Lessons from Spreadwing’s farm internship

food preserves

Well, I am finally back home after a month at Spreadwing’s farm internship. This is an Organic farm ran by Michael G. Smith, natural builder extraordinaire, and his wife Cathy, homesteader of the year in my book.  Together this couple is a treasure trove of natural building, farming, animal husbandry, food preservation and the list…

Picture this: Spreadwing farm

chicken coop and orchard

As you might recall, Erin and I almost did a farm internship for a couple of months. This was with Michael G. Smith of Spreadwing farm, a well known natural builder and all around great guy. I first met Michael while taking a week long Natural Building Intensive he co-taught. Well, after talking about alternate…

So, we’ve been house-less for about a month and a half now. Not as bad as you might think. We have money saved, jobs, and all our stuff; just not a house to rest in at night. We had decided to move up north, but it just has not worked out. Erin’s work has been featured on, not one, but two very popular photography pages and is getting  lots of requests for photo shoots, so it does not seem logical to uproot right now.

Spreadwing farm
Spreadwing farm – Photo credit HelloPinecone.com

We almost did a four month internship with Michael G. Smith. Organic farmer, natural builder extraordinaire, and all around great person. However, after three days helping out at the farm, we realized it would not work out with our current job arrangements so had to put that on the back burner.

Now, even though our friends are being more than supportive and the fifth wheel is safely stored, we are feeling the pressure of not having a place of our own. Luckily it looks as though starting April, we’ll have a new place. This is still off grid but has solar panels and city water. It looks very promising and has a horse stable with an old, mostly gutted, airstream (kind of like this one) and random structures on it. I can make it work and will have a blast in the process.

For now though, I am blessed to have a wonderfull wife and puppy. So home is where the heart is…

Emerald Earth Natural Building Intensive

Emerald Earth cob wall on new common house

Ever since I found out about natural building, I realized it was something I just had to get into. Having been in and out of the ceramics world for over two decades now, it seemed a natural progression to sculpt homes. If you have never been in a passive solar designed natural home, I highly…

Book Shelf: The Hand Sculpted House

I got this book in preparation for a week long natural building workshop I’ll be attending in early August. This is written by pioneers of the American cob renaissance Ianto Evans, Michael G. Smith, and Linda Smiley. Just getting into the meat of it, but could not help but post about it. So far it’s…