why rising earth?

The title of this blog draws from my time as an apprentice at the Cob Cottage Company in costal Oregon. If you spend time with natural building folk, you'll eventually find yourself around a fire, sing silly songs about cob and natural building. Folks usually refer to these oftentimes improvised tunes as "cobsongs". I often sang..."There is a house in old coquille, they call the rising earth, it's been the work of many hands, and you know what that's worth..."

Monday, June 25, 2012

Root Cellar


We framed the roof of the root cellar today, and had an outstanding day building. The roof is made of oak and pine we bought from a beautiful country sawmill near Jordan Lake, NC.

The heavy frame will be supporting a 12" thick green roof that will be continous with the ground, it should turn out to be a charming little building and our best green roof yet!

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Catskill Strawbale Workshop

Today I'm doing final preparation for our one-week cob building workshop in Durham. It starts tonight with a campfire at 6pm!

I'm happy to announce that I'm teaching another workshop this summer, a three day weekender focusing on strawbale construction. Hosted by my good old friend Paul Voightland on his beautiful land in Summit, NY, it's sure to be a fun and enriching weekend.

From August 10-12 we'll be doing strawbale infill, earth and lime plaster, and some carpentry/general building stuff on a cabin in the woods. On site camping and all meals are provided. Get in touch with Mike at mpmcdono@yahoo.com or (502) 381 5004 for more info and registration.

The Planet Roo Arbor

I'm just starting to go through photos from the build at Bonnaroo this year. We did a lot of great work and there will be plenty to post as I have the time.

Here are three shots of the arbor pyramid going up. The poles are great big sticks of tropical bamboo that we found in a barn going unused this year. The purlins and "thatch" are locally harvested Tennessee 'Roo 'boo.