A bale barn in New Hampshire

 

And by bale barn, I mean a barn built of bales. Actually, it is a shed, about 12'x16', built on the grounds of the Oliverian School in Pike, N.H., where my son is a teacher. We're in Pike this week for a visit, and this shed has intrigued me since it was built two summers ago. John Doyle, known to the Oliverian crowd as "Farmer John," took on the building the shed as an environmental stewardship project for summer school students. The group framed out the project with two-bys,  and carefully stacked the bales. Then they used a weed whacker to tidy up the walls, and finally applied an adobe- like mix of clay (blue clay is best), sand and miscellaneous filler - like straw fines - on both the interior and exterior walls. The structure is covered by a conventional shingled roof. Doyle said the walls are waterproof, have an R-factor of 45, won't burn and won't be eaten by bugs, because straw is no bug banquet. Doyle bought his bales in Canada because they don't grow small grains in New Hampshire. It occured to me that where bales are  available they could provide material for an economical, eco-friendly building project. And did you notice that in the photo I took yesterday, April 15, Mount Mooselauke, in the background, is still covered with snow.

 

Energy from dead cows - and other large animals - is an idea whose time may have come. Now that BSE regulations have put cows out of the protein supply chain, energy production may give farmers an alternative to composting or burying these 1,000-pound hunks of biomass. There's an article in Saturday's edition of Lancaster Farming, and we'll be doing more reportage on the subject in weeks to come.

 

Don't try this with your Guernseys... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQev3UoGp2M