20 Oct 2008
For many years I have taught permaculture courses, and like many who do so, I start my courses with the Tale of Two Chickens. This is a very useful way of looking at inputs, outputs, and the science of maximising beneficial relationships, and it concludes with describing one of permaculture’s Holy Grails, The Chicken/Greenhouse. However, now, as I stand on the verge of actually trying to make a chicken greenhouse, I am finding it very difficult to find actual working examples of chicken/greenhouses. Might I have spent years unwittingly promoting a permaculture urban myth?
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29 Sep 2008
We knew it was time to do something to address the energy inefficiency of our kitchen when energy-in-buildings expert Rob Scott McLeod was doing an energy efficiency makeover plan for our house in January, and he put his hand on our kitchen floor and said “touch the floor… now put your hand in the fridge” - the floor was colder. It used to be a garage, so the roof is uninsulated, and the floor is clay tiles laid onto an uninsulated concrete slab. The cavity in the walls is uninsulated. So, all in all, a freezing kitchen, impossible to raise to any tolerable temperature. With winter looming once again, it was time to sort it out. Over the next few days I will tell you about what we did, but having just spent a couple of days hemp and lime plastering, I want to wax lyrical about that.
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18 Jul 2008
Today’s post is going to be mainly visual. I popped round the other day to my friends Paul and Ivana’s house, a new thatched cob house just round the corner from where I live, which you read more about at their building blog. They are using lath and plaster for all the walls and ceilings upstairs and have reached the stage where they have pretty much finished and are preparing for plastering. It is a stunning sight, as you will see, indeed most people I know who have used laths have toyed with the idea of not plastering it at all, given the it is so attractive. What follows are some photos of a walk around the upstairs of their house.
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30 Jun 2008
So, ‘Sex and the City’ wasn’t the only film I saw this week, as it turns out (amazing how many comments that piece generated!). I also had the pleasure to see the excellent new film ‘Garbage Warrior’ which focuses on the life and work of Michael Reynolds, who developed the concept of the Earthship, homes built using waste materials, most famously old car tyres. Here is the film’s trailer;
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10 Jun 2008
It is often said that there is nothing new under the sun. As we stand on the collective precipice presented by peak oil and its many companion challenges (recession, runaway food prices, climate change and so on), it is easy to think that we are the first generation to have to face these issues, indeed, for many of us, anything else has not really happened within our lifespans. However, we have been here before, and the idea that rampant oil prices will necessitate a major rethink of society is not a new one. The oil crises of 1973 and 1979, although politically rather than geologically imposed, focused the mind in much the same way that peak oil is starting to now, and there is a great deal that we can learn from the experience of that time.
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For many years I have taught permaculture courses, and like many who do so, I start my courses with the Tale of Two Chickens. This is a very useful way of looking at inputs, outputs, and the science of maximising beneficial relationships, and it concludes with describing one of permaculture’s Holy Grails, The Chicken/Greenhouse. However, now, as I stand on the verge of actually trying to make a chicken greenhouse, I am finding it very difficult to find actual working examples of chicken/greenhouses. Might I have spent years unwittingly promoting a permaculture urban myth?
