Getting Dirty

I'll never forget the first time I found that Jim McDonald's earth, straw, and cob-loving friend from the Strawbale Studio in Oxford, Michigan was my middle school art teacher. Over the past week, I've had the chance to reconnect with Michigan's own natural builder extraordinaire Deanne Bednar. She taught me how to build little clay houses back in junior high, and she continues to teach about building houses with clay today.

Deanne arranged a cob and earthen plaster workshop at Jim's house in order to share her valuable skills and help finish Jim's basement. Along with the assistance of one of her interns/WWOOFers, Deanne showed us how to test the clay content of the soil and filter it through screens to remove larger stones. Our project in particular involved earthen plaster on top of drywall. This basically means that we wanted to smear dirt with high amounts of clay and straw in it onto an ordinary wall, and make it into a new, more finished one. The earthen surface would function as plaster and insulation, while also creating a certain ambiance and warm, natural aesthetic.

Drywall, however, is a slippery surface to get mud to adhere to, so last week we had to create an adhesion coat. For this, we mixed flour and boiling water together to create a paste, which we added in proportion to our clay soil mixture and water.

This created gooey muddy deliciousness, which we smeared across the walls like fingerpaint. Deanne also fully encouraged playing with the mud, slapping and throwing it against the wall.

I met woman named Carol at the workshop, who is a farmer at the Kids' Cottage at Kensington Metropark. Not only is Carol amazing, but the facility and program she works with at Kensington is spectacular (Deanne helped design a cob and earthen plaster space for them there as well). Carol told me a story about someone saying to her about her work once "You think this job is nothing but fun!" Carol looked the person straight in the eye and said, "You're damn right I do!"

This week the adhesion coat was fully dry, and we were able to create a similar earthen plaste r mixture to use on the drywall and a cement wall, which needs no primer coat because of its more porous surface. We had a jolly time mixing the clay this time, as Deanne de monstrated for us how to dance around in the dirt and mix it with your feet. Who wouldn't be hooked after that?

The plaster felt very similar to the earlier mix, but needed to be applied with more care in order to be sure it would stick to the wall properly. We also smoothed the coat out with tools the create a nice finished surface. Jim will probably sculpt shelves, designs, or benches into the wall later on, all of which can be done with techniques like cobbing, earthen plaster, and/or hay bales. Below is an example of an example of a design from the Strawbale Studio.

Deanne invited me to attend the 2009 Natural Building Colloquium as an intern with her later this month--an amazing and generous opportunity! Unfortunately I can't go, but definitely check out all the great things going on there.

Avalon & Project Grow

Through a my friend Kris at the Southeastern MI Permaculture Guild, I got involved as a site coordinator in a community organic gardening project at Avalon Housing communities. Avalon has partnered with Project Grow the create Edible Avalon, a program that provides residents with everything they need to organically grow food and flowers, as well as a coordinator (or two) who help out with building, planting, watering, weeding, checking for pests and diseases, answering questions, and providing programming. I'm super pumped about my site, Parkhurst, because there are TONS of kids there, who seem even more excited than most of the adults. We are trying to arrange for the older kids to get a stand at the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market, and actually be able to sell what they grow.

At any rate, Kris, the project coordinator, said the garden was going to be along the side of the building, but we decided to change it to a sunny area at the center of the courtyard. The space on the side is still all set to go, and I'm hoping to fill it in with native wildflowers and see if I can't share some of the knowledge I pick up in my medicinal herbs class with the residents! At first I thought incorporating some kind of faerie theme would be cool, but that could be a bit much. Maybe a lot of kids don't dig that sort of thing? Hopefully, more on this later!

Burdock tea

Burdock is an amazing plant that I didn't begin to get to know until living in Japan. It's very popular in Asian cuisine, one of my absolute favorite dishes being carrot and burdock kinpira. Kinpira is a word used for quick, spicy, fried dishes, usually comprised of root vegetables. It's amazing with lotus root, too!

After hearing jim extol the countless virtues of burdock, I became utterly confused as to why us Americans so seldom use or even know of it. He pointed out to me that most people view dandelion as a pestilence, rather than nutritious salad greens, or potential compost tea.

