Tales from the Green Valley


“Tales from the Green Valley, explores life on a British farm in the 17th century. This 12 x 1/2 hour television documentary, produced and directed by Peter Sommer, attracted large audiences and wide critical acclaim. Tales from the Green Valley follows the five as they labor for a full agricultural year, getting to grips with period tools, skills, and technology from the age of the Stuarts, the reign of James I.

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Take it to Zero Logo Design Contest

Take it to Zero logo -- reduce the cost of world changing ideas to zero.
Take it to Zero logo — reduce the cost of world changing ideas to zero.

The Take it to Zero project is moving along rapidly. It was first proposed about two weeks ago on March 28. A few days later volunteer work started on the MyBB forum. The forum will be the main gathering point for people to collaborate on projects. A reader is creating the forum and hosting it for free. Thank you Mike!

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Masoro Village Project/ GA Collaborative

Masoro Village Project, Rwanda
Masoro Village Project, Rwanda

“The construction of a small single-family home twenty kilometers north of Kigali, Rwanda is now complete. The building is demure: three small bedrooms, a modest living room, and a space for cooking. Poor material availability and financial limitations meant that practicality was its primary design muse.

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Huts on Ekopedia

A hut in the Parc des Pyrénées (France), made of stone, with a vegetal roof (living roof).
A hut in the Parc des Pyrénées (France), made of stone, with a vegetal roof (living roof).

“A hut is a temporary shelter built with materials found nearby. It is generally built manually in a natural environment with local materials : branches, leaves, logs, bushes, etc. … Less commonly, it can also be made of materials such as metal (iron), cloth or plastic (sheeting), and be located in an unnatural area such as a backyard or on the water (stilts).

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Her Farm, an Earthbag Home for Women in Nepal

Earthbag housing built with volunteer labor
Earthbag housing built with volunteer labor

“This past month 34 high school students volunteered to build a house for women at Her Farm. Previously, one volunteer from Colorado had spent two weeks putting in the foundation for the first “earthbag” house to be built in this part of Nepal.

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Building with Earthbags in Nepal

Earthbag school in Nepal built by First Steps Himalaya volunteers.
Earthbag school in Nepal built by First Steps Himalaya volunteers.

“The small kindergarden built by FSH a few years ago was built in cement, but «in Nepal cement is really of very poor quality. Look at the walls: they are already cracked!» Durga complains. «For the training centre, we have decided that we would choose something different and, after a great deal of research, I found out about the earthbag technique … which seemed to me to be THE solution»

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