Number of Students: 15

Cost: $110

​Overview of the Day

If you’re curious about natural building, this is the class for you. We’ll start early with a tour of past natural building projects and permaculture practices at Rosewater Ranch. There are two earthen cabins, a big cob oven, composting toilets, dairy goats, an organic garden - plenty to show off.

We’ll spend the rest of morning getting familiar with clay soil, sand, and straw and how we process and mix them to make cob and adobe as we build a section of wall. We’ll demonstrate the use of earth bags and how we incorporate straw bales and cord wood into a wall.

In the afternoon we’ll focus on different types of plasters from base coats through finish coats using finer materials and pigments. We’ll also take time to do some sculpting and carving and make and use clay paint.

At the end of the day, we’ll fire up our cob oven, turn on some music, and make and cook our own pizzas.

About Kyle and Katy’s Life and Rosewater Ranch

We started the Be the Change Project, a Reno-based nonprofit, in 2011. Centered on a half-acre urban homestead we’ve offered classes, tours, and workshops to over a thousand people. We were able to buy what was a run down and neglected house through fundraising and crowdfunding and since then have enjoyed living an alternative and off-the-grid lifestyle while transforming the property into a verdant oasis. It has become a center for neighborhood uplift as well as a model for simpler living in the urban/suburban context. We were a Mother Earth News Magazine Homestead of the Year in 2013.

Along with all the natural building we’ve done on site, we’ve developed and use many systems for living more sustainably in town about which we’ll share during the day. Some of these include:

• Solar cooking and wall heaters

• Small scale solar PV

• Wood stove and solar thermosiphon water heating

• Composting - vermicomposting and conventional aerobic piles

• Alternative septic system - the Watson Wick

• Basic principles and practices of Permaculture

• Organic small plot intensive gardening including season extenders like hoop houses, root cellaring and solar dehydrating

• ScAvenging! - upcycling and salvaging materials from the urban waste stream

• Living with little electricity or fossil fuels

• Wood-fired hot tub

Our good friend Nate started Rosewater Ranch, the location of this class this year, in 2016. Set on 140 acres in the high desert on the western edge of the Great Basin, Nate and his family and community members have been tending the land, growing food, raising animals including dairy goats, running a thriving mushroom business, and hosting us for several workshops over the years. Nate himself is a talented grower, permaculturist, and artist. We love working with him and his family and look forward to another magical day there with this class.

Lodging

There is no lodging available for this one-day event.

Registration, Payment, & Refunds

This workshop requires a $110 payment to reserve your spot. Once a payment is made, Kyle will reach out to you, welcome you to the course, and get you in the email loop with all the details.

Go here to make a Venmo deposit or send a check for $110 made out to Cobitat and mailed to 2055 McCloud Avenue, Reno, NV 89512.

Payment is refundable until 6 weeks before the start of the class. If you cancel with less than six weeks before the start of the class and your spot can be filled, we will issue a full refund. If it can’t be filled, we’ll refund $50.