had acquired a degree in agronomics from a well renowned Mexican University; yet, the sterility of the cost-benefit analysis would not suffice.  So, in 2007 when he took a friend’s advice and participated in David Holmgren’s Permaculture Design Course, his perspective, and his farm, were forever changed.

That's Ricardo hopping in a close third behind two volunteers.

With optomistically-protracted collaborative planning and big bold initiatives Ricardo and friends set in motion an evolving process which has proven to be a powerful force in improving the lives of the cooperative members and positively influencing countless others.  Then, of course, there is ‘la tierra.’

Here’s a video of Ricardo giving a very concise description of the operation:

(en español) http://www.bosquedeniebla.com.mx/video/intro.htm

~

Upon crossing over to the other side of ‘La Frontera’, one can’t help but notice that the central gulf coast of Mexico is indeed a vastly different place from Alabama in many indisputable ways.  With that said, Mexican farming traditions face very similar challenges to those faced by our even less deeply-rooted small farms back home.  In my experience, agriculture has tended to exist on a spectrum ranging from integrated small centers of production in harmony with the local ecosystem on one end, to massive-scale monoculture farms that utilize industrially-produced inputs at every opportunity in an effort to dominate mother nature and achieve the highest yields at the lowest cost on the other.  In a global, market-driven economy, it is an immense challenge for any self-promoting, small-scale grower to make a decent living and uphold his or her highest values.  Not only is a compromise of values hard on the farmer, but very often, it turns out to be bad for the land, especially over the long term.  At Las Cañadas, an elegant solution to this dilemma is daily levered into action.  This solution exists not in improved seed varieties or highly-subsidized technical adjustments.  From a modern perspective, Las Cañadas has completely overhauled the mainstream farming experience, essentially returning a farm which was destined to erode away to the ocean with another decade of bad grazing practices to a regenerative village-based agriculture.  Therefore the main thing distinguishing the cooperative I visited from any other rancho in Mexico, or Alabama for that matter, is their fundamental structuring of the farm as a community that looks out for itself first and foremost.

Las Cañadas did not just immaculately begin with all of it’s foundational ducks in a row.  The farm has permitted itself to learn and grow, and it’s open minded, pragmatic approach to developing a robust core of principles and traditions has manifested some incredible outcroppings.  Twenty-two ‘socios’, or members, constitute the Las Cañadas cooperative, which maintains that all positions are ‘socio-trabajadores’ or member-workers as opposed to some being ‘patrones’ (bosses) and some ‘campesinos’ (farmers.)  There are positions within the working group for familiar roles such as office manager, director, and head chef.  There are also people posted to jobs that may seem anachronistic or even completely unheard of to some of us here in the global north, such as the man who maintains the roads and trails with a machete and a hooked stick, the milpa farmer who often employs oxen to manipulate the soil, or the young fellow in charge of maintaining the forest garden – often found doling out the prescribed amount of fermented urine or humanure to a macadamia tree or a citrus.  Even with such widely varied responsibilities they all earn their pesos from the funds generated by the courses they offer and with a set ratio (3:1 I believe) of least paid position to most not to be exceeded.  Within their system, most people do not do work directly associated with the bi-monthly courses.  The work of the cooperative is in providing for the needs of their community.  They produce a large percentage of their own food from a plethora of sources cultivated across the grounds, including two large ‘milpa’ fields which provide all of their maize (corn) and frijoles (beans), the foundation of the traditional mexican diet.  They generously distribute firewood and building wood amongst the associates.  Each member also receives daily milk jug refills and a weekly artisan cheese score.  The list of the land’s provisions do not stop there, as human resourcefulness is allowed to flourish and manifest delicious foods from the most unlikely places.

a capacious hand-made oven

In addition to the copious produce, the eco-technologies fund is a collective fund that pays for each member to add one important technology to their own home each year, five or six different technologies are currently available: including water catchment, rocket stoves for showers or for cooking, composting toilets, and biointensive raised beds.  The ‘eco-tech’ fund is another ingenious manner of dispersing both the ideas and the nuts and bolts of self-sufficient living.

