During my visit, I stayed in the Timberframe, which is the house I worked on last summer. It's pictured first. Because there are trees in front of it, I stitched it together with this cool tool called MS Paint.
Pictured next is the common house, which houses the Sunflower kitchen, washing machine, library, and other community-use rooms. The electricity from the photovoltaic array can be used by anyone in the community.
On Thursday, Bear and Alyssa, who are building a new house, hosted a work party (meaning it's voluntary) to put on a finish coat of earthen plaster in their house's main room. The nice thing about earthen plaster is that you get to mix it with your feet.
So much of conventional construction relies on noxious or hazardous materials, but earthen plaster is made of sand, clay, and some kind of natural binders and fibers. In our case, we used cattail fluff and wheat paste. In this picture, we're removing the fluff from the cattails.
After being thoroughly mixed, the plaster is spread on the walls with trowels. We finished the room by lunch, once again proving that "many hands make work light".It's been a great stay at Dancing Rabbit. The community and the people are one-of-a-kind. The folks here are really committed to living more sustainably, and to doing so as a community, which I find challenging and encouraging.
I depart for Milwaukee tomorrow. More once I get there.
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