Author Archives: HN

Did you know you could already volunteer with us? Our Board of Directors needs help on many different projects. For example, we are preparing to participate in Silver City’s Give Grandly event on May 4th, 2023. We need help with set up, our activity for kids (building play-doh houses!) and fundraising. We are hard atContinue reading “Yes, We Need Volunteers”

Crooked Forest Institute is looking for land. This newer non-profit based in Silver City is on a mission to create affordable housing using sustainable, local materials, like compressed earth blocks. The key to affordability, they say, is the vocational education and community building program attached to their housing development plan. “Student and volunteer labor canContinue reading “Crooked Forest Institute is Looking for Land”

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-3gqwv-1597d1f Larry Roybal is a master adobe builder who has built and renovated more than 20 adobe homes in Silver City/Grant County since the early 1970s, when he moved down here from Northern New Mexico. Originally from Corrales, he built his first home there out of “terrones,” a sort of “living adobe brick” used byContinue reading “Larry Roybal — A Master Adobe Builder looks back on a Fascinating Career”

Nora Ureste is a Building Biologist who, together with her husband, Chris, is creating a small retreat center outside of Austin, Texas that can host people who are chemically and environmentally sensitive. The project, called Flourish Here, is working towards completing the first of 6 hempcrete homes and will feature a 5 bedroom retreat house,Continue reading “New Podcast Episode: Hempcrete homes with a Building Biologist”

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-idzwu-1535465   Listen in as Holly hits the road on a road trip to visit three of the organizations that are inspiring us to believe that our dream is not just possible, but already succeeding in different places around the country. In this episode, she visits an agrihood, a hempcrete retreat center in development andContinue reading “Year-End Update from Holly on the RoleModel Roadtrip”

See you at the Commons at 5pm! There will be pizza! 🍕 😋

Hey Crooked Foresters, Have a listen to the newest podcast where I got to interview Leah Olson, the Community Outreach Coordinator for Community Rebuilds in Moab, Utah. Community Rebuilds is a visionary affordable housing program that pairs natural building with a community land trust and finishes 12 to 16 houses a year using volunteers, internsContinue reading “Podcast with Community Rebuilds”

Hey guys! We had planned to spark up the horno to make pizza for today’s meet-up but the intense heat index makes that plan seem insane. We had hoped the rains would start by now. In fact, as it looks, the skies might finally open up TODAY, so this plan is now weather dependent, sinceContinue reading “Monthly Natural Building Meet-Up update”

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-xfb58-144ea22 Join us for an hour of conversation about the origin story of Crooked Forest Institute, beginning the health saga of getting sick in America, a hero’s journey and then the crystal clarity that the world would be better with one hundred more tiny adobes.

Hey all! Just a reminder to join us tomorrow for the first Monthly Natural Building Meet-up at 5pm at the Commons Center for Food Security and Sustainability, located at 501 E 13th St, Silver City, NM 88061. Weather permitting, we’ll meet outside in the garden. Bring snacks and drinks if you want them. We’re justContinue reading “Monthly Natural Building Meet-up Wednesday at 5pm”