Uncommon forces shape the very local economy of Las Cañadas.  Soil depletion concerns at Las Cañadas are amongst the factors that have led the economic engine away from marketing their produce to the general public.  Since the socios eat the food they raise and generally use the composting toilets strategically placed around the acreage, the soil is taxed and exported far less and food expenditures are kept at a level that would appear quite parsimonious to the majority of the global north.  Also, the desire to focus on improving their productivity as farmers made it necessary to divert their attention from operating solely as an ecotourism site.  The cooperative members now enjoy nearly all their produce to feed themselves and utilize their ecotourism cabañas to house volunteers, like myself, who work to improve the core functions of the cooperative.  The focus on offering courses (about two per month) allows for the rest of their time to be put into managing the farm and all it’s many facets.  The associates do not have to convene for a strategic meeting every week; they tend to abide by a very established set of roles and responsibilities suited to their individual strengths.  Only minor adjustments to the routine are necessary to keep the heart of Las Cañadas pumping strong.  During the high seas of the rainy season, the socios pull together and keep a tight ship.  During the most blustery days of the winter, there is still an impressive lot of produce to share.  Including all the elderly and children of the 22 workers in the cooperative, there are around 77 people dependent upon the yields of this growing cooperative.  It is amazing how much they are able to accomplish together, meanwhile maintaining the roles of the community in a tranquil and tropical sort of way.  I found it especially encouraging the amount of gifting that went on amongst the old and new friends of the community.  Las Cañadas has indeed achieved a certain sort of wealth that has become unfamiliar to many of us here in ‘gringolandia.’    

Casa de Karla's share of the eco-tech program.

To make it as a well recognized educational farm, the cooperative at Las Cañadas must earnestly maintain some very important differences in comparison with the other farms in their region.  Characteristic of these bootstrapping campesinos is the way they carefully deliver precise doses of trace micronutrients to soils in need of, let’s say, cobalt or iron instead of applying massive amounts of broad spectrum, soil-sterilizing ‘fertilizers.’  They also keep very accurate logs on the volume of urine being distributed to the trees making up the forest garden.  Their food systems are not left up to chance and it shows in their abundant yields.  The culture of close observation and constant improvement is alive and well.  Some research is done on the farm by volunteers arriving from nearby universities, however, a lion’s share of R&D is done regularly by Ricardo Romero and a few other core members of the staff.  An incredible gardener with two long revolutionary braids named Karla Arroyo is constantly improving the seed bank, which includes the gardener’s choice of varieties well suited to the region.  So, the farm has it’s own seed collection and continues to improve the varieties they like the best and to disseminate those seeds liberally amongst their neighbors.  The production of the incredible edible egg is also constantly being improved upon by Ricardo’s wife, Tanya; as is the canon of wholesomely delicious recipes rendered up by the ‘artistas’ on the kitchen staff.

In solidarity,  Las Cañadas prominently posts the fundamental assumptions that provide bearing for all of their major ‘community-scale’ decisions.  They are as follows:

Needless to say, the volunteering adventure at Las Cañadas is a good one.  I often found myself working extra diligently due to a sense that I needed to maintain some parity of exchange with the farm’s kitchens.  Upon arriving, my attention was quickly invited in on several projects and I was allowed to apply my energy wherever I best saw fit.  The first design problem that I latched onto  involved creating a new timber framed structure to support a circular, spanish tile roof with a cupola over the round meeting space toward the end of the forest garden.  This proved to be a worthy challenge for my scale ruler and I.  After several inadequate iterations of various forms and frames, and several consultations with framing savvy friends back home, we settled on a beautifully trussed up design based on an epic ski lodge in Vermont.  My hope is to someday make the return trip to execute these designs.

Another major project I had the pleasure of making my own was to create the model wall design for the new office space being added onto the roof of the existing office.  I designed a large window to provide ample day lighting for the room, then built the frame from walnut cut from the farm and had a local craftsman cut the glass to fit.  Another volunteer and I suspended the window in it’s place in the wall cavity so that it may then be infilled around with the local variety of what I call waddle and daub.

