MOTHER EARTH NEWS

Slow and Steady

After nearly 30 years of living and working in Madison, Wisconsin, we longed for a rural home. We’d spent several frustrating years looking for rural property, but anything with livable buildings disappeared quickly. So we decided that in order to acquire our dream home, we were going to have to build it.

We started researching alternative building techniques and chose cordwood. Our planning process commenced with a discussion of what our dream home would include, and we laid out the floor plan with an inexpensive software program.

In 2002, we

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from MOTHER EARTH NEWS

MOTHER EARTH NEWS5 min read
Chick and Duckling Imprinting
When poultry hatch, they quickly learn to stay close to a protective carer. This phenomenon, called “imprinting,” occurs in all bird species that have good eyesight and mobility, including domestic poultry, within a few hours of hatching. As ground-n
MOTHER EARTH NEWS7 min read
Cold-Smoking The Antidote to Boring Food
Years ago, I read a description in a text, the name of which has long since been lost in my memory, of a cold smoker built into the hills of Appalachia. I’d never heard of such a thing. It had a small firebox in the ground that poured smoke into a ho
MOTHER EARTH NEWS3 min read
Health Benefits of 5 Weeds
Herbal wisdom includes plenty of stories lauding the potential benefits of herbal weeds, and there’s also some clinical evidence that they work. Let’s look at five of my favorite beneficial weeds and see what science and tradition tell us about them.

Related Books & Audiobooks