Week-Long Workshops Planned Next Week For G4G Revival Tour: Outdoor Compost Toilets, Rainwater Showers, And Green Building Galore June 27-July 3

Better Farm welcomes Grateful 4 Grace from June 27-July 3 for a week of green-building projects, team-building and workshops.

Grateful 4 Grace is a non-profit group traveling all over the country to offer helping hands on projects that further a sustainable mission. From their website:

Combining our love for humanity and the love we have for our planet, we have set out to help others help others become more consciously sustainable. With the universe as our guide we plan to gather in effort to grow our sustainable-minded collective consciousness that will produce what we consider to be a balanced environment that all species can live harmoniously with. To accomplish this we are traveling across the world helping intentional communities and organizations that are currently helping with similar causes become self-sustainable. 

Twenty people from Grateful 4 Grace will be staying at Better Farm to help us construct an amenities station next to the Art Barn with compost toilets and solar showers fed by rainwater.  We will additionally be constructing a smaller version of the amenities station next to our new solar-powered tiny home, greywater filtration units, and working on other farm-related projects throughout the week.

The public is invited to help us on this project and gain valuable hands-on experience in construction, green building, sustainability, and alt-energy concepts. To sign up, just email info@betterfarm.org. Lunch and refreshments will be provided!

Volunteers are welcome to join us from Tuesday, June 28, through Saturday, July 2, at Better Farm between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Sauna Update

Better Farm's sauna gets a roof and floor.

We back in July broke ground on a sauna constructed entirely out of local and reused materials. In this instance, "green building" refers to the long list of items we're upcycling for the project, and our commitment to purchase everything else hyper-local (like locally sourced lumber from our next-door neighbor).

Here's our list of building materials so far:

• Rigid insulation gleaned from a construction project that had pulled it out of an old house
• A cast-iron wood stove pulled off a job site as garbage
• A stump fro a fallen tree that's being incorporated as seating inside the sauna
• Wood beams from a house demolition
• Pallet boards from packing crates and shipping materials
• Rough-cut lumber from Redwood Lumber Company

Of course, we had to buy our nails and screws new (except for a few we gleaned from Better Farm's tool shed). Since breaking ground last month, we've added most of the roof (will have to pick up more lumber and cover with metal) and floor (we need only two more pallets to get that job done). Next up are the walls, wood stove, and lining the interior walls, floor, and benches in cedar. Lastly, we'll pack the wood stove with rocks from the Adirondacks to allow for radiant heat (and steam potential)! Here are some more photos from the project's progress:

 

Many special thanks go out to Bob Laisdell for spearheading this project! Want to get involved on this project, or another one like it? Email us at info@betterfarm.org.

DIY Sauna: Day One

The beginnings of Better Farm's new sauna!

We started building a sauna last weekend that utilizes recycled and new lumber, upcycled insulation, as well as incorporating an old tree stump into the design as one of the corner posts.

Our workshop instructor, Bob Laisdell, started out with a basic design that utilizes a tree stump left over after a wind storm two years ago knocked over a tree on Better Farm's property:

 The stump in this drawing is being re-imagined as a corner bench seat. Here's the rough materials list:

To start, we began clearing the ground where the sauna will be: mostly getting rid of large clumps of weeds and roots.

The chickens love to be around when we're shoveling: It's like a worm/grub/bug buffet!

Then we cruised over to Redwood Lumber Co. (next door at our neighbor John Grisanti's place) to pick up the wood we'd need:

Next, we determined where each of the corners would be, using the stump as a starting point, and dug holes for cinder blocks where the other corner posts would be. While that was getting done, Katie and AmberLee notched 4x4's that would be pieced together to create the shape of the sauna.

After that, we placed floor joists and a center beam, and nailed small pieces of boards from a wood pallet onto the sides of the floor joists to hold the insulation. Simultaneously, another group was putting up the wooden beams for the side walls and temporarily nailing them in place with a crossways board.

 

 

Insulation going in:

 

After measuring the distance across the base of the sauna, we began cutting boards from the wood pallets into our different sizes in order to create an alternating flooring pattern and nailing down the boards as they were being cut.

