Despite the far-out path we may be on, right now we are having an Earthly experience. The Earth is our source of food, clothing, delight, pain, and shelter. No matter what you eat or what you live in or what you wear, no matter where it is grown or processed, and no matter how much humans may disguise or molest its original ingredients, it came from the Earth. We once thrived from our connection to our mothers through the umbilicus. Now we completely derive our sustenance from the Earth. There is an obvious but often ignored cord from us to Mother Earth. Building with earth reinforces our life on and relationship to this planet.
A shelter's most basic function is to protect us from the elements--sun, wind, precipitation, and temperature extremes. A shelter's most basic form consists of the elements--earth, water, rock, and wood. These are the materials used in a cob house. Made from the surroundings, a cob house creates an interior from the exterior.
In their quest for homes that will create the sense of belonging and comfort, Americans often lose touch with what a home needs to be, as opposed to what they want it to be. The dream home becomes an extravagance most people can't afford, one which metamorphoses into a thirty-year mortgage. Driven by a perceived need for status, many people become stressfully caught up in a cycle of debt. They can't be relaxed with huge mortgages, and feel "broke" while surrounded by their 300,000-plus dollar "creature comforts." I can understand their discomfort. The idea of having huge debt makes me very uncomfortable. I'd rather live much more like the other creatures on the planet, i.e. simply.
People want to maintain a certain "standard of living," yet homes with formaldehyde-laden woods, central bad-air systems, and new chemical carpets have made many sick. Humans thrive on connection. Modern illnesses often stem from a disconnection. When more of the products we eat or live in come from out of the bioregion or are synthetically manufactured, more fossil fuels are consumed and more pollution is created. The effects of these practices reverberate through the air, water, and earth, creating death where there once was life.
Warning labels stamped on house building products should elicit deep questioning on the potential effects of exposure, for anyone, for any length of time. Earth building offers non-toxic alternatives. I am currently pregnant. We plan to paint the interior of our house. The typical house paint has warnings of exposure to a number of chemicals deemed unsafe for the unborn to be around. Perhaps the unborn are the canaries in the coal mine. Can these products be safe for anyone to be around, ever? We have been planning and experimenting with a homemade casein/wheat paste/clay paint. As I have been experimenting with color and durability of mixes, I have had a comforting thought: I could eat this stuff. (My second, less comforting thought: Aren't these the same ingredients in a McDonald's milkshake?) Unlike standard housepaint, this paint is non-toxic, cheap, and edible. Most American homes are made with products that kill in their manufacturing and application. When the dream home becomes a deathtrap, one has to wonder, where is the "life" in the style?
When my partner and I thought about building, we kept it simple, as we've tried to do in all aspects of our life. We began taking inventory of what we had. We recoined the old term that could be used for us, "dirt poor." We began thinking of ourselves as "dirt rich." Dirt we had. The dirt excavated to level the site became cob. We had to sift, add water and straw. We also had an abundance of rocks. The burden of removing rocks and sifting gravel from the garden in prior years became a blessing. Stockpiled rock now had somewhere to go. It became our foundation. The second-growth forest behind our house could be thinned. Small trees became poles for framing. A friend needed help brush-clearing and milling for a house site. He would trade us lumber for our time. This wood became our roof boards. Thus the house became assembled mostly from materials available right here, at virtually no cost but our time and "mere" sweat.
From earth and rock we have built ourselves a cozy cave. Within the earth there is a constant temperature of about 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Our home, like a cave, maintains this same background temperature throughout the year. In the summer, this is a wonderful reprieve from the heat. In the winter, we build a fire in a cookstove that heats the house while cooking food and making hot water in the coils that run through the firebox. The home's many windows are positioned to bring in the low winter sun, but not the high summer sun. The light coming into the house lessens our need for artificial lighting created by solar and hydro power. Windows also bring nature inside.
What we wanted in a house was to enjoy nature from within it--to feel surrounded by nature while warm and dry. Through our windows, I met sixty bird species in the first year. We can check the snow-line on the mountain during winter storms and speculate how many feet of snow are on the roof of our car. Right now, I am watching misty mountain fog waft its way down river, blowing and catching in the trees. It is beautiful and makes me feel blessed and happy--I am a comfortable creature.
What we wanted in a house was to bring nature into it. This home is made from the trees, the rocks, and the earth. It fits into the landscape because it has always been the landscape. It's just adapted into floor, walls, and roof. As I look out at the garden, mountains, river, and trees, I feel a deep sense of belonging, a feeling of home. I can look within to the earth and stone walls, the pole framing and ceiling, feeling that same sense of home. I can look at my body, mostly made by the food grown in this garden. This landscape, this earth is within me and is me, too. All is familiar. All are my relations in the exchanging and rearranging of life.
Building in this way allowed our bodies to remain in balance. Our tasks varied through the day as we sifted, trod the earth, bent, lifted, grasped, and tamped. By changing positions and activities, our bodies did not cramp, strain excessively, or tweak. We had virtually no injuries. Our backs did better than they usually do. The only explanations for this are the existence of a higher power and the nature of cobbing, with its diverse tasks.
If we had had jobs and paid for this house to be built, we most likely would have spent long periods of time in the same positions driving to or doing the job. A healthy body is one of the perks to building naturally and doing it yourself.
Living this way creates the opportunity for great variety in work experiences. I am or have been a farmer, teacher, builder, cook, writer, crafter, hiker, naturalist, electrician, plumber, and janitor. Varying tasks helps my body and spirit keep in balance. Learning skills has brought a continually refreshing newness to my life. I have never been bogged down mentally, physically, or spiritually by the monotony of the same thing for too long. The only disadvantage of not staying with the same job for decades is that there is no pension available.
Once again, we are moving on to new projects. This house is almost done and thankfully, we don't need to build another one. But the next one would be so much easier to do and better built. We have learned a lot. I hope that what we have learned can inspire others to reflect, question, and act.
Building a home has been a reoccurring lesson that the Earth provides. By the time this house is finished, it will have cost under 10,000 dollars. Being "dirt rich" has enabled us to build this house dirt cheap.
Calleigh Ferrara's previous article, "Sustainability Is the Answer When the Future Is in Question," appeared in our Spring/Summer 2001 issue. Anyone wishing to correspond can write: C. Ferrara, PO Box 173, Mad River, CA 95552. For a listing of cob and natural building resources, send a SASE.
©2002 Talking Leaves
Fall 2002
Volume 12, Number 3
Eco-Shelter, Coming to Our Senses