Permablitz Roundhouse & Cordwood House in Mossyrock Washington

I made a new Facebook page for Permablitz Pacific Northwest here fb.me/PermablitzPacificNorthwest and our first event is Dec 13th-15th 2019.

Huckleberry Leonard with Charlotte Anthony will facilitate creating a portable roundhouse, about 200 sq. feet across. We will glean trees from the forest and debark them and use pallets for the sides of the building.


The 2nd building. We will also make a non-portable roundhouse of 200 sq feet by putting the poles into the ground using sho sugi ban from Japan to preserve the wood. This will cover a cord wood house for a meditation room on the property.
Never havign heard of a cordwood house I googled it and found lovely imaged that looked like stone houses. Hers one image of a cordwood house.




Methods we are using:



We have chosen these methods as the least embedded energy we could find. We would love to know of your methods if you have found better. Huckleberry Leonard studied with Ben Law who wrote the book 'Roundwood Timber Framing'. Huckleberry wrote a book about building portable cordwood houses which we will have for sale at the get-together. The portable roundhouse is put together with nuts and bolts so it can be disassembled. We use pallets to make the sides. In a permanent construction these pallets can be filled in with wattle and daub. Our version of the portable roundhouse is open at the center for a fire. We will use the Shou Sugi Ban wood preserving method, a traditional Japanese technique where you burn the outside of the wood to preserve it, scrape or wire brush it and then paint it with used motor oil.



Here is a slideshow of examples of our methods:
https://www.facebook.com/PermablitzPacificNorthwest/videos/1416866028490600/


Huckleberry Leonard is a master builder, master forester, musician, and has many needed skills to share.  Back from his traveling around the world where he learned and taught at major permaculture ecovillages. See huckleberryleonard on facebook to learn more: https://www.facebook.com/huckleberry.leonard

Charlotte Anthony has been facilitating permablitz events since 2008 including more than 650 gardens in Eugene, Oregon and 10 food forests. www.handsonpermaculture1.org

WHEN: December 13TH - 15TH 2019
WHERE: 119 Koons Rd., Mossyrock, Washington
CONTACT & RSVP: Charlotte Anthony or Julie Wolf
cells: 787-366-9344 or 858-848-7047
land lines: 360 985 0725 or 360-275-0212
victorygardensforall@gmail.com or juliewolf3(at) gmail .com
COST: Donations gratefully accepted small or large.
JOIN: Sign up & RSVP at our event page : https://www.facebook.com/events/771260600013730/
Permablitz Email List at :  https://handsonpermaculture1.wordpress.com/permablitz-pacific-northwest/

DETAILS:
Held over 3 days Dec. 13, 14th and 15, we will make this a fun slumber party. We have lots of places to sleep indoors camping style. Snow, rain or shine we hope to see you. (if it is pouring rain, we have things to do under cover).

BRING:
Lots of jobs to do including light work. Please bring the following:
* Rain gear
* Several pairs of gloves (note that we are filling in around the cord wood with cob so you need waterproof work gloves which you can get by putting latex gloves over your work gloves or buy waterproof gloves)
* Good boots
* Warm enough sleeping bag for this time of year, might be 40 degrees inside. If you have a propane heater either inside or outside please bring one.
*Whatever tools you have please mark before you come (or we will have a way to mark them when you arrive).
*We need draw knives
*Shovels
* Several cordless drills
* Lots of screws
*we need at least 10 buckets.

* FOOD. Please bring organic: bulk foods, grains, beans, vegetables and fruits and whatever special foods you need. We are trying to get away from packaged foods here. Please take any packaging out with you. There is an outdoor covered kitchen where you can cook if you like.

SLEEPING:
It is primitive here. We have space over the shop, several small trailers, a lot of floor space in the common house with 6 or 7 mattresses. Please bring mats to sleep on for yourself and others if you have extra. please bring an indoor propane heater for the space over the shop or an electric heater. There are offsite spaces which you could rent if you want more typical comforts, the closest one is about 10 miles away.

If you're in the area it should be a neat event! I'll be going;it's taking place at my friend Laura's home. It'll be kind of like an old fashioned barn raising

Excellent! I'd like to get some people together near here (Northern Olympic Peninsula, WA) if there is anybody nearby.

Brendan M McNamara wrote:Excellent! I'd like to get some people together near here (Northern Olympic Peninsula, WA) if there is anybody nearby.

Thats sounds fun! Lets plan another Permablitz up your way, Squim, Port Townsend,  Port Angeles area some time.  Who needs a house or what other needs are there in our  PNW? We are doing Permablitzes all over Washington. One of the next ones will be in Matlock, near Shelton, also a similar roundhouse/cordwood house  building project. In fact this is one of the  Permaculture teachers for this  event, Huckberry's land. Others in north of Seattle areas like Duval and Woodenville.  maybe even Tahuya and Harstine Island projects.  There is also land up near you Brendan, in Quilcene that Ryan F. knows about which NWPC may even consider for the Permaculture Convergences.