 Here's our progress after Day One:

For a full listing of upcoming workshops, click here. Care to join us as we finish constructing the sauna? Email us at info@betterfarm.org.

New Gates Allow for Easy Access to the Garden

The interns (with the help of instructors) last week put in two new garden gates to make accessibility a lot simpler for unloading compost, hay, and cardboard; irrigation, and simply moving in and out. This brings our number of garden gates up to three; allowing for pedestrian access (the main, existing entrance), easy access to and from the greenhouse (a four-foot wide gate, pictured above), and truck access (a double-hinged gate eight feet wide in the garden's back corner closest to Cottage Hill Road).

Day One entailed table-sawing two-by-fours into equal pieces, drilling plywood triangles in the corners to hold them together, cutting a longer flank of wood to run diagonally, and stapling on chicken wire.

On day two, we dug up holes for the gateposts and filled them with cement we mixed in the wheelbarrow. Sweaty and tired, we called it a day and waited for the cement to dry.

The following day, we finalized the gates by attaching the gates to the posts via hinges and putting on stoppers to hold the gates shut. By then we were feeling pretty confident with the drill and Greg and Adam went off for coffee while us interns put on the final touches.

Build a 14x14 Cabin for < $2k

Below is a nice video showing how the folks over at Simple Solar Homesteading built a 14′ x14′ cabin for less than $2,000 (for the full schematics, click here). Following that video is one discussing solar and wind installation. The last link is to all the builder's videos. If you are thinking of going off grid, looking to build a cabin or just interested in that lifestyle, his videos are really interesting and informative to watch.

 See all Simple Solar Homesteading's videos by

clicking here

.

Spotlight On: Insect Hotels

From Inspiration Green:

Tidy gardens, chemically fertilized lawns, and a lack of dead wood in suburban/urban areas mean less and less habitat for wild bees, spiders, and ladybugs. You can combat this issue by creating an "insect hotel" to attract beneficial insects (read: pollinators and pest controllers) to your yard and garden. Read on for some beautiful ideas!

Honey bees represent only a small fraction of the approximately 20,000 known species of bees. No honey bees existed in the Americas before their introduction by Europeans. An insect hotel will attract these and many other kinds of bees, as well as hundreds of other beneficial insects.
 
Insect hotels are also known as:
Bug condos, bug hotels, insect habitats, wildlife stacks, insect boxes, insect houses, insect walls, wild bee walls, insect accommodation, wild bee houses, solitary bee walls or wild bienenhaus.

Who lives in Insect Hotels:
Wasps (cuckoo wasps, parasitic wasps, and many other kinds), dragonflies, beetles, lacewings, ladybirds. moths, spiders, frogs, newts, hedgehogs, and bees (leafcutter bees, masked bees, mason bees, digger bees, bumblebees, and hundreds more).



Another thing about bees:
Bumblebees nest in hollow trees and in rodent burrows. They are among the first bees to emerge in the spring and the last to disappear in fall. They are superb pollinators of tomatoes, blueberries, cranberries, clover, and more. Bumblebees can “buzz pollinate” by hanging on a flower and vibrating with their flight muscles to release pollen. Mason and Leafcutter Bees select existing hollow stems and bored holes in which to build their multiple nest chambers. They carry pollen underneath their bodies rather than on their legs like most bees. Mason bees are first-class pollinators of many fruit crops, toiling long hours and in inclement weather. Squash and Gourd Bees help pollinate up to eighty percent of squash, pumpkins, and melons. They are ground nesters, so it is important to leave some open dirt for the these very important bees as well.

The Photos
Here are some photos of particularly amazing insect hotel designs. The basic execution of the idea can be facilitated using scraps and things you have lying around your garden shed, garage, or yard. Check these out:
  


A wildlife stack can harbor numerous beneficial insects and amphibians. www.metrofieldguide.com



Wildlife stack. Some creatures like it damp, others (like bees) dry. Ladybugs hibernate during winter in piles of dry twigs and leaves, which you can provide in your insect hotel. Might be better to think of it as habitat or a condo, as you really want long term residents. Photo by Sarah Barker at the Shrewsbury flower show.



