Carolina Cob

I had a great time at the Durham Farmer’s Market this past Saturday. I always enjoy going, though I don’t go as often as I would like. The kids love running around and trying new things and I am always amazed at the variety of fresh vegetables and local cheeses and meats available. Plus the amazing baked goods made without chemicals.

This time, my oldest was able to participate in a cooking class for kids and came home wanting to make dinner. Yum! She went out in the garden and picked basil and rosemary and made an herb cream cheese.

She also made vegetable quesadillas. She wanted to use tomatoes and zucchini, but we had neglected to purchase zucchini at the market. So she went with cucumber instead and cooked that with the tomatoes and onions. That was one good quesadilla.

Local foods have become an important part of Durham’s culture. The Farmer’s Market keeps getting bigger. More restaurants are not only using local foods, but bragging about it. I’m finding more and more that my prime criteria for restaurants is that they focus on local foods and I know I’m not alone here in Durham.

So what does this have to do with Carolina Cob? Well, two things. First, we were at the Farmer’s Market meeting folks and talking about natural building. We had a table with some cob and a few folks (other than my kids and I) got their hands muddy. I really enjoyed meeting new folks, some who were already very familiar with cob and other natural building materials and others for whom this was totally new.

Second, I think an even better term for natural building might be local building. A lot of the same reasons that make local foods so important also make local building just as important. Ok, maybe not the one about avoiding eating chemicals, but what about not wanting chemicals in our walls?

Maybe a new slogan: Eat local – build local – live local. Or, perhaps, given the parallel need to be an active part of the larger world community (and my predilection for using computer technology):
Eat local – build local – live local – communicate globally.

What do you think?

Note to self: next time bring a bigger umbrella – it was a touch hot sitting out in the sun.

Elizabeth

Part of the reason I’m attracted to building with natural and recycled materials is that I was raised by a mom who taught me how to forage for stuff that was old but still perfectly good. My mother was always alert to the wonders to be found in a yard sale on Saturday morning and prided herself on never paying full price for anything.

Some of my favorite memories growing up involved going out with my mom and perhaps one or two of her friends in her old Falcon to dump sites they had heard of and seeing what we could find.  We’d wear old boots and jeans and bring a shovel along and start digging where others had been dumping stuff in out of the way places for years.  

My mother favored old glassware and counted it a good day when we would dig up old brown Clorox bottles or blue tinted canning jars with bubbles frozen in the glass. 

I was always attracted to old ironwork or wooden butter molds or, my favorite, old glass candy containers, glassware in the shape of trains or dogs or old fashioned telephones.

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it???  I can’t wait to do it again!

Wynn

I became familiar with the concept of an innukshuk when I traveled into the northern parts of Canada, the home of the Innuits.

An innukshuk, a pile of stones on the vast landscape, helped mark where one had been and became a marker for where one might go on the vast tundra; it helped hunters mark territory, noted a place to store items, and helped them not get lost in the wide expanse of the tundra.

I love the image of  a marker on the vastness of now and the potential  of where we can go.  This venture of Carolina Cob is just beginning but there’s not telling where it will take us.

We, the ones who metaphorically lay these stones at this point in time for the beginnings of this evolution into natural building invite you to join us.

Come visit our home in North Carolina, learn about building with natural materials, and help create a new marker, a circle of sacred space.

Wynn

No, not the first I built, but the first I … experienced.  And I’m not including the houses I saw in England many years ago, because I wasn’t paying attention to cob then – my loss – though even now I do remember the feelings of strength and age.

I’d studied cob building, talked to friends who had done it, and read about what it feels like to be in a natural structure – the comfort of the gentle curves and being surrounded by the earthen walls.  This was the first time I experienced it for myself.

Elizabeth