Inner City Farmer

Until I started this latest project, I forgot how much I enjoy working with wood. All building materials have their pros and cons. As much as I hate concrete, I readily admit that for certain jobs it’s perfect, and as much as I love cob, I’ll also admit that it’s got its drawbacks, namely how labor-intensive it is. But wood? I can think of very few negative aspects of building with wood other than the lack of foresight involved in its harvesting and the wastefulness surrounding its use on a typical construction site. If you use wood that has been harvested in a sustainable manner, i.e. only cutting down trees of a certain size and then replacing them with saplings, and find a use for every bit of the tree, you’re not going to find a better building material.

As much as I can, I try to use building materials that are locally sourced, which here in Texas means using mainly oak, cedar, and mesquite. Ideally, I would be felling and milling the trees myself. Cutting out the middlemen, in this case the lumberyards, would cut down on the total amount of embodied energy expended in the process as well as the monetary costs, which is how Matt was able to trim his entire house several years ago. His uncle harvested thousands of square feet of wood from his property in Ohio and gave enough to Matt to allow him to redo the trim on all 44 windows inside his house. Oh, what I would give to have such an uncle right about now.

On the Austin Permaculture listserv I did hear of a woman in East Texas who was offering to let anyone come to her property and harvest trees that had been downed by Hurricane Katrina. Unfortunately, hauling that much wood to Austin would require the use of an ungodly amount of gas. Would the procurement of that much sustainably harvested wood offset the amount of energy I would spend hauling it all the way to Austin? I don’t know. When it comes to building materials, there are no easy answers.

Nothing says Independence Day more than getting in the car and heading for some far off destination. To celebrate the Fourth when I was 22, I got in a car with my then girlfriend and drove ten hours just to see a show at Red Rocks (Blues Traveler and the Allman Brothers), and then we returned the very next day. When I lived in Eugene, Oregon, I drove an hour to the coast just to get drunk and watch high-school kids shoot bottle rockets at each other (and on one unfortunate occasion, me). Strange to think that such holiday road tripping is quickly becoming a luxury most of us can’t afford.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Instead of looking at the impending “energy crisis” as a bad thing, why not celebrate the benefits of the Death of the Car Culture? The mainstream media is starting to catch on. In a special report, Time magazine lists “Ten Things You Can Like About $4 Gas.” I feel like I could name twenty more.

So where am I going this weekend? I’m staying right here in Austin, enjoying my house, maybe doing a little work outside. The farthest I plan to go is Barton Springs, a world-class swimming hole less than ten minutes from my house. I could drive two hundred miles or fly half way around the world, and I wouldn’t find a better swim spot.