permaculture

[Meg Mullett <meg@kcnet.com>]

Hello,

My family and I moved to our little farm in NE Kansas 2 years ago.  We've got
12.5 acres, a little 70 yr old house, 1 acre of vineyard, a small orchard, a
little woods and several acres of pasture.  We spent the first year mostly 
just
seeing what's here and putting in our vineyard. (I'm a winemaker)  The second 
we
started a large garden and got a couple pigs.  This coming year we wish to 
fence
more and add some more animals.  We're thinking about chickens (a few for 
eggs),
guinea hens (for bugs in the vineyard) and some meat goats (helping to clear
some brushy areas and for cash - we've got large hispanic and muslim 
populations
in Kansas City and we believe we've got a good market for them).

As we grow our little farm each year, we are wishing to tread more lightly on
the planet.  And with a "dance with the one that brung ya" sort of attitude, 
we
are looking to use resources that are plentiful in our area. We are thinking
about building our animal shelters out of straw bale, and installing a corn
burning stove in the house for winter heat. We're using propane right now.

I am wondering if any of you might share some of your experiences with either 
of
these things.  Have you used straw bales for animal enclosures?  Are there any
special considerations we should be taking or thinking about when doing this?
How do straw bale buildings hold up as animal enclosures?  Can they take a
beating by goat heads?  Might pigs leaning on them and scratching every day
cause some problems?   Do some animals like to eat the stucco/plaster?  What
kind of measures might be required if you wanted to create a fairly high
humidity enclosure, - like a greenhouse, or a chicken coop?   What about
moveable enclosures on skids?  Would the weight of such a building be too 
great
to move about as you pasture the animals?  Do you think straw bale would work
for those sort of things?

How about corn stoves?  Have any of you used one?  Do they really work as well
as advertised?  For those that aren't sure about what there are, here are a 
few
links:

http://www.agriculture.com/buyersguide/sidebyside/sbs_cornstove.html
http://news.mpr.org/features/200101/31_galballye_cornstove-m/


I look forward to your thoughts.  Any tips or advice you might send would be
greatly appreciated.

Meg
Spring Hill, KS