Test Green Nests

Friday, August 12, 2011

Day 7 - Thai-yoga massage afterparty

On Thursday night new volunteer joined us. He is a rastaman looking like dreadlock Jesus. Friday was hard working day. The flow of work was much more better than previous days and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

The view from the top of the bathroom

Evening was dedicated to presentations of sustainable houses and then there was amazing massage workshop led by real expert on thai-yoga massage that is good not just for the one who receives but also for the one who gives. It is based on unconditional love. We were taught just four exercises, but there are hundreds in fact. For our tired bodies it was the best what we could experience to relax and feel really really good.

Thai yoga massage

After workshop we had lot of energy to enjoy the fire in the hole (for those who do not know – the fire place is placed in the little valley and we call it “the hole” :-) and sing and play the musical instrument and celebrate Soma’s 20th birthday. He looked very happy to share this special day with us.

Day 6 - work in progress and trip

As usually, the sixth day started with another great lesson of yoga which filled us up with energy we needed straight after for work. We've advanced very rapidly and did lots of work because we were efficiently divided into groups.

In the afternoon, some of us went to visit the Adobe house about two kilometers from our spot. The others wanted madly to complete the work. The farm was very beautiful, as well as the shape of the house. Karoly espacially warmly welcomed us there. He showed us everything about the house and answered all our questions concerning adobe construction techniques.

Meanwhile, the others were working at the construction site. After the dinner we heard a very interesting presentations about straw-bale houses and yurts. The night programme ended with the film HOME by the French director Yann Arthus-Bertrand. There were beautiful pictures of our fragile planet and it was shown that we have to protect it. It was a hard working day and we easily fell asleep after it ;)

day 5 - the day with the best night (up to now)

Hello green people !!

Let us tell you the story of our fifth day in the nature.

We woke up into a cold and windy morning, but after Agi’s energizing yoga lesson and delicious breakfast everything seemed to be alright again. Sun started to shine and (except of Mark’s yelling) it was the right impulse for us to start to work . |So as to be more efficient and finish all our great super-adobe buildings on time, we were divided into several groups. We started to work at other places: super adobe fireplace nearby the kitchen, plastering of the bathroom and summer kitchen and creating a new ‘‘outdoor‘‘ stove. Comparing to the days before, we were much faster. We managed to make two layers of future house to be, plastered all the kitchen and the majority of bathroom walls , .....

In the evening, we all, tired workers, fell down on the floor of the big yurt, and started the cycle of our own presentations about different ways how to built nature houses. Introduced by a short funny movie, the presentations contuinued: since today we (at least theoretically) know how to built an adobe, cob building and an earthship.

After these we tried a really strange but great dance called contact dance...

... and then some of us sat around the fireplace, and we were singing and laughing a lot. It was a great end for this beautiful day.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Day 4 - fourth day, but the first of hard work

Dear green people,

after getting to know each other and the beautiful eco-farm of Karcsi and his friends, lots of watching and learning we finally started today building the sustainable Super-Adobe house. Also today the smart Italian team discovered not being in Gardony, but in Bocsa. Congratulations!!!

After waking up with a nice Bob-Marley-song from the Czechs we had our breakfast and we heard lots of interesting and useful stuff about Super-Adobe houses from a little bit confused Mark (professional Super-Adobe architect). Divided in two groups, we worked on digging away the earth from the door parts and the others enjoyed designing some idealistic eco family houses. They tried to fix their crazy ideas into clay sculptures too. But guys – always be careful not to dig shit out of the ground instead of clay!

Getting new energy from traditional hungarian vegetable dish from lentil we relaxed while playing some football, playing the guitar, reading and stuff like that...

Switching the groups afterwards we changed our calories from lunch into real hard nature work and lots of sweat, blood and tears. When Master Mark wasn’t interrupted by curious junior builders‘ questions he could explain the most useful details of constructing work to us. Thanks so much for this!

