Homesteading

[Kev]

All things to do with building on the homestead..

Discussion

[Kev]

10-minute summary of a Cob Home building project.. It gives the gist..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwyHIoqgTrc

[Kev]

Building Sheds & Shacks out of Pallets .. example of putting together a shed out of scrap pallets.. This approach might be my starter home.. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6voGWLU7Yk

[Ann-Marie Shapiro]

Would you be available (via gifting, currency or trading), to basically teach me how to build/ design a couple things from pallets? I am inspired by some information shared on social media but don’t have the knowledge to do the details correctly without help!

I want them to be *beautiful*, too!!! 🥰

Ann-Marie

[Kev]

The building of a traditional Anglo-Saxon pit house, using materials you have on the land.. I especially like the wattle & daub technique of plastering mud & straw over a lattice work of woven wooden planks or branches.. Could be a viable approach on-the-cheap for storage sheds or out buildings or whatnot on a homestead.. I’m thinking a cob mix would be good for the daubing as well (maybe more resilient in the long-term?).. I might end up living in a mud hut like this.. But thatched roof??.. Hmmm, that looks to have a learning curve.. 😄

First 14-17 minutes worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gib7qzRD_Pk&t=1480s

[Kev]

More from the department of traditional and valuable skills.. I’ve seen sun-dried clay bricks, but here we have kiln-fired clay bricks, as well as kiln-fired wood ash mortar.. Some alchemy up in this one.. Hoping to take on a small project like this at some point.. Just say no to Home Depot red bricks!.. (Video is 13 minutes long)..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eesj3pJF3lA

[Kev]

Here’s a video on the building of a traditional earthen oven — in this case, out of a cob clay mixture.. This is Part one (11min).. Part 2 is in the first comment below, which shows how to fire the oven for the first time and really start to dry out the clay mixture.. Also, turns out, when you cook in one of these, you remove the coals and ashes and use the residual heat in the bricks and clay-cob, which continue to radiate.. Looks like a really fun project..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcwwZREsx8I

[Kev]

Part 2 — the first firing..

https://youtu.be/6bEZrN1OJEM?list=PL4e4wpjna1vx1j9LQQOr7Y6mhtMI9MbnN&t=105

[Kev]

If you’re strapped for fiat, this approach might-could be your homestead starter home.. at least for the short-term.. Lookin’ to be an option for me.. and hey, low-cost!.. 🙂 This sorta stone work is my jam, and I love this guy’s sensibilities with it, especially how he integrated the hearth & chimney into the hillside..

There are things I’d do differently, like use a cob mix for the mortar, and make the walls thicker, or double-layered, and probably a cob mix as an outside coat on the whole thing — in other words, a cob house built into the ground (for natural temperature regulation), with stone as the core of the walls.. Just some ideas here.. really primitive in the end..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQQuRr0sS2w

[Kev]

But.. but.. this is even better.. some fine bushcraft engineering here.. love this..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GweEAnzrpIg

[Eliza]

Bro did have some pretty square rocks lying around 😉 what a great share! I learned so much and a lot of things I didn’t really know before…like EXACTLY what bushcraft meant. Thank you, Kev!

[Kev]

I thought the same thing about the thin slate that just *happened* to be in the stream bed.. Obviously, the site was scouted before filming.. Lol.. Regardless, a good demonstration of using natural materials on-site to build structures.. Really speaks to me because I’m a natural stone worker and that’s totally my vibes, all day.. Still wonder though if a cob mix for the mud mortar would be best.. In this one he did a mix of clay and sand, so that’s a reinforcment, for sure.. This builder has a great YT channel.. Of course, one doesn’t have to go all the way traditional in crafting your own wooden nails & pegs, for example.. but good techniques to know too..

And I also liked how he harvested “wild sod” to put in the courtyard of this home, integrating into the forest environment.. Super sweet.. If you could get hold of an area of wildflower inhabitation, and scoop out some of that top layer, you’d have a wildflower meadow for a patio.. 🤸‍♂️

Also loved the straw and mud mixture (basically cob) for the roof coating.. Hmmm, wonder how that would hold up long term.. Not sure..

At this point, I’m *really* digging the plan the build a stone house into a hillside with a built-in hearth and chimney.. This Bogdan guy’s YT channel has an example of that, with “Fairy House” or somesuch in the title, where he builds into a hillside (for natural temperature control), and his hearth/chimney in that one are pretty sweet.. pretty damn sweet.. He did however use some kind of tar paper to water-seal the interior, so I’m wondering what natural methods could be used instead (was surprised he did that).. Just think wine cellars or cheese cellars in Europe, and how they don’t get wet and full of water.. Is that some sort of hardened or cured clay interior coating??

I’m definitely confident I can pull off such a thing, a bushcrafted home.. Without a lot of fiat, will have to do what I have to do, and I’m super duper resourceful, and I’m not fussy when getting by is at hand.. Love this all day.. Chompin’ at the bit..