That's my 1st Walnut Framed Window in an Earthen Wall

Once the women of the kitchen discovered that I had some fairly decent carpentry skills, they promptly put me to work building walnut bar stools to ease the strain that delicious hand-made tortillas put on their backs.  So, my first true experience with building all wood, mortice and tenon furniture came in a very unlikely little workshop in Veracruz.

All the while, to add to these fascinating projects, there were fiestas and weddings to attend, miles of trails through the cloud forest to hike, and some serious culinary adventuring to make happen.  I was also able to attend an incredible, week-long course titled ‘Agroecologia y Cultivos Biointensivos’ (Agroecology and Biointensive Gardening).  I took twenty pages of notes during the week long course on agroecology and all in Spanish: a testament to how rapidly one can learn a new language when immersed in a super stimulating and familiar field of work.  I barely knew how to tell the taxi driver where I needed to go when I arrived in Huatusco.  In case you are still wondering, to volunteer for Las Cañadas is a truly illuminating experience.  As an interesting side note, Samuel, another college-age volunteer, recounted a tale of being involved in a potentially fatal car accident that he survived because an avocado tree cradled the impact of his vehicle.  This salvation by avocado tree experience transformed his life’s direction such that he is now pursuing a degree in sustainable agriculture engineering.

On the final day of the agroecology course.  All the mental super-saturation was followed by a traditional meso-American Temazcal.  It was my profound privilege to experience two temazcals while at Las Cañadas.  Due to the steep learning curve, the first one was mostly sentiment and heat; whereas the second one was a breakthrough into my new language, complete with synaesthetic imagery and keen insights.  The temazcal offers a truly deep drink of traditional meso-American culture – una bebida muy profundo.

~

During my stay at Las Cañadas the absolute necessity of good design really set in on me.  As with many upstart, “ecotopia”, sort of places, many of the early stages of the infrastructure had been built prior to gaining the full recognition of design considerations for the site.  On the other hand, the water delivery systems, the food production systems, and many of the later-model systems that are being implemented at Las Cañadas ring with the song of ingenious simplicity.  I saw clearly and wholly that fully embracing and employing the design process early and often will save a lot of subsequent headaches and pay considerable dividends.  This applies all the way from toilet bowl design (separating pee pee from poo poo) to carefully adjusting the dynamics of interconnected economic centers.    Las Cañadas gives cause to hang a big ole question mark on a whole litany of givens I’ve assumed to be best practice over the years.

The little cooperative business striving toward wholesome community exists as living proof to the profound role that a leader with a noble vision can play in creating an incredibly beautiful place.   Through persistent advocacy and guidance Ricardo and the administrative team deftly encourage the local culture to give life to the cooperative’s business structure.  In my humble opinion, it works miraculously well.  I, for one, could not help but feel inspired and all the more grateful to have set out in pursuit of the more inclusive, albeit messy at times, permaculture field instead of getting too entrenched in a strictly academic agroforestry path as I had once planned.

Back on the smooth-paved streets of North Alabama, we pass a particularly discouraging novelty shop sign and an unbelievably long line at the MacDonald’s drive through, a friend of mine shakes his head and says, “The dharma is decreasing…”  I reckon Las Cañadas is one of those noteworthy places where one could honestly say that the dharma is palpably increasing.