Unfortunately time was running faster than a turtle could go and the sunset came while having typical working dinner. We are ready to meet experienced Cob-house inhabitants this evening and of course also to party all night and having lots of input and hard work on next days. That’s all folks...!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Day 3 - Teambuilding in a storm

Hello Test Green Nests people,

today we don't have so much time, so very faster about yesterday! It was nice day full of games, activities and dance! We spent the morning with Agi and her interesting pictures of families from all the world. The all family was in front of their house (or dwelling) with everything what they had. It was interesting that we could see big differences between people from different countries.

In the afternoon we were divided into 3 groups and we tried to improve our cooperation and communication skills during three teambuilding games.

After that a sudden storm, heavy rain and strong wind came, and this was the real task for the whole group to show, how we can cooperate in a difficult situation. Everybody did his best to save the yurts and our things from the rain, tying the yurts to the ground and digging ditches around them to channel off the rainwater.

When the storm was over, it was a big relief for everybody, and our happiness even raised during the Hungarian folk dance in the freshly built yurt, where we could test the floor dancing - it was proved to be very stable!

Friday, August 5, 2011

Meghívó Ökoépítész Nyílt Napra

Kedves Barátaink, Érdeklődők!
Idén Mindegyszeren rendezzük a “Test Green Nests” Európai Ökoépítész tábort, melynek keretein belül 35 fiatal látogat a tanyára. A résztvevők 18-22 éves, környezetbarát építészetben érdekelt diákok, akik egy egy hetes, igen színes program alatt fognak ismerkedni a magyar ökoépítészettel (szupervályog, rönkház, hagyományos vályog, zsupfedél, és esetleg , ha az időjárás kegyes, szalmabálaház), a környező zöld tanyákkal (fészkekkel), projectekkel. Építkezésen kívül lesz ökomozi, jurtatábor, több féle ökobudi használat (pottyantós, komposztálható, hagyományos), több féle egyszerű mosakodási módszer kipróbálása (tűzzel melegített hordós, kerti zuhany, hagyományos),néptánc, népzene, masszázs, jóga, kontakttánc és látogatások a régió egyéb ökotanyáira. A tábort egy nyílt nap koronázza meg, melyre sok szeretettel meghívunk benneteket. Augusztus 13-án kora délutántól lehet érkezni, rendezvény 15 órakor kezdődik. A program: eddigi elkészült építészeti munkák bemutatása, az egyes nációk (olasz, osztrák, német, cseh, litván) kulturáját bemutató programok, kulináris produkciók, népzene estig. Aki szeretne, sátorral maradhat éjszakára, a következő nap (Vasárnap) 7,45 kor jógával indul, majd reggeli, és 10-től biofogkrém készítés lesz kis csoportokban (az itt készített fogkrém ajándékként elvihető). Várunk szeretettel!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

How a proper builder looks like

For all natural builders!

This is how a proper sustainable builder looks like:

Do not forget this equipment at home...

Advanced planning visit

The organizer team and the leaders of the national groups met during the advanced planning visit (15th – 18th July 2011) to discuss the whole project. On Friday we spoke about ourselves and our motivations to do this project.

We changed the programme according to the comments of the leaders, prepared the hot version, we spoke about the participants and their needs, intercultural evening, presentations and all the financial stuff.

We travelled to the venue, so that the leaders can prepare their groups better for the local reality, and so that they could enjoy the delicious fruits of mulberry trees...

On Sunday, we also visited a family living in an adobe house without on-grid electricity (they have only solar panels) and hot water. We will visit them during the exchange as well.

Thanks to this meeting, the leaders got much more involved into the project, we got new enthusiasm and we started to look forward to the whole event with such a great people very much!

Building our summer kitchen

Volunteers from the Artists of Life Association helped to build the superadobe summer kitchen we will be using during the exchange (hopefully). On the pictures you can see several stages of the superadobe building.

This is going to be a cellar for our food.

This is how the "snake" is filled.

The wall you can see was build by 7 people in 2 full working days.

Vasek experienced the tough reality of Hungarian summer - during noon, the temperature went up to 42°C, which made it impossible to work from 11 am to 4 pm. That´s why we had to work from 6 am to 11 am and then, after a long siesta, from 4 pm to 8 pm. This experience made us develop a hot version of the programme.