From Balloons to Birds

December 29th – Noon – the ribbon cutting ceremony opened with blue skies and to a warm community.  Guests were welcomed and asked to take a handful of birdseed and scatter it somewhere out on the property. Emily Niehaus, founder and director, then spoke to the crowd: “I have been challenged this past semester to…

Castles Made of Sand

As Wade, Paige and I Backed ourselves out of the main room of Laurel’s house, spreading a fine, smooth, earth plaster over the floor, Jimi Hendrix’s “Castles Made of Sand” came on the radio. We realized together that not only is this the most succesful ‘sand castle’ we’d ever built, but it is the most…

The End: Finale

The End (Part 3): Tadelakt / Goodbye Lisa

I don’t know why I looked forward to rubbing a stone on a wall for so long, but it was everything I thought it would be and more. On Wednesday between reminiscing about good times with Lisa and eating delicious treats from Eric’s wife, we crammed ourselves into the shower. It’s the first time I’ve…

The End (Part 2): More Finish Plaster / Goodbye Grant & Jerry

The rooms have transformed. They are warm and filled with light now that the butter-cream colored finish plaster covers the walls. We have become near-masters of the hawk and trowel flip, the even spread, the sponge and compress … we can handle anything. On this day, Tuesday, Kelly Ray decided not to come in to…

The End (part 1): Finish Plaster

As I write this, the floors are drying. Yesterday we (sans Lisa, Grant and Jerry) laid the final coat of plaster on the floor, dancing around each other, slowly backing ourselves out the patio doors. We’re locked out until the 10th now. But I need to back up and catch us all up to speed….

oo lala

Another day of finish plaster and this’n’that. Jason prepared the floors for finish plaster. Grant worked with Eric on the bathroom ‘vanity’ countertop. Gabriel sifted sand. The rest of us plastered like it was going out of style. The rooms are all different colors, warm tones that make the room feel rich and full of…

Clean hawk, clean trowel, clean hands, clean heart.

We’re somewhere between the Final Push and the Push Before the Final Push.

Serving the master tea.

One of the things we learned last weekend with Joel Glanzberg was this motion called ‘serving the master tea.’ Basically, you start with your hands out in front of you, palms up, like you’ve got a tray filled with tea. Then you swoop them up, around and down again without flipping over your hands ever….

Straight line: line of duty | Curved line: line of beauty

To put it simply, this past weekend was stellar. Joel Glanzberg spent the weekend with us and 20 other people talking about how to observe the systems and patterns of nature around us and apply them to our everyday existence. We talked about permaculture and it applies to everything from gardening to architecture to diet…