Our workshop for this job also turned out to be a point of interest.  We rented out a small space in the warehouse used by KMAC Greenworks.  KMAC is a fairly large business involved in Birmingham’s efforts at recycling useful materials.  The Greenworks facility we worked in happened to be the shop devoted to the recycling of various building materials, primarily wood, from across the southeast.  One of their main products is re-sawn heart pine timber salvaged from the framing of various old mills and large industrial buildings.  The antique wood that moves through that warehouse is a rare and valuable resource and a enduring remnant of an epoch of abundant, climax longleaf pine forests in the southeastern US.  It is almost impossible to find pine lumber today with the desirable characteristics of these ancient specimens, and yet, without folks like the guys at KMAC Greenworks, many of these timbers would simply disintegrate in the mouldering old buildings where they now rest.  KMAC has a very large warehouse on the north side of Birmingham where a massive amount of salvaged wood lays in wait to be appropriated for the revolution.  They were kind enough to rent us a space with high ceilings and fairly level floors where we could do our work.  Thanks KMAC Greenworks!  We will definitely be hearing more from them in the bright green future.

More pictures of the raising and the finished product still to come!

by Gary Snyder

One afternoon the last week in April

Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet

One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.

He recalls the hatchet-head

Without a handle, in the shop

And goes gets it, and wants it for his own.

A broken-off axe handle behind the door

Is long enough for a hatchet,

We cut it to length and take it

With the hatchet head

And working hatchet, to the wood block.

There I begin to shape the old handle

With the hatchet, and the phrase

First learned from Ezra Pound

Rings in my ears!

“When making an axe handle

the pattern is not far off.”

And I say this to Kai

“Look: we’ll shape the handle

By checking the handle

Of the axe we cut with-”

And he sees.  And I hear it again:

It’s in Lu Ji’s We Fu, fourth century

A.D. “Essay on Literature”

In the preface:

“In making the handle

of an axe

By cutting wood with an axe

The model is indeed near at hand.”

My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen

Translated that and taught it years ago

And I see:  Pound was and axe,

Chen was an axe, I am an axe

And my son a handle, soon

To be shaping again, model

And tool, craft of culture,

How we go on.

Poetry is not only for the aristocracy.  Well, if it is, then they have to include people like me.

Please pardon the low-fi cell phone pictures. (I’ll post more when I get them.)

This cob oven has lived under a tarp for more than two years, only being exposed for special pizza cooking events (usually held monthly on art night – 1st Thursdays).  The oven makes its home in Kentuck Art Park in Northport, AL, just north across the Black Warrior River from Tuscaloosa, AL.  Jeremy Crosby, Joseph Wright, myself, and a few other volunteers set out building this addition to the art park scene as a volunteer project in 2007.  After a series of unfortunate interruptions (to put it lightly)… a roof was finally erected over the oven just last week, just in time for another doosie of a gullywasher.

Cob ovens are an excellent way to enjoy cooking in the outdoors.  It takes a few hours with a fire in the belly of the oven for an optimal pizza cooking temperature to be reached.  After raking out the coals, a cooking temp can be maintained for an ample cooking session, and hot coals can always be repositioned to bring the heat back up to par.  The results are incredible and the experience of cooking something so delicious in something you built with your own two hands has no comparison.  For more on this consult Kiko Denzer’s book:

Build Your Own Earth Oven

257 photographs — 13 minutes worth of slideshow!

When does a building actually become a built?

–Le Corbusier

On September 29th, the Juniper House passed its final inspection and received a real-life certificate of occupancy.  Justin Cook said it was the end of an era, and he is right.  The construction of that house became an all-pervading force in the lives of many people involved, myself thoroughly included.  Yet, like any house worth it’s terra firma, it is by no means finished.

After nearly two years of building work at the Ingram residence, I finally have something I can walk away from with my head held high.  Not only is there an astonishingly gorgeous house on that hillside, but there is a high density of newfound knowledge per square foot.  More friends than I can count on my fingers and toes have worked on that house and at times it felt more like a continuous party than a construction site.  There were also long periods of meditative work done alone with only the roaring sounds of the forest to accompany me.  Through it all, I have discovered just how dangerously intimate a builder can become with every little detail of the home he builds.  Like when you’re twenty feet up on a ladder cutting off the top of a post with a chainsaw or attempting to plaster in an acute corner behind a round post and a round beam.  These sort of details are the same ones that add both beautiful craftsmanship and higher cost to a design.  The Juniper house turned out to be full of tedious yet handsome touches.  From the custom coped tile and wood paneling against the contours of the round timbers to the plastered inside curves of the little niches speckled around the house.  The house also has a radiant heated floor and an incredibly small air conditioner that is disguised as an art deco piece hanging on the wall.  It will only be a matter of time before the landscaping outside has taken root and the house truly begins to become a living, breathing, harmonious part of the landscape.

