About our homestead
In 2001 we bought 20 acres of land, about a 30 minute drive west of Ashland and Medford, in Southern Oregon. That summer we set up a yurt with an earthen floor and some cob internal walls and lived there with the help of some solar panels and a bucket toilet.
After a year, in the Spring of 2002, we started building a small, code approved straw bale, cob and stud frame “hybrid” house, one-and-a-half stories high with a total footprint of about 650 square feet. It has an earthen floor, internal cob walls, a composting “bucket-style” toilet and is completely off the grid. Most of the interior is earthen plaster.
We proceeded the following year to sell the yurt and build a beautiful cob cottage, with a curved ridge beam, a round-pole ceiling and a living roof. It has been continually occupied since it was built and has out-performed our expectations.
We now also have several other cob cottages, a “hybrid” cabin (which incorporates several Natural Building techniques), and 2 load bearing straw bale buildings (one of which is a sauna). In addition we regularly bake bread in our cob oven, and every year add to our growing collection of cob garden walls.
We are concerned about our use of energy in the context of the limited availability and environmental cost of fossil fuels. Our home and water well are both powered by electricity generated by solar panels. We heat our houses with wood and use very little of it, due to the efficiency of our buildings. We use several different kinds of composting toilets and have solar-heated hot water.
As part of our continued effort to come up with better ways to live, we are looking forward to new and exciting ways to improve our buildings and reduce our resource use. Several cabins now have attached green houses for heating purposes as well as for growing food year-round. We have installed a plunge tank for hot days that is constantly being fed by our irrigation water. We also practice rain water harvesting and have a cob bathhouse, with hot water being provided by the sun and a wood-burning hot water heater.
Last, but not least, we are in the early stages of the development of gardens and orchards, including a lively bunch of egg-laying hens. We hope that soon all the fruits, vegetables and eggs that we eat will come directly from our land.
We invite people to come and visit us, look around and enjoy seeing the unfolding of our rural experiment in sustainability. Please give us a call for directions: (541) 899-3751.