Bug hotel in Oakham, UK. Although often called a hotel, some bees will live in a nest for up to nine months as they develop from egg, through the larval stage, into adulthood. Photo by Anne Crasey. www.flickr.com


Solitary bees like sun. The ideal location for an insect hotel is in full sun and protected from the weather. This will ensure that the heat required for the brood is present, and wind or rain will not destroy their nest. Provide that, and the flowers, and they will come. www.sav-überlingen.de



Insect hotel in Hamburg, Germany. Wild bee houses have been popular in Europe for many years. insektenhotel24.de




Insect hotel at the Heimanshof, North Holland.
Many solitary bees are very small and you may not have realised they are bees. More species of bees live alone, than in hives. Wild bees are considered to be as important to the food chain as bumblebees and honeybees. Honey bees are not native to the Americas (see below). Photo by Bob Daamen www.flickr.com.




Insect home or bug bank, on the grounds of Oxburgh Hall in North Norfolk. Because solitary bees have no hive to defend, they are not aggressive, they rarely, if ever, sting. Photo by Mabvith flickr.com.



Insect hotel in Helmsley, UK. Hotels should be relatively close to flowering herbs, wild flowers and native shrubs and trees to cover the food needs of the insects. Photo by Munki Munki, www.flickr.com.



Solitary bees are different from social bees (such as honey bees) in that every female is fertile and makes individual nest cells for her offspring. Some native bees are ground nesters but more than 30% are wood nesters. The female wood nester will look for pre-existing cavities such as hollow stems or holes in wood that are just the right size to use as a nest.

The female typically creates a series of compartments (cells) and within each cell she will lay an egg on top of its future food source. The female bee will make numerous foraging trips to flowers collecting pollen and nectar that she will pack into each cell. It is on these trips that the female wild bee acts as a pollinator for plants and food crops. It can take anywhere from 20 to 30 trips to fill each cell with food. When she is satisfied with the amount of food, she lays an egg, compartmentalizes the cell, and moves on to creating the next cell. When she feels the chamber is complete, she seals off the end, and moves on to filling a new chamber. The last cells (those closer to the opening) contain eggs that will become males, as males hatch before females. Although each species is different, mason bee females live for about a month, and can build a cell nest for about two eggs every day. The larva hatches from the egg after a week or more and begins to eat the provided pollen and nectar. After the food has been eaten, the larva spins a cocoon and pupates within the cell. By the end of summer or early fall, the bee transforms but remains in the cocoon as an adult throughout the winter. In spring, the males begin to emerge by chewing their way out. The females, which are almost always in the deeper cells of the tunnel, emerge a week or two later.

While solitary females each make individual nests, some species prefer to make nests near others of the same species, giving the appearance to the casual observer that they are social. Nest photo by Mike N. of Vancouver, BC.



Insect hotel in Hoofddorf, Holland. Drilled 4 x 4s, logs, twigs and sticks. There are many different species of solitary bee, all are excellent pollinators. Photo by Bob Daamen, www.flickr.com





Insect hotel in St. Poelten Landesmuseum, Austria. That shutter will keep the birds out. Photo by Klasse im Garten, flickr.com.



Bug stack. Keep an eye on activity as some ants will eat bee larvae.



Insect Hotel.



Bug Mansion.
Ladybugs are always looking for places to hide and escape from the weather. By the Harrogate District Biodiversity Action Group.



Wildlife stack by Dawn Isaacs. How-to: www.guardian.co.uk



Insect Condo in Scotland.
Photo by Sheila, flickr.com



Wild Bee Hotel in Austria.



Bee Condo.
Photo by Sissi de Kroon, flickr.com



Insect Hotel in a private garden in Austria.



Insect Hotel, Ebersberger Forest, Bavaria
Photo by Terry Cooke, flickr.com.



Insect Hotel (Zen-like)



Place cut bamboo in metal pipes.
Photo by Bob Daamen. www.flickr.com



Wire screening keeps the small stuff in place and protects against birds.
Photo by Joeke Pieters, flickr.com



Wild bee house in the Black Forest, Germany. Photo by Michael Bohnert. www.flickr.com



A fun learning project for kids.