I decided that since burdock has positive effects on the balance of most body systems, that I would incorporate it as a tea into my morning regimen. I put a little burdock and some bancha green tea into an infuser, and at first found the tea quite delicious. After a while I started to feel a bit nauseas and disoriented though, but I'm not ready to attribute that to the tea yet--it could have easily been my yakisoba.

First class

Today we met at Bald Mountain Rec Area in Lake Orion. I was nervous cuz I was a bit late, but was able to join everyone in a discussion about plantain, which flourishes in packed, trampled soil. Apparently among some Native Americans it was known as "white man's footprint" because it popped up wherever the settlers developed.

Jim encourages us to taste, feel, and smell most plants we discuss, so taking notes on teaberry/winterberry was a treat! I guess these berries used to provide the flavoring of bubblegum back in the day, and they really taste just like it! We saw other red berries too-partridge berries, that tend to grow at the base of trees, but I wasn't able to try one because they are a bit less common.

We also talked about cleavers, a flower with roundels of leaves emanating periodically from the stem, and small white flowers (when in flower is the best time to harvest them, so get out there!). They're called cleavers because they cling onto you, which jim cheerfully demonstrated by throwing a flower at us. Cleaver provides a juice that serves as an excellent diuretic.

Along with cleaver and trillium, solomon's seal (polygonatum) was also at the Orchard Lake Nature Sanctuary when I met jim the other week. Solomon's seal root looks almost like finger knuckles, and appropriately so, because it is exceptional for joints. Jim showed us how to harvest the root correctly, so that it won't cause much damage to the plant or population. Similar to solomon's seal, and often found nearby, is a plant called false solomon's seal. The two are distinguishable because the false has slightly heartier leaves, and white flowers that bloom at the top of the plant, while solomon's seal flowers grow dangling underneath the leaves.

I also got to see wild sarspirilla, and now find myself daydreaming about brewing it into a tasty root beer!

Meeting jim mcdonald

Earlier tonight I met herbalist jim mcdonald at the Orchard Lake Nature Sanctuary. Yes, I arranged to go alone to meet a stranger in the woods just before dark. Turns out, it was a wonderful idea!

Before he got there, I rustled up the Michigan Wildflowers handbook I borrowed from the library, and set out to see if I could find anything. To my delight, I was able to ID my very first flower: white trillium! Shortly after that, I found a jack in the pulpit! Just months ago when I returned from Japan, I was eager to learn about every plant in my backyard, and found that I had no idea how to look up any of them in the botanists plant identification book I had checked out. I was completely disheartened, and allowed that setback to let me put permaculture studies on the back shelf for far too long.

I recommend looking for wildflower books with sections organized by color--they are super simple to use. That way, if something is in flower, you can just flip through that section and see if you can spot it. From there, you can get to know the rest of the plant and will hopefully be able to identify it at any point in its life cycle.

Jim and I talked about and photographed wildflowers for over an hour, far longer than I anticipated. He tells great stories, and showed me tons of plants, including wild ginger, black and blue cohosh, cleaver, and wild geraniums. Jim thinks someone must have done a native planting at the site, just around the fire pit pavilion, because many of the plants growing around it, although native to the area, have become a bit rare, and are not usually found all together. He also thinks (and he's probably right, because its not native) that the lily of the valley flowers, which occupy a significant space of the forest floor, are home-garden escapees that ended up doing quite well there.

I also finally learned what poison ivy looks like, and it's EVERYWHERE! No joke, Orchard Lake Nature Sanctuary is a veritable poison ivy forest! Most of it was spread out across the forest floor and right next to the trail just above knee high at this point, but it was even climbing up trees and shrubs. There was an entirely dead tree that looked as if it was alive because the ivy weaved its way around each one of its branches. Jim told me that many Native Americans believe that poison ivy acts as a guardian plant, indicating an area that should be left alone or treated with great care. I heard him sweet talking the plant more than once, as he gingerly stepped or reached around it.

I learned so much walking with jim, and in only a short span of time. His classes are far, but I'm very excited to join his herbal intensive series and have him as a guide for my studies.