So do join our Permablitz network of sister sites.  What are your needs?

That sounds like an awesome event.  I thought cord wood needed to be built over time so the cob would have time to cure before too much weight was put upon it.  Two buildings in three days would be tremendous.

Mike Haasl wrote:That sounds like an awesome event.  I thought cord wood needed to be built over time so the cob would have time to cure before too much weight was put upon it.  Two buildings in three days would be tremendous.

I have no idea. I'm not the expert on construction techniques. I guess I'll see and let you know! I'm mostly there to bake cookies and bring friendship

we will more likely build the walls from pallets filled with cob and straw.    this will most likely be dryable with an inside heater.  there will be a large roof overhang, so we can also put the heater outside for the outside walls.  i like the cordwood thickness so we might put on over time 2 or even 3 layers of cob pallet wall.

i tend to push the envelope, finding ways to make things work with what we have.  it does not need to last 100 years.

we may not get the "tea house" finished.  we know we will get the portable round house finished.  this is something we might form a coop to build for people on the land who have access to forest gleanings to make an incoime for themselves.  

brendan mcnamara, part of requirements to receive a permablitz is that you contribute to at least one permabliz  we have a team coming from shelton huckleberry is near shelton and several other folks are coming from there including julie.  consider joining them if you want to learn and receive a permablitz yourself.

charlotte anthony wrote:brendan mcnamara, part of requirements to receive a permablitz is that you contribute to at least one permabliz  we have a team coming from shelton huckleberry is near shelton and several other folks are coming from there including julie.  consider joining them if you want to learn and receive a permablitz yourself.

Thank you so much Charlotte for your replies here to all the good questions. Income?!
Interesting idea - a coop for making these natural houses for an income source.  There is interest in this. Michael Beck, a videographer I invited to our Permablitz, who I met at the Global Earth Repair Conference in May this year, replied "I'd gladly take a job building those types of homes, would be more interested in interviewing for a job doing that".

this video of a portable round house building was done by huckleberry several years ago.  the round house was done by huckleberry.  do not know who did the video.  this is great.  it could be covered with canvis much like a teepee inside at the end.  

Mike Haasl wrote:That sounds like an awesome event.  I thought cord wood needed to be built over time so the cob would have time to cure before too much weight was put upon it.  Two buildings in three days would be tremendous.

Mike can this be reposted in other spaces or categories?  Like community maybe as we would love to invite and grow more community with our Permablitzes?

We held a permablitz on the 13th, 14th and 15th of december.

Many of us learned to make clay slip that we then stuffed into pallets which can be used for the walls of a building.

We learned how to use sho sugi ban, a japanese technic where we burn, in our case with a blow torch, wooden pallets that we will use for a foundation for a building.  After scaping off excess burned material we coated the pallets with used motor oil, again not the traditional japanese technic.  They used this technic to preserve wood, lasting sometimes 1000 years.

We also learned to take the bark off of posts that we gleaned from a nearby forrest.  These posts were for a roundhouse that we are building.

My hope for the weekend was that we get the roundhouse constructed.  Huckleberry who was to show us how he constructed one in 2 hours could not come.  Instead he sent a video and parts of his book.

My hope for the permablitz movement we are starting is that people will learn from an emerging paradigm in a present moment to construct the round house and more

see theory  https://www.presencing.org/aboutus/theory-u   these methods have been used for millium by indigeneous peoples.  

This first of the permablitz  did not work as desired.    I had done this practice while creating more than 650 gardens in Eugene Oregon.  There was no explanation beforehand.  People in small groups seemed to rapidly respond to me doing the process with them.  The down side was that with no debriefing.  Folks grocked that they were involved in something amazing but did not have a language for it.  Many people returned again and again to drink from the well of people working and creating together in this way.  

Folks had a great time, formed new friendships and many even told of extraordinary creativity.  So a taste of what could be did happen.

I have spent the preceding week visiting both folks who attended and other friends who did not.  This is where I learned of theory U.  The indigenous methods do not require any words or explanations.  One friend says though that it does take time.  I am reminded of the story of a war council of some plains indians.  They spoke around the fire for 18 hours.  They were not stragegizing about how to do war.  More they were listening to their guides and speaking from their hearts.  At some point, an elder stood up.  The council was over.  It was clear that the speaking had done its work and it was time to begin.  

We had a large group with many scattered parts.  Now I see we needed maybe to have a preceremony the week before where people had a council to clear themselves to open to a sacred space.  Or maybe we just need to start small, most folks to not want to come to ceremonies to make way for the sacred.

So our next permablitz will be open to a small number of women.  We hope to be able to form a group that we can then add to.

I feel strongly that our current paradigm of fear is paving the way for us all to become paralyzed noodles where we give away our power to join a glorious future of love.

I and my partners are going forward with our vision to have a practice for action where we are alive in the presence of joy and fulfillment of our needs.

please see permablitz pacific northwest on facebook if you want to learn more.