Insect hotel in the Netherlands, close-up.
flickr.com



An 'Insect hotel' at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in Jersey ©RLLord,



Insect Habitat assembled from foraged organic materials and reclaimed scrap, a habitat-in-waiting for bees and other native creatures. By Kevin Smith and Lisa Lee Benjamin. floragrubb.com




Insect Habitat at The Garden Tulln, Austria.
www.flickr.com




Insect Hotel in Germany.
www.wildbienen.de




Bug hotel by Lisa and Andrew Roberts (Living Willow Wales) at Ysgol Pontrhydfendigaid. andrewroberts.net





Bug hotel created by kids at the RHS Flower Show, Tatton Park. flickr.com
 
How To:

(A Must Read: Our Polinators Need a Home!)
For a simple hotel, drill holes 1/4" to 3/8" in the ends of logs, or cut some bamboo sticks of equal length, and stuff in a wooden box. Layer old pallets. Logs, drift wood, cut bamboo, straw, dry reeds, roofing tiles, cob. Do not use softwood for bees, as the drilled holes might fill with resin and suffocate the bees! Make sure all wood is free of chemical preservatives.

Further Reading:

• www.foxleas.com/bee_house 
• www.merthyr.gov.uk 
• resonatingbodies.wordpress.com 
• www.guardian.co.uk 
• Ulster Wildlife Trust, how to build an ‘insect hotel’ habitat.
• Making a Bug Hotel

Lots more inspiration here: flickr.com/groups/insecthotels

Better Farm Builds an Igloo!

Better Farm's Igloo. Photo/Zoya Kaufmann

By Zoya Kaufmann
An igloo (from the Inuktitut iglu ᐃᒡᓗ [iɣ.'lu], "house") [1] is a temporary winter shelter built by Inuit peoples from the Mackenzie Delta in Canada's Northwest Territories [2] to northwestern Greenland.

Inuit means "the people". Inuktitut words for English speakers and French Canadians are Qallunaat (from qallu, "eyebrow"), and Uiuinaat or Guiguinaat (from the French oui), respectively. [1]

To build an Inuit igloo, blocks of compacted snow measuring approximately 24" by 48" by 8" are cut with a snowknife, traditionally made of bone[2] (see image below!).

Fun fact: The sharpest cutlery used by Inuits living in northwestern Greenland is made of iron -- space iron. Meteorite masses known as Ahnighito ("the Tent" (31 tons), "the Woman" (2½ tons), and "the Dog" (½ ton) (as well as several others rediscovered later) provided Inuit populations with metal, long before Robert Perry extracted the meteorite's location in 1894 from a local in exchange for a gun. Greenland's first railway was built to aid in transporting the meteorite family to New York, where the American Museum of National History purchased them for $40,000[4]. The meteorite masses are currently on public display. Ahnighito is held in place by supports extending down to the bedrock of the museum[5].

The first row of igloo blocks is then sloped, so that the following rows can be added in spirally. The arc of an igloo is more akin in shape to a catenoid (think of the parabola created by holding both ends of a chain, like the St. Louis Arch) than a hemisphere, reducing the structure's tendency to cave or bulge[6].

Better Farm's igloo (photo by Zoya Kaufmann)

Over the course of several days, the team at Better Farm constructed their own version of the igloo (thanks to Adam McBath for the idea!), right behind the farm's more permanent housing structure. A comparison between the Inuit and the Better Farm igloo follows:
Igloo construction tools:

Inuit snowknife

vs.

Better Farm's cooking pan (with Greg Baz, left), snow shovel, and gloved hands (with Zoya Kaufmann, right)

Entry:

Inuit: One 10 ft. passageway, covered from the inside by a sealskin flap

Better Farm: Two 2 ft. passageways, sometimes covered by the legs of igloo inhabitants and guarded by dogs

Ventilation:

Inuit: Opening at the apex

Better Farm: Accidental skylight facing north


Lighting:

Inuit: Seal blubber

Better Farm: Flashlight

Bedding

Inuit: Willow twigs covered by caribou furs

Better Farm: Bare snow, sometimes covered by Hans Solo

Accommodation:

Inuit: One family

Better Farm: Seven humans and one dog

Inside the 'gloo - Zoya Kaufmann, Aaron Youngs, Nicole Caldwell, and Greg Baz (photo by Adam McBath)

