Building with Books

For a while now my brother has been planning out his future home using the straw-bale method. To give a very simple, short explanation of what this is: Straw Bale houses are Eco-friendly and energy efficient. The house structure is literally straw bales stacked one on top of the other that you then cover in a clay/straw mixture, forming highly insulating walls. We’ve been experimenting with building this way with our second cool room at the farm. Even though our skill needs improving, the cool room experiment has been highly enjoyable and oddly satisfying.

To demonstrate how focused I have been on building this straw bale room, I had an entertaining dream last night:

We were all working on Ben’s house. Instead of the bales of straw being their usual size, they were the size and shape of bricks and we were stacking them up to form walls. Not surprisingly, we ran out of the miniature bales, and though my brother and mother were flummoxed as to what to do next, I had a brilliant solution: copies of my book, The Unicorn Girl.

“They’re just the right size!” I said, holding up one copy that had materialized in the house. “Once we cover them up in clay, you’ll never know the difference!”

I’m not exactly sure what this has to say about my feelings for my writing–that I would merrily use it has a building supply, but there you have it.