Uprooted, an eco/travel blog

Springtime in Taos is a lot like winter in most places, except maybe harsher. People are full of stories about it:
“Oh yeah, you’ll be out working in short sleeves and then suddenly there’ll be snow and lightning and then the rest of the day you’re in full-on winter gear.”

Let’s be brief: I’ve left Taos and landed in Madrid, New Mexico. This place is awesome, and there’ll be plenty of great entries from here (photos too); that said, I still have more to write about Taos and Earthships. Check in soon & often, lots of articles in the pipe!
But for today, I’m settling in [...]

So, in my last entry I showed you what a viga run looks like. But there’s plenty I didn’t show you! Including the fact that the entire escapade took place at R.E.A.C.H., the original Earthship community founded in 1989.

R.E.A.C.H. (or “Rural Earthship Alternative Community Habitat” if you favor flavor over brevity) is a PRIVATE community, [...]

Sustainable lumberjacking in New Mexico is an adventure that must be seen to be believed.

Bottle Brick Bathroom, originally uploaded by Earthship Kirsten

If you’ve been following my Earthships adventure, you know that it is actually possible to build houses using garbage. Can and bottle walls—literally walls made out of mud or cement, with cans or bottles set like bricks—are one of Mike Reynolds‘ time-tested innovations, a building technique that can [...]

After two full weeks of hard work and some pretty rough weather on the Earthship job site, we were all feeling kinda beat. But things are changing! There’s still snow on the mountaintops, but down here in Taos it’s a sunny day; spring is officially around the corner, and it really feels like the change [...]

Because it’s just barely springtime, this group of interns is lucky enough to work on a brand new Earthship build. It’s pretty exciting, and by “exciting” I mean “OH GOD MAKE THE PAIN STOP”. Why? Because the way you start an Earthship is to pound hundreds of tires full of dirt.

Work started here last Friday, [...]

It’s been a tough couple of days on the job: endless tire pounding in the rain, snow and wind. By the time we interns get home from work each evening, it’s getting dark— and at this time of year, it’s always cold in Taos. So, with the weekend upon us and the clouds breaking, we’re [...]