In addition to our outside shower, we have an inside wood-powered shower in our greenhouse. This gives the beautiful feeling of showering outside in nature but inside in the warmth of the greenhouse. The hot water heater heats the greenhouse, and guests stay nice and warm.
Category: Natural Building
Photos from Oct 2022 Natural Building Course
Photos from our 5-day natural building course in October 2022. Students got to experiment with various Natural Building methods, including wattle and daub, earth bricks, earthbags, cordwood, cob, earth plaster, lime plaster and straw bale. Please take a look at the photos below from the five-day course.
You can also check our video from our 2-week course or join us for a future course.
How to make a sheep skin rug – Easy and quick way
A lot of homesteaders chuck away the sheepskins when the process lambs and so this is a wonderful free resource that anyone can get and turn into a high-quality natural rug. We have been making them for a few years now and are perfecting the method so I thought I would write a blog post to share on how to make a sheepskin rug. more “How to make a sheep skin rug – Easy and quick way”
Natural Building Applied Technology
Here are some of the technologies that can be used alongside Natural Building Techniques. To join our natural building courses please do check out this link.
Natural Building Techniques
List of different Natural Building Techniques that can be used in a Natural Building.
Natural and Sustainable self build building Principles
Here are our principles for natural building.
more “Natural and Sustainable self build building Principles”
Photos from the 2020 Natural Building Internship
During the summer of 2020, we ran a 10-week Natural Building internship where guests joined for 1 week, 1 month or the whole 10 weeks to help build a barn from start to (almost) finish using sustainable building techniques.
There are terms such as ‘natural building’ and ‘low impact building’ but this time around we went for a ‘sustainable build’ that offsets carbon and has a positive impact. We used recycled materials, materials from our land and used a variety of natural building techniques including cordwood, wattle and daub, stone walling and straw bale. more “Photos from the 2020 Natural Building Internship”
Cleaning and Using Sheep Wool for Insulation
Sheep are amazing creatures to have on your permaculture farm. For very little input they give us so much in return. They manage our pasture helping to keep our land fire safe, they provide us with income from meat, cheese from their milk and manure for our food forests and growing gardens. more “Cleaning and Using Sheep Wool for Insulation”
Building our Strawbale Community House
In September 2019 we completed the building of our straw bale community house. This is a large building where our visitors can eat, work, attend classes and relax. This was built on rocky land using a sustainable design and building with straw and clay from our area or nearby. Please take a look at this blog post which shows photos of all of the build steps. more “Building our Strawbale Community House”
Photos and updates from 2019
We have had a very busy year on the farm with more than 100 volunteers, many courses and retreats. We have started some new permaculture systems, continued in the food forests and with our reforestation project and the natural building projects. Here is an update on some of our current projects for those not following us on facebook or Instagram. more “Photos and updates from 2019”
Vermiculture flushing toilet
The flushing vermiculture toilet system is similar to a normal flushing toilet inside the house, but it is the treatment on the outside that is different. Instead of a usual septic tank, we put our composting worms to work first. more “Vermiculture flushing toilet”
Natural Building Course August 2017 Portugal
We are exited to be hosting an 8 day Intensive NATURAL BUILDING COURSE from 26th August till 2nd September 2017 with experienced Natural Builder and Teacher ‘Barbara Leite from the local established community Mount of Oaks. We will also provide daily yoga and meditation!
Timber Framing Course Portugal
During our volunteering stint in Portugal this year, we have seen many different types of structures and buildings that have been built with natural materials and using various techniques. One technique that has interested me is timber framing. This traditional technique requires skilled builders that use green timber from local fallen trees with no nails, screws or cement.