When a house is ready for its exterior plaster coating, we have a big party and invite all our friends. Dozens of Earthaven houses have gotten their pretty exterior face that way.
It makes the work much more fun and the project goes way faster.
My partner Chris and I are building a new building, which includes two residences and a community space, and the first weekend in June was our turn.
Day two of a four-day plaster party on our new house
(Chris and I will be moving into the middle floor)
We are so grateful to all the helping hands, the cheerful hearts, and the supportive backs.
We are thrilled to be nearly ready to move into our house and I look forward to giving you a tour of the whole building!
In case you’re wondering, the plaster formula is three parts sand to one part lime, with a small amount of brick dust for strength. Mix in enough water to make it workable and you’re ready to plaster.
I hope you thoroughly enjoy this Summer Solstice Weekend!
NikiAnne (she/her) was born and raised on a horse and cattle ranch on the ancestral lands of the Salinan people in the Central Coast of California. She currently lives at Earthaven Ecovillage on unceded lands of the Catawba and Cherokee (Tsalagi) people. Her ancestors come from Eastern and Western Europe — France, Germany, and English Isles as well as Belarus, Lithuania, and Russia, from Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.
Throughout the last two decades, NikiAnne has been immersed in community and in service to a wide range of educational endeavors focused on nature connection, personal empowerment, and community resilience. NikiAnne considers herself the grease and glue – that which helps things run smoothly or holds things together. Before co-founding SOIL in 2012, she worked and traveled through much of Asia, the Americas, and Europe, which made her formal education at George Washington University in International Affairs come alive in ways that can only happen through personal experience and relationships. Collectively, these experiences have undeniably shaped her cooperative cultural values and commitment to supporting leaders to think, feel, act and design from a foundation rooted in interrelationship. No matter what she’s teaching, NikiAnne is always on the same mission: to raise awareness of our whole selves – gifts, passions, blind spots, shadows – and help those whole selves find and fill niches in their communities. This is how the web of life is woven, and the fabric of culture repaired. She’s especially eager to support those in transition – between vocations, stages of life, and stories of world and self. Within this context, she is particularly passionate about community grief tending and death care midwifery.