^References:
[1] Asuilaak. (n.d.). (Nortext, Producer) Retrieved January 6, 2013, from Inuktitut Living Dictionary: http://www.livingdictionary.com
[2] igloo. (2013). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/282275/igloo
[3] Pastore, R. T. (1998). The Thule. (Memorial University of Newfoundland) Retrieved from Aboriginal Peoples: http://www.heritage.nf.ca/aboriginal/thule.html
[4]Cape York Meteorite. (n.d.). Retrieved from The Encyclopedia of Science: ://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/C/Cape_York_meteorite.html
[5] Hall of Meteorites. (n.d.). Retrieved from American Museum of Natural History: http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/earth-and-planetary-sciences-halls/arthur-ross-hall-of-meteorites
[6] Handy, Richard L. . The Igloo and the Natural Bridge as Ultimate Structures. Arctic , Vol. 26, No. 4 (Dec., 1973), pp. 276-281. Published by: Arctic Institute of North America. Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40509169.

Campy Bath Goes Glam (and Green!)

We were passed-due for a big overhaul and update on Better Farm's downstairs bathroom; but with the space being structurally sound, it was low on the priorities list. Three years since our start, and with a renovation project bearing down to create a master suite on the first floor, the opportunity arrived to shrink the downstairs bathroom, make a more sensible laundry area closer to the clothesline, and update some outdone interior design. More blogs to come about those other projects—for today, we'll focus on that downstairs bathroom and how we set about getting it glammed up in a functional way that's ready for all the high-traffic Better Farm brings.

What we did:

• Removed the laundry area entirely to create a master bath off the bedroom downstairs, thereby shrinking the existing bathroom to a more manageable, realistic size
• Moved the entrance door from the kitchen to the bath, spurring a refrigerator move and island addition
• Took a standing three-part shutter system that hid an open shelving area in the bathroom, shrunk it to two panels, and used hinges to affix the shutters to the wall
• Updated old lighting fixtures, made them more energy-efficient
• Used discarded tongue-and-groove pine flooring to outdo the old linoleum floor (also helped with heating efficiency)
• Added color to the old, campy walls
• Brought in bright, insulated curtains
• Removed clutter

The bathroom in 2009:

...and the bathroom in 2010...

...and the bathroom's metamorphosis in the last few weeks...

...and the final results!

Donated chalkboard, gold frame, vase. Upcycled baking dish used as soap holder. Magazine rack taken off back of church pews in kitchen. Painting is of old Grandma Caldwell!

Found sign, reused hooks

Lovable hand-me-downs: shower curtain, window drape, and floor rugs were all passed down to us.

Got a great design idea you'd like to share? E-mail us at info@betterfarm.org.

Many thanks to the following people for their time, energy, donations, and work on this project:

Adam McBath
Jackson Pittman
Greg Basralian
Jaci Collins
Joel Zimmer
Nicole Caldwell
David Garlock
Kristen Caldwell

Earth Ships: Intro to earth-rammed construction

Jackson Pittman

We've been taking on a lot of projects at Better Farm since the garden doesn't require as much maintenance. The hobbit house area is being cleared for its construction in the spring, and the mandala garden is being designed so that the base can be laid out before winter.

Another project we've been working on, is the creation of our Earth Ship, which is a personal favorite of mine because of the construction techniques and use of available resources. Indeed, the Earth Ship construction process may well stand as a model for the hobbit house when it comes to creating the essential earth rammed tires, a cost-effective and environmentally efficient (although labor intensive) construction material. Read on to learn more about the origins and regulations of rammed earth construction!

Origins of Earth-Rammed Construction

Believe it or not, although building things out of the earth may seem like a modern "alternative" to more traditional materials such as wood and brick, earth-rammed construction is actually a much older practice with surprising benefits. The earliest recorded city in history, Jericho, was built out of earth; and ancient Egyptian cities, Middle Eastern mosques and temples, and those in ancient China all used earth not only to build houses, but also to construct the template of the Great Wall.

