Year Endings and Keepings On...

Another wonderful sub-tropical month for us, with lots of rain and goings-on. The Internship finished up and we all learned so much from the great experience of coming together to do some gardening, mud-hutting, and sustainable sharing. We are all due a brief break, one for reflection and a re-gathering of energies.

How about the cottage...

Creative hands plastered and sculpted the outside of the cottage.
The roof... this is a view of the framed building and roof, so that you can get an idea of its luscous site.
The roofing material is recycled from tetra-briks and plastic soda bottles. This is a close up.

We used 3 different Earthen building techniques for the cottage. The foundation wall is Earth-bagged around a post-and-beam framing. Then we filled in wires and wood with "Chorizos" or wattle-and-cob sausages.
The south wall is adobe bricked with mud mortar, the third technique.

The bricks were then plastered over with our mud mix, and fancied up with bottles and a niche.
An inside view of the car windows and bottles with the first layer of plaster.
The outside view after a few days of drying.

The cottage is absolutely lovely. Not finished, due to loads of rain, but super close. Our project for January? You guessed it... Plaster and painting.And let's not forget the garden... an onion flower just about to put out seed.

Whoa, zapallitos! These little squash delights are growing happily in the Intern's keystone garden.
And the yoga platform was put to good use with our morning yoga sessions and meditations.And just what did we do with all that wine we made? One guess.... (The favorite was the dandelion delight, the yellow one in the middle!)


Amanita sends her love from the new (larger!) earthen refrigerator.