Well it has officially been one full week, only 5 more to go :(. In class this past week we got a further overview on the overall structure of a natural home, mostly consisting different variations of strawbale, clay, sand, timber, and cellulose. We went on a field trip to see a bunch of projects that other classes have worked on and looked at the different designs and things that could maybe have been done better. This is was great to see final presentations of what is going to be practiced. To see natural homes is so much more artistic than most common homes; you can really see the effort, care, and artistic flavor behind each structure. Another day we also were taught the basics of drafting. We first worked on chosen images, I drew my harmonica, which turned out real well. Then we drew cross sections of the mock tiny house that we are going to be playing with this coming week. We'll be applying different insulation strategies to different parts of the walls. Then we started thinking about what our final practicum will be. It's basically a final project where we work on either designs, research, or whatever we find interesting, related, and useful. I thought about either going further on my own home designs or what would be fun- a project that incorporates sort've camouflage with homes so that homes are incorporated with the land around them and don't stick out like a soar thumb. Which I've been possibly double teaming with various natural dyes like walnut and such to put in paints to make cool natural colors that don't have the toxic chemicals of synthetic paint which contains very harmful VOC's and such which stay in our wall systems. I just don't know how to present it in a practical way right now. So if anyone has any further ideas, suggestions, input please lemme know.
Well i definitely finally feel more at home now here, which is great and more connected to the land and people; but, a bunch of friends who I had made the past week all left because there class was done. So that kinda sucks, but there still are the interns here who I've become closer with and the people in my class. Alot of new people came here today though for the home design/build course and they will be here for 2 weeks so that'll be fun. Oh and friday I participated in my first jam session. Everyone was in the kitchen playin guitar, bass, ukulele, singing, so I broke out the harmonica. It was an awesome night of drinking, playin music, and having a great time. And my friend, Nahuel is giving me a lot of pointers on the harmonica which is awesome.
I finally went and checked out the swimming hole right across the street from campus, called the punch bowl. It is private land, and the owner has made it a free camp area where anybody can stop camp and swim. Not only that though it is a nudist swimming hole, so a lot of people are naked there, but everyone is accepted. I went by myself and laid out on a rock reading and realized I was the only one not naked, so well lets just say I immersed myself in the culture. Which was weird at first but you get used to and it is normal for everyone there so it's disturbing and refreshing all at the same time hahah. Will I ever again, who knows, but it was worth the experience.
Anyways...so a huge old school bus came rolling into yestermorrow the other day and it was a tricked out school bus that is now a mobile farm. 4 kids slightly older than I am renovated this bus into a small living quarters with a farm system in the back 1/3 of the bus and even on top. It is totally awesome and innovative. And they are travelling around the entire U.S. doing different community farm projects in just about every state. Really awesome people.
I also forgot to mention the fact that a couple nights ago when i was hurrying back to my tent because it was late, cold, and dark I kicked a stump in the middle of the path and broke my left ring finger toe. Which makes it very inconvenient to walk everywhere and now i can't really go meandering through the woods finding cool waterfalls and such. I also can't workout obviously so it is one big nuisance. It is funny though that it became the big talk on campus and that is how I got known by everyone, the kid who broke his toe. But it is nice that everyone asks about it and get ice packs from people and such. I also learned the plant, Comfrey "boneknit" which has incredible healing properties of increasing cell reproduction. So Peter, who happens to be from australia, cool, made me a poultice and now i'm on the slow amend.
Yeah so that is the update, pumped for the upcoming week.
Thank Ya'll.
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