Natural Building

I would never turn down a Hersey’s Chocolate Kiss, for the record.

But to compare mass produced cookie cutter houses to fine cob or straw bale dwellings would be to compare a bag of chocolate kisses to a box of carefully roasted, conched, and tempered small batch confections made with 70% dark chocolate.

Because I have a son and a close friend who are natural builders, I’ve been in a variety of these dwellings, from small, roughly finished spaces to full scale, multi-level homes, from strictly practical buildings to lavish abodes. In straw bale homes, the walls are depth of a full-sized straw bale, 18-24 inches, plus the layers of interior and exterior plaster. Accordingly, window sills are as deep as a desk.

Maybe it comes from a forgotten childhood story or something I saw on TV decades ago, but I can never visit a start bale house without feeling an overwhelming desire to bake a pie and set it to cool on the massive window sill.