New Site

I found a nifty new site: http://naturalhomes.org/  What a goldmine of information!!!

Would love to attend one (or many!) of the courses.  Lord willing!

Give to those in need

Ephesians 4:28
Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.


I've been thinking about this verse in terms of growing my own food.  We should keep in mind giving of our abundance to those in need.  God gives us abundance NOT so we can store it up for ourselves, but so we can share with others. 

What a great concept!

Big Houses

The other day I was inputting data at work.  One of the spaces was for square footage of the houses.  The first ones were around 4,000 sf.  I thought, "That's a big house!"  As I continued to enter data, the house sizes got bigger and bigger.  Eventually there was one between 8 and 9 thousand square feet.  Wow, that's a monstrosity!  All I could think was how that was obscene.  How much energy must it take to maintain a house like that!  And probably 90% of the house isn't even used on a regular basis.  Ack!  What waste!!!

Reading

I've been working my way through the straw bale saga and its exhausting me just reading about all the work.  Part of it is that its sometimes hard to visualize what she's talking about.  Another part of it is how much work goes in to meeting all the regulations.  Sheesh!

I know building one's own house is a lot of work.  That's okay.  But it seems we make it so much harder than it needs to be.

On another subject, I've been thinking more about how some of the "natural building" ideas can be used in our current society.  Protecting our planet means starting where we are now, and it looks like the number one priority for me is insulating the house better so as to cut down on energy consumption.  I try to keep the thermostat down a bit but still keep the house functionally warm.  But a lot of heat (winter) and cool air (summer) is lost.  What a waste!