Romans and Phoenicians brought the method to Europe, where it was used for a couple thousand years. In the United States, houses until 1850 were made out of earth. These were eventually replaced by wood and brick, which were mass-produced and took less time to build houses with. This continued until the Great Depression, when there was a shortage on such building materials and the idea of people creating their own houses from available resources became appealing again. However, at this time the process of building earth houses had been somewhat forgotten, so the Department of Agriculture published a manual called

Rammed Earth Walls for Buildings, and hundreds of journals and magazine articles were published regarding the topic of earth-rammed construction.

After the second world war, factories began to produce materials that were faster to construct with. Once again, earth building was forgotten until the 1970s when it was popularized among the environmentally conscious by Michael Reynolds. His technique of using tires for rammed-earth construction became increasingly practical as time went on due to their amazing benefits. The thick, dense walls of tires filled with earth are virtually soundproof, fireproof, rot resistant and impervious to termites. Aside from that, they are made to withstand temperature swings, and use 80 percent less energy.

And now, here at Better Farm, we are in the process of constructing our first earth ship! We are doing our part in fortifying the foundation for an environmentally efficient future! We described in a previous post the basic, step-by-step process of building an Earth Ship. But as we dig deeper into the procedure, we have run across a couple of road blocks.

The first was when stacking tires on top of one another, how to stop dirt from falling out the cracks where the holes in the tires don't entirely overlap. The answer to this, solved through a little research, is a common resource we utilize here at Better Farm: cardboard! Simple as that, if earth is falling out of the tires on the second row of your ship or higher, simply place cardboard along the bottom of said tire to keep the earth packable.

The second problem we came across was the most efficient way to pack the tires completely; after all if the tires aren't fully packed they don't provide the necessary insulation, and the backside of the shovel is not the most efficient or compatible packing tool for those hard to reach tire corners. The solution is once again an easy fix with a tool we use on farm anyway: the sledgehammer! It makes so much sense but it had slipped our minds when trying to figure out how to pack the tires as much as possible, but now that we know, it works like a charm.

When doing a homemade construction project like this, you really can't afford to make any mistakes, so as tedious as it can be, it's truly necessary to pack the tires as much as possible and make sure you're doing things the safe and proper way. That's why we had to remodel the bottom tire layer even though most of the tires had been already been painstakingly packed. We had overlooked the crucial ingredient of tire size. One of the most important safety regulations when building something like this is that it is architecturally sound. Now the entire bottom layer of our Earth Ship has tires 29+ inches in diameter to make sure the foundation is solid and supportive. That is necessary for an Earth Ship six layers high and although we don't plan on making ours that high its good to have stability. In addition, another thing we learned is that the tires need to stand on level soil, free of organic matter such as weeds and roots to ensure there will no rotting. More regulations from the tire building code: Tire walls over six courses high must have a ground course of tires #15 or larger exclusively. Safe and productive building to all!

Hobbit House Part II: Grounds Prep

Amazing hobbit house design by

Wooden Wonders

.

Back in September

, a few of us took a hike on

Better Farm

's property to scout out a perfect location for a hobbit house. One of our favorite potential spots was this, the foundation for the farm's original, 19th-century barn:

Mike and Adam last week took a chainsaw to the sumac and other trees within the foundation, which meant today was the day to clear (read: burn) all the brush so we have a blank canvas to work with.

Here are Jackson and Aaron getting to work:

...and here's the space mostly cleared out:

For the next step, Aaron will be applying his measurements of the space to determine what we need for tires to build exterior walls, and he'll be consulting with some real-deal architects to create legitimate architectural drawings to work off of.

We're going to need to pour a concrete floor or create a stone floor. Luckily, for us, we also found a bounty of original stone used for the old barn that we'll be making our hearth with. Here's the rest of our ideas list:

• Get a work day together two to pull useable scraps together from the property and ready them for upcycling

• Secure a source for lime mortar to be used on our walls

• Get dimensions together for the structure, secure enough tires to build an earthship structure

• Secure old barn wood for the interior ceiling

• Utilize a strong roof appropriate for dirt and foliage cover

The completed space will be the start to a wellness center situated outside of the Art Barn; with yoga studio space, a sauna, outdoor shower, and more. What better use for a hobbit home?

If you would like to volunteer on this or any other projects, contact us at (315) 482-2536 or

info@betterfarm.org

.