If there were any lessons that need to be shared with potential strawbale/natural builders of the future, I will attempt to put it into a nutshell.  First thing, if one wishes to construct a natural house and keep the costs low, there are many things to know, such as: 1)design for expeditious construction with sparingly and functionally placed embellishment 2) find as many places in the construction process where you yourself can replace labor costs with your own sweat 3) recognize specifics where paying for quality components up front will save you money in the long run, and 4) recruit as many volunteers for the labor intensive aspects as you can muster. Another important take home lesson is not to be too hesitant to get a second opinion on important building decisions.  Let’s say something about your architectural rendering looks questionable, don’t just assume that an architect is omnipotent because he/she is an architect, find someone with a vast amount of experience pertaining to that detail and wring all the knowledge you can get out of them.  Make notes.  These small decisions add up to big expenses and a house that you want to last many generations.  Also, make yourself darn good and certain that you have a very robust design in your hands when it comes to important interface details, such as window and door flashing, plumbing and electric access, and any places where two different materials come together.  In my opinion, building an additional small detached room to house your mechanical components in is not a bad idea, both for your own health and well-being, and the feng-shui of the house.   Oh, and here’s another big one:  be assiduously critical of the base coat of a plastered wall.  The base coat is where the most important things must happen, such as building up the strength and stability for a plaster that lasts, making absolutely sure that there are no penetration routes for critters, and creating an easily plaster-able surface for the finish coat.  The difference in putting a finish plaster over a wonky, uneven base coat and a well-floated, flat surface can mean many days of extra trouble.  It is best to be critical from the beginning and enjoy it later.  All things considered, this blog is not the place to learn flashing details and plastering techniques, so before I get too carried away, let’s wrap this up.

As an effort to replace stupid pride with wholesome gratitude, I have a lot of people I want to thank for making this experience possible…  First and foremost, Daniel and Carol Ingram have been the most amazing people that anyone could hope to build for, what with their unending hospitality and generosity, their actual living wages, and their willingness to push on the accepted boundaries of the Madison County culture.  Carol, enjoy painting the walls and making that place shine with charm, and Daniel, don’t forget what Joel Salatin said about living out in the country, “You can be a nudist, and you can be a buddhist, but you can’t be a nudist buddhist!”  I salute you Doc.  All of the apprentices from the ecovillage training center who came to the site and put in their sweat, their time in the kitchen, and camped out in the yard: many hands made a delight of work.  To Carl, Dan, Cliff, Nathan, and Ron, and my cousin Colton who toughed out the cold cold winter chill when we were bustin’ our humps to get that roof up, three cheers.    To Pete, Byron, and Cody for staying on board long enough to make a very significant dent in the work load… Great big thank you… to Justin, John, and Jeremy for bringing in the gusto and getting the heavy lifting done when it was needed most.  And of course, Josh and Neil, the carpentry wizards and all around jacks of all trades, keep up the good work.  Scott, Dawn, Lisa, Darien, Katey, Eric, Krista, Ellie and Ellie’s dad, Kurt, Peewee… and so many others too numerous to name, thank you folks, it was a wild ride and I wouldn’t have had near as much fun doin’ it without you.  I would also like to thank the enchanted forest for providing so much for us, the sunset for being so dependable, the inspectors that proved more flexible than we expected, and most certainly, all of the musicians who unknowingly provided our soundtrack for countless hours of repetitive tasks.

I believe it was Goethe that said it truly with his quote, “Architecture is “frozen music”… Really there is something in this; the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.”  And with that I will say that as with many good buildings, you can’t just take my word for it, you must zoom out to New Market, Alabama and listen to this building ring.