There are numerous green building methods. Today you can build with strawbale, tires, earthbags, cordwood. Many books are devoted to altenative building methods.

"I'll huff and I'll puff", said the wolf. The wolf blew at the piggies in the strawbale house till the wolf turned blue and started to wheeze. The wolf was later taken to the Porcine hospital where they teased him.

"Build it with Bales: A Step by Step Guide to Straw Bale Construction" was written by S.O. MacDonald in 1998. The fun part involves stacking rectangular straw bales like brick only you shish kebab them with bamboo or rebar. Sometimes people build the roof, door frame and window frames first then add straw walls. The fuzzy straw walls are covered in cob or stucco. Straw bale looks at home in the Southwest because of the earthy stucco. Sometimes it is custom to leave a small part of the wall unfinished but encase it in glass as evidence.

The only draw back of strawbale is the lack of availability in places like Nevada. A person living in Nevada must import straw from California or Idaho.

Corwood Homes look warm and beautiful. Many old cordwood homes were built in Canada. "The Complete Book of Cordwood Masonry Housbuilding: The Earthwood Method" is an informative book written by Rob Roy. Instead of building with brick these homes are built with firewood, insulation and mortar. Rob Roy gives motar recipes and plenty of instruction and actual photos of built homes. My favorite is Mushwood, a cordwood home with a circular foot print and a curved wooden shingled roof that rembles a huge mushroom. The Roy family are true experts.

All aboard Earthlings, Greetings your Earthship has arrived. The "Earthship: Evolution Beyond Economics, Volume III" is a book written by Michael Reynolds. Tires are laid on bare ground, filled with dirt then compacted with a sledgehammer. The tires layered like brick. This book tells you how to build on a slope, natural flooring, solar stove, a natural fridge, homemade roof trusses and a solar toilet.

The houses are rectangular with a glass wall facing the south side. What's neat about this book is that it includes wrapping any structure you have with tire wall additins. The Earthship has its own ecosystem. The house has a raincatchment system, solar toilet and grey water recycling which resembles a green house.

My favorite part of this book is the solar toilet. Human waste is collected in a solar oven that turns squishy solids into ash. Yeah!

"Building with Earth: a Guide to Flexible Form Earthbag Construction" was written by Paulina Woiciechowska. This very informative book gives clear instructions, lime recipes for walls, earthen floor construction and milk paint recipes. Reading the recipes made me hungry. Who knew that you could paint a house with sugar, flour and milk?