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we love our local wildlife, we really do. we even have a plaque to proof it. but, and i say this in the nicest possible way, we really do not appreciate it when they move into our home before we had a chance to do so. and as cute as possums are (although many people…

when we talk about our hemp house, we mean that about two thirds of the circumference (maybe a bit more) are made using hemp walls. the central part is not; the main reason for that was the fact that this part, the living room, has very little wall to begin with. it’s mostly massive windows…

we had a lot of rain recently. i’m not sure whether this is already due to the third la nina season in a row, climate change, or just sheer luck, but the shed water tanks are almost entirely full, despite all the water we used up to mix the hemp & to clean the equipment.…

now the hemp walls are finally up, and the windows in, the guys are working on finishing off the roof. when the roof was installed the gutters were left off, because the rain heads, those boxes in the corners still had to be manufactured. i think this part came together really well, and we are…

the ‘drug house’ is done. i’m not even joking, that’s the name the tradies gave our new home; it probably sounds more exciting than telling the guys at the pub that you’re working with ‘industrial cannabis’. it took us 10 working days to finish it, and i’m proud to say that was pretty much what…

the trouble with building with hemp is that it is not immediately visible if the work has been done more or possibly less well. that is only revealed when the formwork is removed. then everyone can see if the brew (we learnt that is what the mix of hemp, lime, sand, binder & water is…

here we go, time to pull the formwork off and we’ll be able to see if we’ve done a good job or not. did we tamp too hard? not hard enough? – if so parts of the wall may just fall out. will we see cool wave patterns? or will it just look like a…

let me clarify this right away: when i say rough start i mean the circumstances could have been better. mostly, we could have done without that rain we were having. we started on tuesday, and then the friendly folks from the weather bureau forecast rain practically coming in vertically for wednesday. it wasn’t quite as…

yeah, bad pun, but there you go: we have finally started. the hemp is being turned into walls, slowly but surely. hemp hurd, lime, water, sand and binder all mixed together and then carefully tamped between two sheets for formwork 300 mm apart. we were inducted into the secret society of hemp brewers by the…