This is a four-story coffee drying plant built in the late 1800s on the banks of the Guacaica River in Caldas, Colombia. The entire building is framed with bamboo, structurally remarkable for the size of the building and the heavy tile roof. From the book Tropical Bamboo by Marcello Villegas; One of the best books ever on bamboo. All the buildings, furniture, and other bamboo objects in the book are in Colombia.
We’re going to start doing short videos of things from The Half-Acre Homestead.
Note: We offer a 30% discount on 2 or more books, with free shipping in the USA.
Yesterday I read in the paper that sales of children’s books are booming, due to schools being closed. This brought to mind our one and only children’s book, Wonderful Houses Around the World, by photographer Yoshio Komatsu and artist Akira Nishiyama.
There are 10 photographs by Yoshio of homes in different parts of the world. All the homes are built of natural materials — earth, wood, thatch, sod, bamboo, and stone.
Each photo is followed by a watercolor drawing of the inside of that home, showing the children and their parents going about their everyday activities: food gathering and processing, cooking, sleeping, working and playing.
The book is timely in this day and age: it shows what people do in their homes. Timely also because it’s great educational material for kids being home-schooled: look at what what kids your age are doing in other parts of the planet.
Yoshio is my favorite photographer of homes in the world. Not only are the homes invariably soulful, but his composition and lighting are perfect — and he has a knack for making people feel comfortable, so that the homeowners look natural, often laughing.
The book is $12.95 and you can order it through your independent bookstore, or from:
Note: We have a money-back guarantee on all of our books (no matter where you buy them). If for any reason you are dissatisfied, call us and we’ll return the full purchase price plus shipping. No need to return the book.
Practice Architecture’s house is built from the plant growing in the fields around it.
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Flat House, as the home on Margent Farm is called, is the conversion of a steel-framed agricultural shed, within which a new structure has been made of prefabricated timber-framed cassettes that were filled with a mulch of hemp, lime and water known as hempcrete. Once the mulch was dry they were erected into thick, highly insulating walls that also hold the building up. The exterior is covered in corrugated panels, which at first glance looks like the cement cladding typical of farm sheds. It is actually made of fibres from the outer coating of hemp stalks combined with resin taken from agricultural waste. It has a livelier texture and a more translucent quality than cement.
From Maui Surfer
This is a restored “blackhouse” on the Isle of Eigg, off the west coast of Scotland, where we spent a week in May, 2016. Some time in the future, if I can get time off, we plan to go to Scotland and visit several of the islands. The Scots are the nicest, most friendly people I’ve encountered anywhere in the world.
Blackhouses were the dwellings of “crofters” or farmers on Scottish Islands, in the Highlands, and Ireland.
From Wikipedia: “(They) … were generally built with double-wall dry-stone walls packed with earth, and were roofed with wooden rafters covered with a thatch of turf with cereal straw or reed. The floor was generally flagstones or packed earth and there was a central hearth for the fire. There was no chimney for the smoke to escape through. Instead the smoke made its way through the roof. This led to the soot blackening of the interior which may also have contributed to the adoption of name blackhouse.…”
This is a great book. I found it so fascinating, I read it cover-to-cover. I’ve known growers for years, but never realized the full extent of what it takes (took) to grow out in the woods. It’s not only a book about farming, but about gardening, wildlife, plants and trees, and about treating the earth with respect.
Also, the drawings are great (see link below). Andrew told me it was about a year in creation.
Up until now, guerrilla growers in Mendocino and Humboldt counties produced organic, high-strength cannabis, grown without chemicals or electricity. Now things have changed. Yes, it’s become legal, but there are a host of downsides to the recent legislation. The 30 or so years of guerrilla growers hand-growing and homegrowing a clean product have just about ended, as Big Business has moved in. A lot of pot is testing positive for pesticides. People buy their organic produce at Whole Foods, yet don’t know if what they are smoking is laced with insecticides. How much are your lungs worth? Advice to pot smokers: Know thy grower.
Andrew’s book encapsulates the romance and righteousness of working with nature, and documents an era of wholesome cannabis production.
To get it (and to see some of the pages), go to: mollywestranch.com
These nests are pyramidal, about 3 feet tall, all over in the woods around here. Woodrats are kinda nice critters, compared to disgusting Norwegian city rats. They’re like big mice, live communally, are craftily smart at getting bait off traps without springing the trigger. The ones around here are dusky-footed woodrats, often called “pack rats,” have white belies, and bigger ears and eyes than city rats.
They are herbivores and according to Andrew Santos:
“Their lodges are architectural marvels with many entrances and lookouts. Ans interior rooms that service nests And pantries. They generally live solo in a matriarchal society of several lodges, comprising neighborhoods. Nests can get 6 to 8 feet tall.”
–From Homegrown: A Year in the Life of a Humboldt County Guerrilla Grower
I often see barns or farm buildings that are effortlessly perfectly proportioned. The architecture of practicality, economy, and local conditions. This is on Highway One in Mendocino county near Manchester.
