Category: Our Green Life

"I gotta get out of bed
Get a hammer and a nail
Learn how to use my hands
Not just my head..."

This morning on my drive into work I took a break from the usual classical music interlude to listen to KBCO (“world class rock”) and their A-Z countdown. I listened to the transition from G to H and the Indigo Girls’ “Hammer and a Nail” came on the radio. Immediately I thought about our blog and how I needed to post about our perpetual daydream of building our own house.

In preparation for this endeavor, we’re been reading books galore on the subject (from the library!). We’ve been reading about houses made out of tires, aluminum cans, adobe, cob, and straw. I’ve been reading up on passive solar design, rain catchment, storage facilities and graywater reuse, radiant heat, and greenhouse construction. Granted, we probably won’t put all this theory into practice for several (many?) years, but we’re having such a great time getting prepared.

Of course, we have the ultimate inspiration: our friends Melanie and Jeff, who built their cob house from scratch by themselves (with some help from friends!) out of renewable and recycled materials (see photos above).

Two alternative building books: Currently reading: The Good House Book: A Common-Sense Guide to Alternative Homebuilding. Next up: Building Green: A Complete How-To Guide to Alternative Building Methods. Both by Clarke Snell of Think Green Building.

For many (biological and health) reasons, David and I have switched to a mostly raw food diet. For over three weeks, we have eaten plentiful amounts of dried fruit (dates, figs, apricots, currents), nuts (almond milk, cashews, sunflower seeds, pine nuts), vegetables (many different types of lettuce, fennel, cauliflower, avocados, green beans, mung beans, snap peas, alfalfa sprouts, cucumber, spinach), cheeses (blue, cheddar, etc.), soaked and sprouted grains (oats, quinoa, buckwheat, chickpeas), and fruits (apples, pears, oranges, grapefruit, pineapple, kiwi, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries). We’ve (un)cooked all sorts of interesting recipes from a variety of raw food cookbooks and made fabulous smoothies. In this time period, we’ve also discovered that I am sensitive to barley and gluten (goodbye raw cereal and bread until we make some from scratch!); we’ve now eliminated both from my diet and the constant fatigue has disappeared. Thanks to the raw foods and regular yoga practice, our energy has doubled (at least) and we are feeling great.

Read more about raw foods: Raw Food/Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow, Raw: The Uncook Book, Rawsome!: Maximizing Health, Energy, and Culinary Delight With the Raw Foods Diet.