[Kev]

The DaVinci Bridge.. This engineer is very excited by this relatively-simple homegrown solution.. A simple series of interlocking logs to create a foot-bridge over a span that’s not too wide.. In my mind, I can see using tree trunks that are as little as 4″ in diameter and are, say, as much as 8′ long, which could give you a span over a creek or stream of up to 10 feet.. With enough individuals, say as little as 4-5 people, this could be put together in-place.. (My inner foreman already got it worked out).. 🙂

I lived on a community many years ago that had a creek running through it, with a foot-bridge that washed out in a year with excessive rain.. They told me stories of tying a rope to two trees on either side, to use to hang from and scooch themselves over the creek.. This type of bridge would’ve been relatively easy to construct, with 6 long tree trunks, and 3 cross supports, all lashed together with rope..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l4I-caLoxY

[Kev]

I’m personally big into traditional and organic building methods.. This is a video of a build of a basic thatched-roof hut somewhere in Kenya.. Maybe not a place to live, but a good demonstration of one set of basic techniques to create a small structure out of materials you have right on the land (trees and grasses) — a small shed, something that needs sheltering from the rain, or maybe a chicken coup within a chicken yard.. Could this work for that, with elevated roosting platforms for the birds??.. Methinks so..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn_oo9Y22tQ

[Eliza]

And here you have woven a house of a thousand skills from around the world…scoured from YouTube…into an AV platform tapestry! This is very beautiful. Funnily enough it reminds me of these vines that grow round here and back when I lived next to a park in Boston a homeless guy built one of these! Haha Jed and I found it in the woods under an underpass of the Harvard Arnold Arboretum..we called it the drug hut 🛖 or something…haha awesome. 👏 (he’d created benches and everything – was quite structurally sound and hidden from anyone on the regular paths and he was very proud of the fact that he didn’t cut anything down but only used dead scraps of vines, etc.

[Kev]

He is *my* kinda dude.. homeless or otherwise, someone who knows how to take care of themselves and their business and rely on themselves, and knows how to construct, and do so beautifully..

What I love about these traditional methods, is that it’s no more than foundational principles, so you don’t have to follow exact methods or blueprints.. Once you realize all you have to do is “weave” together branches and vines and bamboo maybe (sometimes with structural tree trunks), so it’s structurally-sound and not flimsy, the most important thing is the roof, and how you do that.. different ways I’ve seen for thatching, and different materials.. even mud globbed on top of logs flush with each other to make a “living roof”..

And of course, the “learning curve”.. Just jump in and see what you can do.. At this point, I’m entirely committed to “what you have on-hand”, or what’s already on the land, and not going out to Home Depot to buy lumber.. and what is lumber?.. tree trunks.. You got wood on the property already!.. 😄

So I’m super hot on constructing a chicken coup within a chicken yard with a traditional method such as this.. and with my stonework background, most certainly can integrate stones too, maybe cob, mud plastering, etc.. blah blah.. 🤸‍♂️ 🐓

[Eliza]

It’s a great idea for a daytime chicken coop! (As long as there are good buddy holes…we’ve had bobcats try to get into the one we built with 1 inch reinforced steel wire…and return…and still get a paw full of feathers. One night we had a raccoon scraping their wooden box and didn’t even know…until the next day we wondered why they seemed so scared and whey there were claw marks all over it!)

There must be natural animal deterrents one could use in conjunction with something like this…like herbs or hidden water sprinklers or bells or solar motion lights / sounds…

I guess the trade off for a super secure man-made coop is that you don’t need modern “bells and whistles” as alarms/protection…

Chickens do very well high up in a tree though so I suppose building one of these at the base of a tree with chicken weight (only) bearing higher branches would be a solid backup plan!

[Kev]

Yeah, it is an issue, securing a chicken coop from predators.. I’m inclined toward starting with a solid wooden fence, such as a wooden wattle fence (which would be effective if constructed well), or a metal fence such as using cattle panels.. but to keep out critters that can climb (raccoons & wildcats), you’d have to put something on top that they couldn’t cross.. Dunno — spikes maybe??.. razor wire is bad energy (prison yard aesthetic).. In a pinch, you could electrify it at night.. Certainly there are natural materials that would deter ‘coons & ‘cats n make ’em go away..

But maybe a wattle fence built so that it’s leaning outward at an angle, and so the critters can’t get a foot-hold and climb up it.. and high enough that they can’t jump it..

Or an arsenal of huge guard dogs..

Funny thing.. a dude just a couple houses down from me has chickens, but his coop is no bueno (mostly cramped and no room to roam), and he was saying he was gonna build an elevated chicken condo type thing so it’s up at the level of his apple tree (delicious huge red-green apples, which he provides a certain amount for the crows).. So what’s with the elevated chicken coops??.. No predators in my ‘hood.. is he just a freak with the chicken condo loft idea??.. 🤸‍♂️

[Eliza]

I like metal roof to catch water (eventually) honestly…coops are tricky. My poor chickens…it’s hard to believe they can survive such crappy cramped dark environments!

[Kev]

One of the better primitive construction builds I’ve seen.. Simple, yet the key here is the weaving on the wooden dome skeleton in the way of a wattle fence.. creates stability through tension in the structure.. Methinks this is a good out-building, shed, or chicken coop.. or guest house.. 😀

Video is 26 minutes long, but I put it on 2x playback speed and did a bit of fast forwarding, for the gist..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emUtWbB3MUE

(Preview isn’t loading, so it’s entitled: “Unleashing Magic: Crafting a Sustainable Shelter with Wood and Clay”)

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